Recoil - Andy McNab [84]
Most of them would be firing from the sitting position. Not only does it take for ever to change mags on an AK but the magazine is so long and curved that firing prone is almost impossible. The mag digs into the ground, leaving the weapon too high to get into the shoulder. Mikhail Kalashnikov didn’t care – he’d designed the thing to be fired on automatic by thousands of mad Russians charging the enemy over the windswept steppes.
The stand-to wasn’t just to check on the guys but for Sam to know that every metre of mud, bush or tree in a full 360-degree circle was covered. We were definitely on the brink.
The dugout was the size of a three-car garage, burrowed into the side of the hill. As soon as I was inside it, I was hit by a combination of stifling heat and the stench of marzipan. It was so hot, glue oozed from the edges of the rolls of gaffer-tape scattered on the ground, red gravel stuck to them.
Green wooden RPG boxes with red Chinese characters stencilled on the side had been emptied and discarded. Others were covered with Cyrillic lettering, and the distinctive numbers 7.62. It felt like I’d gone back in time, and was fighting the Cold War all over again.
Wooden drums of dark brown det cord were stacked four high. A plunger initiation device, still in its knackered canvas carrysack, lay nearby. It looked like it had come straight out of a Wild West movie; this was the kind of kit Jesse James had used to fuck up a railroad track before he’d robbed the train. Once they’d dumped the contents of their bags on Lex’s Antonov, the porters obviously didn’t go back to the mine empty-handed. They must have replenished this anarchist’s warehouse every trip.
I felt a little better for getting the water down me, but it wasn’t enough. The band still banged about in my head. I helped myself to a selection of demolition kit and put some aside for later, once the devices were placed.
Crucial came in, pushing out pills from a foil blister pack and getting them down his neck, dry. He was taking quite a cocktail. Each pack had rows of white, blue and yellow capsules.
His hair and eyebrows were still caked with dry mud, but sweat had shifted most of it from his face. His wound leaked through the dressing and was turning the mud round it a darker red.
There was no time to fuck around. ‘Crucial, I want the guys to mix all this lot.’ I slapped the stacks of fertilizer. ‘I want everything they’ve already mixed, and this lot, down by the river, at the valley entrance. Start dumping it on the right-hand side as we look at it from here, yeah?’
Crucial wrinkled his nose at the smell. Maybe he’d never been in here. ‘It reminds me of a cake Sam made at the mission one Christmas when I was a kid. What’s the plan?’
I picked up a reel of detonation cord. ‘A welcome mat they won’t forget. The world’s biggest fuck-off claymores.’
The diamonds in his teeth glinted, even in the gloom. ‘Playtime!’ He was actually enjoying this.
I shook my head. ‘There’s fuck-all wrong with you, is there?’
Crucial smiled some more. ‘What have I got to lose?’
I didn’t have time to answer. ‘I want all the miners to drop off their picks and shovels. Anything metal – pots, pans, the lot. I want these claymores big and I want them dangerous. If they won’t do it, fucking stick a barrel or two up their arses. They’ll get the message. Can I get some cover down there?’
He nodded.
I set off as fast as I could, which wasn’t very. I was staggering again by the time I was back on the valley floor, my nose full of marzipan fumes, my arms full of AK, a reel of det cord, and a wooden box of HE. My head still had a regimental band drumming away inside, and to top it all, I was finding it harder