Last Man Standing

by Stephen Leather

  ‘Hold your fire, Matt,’ said Lieutenant Dunnett.

  Standing looked across at Bobby-Ray. Bobby-Ray flashed him a worried smile. He was clearly as apprehensive as Standing.

  Standing bent down to talk to the Lieutenant through the open window. He looked up at Standing. ‘They might just be in a hurry,’ said the officer before Standing could say anything.

  Standing shook his head. ‘They’re hostiles, LT. I’d bet the farm on it.’

  ‘Have you got a farm?’

  ‘It’s an expression.’

  The Lieutenant pointed down the road. ‘Make it clear they’re to stop,’ he said. ‘If necessary fire a warning shot.’

  Standing nodded and jogged towards the damaged vehicles. The medic had ripped the shirt off the little boy and was applying a dressing. The boy’s chest didn’t look as if it was moving any more.

  The trucks were about a quarter of a mile away and showing no signs of slowing despite the fact they must have seen the damaged vehicles blocking the road.

  ‘What do you think, Matt?’ asked Bobby-Ray, slipping his finger over the trigger of his weapon.

  ‘I think a warning shot’s not going to do a blind thing,’ said Standing.

  T-J and Gator stood to their left and shouldered their weapons. Standing and Bobby-Ray moved apart. Bobby-Ray raised his hand. The trucks were too far away to hear him, so he didn’t shout anything.

  The trucks continued to speed towards them, then suddenly the rear trucks moved, one left and one right, so that all three were abreast as they sped down the road.

  ‘LT, this isn’t good!’ shouted Standing.

  ‘Fire a warning shot,’ said the officer.

  Bobby-Ray fired a quick burst in the air above the middle of the three trucks. As Standing turned to look at Bobby-Ray, he saw movement on the second floor of one of the buildings behind him. There was someone in one of the windows. There was a glint of sunlight, from a sniper’s scope or binoculars maybe, and there was definitely a figure standing there. Bobby-Ray lowered his weapon, then turned to see what Standing was looking at.

  The house was about three hundred yards from the road, an easy enough shot for a half-decent sniper. But if it was a sniper he could have taken a shot at any time, Standing knew. So maybe it wasn’t a sniper? What then? An observer? Someone who had called in the trucks? The options raced through Standing’s mind in less than a second.

  He turned back to look at the three trucks, now just a hundred yards away. The men in the back of the vehicles stood up, brandishing AK-47s.

  ‘Hostiles!’ shouted Standing. He dropped to one knee and brought his weapon to bear on the middle truck. He fired a quick burst at the driver’s side of the windscreen. The glass exploded and he fired a second burst. The truck continued to race towards him, so he lowered his aim and fired another burst at the offside front tyre. Almost immediately the offside of the truck dipped and it crashed into the vehicle next to it in a shower of sparks. Standing slapped in a fresh magazine and fired again, this time at the truck to the left, the first burst at the windscreen followed by a second at the tyres. The truck spun off the road, spilling out the men in the back. It bucked along the rough ground and came to a halt. The men in the back were shaken but not injured and they jumped out. There were five of them, their faces covered with scarves and sunglasses. T-J and Gator fired and cut the men down with a series of short, controlled bursts.

  The middle truck was now careering along the road, swerving crazily, then it crashed onto its side, spilling out the men in the back.

  There was only one truck still heading their way. Bobby-Ray and Standing fired together. The windscreen exploded and the offside tyre burst; the bonnet flicked up and steam poured skywards. The truck ran off the road. T-J and Gator had finished picking off their targets and turned their attention to the final truck, spraying it with bullets. In a matter of seconds all the armed men in the back were dead.

  Standing lowered his weapon. The Lieutenant climbed out of his vehicle and walked over. ‘Shit,’ he said.

  ‘What do you think, LT? Was this whole thing a set-up?’

  ‘It’s starting to look that way,’ said the officer. ‘Fuck. So there is no ISIS officer and no Axeman.’

  ‘It could be a coincidence,’ said Standing.

  ‘Yeah? Or it could be that they ambushed the cars and placed the kid in the window knowing that we’d stop.’

