Danny moved over to where the first guard was slumped on the floor. He bent down and felt inside his jacket pocket for his handgun – an old Glock 9mm. He withdrew it, cracked his guy over the head with the stock to ensure that he remained unconscious, then returned to the door. He felt momentarily dizzy, so he breathed deeply again to steady himself. Then he tapped the barrel of the gun gently against the closed door.

  Silence.

  He tapped again.

  The guard on the other side of the door called out. Danny couldn’t distinguish the word, but he sounded like he was calling for his mate. He also sounded sleepy. Danny raised his weapon to head level, and waited.

  The guard called again. When there was no reply, Danny heard him approach the door.

  It opened. The guard stepped in. Within a second, Danny had the weapon pressed up against the side of his skull. The guard froze.

  Danny made a shushing sound, then nodded his head to indicate that the guard should enter.

  He did as he was told. The door closed. Danny looked the guy up and down. He was nearer to Danny’s size and build than the other guard, which would make his next job easier.

  ‘Get your clothes off, pal,’ Danny said.

  The guard narrowed his eyes, not understanding. Danny approached, pressed the gun up against the guard’s head again, and with his bad arm started unbuttoning the guard’s clothes. The guard soon got the message. Danny stepped back and watched him undress to his underpants. Danny indicated that he should remove those too. The guard obeyed, then stood with his hands covering his crotch, terror in his face. Danny approached and quickly slammed the butt of his handgun into the side of the guard’s head. He collapsed to the floor like his mate.

  Danny knew he had to move fast. Killing the guards, of course, was out of the question. But they could wake up at any moment. The guard’s clothes were in a pile on the floor. Changing into them was a painful business because of his wound, but he put that from his mind and in less than a minute he was wearing the standard ANA camo gear. He found a peaked camouflage cap in the guy’s jacket pocket, which he crammed on to his head, and removed the watch from his wrist to put on his own. Then he moved over to the trolley containing the medical gear. He took a couple of packets of painkillers and some sterile swabs and shoved them in his pocket. The first guard started to stir. Danny cracked him in the head for a second time. He grabbed the gruesome picture of the butchered family that Holroyd had left for him, put it into a pocket and killed the lights in the hospital room. The key was in the lock on the outside. He closed the door and locked it from the outside, pocketing the key to make it more difficult for anyone to gain access when the guards inevitably raised the alarm. He made his weapon safe and pocketed it in his camo jacket.

  Time check: 23.41. He headed out.

  The medical unit was mercifully understaffed. Nobody challenged him as he walked, head down, along the sterile, slightly tired corridors. He didn’t know the way to the exit but he walked with purpose. An air of uncertainty would attract more attention than not being recognised – Danny had been on enough military bases to realise that nobody knew everybody. He took a couple of wrong turns, but in under two minutes he was stepping out of the medical centre and into the open air.

  It was much hotter outside than in. Danny’s wound throbbed in time with the heightened beating of his heart. He estimated that he had a maximum of five minutes before the guards woke up, five minutes before they raised the alarm and five minutes before Holroyd learned that his prize catch had got away. Fifteen minutes to exit the base. It was almost no time at all, especially in his weakened state.

  He scanned the area around him. Even now, in the middle of the night, the base was busy. Accommodation blocks a couple of hundred metres to his one o’clock. Would Holroyd, and the rest of the unit, be sleeping? Danny thought they would, but didn’t want to make any assumptions. A low profile was essential. To his nine o’clock, in the distance, a chopper was landing. Several vehicles were moving around the base, headlamps shining. And a vehicle was what he needed. Leaving the base and trying to cross Helmand Province on foot was not an option.

  He evaluated his potential strategies. Back in the med centre, he’d been able to confront the two guards individually. Two on one, in his state, he’d have had no chance. If he wasn’t carrying a wound, he would have taken his chances with the drivers and passengers of one of these vehicles. But not tonight. He moved quickly across fifty metres of open ground to a low building which, from the smell of it, was the cookhouse. He stood in the shadow of a wall and watched the various vehicles criss-crossing the base. It took him a couple of minutes to identify his target. It was driving towards him. The glare of the headlamps in the darkness stopped him from identifying the type of vehicle, but it was indicating to the left and drawing to a halt alongside the cookhouse. Distance: thirty metres. The headlamps died. Danny thought he could discern the outline of a Hilux. Two soldiers emerged, slammed the doors shut and walked round the back of the cookhouse.

