Sniper’s Debt (7even Series Book 2)

by Mainak Dhar

  Chechen?

  Just what I needed… Another national to add to an already multinational and multicultural party that we had going here.

  The door opened, and a man walked in. He looked really old, and walked with a stoop that spoke not just to his age but to injuries. As he came closer, one of the masked men pulled a chair for him, and he sat in front of me.

  The second masked man bought a table and placed it next to the man.

  I got a closer look at the man now. Wrinkled face, hair hennaed red, shaggy beard. Two fingers missing on his left hand.

  His eyes bored into me as he grinned. ‘They told me you need persuading. Is that true?’

  ‘So, you’re the Chechen?’

  He smiled, revealing several missing teeth. ‘Are you going to ask me a question every time I ask you one? We’ll be here a really long time in that case, and you will not enjoy our conversation.’

  As he spoke, he took the leather satchel he had been carrying, placed it on the table and carefully unrolled it. I processed what I saw in there – various knives, a couple of pliers, screwdrivers, a hammer, and a couple of vials filled with some powders.

  I knew what was going to happen to me, and I felt my stomach curdle in spite of my trying to put on a brave face. I had trained for it many times, but training for it is never quite the same as knowing that you are about to be tortured.

  My plan had been to sow some doubt, dissent or at least confusion in their camp with the story about Khalid. At least that part of it had worked somewhat, given the temper with which the Chinese man had walked out, leaving only a couple of guards with me. I had counted on being able to take out the guards and to get to Karzai, before calling in Sandberg, as we had agreed.

  What I had not counted on was the fact was that Ross was going to get me tortured even while he tried to smooth things with the Chinese. I guess I had really pissed him off.

  The Chechen was smiling as he took out the small hammer. Without much ado, he brought it down on my left hand, just above my knuckles.

  I gasped in pain as he hit me again, even harder this time. ‘You don’t need to do this. I’ll tell you what you want to know.’

  He nodded and took out a small dicta-phone, placing it on the table. He pressed the ‘record’ button and spoke, ‘Who is your handler in the Indian intelligence services?’

  ‘Boman Irani.’

  The idiot nodded. ‘Give me the number you call him at.’

  I gave him the Dominos pizza delivery number in Mumbai.

  ‘You are being unusually co-operative.’

  ‘Call that number if you don’t believe me.’

  He nodded to one of the masked men, who took out a phone and dialed.

  I could see the glare in his eyes through the slits as he listened to the recorded voice at the other end. He whispered something in the Chechen’s ears and the old man looked at me.

  The man’s eyes were devoid of much emotion, but I thought I saw a trace of pity. Did he feel sorry for those he was going to work on? I didn’t need pity, I wanted fury.

  Fury that would make him careless.

  ‘Can you ask them to put extra cheese on mine?’

  The Chechen sighed and took out a serrated blade.

  As he leaned over me, I could smell his breath.

  ‘Ate too much garlic yesterday?’

  He ripped open the front of my kameez, but I could see that he was keeping his distance.

  Not much of an idiot after all.

  Without saying another word, he jabbed me on the upper right chest and began dragging the blade down in a curved motion, circling around my breast and working its way down in a straight line down my middle.

  I had been stabbed before, but that’s like saying once you’ve been run over by a car, it becomes easier the next time. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t want to give this bastard the satisfaction of making me scream, so I took all the pain, all the anger, all the frustration… and began singing at the top of my voice.

  Jana gana mana adhinayake jaya he

  Bharat bhagya vidhaata

  He sat back, wiping the bloodied knife on a rag.

  I stopped, breathing heavily, wincing in pain. My chest was now covered with blood. I realised the man in front of me was a pro at his dark art.

  He had cut and bled me, but not done any internal damage. If anything, this had been an indicator of how badly he could hurt me, if he wanted to.

  The Chechen was back, this time holding the knife an inch from my left eye. ‘Plucking out an eye will hurt even more. I’d like to hear you sing then.’

  The knife came closer, and then we heard a gunshot, and then another.

  It would have been too much hoping for the bad guys to kill each other in a gunfight started by my stories about Khalid and Rasool, but clearly it had caused some chaos in their ranks. There were just the two shots, which may well have been nothing more than warning shots fired by someone, but the old man in front of me knew nothing about what I had said and what might be going on down there in the village where Ross’ Chinese pal was presumably accosting Khalid and Rasool.

  So, when the shots rang out, the Chechen looked at the door, wondering what was going on.

  As he did so, he lowered his guard for a second, bringing his face closer to mine than he had done before.

  A second was all I needed.

  I snapped my head forward into his, my forehead making solid contact with his nose. I was tied down, and had limited degree of movement, and was not able to hit him as hard as I would have otherwise, but it was enough to snap his head back, blood spurting from his nose.

  The two masked guards and the Chechen were no doubt dangerous enough, even without me trussed up like a turkey. So, I had to get going fast.

  My hands and legs were tied to the chair, but either the choice of furniture in the Korengal Valley was limited, or they had just tied me to the most easily available chair, either way, it was quite flimsy for a man of my size and weight.

