Samarkand Hijack
DAVID MONNERY
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by 22 Books/Bloomsbury Publishing plc 1995
Copyright © Bloomsbury Publishing plc 1995
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2016
Cover photographs © Nik Keevil/Arcangel Images (soldier); MILpictures, Tom Weber/Getty Images (background); Shutterstock.com (textures)
David Monnery asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008155339
Ebook Edition © December 2015 ISBN: 9780008155346
Version: 2015-11-02
Contents
OTHER TITLES IN THE SAS OPERATION SERIES
Bradford, England, 14 March 1979
It was a Wednesday evening, and Martin could hear the Coronation Street theme music through the wall. His mother was in the back room ready to watch, but he had not been allowed to join her, allegedly because he had homework to finish. The real reason, though, was that there was a sex scandal going on; one of the characters was sleeping with another’s wife, or something like that. His mother didn’t like any of her children watching such things, and certainly not Martin, who at twelve was the youngest of the three.
He continued drawing the blue border around the coastline of England with the felt-tip pen. He liked drawing maps, and he was good at it, both as a copyist and from memory. England, though, was always something of a challenge: it was so easy to make the fat peninsulas too thin and vice versa.
The coastline was finished, and he stopped for a moment. It was dark outside now, so he walked over to draw the curtains across the front windows. The sound of raucous laughter floated down the street; it was probably the youths with the motor bikes who habitually gathered outside the fish and chip shop. Thinking about the latter made Martin feel hungry, even though he’d only had supper an hour or so earlier. His father, brother and sister would be getting chips on their way home from the game, like they always did, but by the time they came through the front door the only thing left would be the smell on their hands.
It was no fun being the youngest. Still, next season he would be able to go with them to the evening games. His father had promised.
Martin stood by the table for a moment, wondering whether to ask his mother again whether he could watch TV with her. But she would only say no, and anyway he didn’t really want to – it was not being allowed that was so annoying.
He sat back down with his map, and started putting in red dots where all the First Division teams played. He had just put in the one for Norwich when there was a knock on the front door.
He hesitated in the doorway to the hall, but there was no sign of his mother coming out. It was probably only one of those political canvassers in any case, and Martin enjoyed telling them what he had once heard his father say: ‘A secret ballot should be just that!’
He walked towards the door, noticing the shadow through the leaded glass, and pulled it open.
Almost