Tall Order

by Stephen Leather

  ‘Right guys, stay close to me,’ said Jacko, unfastening his restraints. ‘It’s going to be organised chaos out there.’

  Shepherd and Martin unbuckled their harnesses, grabbed their weapons and hurried down the ramp after the sergeant. Their Chinook had been the third to land and the fourth was in a hover a hundred yards away, its massive twin rotors kicking up a sandstorm below.

  The first two helicopters were already unloading their cargo and the DPVs were being lined up in an arrow formation, pointing east.

  The troopers who had set up the temporary landing zone had set up a perimeter and were facing outwards, weapons at the ready, scanning the surroundings with their night-vision goggles.

  The Land Rover had been unloaded and moved away from the helicopters with a trooper manning the machine gun.

  The final Chinook touched down and its engines were switched off. The rotors slowed from a blur but were still turning when the rear ramp came down.

  Jacko took Shepherd and Martin over to the DPVs. The one they would be using was in the middle of the second row and the driver was already in his seat.

  ‘This is Steve Garrett,’ said Jacko. ‘Garrett the Carrot, supposedly because of the shape of his dick.’

  ‘That’s such a lie,’ said Garrett. He was in his thirties with an unkempt beard and his night-vision goggles in place. He raised a hand in greeting.

  ‘I said supposedly,’ said Jacko. ‘If you want to argue that it’s more like a Brussels sprout, that’s your prerogative.’ He climbed into the front passenger seat.

  ‘Now where the fuck did a sergeant learn a four-syllable word like that?’ said Garrett.

  ‘I might ask you how a trooper with a single-digit IQ knew a word like syllable,’ said Jacko. He motioned at Shepherd and Martin to climb in the back. ‘Don’t bother with the belts,’ he said. ‘You never know when you might have to bale at short notice.’ Off to their right and left troopers were climbing on to their trail bikes and kicking their muffled two-stroke engines into life.

  Shepherd and Martin took their places in the rear seats of the four-by-four and cradled their weapons. Their night-vision goggles gave them a greenish view of the desert around them.

  The last of the DPVs were unloaded from the Chinook, their engines started and driven over to the formation.

  Captain Gearie strode over to the lead DPV, looked around to make sure that everyone was ready, then climbed into the front passenger seat.

  Shepherd heard a ‘Tally-ho’ over his headset and the lead DPV moved off. The rest of the convoy followed him and the trail bikes spread out right and left. Garrett eased down the accelerator and they sped off, the shock absorbers barely taking the edge off the rough desert terrain.

  All the engines were muffled but they still throbbed as they powered across the desert, leaving behind plumes of whirling sand. Shepherd looked over at Martin and the American grinned.

  ‘I can’t believe I’m in the Sandbox again!’ he shouted, the wind whipping away the words as soon as they left his mouth.

  ‘Truth be told, neither can I!’ Shepherd shouted back.

  Chapter 76

  Present Day, Afghanistan

  T he DPVs made good progress across the desert and covered the fifty miles in just under ninety minutes. It was one of the most uncomfortable journeys Shepherd had ever made, constant bone-jarring vibrations coupled with thick dust that had no problem working its way through the scarf he’d tied around his mouth, but it was still better than walking.

  The convoy came to a halt close to a rocky outcrop, jutting up from the desert floor like a massive stone blade. The troopers dismounted with their kit and the drivers then lined the vehicles up at the base of the outcrop and covered them with camouflage netting.

  Captain Gearie used his GPS to confirm their position and where they were headed. Sergeant Smeed used his comms to call up sniper teams Alpha, Bravo and Delta, who had been in position for hours waiting to take out the sentries.

  ‘They’re waiting for the green light, boss,’ said Smeed.

  ‘Let’s give it a bit longer,’ said the captain. ‘We’ve still some way to go.’

  Smeed relayed the information to the sniper teams.

  Gearie held up his hand. ‘Right, guys, in we go. I’ll be taking point and I know how enthusiastic you all are but everyone stay behind me. You might not think so but I do know where I’m going.’

