Recoil Read online

  He had consolidated his position in the early days by publicly executing anyone who even looked like they might become a political rival. Pierre Mulele, a rebel leader, was lured back on the promise of amnesty, but was tortured and killed by Mobutu’s boys. While he was still alive his eyes were gouged out, his bollocks were ripped off, and his limbs were amputated one by one. You could see where our machete-wielding mates got their ideas from.

  Mobutu had nationalized foreign-owned firms and forced European investors out of the country. His favourite trick was to hand the management over to relatives and close associates; theirs was to plunder the companies’ assets until the pips squeaked. It caused such a slump that Mobutu was forced to try to reverse the process. He’d needed Belgian aid to help repulse an attack by rebels based in Angola, and he needed us to help him out now.

  Despite everything, he’d been re-elected – but that’s not so difficult if all the other potential candidates are just too scared to stand.

  His minister of information did the rest. The evening news was trailed by an image of the Father of the Nation descending through clouds from the heavens. It was our favourite moment of the day. There were more portraits of the Saviour of the People than you could shake a machete at – every public building had a dozen of them, and government officials even wore them in their lapels.

  It wasn’t altogether surprising that the natives were getting a bit restless. Most were living in mud huts and dying of starvation, while our new best mate Mobutu had tucked away nearly five billion US in numbered Swiss bank accounts. This was almost equivalent to the country’s total foreign debt, but we, the US and even the IMF were still giving him loans.

  He was pro-Western, anti-Communist, and since chaos seemed to be the only alternative, he was worth a bung or two. Without Mobutu, Zaïre would disintegrate into ethnic violence and civil war – and so would the export of its vast mineral wealth to the West. So there we were, getting burned to a crisp, maintaining what our government liked to call ‘the UK’s interests overseas’.

  My only concern was making sure my gun was free of grit. Because as soon as Davy reported back, we were going to have to drive down into the valley and make like the Seventh Cavalry.

  3

  Annabel and the other two had satellite comms, which was how they’d managed to send a may-day from the bush about sixteen hours ago when the rebels had blocked the road and they’d taken refuge in the plantation house. There was no power, so to save battery they were just calling in every two hours with a sit rep. They also had no water or food, so the haphazard band of Mobutu’s troops who were supposed to be looking after them sounded as though they were only a couple of steps short of doing a runner.

  The US Third Fleet’s carrier task force were stationed permanently off the west coast of Africa so they could keep a friendly eye on their Nigerian oil assets, but their Marine Expeditionary Force were still going to be out of range until tomorrow. By the time they arrived on their helis, it might be too late.

  Our little gang, on the other hand, was only about two hundred Ks up the road. Downing Street had picked up the phone to the head shed at Hereford and now we were all set to escort the limos to the port. If the worst came to the worst, we’d keep off road and head cross-country, which was why we needed the trucks.

  We’d made ourselves sterile of any ID and borrowed civvies from our Zaïrean students to try to blend in – as you do in Africa, when you have red skin, a peeling nose and a government that wants to maintain its interests but doesn’t want to be seen doing so.

  Before I’d joined the Regiment, just over a year earlier, I’d assumed that every mission would be run to detailed planning and precision timings. But for most jobs I’d been on, we’d had less time to grab our kit and come up with a plan than fire-fighters on a call-out – and this one was no exception. We’d stripped down the Renaults, loaded them with two GPMGs, some AK47s, some crap trauma kit, and as much water and ammunition as we could lay our hands on, then headed east into the badlands, stopping only to refuel and nick the odd Yamaha.

  Even so, this should be a good day out; it sure beat potty-training Mobutu’s sidekicks. Judging by the look on his face, Standish certainly seemed to be relishing the challenge. Then again, maybe he was just looking forward to his next shag.

  He was sitting behind us now, crashing about with sat comms the size of a suitcase, fanning out the big mesh dish, trying to set it up, trying to get the right angle of dangle.

