by Ray Carole
His thoughts were interrupted as a bead of sweat stung his right eye. That musty stench he had always associated with the Middle East was as ripe as ever tonight. Wiping his brow with his brown leather gloves he looked over at Dave, who was moving with complete confidence, knowing his team of the SAS’s most elite were covering his arse.
As he placed the explosive wall charge on the breach point, they watched knowing that it would not only put a great hole in the wall but take out any terrorists behind it, too. Decker held his breath. They had put a lot of faith into their agent’s sketched out map of the house. He knew he couldn’t afford to blow direct into the hostages’ room, that would be messy, embarrassing and result in mission failure.
Wall charge all set, he started reeling out the shock tube to the end of the team, who were all stacked up in a line ready to assault the building. This was a vulnerable time without hard cover, but standard. Unlike the recommended safety distance of twenty metres from the charge when it blew, the team were five metres away, bracing for the explosion.
Zero quickly came on the network with complete urgency.
‘Terrorists on the roof, apporaching the team…’
Before Zero could finish his sentence, the silhouette of a man popped his head over the roof wall, shouted something in Arabic to the other terrorist, then drilled half a magazine of bullets at the guys. Instantly, Mike reacted in the covering team ten metres from the building, engaged and clipped his shoulder, spinning him around and to the roof floor.
‘Go, go, go!’ Decker shouted across the gravel yard to the breach team.
Not even in position, Dave hit the detonation switch only a few metres from the charge, knowing a delay of seconds to save his own skin could mean death to the hostages. A huge explosion penetrated the wall as the shockwaves and after blast ruptured their eardrums. This was the norm, bleeding ears and noses were a given.
The vital second it took to absorb the back blast was met with another hail of bullets from the roof wall as the terrorist did a classic Lebanese unload, the cowardly act of pointing an AK-47 over a wall, not even looking where he was firing and not stopping till 30 bullets had been discharged.
Andy took a round straight through the head and dropped instantly; Sean next to him caught up four rounds but luckily to his right thigh and lower left leg, the other two landed in the chest plate of his body armour.
The breach team didn’t hang about and were through the hole like rats up a drainpipe.
‘Frag on the roof. Frag on the roof,’ Decker screamed as he threw a high-explosive grenade over the roof wall, knowing they were in serious trouble, big style, and as soon as his first was over, he prepped a second.
A huge explosion was followed instantly by a second.
‘He’s let himself off,’ Decker concluded, imagining that the terrorist had detonated his vest, but with no time to think further, his second grenade was airborne as he aimed his weapon with Johnny at the roof wall in case another terrorist popped up.
Even though Andy was dead and Sean wounded, it didn’t matter, they were here to rescue the hostages, and Decker needed to get in behind the team as quickly as he could to give support.
Sean, bleeding heavily, was already crawling to the wall to get out of the firing line, knowing Decker and Johnny needed to get in the building fast and not worry about him.
‘Johnny, let’s go!’ Decker screamed as he heard gunfire erupting inside. He automatically knew it was going south when he realised he hadn’t heard the strip charge take the hostages’ door down yet. A gun battle was going on and there still may be one left on the roof, vested up.
‘Sean, get your grenades on the roof and keep covering.’
Sean could just about manage it – he was an ox and would fight on, even with holes in his body.
Inside, Dave had been placing an explosive strip charge on the reinforced door, hearing the hostages shouting when the familiar sight of an AK-47 barrel came pointing around the end corridor wall, letting rip. With three men all lined up behind Dave waiting for the door to be blown, Dave was hit and dropped instantly. It was a fatal blow.
Fuck, Dave was dead.
Decker had just seen this happen and forced himself, with Johnny, past the team on his left and straight towards the hidden gunman who had just killed Dave. This would give the team time to breach the door and get the hostages before anyone else got killed in this tight corridor.
‘On me, Johnny, on me,’ Decker screamed on the move with his weapon up, firing at the corner wall, closing down the dead space to come face to face with the threat.
