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  Last Light

  ( Nick Stone - 4 )

  Andy Mcnab

  Former British special services agent Nick Stone, now a freelancer, never fails to come through. This time, though, as he's manning the controls for a sanctioned, three-sniper assassination at a Houses of Parliament function, he chokes. Seems that his target is a boy, and his human side causes him to abort the operation. This doesn't sit well with his bosses, of course, and Nick figures he will be their next victim. But his life is spared on one condition: he must carry out the original assignment on his own. His punishment if he fails again is certain death, but even more excruciating is the bosses' threat to kill Kelly, the 13-year-old for whom Nick acts as guardian and who witnessed her family's execution in McNab's first novel, Remote Control(1999). The target is the son of a Chinese businessman with apparent ties to Colombian guerrillas, and as Nick gets closer to grasping the plot that led a legitimate government to hire an assassin, he becomes the hunted as well as the hunter. While traipsing through Central American jungles (leading to a climactic scene at the Panama Canal), Nick is haunted by the image of Kelly being in danger, motivating him to make some tough, life-altering choices. An exciting story line, believable dialogue, and a flawed but honorable hero converge in what is clearly the best Nick Stone adventure yet.

  Last Light

  Andy McNab

  LAST LIGHT

  Sunday, 3 September 2000 I didn't know who we were going to kill just that he or she would be amongst the crowd munching canapes and sipping champagne on the terrace of the Houses of Parliament at 3 p.m." and that the Yes Man would identify the target by placing his hand on their left shoulder when he greeted them.

  I'd done some weird stuff over the years, but this job was scaring me. In less than ninety minutes, I was going to be shitting on my own doorstep big-time. I only hoped the Firm knew what it was doing, because I wasn't too sure that I did.

  As I looked down yet again at the clear plastic lunch-box on the desk in front of me, three torch bulbs sticking out of holes I'd burnt in the lid stared back up. None of them was illuminated;

  the three snipers were still not in position.

  Everything about this job was wrong. We'd been given the wrong weapons. We were in the wrong place. And there just hadn't been enough time to plan and prepare.

  I stared through the net curtains across the boat-filled river. The Houses of Parliament were some 350 metres away to my half left.

  The office I'd broken into was on the top floor of County Hall, the former Greater London Council building. Now redeveloped into offices, hotels and tourist attractions, it overlooked the Thames from the south side. I was feeling rather grand sitting behind a highly polished, dark wood desk, as I looked out at the killing ground.

  Parliament's terrace spanned the whole of its river frontage. Two prefabricated pavilions with candy-striped roofs had been erected at the far left end, for use throughout the summer months. Part of the terrace, I'd learnt from their website, was for Members of the House of Lords, and part for the House of Commons. The public were not admitted unless they were with an MP or peer, so this was probably the nearest I was ever going to get.

  The Department of Trade and Industry's guests today were a group of about thirty businessmen, plus staff and some family, from Central and South America. Maybe the DTI was trying to curry a bit of favour and sell them a power station or two. Who cared? All I knew was that one of them would be getting dropped somewhere between the vol-au-vents and the profiteroles.

  Directly below me, and five storeys down, Albert Embankment was thronged with hot-dog vendors and stalls selling plastic policeman's helmets and postcards of Big Ben to people queuing for the London Eye, or just enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon. A sightseeing boat packed with tourists passed under Westminster Bridge. I could hear a bored voice telling the story of Guy Fawkes over a crackly PA system.

  It was holiday season and another news-starved week, so Mr. Murdoch and his mates were going to be ever so pleased with what I was about to do: the biggest explosion in London this year, and right in the heart of Westminster. With the added bonus of a major shooting incident, it would probably take their ratings right off the scale. Unfortunately, good news for them was bad for me. SB (Special Branch) were going to be working their arses off to find out who'd pressed the button, and they were the best in the world at this sort of thing.

  They'd been formed to stop the IRA carrying out exactly the kind of stunt I was about to pull.

  Three torch bulbs were still unlit. I wasn't flapping, just concerned.

  At either end of the row of lights was a white, rectangular bell-push from a door chime set, glued in position with Evostik, the wires curling into the box. The one on the left was covered with the top from a can of shaving cream. It was the detonation press el for the device that I'd set up as a diversion. The device was basically a black powder charge, designed to give off a big enough bang to grab London's attention but not to kill anyone.

  There would be some damage, there'd be the odd cut or bruise, but there shouldn't be any fatalities. The shaving cream top was there because I didn't want to detonate it by accident. The press el on the right was exposed. This was the one that would initiate the shoot.

  Next to the box I had a set of binos mounted on a mini-tripod and trained on the killing ground. I was going to need them to if watch the Yes Man as he moved about the crowd and ID'd the target.

  The lunch-box contained a big, green, square lithium battery, and a mess of wires and circuit boards. I'd never tried to make things look neat; I just wanted them to work. Two purple plastic coated wire antennas stuck out of the rear of the box, trailed along the desk, over the window-sill I'd pushed it up against, then dangled down the outside wall. I had the window closed down on them to cut out as much noise as possible.