  Sam glanced round from the wheel to see what all the commotion was about. I leaned into the footwell to lace up my Reeboks. They were the only things I was wearing that were mine. I had a borrowed football shirt – the Greek national strip, apparently – and Sam was in jeans two sizes too big and a thick wool shirt that made him sweat like a pig.

  He gave his head a shake. ‘It’s pointless, boss. We’ll be there soon. She won’t be opening hers up for another hour anyway.’

  Standish wasn’t listening. ‘Hello, Annabel? Annabel?’

  Sam and I exchanged a knowing glance. I liked him a lot. Maybe it was because he was a Jock version of me. He’d also been shoved from one set of foster-parents to the next, and only really found a home when he’d joined the army. The rundown, gang-ridden housing estates and crap schools he’d been brought up in sounded just like mine. The only difference was that his local chippie used to sell Mars bars deep-fried in batter.

  I opened the glovebox and tipped some brown Milo powder from a tin into a plastic mug, then splashed warm water over it from a well-used one-litre bottle that had once been full of Orangina. Milo was a nightmare to mix unless the water was boiling but I had grown to like it, lumps and all. I offered some to Standish; the look on his face cracked me up.

  The day-to-day nitty-gritty really wasn’t his style. Standish was basically the link with the embassy, and spent as little time as possible with the team – which was why he looked set for a night at the opera and was getting to shag Annabel while the rest of us had a month’s facial hair and peeling noses.

  The man really running the job was Seven Troop’s staff sergeant, Gary B. Originally from the Royal Engineers, Gaz was a man of few words: ‘fuck’, ‘fucking’ and ‘fuck you’ pretty much covered it, as far as he was concerned. I had a lot of time for him. Just under six foot tall, with long, jet-black hair that curled round his neck, he looked like a roadie for the Stones – but since he’d developed two of the world’s biggest boils in the last couple of days, one each side of his neck, we’d nicknamed him Frankenstein. We only called him that behind his back, of course. Gary had a quick temper and none of us wanted to wind up on the receiving end of some friendly fire.

  He was in the lead wagon, maybe eighty metres ahead of us.

  ‘Annabel? Come in, Annabel.’

  Standish’s mop of blond hair never seemed to get greasy and never stuck up after a night in a sleeping-bag like ours did. Annabel probably lent him her hairbrush.

  He’d come to the Regiment from the Coldstream Guards; all those years under a busby must have given him plenty of practice at looking down his nose on the rest of the world. Every time he opened his mouth it was as if he was about to give a pep talk to the archers at Agincourt. I didn’t think he was ever going to be my new best mate.

  Sam, a sergeant with nine years in the Regiment, felt the same way. He reckoned Standish always seemed to be holding back on the full story, like there were some details he didn’t want to bother our little heads with. ‘I just don’t trust him,’ Sam growled. ‘He’s not solid.’

  4

  I studied the skyline. ‘Jesus, Davy, get a move on. Where the fuck are you?’

  ‘Don’t take His name in vain, Nick.’

  ‘Davy won’t mind, mate. I do it all the time . . .’

  I thought Sam must be taking the piss, but then I saw the expression on his face. It was like Standish would have looked if you’d told him Beef Wellington wasn’t on the menu tonight.

  He lifted his arse, f
ished in his back pocket and handed me a battered leatherbound book. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘It’s right up your street – sex, violence, revenge, all sorts.’

  I flicked open the cover. ‘It’s the New fucking Testament. I didn’t know you were into that stuff, Sam . . .’

  I suddenly felt like I’d been locked in the same cell as a double-glazing salesman. Weddings and funerals were the closest I came to the happyclappies, and when people started talking to me about God or country, it just made me run for the hills . . .

  His eyes flashed. ‘You’re not really getting the message, are you, son? I don’t like foul language being used alongside the Lord’s name. It’s like me calling your mother a whore.’

  I nodded, but still couldn’t work out why it offended him so much. And maybe my mum had been a whore – I’d never met her to ask.

  I handed back his Bible. ‘No, thanks, mate, not for me. There’s no pictures. And, besides, I know the ending.’

