Exclusion Zone

by Exclusion Zone (retail) (epub)

  We crouched behind a rock, watching and waiting. Another jet blasted overhead and once more the missile stack swivelled and fired. Almost immediately I heard the whoosh of a second rocket. This one was launched from a second hilltop to our right, however, and its trajectory was not upwards but a flat line straight into the heart of the Rapier site.

  The radar dish disintegrated in a melee of smoke and flame.

  Several figures were hurled into the air by the force of the blast, but I saw the Rapier site commander outlined against the glow. He was still staring up into the sky, unaware among the thunder of jets and the roar of explosions that his attackers were on the ground.

  Then another missile struck. The figure crumpled and disappeared inside a ball of fire and the Rapier stack toppled and fell. A hail of automatic fire riddled the site. The isolated flashes of gunfire from the defenders ceased altogether. We pressed ourselves flat to the ground, watching in horror as dark, helmeted figures rose from cover and began a cautious advance. There were no more bursts of fire as they moved through the wreckage, but a series of single shots. No prisoners were being taken.

  We watched, impotent, for a few seconds, then without exchanging a word, turned and began to crawl across the hillside, away from the base and its false promise of safety, out into the wilderness of peat and rock.

  We skirted the southern edge of the minefield and headed on across the no man’s land between the summit plateau and the steep hillsides reaching to the coastal plain far below us. We moved fast, keeping low to the ground, and put a mile between us and the Rapier site before we stopped in the shadow of a large boulder.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Jane said. ‘Should we use the Tacbe?’

  ‘We’d be telling the Argentinians as well as the Brits where we are.’ I stabbed a finger towards the glow on the skyline. ‘And to be honest, if there are any assets left there by now, I’m not sure they’ll want to risk them to bring in aircrew. So I guess we either find a place to lie up and await developments.’

  Her face swung round to look at me. ‘Which we’re not going to do?’

  I nodded. ‘As you say. The alternative is to put all that training to good use at last and try to get back to base.’ I pointed down the hillside towards the sea. ‘See that stone run there?’

  She followed the direction of my pointing finger. A broad ribbon of grey, as faint as the phosphorescence of the surf on the night ocean, cut through the black mass of the peat-covered hillside.

  She nodded.

  ‘Follow the line of it down.’ Near its end, where it disappeared from sight beyond the cliffs, there was a faint white lozenge. ‘There’s a farm there. If the Argentinians haven’t already got there first, we can try to raise the base on the phone. Come on.’

  As I got ready to move off along the hillside, I heard her voice faint and mocking in my ear. ‘Would that still have been the best plan if Rose hadn’t lived there?’

  ‘Something was going on there. Remember the way Rose acted and the things she said when I phoned? An Argentinian patrol could have taken them prisoner.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bloody good reason not to go anywhere near the place?’

  I shook my head. ‘I’ve got to go down there, Jane.’

  Her face was close to mine, her tanned skin paled to white in the darkness. ‘Sean, we’re in this together. I’m with you every step of the way.’

  I waited. ‘But?’

  ‘But I need to know that what we’re doing is the right thing, and that we’re not doing it either because of guilt about those Argentinian helicopters, or’ – she paused – ‘or because you’re trying to turn into your brother again.’

  I didn’t reply.

  ‘We’re not Paras or Marines or Special Forces, Sean. The most useful thing we can do is also the most selfish one – make sure we get back to Mount Pleasant alive. If we do that, we can get back in the air, if there are any jets left to fly by then.’ She studied my face and laid a hand on my arm. ‘What you did back there in that minefield was very brave. Let’s not get stupid though. Agreed?’

  I exhaled slowly. ‘Agreed.’

  There was a long silence. ‘Then let’s get on with it.’

  Many things I had learned during my flight training and my early years with the squadron had been half-forgotten. But like every other pilot, I never needed reminding of the importance of escape and evasion and combat survival training. Too many jets crashed, too many aircrew had to eject, for it to be ignored.

