Pirate

by Duncan Falconer

  It was obvious that Sabarak was exulting in the menace and hate. He had finally taken the leap that he had looked forward to for so many years. He was among the fighters, the frontline troops of the jihad. Had Stratton been there, Sabarak would have thanked the Englishman for getting him to Somalia to be among the warriors. The Saudi was already planning for the future. The Somali front of the war on the West would expand. He had made a significant contribution by facilitating the plan that would signal a new offensive outside of the Muslim hubs in East Asia, the Middle East, Afghanistan and other parts of the world. He had been a major contributor to the hijack of the missiles. It was a very proud day for him. He could hardly have been more pleased. The icing on the cake would have been Stratton. But he had that to look forward to. The fool Lotto had no idea who he was dealing with. Sabarak would simply march into the town one day soon and take whatever prisoners he felt like. And he would do to them whatever he wanted.

  The jihadist came to a stop behind the Chinese man and slowly lowered the sword as he took the measure of the back of the man’s neck.

  The hate-filled crowd became silent in excited anticipation.

  The jihadist planted his feet and gripped the haft of the weapon, holding it firmly in his outstretched arms. Stratton could clearly see his face set into a determined grimace, his jaw clench in concentration. The jihadist shuffled his feet to widen his stance and slowly brought the sword up and back over his right shoulder. He held it there over the man whose head looked down and forward. The Chinese man had to be aware of what was happening, but he didn’t move. He stayed absolutely still, just the tiniest sway as he knelt.

  The jihadist held the position for several seconds, then he brought the blade down with all of his strength. It cut deep into the man’s flesh and vertebrae. But the blade failed to sever the head completely, the edge of it jamming in the bone. The man fell forward and landed on his face and rolled limply on to his side. Blood began to flow from the partially severed arteries. The sword had penetrated his spinal cord and paralysed his lower body although it had not yet killed him.

  The swordsman yanked out the blade and the crowd screamed as the man began to spasm. The girl looked away, unable to watch any more. The jihadist stepped quickly over him, hacking at the neck until the head came free. Then he leaned down and picked up the head by its hair and raised it high for all to see. The warriors roared again.

  Stratton stared at the clearing, not so much seeing as thinking, his head buzzing with anguish and intention. The raising up of the head delivered him from inaction. He picked up his rifle and moved the safety catch down two clicks to the single-shot pos -ition. ‘Get ready to run,’ he said in a slow, determined voice.

  The girl looked up at him. She looked towards the crowd. Then she looked back at him in horror. Panic spread across her face as she realised his intentions. She opened her mouth, wanting to say something, talk some sense into him. But she knew it was futile. She had been with him for little more than a day and already knew him well enough.

  The jihadist dropped the head on to the ground and turned his gaze to Hopper. He walked around the Englishman, blood dripping from his sword. Stratton did not take his eyes from his partner. When the swordsman stopped behind Hopper and planted his feet, the crowd fell quiet again.

  Hopper by now had a very good idea of his fate. He remained on his knees, back straight, shoulders back, chin out, his jaw tight. Impossibly still. His bloodied jaw began to quiver and then clench.

  The jihadist pushed Hopper’s head forward and down, then gripped the sword firmly. The way he shuffled and repositioned his feet suggested that he was determined to cut the head off with a single blow this time.

  But Stratton had other plans for him.

  The jihadist raised the sword over his head and held it as he had done before.

  Stratton aimed the rifle. He prayed that the old carbine was accurate and that the piece of crap would fire.

  The jihadist cocked the tip of the blade back a little, breathed in deep, gathered himself. He started his downward arc and Stratton squeezed the trigger of the Kalashnikov. The gun boomed in the operative’s hands disintegrating the silence and the round spat from muzzle to its target, jerking the jihadist’s head back as bloody detritus flew out of the exit hole and his body went limp. The sword fell from his hands into the dirt and he crumpled down on top of his own feet like a puppet that had had its strings cut.

  The crowd seemed to freeze as it fought to comprehend what had just happened. Then as one they became aware that an enemy was somewhere on the slope above them. They reacted in panic, running in search of cover.

  ‘Go!’ Stratton shouted.

  The girl scrambled up out of the cover of the rocks on to the incline.

  Stratton adjusted his sights and quickly found Sabarak but men were running across his front. The Saudi was looking in his direction. Sabarak began to run as Stratton fired. The round smacked past the Saudi, grazing his shoulder before punching into the back of a fighter.

  The crowd continued to disperse in every direction. Into the wood or to the foot of the slope. Which gave the girl the crucial seconds she needed to pull herself over the top of their position and get across the open ground. She cared nothing for the soles of her feet on the stony, dry ground, expecting a bullet to smash into her at any second. She fixed her eyes on the edge of the first ridge and ran for all she was worth.

  Sabarak pulled at the men around him in an effort to get through to the safety of the trees. Stratton fired again. The bullet slapped past Sabarak’s face and struck a man in the neck. The Saudi fought desperately to get out of the line of fire. He knew it was Stratton and knew he was the target. He felt like he was running in molasses, the time between the shots painfully long. He pushed his way in between the men in front of him. Stratton shot the man directly behind Sabarak to clear his field of fire. The target dropped but another replaced him. Stratton shot him too but by the time he had fallen away, there was another where Sabarak should have been. Stratton lowered the weapon to get a better look. The Saudi had gone.