  Danny advanced. He knew there was a good chance that they’d have left the keys in the ignition – on military bases like this, it was standard practice. He kept his head down but his eyes forward and reached the vehicle in about twenty seconds. No sign of the soldiers. He quickly got behind the wheel. Checked the transmission: automatic – easier for one-handed driving. The keys were there. He turned the engine over and resisted his temptation to floor the accelerator. He moved gently, unobtrusively, away from his position, constantly checking his mirrors for any sign of the two soldiers he’d just robbed. There was none as he became just another vehicle driving across the base.

  Danny didn’t know where the nearest exit was, but he did know that he’d find it by following the perimeter. One hand on the wheel, he cut in a straight line across the base in the opposite direction from where he’d seen the chopper landing. He checked his stolen watch. It was 23.52 hours. Eleven minutes since he’d left the hospital room. He had four minutes left of his self-imposed deadline. It was going to be tight.

  He had cut through to an open area with no vehicles, and could just about see the perimeter 300 metres up ahead – a solid concrete wall topped with razor wire. Off to the north, smoke obscured his view of the moon. He assumed it came from an incinerator or burn pit. He allowed himself to accelerate and, when he reached the fence, swung round to the left. He calculated that a vehicle circling the perimeter would not raise suspicion: it would be a regular security measure in a place like this. With the speedometer tipping 60 kph, he followed the fence.

  Time check: 23.54. He had two minutes.

  Up ahead, the perimeter wall curved round to the left. Danny could see an exit point: a guardhouse, a barrier and armed personnel. He slowed down and drew away from the perimeter, so he could approach the exit head on.

  Time check: 23.55. One minute.

  The exit was a hundred metres ahead of him. Now was the moment of his biggest gamble. Security for those entering the camp would be massive. But for those exiting? He hoped not.

  Seventy-five metres. Something caught Danny’s eye in the rear-view mirror. A flashing light, about 300 metres behind him, approaching from the heart of the camp.

  He swore under his breath, and fixed his concentration on the exit. Painfully holding the wheel with his bad hand, he took the stolen handgun from his pocket and laid it on his lap.

  He slowed down. Distance to the barrier, fifteen metres. Ten metres. Five. Danny came to a halt. There was only one guard. He was carrying an assault rifle and his bearded chin was jutting out aggressively. He approached the driver’s side window.

  Danny glanced in his rear-view mirror. The flashing light was closer. Two hundred metres.

  He wound down the window. ‘Open up, pal. I haven’t got all night.’ He jabbed the index finger of his good hand towards the barrier.

  The guard looked him up and down. It was dark, so Danny hoped the standard Afghan camo gear would look like any other. Danny forced himself not to look in the rear-view mirror.

  The guard straightened up. Nodded. Walked to the barrier and opened it. Danny accelerated. He burst out of the camp with a spin of wheels. In the rear-view mirror he saw the guard closing the barrier. Beyond that, the flashing lights approaching fast. Danny accelerated hard. It bumped and rumbled over the rough road and the jolting caused a lot of pain in his wound. He didn’t slow down. Looking back, he saw the vehicle with the flashing lights stationary on the far side of the barrier. A figure emerged from the vehicle and stood, silhouetted, in front of one of the headlamps. Light radiated from behind him like a halo. It was Holroyd. Danny knew it.

  Up ahead, there was a fork in the road. Danny killed his lights to make himself more difficult to see, and took the left fork. A brief glance at the stars had told him this road would take him south. That was the direction he needed to travel if he was to head back to the village of Gareshk.

  Because as far as Danny could tell, he only had one course of action. Tony and the others were trying to frame him for an atrocity he hadn’t committed. He had to return to the scene and find out why.