  The loudest sound in the room was my breathing, which started to quicken as the witching hour got closer. It was only outdone by the occasional scream of delight from a tourist at ground level or a particularly loud PA system from the river.

  All I could do was wait. I crossed my arms on the desk, rested my head on them, and stared at the bulbs that were now level with my eyes, willing them to start flashing.

  I was shaken out of my trance as Big Ben struck two. I knew the snipers wouldn't move into their fire positions until the last moment so that they didn't expose themselves longer than necessary, but I really wanted those lights to start flashing at me.

  For about the millionth time in the past twenty minutes I pushed down on the uncovered press el resting the side of my head on my forearm to look inside the box, like a kid wondering what his mum had made him for lunch. A small bulb, nestled amongst the mass of wires, lit up with the current generated by my send press el I wished now that I'd burnt another hole in the lid for the bulb inside to join the others but at the time I couldn't be arsed. I released it and pressed again. The same thing happened. The device was working. But what about the other three that I'd built for the snipers? I'd just have to wait and see.

  The other thing I did for the millionth time was wonder why I couldn't just say no to this stuff. Apart from the fact that I was soft in the head, the answer was the same as always: it was the only thing I knew. I knew it, the Firm knew it. They also knew that, as always, I was desperate for cash again.

  If I was truthful with myself, which I found pretty hard, there was another, much deeper reason. I got my eyes level with the bulbs once more and took a deep breath. I'd learnt a few things since attending the clinic with Kelly.

  Even at school there was desperation in me to be part of something whether it was joining a woodwork group, or a gang that used to rob the Jewish kids of the dinner money they'd wrapped in hankies so we couldn't hear i
t rattle in their pockets as they walked past. But it never worked. That feeling of belonging only happened once I joined the army. And now? I just couldn't seem to shake it off.

  At last. The middle bulb, Sniper Two's, gave five deliberate, one-second pulses.

  I put my thumb on the send press el and, after a nanosecond to check I wasn't about to blow up London in my excitement, I depressed it three times in exactly the same rhythm, to say that I had received the signal, checking each time that the white circuit-test bulb inside the box lit up.

  I got three flashes back immediately from the middle bulb. Good news. Sniper Two was in position, ready to fire, and we had com ms All I needed now was One and Three, and I'd be cooking with gas.

  I'd put everything these snipers needed to know where to be, how to get there, what to do once in position, and, more importantly for them, how to get away afterwards with the weapons and equipment in their individual DLBs (dead letter boxes). All they had to do was read the orders, check the kit, and get on with the shoot. The three had different fire positions, each unknown to the others. None of them had met or even seen each other, and they hadn't met me. That's how these things are done: OP SEC (operational security). You only know what you need to.

  I'd had an extremely busy ten nights of CTRs (close target recces) to find suitable fire positions in the hospital grounds this side of the river and directly opposite the killing ground. Then, by day, I'd made the keys for the snipers to gain access to their positions, prepared the equipment they would need, then loaded the DLBs. Tandy, B&Q and a remote-control model shop in Camden Town had made a fortune out of me once I'd hit ATMs with my new Royal Bank of Scotland Visa card under my new cover for this job, Nick Somerhurst.

  The only aspect of the business I was totally happy about was OP SEC It was so tight that the Yes Man had briefed me personally.

  Tucked in a very smart leather attache case, he had a buff folder with black boxes stamped on the outside for people to sign and date as they authorized its contents. No one had signed any of them, and there was no yellow card attached to signify it was an accountable document. Things like that always worried me: I knew it meant a shitload of trouble.

  As we drove along Chelsea Embankment towards Parliament in the back of a Previa MPV with darkened windows, the Yes Man had pulled two pages of printed A4 from the folder and started to brief me. Annoyingly, I couldn't quite read his notes from where I was sitting.

  I didn't like the condescending wanker one bit as he put on his best I-have been-to-university-but-F m-still-working-class voice to tell me I was 'special' and 'the only one capable'. Things didn't improve when he stressed that no one in government knew of this job, and only two in the Firm: "C', the boss of SIS, and the Director of Security and Public Affairs, effectively his number two.

  "And, of course," he said, with a smile, 'the three of us."

  The driver, whose thick blond side-parted hair made him look like Robert Redford when he was young enough to be the

  Sundance Kid, glanced in the rearview mirror and I caught his eye for a second before he concentrated once more on the traffic, fighting for position around Parliament Square. Both of them must have sensed I wasn't the happiest teddy in town. The nicer people were to me, the more suspicious of their motives became.

  But, the Yes Man said, I wasn't to worry. SIS could carry out assassinations at the express request of the Foreign Secretary.

  "But you just said only five of us know about this. And this is the UK. It's not a Foreign Office matter."

  His smile confirmed what I already knew.

  "Ah, Nick, we don't want to bother anyone with minor details. After all, they may not really want to know."

  With an even bigger smile he added that should any part of the operation go wrong, no one would be held ultimately responsible. The Service would, as always, hide behind the Official Secrets Act or, if things got difficult, a Public Interest Immunity Certificate. So everything was quite all right, and I'd be protected. I mustn't forget, he said, that I was part of the team. And that was when I really started to worry.

