Free Brute Force by Andy McNab Page A

extra holes in my head, a biker, the driver of a car near the off ramp or even a foot passenger could be well on their way.
An SUV pulled up carrying a family of four. Mum told the kids to hurry up or they wouldn't get good seats upstairs. Dad told them there was no rush, they had reservations. Mum told them to hurry up anyway.
I climbed out of the Merc and stretched. I scanned the car deck like I was looking for a friend. I couldn't see any obvious threat; no vanload of heavies in bomber jackets, no biker keeping his helmet on.
People squeezed between vehicles as they made their way towards the stairs either side. I got back in the Merc, as if I was waiting for the rush to die down. I tidied a couple of duvets on the passenger seat next to me, and a couple of bottles of wine I'd rescued from the kitchen table as I left the cottage.
The last car was on board and the ramp had gone up. The final trickle of passengers had made their way to the stairs. The crew would soon be doing a check to make sure no one had stayed behind.
I gathered the duvets and bottles and got out. I put the bottles on the deck then went and lifted the tailgate. I made as if to throw the duvets in, but bent down and pushed them under the chassis instead. I closed the tailgate again and blipped the key fob. I went back round to the driver's door, and looked around. No crew watching. I bent to pick up the bottles and rolled under the truck alongside me.
I hadn't bought my ticket with cash or practised any sort of tradecraft. I continued to act as if I didn't know the device had been planted. I kept everything overt, to try and bring whoever was responsible back to the car.
Who the fuck was it? Only three people in the world knew what 'Leptis' meant: Colonel Lynn, the Libyan spook who'd coined it and me. Unless . . . shit . . . Lynn may have mentioned it in a report, which meant it was sitting in a file. Anyone at the Firm with the appropriate level of clearance would have had access to it.
Whoever they were, I really wanted them to find me now. I wanted to be picked up. I wanted some fucker to come and have another go.
I reached under the Merc and grabbed the duvets. I wriggled to get one of them under me, and pulled the other over the top. The steel plates of the deck were freezing cold, and the air temperature wasn't much better. I kept the wine bottles within reach. They were the only weapons I had.

30
When the ship cast off and began to move with the swell, I felt for a moment like I was back in the cargo hold of the Bahiti. I just hoped this wasn't fate coming full circle and propelling me towards a hot date with a length of det cord.
1987 had been a good year for Lynn and me, but a terrible one for PIRA. In February, Sinn Fein had fielded twenty-seven candidates in the Irish general election but they'd only managed to scrape about a thousand votes each. It showed how out of touch PIRA were. Few people in the south gave a toss about reunification with Northern Ireland; they were far more concerned with other issues like unemployment and the crippling level of taxation. Ordinary people really did believe that London and Dublin could work together to bring about a long-term solution to the troubles.
PIRA and Sinn Fein were in danger of being marginalized, and must have decided they needed a morale booster. Their knee-jerk reaction was the murder, on Saturday 25 April, of Lord Justice Maurice Gibson, one of the province's most senior judges. I saw the celebrations first-hand in PIRA's illegal drinking dens that weekend. I even had a few pints myself as I hung around. The players loved what had happened. Not only had they got rid of one of their worst enemies, but recriminations were flying left, right and centre between London and Dublin. The Anglo-Irish accord, which had done so much to undermine PIRA's power base, was now in question itself.
Barely had the hangovers receded when, two weeks later, PIRA suffered its biggest loss in a single action since