  CHAPTER 12

  Holroyd slammed the brakes of the one ANP police vehicles in camp that he’d managed to appropriate. He stopped five metres from the southern exit barrier to Camp Shorabak. He jumped out of the car, his face flooded with anger, and stood by the flashing neon light of the police car. Beyond the perimeter of the camp, he saw the vehicle that had cleared the barriers thirty seconds previously. It was speeding out into the darkness of the Helmand desert. A moment later, the driver killed his vehicle’s lights. And a moment after that, the moonlit silhouette disappeared.

  Holroyd stared. Then he stormed up to the ANA guard who had just left the vehicle through the barrier. ‘Who was it?’ he demanded. ‘Was he English?’

  The guard clearly didn’t understand him.

  ‘English?’ Holroyd shouted. He pinched the white skin of his own cheek. ‘Like me? English?’

  The guard shrugged, then nodded.

  Holroyd spun round, marched back up to the vehicle and, unable to restrain himself, kicked the tyre as hard as he could.

  The Afghan guard was looking at him in bemusement. It made Holroyd even angrier. ‘How dare you look at me like that!’ he shouted, even though he had no jurisdiction over this man. He thumped the chassis of the vehicle with a clenched fist, climbed back behind the wheel, reversed a half circle with a screaming engine, then floored it back towards the centre of the base. ‘Danny Black,’ he growled to himself as he drove. Just saying the name made him want to slam the steering wheel in frustration.

  What could he do? Holroyd was damned if he was going to go after him. That would mean setting foot outside the camp, exposing himself to the danger of roadside bombs and ungodly Taliban patrols. There was a good chance one of the two would put Danny Black in a shallow grave before a couple of days were out. He was weak. Injured. He couldn’t survive the Afghan desert for long. Black could answer to a higher power. Holroyd didn’t have the resources to send anybody after him.

  No. Holroyd’s priority had to be the remainder of the SAS unit. So far, they were on side. They were willing to shop Danny Black, to testify to the details of his obscene atrocity, in return for Holroyd’s personal protection when he went after the SAS at large for their illegal activities.

  He screamed to a halt outside the accommodation block where the unit was quartered. It was a separate building, set about thirty metres away from the regular ANA accommodation. Holroyd’s deputy Jacko McGuigan – an ambitions little worm with no thought for anything but his own advancement – had installed them here, and it was here that Holroyd himself had debriefed the unit, and come to a mutual understanding with them that they could barely refuse. He killed the engine and sat quietly for a moment, his head bowed, one fist to his chest. He exited the vehicle and looked up to the heavens. Strengthened, he entered the block and strode down the corridor to the room where he knew they were bunking down. He burst in without knocking.

  It was dark in the room, but light spilled in from the corridor. The three SAS men were lying on their bunks. Fully clad – camo trousers, T-shirts, boots – and staring at the ceiling. The dog, however, was staring at Holroyd. It launched itself forward, stopping less than half a metre from the door frame where Holroyd was standing, baring its teeth and growling. Holroyd froze, too scared to step back and certainly too scared to step forward.

  ‘Will someone,’ he breathed, ‘get this cursed dog into isolation. There are kennels in the camp.’

  ‘He doesn’t like kennels,’ his handler growled. Rees Dexter’s Irish accent was very pronounced. ‘So unless you want to take him there . . .’

  ‘Then will you at least get him on a leash?’

  Dexter gave a clicking sound. The dog visibly relaxed and curled its way back to its handler. Dexter himself was sitting on the edge of his bunk. ‘Word of advice, pal,’ he said quietly in his broad Irish accent, softer than Holroyd’s Ulster twang. ‘Don’t give this little fella the heebie-jeebies.’

  By now the others were sitting up. They winced as Holroyd switched on the main light. ‘We’ve got a problem. Black’s escaped.’

  Tony Wiseman – the man Holroyd understood to be the leader of this unpleasant trio – stood up. ‘I told you to put some fucking guards on his door,’ he said.

  ‘I did. He dealt with them.’

  Tony’s scowl was poisonous. ‘Useless frickin’ choggas,’ he muttered. He bent down and picked something up from the floor. Holroyd saw that it was a holstered pistol, which Tony started to strap to his torso.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘He won’t get far with his arm hanging off. I’m going to go find him.’

