by A P Bateman
Big Dave was changing over to a new magazine. He nodded towards the doors. “Another man in there!” he shouted, taking up cover behind the mangled Jeep that had jammed in the electric doors. “But all these vehicles mean there’s going to be a reception committee waiting for us!”
Rashid nodded. He picked up the dead man’s weapon and helped himself to two spare magazines. Once bitten, twice shy and he was done with the massive shotgun. He dropped it on the ground and shouldered the M4. The hangar was almost three-hundred metres across, and the M4 would do just fine. “Stay on my six!” he shouted. “I’ll take point.”
Big Dave nodded, glancing in the direction Rashid had come. “Mick and Powell are thirty-seconds out.”
“They’ll have to catch up!” Rashid snapped and climbed over the Jeep, sliding over the bonnet and keeping the front of the vehicle as cover.
There were men checking weapons, reloading and regrouping at the far end of the hangar. They looked up at Rashid, then back at the open doorway that a few of the men were aiming through. Rashid hesitated, then realised he’d been given a gift. He waited for Big Dave to climb over, then saw the other two SAS men arrive, red-faced and short on breath. Both men adjusted their kit, subconsciously checked the magazine fit and eased the closed breach back a touch to see the shell.
“They think we’re their mates,” Rashid said quietly.
“Let’s take the fuckers down, then!” Big Dave said gleefully, and was off, running across the three-hundred metres or so towards at least a dozen men.
“Shit!” Rashid shouted as he watched the big man take-off. “On me! On me!”
Rashid sprinted out from cover and Tattooed Mick and Powell climbed over the Jeep and fell in behind. A few of the men watched, but still they turned back to the fight, which was sporadic, with what sounded like a few mere pot-shots being returned at them. Confidence was growing, and the men took cover less, stood confidently in the doorway and unleashed a full magazine into the corridor. They reloaded casually and waited their turn to fire. They looked like they had all but beaten their enemy into submission.
Chapter Fifty-Five
King checked the Sig Sauer. He had five rounds remaining. He had emptied the assault rifle and had admitted to himself that he was out of options. But five bullets meant he could take five more before they got to him. But they would have to come to him, now. He wasn’t going to fire until he had a target. He would never have contemplated using a bullet on himself. MI6 had issued him with cyanide pills at one stage, but he had never carried them. He would always take a chance and see how fate played out.
He eased around the corner on the downward side. A shot rang out and he ducked back into his sanctuary. As he suspected, only a couple of armed men at most. And from the return of fire, he guessed they were as low on ammunition as himself. They had certainly lit up the corridor and pumped a lot of lead his way. At one moment, he had merely three-feet of space that gave him sanctuary from both directions, but it would seem now that the men were communicating with each other, because the last few times he had fired, the men in the opposite direction had opened-up a volley, hoping to catch him with ricochets.
“Give it up, King!” King smirked upon hearing Johnson’s voice echoing from down the tunnel. “There’s a lot of firepower heading down your way in a minute. My boys are getting ready to launch an assault!”
“Thanks for the heads-up,” King said quietly, not caring that Johnson hadn’t heard him. Maybe the Men in Black wannabe would come and check things out for himself. King had five reasons why he’d like that scenario. He cupped a hand and shouted, “I’ll give you the chance to surrender, Johnson! Just throw out your weapon and walk up to me!”
“Still a funny guy, eh? Well, that will change in a minute!”
King heard another barrage of gunfire, and then the rate and ferocity increased, but no bullets came down the tunnel towards him. He could hear the shouts and cries of battle, and with that, he edged up the tunnel and peeked out from the corner. The battle was taking place in the hangar. And that gave King an idea.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Big Dave had made it half-way across the floorspace before Rashid had caught up, cursed him and overtaken him. He fumbled out one of the spare magazines and kept it in his hand as he slowed and dived onto his stomach, taking up aim with the rifle. He started to fire single, aimed shots at the men and they fell one-by-one. Big Dave dropped to one knee and started to fire. He was on double-oh-buckshot and each time he squeezed the trigger, nine 8mm balls left the barrel at five-hundred-and-fifty feet per second. Slow compared to the three-thousand or so from the 5.56mm M4 rifle in Rashid’s hands, but this was like comparing a spiked club to a surgeon’s scalpel. The job was getting done.
Tattooed Mick and Powell were now laying prone and taking up fire, both men using alternated stacks in their magazines. Buckshot and solid rifled slugs taking casualties as the men returned fire. The surprise had worked, the shotguns and their devastating spread of shot taking the men down with impunity. Rashid’s aimed shots were working at one-shot-one-kill, and it wasn’t long before a few of the remaining men were tentatively holding up their hands, still unsure whether to go all in and actually commit to dropping their weapons. It was a difficult thing to do, survival instinct always telling you that there was still a chance, when rationality said chance had left the building long ago.
“Cease fire!” Rashid yelled. “Cease fire!”
The gunfire slowed, then stopped altogether. All the men waiting for the other to start firing again, and the men in their sights to make a wrong move.