  I ran through every drill I could remember as I led the way to a hollow shielded from the high ground. We sat facing each other, our heads almost touching in the dark. ‘Okay, we move separately, one watching and listening while the other moves. No talking, not even whispering, from here. We’ll use hand signals, or if you need to attract my attention in a hurry throw a small stone.

  ‘We’ll keep on this contour until we’ve crossed the stone run, but we’ll be very conspicuous there against the rocks. If there are Argentinian patrols out they’ll be on the high ground overlooking us, but there looks to be a break in the stone run, maybe a small escarpment.’

  I pointed to a darker band crossing the pale grey of the dyke. ‘We’ll cross there and box around to approach the farm from the west. If there are any hostiles there, they’re more likely to be concentrating on the east side and the track up from the sea.’

  As I spoke, I heard Rose’s words in my head, ‘All of us are fine, regards to your brother.’ I felt my fingers close involuntarily around the butt of my pistol.

  I checked my watch, stared, shook it and checked it again. Less than four hours had elapsed since we had been sitting in the Q shed.

  We moved away over the hillside, half-crouching, half-crawling between clumps of tussac grass, the soft peat sucking at our feet. I again led the way, pausing to watch and listen every fifty yards as Jane caught up.

  I tried to steer a course across the rock and firmer ground where we would leave less sign, but the darkness made it impossible to distinguish between firm ground and wet peat.

  An hour’s painful progress took us to the edge of the stone run. We lay motionless for a full fifteen minutes, raking the skyline and the surrounding landscape with our eyes, searching for any unfamiliar shape or movement.

  There was nothing, only the relentless wind stirring the tussac grass and rattling the dry leaves of the diddle-dee. Finally, I squeezed Jane’s hand and sent her forward across the broad expanse of stone.

  She inched her way from rock to rock, flattening her body against the steep slope. She was perhaps a third of the way across when I glanced towards the skyline and froze. The quartz pebble in my palm had been clenched so tightly it was warm to the touch. I tossed it after her. There was a faint chink as it clipped a boulder just by her.

  She stopped instantly. I peered towards the skyline, between the fronds of tussac grass. The unmistakeable outline of a head was looking down in my direction.

  I eased my pistol from its holster and slid off the safety catch. For two or three minutes none of us moved. Then I saw the black-streaked, pale disc of Jane’s face as she turned slowly towards me, keeping the back of her head to the ridgeline. I remained motionless, praying that she would do the same.

  There was a rustle of movement from the hillside above me. The shape on the skyline grew larger as it moved towards me. I took aim, the pistol an extension of my arm, forced myself to calm my breathing and began to squeeze the trigger.

  I stiffened as the figure above me moved again, then let out a sigh and relaxed my grip. The curl of a ram’s horn was dimly outlined against the cloud-covered night sky before its owner dropped its head and began to graze once more.

  I could feel the sweat cold on my brow. I waved my hand, signalling Jane to move on across the rocks, and a few seconds later she reached the far side and dropped into cover.

  I began the same nerve-wracking journey. The quartz boulders were sharp and angular beneath my hands, but also slippery with lic
hen and moss. The stones seemed held in momentary stasis, like a river suddenly frozen in full spate.

  I was almost across when my foot slipped on a boulder. I pitched forward and my head struck the ground. I stifled a groan of pain, then heard the sound of a stone clattering away, bouncing from rock to rock with an almost musical note.

  I flattened myself against the boulders and closed my eyes in an involuntary, childlike reaction – what cannot see, cannot be seen. I stayed motionless for several minutes after the stone had ceased its fall, then opened my eyes and put a hand up to my head. My vision swam for a moment, the faint glow of the stone run shimmering white in the darkness, then my head cleared.

  I crossed the last few yards as fast as I could and dropped into cover beside Jane. When I touched her hand, she was shaking. We began to move away down the hillside.

  The lower slopes were thickly carpeted with diddle-dee and as we forced our way through the tangled growth, the dry stems and branches scratched against our flying suits, but the wind hid any trace of the noise.