Rob took the shock tube and detonating switch from Dave’s dead clenched hand, left him there and hit the plunger. The other two men knew what to do once the door was breached. Another spine-shattering explosion told Decker they had blown the door in. In such a confined space, this fully ruptured anyone’s ears that still needed rupturing and kicked up a dust cloud that instantly blinded everyone in the corridor.
No hesitation. Jack and Rob punched forward hard into the room for rapid room domination with Mike covering over their shoulders, and they started to clear the room.
Immediately Jack saw the threat: a terrorist, looking shocked by the explosion, with a weapon and holding something else. Behind him, Jack saw the hostages, tied up in a huddle.
Enemy, weapon seen, shoot, was how Jack and every other soldier’s thought process worked. The boy dropped with two bullets to the head and a couple to the body. What dropped just after him switched the room into slow-motion.
Except for Rob, the last man to enter the room, had played this scenario out in his head a thousand times before but never thought he’d ever have to actually do it.
A quick step and dive saw his body launch through the air and land on top of the grenade as it rolled out of the terrorist’s limp hand. Silence. Everyone dived to the floor, holding their heads, crunched up in the foetal position, eyes closed, bracing for death. Rob could feel the grenade digging in underneath his body armour as he braced for his final few moments. Two seconds, still nothing. Then three, then four.
Knowing full well how old their grenades could be, Rob held tight, waiting for it to explode, resisting the burning temptation to move off it. Everyone else was thinking the same and started to nervously twitch and move.
Boom!
A blunt explosion, deadened by Rob’s body and body armour hunched over it, absorbed and contained the blast’s devastating blow, throwing his body a foot off the ground.
Decker and Johnny heard it but knew not to react and probed forward to the stairs. They both knew momentum is everything – going back wasn’t an option when a load more terrorists may be in the next room. Rounding the corner, Decker, from an acute angle, identified the hoodlum causing trouble and drilled him on the move, kept closing, kept shooting, while Johnny covered the rest of the corridor and stairs. The roof shook under the pressure of what could only be Sean throwing a grenade from outside on to the roof.
In all of the confusion, no one heard Zero transmit the other bad guy was coming down to join the party and about to bump into Johnny and Decker.
‘Open door!’ Johnny shouted as he was missed by a couple of bullets that screamed past him, hitting the wall behind him. Leaping across the room to the side of the open doorway, Decker was behind him. Johnny knew they were ready when he caught the small projectile fly past his right eye with the call ‘Frag in, Frag in’; Decker had thrown in the grenade and they both tensed up, ready for the explosion.
Boom!
Weapon on aim, Johnny was in, engaging the horrible piece of scum lying on the deck with his hands up and a million and one pieces of frag in him. Shooting straight through his hands and into his face, Johnny got the job done, whilst Decker discovered he had company of his own.
Popping out from behind a small recess, another ter
rorist, still disorientated, stepped into the fray, hiding from the grenade that just smoked his mate. A little too slow to raise his weapon even though he was firing in blind panic into the floor, he was no match for Decker, who unleashed a lightning-quick five bullets and put him down. As he smashed the floor, they both realised he was vested up, and instinct drove Decker to put two more bullets in his head. A slight second of disbelief was met with the realisation they had got away with it yet again. They knew instantly the guy must’ve been in shock from the grenade and failed to act quickly enough to detonate the vest. It was time to get out the room.
Decker shouted to the hostage room.
‘Jack, Mike, Sit-Rep.’
As Mike got to his feet he checked Rob’s body out of habit for a pulse. He was lifeless. The four others were crimping on the floor, blood around their heads, but luckily from the overpressure of the charge and not fragments from the lethal grenade.
Pointing his weapon at them, he confirmed they were westerners and there was not another terrorist in the mix. All four were alive. It was only now he smelt human excrement and urine, with an overpowering scent of body odour. Weeks of no washing, zero urinals and constant beating’s were now visible as the dust settled, and the moans of elation rose. He saw Jack wretch at the pile of human faesis in one corner.
