Boy Soldier by Andy McNab Read Free Book Online

Frankie clocked them all as they went by.
    Back on the road he drove twice around the roundabout just outside the town, looking at the road signs as if he were confused. The roundabout was an obvious changeover place for a surveillance team, the ideal spot for one vehicle to peel off so that another could take over the follow. The double turn around the roundabout gave Frankie another chance to check on following vehicles.
    He drove into a new residential area of flats and houses behind the town centre. The network of quiet streets gave him a wide choice of overnight parking places. He chose a different one every evening. He parked up, got out of the car and walked quickly across the road and through an alleyway towards the shops.
    Frankie knew the surveillance game only too well. The most difficult time for a team is going foxtrot, so the quicker he got out of sight the harder it was to get the trigger on him. He moved as swiftly as he could but remained third party aware, never looking back to see what was happening behind.
    Hiding his limp completely was impossible, and the faster he walked the more apparent it became. He'd been stuck with it ever since the bodged operation in Colombia. It was with him for life and a real bonus for any watching surveillance team. A VDM that helped pick out Frankie in a crowd.
    He went into a shop and bought an evening newspaper. Standing in the queue to pay, he glanced out through the windows, looking for even the smallest sign that he was being followed. Signs like someone hovering for a moment too long by the doorway or apparently talking to themselves when walking by – a basic error. Surveillance operators are trained in not moving their lips when talking on the radio net.
    Frankie saw nothing suspicious, but that didn't necessarily mean he wasn't being followed. It could mean that the team was good.
    He left the shop and crossed the small town square. He went through another alleyway into a small car park, pulling from his jacket a green nylon waterproof and a rolled-up flat cap. His ancient, three-gear bicycle was locked to a railing. He quickly unlocked the bike, put on the waterproof and flat cap and cycled away.
    It was a long ride home, but Frankie was used to it.
     
    The bustling modern commuter towns of east Essex gradually give way to a flat, marshy landscape, where ancient villages like Canewdon, Paglesham and Creeksea could still almost be a million miles from the twenty-first century.
    The cottage was in remote farmland, off a quiet B-road and down a long muddy track. Around it were small patches of woodland and further out were the marshes and then the river Crouch.
    Frankie reached the track and stopped to check that no vehicles had made any ground sign in the mud. It was clean of tyre marks.
    He walked down the track, pushing the bike by the saddle. Halfway down and off to one side stood an old, disused chicken coop. Underneath it, attached to a wire, was a mini Maglite torch. The front glass had been covered with tape so that when the torch was on it showed just a pinprick of light. Frankie checked under the coop. There was no beam of light, which meant that the motion detectors in and around the house had not been tripped during the day. If they had, Frankie would simply have turned round and never come back. The only rule was survival.
    Walking towards the cottage, he made sure he tripped the four further concealed detectors. Their wiring was dug into the mud and their monitors were hidden in the branches of stunted and wind-blown trees lining the track. They were at shoulder height – that way they couldn't be tripped by a fox or a dog.
    The detectors were connected to normal domestic security lights placed along the track and around the house. Normal, but specially customized by Frankie. They were covered with layers of infra-red filter paper, meaning that if they were activated there would be no flood of white light. Instead, IR security cameras hidden beneath