by Chris Ryan
Danny and Spud stood on either side of the entrance. Danny held up three fingers.
Two.
One.
Go.
Spud entered first, Danny a fraction of a second behind him.
The interior of the tent was sparse. The only ground cover was a sheet of rough hessian. There was a thin mattress along the far end with a single figure lying asleep upon it, his chest rising and falling in slow regular movement. Danny picked out the man’s features and instantly identified them, beyond question, as belonging to Abu Ra’id.
They had their man.
At his foot end, to the side of the mattress. Next to it, a book – a Qu’ran, maybe? And lying on the book, a data stick. Aside from that, the tent was empty.
Heart pounding, Danny quietly loosened his knife. Spud did the same. The best way to keep quiet was to murder the bastard in his sleep.
They were seconds away from ending this.
Spud stepped forward, blade in hand. Danny turned towards the target’s feet, ready to hold them tight while Spud slit his throat. A speciality of his, and even if the target woke with the pain, he wouldn’t be able to cry out if he had a severed trachea.
They were big men in a cramped space, but they moved with slow, silent precision, knowing that to take out the target while he slept was their quietest and safest option. They closed the gap between them and the sleeping Abu Ra’id to four metres.
Three.
Which was when their target’s eyes opened.
For a split second, nobody moved. Three statues, frozen with indecision.
Abu Ra’id’s head turned to look at them. His piercing eyes, bright in the NV, stared first at Spud, then Danny. His face was acutely familiar, not only from their briefings but from news reports on the TV back home, and pieces in the newspapers. Now, though, even through the green haze Danny could see a riot of unfamiliar emotions in them. Astonishment. Fear. Fury.
Panic. And panic could be noisy.
The SAS men hurried forwards, Spud to the head end, Danny to the feet. It felt to Danny like everything was happening in slow motion. As he collapsed to his knees, he saw Spud bending over the target’s head. His left hand fell towards Abu Ra’id’s mouth. His right swiped the knife across the top of the chest to his throat.
Spud’s left hand was mere inches from Abu Ra’id’s face when a sound escaped their target’s lips.
It was not a cry of alarm. Not a shout for help. The cleric was not even begging for his life. He simply breathed a single word.
‘Hammerstone.’
Danny froze again for a split second. Then, almost by instinct, he stretched out his arm to stay Spud’s knife hand.
Too late.
The sharp blade slid easily through the cleric’s wiry beard and into his throat. The beard itself hid the flow of blood but it was clear from the sudden stiffening of the body that Abu Ra’id was mortally wounded. His body started to shake, and there was a muffled sound from his mouth, against which Spud was now pressing his broad hand while he pushed the edge of the knife blade further into the cleric’s butchered throat to silence him completely.
They held the writhing body fast and still.
In a matter of seconds it was a corpse.
Silent.
Motionless.
Unlike Danny’s mind, which was suddenly spinning.
Hammerstone.
He and Spud looked at each other, raising their NV goggles in unison.
‘Did he just say what I thought he said?’ Spud breathed.
Danny didn’t even answer. Just gave a short nod. Too many things were falling into place.
He tried to keep a clear head. What were their orders? To phone in confirmation of Abu Ra’id’s execution before they’d even left the camp.
Why? Was it really in case they were killed while extracting? Or for some other reason?
Think.
Their radio packs were fitted to their ops vest. Should they make the call? There was no doubt that they wanted to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible. Already Spud’s hand was heading to his radio.
Hammerstone.
‘Don’t phone it in,’ Danny said.
‘Why the fuck not?’
‘Just don’t.’ He paused a moment, staring down at his own radio. Both his and Spud’s unit contained a GPS tracker – Hammond had told them so – which meant their handlers could locate their position to the nearest metre.
If Danny and Spud had learned something they shouldn’t, their handlers knew exactly where to kill them.
‘That other bloke you just nailed,’ Danny said. ‘Get his body.’
‘What? You crazy?’
Crazy? Maybe.