  A few hundred yards above the farmhouse, the slope of the cliff was broken by a small hillock. I waved Jane up alongside me and put my lips close to her ear. ‘If there are Argentinians on the farm I’d expect a sentry there, wouldn’t you?’

  She nodded. ‘Remember what I said.’

  ‘We’re not going to attack, we’re going to go around. You go first and I’ll cover you. Head for that dark patch fifty yards right of the shoulder of that hill. And Jane, no more than twenty-yard stages. I couldn’t hit a cow’s arse at a bigger range than that.’

  ‘Just make sure you don’t hit mine.’

  We both knew the banter was just another defence mechanism. She flattened herself against the ground and began to worm her way forward. I tried to follow her progress, straining my eyes into the darkness, but darting constant anxious looks towards the mound.

  As soon as she stopped moving, I began to inch forward, closing the gap between us. I stopped five yards short of her, outside the range of the first burst of fire (if there was to be one), and she began to move on again.

  I knew that a pistol was not much use against an Armalite in a one-on-one contact, but I was confident I could use the split second as a sentry brought his gun to bear on Jane to get off at least one shot.

  I kept raking the mound of diddle-dee and tussac grass with my eyes, but I could see no sign of a sentry, no telltale profile, no angular shape, no movement or reflected light.

  It took us twenty-five minutes to cover three hundred yards. Then we were safely past the hillock and looking down on the roof of the farm. The white walls of the building shone faintly in the starlight.

  Once more we waited a full ten minutes, searching every patch of shadow for movement or a standing figure, then we began to move again. This time I led the way, using the dense clumps of gorse and the rough stone wall of a paddock to hide our approach on the farm. We crept forward and flattened ourselves against the wall of the generator shed on the edge of the farmyard.

  The generator engine was cold and silent, but there was a faint glow from the living-room window of the farm, dimly reflected in a headlight of the Land Rover which was parked in the gloom of the barn.

  I let my gaze travel on around the outbuildings. I could see no movement and there was no sound but the insistent rattling of a piece of metal roofing on the shed.

  ‘We need to get a look through the window.’

  A muscle tugged in Jane’s cheek as she nodded.

  I took a last look around the yard. As I stared into the barn, the faint light reflecting in the Land Rover’s headlamp was suddenly extinguished. I whipped my head round to look at the farmhouse. The window was still illuminated.

  I placed a warning hand on Jane’s arm and peered back into the darkness. Then I saw a movement and heard the faint scrape of a boot on concrete. A soldier in battledress stood just inside the barn door, his face smeared with camouflage paint.

  There was the cold glint of a gun barrel as the soldier leaned forward to look towards the house. He pulled back into the shadows again, but I could still see his faint outline. He leaned back against the wall and lowered the barrel of his rifle, resting it on the toecap of his boot.

  I pulled Jane back out of the soldier’s line of sight and around the corner of the generator shed. I began looking around for a weapon other than my pistol. The wind whistled through a broken pane. On the sill, among a mess of oil cans and greasy rags, I saw a heavy metal wrench. I reached in through the window, moved the debris aside with infinite care and picked up the wrench.

  We stood huddled against the wall as we worked out a strategy, our heads close together like two lovers in a doorway. I checked my watch. ‘It’s 3:14… Now! Make your move at exactly 3:30. If it all goes to ratshit, hit cover and shoot anything carrying a gun that isn’t me.’

  She whispered, ‘Take care,’ and touched my cheek, then disappeared around the back of the shed into the darkness. I went in the opposite direction, in a wide loop that took me out of and around the farmyard to reach the back of the barn.

  I inched down the side, picking my way through a tangle of scrap metal, half-buried by weeds. I paused and glanced anxiously at my watch, wishing I had allowed a little longer. Finally I reached the corner, heart pounding and sweat dripping from my brow.

