The driver hit the net. "h.e.l.lo. Duty Vehicle through checkpoint Alpha. Over."
"Roger, duty vehicle. Checkpoint Alpha. Out."
Charlie sat there glowering. I could almost feel the heat of his anger on the back of my neck, and I knew the boy on my left could too.
I tried a little gentle fishing. "What a drag for you... How many of these things do you have to get through?"
"Just the one, sir." I could hear the relief in his voice. The last thing he wanted was for Charlie to get revved up for an encore.
We emerged into a huge valley, with a network of rivers and streams, and at least ten Ks of undulating ground separating the mountains on either side. It was big, tree-covered country out here, Switzerland without the cows.
Even though we had escaped the confines of Tbilisi it was still going to be difficult lifting this thing. The traffic wasn"t anything like as busy as it had been in the city, but there was a constant stream of military trucks, full of bored Georgian squaddies rolling their heads from side to side, and packed-out buses with sacks of spuds and bags and all sorts strapped on top, bouncing between towns and slowing down only to squeeze past each other on the narrow stretch of crumbling tarmac.
We pa.s.sed yet another of them, heading towards the city, and drove into a depression a couple of hundred metres long. We were in dead ground. It was as good a place as any.
I held up a hand. "I need a p.i.s.s."
The driver slowed immediately, and pulled up on the gra.s.s verge.
I got out and walked round the front of the wagon, so I could position myself on the driver"s side, before moving towards the rear and going through the motions. Charlie also got out and stretched his legs. He wandered past the radiator grille and seemed to spot something. He pointed underneath the bonnet, then looked up at the driver. "What is this? Driver, get out!"
The squaddie jumped dutifully out and joined Charlie at the front of the vehicle. I turned and followed, two steps behind.
Charlie was still b.u.mping his gums. "Who"s responsible for this wagon? Look at the state of it."
The driver looked, but he couldn"t see anything wrong. "But, sir, I can"t-"
I closed my hands around his mouth and jaw and jumped on his back. I pulled his head into my chest, wrapped my legs around his waist and toppled backwards.
5
I landed in the gra.s.s, with him on top of me, and hooked my legs through the inside of his. The boy didn"t resist for a second or two, then he started to kick and flail his arms.
"It"s OK, mate, it"s OK," Charlie said.
I pulled back even harder and kept my body and legs rigid.
"We"re not going to hurt you, mate. Just calm down. Come on, composure..." Charlie leaned over him and raised his finger, as if scolding a child. "Cool it, son, we"re not here to hurt you. There"ll be no pain."
He jerked and writhed even more in response, so I reined him in more tightly still.
Charlie went through his pockets and tossed the contents onto the gra.s.s. I knew he"d be checking for a cell. If he had one, it would have to be dumped as soon as we were down the road. There"d be no point in calling Crazy Dave with a warning order that he had a lot of s.h.i.t to sort out, and no point in taking it with us, in case it was tracked.
He stepped back. "Nope, he"s not got one."
The boy was breathing a little easier now.
Charlie pointed at him again, and this time his tone was almost apologetic. "Listen, son, we"re going to take the wagon, and we"re going to leave you here. I know it won"t be your idea of a perfect day out, but just accept it. If you start playing silly b.u.g.g.e.rs, we"re going to have to slap you about a bit, and take you with us. If you behave, we"ll let you go. Now that"s not rocket science, is it?"
He nodded as best he could with his head still compressed against my shoulder.
"I"m going to let go of you now," I said. "I want you to just roll off and start walking away. That"s it, mate, that"s all you have to do. OK?"
His breathing slowed a little and he gave something approaching a nod.
"OK, here we go."
I released my grip, untangled my legs, and he did exactly as he"d been told.
Charlie kept an eye on him as I got to my feet and moved round to the driver"s door. "That"s it, son, just walk away. Well done."
Charlie jumped into the back seat and I switched on the radio. If anyone was going to start gobbing off about us, I wanted to hear it.
We were good for fuel. The tank was three-quarters full. No surprises there duty wagons were always topped up after every job, ready for the next.
I glanced over my shoulder. Charlie had the laptop bag on his knees. "On the metal or cross country?" I threw him the map.
"Shows f.u.c.k all." He studied it for a few more seconds and shook his head. "So I guess we"re committed to this, unless we see a minor they haven"t bothered to include."
"It takes us straight through Vasiani..."
Charlie pored over the map again. "Maybe, maybe. But if we get past it, we can box around the city and then head south."
He looked up at the ground to our left, then behind him. "Or we head back cross-country, get around the VCP, then back on the road and south. We can"t go back through the city. It"ll be too easy for them to ping us in this thing once the driver manages to get an SOS out. He"ll be flagging down a vehicle the first chance he gets."
He paused. "What you reckon, worth a go?"
We drove on for another five minutes to make sure we were well clear of the driver, then I chucked the 110 into four-wheel drive and headed left, off road. Once we were out of sight of it, I"d parallel back past the VCP.
The wagon lurched and skidded in the soft ground. The days of intense rainfall had saturated and loosened the soil. It wasn"t ideal, and we didn"t have much time to spare it"d be a couple of hours, max, until the driver ran back to the VCP and raised the alarm and everyone would be looking for the 110 but we didn"t have a whole lot of choice.
If we got stuck, we"d just have to dig the f.u.c.ker out. At least we weren"t on the steeper ground. A combination of heavy rainfall, steep slopes and a surface loose enough to overcome the gravitational pull that kept it in place was the recipe for landslides.
We dropped into dead ground and turned left, but it was no cause for celebration. If anything, the conditions were worse. Glutinous mud sucked at the wheels and we sank down almost to our axles. I checked out Baby-G, then glanced at the dash. We had been going just over thirty minutes, and only covered a couple of Ks.