  When they had tied me to it, I had gently rocked it back and forth, getting a feel for its weight and balance.

  One of its front legs was a bit shorter than the others. All the while that the Chechen had been working on me, I had leaned over on that leg a bit, tryng to work it in such a manner that I could get it to give a bit.

  That way, when I leaned back and put all my weight into that lunge forward, the chair skidded, bringing me crashing onto the Chechen.

  The torturer was now under me, his eyes looking into me, that smug look wiped off, replaced by terror. The look of a man who knows that he is no longer in charge.

  I brought my head down hard on his face. Once. Twice. Thrice.

  When I looked up, blood was running down the front of my face, largely his, but some of mine as well, because my forehead hit his teeth.

  The Chechen was out cold, perhaps dead.

  I didn’t have time to check, as I rolled over, still tied to the chair, towards the upturned table where he had kept his implements of torture. The two masked men were running towards me now, their rifles held in front.

  I had gambled that they wouldn’t just shoot me dead, as they had seen their bosses taking an active interest in keeping me alive and interrogating me first.

  No grunt wants to get into trouble by screwing up their officer’s orders. These guards were exactly the same, trying to get things back to normal with the least possible bloodshed, since they would likely catch a lot of shit for the chaos that had already happened.

  I scrabbled around on the floor, cutting my hands several times as I grabbed at the knives and blades. I barely managed to cut my right hand free, as the first guard reached me. He brought his rifle butt up like a club, but his eyes widened in shock as I cut him across his calf, blood spurting out as the artery was severed. He groaned, doubling over as I grabbed his rifle, turning it around and shot him once in the face.

  The second guard had his rifle raised but was too late.

  Another shot an
d he was down.

  I cut myself free and rifle in hand, walked to the communications equipment on the table at the far end of the room and saw a sat-phone.

  I called Sandberg on the number he had given me.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘General, smoke the village downstairs. All the hostiles are there. And, get help to us as soon as you can. We have the hostage secure with us, will hold out as long as we can. Call you with coordinates soon.’

  I didn’t wait for a reply, as I was racing against time.

  I ran back to the room where they had kept us, shot the lock and kicked the door open. Rachel stared at me with wide open eyes, as if she had seen a ghost.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Been better. Believe me, I’ve been better.’

  I tossed a rifle to Karzai.

  ‘Get busy, we’re going to have company real soon.’

  ***

  I ran out of the cabin and saw a man at the machine gun post, another near the SAMs. They were shouting frantically on their radios, no doubt having heard the shots inside, asking for instructions on whether to leave their posts and go in or wait for reinforcements.

  Karzai and I shot them both.

  As far as we could tell, there was only one approach from the village downstairs and I planned on using heavy machine gun fire to cover that.

  As I got to the gun, I cursed out loud.

  As with many well-conceived plans, this one hadn’t survived first contact with reality. The gun was bolted down and while it could swivel to provide a pretty broad angle of fire, it was pointed out, towards the valley beyond us, where they had anticipated attacks would come from. It didn’t swivel far enough to cover the village. This made sense for the previous occupants of the base, as they had friendlies in the village below. We had neither the time nor the equipment to dismantle the gun and reorient it.

  For Karzai and I, it made our lives that much more difficult. We had perhaps forty bad guys making their way up now, and without heavy weaponry, we would not be able to hold them off for very long.

  Karzai screamed out to me. ‘Get over here!’

  I ran to where he was. A small shed at the back of the base. I whistled, as I looked inside.

  This was where they had stored their weapons. There were several assault rifles, boxes of ammunition, and three anti-tank missile launchers with boxes of rockets lying next to them. The missiles were useless to us, but the rifles and bullets would be useful, as would the box of fragmentation grenades next to them.

  Karzai and I put on bulletproof vests and Kevlar helmets we found nearby and then ran out.

  Karzai stopped to pick up his sniper rifle from its resting place on the wall near the door where they had stashed the gear they had captured from us.

  As we raced to the gate, carrying the box of grenades between us, we saw Rachel there, peering over the wall through binoculars.

  ‘I see them coming up. At least six men in the tree line.’

  I slid to a halt next to her.

  Karzai spoke to her as he brought his rifle up to his shoulder. ‘Please get inside. This is going to get dangerous.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere. I realised things were dangerous when my flight was hijacked and I was told I was going to be decapitated.’

  Karzai was at a loss. Here he was, a sniper, a veteran of many battles, at his wits end at how to deal with Rachel.

  ‘Can you shoot?’

  ‘No. But I was on my college baseball team and I have a mean throwing arm. You guys shoot. I’ll lob the grenades. Just show me how – I guess it isn’t quite like they show it in the movies.’

  I saw Karzai smile at Rachel and wondered if my sniper friend was starting to develop a crush on her. She would be just his type. Lob grenades while he does the sniping.

  Any more idle speculation about their imaginary romance was interrupted by the first hail of bullets slamming into the wall, far from us.

  Shots meant to get our attention.

  Then a voice. Khalid.

  Ross and his Chinese friend were clearly putting themselves out of harm’s way, and sending the hired help to do the dirty work.

