Archie backed away uneasily. ‘Easy soldier,’ he said. ‘Getting mad won’t get you anywhere.’
‘How about getting even, then?’ suggested Ollie.
‘It’s a bit late for that, my old sausage,’ said Archie.
‘There’s always time,’ Ollie told him.
‘Not for you boys. But that’s business for you. Stock prices can go down as well as up, as it says on the investment ads. And this morning, the market is shorting mercenaries.’
Ollie walked closer to the bars, aware that his dark, stubbled face, caked in scabs of blood, presented a horrifying picture. ‘Except that it’s you who will be shorted.’
For a brief moment, there was a flash of fear across Archie’s face, but he quickly composed himself. ‘I’ll see you at the hanging,’ he snapped. Then he turned to look at Sam. ‘Let’s go.’
‘I want to speak to them,’ she said.
‘What the hell about?’ Archie asked irritably. ‘They’re dead men.’
‘They might have some messages for their loved ones.’
‘These scum?’ Archie sneered. ‘Even their mothers couldn’t love them.’
Sam looked at him sharply. ‘I was at convent school, so I know how to give these men the last rites. Please, Archie - I only need five minutes.’
‘Bollocks.’
‘I really want to do this, Archie.’
‘Have it your own way.’ He turned around and marched briskly up the stairs. Sam remained silent until she was certain he’d slammed the door behind him.
‘We’ve no messages for you, you double-crossing bitch,’ started Dan.
Sam ignored him, stepping closer to the cell, blinking at the foul smell that seeped up out of the enclosed space like an open sewer.
‘Steve’s going to break you out,’ she hissed.
Ollie paused. It took a moment for the information to sink in. Could she really be working with Steve, and not her brother? he asked himself.
‘Christ,’ he muttered under his breath. Maybe there was hope for them, after all.
‘There will be an ambush on the way to the stadium,’ she murmured. ‘When the truck stops, you must overpower your guards.’ Reaching inside her top, she pulled out a small canvas bag and pushed it through the bars. ‘There’s some pocket-knives to help you.’
‘Why the hell should we trust you?’ Dan wouldn’t let it drop. ‘It was your brother who landed us in this mess.’
‘Don’t believe me, believe the knives,’ Sam told him. She had already turned around, and was heading for the stairs. ‘I can’t stay any longer,’ she said. She crossed herself. ‘May God be on your side.’ And then she was gone. The door clanged shut.
Ollie dipped his hand into the bag. Inside was a set of five small knives, with two-inch blades, inconspicuous enough to fit inside a man’s sleeve, but still with enough punch in them to rip out a guard’s throat.
It doesn’t matter whether she’s on the level or not, he told himself. The knives give us a chance of escaping.
And right now, that’s all that counts.
Steve looked down at the map. It was eight in the morning, and none of them had slept all night, but a shower, a jug of orange juice and a pot of hot coffee had refreshed them all. Steve could feel the tension within him as he traced the route of the Akwa Road for the hundredth time. He’d been in a lot of fights in his life, both for his country and for his wallet. More, probably, than any sane man should get into. But he knew one thing for certain: he’d never gone into a battle where he cared as much about the outcome as he did today. They were a rough bunch of boys, ugly and violent, with the manners of a high-security jail inmates on a day trip to a brewery, but they were his unit, and he’d put his life on the line for each one of them, just as surely as they would for him.
There’s only one problem, he reflected, biting his lip. Just as I’ve never been in a battle where the stakes meant as much to me, so I’ve never been in one where the odds were stacked as heavily against me as they are today.
But that’s the way the dice roll. When you decide to become a soldier, you don’t get to choose the battles. The battles choose you. And your job is just to fight them as best you can.
‘All set?’ he asked Ian.
The Irishman nodded. He put his finger down on the map. ‘The road leads straight down here,’ he said. ‘I scouted it in the dark last night, and found an old abandoned garage. The convoy should pass within fifty yards of it.’
‘You’ve rigged the kit?’
‘Yes. There’s a three-foot wall in front of the garage. I’ve taken a set of five old oil drums, and placed them three yards apart from one another. Each one has been sawn in half, then the bottom half filled with five gallons of diesel. That was the hardest thing to find, but Neil put me in touch with a bloke who had some stashed in his garage and didn’t mind being woken up in the middle of the night when I told him I’d pay him two hundred dollars for it. Next, I’ve slotted a small lump of plastic explosive into the base of each barrel. The old phones I gutted for some filament wire. The modern ones are just micro-chips and electronics but the old ones still have some decent wire in them. Put that to a battery and you’ve got a dirt-simple charger that can be safely operated from a distance. Switch on those bastards, and you’re going to get more smoke than you’ve ever seen in your life. Great waves of the stuff will be rolling across the street.’