by Chris Ryan
Thirteen rounds down, Porter reminded himself.
Seven left in the clip.
‘Second wave approaching!’ Tully shouted from the eastern side of the rooftop. ‘Four hundred metres.’
Porter said, ‘How many guys will this lot sacrifice until they piss off home?’
‘They won’t.’ Tully wiped sweat from his brow. ‘They’re like rats, fella. They’ll keep coming until they find a way through. They won’t stop until they’re all dead.’
Porter gritted his teeth and turned back to the rooftop. He looked towards the second wave of enemies approaching the hotel from the direction of the roundabout. He counted thirty of them, moving forward in a fast, loose formation. Bald raked the approaching targets with a few bursts from the gimpy, killing three in quick succession and scattering the rest. Porter traced his sights back to the north, concentrating his fire on the patch of open ground between the banana trees and the slum buildings, dropping any rebels who tried to make a run for cover. Bald peppered the plantation with furious bursts from the gimpy, forcing the rebels massing there to displace. The two operators were working like a well-oiled machine, anticipating each other’s moves and providing covering fire the moment either one of them needed to reload. The ground around their feet became littered with spent brass. The air was filled with the continuous crack and whip of gunshots and the hysterical cries of the wounded and dying.
‘What’s happening with the evacuation?’ Bald asked, glancing over his shoulder at the crash door as he spoke. As if he expected to see Tannon come rushing out at any moment with news.
‘No fucking idea. Let’s deal with these bastarcts first.’
‘What happens if we run out of ammo before the rebels run out of bodies to throw at us?’
‘We won’t,’ Porter said. ‘It’s just a matter of time till help gets here.’
But in truth, he had been thinking the same thing as Bald. If the rebels keep attacking us, eventually we’re gonna have to start conserving ammo, he thought. Even these idiots soon figure out that we’re running low on rounds. When that happens, we’re gonna be in the shit.
Big time.
By now the sun had fully risen above the bay, bleaching the sky an acid blue. Porter glanced at his G-Shock and was amazed to see it was a few minutes past eight o’clock. Which meant they’d been putting rounds down on the enemy for over an hour. But the rebels showed no signs of giving up their assault. Ten or so rebels from the second wave had managed to advance across the gap from the banana trees to the slum dwellings, while the other fifteen rebels bunkered down at the plantation to provide covering fire, unleashing erratic volleys of 7.62mm short at the rooftop. They were emptying entire clips with no regard for conserving their ammo.
They’re being careless with their rounds, Porter noted. Which could only mean one thing.
They must have a lot more ammo than us.
By nine o’clock in the morning, the rebels’ gunfire had become increasingly accurate. At least twenty enemies had migrated from the slum dwellings to the garage directly north of the hotel, taking up firing points that brought them closer into range of the rooftop. A four-round burst landed dangerously close, slapping into the wall several inches to the right of Porter. The rebels were also shrinking back behind cover before Porter could put the drop on them.
‘Twelve o’clock,’ he said to Bald. ‘The garage. The old cars outside.’
Bald dropped to his front and folded out the legs on the GPMG bipod. Then he pointed the muzzle through the drainage hole located midway up the parapet and rattled off shots at a group of three rebels crouched behind one of the abandoned motors in front of the building. Still the rebels kept pouring forward. Tight clusters of six or ten arrived to reinforce their mates at the plantation, allowing the other rebels to scurry forward under suppressive fire. By mid-morning the enemy had managed to advance to within three hundred metres of the hotel. Half a dozen had reached cover inside the garage itself. Bald and Porter kept applying the pressure with frequent well-aimed bursts. More than twenty bodies now lay sprawled across the ground north of the hotel. Porter dropped another rebel, emptied his clip and grabbed a fresh mag from his trouser pocket. He was on his fourth clip now. Which meant he had expended more than sixty rounds. Eight rounds left before I run out of ammo. He glanced over at Bald and saw that his mucker had used up two belts of ammo. Between them they had fired almost five hundred rounds.