Maybe not.
Hammerstone.
‘You want to get out of here alive, we need that body. And quickly, while it’s still warm.’
Even in the darkness of the tent, Spud couldn’t hide the look on his face: a look that said quite plainly that he thought Danny was losing it. But the truth was that for the first time in days, everything was clear. Without another moment of hesitation, Danny moved towards the entrance of the tent, re-engaged his NV, and looked over his shoulder.
‘Cover me.’ He stepped outside.
Their silent, lethal work didn’t appear to have disturbed anyone. The technical had completed another circuit of the perimeter, but a quick scan told Danny that the coast was clear. As Spud stepped out of the tent, handgun primed, Danny hurried past the lines of tents to where they had left their first casualty. The corpse was still there, a sticky pool of blood surrounding its head. Danny picked it up, and heaved it over his shoulder before loosening his own handgun. Then he hurried back to Abu Ra’id’s tent and carried the second body inside. Spud joined him.
‘Take out your radio,’ he told his mate as he laid the body down on the floor.
Spud did as he was told with obvious reluctance. Danny took his own radio and laid it on the corpse’s chest. He jabbed his finger to indicate that Spud should lay his on Abu Ra’id’s body.
‘I’m going to phone it in now,’ Danny said. ‘I give it a minute after that before it goes noisy. Get ready to run.’
‘I hope you fucking know what you’re doing, mucker.’
Danny grabbed the data stick from the side of Abu Ra’id’s bed and stuck it in his pocket. ‘Me too,’ he said. He crouched down at his radio and punched in his access codes. He didn’t speak into the handset, but instead speedily inputted a text message.
Target down. Preparing to extract.
Then, leaving the radio on the corpse’s chest, he turned to Spud.
‘Head for the OP,’ he said.
Spud nodded. He looked like he was beginning to understand what Danny was doing. He engaged his NV and stepped out of the tent. Danny followed.
‘Run!’ he hissed.
Danny and Spud sprinted side by side towards the edge of the camp. They pounded past the tents. Danny heard shouts. Scuffling. Figures flickering on the edge of their vision. They were compromised, only it didn’t matter now because in a matter of minutes he knew that everyone in this training camp would be dead.
Including them if they didn’t get the hell out of there.
Thirty metres to the edge of the camp. Somewhere behind them, skywards, there was a noise. A buzzing sound, like some distant, angry bee. It was punctured by the sound of a firearm being discharged. Badly aimed – a round flew several metres over their heads – but clearly intended for them.
‘Keep running!’ Danny yelled. The muscles in his legs were burning. His lungs too. The edge of the camp was only 20 metres away, but there was a massive commotion behind them as tens – hundreds – of militants awoke, disturbed by their presence.
A second round. Closer this time – it flew just inches above Danny’s right shoulder as they cleared the edge of the camp. Danny risked looking back. The camp was ablaze with torches.
Distance to the OP: 150 metres. Open ground. They had no option but to run
.
The two SAS men thundered up the sandy, rocky incline. They covered the first 50 metres in 15 seconds. They weren’t being followed, yet, but he clearly saw three of the technicals screeching round the perimeter of the camp. Any minute now, they’d come under heavy .50-cal fire.
They sprinted again. From behind, Danny heard the distinctive bark of an AK-47 – a single shot at first, then a burst of rounds. An explosion of sand five metres ahead of them as the rounds hit the ground.
‘We need to take cover!’ Spud roared as they carried on sprinting.
‘To the OP!’
‘Bollocks! That won’t protect us from fifty cals . . .’
But Danny shook his head. ‘We need to get under the thermal sheeting. Now!’
‘What the fuck for?’
Distance to the OP: 25 metres. Danny didn’t have time to explain. The two men just carried on sprinting.
They were only ten metres from the OP when it happened.
There was another burst of AK fire from the direction of the camp. Most of the rounds went loose, slamming on to the desert floor a metre to Spud’s left. Most, but not all. Spud lurched and fell forwards, so heavily that Danny knew he hadn’t tripped. He’d been hit.
