John Carr. James Deegan
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.
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 a final long look at the photograph.
‘You have seven minutes,’ said Shishani, ‘and no longer. Kill as many as you can, and bring me back my prize. And may Allah go with you.’
As they left, he followed them up and stood on the deck.
He watched the four men melt into the crowd, and briefly turned to look behind himself.
From his vantage point he could see clear out to sea.
It was a thin ribbon of serenity between the decadence of Europe and the very different lands of North Africa, lurking just over the blue horizon, with their violence, and turmoil, and poverty.
At least, that was how it appeared to the Westerners.
Argun Shishani’s lip curled in disgust.
These trivial, shallow people, splashing and playing in the shallows, and drinking themselves insensible in the nearby bars – they thought that that narrow, tranquil strip of water protected them from the rage.
But today it was an angry sea, and it had brought God’s wrath to these shores, and after the wrath was spent the sea would carry away His servants to safety.
Shishani smiled, and waited.
THE FOUR MEN left the Lucky Lady, beach bags over shoulders or in hands.
Walked onto the road leading from the marina to the beach, laughing and joking.
People passing the other way – lucky people, as it turned out – didn’t give them a second’s thought.
The four walked to the top of the beach, where they linked up with Mr Manchester United, who was standing on the other side of a parked car, a pistol jammed down the front of his cut-off shorts.
One of the men – a tall, slender individual in a faded Hooters New York City T-shirt – looked about himself casually, and then said something.
Hooters was carrying two bags, and now he handed one of them to Man U.
Then – with final nods and smiles – they split into two groups.
Three of them stayed where they were, to act as a cut-off team – their job was to intercept any police officers who might try to get to the beach, and to cut down holidaymakers fleeing the main assault.
Which was to be carried out by Man U and a short, stocky man called Khaled.
The two of them now hopped over the low stone wall which separated the road from the heavy, dry sand, and slogged forwards.
When they reached the pre-arranged point, Man U looked at his accomplice and raised his eyebrows.
Ready?
Khaled nodded.
Both men reached into the bags at their feet and took out their loaded Krinkov AKs, locking the stocks in place.
Ten metres to their left, a middle-aged woman in a blue bathing suit and a floppy straw hat saw them do it and froze, hand to her mouth, unable even to scream.
Back at the top of the beach, Hooters NYC and the other two casually picked up their own weapons and slipped off the safety catches.
Twenty feet away from them stood a group of ten or twelve Spaniards in their late teens or early twenties, who were arguing, in a good-natured way, about where to go for lunch.
Hooters bent down and retrieved a hand grenade and pulled the pin.
Whispering a final prayer, he lobbed it into the middle