was building, but we were a long way short of a blizzard, and the sky had that strange, special-effects type glow that you sometimes got before the light faded completely.
Did he have thermal-imaging kit?
I guessed I’d soon find out.
Right now I’d have to expect the worst and hope for the best. Either way, I figured that he’d stay where he was until nightfall, taking advantage of the height of his firing position.
Two more rounds confirmed it. He was putting them into the likely cover in case I was hiding there. It was a no-brainer. At worst I’d have to run for it and present him with a target. At best he’d get a kill. You always missed with the shots you never took.
Then all I could hear was the whistling of the wind.
I stayed where I was. I reckoned he would too. The snow had started to make it almost impossible for me to scan the far hillside with any confidence, but his options were limited. He had to stay below the mist that was now shrouding the ridge and above the treeline if he was going to maintain eyes on my escape routes.
When I was a kid in Bermondsey, one old granddad used to sit outside the corner shop on Tanner Street, letting the dandruff settle on the shoulders of his moth-eaten tweed overcoat. Every time I passed, he’d point at the hoarding around the hole in the ground between two terraced houses across the street and mutter, ‘Doodlebug …’
I had no idea what he was waffling about – until I stopped one day and he told me about Adolf Hitler’s V1 missiles raining down on London in 1944, and how you knew you were safe until the engine cut out. In the silence that followed you just prayed the thing wasn’t going to land on your head.
That was how I felt about the silence now.
11
The leaves and pine needles I was buried in were cold and damp and dank, but I didn’t much mind. Better to be here in the shit than back there in Trev’s blood.
I ran through my options.
I couldn’t go back across the dam, or along the west side of the reservoir. In both cases I might as well have painted a target on my forehead or between my shoulder-blades and shone a spotlight on it.
The fact was that whichever route I chose, running away was out of the question. He’d simply follow, and kill me. If not today, tomorrow. Or some time next week. He no longer had a choice.
I didn’t want to mess around. If this lad knew how to handle himself, I had to bring him towards me, channel him to a place of my choosing, my killing ground, and finish him.
I wouldn’t interrogate him first. That only happened in the movies. I might lose the fight to contain him. And I only picked fights I knew I could win. Besides, I didn’t expect him to be carrying a photographic driving licence with name, address and details of his recent speeding fines, or a wallet full of business cards and restaurant receipts. And even if he knew who’d sent him after Trev – which he wouldn’t – there was no way he’d reveal it with his dying gasp.
I burrowed further inside the coppice until I was in deep enough cover to stand, and made my way back to the hide. I stayed long enough to take a good look through Trev’s Bergen. I was pretty certain I wouldn’t find a weapon. He hadn’t had a pistol on his belt, and if he’d been in the mood to bring one along, he’d hardly have left it in his luggage.
I wasn’t wrong, but it would have been madness not to check.
Trev hadn’t wanted to load himself down any more than I did, so there was nothing much in the forty-litre compartment that I didn’t already have. In the side pouch I’d already spotted, he only had enough rations to keep him going for the next two or three days. Then I unstrapped the other pouch and hit the jackpot: lightweight AN/PVS-7 night-vision goggles complete with eye-cups, single-tube scope and head-strap.
I put the NVGs into my daysack, then added a couple of MRE packs and their flameless heaters. Who knew when I might need them? I wasn’t sure
Did he have thermal-imaging kit?
I guessed I’d soon find out.
Right now I’d have to expect the worst and hope for the best. Either way, I figured that he’d stay where he was until nightfall, taking advantage of the height of his firing position.
Two more rounds confirmed it. He was putting them into the likely cover in case I was hiding there. It was a no-brainer. At worst I’d have to run for it and present him with a target. At best he’d get a kill. You always missed with the shots you never took.
Then all I could hear was the whistling of the wind.
I stayed where I was. I reckoned he would too. The snow had started to make it almost impossible for me to scan the far hillside with any confidence, but his options were limited. He had to stay below the mist that was now shrouding the ridge and above the treeline if he was going to maintain eyes on my escape routes.
When I was a kid in Bermondsey, one old granddad used to sit outside the corner shop on Tanner Street, letting the dandruff settle on the shoulders of his moth-eaten tweed overcoat. Every time I passed, he’d point at the hoarding around the hole in the ground between two terraced houses across the street and mutter, ‘Doodlebug …’
I had no idea what he was waffling about – until I stopped one day and he told me about Adolf Hitler’s V1 missiles raining down on London in 1944, and how you knew you were safe until the engine cut out. In the silence that followed you just prayed the thing wasn’t going to land on your head.
That was how I felt about the silence now.
11
The leaves and pine needles I was buried in were cold and damp and dank, but I didn’t much mind. Better to be here in the shit than back there in Trev’s blood.
I ran through my options.
I couldn’t go back across the dam, or along the west side of the reservoir. In both cases I might as well have painted a target on my forehead or between my shoulder-blades and shone a spotlight on it.
The fact was that whichever route I chose, running away was out of the question. He’d simply follow, and kill me. If not today, tomorrow. Or some time next week. He no longer had a choice.
I didn’t want to mess around. If this lad knew how to handle himself, I had to bring him towards me, channel him to a place of my choosing, my killing ground, and finish him.
I wouldn’t interrogate him first. That only happened in the movies. I might lose the fight to contain him. And I only picked fights I knew I could win. Besides, I didn’t expect him to be carrying a photographic driving licence with name, address and details of his recent speeding fines, or a wallet full of business cards and restaurant receipts. And even if he knew who’d sent him after Trev – which he wouldn’t – there was no way he’d reveal it with his dying gasp.
I burrowed further inside the coppice until I was in deep enough cover to stand, and made my way back to the hide. I stayed long enough to take a good look through Trev’s Bergen. I was pretty certain I wouldn’t find a weapon. He hadn’t had a pistol on his belt, and if he’d been in the mood to bring one along, he’d hardly have left it in his luggage.
I wasn’t wrong, but it would have been madness not to check.
Trev hadn’t wanted to load himself down any more than I did, so there was nothing much in the forty-litre compartment that I didn’t already have. In the side pouch I’d already spotted, he only had enough rations to keep him going for the next two or three days. Then I unstrapped the other pouch and hit the jackpot: lightweight AN/PVS-7 night-vision goggles complete with eye-cups, single-tube scope and head-strap.
I put the NVGs into my daysack, then added a couple of MRE packs and their flameless heaters. Who knew when I might need them? I wasn’t sure
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