  It was blindingly obvious to me that the reason no one knew about this operation was because no one in their right mind would sanction it, and no one in their right mind would take the job on. Maybe that was why I'd been picked. Then, as now, I comforted myself with the thought that at least the money was good. Well, sort of. But I was desperate for the eighty grand on offer, forty now in two very large brown Jiffy-bags, and the rest afterwards. That was how I justified saying yes to something I just knew was going to be a nightmare.

  We were now on the approach road to Westminster Bridge with Big Ben and Parliament to my right. On the other side of the river I could see the County Hall building and to the left of that, the London Eye, the wheel turning so slowly it looked as if it wasn't moving at all.

  "You should get out here, Stone. Have a look around."

  With that, the Sundance Kid kerbed the Previa, and irate motorists behind hit their horns as they tried to manoeuvre around us. I slid the door back and stepped out to the deafening sounds of road drills and revving engines. The Yes Man leant forward in his seat and took the door handle.

  "Call in for what you need, and where you want the other three to collect their furnishings."

  With that, the door slid shut and Sundance cut up a bus to get back in the traffic stream heading south across the river. A van driver gave me the finger as he put his foot down to make up that forty seconds he'd been delayed.

  As I sat at the desk waiting for the other two bulbs to illuminate, I concentrated hard on that eighty grand. I didn't think I'd ever needed it so badly. The snipers were probably getting at least three times as much as I was but, then, I wasn't as good as they were at what they did. These people were as committed to their craft as Olympic athletes. I'd met one or two in the past when I, too, thought of going that route, but decided against it; professional snipers struck me as weird. They lived on a planet where everything was taken seriously, from politics to buying ice cream. They worshipped at the church of one round, one kill. No, sniping might pay well, but I didn't think I belonged there. And, besides, I now found bullet trajectory and the finer points of wind adjustment pretty boring after talking about them for half an hour, let alone my entire life.

  From the moment the Yes Man dropped me off with my two Jiffy-bags, I'd started protecting myself far more than I normally would. I knew that if I got caught by Special Branch the Firm would deny me, and that was part and parcel of being a K. But there was more to it this time. The stuff I did normally didn't happen in the UK, and no way would anyone in their right mind give this the go. Everything felt wrong, and the Yes Man would never want to be on the losing side. He'd knife his own grandmother if it meant promotion; in fact, since he took over the Ks Desk from Colonel Lynn, he was so far up C's arse he could have flossed his teeth. If things didn't go to plan, and even if I did evade SB, he wouldn't hesitate to fuck me over if it meant he could take any credit and pass on any blame.

  I needed a safety blanket, so I started by noting down the serial numbers of all three snipers' weapons before grinding them out. Then I took Polaroids of all the equipment, plus the three firing positions during the CTRs. I'd given the snipers photographs in their orders, and I kept a set myself. I had a full pictorial story of the job, together with photocopies of each set of sniper's orders. It all went into a bag in Left Luggage at Waterloo station, along with everything else I owned: a pair of jeans, socks, pants, washing kit and two fleece jackets.

  After loading the three snipers' DLBs, I should have left them alone but I didn't. Instead I put in an OP (observation post) on Sniper Two's dead letter box, which was just outside the market town of Thetford in Norfolk. There was no particular reason for picking Sniper Two's to OP, except that it was the nearest of the three to London.

  The other two were in the Peak District and on Bodmin Moor. All three had been chosen in uninhabited areas so that once they'd got the weapons,
they could zero them to make sure that the optic sight was correctly aligned to the barrel so that a round hit the target precisely at a given distance. The rest -judging the wind, taking leads (aiming ahead of moving targets) and working out distance is part of the sniper's art, but first the weapon sight and rounds need to be as one. How they did that, and where they did that within the area, was up to them.

  They were getting more than enough cash to make those decisions themselves.

  Inside the DLB, a 45-gallon oil drum, was a large black Puma tennis bag that held everything needed for the shoot and was totally sterile of me: no fingerprints, certainly no DNA. Nothing from my body had made contact with this kit. Dressed like a technician in a chemical warfare lab, I had prepared, cleaned and wiped everything down so many times it was a wonder there was any Parkerization (protective paint) left on the barrels.

  Jammed into a Gore-Tex bivi bag and dug in amongst the ferns in miserable drizzling rain, I waited for Sniper Two to arrive. I knew that all three would be extremely cautious when they made their approach to lift the DLBs, carrying out their tradecraft to the letter to ensure they weren't followed or walking into a trap. That was why I had to keep my distance: sixty-nine metres to be exact, which in turn had meant choosing a telephoto lens on my Nikon for more photographic evidence of this job, wrapped in a sweatshirt to dampen the rewind noise, and shoved into a bin liner so that just the lens and viewfinder were exposed to the drizzle.

  I waited, throwing Mars bars and water down my neck and just hoping Sniper Two didn't choose to unload it at night.

  In the end it was just over thirty boring and very wet hours before Sniper Two started to move in on the DLB. At least it was daylight. I watched the hooded figure check the immediate area around a collection of old, rusty farm machinery and oil drums.

  It edged forward like a wet and cautious cat. I brought up the telephoto lens.