  I swallowed a couple of times, wiped my hand on my jacket and took a firm grip on the wrench. Then I eased my way around and stood to the side of the barn doorway. If the soldier had stayed where he was, I was now separated from him by only the width of the wall. If he had moved to the other side…

  I pushed the thought away and closed my eyes for a second, visualising every movement I would make. I checked my watch again, seeing the seconds tick slowly by. I took a tighter grip on the wrench and tensed myself, my eyes focused on the gap between a shed and a trailer, at the far side of the yard.

  Suddenly Jane stepped from cover. At the first, faint stirring of movement from just inside the barn door, I stepped around the corner, swinging the wrench in my outstretched arm with all my strength.

  I moved so quickly that the soldier’s gun barrel had barely lifted from the toecap of his boot. The wrench smashed into his face and his nose disintegrated in a spray of blood. As he crumpled and began to fall his finger tightened on the trigger.

  The rifle fired a single round. It smashed through the soldier’s boot. His shriek of pain was silenced by a second blow with the wrench and he fell to the ground with a noise like a wet sandbag.

  I was already sprinting for the house, switching the wrench to my left hand as I pulled out my pistol. Jane was there a split second ahead of me, flattening herself against the wall by the door.

  I saw the dark outline of a figure cross the lighted window. It had its back to us, but held a gun in one hand. I hurled the wrench through the glass and launched myself through the shower of fragments in a rolling dive that carried me halfway across the room. A split second later Jane burst through the door.

  A soldier stood in the middle of the room, panic etched across his face. He fumbled with his rifle, the barrel swinging in a trembling curve towards Jane in the doorway. I had a split second, no more. I raised my arm and squeezed the trigger, firing at point-blank range.

  Both shots struck home. The first punched a hole in the centre of the soldier’s chest. The impact threw him backwards and the second shot went in just below his chin, and out through the back of his head. The force of it twisted him round and smashed him head first into the wall. As he slid to the floor, he left a trail of blood and brains on the plaster.

  I jerked my head from side to side, seeking new targets, but expecting the impact of a bullet at any moment. Another figure moved in the far corner of the room. I swung my pistol round, heard a scream and froze. Rose was tied to a chair, staring in horror at the body slumped in the corner of the room. Otherwise the room was empty.

  ‘Any more?’ Jane yelled. ‘Are there any more?’
/>   Rose was still staring at the body. ‘Not in the house.’

  ‘Where?’

  She dragged her eyes away from the stain on the wall. ‘They went out last night. Four of them.’

  ‘We’ve got to move fast,’ Jane said. She grabbed a clothes line from a hook behind the door. ‘Check that guy, I’ll go and tie the other one up.’

  I walked across the room and turned the soldier over, still holding my pistol at the ready. Even though I knew he was dead, I felt for a pulse in his neck. There was none. Then I stared into the soldier’s face. He must have been older, but he looked like a boy, no more than eighteen or nineteen years old.

  Jane came back inside, tossing the clothes line on to the table. ‘No need for that, he’s dead as well. Two out of two; you don’t mess around, do you?

  I tasted bile in my mouth, ran to the sink and puked. I rinsed my mouth out and then turned back to face the room, wiping the tears from my eyes, my face clammy with sweat. I could not stop myself from looking at the body again. Then I turned, hurried across to Rose and untied her hands. The wire had bitten into her wrists, breaking the skin and leaving livid weals. Her face and arms were also badly bruised.

  ‘Bastards.’

  She looked up at me, her eyes frightened and pleading. I touched her face gently. ‘It’s all right, Rose, you’re safe now.’ I hoped she was more convinced than I was.

  ‘Sean, come on,’ Jane said. ‘Let’s move it.’

  ‘Where’s Bernard?’

  ‘He kept shouting and swearing at them. He’s outside, in the peat store, I think.’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  I ran outside and pushed open the door of the peat store. Bernard was lying on one side, his wrists and ankles bound, and a gag stuffed in his mouth. His face was black with peat dust and there was a crust of dried blood around one eye.

  I untied him and left him rubbing his wrists as I ran back inside and picked up the phone. The line was dead. I shook my head in answer to Jane’s unspoken query and stood for a minute, trying to think what to do. I had planned no further than reaching the farm.