I turned back to Charlie. "This ain"t going to work, mate. At this rate we won"t even be past the VCP by the time he"s raised the alarm. He might even be there now if he"s. .h.i.tched a lift."
"Nothing"s changed, lad. If we head back onto the road, we"re committed."
I grabbed the map and traced the route round the north of the city, in case we could head west and chuck a left towards Turkey. I also looked out for filling stations, but I didn"t see any marked.
"That"s got to be better than being stuck right here. At least we get to make distance. That"s what we need, mate. What do you say, cut our losses?"
6
I stopped just short of the crest of the hill and Charlie got out.
He scrambled up to check the dead ground in front of us, dropped onto his hands and knees as he neared the skyline, and crawled the last few metres. We didn"t want to run the risk of piling straight over the top and discovering that our old mates at the sangar were right there in front of us.
He waved me up and jumped back in as I drew level with him. He leaned through the gap between the front seats. "The road"s two hundred the other side of the rise. No way have we pa.s.sed that VCP."
I edged the wagon uphill. "We"ll soon find out, one way or the other. f.u.c.k "em."
The time comes when you just have to accept your options are running out and go for it.
We hit the road, hung a left, and I flicked the 110 back into two-wheel to conserve fuel.
No more than a minute later, we saw the duty driver ahead of us. He spotted the wagon and started waving us down.
Charlie laughed. "Bet he changes his mind when he sees who it is."
He was right. As we got closer, the guy did a double take and legged it into the trees.
Another quarter of an hour and we had to slow for an oncoming truck, overloaded with turnips. A few fell off and bounced across the top of our wagon as we manoeuvred round each other.
We came to the top of another rise and the dead ground opened up before us. The camp was in the distance, maybe a K off the road, along what looked like a newly laid gravel track.
It was the size of a small city. Dozens of green twenty-man tents stood in smart, regimented lines along the side of a chain-link-fenced compound. To their right lay a maze of Portakabin-type structures with satellite dishes on their roofs, either linked in terraces or connected by concrete roadways.
Five or six Hueys were parked in a neat line beside a helicopter pan.
The main drag continued for maybe three Ks past the junction towards another camp on higher ground.
Charlie leaned forward again. "f.u.c.king h.e.l.l, they"ve got the whole army here!"
He wasn"t wrong. "Any bright ideas?"
He shook his head. "We"ve got to keep on going for it. Nowhere else to go. And we"re in a company wagon, aren"t we? Let"s hope the driver hasn"t got to the VCP yet and they just give us a nod."
I put my foot down and we accelerated past the turn-off to the first camp. The track was actually hardcore, and stretched a K or so to the main gate, where ma.s.sive US and Georgian flags fluttered shoulder to shoulder in the breeze.
The fields either side of us were a hive of activity. The Partnership for Peace programme was in full swing. American unarmed-combat instructors in green T-shirts and US Marine Corps spotty-camouflage BDU bottoms were putting Georgian troops through their paces. They looked as though they were having a great time, kicking the s.h.i.t out of the happy boys from the recruitment commercial while their mates force-fed infantry fieldcraft to patrols in arrowhead formation.
No-one gave us a second glance.
So far so good.
The 110 started to shake and rattle as the road surface quickly deteriorated the other side of the junction. I kept my foot to the floor as we moved uphill towards the second camp.
I dropped to third on the steeper gradient and the 110 ate it up. I was starting to feel good about this.
"h.e.l.lo, duty vehicle, duty vehicle. Is that you on the hill? Report. Over."
I looked down at the radio and then at Charlie. He shrugged his shoulders. Somebody with nothing better to do was watching us through their binos. So what?
I changed down to second to get a spurt on past the camp at the top of the hill, in case they"d been instructed to stop us.
"Duty vehicle, do not go any further. Repeat, do not go any further. Return to our locale. Over." Maybe they needed the wagon back to pick up the CO"s sandwiches.
We ignored it again. The throttle was flat to the boards. The engine screamed as we headed on up the hill.
"Do not cross the demarcation line. Crossing the demarcation line is contrary to standing orders. Repeat, return to this locale. Over."
"Demarcation line?" Charlie"s head was level with mine as he too peered up the hill. "These two places in the middle of a union dispute?"
"Something like that." I nodded in the direction of the flags flying over the gates of the camp, now about 150 ahead on our left. They weren"t the Stars and Stripes or anything to do with Richard the Lionheart, but the white, blue and red horizontals of the Russian Federation.
Charlie"s head was level with my right shoulder. "f.u.c.k it, let"s just keep going; take our chances. There"s f.u.c.k all else we can do."
We began to parallel the camp"s front fence. Men in uniform swarmed around in confusion alongside never-ending lines of tents and vehicles. By the look of it, they were getting stood to.
There was now a major flap on at the main gate. I slowed as armed men spilled out on the road. Were they throwing up a roadblock?
The radio blared at us again. "Duty vehicle, status report. Over."
I kept my eyes on the uniforms up ahead. They"d obviously dressed in a bit of a hurry; some had combat jackets that weren"t done up, some didn"t have helmets. But they all had AKs. Run one of them over and they"d open up big-time.
"I"m not going to stop. I"m just going to keep going, but real slow. You up for it?"
I looked back at Charlie in the rear-view.
He winked. "So which one are you, Butch or Sundance?"
7
We were level with the main gate and the speedo flickered near twenty. n.o.body on the road seemed to know what to do. They were all mouthing the Russian for "What the f.u.c.k"s a British 110 doing up here?" Thankfully they all still had their AKs slung rather than in the shoulder.
Charlie started to wave. "How"s it going, lads?"
They stared back, then some of the younger ones smiled and returned the wave. NCOs started shouting angrily, trying to get something organized.