  Bobby-Ray was looking over at the house again. ‘There’s somebody in there,’ he said.

  The Lieutenant went over to join him. He shaded his eyes with his hand. ‘I can’t see anyone.’

  ‘There was a flash. Off glass.’

  Standing stared at the house. He nodded when he saw movement in one of the top-floor windows. ‘There’s definitely someone in there,’ he said.

  He dropped his gaze to the lower floor. The building was featureless concrete with white paint peeling off the shutters and doors. A stray dog cocked its leg against the side of the building.

  ‘LT, can I use your binoculars?’ asked Bobby-Ray.

  The officer handed them over. He put them to his eyes and focussed on the front door. ‘There’s a wire running out of the front door,’ he said. He lowered the binoculars.

  A figure appeared at the window. A man, his head swathed in a black and white headscarf. ‘Sniper!’ shouted the Lieutenant, but Standing could see that the man wasn’t holding a rifle. There was something in his hand, though, and Standing realised what it was. A trigger.

  ‘IED!’ he shouted at the top of his voice.

  He turned to look at the two damaged vehicles. The medic was still attending to the boy. To the left, dirt had been spread across the road. Standing knew with a terrible certainty that the dirt was to cover the wire that ran from the house, across the field and into the car. He reached over to grab the Lieutenant and pull him away. Bobby-Ray was moving, too, stretching out his arms and putting himself between them and the car.

  ‘IED!’ Standing screamed again.

  The medic looked over but made no attempt to leave the boy. Standing looked over at the lead truck in the convoy. The driver gunned the engine but there was no way he would be able to reverse the vehicle with the second truck blocking its way. ‘Get out!’ he yelled.

  The SEAL operating the machine gun turned and threw himself off the back of the truck. The SEALs with him followed suit.

  Bobby-Ray was pushing the Lieutenant, his shoulders hunched against the explosion he knew was to come.

  Standing looked over at the medic. He had scooped up the boy and was turning to carry him away from the people carrier. His eyes locked with Standing’s and there was the briefest of smiles before the car exploded in a mass of fire and flames. Metal and glass ripped through the air and the medic was thrown to the side. The blast hit Standing a fraction of a second later and he fell backwards, his shoulders hitting the road first. Bobby-Ray crashed onto him and the impact forced the air from his lungs. His right hand managed to keep hold of his weapon and he used his left to roll Bobby-Ray off him. He staggered to his feet, ears ringing. The Lieutenant was lying on his back, blinking in shock, but he didn’t appear to be too hurt. Bobby-Ray was on his side. His flak jacket had protected his chest and vital organs but his legs had been hurt by the shrapnel. His eyes were closed but he was breathing, albeit noisily. ‘Medic!’ Standing shouted. He stood up and looked over at the people carrier. It had been shifted by the explosion and had shielded the SEAL medic from some of the blast but not enough to save his life. The explosion had torn through one leg and he lay on his side, blood still pooling from his left thigh. The small boy lay next to him like a discarded doll. ‘Medic!’ Standing screamed again.

  A SEAL emerged from behind the lead pick-up truck and ran over. ‘Take care of Bobby-Ray,’ said Standing.

  The Lieutenant was coughing. ‘What the fuck happened?’ he gasped as he got to his feet. His cheek had been ripped open and blood trickled down his neck.

  ‘IED in the ca
r,’ said Standing. He took a trauma pack from his belt, ripped it open and slapped it against the Lieutenant’s cheek. The Lieutenant used his hand to keep the dressing pressed against the wound. ‘You’ll be okay,’ said Standing.

  The medic cut away what was left of the material around Bobby-Ray’s injured legs. Standing looked over at the house where he had seen the trigger-man. He started to run. As his feet pounded on the road he heard the Lieutenant shout something but Standing didn’t catch it. He hit the side of the road and his boots slapped against bare earth. The man had gone from the window but Standing hadn’t seen him emerge from the building, which either meant there was a back way out or that he was still inside.

  His chest was burning from the exertion but he quickened his pace. Something thwacked against the ground to his left and he looked over at a three-storey building. There was a man on the roof with a rifle. Another round hit the ground a few inches from Standing’s foot, kicking up dirt.