Every time one attack stalled under the oppressive weight of gunfire, the rebels switched their efforts to one of the other approaches to the hotel. Twice Bald and Porter had to migrate across the rooftop to reinforce Spray-Tan and the fourth Belgian. The operators couldn’t clamber over the air-con duct since that risked making them visible above the parapet to the targets below, so they had to crawl around the vents on all fours to reach the other sides of the roof. Wave after wave of rebels attacked the hotel from the east and south in groups of six or eight. Rounds chipped away at the concrete and ricocheted off the water tower.
They’re getting closer, Porter thought. He felt a pang of anxiety in his guts. Whatever help is on the way, it had better get here soon.
‘Need some help over here!’ Spray-Tan called out from the south-facing parapet.
Bald and Porter dashed across the rooftop. Nilis joined them, leaving Tully and the two other Belgians to put down fire on the rebels advancing from the north-east at the roundabout. Porter hit the southern-facing wall and peered out through one of the drainage holes. Two dozen fighters were closing in on the rear of the hotel. They had cleared the barren field to the south and reached the low wall a hundred and fifty metres away, a short distance beyond the swimming pool. Bald cut down a loose cluster of rebels climbing over the wall with a savage hail of gunfire, the gimpy barrel glowing red as the bullets tore into the enemies, ripping apart their limbs and decapitating some. A couple of the smarter rebels hunkered down behind the far side of the wall. Porter picked them off as soon as they poked their heads out of cover.
As Porter searched for his next target he saw with horror that two of the rebels had managed to clear the wall to the rear of the hotel grounds. They were making for a row of storage sheds a hundred metres from the back doors leading into the restaurant. These two rebels looked to be much younger than the others, Porter noticed. They were no older than eleven or twelve years of age. They were seventy metres from the storage sheds now. Porter tracked the nearest child through his iron sights. A bony kid dressed in a blood-red tank top, with a green bandana tied around his shaven head. He looked less like a killer, and more like a kid in fancy dress playing Rambo.
Porter saw Bald line up the kid.
‘Do we have to put them down too, Jock? They’re just kids, for fuck’s sake.’
Bald hesitated. Before he could respond Porter heard the crack of a rifle discharge at his nine o’clock as Nilis fired a single shot from his SLR. The bullet smashed into Rambo’s gut and sent him tumbling to the ground fifty metres from the sheds. The second kid made the mistake of looking over his shoulder at his mate, stopping momentarily in his tracks. Long enough for Nilis to reset his aim and pop the kid through his left shoulder. The second kid dropped to the ground a few paces from Rambo. The two of them clutching their wounds, their hysterical screams piercing the burnt air.
‘Got them!’ Nilis said, grinning. He gave Bald the thumbs-up again. ‘Now that’s what I call shooting, my friend.’
The two wounded kids continued wailing. Bald lined up the two screaming children with the gimpy, ready to put them out of their misery. Nilis thrust out a hand and rested it on top of the machine gun. Looked Bald hard in the eye.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Let them suffer.’
He stared at Bald a moment longer. Then he grinned again and went back to his firing position on the parapet, putting down rounds on the dozen or so rebels still picking their way across the hotel grounds. Porter stared at Nilis in disbelief, stunned at the casual way the Belgian had dropped the two kids
. Like it was nothing at all, he thought. Like this wasn’t the first time he’d killed somebody. Maybe Bald’s right, Porter told himself. Maybe these guys really are Belgian SF. But if that’s true, what are they doing here in the first place?
A shout from Tully drew his attention to the north.
‘Technical!’ he yelled. ‘Three o’clock. Coming your way, fellas!’
Bald and Porter scrambled back across the rooftop, rounds striking the parapet and the air-con duct. Porter slid off the duct half a second before three bullets struck the metal sheeting. He ducked low at the northern wall and looked in the direction of the roundabout to the east. Saw a dust trail drifting up into the sky. A battered white Hilux was rolling down the Cape Road, doing twenty miles per. Four rebels were jogging alongside the pickup, using it to cover their approach to the hotel. A fifth guy stood on the platform on the back of the Hilux. He was manning a heavy machine gun mounted on a tripod, ammo belt swaying in the breeze. Even at a distance of four hundred metres, Porter readily identified the weapon as a Russian-manufactured Dushka. An anti-aircraft gun chambered for the 12.7x108mm round, the Soviet equivalent of the NATO .50 calibre bullet. The kind of weapon that could put down a herd of elephants from a mile away. At a range of four hundred metres, it was lethal.
