Dead Centre - Andy McNab [135]
I took another pace forwards. I needed to get as close as I could before this went noisy. I thumbed back the cocking piece. Stefan was between us, in the path of a clean shot. He was going to see me first. But that was just fine. I wanted him to see me. I wanted him to start the commotion that would get BB to move, to bring the weapon down and turn it towards me. But not just yet.
I kept the weapon up towards the target, my support hand still wrapped around the dominant one, my shoulder forward so my nose was closer to the target than my toes. My right arm pushed the weapon towards BB as my left exerted rearward pressure, so the platform was rigid.
I kept moving forward, closing in.
Stefan saw me, saw my weapon. He screamed into BB’s hand and struggled to free himself as I approached. Not surprisingly, after the events of the last twelve hours, he didn’t seem to know whether I was friend or foe.
I kept both eyes fixed on the target, dead centre of mass of the two bodies. The flare on the end of the tube came into my vision and became my primary focus. The target and the cocking piece were now just blurs. I focused on the flare with both eyes.
BB’s head swung round as he tried to tighten his grip on the boy. His eyes locked onto me. No surprise; no anger. Just confidence. Knowing what he needed to do. His unmoving stare didn’t leave my centre mass. The rest of his body came round, with the weapon, to align itself with his head. The M4 came up.
He let go of the boy. He needed his left hand to grip the firing handle on the forward stock. As Stefan stumbled and fell, BB’s sights came into his focus.
I kept static, keeping a stable platform for the flare.
I let go of the cocking piece and the flare kicked off with a loud bang. A split second later, a blindingly bright ball of flame was burning into his thigh like molten lava. He stumbled backwards, loosing off a short burst into the side of the gully.
The rounds thumped into the dried mud metres away from me.
31
BB’S SCREAMS ECHOED up and down the narrow channel. The magnesium would consume the flesh until all the oxygen in it was used up. He lay in the dust, his body jerking as he took the pain and the shock of being hit. Flesh sizzled and dense white smoke poured out of the open crater in his leg.
Stefan stood transfixed.
I grabbed him with both hands, pushed him, trembling, up the side of the wadi. ‘Go! Go to your godfathers. Go!’
The sounds coming out of him were pure animal fear. ‘Where? Where?’
‘By the plane. Get up there and you’ll see ’em. Go! They’re waiting for you!’
He got to the lip of the wadi but stayed rooted to the spot, looking down at me. I lobbed a stone at him. ‘Fuck off! Go!’
He turned, screaming Russian. I swung back to BB. The M4’s working parts were to the rear. The mag was empty. He’d pinned his hopes on hitting me with those last few rounds before moving on.
The flare had stopped burning. His agony was clear to see. But he still attempted a smile. ‘It was all about the money, mate. That’s all.’
I unscrewed the empty cylinder from the penjector and screwed down onto a new one. There was another little pop as it slid out of the container.
BB heard it too. His head fell back into the sand. His face contorted with pain. The sun beat down on us. He panted as he tried to keep control of his breathing. He’d want to have the last word. He always had.
My shadow fell across him. He looked up, making sure we had eye-to-eye. ‘You know I never gave a fuck about Tracy. I never gave a fuck about her slapper sister. Or Frank. Any of them. Even the boy. Fuck ’em all.’
I leant down and held the flare inches from his forehead. But he still wasn’t going to beg or try to cut a deal. I knew that.
Through his pain, he did finally manage a smile. ‘Know what? I didn’t even give a fuck about Mong. I let him die. Risk getting myself killed for a bunch of slopes? Fuck that. He wanted to fight, so I let him. Fuck it. Fuck him.