Last Light by Andy McNab Read Free Book Online

result, Sarge." His thick Glasgow accent was directed to someone behind me, before he turned away with the other two. I watched them walk towards the stairwell, to the sound of Velcro being ripped apart as they started to peel off their body armour.
    As they disappeared past the corridor junction I was dragged up on to my feet by two policemen. With their strong grip under each of my armpits, I followed them towards the stairs. We passed the shields at the corridor junction, as the armed teams started to break ranks, and made our way down the stone stairs. Sundance and the boys were about two floors below. I kept catching glimpses of them as they turned on the stone and iron-railed landings, and wondered why I hadn't been blindfolded. Maybe it was to make sure I didn't trip on the stairs. No, it would be because they didn't care if I saw their faces. I wasn't going to live long enough to see them again.
    We exited the building via the glass and metal-framed doors I'd made entry through earlier. At once the noise of boots on the stairs and the policemen's laboured breathing from the effort of hauling me about was drowned out by the confusion on the street. Sweat-stained, white-shirted police officers were running about, their radios crackling, yelling at pedestrians to follow their directions and clear the area. Sirens blared. A helicopter chopped the air loudly overhead.
    We were on the private entry road to the Marriott Hotel, part of the County Hall building. To my left was its turning circle, bordered by a smart decorative hedge. Police were preventing guests from coming out of the main entrance as they tried to see what was happening or to run away, I wasn't sure which.
    In front of me, at the kerb side was a white Mercedes estate,
    engine running, all doors open. One of the pairs of jeans was in the driver's seat ready to go. As a hand pushed down on top of my head and I was quickly bundled into the back, my feet connected with something in the foot well It was my holdall, still unzipped.
    The guy with the trainers sat on my left and attached one end of a pair of handcuffs to the D ring of the centre set of seat-belts. He then flicked the free end around the pair that gripped my wrists. I wasn't going anywhere until these boys were good and ready.
    Sundance appeared on the pavement and said his goodbyes to the uniforms. Thanks again, lads."
    I kept trying to make eye contact with the guys who had dragged me down here, who were now standing by the entrance to the office block. Sundance got into the front passenger seat and closed his door, obviously aware of what I was doing.
    He bent down into his foot well That isn't going to help you, boy." Retrieving a blue light from the floor and slapping it on to the dashboard, he plugged the lead into the cigarette-lighter socket. The light started flashing as the car moved off.
    We came out of the hotel's approach road and on to the main drag at the south end of the bridge, directly opposite the hospital buildings. The road was cordoned off and surrounded by every police vehicle in the Greater London area.
    The windows of the hospital were crammed with patients and nurses trying to get a grandstand view of the commotion.
    We wove around the obstacles in the road and through the cordon. Once over the large roundabout, we passed under the Eurostar track a hundred metres further down. I could see the slick, aerodynamic trains waiting in the glass terminal above me, and felt sick that one of them should be leaving soon without me on it.
    Sundance removed the flashing light from the dashboard. We were heading south towards the Elephant and Castle and, no doubt, into a world of shit.
    I looked at Sundance's face in the wing mirror. He didn't return eye contact or acknowledge me in any way. Behind the stony face he was probably working out what he had to do next.
    So was I, and started to work on him straight away. This isn't going to work.
    I've got on tape the orders you drove for and