Rogue

by James Swallow

‘Gear in the jeep,’ added the Finn.

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  Marc carried the ammo crate into the petrol station’s tiny, oil-reeking garage, and found the vehicle in question, with its bonnet raised and one wheel off at the axle.

  As Lucy had mentioned, the jeep’s battery was missing, but the one in the Hummer had escaped major damage, so a straight exchange would be enough to get it running. Without being asked, Malte set to work replacing the wheel, while Marc circled the jeep, looking it over.

  Where the Hummer had been an armoured metal box on wheels, the skeletal 4 × 4 was totally open to the elements, with nothing but a windscreen and a tubular rollbar over the bucket seats. The rear section was an enclosed cargo box, the lid dominated by the logo of the Quirimbas National Park, and Marc flipped it open.

  He emptied it out, making space for the ammo crate and Assim’s remains. The contents were kit used by whatever park ranger the jeep belonged to: a field medical pack, survival gear and a pair of hard cases. Marc cracked open the first and found a collection of tubes inside.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Give.’

  Lucy saw something he didn’t, and plucked a telescopic sight from in among the components. Beneath the tubular sections were a trigger mechanism and a smaller box containing heavy aluminium darts with colourful fibre flights.

  ‘This is more my speed,’ she said, assembling the parts into a long rifle configuration.

  ‘It’s a tranquiliser gun,’ Marc realised, as it came together. ‘For tigers, that kind of thing?’

  ‘Only lions here, no tigers,’ Malte offered as he worked.

  Lucy racked a dart into the chamber and peered down the sight.

  ‘Yeah, I can work with this.’

  Marc opened the second case, and found a second dissembled firearm, but this one was bulkier, and instead of ending in a gun barrel, the device mounted a net projector containing a web of unbreakable nylon strands.

  ‘Not a rocket launcher, then. Pity.’

  ‘Can’t have everything,’ said Lucy.

  Marc looked up as Solomon came into the barn-like space.

  ‘If we’re agreed on this, we need a plan of attack. Because making it up on the fly isn’t going to work this time, and if our luck is going to run out anywhere, tonight’s the night.’

  They looked to Solomon, but he nodded back to Marc, tacitly ceding the decision to him.

  ‘Mr Dane, you have a proven talent for adaptability. What do you propose?’

  Marc took in the workshop, scanning the room for whatever they could use. Racks of rusty tools and grubby spares hung next to paint-stained tarpaulins and cans of engine oil.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, after a long moment. ‘I’ve got some ideas.’

  *

  ‘There,’ called the gunner, ‘civilian structure, near the highway.’ He peered into the hood over the FLIR sensor’s repeater screen. ‘I see the target vehicle, but no signs of movement.’

  ‘Show me,’ began Simbarashe, but Khadir stood up and pushed past him, once more making it clear who was in command aboard the helicopter. The colonel met his gaze, and decided it was better to remain in his seat.

  Khadir leaned into the cockpit. The Hind was running dark, the only illumination coming from the soft glow of the pilot’s instruments, and outside the bubble canopy the night was ink-black.

  The gunship’s pilot nodded in the direction of the target, his bulky flight helmet exaggerating the motion. The boxy cluster of buildings appeared small and toy-like from overhead, but Khadir could pick out the bulk of Simbarashe’s gaudy SUV parked on the forecourt. Behind him, he heard the colonel call out, seeing the same thing through the crew cabin’s portholes.

  ‘Are they even in there?’ said the pilot.

  A hard-faced man in his forties, he had a gruff Afrikaans accent, and like the gunner, he was a local soldier of fortune hired on by Saito. He gave Khadir a sideways look.

  ‘Circle around,’ he ordered.

  The pilot did as he was told, orbiting the Hind about the petrol station at a distance, keeping it nose-on to the building.

  Without warning, the lights in the building went out, plunging the surroundings into darkness.

  ‘That answers my question.’ The pilot nodded at the gunner. ‘You want he should use the gun, yah? We can strafe that place. Or the rockets. Blow it apart, easy.’