  Jacko had appeared next to Martin. Steve Garrett was to Shepherd’s right. Like Shepherd, they were both cradling HK416s. The captain was already moving off towards the mountain range in the distance, black against the night sky. One of the sergeants was keeping pace with him, but the rest of the troopers fanned out behind the captain.

  Jacko waved for Shepherd and Martin to move forward, about fifty feet behind the captain. As Shepherd had feared, walking was difficult. He could see the ground about eight feet ahead of him but any closer than that and his view was restricted. The desert floor was littered with stones and rocks of all sizes and the soldiers were moving quickly. Shepherd’s memory helped but it was still taking him time to get used to walking quickly across the rough ground. He looked over at Martin but the American didn’t appear to be having any problems. Shepherd gritted his teeth and concentrated on following the captain.

  After the first mile Shepherd’s legs were aching but he ignored the discomfort. Most of the men around him were half his age and kept fit for a living, but Shepherd was a keen runner and he knew that he was more than capable of a two-mile forced march. It was nothing compared with the Fan Dance, a necessary requirement for anyone who wanted to join the SAS – a fifteen-mile timed hike up and down the 2,900-foot-high Pen Y Fan in the Brecon Beacons with a forty-five-pound Bergen backpack, a rifle, ten pounds of food and four one-litre water bottles.

  Shepherd looked over at Jacko. The sergeant was moving with long, graceful strides, as sure-footed as a mountain goat, his carbine cradled in his arms. Shepherd’s progress was less elegant but he had no problem keeping up the pace.

  Captain Gearie had a compass on one wrist and he consulted it every few minutes. After fifteen minutes, Gearie called a halt, checked their progress with his GPS and had Sergeant Smeed give the sniper teams the go-ahead to take out the sentries. Within two minutes the sergeant was able to report that all six sentries were dead.

  Gearie got the men moving again. The atmosphere had changed; the faces of the men had become more serious and all the banter had stopped. Contact was only minutes away.

  The ground began to slope up and was now strewn with rocks and boulders that meant it was no longer possible to move in a straight line.

  The two cave mouths came into view, showing as grey patches in the night-vision goggles. Gearie raised a clenched fist to call a halt. He turned to Sergeant Smeed and pointed at the smaller cave entrance. Smeed flashed him an OK sign and then turned to wave at the four troopers who would be going in with him.

  Shepherd looked over at Martin. Martin was gritting his teeth and staring at the main cave entrance. Shepherd knew that the American wanted to go in with the first wave. He knew exactly how Martin felt. He would have given anything just then to be allowed to go in, guns blazing. He missed combat, he missed the adrenaline rush that came from putting his life on the line, but no matter how much he missed it he knew that his job was to observe and report on the casualties, nothing more. He tapped Martin on the shoulder. ‘You okay?’

  Martin nodded. ‘Sure.’

  ‘We’ll be in there soon enough,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘If we went in now, who would stop us?’

  Shepherd chuckled. ‘I’m guessing Gearie or one of his sergeants,’ he said. ‘Jacko would probably put a bullet in your leg. He’d be in deep, deep shit if anything happened to you.’

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ growled Jacko, off to their left.

  ‘Nothing’s going to happen to us tonight, Spider,’ Martin said. ‘I feel lucky.’

  Chapter 77

>   Present Day, Afghanistan

  C aptain Gearie took a quick look over his shoulder, checked for the tenth time that the safety selector of his HK416 assault rifle was in the off position and moved forward towards the cave entrance. It was a strange feeling moving into a totally alien environment with absolutely no way of knowing what lay ahead. Usually they were well briefed and had studied maps or blueprints that would give them a reasonable guide as to what they were faced with, but the caves were a totally unknown situation. There could be one huge cavern or a dozen smaller interlinked caves. There might be one group of men all in one place or they could be scattered over a wide area. The one thing they knew for sure was that there were armed jihadists inside and they would meet any attack with lethal force.

  He stepped across the threshold, scanning left and right. The night-vision goggles let him see in the darkness but they didn’t allow him to use his peripheral vision, and peripheral vision was best at spotting movement. With the goggles he was restricted to viewing things according to their temperature. It was like hunting ghosts.

  Two troopers moved to his right, three to his left.