Before he replied he noted the battered and bruised victims on the floor. This didn’t compensate for Rob, who had just sacrificed his life for theirs.
Jack turned to the hostages, all gazing up at them with relief in their eyes. ‘You bunch of complete selfish money driven pricks. I would execute you now if I could.’
Decker nodded, they shared a mutual hatred of contract workers in Iraq who yet again had cost British SAS lives. Yet still they had orders.
‘Jack, Mike, give us an update,’ Decker kept shouting.
Jack replied ‘Rob and Dave are dead, four hostages alive, four hostages alive’, repeating himself as this was the mission objective and it had been achieved thus far. Counting the cost of dead operators on the ground was not the priority at that moment in time.
With no time to lose, Decker knew he didn’t have to push further – they had the hostages, alive. The job was done and it was time to consolidate and wait for the other teams to push through in a few minutes.
One problem was that three of his team were dead, one injured and Decker didn’t like to be made to look like a bastard or to leave a job half finished. As Decker covered the stairs, Johnny pushed back to the hostages’ room, checking Dave’s pulse as he passed outside the door but nothing.
‘Tango 1, this is Zero, what’s happening?’ The Commander desperately wanted an update on the line as the explosions he saw on the live feed back in the comfort of the operation centre made him twitch. Decker finally heard him at the same time he heard the distinct sounds of the little birds approaching the target with fresh teams to neutralise the remaining terrorists.
‘Hold off, hold off, still a possible terrorist vested up; we haven’t cleared the first floor yet.’
‘Zero roger, the helicopters will pull off and cover the area for runners, you have the other two teams landing now west of the building to push through and clear the rest.’
‘Roger that, I’m going to get the hostages out of the building in case the remaining terrorists blow themselves up or this place is rigged to blow.’
‘Zero roger.’
‘We have three fatalities, and one critical: one lower-limb flesh wounds but stable.’
‘Zero copy, just hold them all till the backup is there in 90 seconds,’ said the commander, reassuring them the ordeal was almost over.
‘Got it,’ Decker confirmed.
As Decker quickly ran a battle appreciation through his mind, it was already made up and Johnny knew what was coming too.
‘Let’s finish this, Johnny, we haven’t time to wait around for backup.’
Without question, Johnny did a quick magazine change, Decker followed suit. Both checked they had a few grenades left and that they hadn’t been shot. From experience, they knew the adrenaline coursing through their veins could genuinely hide this obvious fact, until afterwards when they finally stopped charging around and realised they were bleeding heavily.
No brief was needed. Simple, they both knew they were heading up the stairs and about to come face to face with at least one suicide bomber and they weren’t leaving till he was flat-packed, dead on the floor.
‘Okay, let’s do it, mate,’ Decker signalled to Johnny to take the stairs. Both working the short 2-tier staircase, they hit the first floor without incident. Holding on for a moment to listen as a strange silence had fallen over the dusty broken house, they used just hand signals as they quickly looked for an open door off the landing, but they were all closed. With only two grenades between them, that made it tricky. With the threat of a suicide bomber, it was always preferable to chuck a grenade in first before entering.
Decker gave Johnny the nod; grenade was in and four seconds later it detonated.
‘Here we go, control, control, control,’ Decker thought before punching into the room his weapon ready to engage with anything that posed a threat. Nothing.
‘Room clear,’ letting Johnny, who was already covering the next room door, know. Immediately pushing the door in, another grenade spun its way in. Johnny waited for the explosion then followed it in.
‘Room clear,’ was the call that came back out. Then it started getting tricky: no grenades and no surprise, just speed and aggression.
As Decker nodded towards the next door on their left in the tight hallway, the opposite door flung open; they swung their heads around to face the maniac screaming ‘Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar’ literally only a metre away. Decker swung his weapon around, but it was too late, the man was already in their faces. But nothing happened. Time stood still as all three men froze with saucepan eyes, wondering why they weren’t spread across the hallway.
