First Casualty (The Gabriel Wolfe Thrillers Book 4)

by Andy Maslen

  “Hey white man! You like it? She my baby. Not that Russian shit. Not Chinese, neither. Know what she is?” Gabriel did, having a photographic memory for infantry weapons, no matter who’d made them, but he kept his mouth shut. The man swaggered over and stuck the muzzle of the gun into Gabriel’s face. “South African. How about that? SS-77. Seven-point-six-two.”

  “Very impressive. Strange weapon for a fighter like you to end up with.”

  The man laughed. A deep, throaty rumble. “Bought it. All legal. One of them Afrikaners raising money for their cause down south. Then I tried it out on him and got my money back, eh boys?”

  He turned around and grinned at his comrades who obliged with a chorus of mocking laughter directed at the presumably dead Afrikaner gun dealer.

  Then he turned back to Gabriel.

  “Maybe I should try it out on you, too. What you say?”

  “I say I’m worth more to you alive than dead. I’m British. On government business.”

  The tall man, who with every utterance seemed more likely to be their leader, paused. He scratched his chin with an exaggerated, theatrical flourish and looked upwards, pouting, as if pondering a philosophical point.

  He looked back at Gabriel. Then down at his leg.

  “What’s that, one of our AKs? Must be hurting quite a bit, no?”

  “I’ve had worse. I took a hit from a bullet ant in Brazil. Now that did sting.”

  The man reached down and prodded the field dressing with a long finger, making Gabriel flinch with the pain. “Well now. We can’t have you saying us Mozambican boys don’t know how to shoot properly, can we?”

  Then without any warning he took a step back and kicked Gabriel hard, over the entry wound.

  Gabriel screamed and fell over sideways clutching his thigh with both hands as fresh blood welled through the thick pad of cotton and out from under its edges.

  The laughter was genuine this time, and his tormentor took a bow as they clapped and whistled and stamped their booted feet.

  Gabriel could feel reality slipping away. The pain had set off flares in his head and the laughter had taken on an echoey quality as if heard from the other end of a tunnel.

  Come on Wolfe. Don’t go down without a fight.

  The machine-gunner strutted in a tight circle, encouraging the others with outspread hands, the SS-77 hanging from his shoulder on an improvised strap made from a leather belt. A couple of them had their hands resting on the crude wooden handles of their machetes. Still clutching his bleeding thigh, Gabriel edged his right hand down into his boot and closed his fingers on the hilt of his black ceramic tactical knife. He’d had the blade in the Parachute regiment, taken it with him into the SAS and then “forgotten” to hand it in when he left the Army for good.

  He was going to die, he knew that. But he was going to take a couple of the enemy down with him. He waited for the man to complete a revolution and end up back where he started, within an arm’s length of Gabriel’s right hand.

  In a continuous movement, Gabriel pulled the knife from its sheath inside his boot and brought it around in a flat, sweeping arc to slash the back of the man’s right ankle. He fell with a scream as his Achilles tendon parted with an audible snap. Gabriel’s blow also severed the man’s posterior tibial artery. Jets of bright scarlet blood sprayed out from the wound, covering Gabriel and several boy-soldiers with a mist of fine droplets.

  Gabriel reared up, leaned over the fallen man and stabbed through his right eye and down into his brain. The eyeball burst with an audible pop, and a squirt of clear liquid hit Gabriel in the face. The man jerked once with a great convulsion that arched his back almost double, then flopped, lifeless, onto the grass.

  Two or three of the other fighters surged forward, pulling pistols, aiming their Kalashnikovs, unsheathing their machetes. But a shout pulled them all up short. All eyes swivelled to the owner of the loud voice.

  Pushing her way through the wild-eyed fighters was a woman dressed in immaculately tailored olive-green trousers tucked into high, black combat boots glossy with polish. Her shirt was an exact match for the trousers, virtually uncreased and decorated with gold bands across the epaulettes, which were buttoned down beside her collar. Her hair was braided into dozens of long, knobbly strands, decorated with yellow, green and red glass beads. She was strikingly good-looking, with a wide mouth, elliptical gold-brown eyes and a short, straight nose with flaring nostrils.

