Detonator by Andy McNab Read Free Book Online

fist tightened around the grip. His left banged down on the top of my skull, then pounded against the back of my neck. I felt something dribble down my right temple.
    I jerked and twisted, and somehow managed to dodge the full weight of his blows. Then I felt the cold gunmetal pressed against my cheek and went very still indeed.
    From this angle, there was a chance the round would go straight through my oral cavity, just fucking up some of my teeth, gum and upper jaw before it exited.
    If I carried on jerking around, I might dislodge the muzzle, but I might also end up with a 9-mill ripping a hole in my brain.
    Everything went into slow-mo.
    I could hear him clear his throat.
    I could smell the garlic on his breath.
    I could feel the sweat dripping off his palm and running down my chin.
    I could almost feel his finger squeeze the trigger.
    If this was where the story ended, then fuck it: that had always been part of the deal.
    The hammer reached its tipping point and rocketed the firing pin towards the round’s percussion cap.
    But instead of losing a big chunk of my face, I heard the unmistakable sound of the dead man’s click.
    Every second I was alive after that was a bonus.
    Reaching up, I grabbed two clumps of damp and greasy hair and wrenched his face down hard on to the top of my skull. He tried to resist, so I cannoned upwards until we connected and he gave a yell. I didn’t know where I’d hit him and it didn’t really matter. I tightened my grip and butted him once more. I saw star-bursts, but I was expecting them. That’s the shit that happens.
    It bought me enough time to struggle to my feet but not to aim my first kick. It didn’t matter. Finesse wasn’t the order of the day. Anything to slow him down. I went for his centre mass for starters, then moved on up. I didn’t want to permanently damage him. On the other hand, I wasn’t messing about. I needed to stop him thinking, and doing anything I didn’t want him to do.
    He stayed on his feet, but started to droop.
    I got a couple of blows into the side of his head and that was enough to make him come out with the white flag. He dropped like a sack of shit.
    The locked door at the back of the barn was taking a hammering from the inside. The first carrot-cruncher sounded very concerned. He shouted, ‘Claude,’ once or twice, then hollered a stream of profanities. It didn’t take a UN interpreter to help me catch his drift.
Fucking let me out of here, you bastard
…
    I didn’t mind. Nobody was going to hear. And as long as he was shouting, he wasn’t on a mobile phone to the police.
    Claude wasn’t going anywhere fast. I let him lie where he’d fallen while I reclaimed the gaffer tape and the pistol from beside a pallet loaded with fence posts. The pistol went into my waistband.
    Claude stirred when I got back alongside him. Maybe he’d heard the rasp as I pulled a length of tape off the roll. Maybe the door banging and his mate yelling had forced its way into the depths of his consciousness. Whatever, I had to kick into him a couple more times. I didn’t know if I was hurting him and I didn’t care. I needed him to be in no doubt that I was the top dog round here at the moment, so I could secure him. That boy could pack a punch, and if he regained control there was no telling what he might do.
    The profanity kept echoing around the back of the barn as I rolled Claude on to his stomach, pulled his wrists together behind his back and wrapped the tape around them. I made it tight, very tight, so his hands would soon start to swell. I wanted him to focus on the pain instead of raising the alarm.
    I tugged off his wellies and did the same to his ankles, then bent his legs back so I could connect the two sets of binding. He lay with his cheek on the floor, eyes closed, even when I plastered the sticky stuff across his mouth and looped it twice around the back of his neck. I wasn’t sure if he was unconscious by then or in denial. It didn’t matter