Dead Centre - Andy McNab [129]
I pulled one of the cans off my ear. ‘Listen, this is the only way to stop them. We don’t know how much fuel they’ve got. We don’t know if we can outrun them. They might have extra tanks. We don’t know what they’re up to. We don’t know what they’re going to do when we get there. So we’ve got to stop them while we can.’
A big finger jabbed into my chest. ‘You kill Stefan …’ It pressed even harder and his face came closer. ‘I kill you.’
I let him get on with it. Now wasn’t the time. Let him make the threat. If I fucked up, we’d see. I nodded and turned back towards the open door. He was good at jabbing and doing the threats but he wasn’t exactly pushing me out of the way to take the shots himself.
I put the can back on as I reached the howling gap. ‘All sorted. Where the fuck are they?’
I was looking out as best I could, craning my neck beyond the cargo door. All I could see was clear blue sky, and ocean below.
‘They’re still half-right. They’re about half a klick forward and higher.’
‘OK.’
I hauled myself back inside. I braced my back against the fuselage opposite the opening, my knees up and my elbows just inside the creases of the knees so I didn’t have bone on bone. I wanted good firm support for the weapon. Legs pressed together, I got the butt of the AK in my shoulder. As the aircraft bumped and buffeted, I pushed the safety to first click.
I was going to have to be good. The AK was designed to deliver massive firepower by hundreds of thousands of Russians advancing over the plains of Western Europe, brassing up whatever was in their way. The AK is at its best firing short bursts on automatic at ranges below about fifty metres. Beyond that, they go wild.
The calibre of the round was in my favour. The 7.62 was designed to take an enemy down first time and keep him down. If Joe could get me in range, whatever I sent across should punch holes in the Skyvan the size of my fist.
I cocked the weapon and pulled the selector down again, onto single shot. I got back on the mike. ‘Joe, mate, you’ve got to get close and level.’
‘No problem, man. They got any weapons apart from that M4?’
‘We’ll find out soon enough. Make it look like we’re trying to push them towards the land or some shit. I need to find out exactly where the boy is on that thing.’
The revs picked up a notch and I could feel the airframe increase speed. Moments later I saw the Skyvan out of the door. It was forward of us, to the right, and higher in the clear blue sky. We were about a hundred metres away.
‘Get up more, Joe. We need to be at the same level. We need to see through those cockpit windows.’
‘They’ve seen us, Nick.’ Joe’s voice had gone up a notch too. ‘The ramp is coming down.’
24
‘GOT IT.’
I spotted heads on the ramp as it lowered. I lined up my eye behind the iron sights to check I could clear the left-hand side of the door.
The ramp had gone down halfway. I could see Ant and Dec’s shoulders. They were standing, and they had longs into the shoulder.
I yelled into the mike. ‘Joe! Dive! Dive!’
The engine screamed as we tipped instantly right. I struggled against the Gs as the horizon disappeared. Then I was sliding towards the door. The ocean filled the hole. The sea was rushing up to meet me.
I spread my legs, trying to get my socked feet across the airframe as some kind of brake. Both heels hit the door threshold at the same moment. I started tipping up vertically from the floor.
Joe levelled it out. I dropped back. The air stank of burnt oil. He must have taken the engine near its limits. We surged beneath the Skyvan and out of Ant and Dec’s weapon arcs.
I checked further down the fuselage. Mr Lover Man and Genghis were holding on to Tracy. Genghis lay over her feet. Mr Lover Man was at his shoulder. They must have had their work cut out keeping her in one piece while Joe did his Red Arrows bit.
I checked back through the cargo door. We were low enough to see the sea. The sun beat down on it and bounced back up into the sky. It was almost