The Hit List by Chris Ryan Page A

straight for us, and there wasn't a thing we could do about it except cover ourselves with stones and dirt and camouflage netting and hope they didn't notice us. I was the last to get under cover and I've never seen anything more terrifying than those T-55s. They looked like monsters
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    jld and black and pitted with shell-scars. The whole ert was roaring and grinding, and all that we could was lie there - I had my head jammed up against : of the other guys' arses - and hope that they kept Dving. But they didn't. They clanked to a halt, in nation, all around us. We could hear them opening ir turrets and we could hear their radios, and itually we could hear their voices. And then a (juple of them came over and I thought well, that's it. g're dead. And then they pissed on us. I felt it ling down my neck. They must have thought the was some kind of rubbish tip where they threw old cam-netting. We were there, not moving a r, for four hours, and I can't even begin to describe you what that was like, or what that kind of fear 3es to you.'
    Slater returned to the present to find Rushdie patching him.
    'You see, you're looking at me right now - you low how the story ends. In that berm we didn't low how the story was going to end. There had been sries about spies being stoned to death, castrated, ing from wire nooses . . . you name it.' 'So what happened?'
    'They went away. They started up their engines, >cked down their hatches and went away. I radioed in i report about the tanks on my handset and we stayed lere, not moving, for another three hours. The air ike came in just before midnight, and boy, was it aod to see that Scud jet-propellant blow!'
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    'And Marwan?' asked Rushdie. 'Did you ever identify him?'
    'No one survived the attack,' said Slater. 'That was one of the things my team had been tasked to ensure.'
    There was a long silence.
    'How is it to know that you've killed someone?' asked the novelist. 'If you don't mind my asking.'
    'How's that ploughman's lunch?' asked Slater.
    The football went well. The stands tickets gave a good view of Tottenham beating West Ham two-nil, and Rushdie took notes assiduously throughout in a small, leather-covered book.
    After the game, rather than look for a taxi, Rushdie suggested they might walk down the High Road to Seven Sisters tube station, as most of the fans did whenever Spurs played at home. To begin with they were swept along by a crowd of cheering, chanting Spurs fans. The air was heavy with fried food and beery good humour. The grey skies promised snow.
    At intervals Rushdie stopped to note his impressions, glancing around him as he did so. This began to worry Slater: the writer was less likely to be recognised in Haringey than in Knightsbridge but his actions closely resembled those of a policeman and might easily be construed as hostile. He seemed impervious, however, to the stares he prompted.
    'I think it might be an idea to keep going,' Slater said, when Rushdie indicated that, yet again, they should stop for a moment. The faces around them
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    those of West Ham supporters now, and their was visibly less benevolent than that of the jrious Spurs crowd. 3'm a writer,' said Rushdie simply. 'And right now
    re to write.' |jCan you wait until we get to that bus stop?' Slater
    s|ut as they sat down, they found themselves ?unded.
    aow me again, would you?' asked an acned fatboy ; Hammers shirt.
    ashdie said nothing, but watched with detached st as the group solidified around him. Slater, that the situation would defuse of its own i, remained silent. fou deaf or sump'ink?' asked the fatboy. ater flickered a glance at the group. There were s talkers, he reckoned, and three fighters. The one atch was the heavy guy at the back, who was even flexing and curling his fingers.
    what's your fuckin' problem, wanker?' ided the fatboy, sniffing.
    we go, thought Slater. On the seat beside him idie patiently studied his hands, i'm talking to you,