  Standing planted his right foot hard and twisted to the left, then immediately went down on one knee and fired a quick burst at the sniper. The rounds went low and smacked into the wall just below the roof. Standing adjusted his aim and the next burst blew the sniper away in a red mist. The sniper was still falling backwards when Standing was on his feet and running full pelt towards the house.

  He caught movement in his peripheral vision to the right and he swung his weapon in that direction, his finger already tightening on the trigger. He relaxed immediately when he spotted the two boys, one of them holding a football, staring at him open-mouthed.

  He heard a brief rattle of gunfire behind him, a single shot from a Kalashnikov followed by rapid fire from HKs.

  He was less than a hundred feet from the house now. There was no movement at the upper windows and the front door remained firmly shut. The shutters on the ground-floor windows were closed. As he ran he heard an engine burst into life. He slowed and the engine roared. A second later a white SUV sped from behind the house, its wheels spewing up dirt. He dropped onto one knee again, took aim and shot at the heavily tinted windscreen. It imploded and he caught a glimpse of a dark-skinned man wearing sunglasses behind the steering wheel. Standing fired a single shot and the man’s face transformed into a pulpy mess. The SUV continued to accelerate, so Standing assumed the man’s foot was jammed on the accelerator. He let loose a quick burst at the nearside wheels, ripping the tyres to shreds. The rear window of the SUV slid down and the barrel of an AK-47 emerged, but Standing was already taking aim and he fired a burst into the rear of the vehicle before the Kalashnikov discharged.

  The car bucked over the rough ground then spun to the left, towards Standing. He leapt to the side, rolled on the ground and came up firing, two long bursts that shattered the remaining windows. The vehicle slammed into a tree and the bonnet sprang open. There were three men in the SUV, two behind the driver, and all three were dead.

  Standing slapped in a fresh magazine and ran towards the house, his weapon at the ready. He was breathing heavily but far from tired. As always when he was in combat, everything seemed to have slowed to a crawl. All his senses were in overdrive. He heard shouts from the road and the crackle of burning vehicles, and he could smell the cordite in the air. He glanced to his right as he ran. The two boys were still watching him with wide eyes, too shocked to move. His eyes flicked back to the upper windows of the house. Still no one there. Most likely all the occupants had been in the SUV, but he needed to make sure.

  More shouts from behind him. His name being called. He took aim at the front door and fired a burst that splintered the lock. The door sagged on its hinges. As he ran towards it he looked over to his left at the house where the sniper had been. There was another man on the roof now, this one wearing a black headscarf and sighting down an RPG-7. Standing stopped and turned, raising his Heckler to his shoulder.

  The RPG-7 was an anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade launcher, capable of hitting a target a thousand metres away but not particularly accurate beyond two hundred metres, which is about how far away he was from it. Time stopped as Standing took everything in. It hadn’t been fired yet because there was no puff of blue-grey smoke. When the trigger was pulled a gunpowder booster charge would send the grenade hurtling through the air towards its target at just over a hundred metres a second. There was no guidance system, so once it was launched, that was that. After ten metres the rocket motor would ignite and the grenade would speed up to close to three hundred metres a second. Which meant that it would take almost two seconds for the grenade to reach its target. It wasn’t a long time, but it was enough.

  Standing raised his weapon. If he was lucky he would get a shot off before the man fired. He wasn’t. He saw the puff of smoke. The trigger had been pulled.

  A fraction of a second after he saw the smoke he heard the ‘whoof’ of the charge. He took three quick steps to the right and threw himself onto the ground. As he hit the soil the grenade slammed into the front door of the house and carried on inside before exploding. The thick walls of the house absorbed most of the explosion, though shards of wood flew out and thudded around Standing.

  The air was thick with choking dust as he stood up. He swung up his carbine and sent a quick burst towards the roof. The man was still there, staring down to survey his handiwork. The man ducked as Standing’s bullets whined overhead but he made the mistake of straightening up. Standing put a bullet in his chest.

