While he waited, the colonel continued to do his best to drink himself senseless. He was well into his new bottle of vodka when a blast, just outside his door in the main room, announced that the commandos had penetrated the last barrier. As the sound of gunshots, exploding grenades, shrieked orders, and screams of pain filled the colonel's dark office, he suddenly had a funny thought. Looking down at the booby-trapped desk drawer, he smiled. "Well," he said, ignoring the sound of boots pounding their way up the concrete stairs that led to his office, "it seems I have created my own Dead Hand." Then, looking up at the partially opened door, he lifted his bottle in a mock toast. "I only wish those shits in Moscow could have been here to enjoy my last little joke."
Seconds later, it was all over — but for one last vengeful swipe by the dead.
Chapter 1
Unable to ignore the leg cramps that were reducing his pace to a painful limp, the solitary Welsh guardsman came to a complete stop. Like a hunted animal in distress, his eyes frantically darted about the bleak Scottish landscape in a desperate search for a spot where he could hide. He had to find a concealed nook, a place that afforded him sanctuary. He badly needed to collect his thought, catch his breath, and sort himself out.
Nothing, however, seemed to fit the bill. Rather than offering safety, every rock outcropping and fold in the earth his eyes fell upon appeared ominous and foreboding, an ideal haven for his pursuers. Dejected, the Welshman drew in a deep breath before setting off again as quickly as his sore muscles would permit.
In the process of covering the next hundred or so meters, he noticed the sky becoming lighter. Yet the coming of dawn brought little promise that his agony and suffering would soon be at an end. Instead of a friendly, smiling sun to dry his clothes and warm his spirit, the night gave way to a dull, steel-gray sky crowded with low hanging clouds heavily laden with moisture, which would add to his miseries and suffering. By the time it was clear enough to see the jagged ridgelines on either side of the valley, he was making his way through at a slow, laborious jog. Corporal John Jones's outlook was as bleak as the breaking day.
Placing his hands on his hips and drawing in deep breaths that formed dense, moist clouds when he exhaled. Jones forced himself to press on along the rock-strewn valley floor. With growing regularity. he scanned the barren mountain crest up ahead that stood out against the ugly morning sky. Every so often, he glanced behind. His failure to detect any sign of pursuers, which had been a blessing the night before, began to concern him. His slate of mind, molded by the physical and mental punishment he and his mates had suffered at their hands on previous occasions, had twisted a healthy respect for his foe into a gnawing paranoia that hovered over him every waking hour. By now, he no longer saw the men who were hounding him as being part of the same human race to which he himself belonged. Rather than suffer from the adversities that sapped his strength, Jones fancied that they were growing stronger and more vicious at the very time his own abilities were ebbing. It was, of course, foolish to think like this.
Whether it was the hunger, the cold, or the overpowering exhaustion the likes of which he had never imagined possible, the twenty-three-year-old Welshman was finally coming to the realization that he was fast approaching the end of his rope. It was growing more difficult for him to maintain his pace, his focus, and even worse, his motivation. Panting, he again slowed until the pain in his legs brought him to a complete halt. Instinctively, he glanced over his shoulder, half-expecting to see the soldiers of the Rifle Brigade, fresh and unaffected by the rigors of the hunt, right there, ready to take advantage of his weakness. Capturing him would yield them a pass and put an end to his dream of becoming a member of the Special Air Service.
When he did not see them, Jones was struck by an odd thought. Rather than feeling relieved that they weren't there, the Welshman found that he was disappointed. He was almost sorry that no one was at hand to bring his suffering to an end. No sooner had that thought popped into his head than it was followed by a horrible realization. He had failed. It was all over. For the first time, he came to appreciate the brutal fact that he simply did not have what it took. Already broken in body, this failure of spirit was the last straw. Psychologically vanquished, he dropped to the ground and sat there, unsure of what to do next.
With his elbows planted on his knees, Jones allowed his head, too heavy for his overtaxed neck muscles to support, to drop down onto his chest. Though he was on the verge of crying, somehow he managed to hold himself together.
Suddenly a new fear sent a shiver down his spine. With a jerk, he threw his head back and frantically scanned the horizon. For a second, he imagined that he could hear the booming of the Welsh Guards' Regimental sergeant major thundering down from the top of a Scottish mountaintop: "Get your filthy ass off the ground, Jones. You're on parade." The sergeant major's voice resounded so convincingly in Jones's mind that he looked up, half-expecting to see the tall, barrel-chested sergeant major standing there, right in front of him, attired in his immaculate scarlet tunic.
But the uncompromising pillar of military correctness and decorum wasn't there. Only moss-covered rocks and brown winter grass stretching as far as he could see through the thick morning mist greeted his eyes. Again allowing his head to drop down, Jones cursed himself for trading in what he had thought was a living hell of shining brass and tedious days of guard duty in London for this. Sitting upright, he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his waterlogged battle-dress jacket in a vain search for something to eat. As his fingers rummaged about, he found himself longing for the warm, form-fitting wool tunic that he and his mates likened to straitjackcts.
Jones wasn't paying attention to anything other than his memories of duty in London and the faint hope of finding something he had forgotten about to eat, when a blurred image popped up from out of nowhere. He didn't see the looming apparition for what it was. He didn't need to. Though he was still reeling from the surprise and desperately trying to brace himself for the coming impact, a voice in the back of his mind told him that his ordeal was finally over. Despite his best efforts, despite his determination not to give in to anything, his foes were about to prevail. Everything, from the well-nurtured feeling of paranoia that the antics of his tormentors had instilled in him, to the near-physical collapse to which the entire ordeal had taken him, told him that resistance was futile. Even in those few brief seconds before his body was bowled over into a helpless, twisted heap, John Jones accepted the cruel fact that he had been humbled.
Gnawing on an Army-issue biscuit, the SAS captain looked down at Jones without any feelings of mercy or pity. The man had been an idiot, Patrick Hogg told himself as he bit off a chunk of dry biscuit and slowly moved it about in his mouth until it was moist enough to chew. He entertained no thought of offering the SAS candidate something to eat or drink. Not that the man would have accepted.
Even now, Hogg could see both defiance and loathing in the eyes of Corporal Jones, late of the Welsh Guard, as the hapless man lay on the soggy ground, tightly trusted and neatly gagged.
In the beginning, when he had run his first few groups of prospective SAS candidates through the hell that was his survival course, Hogg hadn't gagged those luckless souls he had personally tracked and subdued. In fact, he had often offered them something to eat. That all stopped one day when one particularly belligerent lad from Liverpool failed to show anything even remotely akin to gratitude. Instead, the bastard had spit the food Hogg had given him in his face and then launched into a tirade of oaths and blasphemies that Hogg felt were uncalled for. The twelve-year veteran of the British Army could have tolerated this. He had, after all, been subjected to far worse from experts. It was when the irate candidate started calling him a has-been, a washout who could no longer pull his weight in a real line unit, that Hogg snapped. Pulling the sweat soaked scarf that he had been wearing around his neck, he had stuffed one end of it as far down the man's throat as he dare and used the rest to bind the gag in place. From that day on, Hogg made sure that he had something particularly nasty and odious in one of his pockets that could serve as a proper gag.