was dressing Green's wound, Zayn was seeing to mine. Bates, Zayn and Wolf-Barry's faces were all covered in tiny cuts where the glass from the window had shrapnelled into them, but none had serious injuries. Apparently they'd still been sitting up there trying to formulate a plan when Mac blew the pillbox and all the shooting happened. Nice one Batesy, leading from the front.
'Dave, I'm sorry about this,' said Bates, addressing the conscious man from the pillbox. 'But we've got a situation and I need those weapons. Didn't think there'd be anyone defending the place. Not my intention to have any shooting, but you shot first and my boys have a right to defend themselves. All you need to do is tell us how to open the vault and no-one else needs to get hurt.'
The man didn't even try to hide his contempt.
'What the fuck do you think you're doing, Bates? I mean, you always were a jumped up little tosser who thought he was a soldier, but seriously, what the fuck is this? Colonel? You're a Colonel? Don't make me laugh. All those times we let you come down the boozer with us after manoeuvres so you could tell us all about the SAS stories you used to read. We were laughing at you, you moron, not with you. Do you really, seriously think that…'
He trailed off as a loud, sickening gurgle came from the semi-conscious man tied up next to him. All heads turned in time to see Mac pull his knife out of the man's neck. Blood gushed out over his hands, and down the man's jacket. We all sat there in stunned silence as the man shook and jerked in his bonds as he frothed, spluttered and wheezed. It took him a horribly long time to die, and none of us said a word.
Again, the hollowness in my stomach and the deep, sick sense that everything was spiralling out of control. But I was weak from blood loss, light-headed and mildly in shock. My reactions were muted. I could do nothing but watch.
'You're next,' said Mac, simply. He then wiped the knife blade on his sleeve and sat back down, staring straight into Dave's terrified eyes with something that looked awfully like lust.
Zayn ran up the stairs. The sounds of him retching echoed back down to us.
Bates was white as a sheet. He hadn't ordered Mac to do that. Even through layers of shock I realised that if he let it go unremarked then Bates' authority would be gone forever and it would only be a matter of time before Mac made his move. I willed Bates to shout at him, to demand his weapon, to dress him down and seize control. But he didn't have it in him. Bates so desperately wanted to be a strong military leader but he was weak, indecisive and vulnerable. And with his next words he doomed all of us.
'Well, Dave?' he whispered, unable to conceal his shock but trying to play along and follow Mac's lead. 'What's it to be?'
Dave held Mac's gaze, his eyes full of disbelief and horror. And, I noticed with surprise, tears. He told us the combination.
Mac smiled. 'Thanks, mate,' he said. He looked up at Bates. 'Want to do the honours, sir?'
Bates seemed to be looking right through Mac at something terrible in the distance, but he nodded and mumbled 'Yes, thank you Major.' Now he was thanking his subordinate for giving him permission to open a door.
He stepped forward and entered the combination, swung the huge lever handle and pulled the heavy door open to reveal racks upon racks of armaments and stacked boxes of ammunition. Mac gave a low whistle of appreciation.
'Lovely jubbly,' he said.
We brought the minibuses up to the front door and started loading the weapons into the back. Green and I sat in the front seats watching the others do all the heavy lifting. There were about fifty SA 80 Light Machine Guns, ten boxes of grenades, three more Browning sidearms and four 7.62mm General Purpose Machine Guns, the kind you would mount on a jeep or in a pillbox. There was also more ammunition than we could carry, so there would have to be a second trip. With this amount of firepower, properly used, we'd be a pretty formidable opposition.
'We could even go on the offensive,' said Wolf-Barry. 'Take the fight to those Hildenborough fuckers. Mac'll see us right, he'll make sure we do what's necessary to protect ourselves.'
In his mind Mac had replaced Bates already. I wondered how many of the others felt the same way. And I wondered how long it would be before Mac's assumption of power became official. What would that would mean for poor usurped Mr Bates?
When the buses were loaded Patel opened the driver's door, excited. 'You're going to want to see this,' he said. 'Mac's doing an interrogation.'
In fact this was pretty much the last thing I wanted to see, but somehow I felt I should. I was responsible for capturing the sniper, whatever happened to him would be, to some degree, on my conscience. I hopped out of the bus and continued hopping 'til I was back at the vault door.
Mac had the two surviving TA men sitting facing each other, with himself circling around them.
'… got what we came for,' he was saying. 'But we want to be sure we haven't missed anything, and the only thing more useful than guns is intel, right?'
Neither man moved a muscle, but they were rigid with fear and determination.
'So what I need to know, sorry, what we need to know,' he gestured at Bates, who was sitting on the steps, reduced to the role of bystander, 'is what Operation Motherland is and what it could mean for my merry little band. So who wants to tell me? Dave? Derek?'
So the sniper was called Derek. I almost wished I hadn't known that.
Neither said a word.
Mac started twirling his hunting knife around in his right hand.
'If no-one tells me then I'm going to have get a little cut happy. Now, I must admit, I'm looking forward to that, so I'd encourage you to hold out for a while. Been some time since I gave any fucker a really good cutting.'
'Fuck you,' whispered Dave.
'Oh goody, here I come a-cutting,' said Mac, with the most malevolent grin I'd ever seen. He advanced towards the captive, knife raised.
'All right, all right,' said Derek. 'Just, leave him alone, okay. There's no need for any of this.'
Mac stopped and turned to face Derek.
'Says you,' he replied. He stood for a moment, considering, and then decided to give Derek a chance. 'Okay then, spill.'
But Derek had got the measure of the man, and he cocked his head to one side as he regarded his would-be torturer. I saw all hope go out of his eyes and resignation and defeat set in. He'd realised what I'd long ago worked out – Mac was never going to let him get out of here alive, no matter what he said. He stared into the face of the man who he knew would soon be his murderer and found a depth of resolve that no amount of threats could break.
'Operation Motherland,' he said, 'is your death, little man. It's your big, hairy, motherfucking slaughter. It's coming for you and you won't even know it's arrived until you're dangling from a rope, kicking in the air and shitting yourself as your eyes pop out and your tongue turns black and you realise in your final moments that all you ever were was a sad, frightened child who wants his mummy. Operation Motherland is our justice and our justification and our vengeance. And that's all you're getting from either of us, cunt, so cut away.'
Mac stood there staring at Derek, looking sort of impressed.
'Oh well,' he said. 'It was worth a try.'
And he pulled out a handgun and shot both men in the head.
'Right then, back to Castle with the booty,' he said, and walked up the stairs past us, whistling, leaving behind the corpses of three more soldiers who'd never know how the story ended.
CHAPTER FIVE
Nobody spoke much on the drive home, all of us trying to process what had happened. I would soon come to learn that the lesson the others took from the day was as simple as it was stupid: Mac is the boss, he is hard and cool and if you stick by him you'll be fine. That day Green, Zayn, Wolf-Barry, Patel and Speight all became, to a