  He heard the sound of a second engine starting up and he sprinted around to the rear of the building. Three men, their heads wrapped in scarves and holding Kalashnikovs, were climbing into the rear of a rusty red truck. The driver’s jaw dropped when he saw Standing come around the corner. He stamped on the accelerator and the truck leapt forward, spilling the passengers out of the back. The driver was cursing as he aimed the truck at Standing, but Standing just stared impassively as he fired three single shots. The first shattered the windscreen, the second and third hit the driver in the face. Standing stepped to the side and flattened himself against the wall of the house as the truck sped by, then stepped back and swung up his Heckler. The men who had fallen out of the back of the truck were scrambling to their feet but they were too slow and Standing took them out with three quick double-taps to the chest. He watched as they slumped to the ground, then turned and hurried back to the front of the house. The red pick-up truck slammed into one of the neighbouring houses. An old man in a thawb robe hurried out shouting and waving his fist, but he took one look at Standing and rushed back inside his house and shut the door behind him. Standing looked around for any other potential threats, but other than a few curious onlookers there was no one in the vicinity who looked like they wanted to cause him harm.

  He looked over at the three men he’d shot behind the house. Two were definitely dead and the third wouldn’t last much longer. Standing went over to the injured man and kicked his AK-47 out of reach. The man stared up at him with unseeing eyes. Blood was pouring from a fist-sized wound in his side and soaking into the soil. Death was only seconds away.

  Standing turned and walked back to the road. It had been less than a minute since he had left the convoy but in that time he had killed a sniper, the RPG fighter, three men in the SUV plus the driver and three gunmen in the pick-up truck. At no point had he been scared or even worried. He never was, in combat. Whenever bullets started flying, his instincts took over. It was as if his conscious mind took a back seat and allowed his subconscious to function without inhibitions. He didn’t fully understand the process but it had never failed him.

  He began to jog, his Heckler in his right hand. Two of the SEALs were carrying Bobby-Ray to the lead vehicle as the medic fussed over him. Two more SEALs were carrying their dead comrade over to the vehicle Standing had been in. The Lieutenant turned to look at Standing as he reached the convoy. ‘What the fuck, Matt? Didn’t you hear me calling you?’

  Standing shrugged. ‘I guess I got caught up in the moment.’

  ‘You could have got
ten yourself killed.’

  ‘Could’ve. Should’ve. Would’ve.’

  ‘I’m serious, Matt. That’s not how we do things in the SEALs. We’re a team.’

  ‘They were getting away, LT. I had to move quickly.’

  ‘Was that an RPG they fired?’

  Standing nodded and Lieutenant Dunnett shook his head in astonishment. ‘And you just jumped out of the way?’

  ‘It’s not the first time I’ve avoided an RPG,’ said Standing. ‘The trick is to let them target you, then move as soon as you see the smoke. It doesn’t work if you’re in a vehicle, obviously, and you need to be at least a couple of hundred yards away.’

  The officer shook his head in amazement. ‘You are one mad son of a bitch.’

  ‘I knew what I was doing, LT. Trust me, I was never in any danger.’

  ‘And the sniper? That was just dumb luck.’

  ‘He wasn’t a sniper. Not really. Just a bad guy with a rifle going for a long shot. Look, LT, all’s well that ends well, let’s leave it at that.’ He nodded towards the SEALs who were gently easing Bobby-Ray into the back of the truck. ‘How is he?’

  ‘His legs are all cut up and he’s having trouble breathing but he’s going to be okay. The medic says he might have a collapsed lung but they can fix that back at the base.’

  ‘He put himself between us and the bomb.’

  The officer nodded. ‘I know that.’

  ‘Hell of a thing to do.’ Standing sighed. ‘What about the mission?’

  The Lieutenant grimaced. ‘We were set up,’ he said. ‘No question. There is no mission.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. Whoever gave you the intel, they need looking at.’

  ‘That will happen, don’t worry.’ He gestured at the vehicles. ‘Okay, mount up, we’ll head back to base. And Matt, next time I give you an order, I’d be obliged if you’d follow it.’

  Standing grinned and flashed him a salute. ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ he said, before he jogged over to his vehicle.