‘Where the fuck did they get that thing from?’ Bald said.
‘Probably from one of the army units that defected,’ Porter said. ‘Or maybe they grabbed it from one of the armouries the bastards looted.’
Either way, if the rebels get that thing on target, we’re shafted.
Bald and Porter instantly switched their focus to the approaching Hilux. They both swivelled their weapons away from the foot soldiers, training their sights on the immediate threat. Bald unloaded a quick burst at the pickup, aiming for the guy manning the Dushka. Not an easy shot, Porter knew. A fast-moving target at a range of three hundred and fifty metres, with a weapon like the GPMG, presented a formidable challenge even for a seasoned SAS man like Bald. The gimpy thundered. The six rounds missed their target, striking the tarmac two metres to the left of the pickup.
‘Bastard,’ Bald cursed.
‘Three hundred metres,’ Porter said. ‘Hurry.’
The Hilux driver suddenly hit the gas. The pickup lurched forward, tyres screeching as it bulleted west along the road, leaving the four gunmen trailing in its wake. In the same beat the guy manning the Dushka swung the heavy machine gun up and across, and there was a white-hot flash at the muzzle as he discharged six rounds at the rooftop. Gases snorted out of the sides of the barrel. A series of deep low thumps echoed across the sky as the rounds spat out. Porter saw the Hilux jolting with the weapon recoil. Rounds the size of beer bottles pinged out of the side of the ejector. Two of the bullets chopped into a palm tree directly in front of the hotel, felling it. Three rounds struck higher, slamming into the concrete below the parapet, each one landing higher than the last. Like notes in a musical crescendo. The sixth bullet blew a hole in the section of the wall six inches to the left of Porter, smothering his face with bits of concrete and a cloud of hot dust.
‘Drop him!’ he yelled. ‘NOW, JOCK!’
Bald zeroed his aim and fired again. The first two bullets zipped over the top of the Toyota. The next three rounds were the bullseye shots. They smacked into the rebel on the machine gun in a close grouping, ripping open his bowels. His arms fell away from the handles of the heavy machine gun as Bald trained his sights on the front cab and unleashed another five-round burst. The rounds struck the driver’s side door and bored through the metal like a ticket punch through a paper card, nailing the bloke behind the wheel. Blood splashed across the front windscreen. The Hilux veered sharply off to the right, crashing into one of the knackered motors parked in front of the garage. There was the shrieking of twisted metal and the shattering of glass. The car horn sounding its urgent blaring note, like a mechanical scream.
‘Still fucking got it,’ Bald said, flashing a grin.
Porter switched his attention east, to the four gunmen in the middle of the road. They suddenly began racing towards the knackered pickup. Porter instinctively grasped what was happening.
‘Four X-rays going for the Dushka,’ he said. ‘Knock that fucker out!’
‘On it, mate.’
One of the gunmen climbed onto the back platform of the Hilux and reached for the Dushka. Bald unloaded a burst at him as he grabbed the handles. The rounds hit him with such force that they knocked him off the back of the pickup. Bald adjusted his aim slightly and directed a continuous stream of rounds on the fuel tank located at the rear of the Hilux. The first six rounds punched through the tank. The next six caused the tank to burst into flames. The three other gunmen who had been running towards the pickup stopped short as the fire consumed the vehicle, the heat and fumes making it impossible to operate the Dushka. They turned away from the burning pickup and scurried towards the rear of the garage twelve metres away. Porter and Bald put down a series of raking bursts on the rebels, dropping all of them.
Another ten rebels advanced from the derelict buildings, reinforcing the dozen or so camped out at the garage. Porter was down to his last two clips. Forty rounds left, he thought. There were more clips downstairs but if the waves of rebels kept coming, he knew that eventually they would have to start rationing ammo.
He looked out across the Cape Road. Saw a larger group of rebels emerging from behind the slum dwellings, racing towards the access road. Fourteen of them. Half of the enemy were equipped with RPGs. They were less than two hundred metres from the hotel now. Dangerously close.