  By then, many of the fighters had taken up firing positions in the dirt and were training their weapons up the slope. Stratton’s eyes fell on Hopper, who had not moved, kneeling in the middle of the clearing, a lone figure surrounded by mayhem and bodies, with a headless corpse beside him. Hopper was clearly confused but doing what he knew was best in such a situation and that was to remain still. If it was a rescue attempt, the rescuers knew precisely where he was and in the absence of any instruction from them he would remain still and avoid getting in the way.

  The only thing Stratton could now do for Hopper was obvious enough. The only humane thing he could think of doing. Hopper’s fate had been truly sealed the second Stratton fired.

  A round came Stratton’s way, the first return of fire, thudding into the rock a foot from his head. He didn’t move other than to raise the barrel of the carbine and set the sights on Hopper.

  Another bullet screamed at him, ricocheting close by. As a another struck close to him, he placed Hopper’s head in the sight picture. Hopper still hadn’t moved but he was swaying. Stratton breathed out, then he pulled the trigger, dropping to the ground at the same instant he fired as a volley peppered the rocks around him.

  He remained there for a few seconds. The jihadists loosed off wild fire in his direction. But he needed to know Hopper was down. Stratton wanted confirmation. The retribution Hopper could expect would be torturous and malicious. So he had to know he hadn’t missed. He had aimed for Hopper’s head when he fired. He was certain he had struck him. There was a possibility he had flinched as he pulled the trigger but he doubted it. But he realised he could do no more if he was to have any chance of surviving himself.

  He gripped the rifle in one hand, moved the safety catch back one click into the fully automatic fire position and put a finger on the trigger. He took a deep breath, aware that it might well be one of his last, and scrambled around the back o
f the boulder. Without a pause, he stepped out from cover, held the rifle in his outstretched hand, aimed the barrel towards the clearing and fired, running along the incline.

  10

  The enemy’s reaction to Stratton’s charge from cover was slow, possibly because several of his rounds found their marks in the crowd of men. The clearing offered the fighters little protection. Shouts went up as fighters tried to warn of the enemy sighting but the majority of the jihadists reacted with unrestrained hysteria and anger and a lust for revenge.

  It felt to Stratton like he had been running in the exposed open for minutes. He failed to see how they couldn’t bring him down. Several rounds struck the ground around his feet, kicking up dirt and stones. He had expended his ammunition in the first few metres and ditched the weapon because it slowed him down. He felt sure a concentrated volley would hit him before he reached the crest. As another round struck close by, he threw himself to the ground and rolled downhill to break up his predictable direction. A cloud of bullets ripped up the slope where he had been an instant earlier.

  Up he sprang. The crest was metres away. A bullet slammed across his back. He felt it burn like a branding iron. Another bullet hit his lower leg somewhere but his movement was not affected. He dived for the ridge and rolled over it. Bullets tore up the crest behind him. He scrambled to his feet and pushed on.

  He could see the girl further down the slope running as fast as she could. She glanced back to see Stratton coming after her and as she faced the front again she tripped and went sprawling down the slope. Dazed, she clambered to her feet just as Stratton caught up with her. He grabbed her shirt and yanked her on, keeping hold of her until she was running with him.

  They heard the crash of rifle fire in their direction and the sound of bullets slashing into the ground nearby. Stratton couldn’t feel the pain in his back and leg, his adrenaline pumping hard through his veins. He wondered if the warriors would use the pick-ups. All the more reason for them to get to the river as soon as humanly possible.

  They came to the bottom of the trough and ran hard to the top of the next rise. A handful of jihadists had made it to the crest behind them and opened fire. Stratton heard the girl make a grunting sound behind him. He quickly looked back to see if she had been hit. She appeared to have twisted her ankle but not enough to slow her by much and she soon recovered to keep up with him.

  As several more rounds struck around them, they tore over the crest and down the other side. Out of sight of their pursuers. But not for long if they didn’t keep up the pace.

  Their next target was a couple of hundred metres away. The ground levelled out as they headed for the river. Dense scrub covered the broad lowland plain up ahead. Thin and patchy knee-high bushes grew on the outskirts but thick foliage was not far beyond.

  They reached the low brush without a shot being fired at them. Stratton could feel his heart pounding in his chest with the effort but he would keep up the pace until it exploded. It was that or a bullet in the back.

  The rounds came at them again but sporadic and poorly aimed. Only a handful of the faster warriors had made it to the rise behind them and these men were not great shots. The AK-47 wasn’t accurate at long range.

  The denser bushes looked like a dark-green wall and Stratton crashed right through, the brittle twigs painfully scratching and cutting his skin. The girl followed his path and although spared having to make the way through was whipped heavily by the catapulting branches he created.