  ‘No,’ Holroyd said.

  Tony gave him a dangerous look. ‘What?’

  ‘You’re staying here. In camp. That was the deal. We’ll find Black, somehow. Right now, I want you three where I can see you.’

  ‘Fuck that,’ Dexter muttered. ‘Black’s a liability.’

  ‘I’m telling you now,’ Holroyd said, ‘if any of you leave this military base without my direct permission, the deal is off. You go down with Danny Black and the rest of the Regiment. You’ll have plenty of time behind bars to think about what a stupid idea it was to disobey me.’

  He glared at them. They glared back. All except Cole who was, Holroyd noticed, staring awkwardly at the floor. It looked like his hands were shaking. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ he said. Cole didn’t reply.

  Tony looked between Holroyd and Cole. Then he sat on the edge of his bed again. Dexter did the same.

  ‘You’re right,’ Tony said. He pinched his brow. ‘You’re right, buddy. Sorry. I spoke out of turn.’ He breathed deeply. ‘We’re on edge,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to lie. Six months of this kind of work, it gets to you.’ He looked directly into Holroyd’s eyes. ‘It’s not good for the soul. I was out of line. We appreciate what you’re doing. It won’t happen again.’

  Holroyd looked from one to the other. Tony had closed his eyes and was breathing deeply, apparently calming himself down. Dexter was scratching the dog’s ears. Cole hadn’t moved. His hands were still shaking.

  ‘Right you are,’ the RMP man said. ‘We’ll talk in the morning. Black will probably be limping back into camp by then anyway. If he hasn’t met his maker.’

  He turned and left, closing the door behind him.

  The three SAS men kept their silence for a full minute after Holroyd left. It was Cole who broke it.

  ‘What now?’ There was an edge of panic in his voice.

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Cole, keep a lid on it,’ Tony said quietly.

  ‘Yeah, but what now?’

  ‘Nothing. We do nothing. It doesn’t matter if Holroyd has Black in custody or not. Nobody’s going to believe him.’

  Cole shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t trust Holroyd.’

  ‘You don’t have to trust him. Without us, he’s got nothing. If we refuse to go on the record—’

  ‘What about the Regiment?’ Cole said.

  ‘Fuck the Regiment,’ Tony said. ‘Those cunts in Hereford wouldn’t give us the steam off their piss. If we get slotted out here, what do they give us? A plot in St Martin’s churchyard and a piss-up in the squadron hangar? Bollocks to that. This way, we get a proper payday. But only . . .’ He swung his legs over the edge of his bunk again and looked from Dexter to Cole. ‘Only if we’re all singing from the same hymn sheet. If the three of us stick to our story, we’re made. One of us gets cold feet, we’re fucked. Understood?’

  Dexter nodded. So did Cole, but less enthusiastically. He stared at the floor for a few seconds. His hands trembled. He clenched them. Then he stood up. ‘I’m going to get some air,’ he said.

  Tony and Dexter watched him leave. They both had blunt, dead-eyed expressions.

  ‘You think he’s losing his nerve?’ Dexter said quietly.

  Tony stared at the door. He nodded.

  ‘So what do we do?’

  Tony sniffed. ‘I mean it, mucker. If he squeals, we’re fucked. Only one thing we can do, if we want to make sure he keeps his mouth shut.’ He looked at his unit mate. ‘You in?’

  Dexter looked over at the door, then back at Tony, then down at his dog. ‘I’m in,’ he said. He continued to scratch the Malinois’ ears, and the dog whimpered with pleasure.

  CHAPTER 13

  Danny navigated by memory, instinct and skill.

  He had instant recall for the mapping the unit had examined back in Kandahar. A crescent moon was high in the sky: he followed the line joining its horns down to the horizon to approximate a southerly bearing. And once he was out of sight of the military base, he turned his headlamps back on and carefully studied the road ahead, searching for fresh earth that might indicate the presence of a newly dug-in IED. The risk of a roadside bomb was at least as significant as the risk of meeting a roving Taliban patrol or an ANA unit.