  “That’s enough!” she yelled as she gained the centre of the group. “You! Stand up!” she shouted at Gabriel. “Now,” she added, as he struggled to his knees. She drew a revolver from a polished brown leather holster on her right hip. It was chromed, but he still recognised it: a Smith & Wesson Model 29.

  “Nice piece,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “This? Sure is. Takes forty-four magnum loads. Just like Dirty Harry, yes?”

  “You’re much better looking than Clint Eastwood.”

  She laughed at this. “I’m General Rambo’s second-in-command, you know that? And you flirting with me? In the middle of my forest? In the middle of my country?”

  “Why not? I imagine you’re going to kill me. I might as well enjoy my last moments.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re all out of moments. I liked Elijah,” she said, pointing at the lifeless machine-gunner at her feet. “He was a good fighter”.

  Then she straightened her right arm until Gabriel could look straight down the long barrel of the Model 29. He could see the blunt copper tips of the rounds in the cylinder’s chambers and fancied he could see the one that would shortly burst its way into his skull.

  Using her thumb to pull back the hammer, she cocked the pistol with a loud click. No need for that on a double-action gun like the Model 29, Gabriel thought. Just squeeze and keep squeezing. Guess it makes the kill more dramatic.

  He waited.

  His pulse was steady.

  Maybe this would be fine. To die out here, in the same patch of ground where he’d left Smudge.

  He closed his eyes.

  29

  The Third Ambush

  GABRIEL opened his eyes again. He stared at the woman holding the revolver. Deep into those gold-brown eyes. Then his eyes flicked upwards. He heard something. A deep chatter made by only one helicopter in the world. An Apache Gunship.

  Her eyes followed his.

  “Shit!” she shouted. “Take cover!”

  Leaving Gabriel tottering on his wounded leg, she turned and fled for the trees, followed by the rest of the gang, a couple of whom rashly started shooting upwards with their AK-47s as they retreated. All they were doing was giving the onboard heat-seeking targeting system something to lock onto.

  The big, angular chopper materialised low over the trees, low enough for Gabriel to see the markings on the side. They looked like US designations. Was someone, somewhere, looking after him? He had no time to think. With the Apache’s nose tilted forward, the co-pilot opened up with the 30 mm M230 chain gun.

  Like a swarm of flaming mad hornets, thousands of red-hot rounds poured down into the trees sheltering the militia fighters. The tall palms and deciduous trees were shredded in seconds, branches crashing to the ground and burying the unfortunate platoon of Rock and Roll Boys. And Girl.

  Gabriel fell to the ground and rolled and scrambled as fast as possible away from their hiding place. He knew he’d be safe: the gunner would have infra-red, computer-guided targeting software, maybe even locking the 30 mm cannon to his own helmet position; so as long as kept down and still, he’d be OK.

  After what felt like minutes, but was in all probability only ten seconds, the gun fell silent. Gabriel had found a huge section of rotted log on the edge of a dried-out mud wallow and hauled himself behind it. He had a feeling the Apache crew weren’t finished. He was right.

  The gunner fired a missile from one of the mounts under the stubby wing pylons. With a whistling roar, one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of Hellfire air-to-ground missile curved
down from the Apache, trailing white smoke from its rocket motor, and detonated in the centre of the now flattened stand of trees with a devastatingly loud explosion.

  The flash was so bright, Gabriel was temporarily blinded, even with his head covered by his arms. A fine rain of wood chips, mud and red specks of vaporised fighters drifted across from the blast site and coated Gabriel in a slimy mess that stuck to his sweaty skin. It smelled bad: burnt flesh, stagnant water and rot. General Rambo’s fighters would be taking no further part in their conflict over land, drug supply routes or whatever lay at the heart of their fight with their rivals in this part of Mozambique.

  A man’s voice, an American voice, amplified and distorted by a loudspeaker, boomed down at the clearing. The voice was coming from the Apache.