  ‘You’ll find out one day what you’re missing.’

  ‘How do you square all that with being in the Regiment? Hardly turning the other cheek, is it?’

  He beamed. ‘I know that what I’m doing is the right thing. Jesus wasn’t some kind of drug-crazed hippie who walked around followed by bluebirds and talking donkeys. He was a revolutionary. He said, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

  ‘He also said, “If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung round his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” That’s him distinguishing the guilty from the innocent, Nick, and telling us whose side we should be on.’

  This didn’t sound good. He was confusing himself with Billy Graham. Any minute now he’d be thumping the lectern.

  ‘People like the high commissioner’s lot down there –’ he waved his thumb towards the skyline ‘– they’d be dead if the likes of us didn’t turn to.’

  ‘Aren’t the rebels God’s children too?’

  ‘Of course!’ He beamed again. ‘It’s just they don’t know it yet.’

  I kept my eyes down and concentrated extremely hard on de-lumping my Milo. ‘Isn’t killing them a bit against the rules?’

  ‘No. We’re doing the right thing. If those rebels get killed, God will forgive them at the doors to the kingdom of Heaven, because He knows they don’t know any better.’

  ‘I see. Kill ’em all, let God sort it out?’

  ‘Do you believe in God, Nick?’

  I shrugged. ‘Dunno. I’ve always thought of Him as an imaginary friend for grown-ups. But maybe it’s smart to hedge your bets. Call me an agnostic.’

  If Sam thought that was an open door to try to convert me, he wasn’t going to get the chance to push it. The tinny roar of the 175 Yammy got louder and I saw Frankenstein stand up in his cab to my left.

  A second or two later, the machine jumped out of the dead ground, slewed round, and Davy gunned it towards the lead wagon. He looked like a twelve-year-old. He was as skinny as a pencil, and the diet here wasn’t exactly helping to fill him out. He definitely needed to go home and get a few bags of fish and chips down him – though half would probably end up on the floor. He’d lost three fingers from his left hand when he was in the Tank Regiment; his driver’s hatch had decided it wanted to close all by itself. Fuck knows how he’d passed Selection. He should have been modelling for an artificial-limbs catalogue, not fucking about on a 175 that weighed more than he did.

  5

  Standish came off the back of our wagon like a scalded cat and sprinted the eighty or so metres to the lead wagon.

  I entertained the flies round my head as Sam kept adjusting his hat to save what was left of the skin on the back of his neck.

  Seconds later, Davy jumped back on the 175 and screamed off towards the other two wagons. Standish hurried back to us and clambered aboard.

  ‘Listen in.’ He picked up the sat-comms handset as if he was about to make a serious announcement to all of the most important people in the world. ‘The Mercs are still by the house, in the dead ground about two and a half Ks ahead of us. Davy has seen rebels in flatbed pickups. He also saw a body. They’d cut it limb from limb and lined up all the parts outside the gates. He couldn’t tell if it was one of ours.’ He tapped numbers into the dial pad. ‘We’ll have a rolling start line. We’re going to go straight for them – get the wagons into the compound, load up, get out. No roads, cross-country to the coast.’

  A cloud of dirty smoke shot from the exhaust of Frankenstein’s wagon, and the other three drivers took their cue. Sam fired the ignition. ‘All aboard the Skylark.’ There was something childlike about Sam. It wasn’t always there but just now and again the kid in him would jump out of his head. The exhaust rattled like a tumble-dryer full of spanners.

  Standish was still trying to get through. ‘Hello? Hello?’

  I watched Davy gun his bike towards the last wagon. They’d rested a plank on the back and he just rode up it and on to the flatbed.

  I checked the link one last time, settled the butt into my shoulder, then made sure I had muzzle clearance over the sandbags and wasn’t about to shoot holes in the engine.

  ‘Hello, High Commissioner? It’s Miles. I sent out a recce patrol and it looks as if they’re still in the building. I’ll send you a sit rep as soon as we’ve linked up.’

