by Matt Rogers
But a crippling amalgamation of mind-numbing injuries, brain fog, and general ineptitude left Abu sitting in the swivel chair with his lips flapping like a dying fish.
He had nothing.
He could help with nothing.
He leant back in the chair and stared vacantly at the ceiling, angered by his own uselessness.
It would all come down to what Slater could manage.
Just as it seemingly had for the entire time he’d known the man.
Hopefully, Slater’s relentless pursuit of forward motion would pay off.
Again.
46
1945 hours Yemen time
1745 hours London time
Fifteen minutes until discharge
Slater made it to the top of the rise with his lungs burning in his chest, breath fogging in front of his face in the sudden chill. Despite everything, the drastic change in temperature didn’t fail to amaze him. He struggled to process how it could go from blisteringly hot to painfully cold in the space of an hour.
As he continued to ascend the mountainside, fixated on what lay ahead, it only grew colder.
As the altitude rose, the temperature plummeted.
He recognised certain landmarks from the previous day — the rock formations dotting the sides of the trail activated certain memories, images that had been etched into his mind.
He didn’t think he would forget them anytime soon.
He passed the same stretch of track that had burned the brightest imprint on his psyche the day before. He knew what he would find if he turned his attention to the shallow ditch on the side of the track, but he made sure to keep his eyes fixed directly ahead.
It would do him no good to study the headless corpse of the small child.
It would only serve to anger him further.
He had adrenalin and cortisol and sheer willpower flooding his mind. Any more of a spark and he would fall entirely off the rails. He had struggled in the past to keep control of his anger — and now it was threatening to bubble its way to the surface.
What Sayyid was attempting to do — as well as his own closeness to death moments before — had activated something deep inside of him.
Something primal.
A cluster of silhouettes materialised at the top of the track. Slater could make out their forms in the darkness — the three of them were backlit by the night sky. Looking up at them posed an advantage.
They wouldn’t see him.
Not until it was too late.
They were obviously sentries, deployed to ensure that no-one made it into the encampment in the final hour. Despite the pessimistic thoughts coursing through Slater’s head — the knowledge that nothing he achieved here would make a notable impact on the outcome — he pushed on regardless.
He could at least try.
Still racing forward, he raised the AK-47 and fired relentlessly up the trail, selecting his targets carefully, moving from one tribesman to the next. The shapes twisted and jerked in the night sky, thumping to the sand in pools of blood. Slater didn’t pause to assess the damage he had caused.
He pushed straight through into the encampment.
He gazed out across the same rocky promontory he’d chanced upon the previous day — at night, it looked different. The shadows were accentuated, the cave entrances drowning in darkness and terror. It left room for the imagination to conjure all kinds of horrors.
Thankfully, Slater barely had time to think.
He kept sprinting, leapfrogging the three dead bodies — men who had never even posed a threat. Their weapons lay useless at their feet. On the way past, Slater reached down and snatched up a fresh magazine, recognising one of the firearms as an identical AK-47. To save time rummaging around in his pockets for spares, he ejected the magazine in his own rifle and chambered the fresh one home.
He noticed the shift in the air, the crackling electricity charging the atmosphere all around him.
He had become unstoppable.
Bedlam erupted inside the encampment. Harsh artificial light illuminated the collection of huts, plunging out of pre-installed floodlights. There were only a handful of the devices scattered across the wide space, casting elongated shadows across the rocky ground.
Vehicles surrounded the huts — the same battered pick-up trucks that seemed to be an extension of the land itself around these parts. Slater noted Toyota Land Cruisers sprawled at random across the plateau, parked in haste.
Already, men were piling into the vehicles, screaming obscenities in their native tongue.
Gunfire ripped across the stretch of flat land.
Muzzles flared.
Slater threw himself into a narrow crevice between two sweeping plains of rock, a natural alcove that blocked three-quarters of his torso from the line of fire. He took the chance to survey the scene before him, breathing hard, sweating from every pore at once despite the night chill.
Shadows moved through the huts like wraiths — it was chaos. Slater couldn’t determine who was armed and who wasn’t. He counted five or six silhouettes ghosting across the promontory, fanning out.
He swallowed a ball of apprehension.
The longer he waited, the more chances these men had to capitalise on the situation. They had reacted faster than he anticipated, beginning to form a rudimentary semi-circle in an attempt to close him off.
Through the muzzle flashes and the deafening staccato of gunfire and the harsh blinding glare of the floodlights, Slater spotted something.
A solitary figure, hustling through the encampment.
Limping uncomfortably on one leg.
Moving as fast as his ageing, broken body would allow.
Slater recognised the attire. It was the same outfit the man had worn yesterday.
Sayyid.
Hauling ass for one of the pick-up trucks on the outskirts of the encampment.
Slater glanced at the vehicle itself and realised there was a man in the driver’s seat. He had his neck craned behind him, watching Sayyid approach.
Waiting for his leader.
