Chapter 3

I suppose I thought the kids (as I thought of them) would be embarrassed. If they were, it didn’t show. Of course I didn’t stare at them – I was busy watching the house anyway – but it seemed to me that they just got on with what they needed. If anyone was embarrassed, it was me, especially when it was my turn.

The tent could open both ends, and we’d made a small hole in the ground behind and to the side, so that we could dispose of our ... organic waste ... safely and easily. Wet wipes were a barely satisfactory substitute for washing hands.

Breakfast was cereal bars, with tea (water boiled on the tiny gas ring we’d brought) for the kids and coffee (instant coffee ... yuck) for me. It started to rain as we were dealing with that.

There’s a reason the Lake District is as wet as it is. British weather mostly comes in from the Atlantic – warm (mostly), wet air, the water content of which condenses as it rises to clear high ground. Where we were, east of Lancaster, the annual rainfall is less than Cumbria, but still, we were on the west side of a hill.

We continued to watch. At least, the kids did. I flaked out after breakfast for over two hours, until Yelka shook me to wake me. Two men – large men – were dragging a naked girl who looked about half the size of either of them, out of the house. As we watched, she was suspended by her wrists, her toes barely touching the ground, from one of the wooden structures we’d noticed. Then they left her there, hanging, naked, in the rain. The temperature was about eighteen degrees, say, sixty Fahrenheit. Not exactly cold, but not the temperature I would want to be naked and stationary out of doors in the rain. It was fairly obvious that she was chilled, and I know I wanted to run down there and let her loose. Instead, I called Jonny.

“That’s all we needed, Jerry. It’s obvious that the tip-off was spot on. We’ll be mounting up right away. I’ll let you know when we’re nearby. It’ll be at least five hours, though.”

I hung up, and looked at Yelka and Jakub, whose eyes were already fixed on me. “There’s a team on the way,” I told them, “but they won’t be here until this evening. We need to keep watching.”

Watch we did. The poor girl was out there for a couple of hours, and when they let her down, she collapsed in a heap. That was no problem to the hulking lump who picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. I’m pretty sure that the hand he had on her backside to hold her in place had a finger in her backside and the thumb in her vagina. She was just flopped over him, though, as he carried her into the house, followed by his pal.

Yelka whimpered, and I held out an arm for her to snuggle under. As I pulled her close, Jakub pressed in from the other side. I put the glasses down – I hardly needed them, anyway – in order to hold him on the other side.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said, though I was far from sure about that. It was an awkward position, from my point of view, but it seemed to make them happy. In fact, it was soon clear from their regular breathing that they’d fallen asleep.

An hour later, Yelka woke, whispered, “Thanks, Papa,” and kissed me on the nose.

“How about something for lunch?” I asked her.

She nodded, wriggled away, and proceeded to rehydrate a couple of packets of dried curry. I hoped that the smell would not carry. We were five hundred metres or so from the house, and the wind was in our faces; I knew that as it was carrying some of the rain in with it. At length, she was done; the curry had reconstituted and was hot, and she added rice.

I shook Jakub, and we spooned up curry and rice. It really wasn’t bad, though I missed the beer I’d have washed it down with at home, not to mention the extras, mango chutney, pita or poppadums, that stuff I can never remember the name of, with yoghurt and cucumber. But it filled a gap, and there was Kendal Mint Cake as a dessert.

The day wore on, with little to report. A couple of times a man appeared at the back door and took a cursory walk around the garden. The drizzle was not conducive to lingering.

Just before eight o’clock, we saw a large, black car on the road beyond the house, which turned in and was immediately out of our sight. Moments later the sat phone buzzed, and I heard Jonny’s voice.

“We’re getting into position, Jerry. We’re wearing glow-tags which’ll show in your NVE. Please don’t shoot us.”

“Hey, Jonny. You want us to shoot the others? Oh, by the way, a large car arrived a few minutes ago and pulled in front of the house. I couldn’t see who got out, it was out of sight.” As I spoke, two more cars appeared on the road and turned in. “Two more just arrived, Jonny.”

“Good enough. I’m trusting you to cover the rear on the north side. I’ve got an operative on the south side. I’ll trust you to use your discretion. I’d rather have them dead of lead poisoning than free.”

“Understood.” How did I end up here? “Out, here.” Then to Yelka, “The Mannlicher, Yelka, with the night-sight.”

“Yes, Papa.” I knew Sally had exercised the girls, more Yelka than Lena, with the long guns, and Yelka was at least familiar with the Mannlicher. She fetched the bipod, and fitted the night-sight to the rifle before handing it to me. She then fetched two five-round rotary magazines. I was nervous; I was quite familiar with the old Lee-Enfield my great-uncle had used in the second world war – and, indeed, for a number of years afterwards – but less so with the later variant of the rifle originally developed specifically for sniping in the late nineteenth century. I’d practiced with it, of course, though not at the range I was at right then. “I’ll spot,” Yelka informed me. She took the spotting scope, a sophisticated device which in skilled hands could tell much more than just the range. “Five hundred ... five-fifty-five metres,” she went on, “wind ... about twenty, ten degrees off the direct line to the back door.”

Well, that was something. I could set the sight for the distance, and the wind was unlikely to be a major issue. With the wind almost straight on, at my level of skill ... okay, I could offset a tad, but probably didn’t need to. “Thanks, Yelka. Keep scanning for me. The team are wearing glow-tags, so just the plain figures.”

I’d never make a sniper. Snipers lurk, sometimes for days, waiting for their target. I was bored. There was little to see from where we were, though I caught a glimpse of one of Jonny’s team, tags bright in the scope. Time passed, slowly. It was getting on for midnight when Jonny called to say they were moving in.

Later, I got the story. They didn’t need to break the front door – it was unlocked and they just walked in. Inside, a doorman started to lift a pistol, and was tasered and secured before the team spread out to clear the house. The ground floor was actually almost empty, but for one man who had an early-teen girl in an inappropriate schoolgirl outfit, and used her as a shield to leave through the back door. That, I saw. He used a handgun of some description to shoot at the operative who followed him out of the door. The impact knocked him down, but body-armour prevented serious injury. I didn’t know that. I just saw the man dragging a little girl along towards one of the paths out of the garden into the fells.

I considered the shot. I couldn’t use centre mass, because of his hostage. Head shot? I lined up carefully, took a deep breath, held it ... and was unaware of squeezing the trigger, just of the weapon bucking against my shoulder.

I’d been aiming just to one side of his nose, but the bullet made a third eye in the middle of his forehead. All things considered, like my lack of skill, it was a pretty good shot.

He dropped, and the girl pulled away and ran ... towards us.

Inside the house, the clearance was proceeding. They found there was only one girl there, with three ‘customers’ and a couple of members of the ring. More shots were fired, but not by the team. Customer and procurers alike were tasered and zip-tied. The girl was in a bad way, Jonny told me, and was taken immediately away to get her discreet medical attention.