  ‘Tempting,’ noted Khadir. But he had not come this far to put an end to Rubicon’s meddling by striking from a distance. ‘This must be done face to face.’ He pointed down. ‘Put us on the ground and be ready to lift off again at a moment’s notice.’

  ‘Got it.’

  The pilot nodded his assent, and pulled the Hind away from the highway, out of small arms range and down towards the only patch of open ground.

  ‘Weapons ready,’ Khadir ordered, dropping back into the cabin.

  Cord, Vine and Grace double-checked their gear, and the woman pulled low-light goggle rigs from a container beneath her seat, distributing them to the team. Simbarashe held out his hand, expecting to be given a set, but she presented him a mock-sorrowful look.

  ‘Sorry, handsome, not enough for everyone.’

  The colonel scowled and said something low and sneering to his own men. The three militia soldiers wore the same wary expression, equally suspicious of the Combine operatives as they were of their shared enemy.

  Simbarashe turned his glare on Khadir as the helicopter touched down and Vine kicked open the hatch.

  ‘My men are capable fighters!’ he shouted. ‘You will respect them!’

  Khadir indicated the hatch.

  ‘Then by all means, proceed.’

  Simbarashe gave another order, and the soldiers boiled out of the cabin. Khadir and the colonel were the last to disembark, and as his boots hit the dirt, he pulled his night vision optics down over his eyes. The landscape was revealed in shades of grey, white and black, and ahead the figures of the militiamen showed up as bright blobs of body heat.

  The soldiers advanced cautiously through the patchy scrub towards the roadway, leading with their rifles, but they showed poor discipline and moved too close together.

  Spreading out from under the disc of the gunship’s idling rotors, Khadir and his team fell into a finger-four formation, wide enough apart that any aggressor would not easily be able to shoot more than one of them at a time.

  Simbarashe lagged back, staying uncomfortably close to Khadir.

  ‘What can you see?’ he demanded.

  Khadir ignored the question, and tried to put himself into the mindset of Solomon’s people. If he were defending this place, how would he face an assault force? The petrol station’s buildings were blank and empty-looking, the doors and windows black squares filled with shadows that his NVGs could not penetrate.

  They will draw us close, he decided. Engage only when a kill is certain.

  Solomon’s people would not be well equipped, of that he was certain. They had spotted the wreck of one of Simbarashe’s technicals several miles away, and Khadir noted that the guns had been looted.

  Assault rifles only. A maximum of four shooters.

  He smiled thinly. Simbarashe’s men would be good for something after all, drawing fire from Solomon’s people so that Khadir and the others could pinpoint their positions.

  The first of the militiamen reached the edge of the road, and broke into a run to get across the open space. His two comrades were close behind, dithering over the same decision, when Khadir saw a flicker of motion near the south edge of the main building. A shiny object described an arc through the air, hurled by some invisible hand from behind a low wall.

  It landed at the feet of the first soldier with a crash of breaking glass and a sudden whoosh of combustion. The object was a firebomb, throwing out a sphere of orange flames that caught the unlucky man along his left side, and he screamed into the night.

  More of the improvised weapons came out of cover in a quick volley, landing in a rough li
ne along the middle of the roadway between the attackers and their target. Each one hit the ground with a wet crash that birthed another patch of flames, and through Khadir’s low-light gear it was like looking into the sun. The writhing, dazzling whiteout instantly rendered the NVGs useless, destroying their tactical advantage. He pulled off the goggles, seeing Grace and the others do the same.

  ‘Clever,’ Khadir said to himself.

  He had used the exact same ploy against American Special Forces during attacks on their bases in the Middle East, robbing them of their ability to see in the dark. It was a good trick, but it worked both ways.

  If we cannot see through the fire, neither can they.

  The fallen militia soldier was on the ground, dragging himself through the dirt, trying to douse the flames. His screams were high and reedy, but they quickly faded, as did his movements.

  Khadir brought his rifle up to his shoulder, anticipating what would come next, and in the next second he saw flashes of yellow muzzle flare from both ends of the main building. He dropped into a crouch, noting single shots from the defenders’ weapons. Just as he thought, they were making each bullet count.