Slater put two and two together. He realised that Sayyid would be away in less than a minute if he didn’t act. He couldn’t afford to waste another second. He started to tense himself, preparing to burst across the stretch of no man’s land like a coiled spring releasing all at once. That was the only opportunity he would have to make it to the pick-up truck in time.
And then what?
He had no time to consider what would happen next.
First he had to make sure not to get caught in the crossfire.
He lowered the AK-47 and placed one bloody palm on the rock, at chest-height, ready to explode.
Then he heard it.
A relentless barrage of screaming, hurling phrases into the air, coming from his left. He tore his attention away from Sayyid to ascertain the source of the madness.
A drug-addled tribesman came sprinting out of the darkness. The man must have located Slater amidst the promontory and thrown himself into a suicidal dash, sacrificing his life to spare his leader.
Slater noted the crazed look in the man’s eyes, and the fragmentation grenade clutched between the white knuckles of his left hand.
His heart dropped.
47
Slater had seconds to act.
He assessed the distance between them and concluded that the bomber had built up such momentum on his mad dash that if Slater gunned him down, the sheer kinetic energy would carry him and the live grenade into the alcove.
There was little he could do to avoid it.
With a dozen feet between them, Slater realised the tribesman was going to hurl himself into the crevice at the last second, releasing his hold on the grenade in the process. The subsequent explosion would blast them both to shreds.
He held his breath for a moment too long, paralysed by indecision. There was nothing he could do.
The tribesman — a young man with hollow cheekbones and a thin frame — covered the last stretch between them.
Slater changed direction in an instant and hurled himself out of the crevice, using both arms to carry himself onto flat ground. The bomber realised the change of direction and moved to slow down — his intention was to bear-hug Slater, nullifying the distance between them and assuring he was caught in the blast.
Slater dropped low and lashed out with a heavy combat boot, putting every ounce of strength in his frame into the move.
The toe of his boot connected with the tribesman’s shin, splitting the bone in two. His leg caved unnaturally, folding in on itself, and the man lost all control of his body. He tumbled awkwardly over the top of Slater, pitching forward, cascading into the alcove.
One second! a voice in Slater’s head screamed.
He rolled like his life depended on it — which it did. He hauled himself away from the thin slit in the plateau, at the same time as the tribesman tumbled into it.
The grenade slipped out of the man’s grip, detonating on the floor of the alcove.
Slater had put a dozen feet between himself and the crevice by the time the fragmentation grenade went off, but it knocked every scrap of breath from his lungs all the same.
The world swam.
The concussive blast hit him like a gut punch, rendering him immobile for a spell. The walls of the crevice had shielded most of the force of the detonation — if they hadn’t, he would have been flung across the promontory like a rag doll, his internal organs crushed and broken.
A mind-numbing crack flooded his senses, deafening him. His eardrums screamed in protest, ringing from the sheer decibel levels of the explosion.
There was little heat or fire. Grenade blasts seldom unfolded like the movies — they roared into existence with traumatic force and destruction, horrendously loud and packing an unrivalled punch. Slater made it to his feet, stumbled once, and shook his head from side to side in an attempt to get his wits about him. The blast had rattled him, but it hadn’t put him out.
That was all he needed to know.
He was on the move before his hearing had even returned, ducking instinctively as Kalashnikov rounds sliced through the air around him. The gunfire came in precise bursts, sending pieces of the rocky promontory floor flying in all directions.
Slater made for the same vehicle Sayyid had almost reached — deaf to the world, but determined not to stop.
If he paused, he died.
He was closer to the encampment than he originally thought — he reached the outermost tents within seconds. A bullet shredded the canvas of the nearest wall, and he recoiled away from the impact site, ducking amidst the giant tents.
He had just managed a brief sigh of relief when a round shredded through his right calf.
He still couldn’t hear anything, so the bullet wound presented itself in the form of a crippling wave of pain. Blood and flesh sprayed out of his lower leg, and he buckled temporarily under the horrendous stabbing sensation.
Eyes throbbing, ears thrumming, lungs burning for relief, his leg screaming for mercy, he wobbled.
The concept of surrender forged in his mind all at once, presenting itself on a frighteningly tantalising platter. It would simply take a single beat of hesitation to cave into his brain’s desperate plea for relief. He would collapse in the encampment, succumbing to the pain and the agony and the nausea.
Instead, he ignored everything and closed the last few feet of ground between himself and the vehicle with animalistic determination.
His right leg barely functioned. He dragged it along the ground like a crippled dog, willing himself forward with every fibre of his being. Ahead, Sayyid finished scrambling into the rear tray of the vehicle — another Land Cruiser. The man had taken his time — his old, frail body could only move so fast.
The rear tyres spun on the dusty rock and the vehicle began to accelerate as soon as Sayyid was onboard.
Slater hurled himself at the back of the vehicle, clenching his teeth hard enough to grind them down in an effort to combat the pain. He snatched onto the lip of the rear tray with crimson-stained fingers, sinking his flesh into the corrugated metal.