  The front Renault started rolling. Sam threw us into first gear and the wagon jerked. Standish fell with the set still in his hand. The heat of the engine washed over us as we moved forward.

  We crested the hill in a rough diamond formation, Frankenstein at point, us to the right. The other two were to the left and rear.

  Sam was worried about the sat comms getting damaged. ‘You’d better close that thing down now, boss. We might need a hand on another weapon soon.’

  There were eight of us bayonets, two in each wagon, and the boss made nine. We had just two GPMGs, one on each flank, so the more hands to the pump the better when this thing kicked off.

  Standish started to pack the set away as if it was his own idea.

  The valley opened out below us. It was maybe six or seven kilometres wide, a huge swathe of sand, scrub and dust that shimmered in the heat haze. A track snaked along the bottom from left to right. A large grey building stood to our half left, surrounded by a perimeter wall to keep out the lowlife. There was stuff going on, vehicles on the move round it. Sunlight glinted off windscreens. At this distance I couldn’t see if they were the Mercs. I certainly couldn’t see the row of body parts.

  Standish finished packing the sat comms into its case and wedged it between the front seats, then stood up on the flatbed behind us, one hand gripping a section of frame, the other his AK. He was clearly going for the Lawrence of Arabia look.

  We reached the lower ground, about a K from the target, when a light-coloured vehicle detached itself from the buildings. Its dust trail flew high into the air as it headed out to give us the once-over.

  I checked that the rear leaf sight was on its battle setting of 300 metres and glanced across to see what the other GPMG was up to. One of us would have to stop and provide a stable fire base if this wagon needed to be dealt with.

  It was now no more than 200 metres from Frankenstein: a white pickup, bodies and weapons in the back, though it was hard to tell how many in the dust-shimmering heat.

  Sam swung the wheel half left to face them. ‘There you go, get on with it.’

  I got the gun in the shoulder, pushed the safety bar from left to right through the pistol grip and rested the pad of my forefinger on the trigger, ready to take up first pressure.

  As the pickup got ever nearer, I closed my left eye and looked through the circle of the rear sight, adjusting the weapon until the foresight rested on the driver’s side of the windscreen. The GPMG was an area weapon, which meant it was designed to fire bursts, but I’d adjusted the gas regulator so the rate of fire was slow enough that I could get off decent doub
le-taps instead. We didn’t have ammunition to spare, and needed to make every round count.

  Standish leaned forward between us, as if being a foot closer would give him a better view.

  My foresight kept pace with the pickup.

  Sam muttered, ‘If they open up, it kicks off.’

  By the time the pickup had closed to within a hundred metres, I could clearly make it out: a Mazda, with two bodies in the back, both wearing red football shirts and brandishing AKs.

  Even over our engine noise, I heard hollering as one of the red shirts banged on the roof of the cab. They’d seen as much as they needed to. The pickup slewed hard to the left and sped back towards the buildings, horn blaring.

  Frankenstein’s wagon surged forward. Sam floored the throttle and I pushed the safety from right to left.

  6

  I could see patches of grey and decayed Tarmac under the drifting sand half a K ahead. My head jerked all over the shop as Sam gunned the Renault towards it.

  Then we saw that the guys we were following weren’t the only vehicles in the valley. Just over a K to our left, a serious dustcloud was making its way along the road towards the plantation.

  We had to get there before they did.

  As we lurched and bucked towards the house, the dustcloud closed in. I started to make out a series of distinct vehicle shapes, stretched out on either side of the road like a convoy from Mad Max.

  A grey smoke trail detached itself from the dustcloud as the sustainer motor of an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) kicked in. The round was heading our way, but climbing steeply.

  ‘Lousy shot.’ Sam shook his head, as if them firing from out of range and aiming poorly was up there with singing out of tune in church. The smoke trail stopped after about five hundred metres when the propellant ran out. The grenade then exploded high and well short. RPGs ‘soft-detonate’if they don’t hit anything within about five seconds of firing.