  ‘Nice try, major. You know this will end with only one outcome – your death. Don’t make this harder on yourself. You are severely outnumbered and outgunned. Give up. Don’t make it hard on everyone else either.’

  ‘Hard? This is fun. At least more fun than being strapped into a chair while a psycho old man cuts you up…’

  ‘There are at least forty men working their way up the hill as we speak. I can’t guarantee your safety after all the pain you have caused, but it can be an easier end.’

  Who taught this guy to negotiate? He should have stuck to hijacking planes.

  But then, this was not a negotiation. He was just buying time, perhaps figuring out where we were, while his buddies made their way uphill.

  I picked up the sat-phone next to me and called Sandberg again.

  ‘General, this would be a good time to get your boys in. Otherwise, it won’t be a rescue mission anymore, more of a recovery mission of what’s left of us.’

  ‘Hang in there, major. They’re getting in position as we speak. They have thermal on the tangoes. Most are still in the village downstairs, but about a dozen are coming up the hill.’

  ‘Hit the village. Disrupt them. Hit the hill only if the shit hits the fan. We don’t want to become collateral damage, sir.’

  ‘Copy that. Happy hunting.’

  That was a funny thing to say to a man who was stuck on a hilltop base in Korengal, outnumbered some twenty to one by the bad guys. But then we weren’t quite alone. If Khalid thought we were outnumbered, he was correct, but if he thought we were outgunned. Well, he had another thing coming.

  Two explosions rocked the silence as the Predator overhead fired its Hellfire missiles into the village.

  I have no idea what damage they did, but it at least got Khalid to shut up.

  Then the real fun began.

  A swooshing sound, as two American fighter jets streaked in low, scattering flares in their wake to distract any heat seeking missiles sent after them. They both pulled up, releasing two bombs each in the village below. The ground shook as huge plumes of smoke emerged over the village.

  Sandberg was back on the sat-phone.

  ‘The good news is that we worked them over pretty good, major. The boys estimate at least ten enemy KIA in the village. Also, help is on the way to your base.’

  ‘So, what’s the bad news, sir?’

  ‘All the remaining guys are working their way up the hill towards you. We can’t risk hitting the hill with high caliber weapons or air strikes because we may accidentally hit you. Help is on the way but it’s at least ten minutes out. You have to hold out till then. Can you?’

  Did we have a choice?

  ***

  I looked at Karzai, and then at Rachel.

  ‘Do you have a plan, major?’ Karzai asked the question with half a smirk. He knew as well as I did how much the odds were stacked against us.

  I was about to give him a smart-aleck reply, when I saw the look on Rachel’s face.

  She was actually looking to me to have a plan that might work. This was a young woman, who had risked her life to do the right thing, and I reminded myself that I might be a cynic and may have given up on trusting too many people a long time ago, but there were still people like her out there, people who perhaps had much more to offer the world than I did.

  I looked at Karzai. ‘We play to our strengths. You keep finding spots to hide and snipe them. Keep moving so that they can’t concentrate their fire on you or pin you down. Rachel, they had their plan of torturing you, perhaps creating a spectacle, but I suspect they’re so pissed off that they’ll kill you without much thought now.’

  She glared at me. ‘I am not sitting this one out. If I have to die, I’ll die fighting.’

  I saw Karzai looking at her. Once again I got a feeling that my fearless sniper frien
d had a crush on her.

  ‘I’m not asking you to sit it out. We can use all the help we get, but if you sit in one place and lob grenades, they’ll kill you within a minute. We’re going to scatter the grenades in different places along the front wall. You keep running and throw them over when they try and get to the base. Wait till you Aman tells you to throw, because you’ll be wasting grenades otherwise. Don’t look over and don’t bother to check if you hit anyone. Just keep creating enough chaos for them to hesitate or reveal their positions. Aman will show you the workings of the grenades. I promised your father I’d try get you out, and I intend to try and keep that promise. Just listen to what he says. Can you do that?’

  She nodded and was about to move when she stopped and turned towards me. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m nowhere as good at long range shooting as Aman, so I’ll let him do that, so while you create some diversions with the grenades, I’ll try and slow them down a bit till help gets here.’

  ‘How are you going to do that?’

  ‘By engaging them in some productive discourse up close and personal with our friends out there.’

  Karzai held out a hand. ‘Major, that’s suicide.’

  I grinned at him. ‘Keep her alive, Aman. Just do that. These bastards put my wife and baby in harm’s way and killed some good men on the plane. They think we’ll sit here and wait for them to come and hunt us down. Time to show them who the predator is. If I haven’t pissed you off too much, try and cover me a bit if you can.’

  That sounded very brave, but Karzai had a point.

  This was going to be suicide, but staying inside with unknown number of men coming towards us was suicide as well. I hoped the Americans were good at their word and would come within ten minutes, because I didn’t know how I would last that long. There was a small side door which I slipped out through and sprinted to the trees to the right.

  The Americans had kept about a fifty-metre stretch of the pathway leading to the base clear when they had been here. While tall grass had grown over much of it over the years, it would still give Karzai a clear field of fire if they tried to rush the base.