  Simbarashe’s remaining men had no such concerns, however, and they opened up on full automatic, peppering the crumbling concrete with wildfire bursts.

  Khadir estimated two shooters engaging them: one inside the building behind the solitary petrol pump, a second firing from the cover of the low wall. He cast around, searching for where the other two might be. The fact that he could not locate them was a serious concern. He threw a look back towards the waiting gunship, considering the pilot’s offer once more.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ Simbarashe called out; the colonel was down behind a low rock. He gripped his Russian-made sub-machine gun tightly, kneading the grip. ‘Shoot back!’

  As if to underline the point, he popped up and sprayed a loud burst from his weapon, more for show than effect.

  ‘Move in!’ The second command was directed towards his own men, and one of them obeyed.

  Firing from the hip, the militia soldier attempted to flank the shooter behind the wall, but he opened himself up to attack as he vaulted over a low ditch, and Khadir glimpsed a figure momentarily making themselves visible, long enough to put a snap-shot through the running man’s legs. The second militiaman went tumbling out of sight into the ditch and did not reappear.

  ‘On the right.’

  Khadir heard Cord’s voice through the radio bead in his ear, and spotted the mercenary on the run, as he jogged towards the ruined yellow vehicle standing half-off the highway.

  ‘Understood.’

  Khadir moved forward, and fired for the first time, putting paced shots towards the window in the building where rounds had been coming from. Off to his left, Vine covered his comrade, but Grace was still keeping low, seemingly reticent to give away her position.

  Simbarashe burst out of cover and fired with his Bizon, so close that the noise of the spent brass from his SMG clattered in Khadir’s ears.

  He kept his focus on the buildings, and saw movement towards the north edge, a brief shape passing before an open doorway. Shots burst from the darkness, the muzzle flash briefly illuminating a dark face, and Khadir realised that Cord’s advance had been spotted.

  ‘Cord, you are seen—!’

  His warning came too late. Before he could reach the cover of the Hummer, the mercenary’s head snapped back as if pulled on an invisible line, a spurt of fluid erupting from the back of his skull. It was an instant kill, clear as day, and Cord’s body dropped in a heap.

  ‘Lost a man,’ Vine reported, with clinical dispassion. ‘Shooter on the move. Flanking left.’

  Khadir saw him advance, as Grace jogged away in a quick spurt of movement, disappearing towards the opposite end of the building.

  ‘Wasting time . . .’

  Simbarashe’s gun was empty, and he threw away the Bizon’s cylindrical under-barrel magazine before slotting a fresh one into place.

  Khadir’s patience vanished in that instant, and he stepped to the other man, grabbing him by the strap of his plate carrier.

  ‘You have been away from the field of battle for a long time. Stay silent and let us work.’

  Simbarashe spluttered an angry retort, but Khadir had no time for his bluster in the middle of an active firefight. From the corner of his eye, he saw motion once more, but not inside the building. This time, the shadow was moving above, up on the edge of the wide, square-sided awning that hung out over the fuel pump and the abandoned vehicle.

  Someone up there. But how was that possible? The gunship’s infrared scope had swept the rooftop and seen nothing.

  He heard a chug of discharge, and a heavy dart came whistling down out of the dark, narrowly missing him. The projectile was large, and moving slow enough to see it as it blurred through the air. Up on the awning, heavy cloth crackled as it caught in the wind and he suddenly understood.

  It has to be the sniper, Keyes, hiding herself up there beneath some heavy oilcloth.

  ‘Release me!’ Simbarashe shouted, pulling at Khadir’s grip. He too had heard the dart speed past them and wanted to find cover.

  Khadir shoved him forward, knowing that the other man’s silhouette would eclipse his, as the next shot came and a second dart spun in towards them.

  The projectile hit Simbarashe in the throat with enough force to bury it in the soft tissues there. He dropped his gun and clutched at his neck as bright crimson jetted from the wound, fingers scrambling uselessly at the multicoloured flight at the end of the dart.

