Free Deathlist by Chris Ryan Page A

the honours.’
    Petrovich didn’t move. He swallowed hard and looked wide-eyed at the walkie-talkie, breathing hard inside his mask. ‘Me? But shouldn’t someone with experience do it, uncle? Why not Dragan? Or you?’
    Kavlak sighed. ‘Do you like fucking, nephew?’
    Petrovich nodded obediently. Like a dog. ‘Yes, uncle.’
    ‘Then press the damn button, and tonight you’ll have the greatest fuck of your life. This much I promise you.’
    Petrovich stayed very still for a moment. Kavlak could see his eyes working furiously behind his mask, trying to build himself up to the moment. His shoulders were pumping furiously up and down with the tension. He reluctantly took the detonator. His thumb hovered over the Push-to-Talk button. Kavlak checked his watch.
    Ten seconds.
    ‘Do it,’ he urged. ‘Become a man.’
    Petrovich still hesitated. He kept staring at the walkie-talkie. The other four guys watched him in stony silence. Kavlak could see his nephew’s thumb shaking.
    Five seconds.
    Four. Three.
    Two seconds.
    ‘Now!’ Kavlak urged.
    Petrovich closed his eyes, breathing hard.
    Then he pushed the button.

THIRTEEN
    0720 hours.
    Joe Kinsella didn’t hear the bomb.
    He was sitting on his Bergen amongst the other students, shivering cold and soaked through to the bone, nursing a hot brew. He was listening to Stubbs tell another one of his naff jokes and pretending to laugh. He was trying hard not to show his nerves. He was trying not to think about the excruciating pain from his blistered feet.
    Ten metres behind him, a radio receiver unit in the boot of the Ford Mondeo picked up a signal from the direction of the Storey Arms and ignited the det cord. A split second later, the C4 exploded. There was a momentary flash of hot white light that blinded Kinsella. In the next instant he was thrown back by a scorching hot blast of wind and smoke, burning his hair and flesh and crushing his rib cage like a fist closing in around an empty Coke can. Then the smoke and the heat roared over him, hurling him off his feet, and as the flames engulfed Joe Kinsella his last thought was, God help me.
    Then nothing.
     
    Porter was three hundred metres away when he heard the blast. A distinct whump, followed by a low angry rumble that shuddered like thunder across the mountain. Bright orange flames spewed into the sky high above the car park, like a flare stack on an oil rig. Fists of thick smoke mushroomed out of the flames, throwing up a million pieces of debris and shrapnel. Behind the roar of the outward explosion and the clatter of the falling debris, Porter heard a scream.
    He stood rooted to the spot next to Bald for a cold moment, his breath trapped deep in his throat. Like someone had pulled a noose tight around his neck. Everything seemed surreal. He looked on in disbelief at the tendrils of smoke billowing up into the air, raining down debris across the road like ash pouring down from an erupting volcano. Two cars had been gliding down the main road, coming from the west. From the direction of Brecon. They were fifty metres away when the bomb kicked off. The lead car hit the brakes and skidded to a halt in front of the explosion. The rear motor was too late. It slammed into the saloon’s rear bumper in the middle of the road. Glass shattered. Car alarms wailed.
    ‘Jesus,’ Bald whispered at his side. ‘Jesus Christ. Oh, fuck.’
    This can’t be happening, Porter kept thinking, over and over.
    This can’t be fucking happening.
    Then the realisation hit him, like a fist to the guts. Car bomb. Had to be. Nothing else could cause a bang like that, Porter knew. He’d seen dozens of the fuckers detonate during the time he’d spent serving in Northern Ireland. Someone’s just detonated a car bomb in the middle of Selection, he realised. The Regiment’s been hit.
    We’re under attack.
    Porter shook his head clear. His training instincts suddenly kicked in. Ten years as an SAS operator, his reactions to danger were