Time slowed down. Danny threw himself to the ground by his mate, just as a third burst of fire flew low over their heads. ‘YOU OKAY?’
Spud wasn’t. He was gasping for air, trying to say something but unable to get the words out. Danny looked over his shoulder. The three technicals were turning to face them. Any second now they were going to open up, and a sustained burst of .50-cal fire would turn them both to mincemeat.
Danny had no time to think. He was acting on raw instinct. He pushed himself to his feet, leaned over and pulled Spud up from the ground. His mate was a heavy lump, and Danny heard himself shouting with the strain as he hauled the wounded Spud over his shoulder and staggered the final ten metres to the OP. The grisly sound of Spud trying to get air inside him made Danny feel cold and sick. He kicked off the hessian covering and thermal sheeting from the OP, then lowered his mate quickly down into the hole. Spud’s gasping sounded panicked as Danny rolled in beside him and covered them with the flimsy, silvery material of the thermal sheeting and the hessian camo, leaving just the tiniest gap between the front edge of the sheet and the ground so he could observe what was going on down below.
Danny stared desperately down at the camp. The three technicals were facing them now, spaced only a few metres apart. The distance between them was 150 metres, but that was nothing for a .50 machine gun. They’d clearly seen where Danny and Spud had hidden themselves, and were preparing to rain down their fire on that exact location.
‘I . . . can’t . . . breathe . . .’ Spud gasped.
‘Take it easy, buddy,’ Danny said, his voice hoarse and grim. ‘We’re going to get you out of here.’
But as he spoke, there was the thunder of machine-gun fire. Danny could see the flashing of the barrel as it swept a broad arc from left to right. A fraction of a second later, the sand exploded 15 metres in front of them, the arc of the gun repeating itself on the ground as the rounds landed.
A half-second pause. The gunner continued to fire, sweeping from right to left this time, and aiming closer. This time the rounds landed just seven or eight metres from their position. Sand showered their OP. Danny pressed himself closer into the ground as the drilling noise of the weaponry shuddered right through him. But that deafening sound was not nearly so awful as Spud’s desperate, pained gasping next to him.
‘Stick in there, mate!’ Danny shouted.
But his voice was cut short by a sudden explosion.
The ordnance had come from the sky. Danny had just caught the trail, as clear as tracer fire through his NV. It had landed precisely in the centre of the camp, mere metres from the location of Abu Rai’d’s tent. There was a blinding blast of white light, and the ground itself shuddered violently as a shock wave emanated from the epicentre of the hit. A wave of intense heat followed, then the sound of falling shrapnel surrounded them. Through the noise, Danny could faintly hear screaming: the blind, agonised screaming of men who were on the brink of death and wished they could hurry it along. He peered out from under the thermal sheeting and saw, glowing in the green haze of his NV, a scene of utter devastation.
The entire camp was ablaze. Every tent was burning and so too were several of the militants, who were running around in unspeakable agony. The technicals had been overturned, and there were hunks of burning metal as close as 30 metres away from the OP. Suddenly, as though someone had turned the volume down, the screaming stopped and the flailing, burning figures fell still. Danny could tell at a single glance that there would be nobody left alive down there.
And a single thought rang in his head. We left our radios broadcasting a GPS signal on two warm bodies. Someone thinks we’re still down there. That strike was meant for us.
Shrapnel had stopped falling now, but the impact had kicked up a great sand cloud which was still swirling around them. And it was through the hazy filter of this cloud that Danny saw the drone. It was hovering maybe 50 metres above the camp, an indistinct green blotch in his field of view. It seemed to be concentrating at first on the area in the very centre of the camp, but after about ten seconds it started to spiral outwards. Sinister. Quiet. Covering the whole area systematically.
‘Don’t move,’ Danny breathed. ‘There’s a UAV up there looking for us.’ He didn’t know if Spud was listening or could understand. But he did know he had to keep talking to his mate to give him the best chance of staying conscious. He closed the gap so that they were completely covered by the thermal sheeting.