Knowing full well that hesitation costs lives, Decker threw a headbutt straight into the maniac’s face, quickly followed up with a few more. The ceramic Kevlar helmet he was wearing connected with the maniac’s face, busting it wide open, and Decker violently pushed him back into the room he came out of.
Johnny covered the door. The suicide vest didn’t detonate, not that Decker gave a toss that it still might. Slinging his weapon behind his back and letting the maniac drop to the floor, Decker was straight on him, jumping on his head, driving the sole of his right boot hard, repeatedly into his nose.
Johnny looked over his shoulder to see the bloodbath behind. ‘Not again,’ he said, ‘just shoot the rag head; this isn’t the time or place,’ but he heard Decker shouting his head off uncontrollably with each stamp on his head.
Having completely defaced the dead man, Decker was covered in blood whilst giving Johnny the nod. The space around them was now noisy with other teams entering below, helicopters hovering around and spotlights on the building. Time was running out to close this one down Decker thought.
‘Okay, Johnny, last room, you know what to expect?’
No reply. Johnny was already moving to the last door, their last door of the tour, probably their last together.
As Decker aimed his weapon at the closed door, waiting for Johnny to throw it open, Johnny gave him the nod then slung the door open. On rapidly stepping into the room, the threat was clear to see. Though the darkened room hid all facial features, a figure was standing there in a stance that signified defeat, weapon in hand hanging down by their side, their body language clear that they were not going to put up a fight, almost willing the two armed men to quickly end the hell they had been living in.
‘Terrorist, weapon by side, that’s a green light, engage,’ was all that Decker had running through his mind and his finger started to slowly squeeze the trigger. He was about to deliver the final
blow to this terrorist’s existence. The face that he was about to shoot through wasn’t one with a beard, a dark tan ingrained with hardened lines of terror indoctrinated throughout the years. Instead the face was one of extreme beauty, a spotless complexion with piercing brown eyes that looked unblinkingly straight into Decker’s. The woman didn’t flinch, didn’t even attempt to raise her weapon. She simply dropped it.
As her weapon crashed into the floor Johnny suddenly smashed into Decker’s side knocking him off balance. Decker in slight shock quickly looked at Johnny who was shouting ‘STOPPAGE, STOPPAGE’ like a mad man as he dropped to his knee. Stoppage meant his weapon had jammed or malfunctioned and couldn’t deliver the killer blow. The immediate action was to drop to your knee and draw your pistol that was holstered on your chest.
The female was bending down to pick up her weapon, spotting the threat he fired two bullets. They bounced off the AK-47 assault rifle that made her dive away and cower in a curled up ball.
Seeing Johnny stand up with his pistol Decker stepped across him instantly preventing him firing his pistol at the lady.
Johnny looked confused. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’
Breathing out, Decker looked towards the body still cowered on the floor. She slowly sat up, correcting her shamag that was a mess due the previous seconds of panic.
Johnny shook his head then walked out the room and started clearing his M4 carbine assault rifle.
As Decker stared deeply into the gaze of her eyes, he was instantly met with the freezing cold ice that was plastered around his face. Every time he saw her eyes, he woke up in a state of panic.
Always that image.
Killing her might have been the easier option as the pain ripped through his mind again, instant knots cramped up his stomach.
He ripped his mask off and rubbed his eyes.
‘My dearest Larnaka,’ he whispered into the Antarctic wind.
Chapter 3
A black dictaphone held court in the centre of a conference table. Though small and fragile it was achieving the intended aim. Two highly trained operatives, experts in their previous fields, were quick to note it was a showpiece to stimulate wild assumptions. The third man was closer to a boy than a man, looking like he had just finished sixth form and was still battling outbreaks of acne, it was clear he was aware of the calibre of the two strangers sat across the table from him. A certain unease was detected by his constant fidgeting and determination to keep looking at his iPad that was concealed by its black cover.