LITMIR.BIZ

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at his palm.

      Bright, shiny red.

      He didn’t know how he knew it, but he knew that he was dying.

      He didn’t feel frightened, only sad.

      As the room started to go dim, a tear formed in his eye.

      He wanted to speak to his wife, and his daughter, but he hadn’t the strength to stand and reach for the sat-link.

      His last conscious thought was that he would never see his unborn son.

      Never smell him.

      Never hear or hold him.

      As that realisation formed, he slipped into oblivion and was gone.

16.

      THE SPANISH SECURITY complex had been dreading – and preparing for – a nightmarish attack like this ever since the Madrid train bombings way back in 2004.

      Cruise liners and tourists were just too big and soft and tempting a target.

      So within three minutes of the first shots, Guardia Civil officers were on scene at Málaga’s Eastern dock, and dead and wounded people were being carried away at a crouching run.

      Within six minutes, two mini-buses carrying locally based Grupo Especial de Operaciones teams – the Policia Nacional SWAT men – screamed on to Pier 1.

      The shooter, or shooters, had by now disappeared inside the vessel, so the GEO inspector-jefe sent three snipers to take up the best positions they could find, stuck another couple of men on the cordon as liaison, and then led the rest of his blokes charging up an empty gangway to get aboard.

      Forty kilometres out into the Med, aboard the amphibious assault ship SPS Juan Carlos I, the twin rotors on a giant, black Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter were almost up to take-off speed.

      In the rear of the aircraft were sixteen special forces marines from the Fuerza de Guerra Naval Especial.

      Flight time to Málaga, a little under eight minutes.

      And the final response came from down the coast at Marbella, where that town’s on-duty six-man detachment of Grupo Especiales de Operaciones special ops soldiers boarded their Eurocopter AS532 Cougar helicopter and lifted off, heading west.

      Absolutely flat out, their aircraft was capable of around 140 knots. That gave them a flight time of around fourteen minutes, which disappointed the soldiers – they knew the Juan Carlos I had been patrolling through the Med not far from Málaga, and that its SF marines were already inbound.

      Chances were the whole party would be over before they even got there.

      But they pressed on regardless.

17.

      JOHN CARR WAS not a patient man at the best of times, and now – just as those special forces troops from Marbella arrived over Málaga, sixty kilometres to the north-east – he finally cracked.

      ‘Hey, George,’ he said, leaning over on an elbow. ‘D’you fancy a pint? I’ve had enough of this.’

      George Carr turned to look at his father, eyebrows raised, mocking grin on his face.

      The expression said, very clearly, How can you have had enough of this?

      ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I’m good, thanks.’

      ‘What about me?’ said Alice, pushing those mirror shades off her eyes and squinting up at her father.

      ‘I’d love to take you, sweetheart,’ said Carr, with his best attempt at sincerity. ‘But you’re under age. We can’t break the law, can we? Your mum’d kill me.’ He turned back to George. ‘I said, Do you fancy a pint?’ he said, with meaning. ‘The correct answer is, Yes, I do.’ He stood up. ‘Come on, I havenae brought my wallet.’

      George chuckled. ‘There’s a fucking surprise,’ he said.

      He stood, brushing sand off his back and elbows, and off his Union Jack swimming shorts.

      ‘Watch your language in front of your sister,’ said Carr. He looked at George’s shorts and shook his head in disdain. ‘No class whatsoever,’ he said. Then, innocently, ‘And have you put a bit of weight on, by the way? 3 Para must have softened up since my day.’

      ‘Fuck off,’ said George, good-naturedly.

      A slightly taller, slightly skinnier version of his old man, he was in the kind of shape you’d expect of a twenty-four-year-old Para Reg full-screw who was scheduled to undergo Selection later that year.

      This holiday being his last blow-out before he got down to training proper, ahead of his journey to Hereford, Pen-y-Fan, and the jungle.

      He looked down, and nudged his girlfriend with his toe.

      ‘We’re off up into town for a bit, Chloe,’ he said. ‘The old bastard’s shit drills have left him dehydrated. You coming?’

      She groaned. It had been a heavy night the night before.

      ‘No,’ she said, sitting up. ‘I think I’ll go for a swim instead.’

      ‘Suit yourself,’ said George. Then he looked at his dad. ‘Come on, then,’ he said. ‘I’m in the chair. Again.’

      ‘Too right,’ said Carr, with a grin, poking his son in the ribs. ‘Tips on passing Selection don’t come cheap, fatty.’

      ‘Fuck me,’ said George, shaking his head. ‘Don’t you ever give it a rest?’

      ‘No way,’ said Carr. ‘Being this irritating takes a lot of practice.’

      He laughed and looked at his boy, and felt an enormous surge of pride – a feeling that he knew was mutual.

      The two men turned and started trudging up the beach.

18.

      A LITTLE OVER ONE hundred metres away, in the calfskin and mohair interior of the gleaming white Lucky Lady, four men sat in silence.

      Tense, but focused.

      One or two knees bouncing up and down on the deep-pile beige carpet with nervous energy.

      They were all dressed like everyone else nearby, in shorts and T-shirts or vests, though they were wearing trainers rather than flip-flops.

      The better for movement.

      Each had at his feet a beach bag, and each bag contained an AKS-74U ‘Krinkov’, a lightweight, shortened version of the AK47, with a folding skeleton stock.

      Each Krinkov had a magazine in place, and each man had five spare mags – a total of 720 rounds of 5.45mm-short death and destruction.

      The dark-eyed Chechen called Argun Shishani sat on the steps to the upper deck.

      He had a phone to his left ear, and a police radio, stolen three nights earlier, in his right hand.

      He was talking to the young man in the cut-off denim shorts and the Manchester United shirt, who had moved down the beach a way but still had a good view.

      ‘I don’t care if two have left as long as the main target is still there,’ said Shishani. ‘She is? Good. Right, sixty seconds.’

      He ended the call and looked at the four men. ‘Okay, boys,’ he said. ‘It’s on.’

      He refreshed an iPad, on which was a single image – a woman, wearing a bikini, on the beach outside.

      He tapped the tablet, and the four men took

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