  “Gabriel Wolfe, identify yourself. This is US Marine Corps Lieutenant Todd Slater. Repeat. Gabriel Wolfe, identify yourself.”

  Gabriel struggled to his feet, grabbing at a six-foot length of broken branch at his feet and, using it as a makeshift crutch, hobbled into the centre of the clearing. He held his free arm upwards, palm out, and waved.

  He had to shield his eyes from the dust and fine grit sucked into the air by the Apache’s rotor blades. The broad leaves of the palm trees were thrashing around in the downdraft, adding their clatter to the chopper’s racket.

  The Apache hovered, not setting down. The loudspeaker was still switched on and he caught the end of an exchange between the man who’d spoken and somebody in a command centre. A second voice, heavily inflected with a Texan drawl, blared across the smoking clearing.

  “Gator Three this is Blue One. Visual confirmation, that’s your man. Gabriel Wolfe, British Intelligence. We’re sending a medevac chopper.”

  “Roger that, Blue One. Subject positive ID Gabriel Wolfe, British Intelligence. Medevac chopper en route. Maintaining cover. Gator Three out.”

  “Roger that, Gator Three. Blue One out.”

  “You hear that, sir?” the first man’s voice boomed down at him, the tone now more concerned than official. “You’re being pulled out. Stand by.”

  Gabriel waved again and limped back to his log to sit and wait.

  The Apache gained height but maintained its position directly over the clearing.

  Ten minutes later, the sound of another set of rotor blades mingled with the Apache’s, setting up a thumping, asynchronous beat that seemed to pulse inside Gabriel’s head.

  He looked up to see a green-painted helicopter swinging in from the west in preparation for a landing. He recognised it instantly. It was a Sikorsky HH-60 Pave Hawk. He’d sat in identical choppers in theatres of war from Latin America to the Balkans during his military career, either being dropped into hot zones or extracted from them once the fighting or intel-gathering was done.

  The pilot made a perfect three-point landing dead-centre in the clearing. From the open rear door jumped a tall, dark-skinned man in an olive-green flight suit. He ran over to Gabriel. Up close he wasn’t merely tall, he was a giant – over six feet six and built like a prop forward. His face was dominated by a huge, bushy moustache.

  He offered his hand, which Gabriel shook.

  “Mr Wolfe? Major Anthony Chilundika. I am with the Zambian Army, on, what shall we call it, a humanitarian mission?” He winked. “Would you come this way, please?” The warm, pleasant voice that emanated from the Major’s deep chest spoke of Oxford and Sandhurst.

  Gabriel took the arm that Major Chilundika had proffered and leaned heavily on the bigger man for support.

  “Thank you, but we can’t go yet. I came with a partner. She’s dead, over there. The militia got her.” He pointed with the broken branch at the spot beyond the clearing where Britta lay. “I want to take her body back with us. I’m not leaving her.”

  “This is most irregular,” Major Chilundika said. “My orders were quite specific on this point. One operative to be extracted.” Seeing the way Gabriel’s eyes flashed and his jaw clenched, the Major batted away an imaginary paper. “No matter. Take me to her.”

  Beyond the log where they’d taken fire, Britta lay still, just as he’d left her. The Major let go of Gabriel’s arm and knelt over Britta. He placed his ear against her chest and then took her pale wrist in his oversized hand, pressing the tips of his first and middle fingers firmly but gently against the mud-spattered skin on its inside.

  He paused for a few seconds, then looked up at Gabriel.

  “Forgive me, but your diagnostic skills are perhaps in need of refreshment. Your colleague is alive. I suspect she is in shock. She needs attention. We have a medic on the helicopter.”

  The Major unclipped a walkie-talkie from his belt and spoke briefly and clearly.

  “Medic! This is Major Chilundika. I need you here now, please. Bring your crash kit. Out.” Then he turned to Gabriel. “She will be fine. Now, let us get you back to the helicopter. By the look of that leg you need a little help yourself.”