‘Shit,’ Bald said.
‘Some more firepower over here!’ Porter called out.
Tully and Nilis hustled over from the eastern flank to help deal with the threat, leaving the two Belgians to put down rounds on the rebels at the pavilion. Spray-Tan and the fourth Belgian continued to brass up the enemies along the southern flank of the hotel. Porter went to fire but then Tully shouted out at him and Porter ducked low as a rocket fired over his head, missing him by less than a foot. Then his training kicked in. Porter immediately, raised his SLR, following the evaporating trail of smoke. He trained the iron sights on a rebel crouching beside one of the slums. Porter dropped the guy as he finished loading another round into the RPG. He jack-knifed and fell forward, firing the RPG into the ground. The rocket detonated and sent a violent hissing surge of soil and debris and body parts high into the air. Another target knelt down to fire his launcher. Porter gave him the good news as well.
‘Down there, mate!’ Bald roared. ‘Twelve o’clock!’
As Bald spoke another RPG thudded into the vacant lower floors of the hotel. Glass shattered. Acrid black smoke swept up and across the roof, burning the operators’ lungs and obscuring their view of the targets along the Cape Road. The smoke cleared. Then Porter saw them. Seven rebels, directly below his position on the rooftop. They had reached the turn in the access road leading down to the front of the hotel. In his determination to slot the guys with the RPGs, Porter had missed them. They had already raced past the sandbags and were now zigzagging their way down the left-hand side of the road towards the entrance to the hotel. They were thirty metres away, Porter figured. Way ahead of their muckers.
Closing fast.
He raised his gun arm and arced his sights down at the onrushing targets. From a height of forty metres the angle was tight and Porter had to lean over the side of the parapet to get a fix on the enemy. Any moment now they were going to slip out of sight, he knew. He had one chance to nail them. He stilled his breath, depressed the trigger twice. The first round missed. The second hit the rearmost rebel in the groin and sent him dropping to the ground like a hot brick. But the six other rebels disappeared from view before Porter could adjust his aim. They rushed past the shuttered entrance to the underground car park and made directly for the main entrance.
Porter spun away from the wall. Looked to Tully. Said, ‘Stay here and keep this lot back. Keep firing
until no one’s left standing. Got it?’
Tully nodded. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To stop those lunatics from getting inside the hotel.’
Nilis overheard them and said, ‘I’ll come with you. There’s six of them. Two of us stand a better chance of stopping them than one.’ He grinned. ‘Besides, it’s a chance to kill more of these savages.’
The Belgian looked relaxed. Confident. Like he wasn’t afraid. Porter wondered again about that. But there wasn’t time to worry about Nilis and his mates. He thought about the flimsy barricade at the entrance to the hotel, and knew it wouldn’t take long for the rebels to break through it. Unless we hit these fuckers hard and fast, everyone inside this hotel is done for. He nodded quickly at Nilis.
‘Follow me.’
Then he turned and hurried across the rooftop towards the stairwell.
SEVENTEEN
1058 hours.
Porter launched down the stairs. Blood rushing in his ears, muscles aching with the strain of combat. The sounds of the firefight rattling through the upper floors of the hotel. Nilis lagged a couple of steps behind, breathing hard. A crashing boom sounded from one of the lower floors. The walls shook as another RPG struck the front of the hotel. Porter could hear the broken glass hailstoning, the flames seething. He ran on. He didn’t think about dying. He didn’t think about what might happen in the next few hours, or whether the enemy might win the battle. He thought no further ahead than the next ten seconds. Get down to the ground floor. Kill the rebels. Stop them from massacring the civilians.
As they raced down the main stairwell Porter and Nilis passed several small groups of Nigerian soldiers hunkering down on the landings. Others were slumped against the walls of the corridors branching off to the left and right of the stairwells. A few had crammed inside whatever empty rooms they could find. They stared back at Porter with their wide round eyes as he swept past. There was no shame or embarrassment on their faces at avoiding the firefight. Just evident relief that they weren’t having to take the battle to the enemy. Porter gritted his teeth in anger at their cowardice as he pushed on.