“Drop your weapons and place your hands on your heads!” Rashid shouted. The men glanced at one another, their eyes lowering to survey the grisly scene of the dead and wounded on the ground. “Do it now!”
The first of the guns clattered to the ground, and a few more followed suit. Four in total. The men placed their hands on their heads with fingers linked. They looked like prisoners of war everywhere – subdued and unable to comprehend how it hadn’t gone their way. There were nine men on the ground and six of them were not going anywhere. Only time would tell with the other three.
There was the sound of shouts from the corridor, a gunshot, then nothing else. Rashid got up and walked forwards. He kicked the AR rifles backwards, where Powell kicked them further into the hangar. “Stay here,” he said to Powell. “Keep them covered but let them tend to their mates’ injuries. There’s still a threat from in there, we need to keep up momentum.”
Powell nodded, then swung his weapon towards a door that was opening tentatively. The doctor stepped out, his hands raised in front of him, his medical bag in his right hand. He looked at the men on the ground, shook his head in dismay.
“Who are you?” Rashid asked, taking the bag off him and opening it. He pushed the bag back across the floor to him.
“Simpson,” he replied. “I’m the doctor.”
“Well, get busy, then. Your men will help you, but rest assure, if anyone tries anything stupid, my man here will finish what we started.”
The doctor looked at Rashid with disgust and said, “I have no doubt about that.”
“Yeah? Well, you’re not all that, either,” Rashid said, changing over the magazine to his weapon. “Otherwise you’d be in a nice hospital in an affluent area with your own parking space and a nurse on speed-dial for a fuck-buddy.” He turned to Big Dave and Tattooed Mick and said, “Right, lads. On me.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
King had acted as soon as the gunfire had died down. He had perfected his generic American accent for the first part of his infiltration, and he reverted easily enough, casting his voice down the passageway and shouting that the prisoner was dead and the corridor secure. He waited, the Sig held firmly and aimed at the edge of the bend.
Two men showed themselves and King shot the first man between the eyes, held the weapon steady on the second. “Drop it!”
Johnson hesitated for a second, then d
ropped the Glock on the ground, raised his hands cautiously, looking down at the man dying at his feet. “Bastard…” he said quietly.
King shrugged. “Big boy’s games, big boy’s rules.”
“What the hell do you want here?”
“Former General Vladimir Zukovsky. Ex-KGB and FSB.”
“Not one of mine.”
“But you know him?”
“Yes.”
“Whose is he?”
“CIA.”
“Well, he’s MI5’s now,” King paused. “Again.”
“So, that’s it?”
“Get him out.”
“And you walk away?” Johnson scoffed. “You’ll start a war between our two nations, and we won’t win until lunchtime the same day.”
“Your grasp of history leaves a lot to be desired. America’s wars are far from quick, and don’t always lead to victory,” King paused. “And we’d never go to war. Not over something like this. A few dead, a few injured. You guys killed more of our troops in Iraq with friendly fire.”
Johnson shrugged. “And you’re claiming back your asset and walking away?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
Johnson shook his head. “You don’t know what you’ve started.”
“Finished,” King corrected him. “Your lot started it when they took advantage of our good nature. But no, you had to be top-dog. Take him out the country, whisk him away to your secret prison.”
“Not so secret now,” Johnson said. “And nor will what’s happened here be. You Limey assholes have dug your own graves.”
“Plenty of room in a grave for two,” King quipped and pushed him backwards. “Now, release my prisoner, or join your buddy down there.” He nodded to the corpse which had stopped twitching and bleeding. “Now, or I swear I’ll do it.”
Johnson nodded and turned away. He led King down the corridor to a door, just before the main body of cells. He opened the door, the muzzle of the pistol pressed firmly into the back of his neck. “Okay, you win. I won’t try anything.”
The room was about ten by twenty with chairs and a table, coffee machine and some magazines and paperbacks piled high. There were batons and handcuffs on a set of shelves and a panel of Tasers and two-way radios on charge. One wall housed a bank of CCTV monitors and a control panel with numbered switches. King could see Rashid and two others edging down the corridor on one of the monitors. A door opened, and the men fired. The sound resonated down the corridor to them a second later. The door was the one King had thrown the petrol can to, and the man who had shut himself in had chosen the wrong time to play peekaboo. Rashid was crouched beside the door and the big black man was readying himself for a kick. King could see the empty mess hall, the cavernous rec-room and the shower block. The thought of what Johnson had planned for him down there at the hands of the white supremacists filled him with bile and a flutter to his stomach.
Johnson found the cell and opened the door. King could see Zukovsky stand and look at the door. The man was hesitant, scared even. A shadow of his former self. And King liked that. The man was pure evil and would have delighted in killing millions in his failed attempt to detonate old Soviet-stock plutonium secreted in Britain during the Cold War. And what he had been part of, perhaps even masterminding, all those years ago and now near-perfected in a secret facility near the Finnish border in Russia, showed his pure and unadulterated hate of the West. King would never allow him to succeed.