  Suddenly, Gabriel became fully aware of the pain from his gunshot wound. Somewhere amongst the muscle and sinews of his thigh was a 7.62 mm Kalashnikov round and it hurt a lot worse than a bullet ant sting.

  “Actually, you’re right. I need to sit down.”

  With that, Gabriel let go of the improvised crutch and the major’s shoulder and collapsed into the red dirt.

  30

  Extracted

  “MR Wolfe, sir. Can you hear me?”

  Gabriel opened his eyes. The noise from the chopper’s rotors was deafening without a flight helmet and he had to crane his neck upwards to catch the Zambian major’s words. Chilundika smelled strongly of cologne, a lemony scent sharp against the background smells of aviation fuel, grease and the musty smell all military transports seemed to give out from their metalwork and canvas webbing.

  “How’s Britta?” he asked.

  “Your colleague is going to be fine. She must have fallen against that tree trunk. Our medic has just finished stitching her scalp. He pulled some bark from the wound. Just a mild concussion. No lead poisoning, eh?”

  Major Chilundika laughed, showing a wide row of even white teeth that flashed below his moustache. Gabriel made to push himself up onto his elbows, but the burly officer placed a huge, plate-like hand onto his sternum and forced him back to the floor of the helicopter.

  “I need to see her,” Gabriel said.

  “Then turn your head. There she is.”

  Gabriel did as Chilundika instructed. Britta lay with her head to one side so he could see her face. Her eyes were closed and she had a field dressing bandaged across the top of her head. He could see her chest rising and falling. He thought back to an earlier time when he had misdiagnosed death. Good job you’re not an undertaker, Wolfe. You’d be burying them alive.

  “How about me?” he asked, craning his head to look down at his thigh.

  “That is why you must lie still. No artery damage but we can’t have you capering around with a Kalashnikov round still inside you, now can we?”

  “How did you find us? And why were the Americans involved? Where are you taking us?”

  “So many questions! We found you because, very sensibly, you activated your personal GPS sets. We have been waiting for a signal since Colonel Webster informed us of your mission. Our American friends have been training the Zambian Army in search and rescue techniques. They were delighted to be able to participate in a live exercise. We are taking you to Mikango Barracks. We have an excellent trauma surgery team there. They will patch you up and once you are fit, they will discharge you and we can talk about where you go next. I assume you will wish to return to England?”

  “I’m not sure it’s going to be that simple.”

  “No?”

  “No. I have some unfinished business in Mozambique. The reason I came out in the first place.” And possibly in Zimbabwe, although I may need to call a friend first.

  “Oh, I think that would be most unwise. The Rock and Roll Boys are just one of a number of extremely well-armed and
aggressive gangs in this part of the country. I’m afraid I cannot permit you to return. I am sure Colonel Webster would feel exactly the same.”

  With that, Major Chilundika stood and went forward to talk to the pilots, leaving Gabriel under the watchful eye of the medical officer.

  *

  At the military hospital at Mikango Barracks, Britta and Gabriel were separated: she for brain scans, he for emergency surgery on the bullet wound in his thigh.

  Coming round from the anaesthetic, Gabriel sat up in bed, groaned at the pain in his head from the drugs and lay back down.

  “Hey!” he called in an urgent whisper. “Britta. You OK?”

  She stirred, brushing at some imaginary creature crawling over her cheek, and mumbled:

  “What? That you, Wolfe?”

  “Yes, it’s me. Jesus, I thought I’d lost you.”

  “Me, too. You, I mean.” She opened one blue eye and focused across the yard of space that separated their beds. “I thought they’d hit you and I stood up. I tripped and fell. Must have banged my head.” She reached up and touched the bandage across the top of her head, wincing as her fingertips instinctively found the tenderest spot under the dressing.

  “They think it’s just concussion,” Gabriel said.

  “How about you?”

  He reached under the covers to where the bandage covered his stitched-up leg, then turned his head to the bedside cabinet, where a Kalashnikov round, dark with his own, dried, blood, stood like a miniature copper obelisk in a glass petri dish. “I’m fine. Bullet’s out. Just a bit sore, that’s all.”