‘We have to keep under the sheeting. They’ll have thermal imaging. That’s why we left our radios on the dead bodies.’
‘I . . . I can’t breathe . . . can’t . . . breathe . . .’
Silence. Just the distant flickering of flames in the demolished training camp.
Danny gingerly peered out from under the thermal sheeting. The sand cloud had cleared and, so far as he could tell, the drone was no longer in the vicinity.
His mind was spinning. Abu Ra’id name-checked Hammerstone.
Spud’s breath was coming quicker. Shallower. He needed immediate attention, but Danny didn’t dare move. Not just yet. He kept talking, doing his best to keep the anger from surging.
‘We should have known,’ he said. ‘That’s why they sent us out here on our own. This isn’t a two-man job, but it’s easier to kill two guys than a whole fucking squadron. And they wanted us out of the way if – or when – we found out the one thing they didn’t want us to know.’
A pause. Spud was trying to say something. ‘Hammerstone . . .’ he breathed weakly. ‘Working . . . with Abu Ra’id.’
Another silence.
‘Don’t fucking leave me here . . .’
A secondary explosion suddenly filled the air – some kind of ordnance down in the camp that made the two men start as it ignited.
More thoughts spun through Danny’s head as he hunkered down again. If Hammerstone was running Abu Ra’id, if it was an official thing, would it matter if Danny and Spud knew about it? They were buttoned up with the Official Secrets Act anyway. But if it was only one of them, maybe two, and they were keeping their little game secret from the others . . .
He left the thought hanging, as a sinister, rattling sound came from Spud’s chest. He peered out again.
The drone had gone, and he knew none of the militants could have survived that hit. Danny’s focus now was his friend. He pushed away the thermal sheeting and the hessian cover, then gently rolled Spud on to his side so he could see his back. His clothes were wet with blood. Danny took his knife and sliced the clothes open to get access to the entry wound. But as one half of his brain concentrated on Spud, the other was working away in the backround.
If one of the Hammerstone group was cosy with Abu Ra’id, they might have been behind the London bombings . . .
&nb
sp; Concentrate. Danny knew it had been an AK-47 that had hit Spud. That meant that the entry wound the size of his fingernail had come from a .762 short. The bleeding wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but there was a more serious issue. The position of the entry wound in the lower back and Spud’s struggled gasping suggested that the round had become lodged in his left lung. And it sounded like the lung was collapsing.
‘Agony . . .’ Spud managed to say. Then, more quietly, ‘Morphine . . .’
‘No can do, mate.’ Morphine was a respiratory depressant. It would slow Spud’s breathing down, which was the last thing he needed.
Danny rummaged in his bag for his med pack. He needed to keep his focus on Spud, but he coudn’t help the faces of the four Hammerstone spooks appearing in his mind. The clearest of all of them, with his absurdly handsome features and cold, calculating stare, was the man Danny hated more than anyone else in the world: Buckingham.
If one of them was worried we might learn they were involved in the bombing, no wonder they want us dead.
First things first. Stop the air escaping from the lung.
He removed a waterproof adhesive patch and stuck it carefully over the entry wound. Spud’s body jolted when the patch made contact, but he didn’t shout out. Danny knew he was barely conscious. And if he didn’t stop the lung collapsing, his mate only had minutes to live.
But it was going to hurt.
There were two cannulas in his med pack. Hollow, wide-bore needles, four or five inches long, with a soft plastic casing and a valve at one end. Danny took one of the cannulas, then rolled Spud on to his back and ripped open his clothes to gain access to his rib cage. Spud’s thorax was rising and falling in short, sharp bursts as he tried to breathe. But with only one working lung, he was struggling badly. Danny’s fingers traced the left-hand side of his rib cage. The lower rib felt broken, but it was the gap between the ribs that Danny was interested in. He held the point of the cannula against the ridge between the two lower ribs.