“Let’s go,” said King and pushed Johnson ahead of him. He paused by the shelves and took two sets of handcuffs and a set of keys. He held out a pair of cuffs and said, “You know the score.”
Johnson scowled as he put the first bracelet on, then King spun him around and cuffed the other behind the man’s back. He pushed him onwards and they walked the fifty-metres or so to Zukovsky’s cell, where the man stood in the doorway, peering out.
“You?” he said, bewilderment giving way to incredulity.
“Who else?” King tossed him the other set of cuffs. Zukovsky started to put them on, but King pushed Johnson aside and reemed the bracelet on tightly and spun the Russian around, before trussing him up like Johnson. “Now move! Out and to the left!”
Both men walked ahead of King out of the cell and into the corridor. King checked right, then followed his two prisoners. When they reached the control room, King gripped Zukovsky’s shoulder and pushed him down onto his knees. “Take a break,” he said. The Russian dropped down and looked up at him. He seemed to accept the inevitable, but his eyes never left the pistol in King’s hand. King knew that the man thought the end had come, and he didn’t see the need to assuage his fears. He held the pistol on Johnson and said, “Kneel.”
“No… don’t…”
King shoved him into the wall, gripped the back of the man’s neck and pressed him down to the floor. “Stay still.”
King stepped into the control room. He glanced at the bank of monitors and could see Rashid and the two SAS men starting down the corridor. It looked as if they had subdued and secured the man with duct-tape. King picked up a chair, a baton and another set of handcuffs, then returned to the two men waiting outside. He slung the chair towards Johnson and said, “Take a seat.” The old agent got off the floor, his knee clicking in protest. He sat down on the chair, wearing an expression of bewilderment. King secured the cuffs around the chair and locked the other bracelet around the handcuffs securing his wrists. He wasn’t going anywhere. King dropped the baton beside his feet.
“What are you doing?” he protested.
King stepped back inside the control room and flicked a switch on the board marked ‘All Cells’. There was the sound of locks opening in unison, doors opening automatically. King stepped back out into the corridor and said, “Just letting some of your friends out to play.”
“No!” Johnson rocked on the chair. He shook his head, pleading with King. “It wasn’t personal! I have a job to do. Not just me, but others too! This isn’t my place! The CIA, FBI and Secret Service all have a stake here, as well as us!”
King nodded. “Well, this is personal,” he said. “But I’d prefer you to get what’s coming to you from the scum in here rather than me waste a bullet on you.”
Zukovsky was smiling, clearly enjoying witnessing the man’s fate. King pulled him up and pushed him down the corridor. He didn’t look back, despite Johnson’s protests. He could hear shouts behind him, the sound of a group of men with hate in their hearts and an opportunity too good to miss. Johnson screamed, but King did not care. He shouted ahead of him, warning Rashid he was coming toward them. “Rashid, it’s King, don’t shoot! I have the asset with me!”
King eased around the bend, saw three muzzles at head level. They lowered one-by-one. Rashid stepped forwards and hugged King.
“I was worried I wouldn’t see you again,” he said, then glanced at Zukovsky before looking back at King. “Fuck me, I can’t believe we did it.”
“We’re not done yet,” said King, breaking away and nodding at the other two men. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Clear down there?” Rashid asked, nodding in the direction of the screams.
“Nothing to worry about down there, mate,” said King. “Just cleaning house, that’s all.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
“I want to get into the fight!” Caroline snapped.
Ramsay shook his head. “How many times?” he asked. “Just wait!”
Caroline carried the BR99, holding it in both hands. It was a large weapon for someone her size. She wore one of the tactical vests and it was a little loose on her. She watched Marnie as she worked on the laptop and studied the screen.
She said into the mouthpiece, “The satellite has completed its pass. There’s no more real-time footage, but I’m getting the last of the static images now… we have two men on foot, not far from our position. A vehicle East of here. I didn’t notice it before. It’s parked up, judging from the tyre tracks on the grass.”
&nb
sp; “Might be a good time for you to check on these two men,” Ramsay said to Caroline.
Caroline nodded, checked the screen. She got a surprise at just how close they were. She spun around, saw movement in a bank of long grass. The gunshot came before she could find a target.
“Down!” she screamed behind her.
Ramsay ducked down beside the wheel of the Yukon and Marnie flung herself inside. Caroline sent a volley of five rounds into the grass, then backed up behind the bonnet of the large SUV and fired five more. There was a scream and a return of fire. Caroline reloaded the weapon, struggling with the weight and clunky magazine change. The cocking lever held back after the last shot, but like the AR it was based on, she hit the button on the other side of the frame with her palm and the bolt dropped and chambered the cartridge. She took aim again, this time she had loaded up with solid slugs. She could see a figure in the grass through the x4 scope and fired two shots. Both hit, and once she had recovered from the savage recoil, she re-aimed and could see the damage done in the scope. She did not dwell on it, merely searched for the other target.