  Running quickly became impossible as the scrub density increased. They maintained as fast a walk as they could. Pushing their way through. The bushes were now above their waists but they were still targets. They finally made the higher foliage and went inside. The density only increased. They were making a lot of noise. Stratton was aware that at some point they would have to compromise speed for sound and reduced disturbance – the moving tops of the bushes would give away their position. He wanted to get closer to the river before they went to ground so that they could quench their thirsts. He knew that however bad he felt, the girl was going to be in a far worse state. He could feel and hear she was close by and still pushing on relentlessly.

  Stratton crouched lower and they struck some really thick scrub so he paused to catch his breath and assess the situation. He could hear the jihadists crashing through the bush back where they had entered the mass. The thick bushes ahead of them were like barbed wire: hard to get through but still easy enough to see through. They didn’t provide great cover from view. If anyone came within ten metres or so, they were likely to see them.

  They had to remove the evidence of their train and Stratton got down on to his belly and began crawling between the bushes. The girl followed.

  A sudden crash from a nearby flank and Stratton and the girl stopped moving. Several fighters were attempting to push through to their right. Voices followed. They were close. The snapping sounds increased but gradually began heading away.

  Stratton examined the way ahead. ‘How you doing?’ he whispered.

  She nodded. Her face was freshly cut in places and she looked exhausted. But the fight was still in her eyes.

  ‘We can survive this,’ he said. ‘Come nightfall, we’ll get back to the coast.’

  She took encouragement from his words. ‘I’ll be OK.’

  ‘Let’s take it nice and easy and head for the river.’ If the water’s not far out in the open, he added to himself.

  He looked for the sun through the branches to get his bearings. If they kept in an easterly direction they should cut across the river, which ran north–south.

  Staying on their bellies, they manoeuvred around the obstacles. They could hear movement around them and occasional shouts like the warriors had found their trail. But as time went on the voices and movement came from further away. Stratton’s confidence increased, for the time being at least. The enemy obviously knew they were in the immediate area because there was nowhere else for them to go without becoming exposed. But the densely covered plain was large and as the jihadists broadened their search area, the chances of finding the pair would be reduced.

  Stratton and the girl pressed on ahead at an easy pace, pausing every now and then to take a breather and listen. The sound of enemy searchers grew less. The air was warm and felt much more humid than in the town. Both were feeling desperate for a drink. Stratton crawled around the base of a tree and as he carefully parted a clump of bushes, it looked clearer up ahead. He hoped the riverbed was close, but more importantly, that it wasn’t dry at that point. If so they were going to spend a very uncomfortable day waiting for the sun to go down.

  As he crawled closer to the edge of the scrub, to his immense relief he could see water ahead, shimmering under the cloudless sky. He crawled to the edge of the line of bushes. The riverbank was within a few metres, the water’s edge a few paces further beyond. The opposite bank looked a good hundred metres or so away. He got up on to his knees and looked as far up and down the river as he could, expecting to see evidence of the jihadists. There was none. But that didn’t mean they weren’t there. He would have placed observation posts at various locations to watch for anyone emerging from the scrub. The same dense bushes covered the ground beyond the other side of the river.

  Stratton contemplated the risk of getting a drink there and then or waiting until darkness. The latter would be the wisest choice. But they would be in a weakened state by then. He did not think the Somalis were particularly diligent. But the risk was still too great.

  He eased himself up on to his feet to get a better look around. The river, or lake as it was then, stretched out of view in both directions. It was indeed a large body of water. He wasn’t encouraged by the smell of the air and hoped it wasn’t the water.

  Stratton gauged the position of the sun. It had to be close to midday. He looked at the girl to see her staring at the water. ‘We can’t risk it,’ he said.

  She didn’t argue, knowing he was right. She would happily suffer the pai
n and mental anguish of thirst in place of the consequences of being caught.

  ‘Another six hours and the sun will begin to set,’ he said. ‘We’ll head back into the bush in case they patrol the bank. As soon as the sun drops, we’ll get a drink and head for the coast.’

  ‘Your back,’ she said, her voice raspy.

  Stratton had forgotten about his wounds. Both had stopped hurting. He went to check his leg and for a second had to think which one it was. He found the wound on the back of his right calf, an ugly cut but a large scab had already formed. As he examined it, the calf began to throb once again.

  ‘Let me look at your back,’ she said, noticing the bloodstain that ran down on to his trousers.

  Stratton started to remove his shirt but it was stuck to his back. As he pulled it off, the wound began to throb near his right shoulder blade.

  ‘It’s bleeding a little,’ she said as she used a corner of his shirt to dab it. ‘You were lucky.’

  ‘I have often been told that. But if I am lucky, how did I get into this mess in the first place?’

  ‘You put a lot of effort into it,’ she said. ‘It will add to all the other scars you have.’

  He pulled the shirt back on, impressed with her attitude. They were still in great danger and the odds on her getting out of Somalia alive were not good. ‘Come on,’ he said, preparing to make his way back through the bush on his knees. ‘If we can sleep, it will help ease the pain.’

  She followed him. When they were several metres inside the scrub, he dropped down in the dirt and forced his body to relax completely. She lowered her head on to the sandy soil and did the same. Her eyes closed and she fell into an immediate sleep. Flies landed on her face, exploring her eyes and the wounds on her mouth, but she didn’t move.