Chapter 20
Tug dropped flat behind the remnants of a low stone wall. The impact took the breath clean out of his body. Not dead yet.
The relentless hammering of machine-gun fire drilled into his head, grenades were being tossed about like sweets at a kid’s party and a shower of rubble threatened to bury him alive. Still breathing.
He lay in the dirt, sweat pouring off his already dehydrated body.
Six hours they’d been at it, and the old fort was awash with blood, spent munitions and body parts.
An Afghan kid barely out of his teens was lying face up not ten metres away, screaming.
His legs had been blown clean off and a mass of gore was spilling from his guts.
The sick fuckers had mined the open courtyard.
Fast air on its way. Estimated five minutes to first strike.
Any second now a five-hundred-pound laser-guided bomb would land on the north tower of the fort, where a good portion of the enemy were holed up.
And where Tug was lying face down in blood-soaked sand.
He had half a mind to stay where he was.
An air strike would be quick. A million times better than the torture he faced were he to be captured alive.
Better than dying slowly, minus his arms and legs, after a mine had got him.
The Afghan lad missing half his body – Zain, that was his name – was looking at him, pleading with him. He’d been a nice kid, brave. His lips moved, formed something that could have been brother?
Tug rolled onto his side, freed his pistol from the holster, aimed and fired. He didn’t wait to see the boy’s head explode. He was up, running, cutting a path through the mines instinctively, expecting any moment to go flying through the air in a mist of blood and pain.
He heard the bomb land, saw the air thick with flying masonry and body parts.
And woke to find himself covered in sweat. It took him several seconds to realise that he was home, that Afghanistan was thousands of miles away and the battle of Qala-i-Jangi had been over twenty years ago. He leaned over to switch on the bedside light.
At least this time he’d woken in bed. Not so long ago he’d come out of the flashback to find himself crawling along one of the block’s internal corridors, kitchen knife in his hand.
He’d fixed child locks on all his kitchen cupboards and drawers after that, but in the hands of a man like Tug, anything could be a weapon.
Even worse were the flashbacks that happened in the daytime.
In the day, a lot more people could get hurt.
Knowing he wouldn’t sleep again any time soon, Tug got up.
He opened Rightmove on his laptop and went to a search he’d saved a few days earlier.
The cottage in Dittisham was still on the market.
Stone built, with walls over two feet thick, it sat on the very edge of the River Dart in the tiny Devonshire village.
Two bedrooms, one big enough to take his gym equipment, a small kitchen and a living room with wood-burning stove.
No room to park a car, but he wouldn’t need a car, he’d only leave the village for a monthly trip to the supermarket.
The cottage was on the market for nearly three quarters of a million. Two days ago, it might as well have been ten million for all the chance Tug had of owning it. Now, though, he was heir to Logan Quick’s billions.
Exhausted, his pulse still far too fast, he couldn’t help laughing at himself. Hours earlier, he’d called every one of his old service mates he was still in touch with. All had denied all knowledge of any sort of practical joke, but one of them was lying. One of them had to be.
All the same, he’d buy a sailboat, when he lived in Dittisham. Something under twenty feet long; he had no need of a cabin, this was for day sailing only, but he might keep a tent on board, so that he could pitch up on quiet beaches on summer nights. He would call it Redemption.