84

A muffled shot rang out. Impossible to tell where it came from. Another shot answered it. There was a dim flash in the gloomy haze. I set off in the direction of the flash, moving slowly. A tree loomed up at the last minute, and I pressed myself against its dark trunk.

A third shot. A rifle. A pistol shot replied. In the mist, it was impossible to tell who was who, and who was where. Like playing battleships against an unknown number of -opponents.

A man ran towards me. I hid behind a tree, and he passed me by. It was Freddie. He had something in his hand. The same thing Vaughn had brought along. A small pack, the size of a bag of flour, wrapped in cellophane.

TNT.

Behind me, a rattle of machine-gun fire.

I gave chase, but was stopped by a jarring blow to my forehead. My fight-or-flight reflex kicked in, and I reached into the mist to engage with my assailant. But there was -nobody there. I felt in the air in front of my throbbing forehead, and found my attacker. An angled steel bar. Solid. Cold. Dripping with moisture pulled out of the mist. I felt along the bar, it connected to an angled upright. I was at the base of one of the transmission towers.

What was Freddie up to? I had a bad feeling I knew the answer.

A breeze cleared the mist a few feet in front of me and my fears were confirmed. A small parcel, tied to one of the four corner struts of the transmission tower. I pulled a knife from my pocket and slit the rope tying the parcel to the tower, knowing what I’d see inside. A brown cellophane pack. Stuck into the pack, a detonator, and leading to the detonator, a short tail of fuse cord. The cord was burning. A slow fuse. Sixty seconds per foot, one foot left. He’d be aiming to have each of his explosives go off at the same time. Less chance of any defenders foiling the plan. I pulled the bomb apart and threw the fuse into the damp pine needles.

I’d got here in time, but how many others were out there?

The mist closed in again. A twig snapped to my right and I followed the sound, hoping it was Freddie and not a sentry. A silhouette in the mist caught my eye. His movement identified him, jerky, uncomfortable in his environment.

He saw me. Without hesitating, he drew his pistol and fired. A tree trunk behind me exploded in splinters. A miss.

‘Freddie,’ I said, ‘time to go.’

He fired again. He’d made his choice. It wasn’t one that was going to end well for him.

I drew my own revolver and got off a quick shot. Unlikely to hit him at thirty yards, more useful as a warning. He took the hint, turned and ran. And with that, the hunt was on.

I followed him, as quietly as I could, stopping to listen for him, and for sentries. A difficult environment for stealth, every footstep caused a whole symphony of cracks from dead branches. I gave up on quiet, and prioritised speed instead. I kept him in my sights, gaining on him. The mist was getting thinner, and the sky was getting lighter.

Freddie reached the base of another transmitter, pulling off his rucksack as he neared it, intent on getting the job done. In different circumstances, my kind of soldier.

I took up a position behind a pine, and peered round. A shot clipped the bark inches from my face, and I ducked back behind the tree, but I’d seen enough for an initial -assessment.

He was thirty yards away, across open ground. Nothing to stop a bullet, just scrubby birch trees gaining a foothold in the clearing created to install the tower.

Cellophane crinkled as he unwrapped a pack of TNT.

He’d be focused on the task, locked into a process that had a definite number of steps, none of which could be hurried or skipped. One minute at most, but no less than forty seconds. Brave of him to stick to his mission, knowing I was trying to stop him.

I backed away from the tree, keeping its thick trunk -between me and him. Ten yards back, I was invisible in the trees. I struck out to my left. If he was at the centre of a clock face, and I was at six, I wanted to get to ten. Once he realised I’d moved, he’d be expecting three or nine. A short cut in the ancient mind – if someone’s not in front of me, they’re about to pounce from my side. A right-handed man will turn to his left, a forehand shot. So I was going for a right hand turn, backhand for him, past the point of ninety degrees, somewhere over his right shoulder. His dead zone.

I hurried. I could picture what he was doing. Tying the fuse cord in a knot for increased effectiveness. Embedding the detonator in the soft putty of the TNT. Cutting the fuse cord the appropriate distance. Fast-burning fuse. Ten seconds per foot. He’d need time to get out of the blast zone. He’d be passing the cord through his hands, -counting off the feet, three feet each time he spread his arms. Three ... six ...

He flicked his lighter. Right on schedule.

I aimed my revolver and fired, the bullet ricocheting off the steel tower behind him.

He swung around, wildly letting off a shot. It missed me by a comfortable margin. He was shooting blind, shooting to provide himself comfort, no hope of hitting his man.

He’d lit the fuse. Fast-burning. Ten seconds per foot. Six feet perhaps. He needed to move.

I put another two shots over his head, and he ducked down. He knew the timings. He’d be arguing with himself. Stay or go. Stay was only going to end one way, so he had to launch himself into a run, across the open ground.

He set off, and I fired again. I aimed low, and got him in the thigh. He went down, sprawled in the leaves.

Ten seconds per foot. One or two feet left.

I put another shot over his head, then it was time to move. I was in the blast radius. I rolled back, into a ditch, and flattened myself into the mud, pressing every inch of my body as far into the ground as I could. Back in the trench I’d spent my life trying to escape. Only this trench was barely a foot deep. Possibly enough to protect me. Possibly not. In any event, it was all I had, so it had to do.

I risked a look. Freddie had pulled himself to his feet. He took a step, but the injured leg failed him. He was out of time, and he knew it. We looked each other in the eye. He opened his mouth to curse me, as if that had some kind of power. There was a blinding flash as the fuse ignited the TNT, and in the next instant Freddie didn’t exist.

I ducked back down into the ditch, pressing myself into the mud as the blast wave went over. It sucked the air out of my lungs and lifted me up, then dropped me back down. A thick cloud of dust and leaves followed, everything that could be picked up and moved, thrown through the air by rolling waves of concussion. I kept my mouth shut. Some of that dust was Freddie, in particulate form.

I pulled myself up, ears ringing. The transmission tower still stood, untroubled. One corner of its base was destroyed, where Freddie had mounted the explosive, but the other three corners held fast.