As soon as he had the slightest semblance of a grip on the Toyota, he hurled himself onboard. Athleticism lent a helping hand and he came down in a bloody, sweaty pile on the rear tray of the vehicle, gasping for breath, not daring to look at his leg.
All at once, the gunfire abruptly ceased.
Slater understood.
He had dived into close proximity of Sayyid, and none of the remaining tribesmen would dare fire on their leader. Slater sensed the man lying right next to him.
He wondered if the driver would slam on the brakes, bringing the vehicle to a halt in the middle of the plateau.
There, Slater would become a sitting duck.
Instead, the driver panicked. No-one could be reliant to always make the tactically sound choice in a high-intensity combat situation — and the man commandeering the Land Cruiser certainly didn’t react as he should have. Slater had seen it a thousand times before.
The driver registered that the precious cargo — Sayyid — had made it onto the vehicle. Maybe his senses were flooding with adrenalin, and he didn’t even recognise that Slater had also hurled himself onboard.
Whatever the case, the man kept his foot mashed against the accelerator.
The Land Cruiser shot across the promontory, bucking and jolting underneath the uneven ground.
Slater’s hearing began to return, accompanied by the distant screams of tribesmen scattered across the mountainside. All pleading with the driver to come to his senses and slow down. If he would just stop … Slater would have exhausted all his options.
Instead, Slater used the opportunity to grab two handfuls of Sayyid’s traditional futa, dragging the old man into range. He managed a glimpse at the man’s hands and saw one of them clutching a high-tech satellite phone, its tiny screen glowing dimly in the night.
‘Fuck,’ Slater whispered, snatching at the phone.
Sayyid sneered, exposing rotting teeth, and rolled away with surprising dexterity.
That phone is everything, Slater told himself.
Secure it.
As Sayyid scrambled away across the tray, Slater became reckless, diving after the old man. As he lifted his head above the tray’s lip, gunfire exploded across the promontory, bullets whistling through the air all around him.
He ducked back underneath the line of sight, protected by cover.
The barrage of shots only spurred the driver on. He quickened his pace, and both men in the rear tray were thrown around as the Land Cruiser gunned it toward the mountain trail.
The side of Slater’s head smashed into the lip of the tray, and he grimaced as a wave of disorientation rolled over him. When he regained his senses, he twisted on the spot to see Sayyid poised on the other side of the tray, his back pressed against the driver’s cabin.
The man had lost his weapon in the confusion — an IWI Jericho 941, the same sidearm all the tribesmen were armed with.
It rested in the space between them, free for the taking.
Sayyid didn’t care.
He pressed a button on the face of the satellite phone, dialling a number.
The man’s face twisted into a sneer as the call was answered.
48
Searing waves of fire coursed through Slater’s calf — he could tell from the extent of the pain that the muscle was horrifically damaged — but all of that fell away as he watched Sayyid make the call.
In one fluid motion, he hurled himself across the tray, battling resistance as the vehicle accelerated. One blood-soaked palm came down on the Jericho pistol and he snatched it up, slotting his finger inside the trigger guard as he flattened himself out on his stomach, lengthways across the rear tray.
The call connected, Sayyid opened his mouth to speak…
… and Slater fired, a single bullet that spat out of the barrel like a screaming heat-seeking missile and blasted Sayyid’s face apart, tearing into the sof
t cartilage between his eyes and sinking straight through, pulverising his brain in a harrowing spray of gore.
The tribal leader slumped back against the rear window of the cabin, all his limbs going limp at once.
The satellite phone cascaded out of his hands.
It bounced off the lip of the tray.
The device disappeared from sight, falling out of the Land Cruiser.
Slater remained on his stomach, breathing hard, shocked by how close he had come to failure. He pictured the driver stamping on the brakes as the shot rang out, recognising that all was not as it seemed. The deceleration would give Slater a chance to leap out of the rear tray and secure the satellite phone — wherever it had landed amidst the promontory.
Instead, Sayyid’s faceless corpse slumped over, revealing the shattered rear window of the cabin…
… and what lay beyond.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ Slater whispered.
By sheer dumb coincidence, the Jericho round had been powerful enough at such close-range to blast straight through the back of Sayyid’s head, slicing inside the cabin. It had finished its short but catastrophic existence embedded deep in the back of the driver’s neck. The man was now slumped motionless over the steering wheel, bleeding uncontrollably down the back of his shirt.
Slater swore again and scrambled to his knees as he realised the Land Cruiser wasn’t slowing down anytime soon.
His eyes went wide as he ran through the list of options in his head.
There were few.
To make things worse, he looked over his shoulder to see one of the tribesman sprinting wildly for the area where the satellite phone had skittered to a halt. The man had abandoned his own vehicle a few dozen feet from the impact zone, descending on the site with rabid intensity.
‘Shit, shit, shit.’
Slater spat curses as his pulse quickened. The Toyota picked up speed, now travelling at close to fifty miles an hour across the promontory. It had set itself on a direct collision course with one of the rock formations surrounding the plateau. The impact was inevitable.