  Raising his carbine, Khadir fired bursts into the awning to discourage the sniper from attempting a third shot, as the colonel stumbled to the ground.

  He gave the wounded man a passing glance. Simbarashe’s armour vest, inadequate against the throat hit, was soaked with patches of blood, smeared across him as the colonel clawed at the thick dart.

  With the bellicose warlord finally silenced, Khadir walked on, leaving him to bleed out into the dirt.

  *

  The hardest part was hiding there, waiting. Not moving. Not daring to lift his head. Holding down the edges of the oily tarpaulin and hoping that this would work.

  When the Hind started in towards them, Marc threw himself into the gulley in the ground across from the petrol station, and pulled the heavy cloth over him. In daylight, it would have been lousy camouflage, but under full dark it could blend with the earth and keep him hidden.

  That’s the idea, anyway, he thought.

  But as the helicopter gunship circled overhead, Marc had a sudden, horrible vision of the Hind’s heavy downdraught blowing away his cover, leaving him exposed to that lethal chin turret.

  He clung to the edges of the tarp, willing it to stay put, and held on tight as the aircraft seemed to come down right on top of him. He’d picked out this hiding place because of its proximity to the nearby clearing, the best landing spot other than the road itself, gambling that the Hind’s pilot would choose it. Now Marc was wondering if he’d been too smart for his own good.

  Former Navy helicopter crewman crushed to death by helicopter.

  As manners of death went, there was an unpleasant irony in it. The ghosts of his old Fleet Air Arm crew would laugh at that.

  The noise of the Hind’s engine changed, downshifting from flight power to grounded idle, and the gusts from the rotors eased. Marc waited until he heard gunfire start up from the direction of the petrol station, before he dared to pull back the edge of the tarp and peek out of his dusty pit.

  He found the bug-eyed, crocodilian profile of the Russian chopper squatting roughly fifty metres from his position. The helicopter was parked nose-on towards the highway and perpendicular to Marc’s position, but the pilot had landed it much further back than he had anticipated. It was behind his hiding place, not in front of it.

  The moment Marc left the gulley, he would be in full view of the gunship’s crew, and the only cover in between were sparse
, dry bushes.

  ‘That’s not optimal,’ he said aloud, reaching behind him for his weapon, pulling it up into his hands by its nylon strap.

  Over on the road, he saw the flicker of fires and hazy shadows moving against the orange light and black smoke. Simbarashe’s precious canary-coloured Hummer had been hit by another improvised bomb and it was going up like a tinderbox.

  Would that be enough to draw the attention of the men in the cockpit?

  The only way to know was to go for it.

  ‘It’s only a last stand if you wind up dead.’

  Marc repeated Lucy’s words like they were a mantra, steeling himself for what would come next.

  He put the weapon over his shoulder and cinched the strap tight, then drew into a runner’s crouch, shifting his weight to push against the floor of the shallow gulley. On the road, the Hummer’s fuel tank burst with a thudding concussion and that was his starting gun.

  Marc vaulted out of the pit with all the speed he could manage, his boots biting into the dry earth as he surged up, out and away. Every primitive impulse for self-preservation screamed at him to go in the other direction and flee from the menacing form of the helicopter, but he went against that compulsion and sprinted across the rough ground towards it.

  Inside the fishbowl bubble of the forward cockpit, the Hind’s gunner reacted with a start, seeing the tarp flap away in the wind from the spinning rotors. He saw Marc immediately, and reacted with unpleasant speed.

  The long Yak-B Gatling gun in the Hind’s nose twitched into life and pivoted towards him, humming loudly as it spun up to firing speed.

  With a droning snarl, the cannon opened up as it continued to turn. A whip of searing tracer fire cut into the dirt as the gunner depressed the weapon to aim at his bolting target, carving a semicircle of molten divots out of the ruddy-coloured earth.

  Marc yelled as he felt the ground around him being churned into mud, the yowling of the rotary cannon buzzing in his bones. Then just as suddenly he was in the clear, sprinting over the uneven valley floor towards the rear of the helicopter. The chin gun could only turn so far in its forward arc, and the angle was too obtuse to traverse after him.