  Once they were through the entrance the cave opened up to maybe thirty feet in height, and was almost circular with a diameter of sixty feet or so. There were two pale green smudges off to the right, lying on the ground. Men sleeping.

  To the left were four smudges, lined up like logs. More sleepers. Gearie mimed using a knife. Two troopers moved to the right, drawing their knives. Four went left. They moved silently, slitting the throats of the sleeping men before they even awoke.

  ‘We’re in the main cave,’ said Gearie into his comms. ‘Six hostiles dead.’

  He scanned the far end of the cave. There were two tunnels, each about the height of a man and three times the width. The left one was in darkness but a light was leaching from the tunnel on the right, showing as a pale green smudge.

  Chapter 78

  Present Day, Afghanistan

  A s Captain Gearie led the first wave of troopers into the main cave entrance, Sergeant Smeed waved his patrol forward. He had Creepshow and Shaver with him, plus two veterans of the SAS, troopers Mark ‘Pitchfork’ Pitchford and Neil ‘Wally’ Walton, who were so alike they were often mistaken for brothers – big men with shaved heads and hands the size of small shovels. The five men moved quickly. The entrance was low and they had to duck to get in, but within a couple of paces the space opened up dramatically. The cave was four times the height of a man, long and narrow, and from the look of it was being used as an ammunition storage area, presumably to keep it away from the main area.

  ‘Watch yourselves, lads,’ whispered Smeed. ‘Use your knives if you can; put a round in the wrong place and the whole place could go up.’ There were boxes marked ‘амуниция’, which Smeed was pretty sure was Russian for ammunition, and others he recognised as the crates that Kalashnikovs were shipped in.

  There were three hostiles in the cave, presumably guards, but they were sleeping on mats in one corner, the remains of a meal next to them on a low table. Smeed scanned the cave. There were two other men sleeping at the other side, either side of a narrow tunnel less than four feet high. Smeed pointed at Pitchfork and Wally and then pointed at the two men. They nodded and moved towards them, drawing their knives.

  As they got within ten feet of the sleeping men, one of them snored loudly. The snore turned into a cough and then the man sat up. He started to shout when he saw the dark shapes moving towards him, and reached for a Kalashnikov that was leaning against the wall of the cave.

  Pitchfork and Wally sheathed their knives and fired together, each putting two shots into the chest of their target. The jihadist fell back, dead before he hit the ground. Pitchfork took out the man next to the one they had already killed with a shot to the face.

  The sound of the shots woke the other three men.

  Over on the other side of the cave, one man sat up, blinking in confusion, but the other two were quicker off the mark. One had amazing reflexes and in a second had rolled over, grabbed an AK-47 and brought it up to point it at the troopers, but Smeed already had the man in his sights and put a round smack in the middle of his face. Blood and brain splattered across a stack of crates. The second jihadist was still groping for his weapon in the dark when Creepshow put two rounds in his chest. Shaver took care of the third and the man died, still blinking.

  Smeed looked around to reassure himself that there were no other hostiles in the cave.

  ‘Nice work, everyone,’ he said, his ears ringing from the sound of the shots in the confined area. He nodded at the tunnel leading to the main cave. ‘Let’s join the lads.’ He walked quickly over to the tunnel and ducked down to get through. As he emerged into the main cave two troopers swung their carbines in his direction and he immediately raised his weapon above his head to show that he wasn’t a threat, but they had seen his uniform and helmet and turned away from him. Pitchfork and Wally were close behind him.

  Captain Gearie turned to look in his direction and Smeed flashed him an OK sign. Gearie nodded and started to speak into his comms microphone.

  ‘Frank, the main cave is clear. Two tunnels left and right. Lights on in the right. We’re moving into both now so follow us in.’

  ‘Following you in,’ repeated Captain Harrison.

  ‘Phil, you and your lads lead the way into the left tunnel.’

  ‘Roger that,’ said Smeed.

  Gearie motioned with his hand for the team to split into two groups. He led the group to the right-hand tunnel, unclipping a flash-bang from his belt.

  Creepshow and Shaver were now in the main cave and Smeed led them towards the left-hand tunnel, along with the rest of the troopers who weren’t following Gearie.

