Deep Black - Andy McNab [114]
Jerry knew it too. ‘What now?’
‘Stay up here and get out of the wind. Soon as they leave, we go for the wagon. If it’s still there. . .’
We moved back the way we’d come. The rain made it almost impossible to see the farm and SFOR boys now, but that wasn’t altogether a bad thing. Just like with the snipers during the siege, if we couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see us.
We ended up in what looked and smelt like an old sheep hollow, worn away over the centuries. But if it was good enough for them, it was good enough for us. We wrapped ourselves around each other, our faces just inches apart, trying to share what little body heat we had left.
Lifting my head, I couldn’t see anything down in the valley now, just solid walls of rain. It came down so hard it felt like we were being attacked by a swarm of ice-cold bees.
‘We’ll wait until they’ve gone – or last light.’ My throat was dry and rasping. I was wet, cold and hungry. What wouldn’t I have given right now for a toasted cheese sandwich and a mug of monkey tea under the duvet, stretched out on the settee in front of the Discovery Channel?
Jerry’s head moved, which I took to be a nod.
As the minutes ticked by, the ground itself seemed to become colder and soggier. I could feel his body warmth at the points where he was making contact with me, but the rest of me was freezing. Every time he fidgeted to get comfortable, I could feel the cold attack the newly exposed area. At least we were in cover. It’s a psychological thing: get up against or under something and you begin to imagine you’re a bit warmer. You’re not, of course: you just think you are.
The wind howled against the lip of the hollow. The downpour was getting well into its stride, bouncing off my PVC coat like one long drum-roll.
86
At least two very cold hours must have passed with me listening to the wind and Jerry shivering and fidgeting constantly to get some kind of feeling back into his limbs. I wrapped him closer to me, for my benefit as much as his. ‘Listen, with that camera of yours fucked, it’s pointless you carrying on. Why not get down the hill to SFOR?’
He shook his head. ‘Fuck, no. Why give up now, when we’re so close?’
‘You got no reason to go now, and you’re in shit state.’
‘So are you. Besides, I can still interview him. You ever thought I might want to know who killed Rob?’
‘That’s not the only thing I want to talk to him about.’
Despite his misery, Jerry managed a brief smile. ‘What, like expenses?’
I looked down the hill. I still couldn’t see the barns. I watched the top of his shivering head for a long time, wondering whether to tell him. But why change the habit of a lifetime? Even as a kid, I’d lied about where I’d been and what I’d done – not just to my mum; to everyone. I didn’t want people to know things about me. It made me feel vulnerable. My stepdad would just use it as an excuse to fill me in. Why give people the rope to hang you with?
In the end, I just thought why the fuck not, as long as I left out who I really worked for. Perhaps if I carried on talking, I’d keep our minds off the cold. Jerry got everything, from the time I arrived in Bosnia to the time I left. I told him about the Paveway jobs. I told him about watching Nuhanovic at the cement factory, and listening to the screams of the girls being raped.
And, finally, I told him about Zina.
‘She knew I was there, she just kept crawling those last few feet to the hide, her eyes begging me for help, but I couldn’t do anything.
‘I could have saved more lives than even Nuhanovic. At least he had the bollocks to intervene. All I did was watch, put the job first . . .’
‘That’s why you want to see him? You feel guilty?’
He looked at me for a long time, shaking and trembling all the while. ‘You can’t beat yourself up about that sort of shit. Believe me. I mean, do I grab the girl who’s burning with napalm