  Gearie moved into the tunnel but as he did a shot ricocheted off the cave wall just inches from his head. He ducked instinctively even though the round had already gone by. He pulled the pin from a stun grenade and tossed it through the tunnel, then turned his head away. The grenade exploded with a blinding flash of light and a bang of more than 180 decibels, guaranteed to stun anyone close by. Gearie turned back. The lights were still on at the end of the tunnel so he flicked his night-vision goggles up and brought his carbine to bear as he rushed through and into the cave. More troopers followed him and as soon as he was in the cave he moved to the side. There were two hostiles on their knees, holding their hands to their eyes, AK-47s on the ground in front of them. Gearie shot one in the face, by accident rather than by design – he had been aiming at the man’s chest but his foot had slipped on the uneven ground at the moment he’d pulled the trigger. He took down the second man with two shots to the chest. A classic double tap. Shots were going off all around him.

  Armed hostiles were firing at them from around a bend in the cave, half a dozen or so from the sound of it. A trooper shouted ‘Fire In The Hole’ before throwing a flash-bang around the bend. Everyone turned away as the grenade went off, then two troopers headed for the bend at a run, guns blazing.

  Another half dozen jihadists had been sleeping on mats at the far end of the cave and they were shot dead as they scrambled for their weapons.

  Gearie moved forward. The light came from bulbs hanging from metal spikes in the ceiling, and a wire ran along the roof of the cave, down the side and into a tunnel. Gearie followed the wire. Half a dozen troopers went after him.

  Chapter 79

  Present Day, Afghanistan

  C aptain Harrison led the second wave of troopers into the main cave mouth.

  Martin looked across at Jacko. ‘Come on, Sarge, let’s go now.’

  ‘We stay put until we’re told to move in,’ said the sergeant. ‘It won’t be long now.’

  From where they were on the slope leading up to the cave, they had heard rapid fire from the Hecklers and return fire from pistols and AK-47s interspersed with flash-bangs going off.

  Not long after Harrison’s patrol had gone into the cave, the firing inside had bec
ome sporadic with gaps of up to ten seconds or so between shots. There was the occasional handgun being fired and bursts from AK-47s, but to Shepherd’s ears the vast majority of the shots were from HK416 assault rifles similar to the one he was cradling. It sounded as if they were entering the mopping-up phase.

  ‘Come on, let’s go in,’ begged Martin. ‘It’s all going to be over.’

  ‘That’s the idea,’ said Jacko. ‘My orders are to wait until we’re told to go in.’

  ‘We can at least see some action,’ said Martin. He looked over at Shepherd, clearly hoping to have his support.

  Shepherd shook his head. ‘We’re not here to see action, Dean,’ he said. ‘We’re here to ID the bodies. The last thing we need is you in there tripping over a booby trap. We go in when it’s safe, and not before.’ As if to emphasise his words there was a sudden burst of intense firing from inside the cave that went on for almost thirty seconds.

  There were several isolated shots, then shouts, then more shots.

  Eventually it went quiet, then Captain Gearie spoke over the comms. ‘We’re clear,’ he said. ‘The area is secured.’

  ‘Roger that,’ said Jacko. ‘I’m bringing them in now.’

  He nodded at Shepherd and Martin. ‘Here we go,’ he said. ‘But stay close.’

  He headed for the cave entrance and Shepherd and Martin followed. Steve Garrett brought up the rear. Captain Gearie came out to meet them.

  ‘More than ninety hostiles dead,’ he said. ‘We might have broken the ton.’ He pointed to a small tunnel to his right. ‘That leads to the smaller cave next door. It’s being used as an ammunition store. There are five dead jihadists you’ll need to check.’

  ‘I’ll do that first,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘I’ll take Dean around, see if we can spot Khaled.’ He turned and pointed at the far end of the cave. ‘There are two tunnels there. The one to the left is effectively a barracks with camp beds and bunks and storage lockers. That was in darkness and we got most of them before they could return fire. To the right, that tunnel leads to a series of smaller caves. There are what look like training rooms there, more storage and a kitchen and basic bathroom facilities. There’s a couple of generators and the lights were on. That was where most of the resistance was.’