Manhunter

by Chris Ryan

  ‘Push again!’ he shouted. ‘Flip it over!’

  The soldiers bent to the task, groaning with the effort as they pushed against the wheels. Toothbrush urged his colleagues, they gave it one last big shove, and the technical tipped over onto its roof, crushing the dead rebel beneath it. Bowman paused briefly to admire his handiwork. The upended truck blocked the archway leading to the front drive. It wouldn’t stop the rebels from slipping through the entrance on foot. But it would prevent any enemy vehicles from bombing straight down the access road and into the estate.

  ‘We’re out of here,’ Bowman bellowed at the soldiers. ‘Back to the wagons!’

  The soldiers slipped through the small gaps either side of the technical and bundled back into the two Defenders. Pockmark and Toothbrush jumped back into the wagon closest to the archway, Lanky and the others got into the second Defender. They U-turned across the front lawn, tyres churning up the dry earth, then shot back down the driveway towards the mansion. They pulled up behind the Unimog near the front steps. The men got out again, Bowman grabbing his rifle as he leaped down from the vehicle. He ran for the front door while the Karatandans sprinted over to the gun pits.

  The sun was coming up fast as Bowman emerged to the rooftop. He weaved past the skylight and the maze of satellite dishes, crouched down beside his GPMG on the west side of the parapet. Mallet and Loader had taken up spots across the eastern flank and rear. Webb observed the north side of the stronghold.

  Bowman set down his rifle, helped himself to a glug of water from one of the plastic bottles. He hefted up the Gimpy. Looked out to the north-west. He saw the garden, the ruined wall, the irrigation ditch. The scrubland. The tall grass beyond the chain-link fence. The palm grove to the west. The landscape was utterly still. No movement. Nothing except the rustling of the palm fronds in the gentle morning breeze.

  ‘You see anything?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Webb said. ‘It’s dead quiet.’

  ‘They’ll hit us soon,’ Bowman said.

  Webb looked up and blinked, resting his tired eyes. ‘Reckon they’ll attack us the same way?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Mallet said. ‘Even the Machete Boys aren’t that thick. They’ll want to try something new after seeing their mates get clobbered.’

  ‘There might be more of them, too,’ Bowman added. ‘Any rebels in the area will want to get in on the action. They’ll be all over this place like flies on a turd.’

  Loader said, ‘So what? We’re up against a load of amateurs. Probably high as kites by now.’

  ‘As long as D Squadron doesn’t run into trouble.’

  ‘Mike’s in contact with the platoon guarding the runway,’ Mallet said. ‘They’ve not had any reports of enemy activity yet.’

  ‘We’ll get through this,’ Loader said confidently. ‘Everything’s sound, boyo. We’ve got nothing to fear.’

  Bowman checked his watch.

  06.05.

  Two hours until D Squadron was due to arrive.

  We’ll be out of the shit soon.

  They watched and waited on the rooftop, scanning the various approaches to the stronghold. Mallet checked in with the guys on the ground. Gregory was in constant contact with the private airfield, feeding information back to the team on the roof. Casey and Lanky were standing by with the mortar. Mallet got on the phone to Six, letting them know they had been in a skirmish with the Machete Boys and expected another attack soon.

  Mavinda’s voice carried over the radio net. ‘Message from one of the garrisons outside the capital,’ he said. ‘They’ve got reports of a large rebel force leaving Marafeni airport.’

  Bowman automatically tensed. ‘KUF?’

  ‘Got to be,’ said Webb. ‘They’re the ones who captured the airport.’

  ‘When was this, Major?’ Mallet asked.

  There was a pause before Mavinda replied. ‘An hour ago.’

  ‘How far is Marafeni airport from here?’

  ‘Three hours, give or take.’

  ‘Then the KUF could be on their way here now,’ Bowman said, knotting his brow. ‘They could be here in a couple of hours.’

  ‘Or they might be moving on to another target. The mines, the port. One of the garrisons. We don’t know where they’re going.’

  Before Bowman could respond, Webb called out to the team.

  ‘Enemy vehicles, inbound,’ he said as he scanned the horizon. ‘Coming from the north-west.’

  Bowman narrowed his eyes in the direction Webb was looking. In the distance, a mile or so away, he could make out the tiny settlement at Rogandu, the T-junction leading south towards the main metalled road. The faintest puff of dust clouds swirled high above the treeline.

  ‘How many, Patrick?’ Mallet said.

  ‘I see three of them. One technical. Two pickups. Guys on the back. Looks like more Machete Boys.’

  ‘The bastards want another taste,’ Loader said.

  Mallet talked into his throat mic. ‘Guys, looks like we’ve got more rebels coming our way. Hold your fire until I say otherwise.’

  For the next several minutes more rebels arrived in dribs and drabs. Two pickup trucks, then another three civilian cars. They came bombing in from the village to the north-west, spewing up clouds of grey-brown dust as they RV’d with the surviving gang of rebels sheltering behind the woodland to the north.

  Webb kept a close eye on the enemy, reporting their movements and numbers. Bowman, Mallet and Loader surveyed the other approaches to the stronghold. Looking to see where the rebels would hit them next.

  Twelve minutes passed.

  Bowman figured the rebels were psyching themselves up for the next attack. Pouring booze down their throats, smoking the local ganja, egging each other on. Their mates had been pasted. They had been personally humiliated on the field of battle. Pride was at stake. They would be itching to get their revenge. They would be feeling bullish about their chances of victory, now that their ranks had been bolstered.

  Won’t be long now, he thought.

  Four more minutes crawled past.

  Then Webb said, ‘I see them! The treeline! Here they come again!’

  Twenty-Nine

  Bowman ran over to the northern side of the parapet. He propped up his GPMG barrel on the stone coping and centred the sights on the woods beyond the body-strewn clearing. Loader took up a spot to the right with the other Gimpy. Mallet went down to a prone firing position between the two soldiers, aimed the .50 cal barrel through a hole in the decorative stonework. All four of them targeted the treeline on the north side of the clearing.

  Bowman saw the figures at once. A throng of Machete Boys, clearly visible in the thin light of the early dawn, creeping forward from the wooded area to the left of the approach road. Maybe another thirty guys, he estimated. They were moving in a rough line formation, three ranks deep, staying low as they crept towards the entrance. Bowman swiftly grasped their intention. The Boys were hoping to sneak up to the archway using the natural cover available. They would slip through the gap between the upturned technical and the stone pillars, then spread out across the estate, taking on the defenders in detail. Not a terrible plan, thought Bowman. Not as foolish as strolling up the approach road in massed ranks.

  But still a bad idea.

  One of the Boys in the front rank had an RPG resting on his shoulders. A skinny rebel wearing a trapper hat, a rope of gris-gris charms tied like a belt around his waist. The others were armed with AK-47 rifles or machetes, or both. They were five hundred metres from the stronghold now. A hundred metres from the fence.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ said Bowman.

  Mallet rolled his tongue around his mouth and spat.

  ‘We’ll let the buggers get through the archway,’ he said. ‘Once they’re inside, Patrick will take down the fucker with the RPG. As soon as he’s down, you’re free to go.’

  Mallet relayed the orders over the mic. Bowman tracked the enemy as they advanced stealthily across the clearing. They were m
oving in a loose group, crouch-walking through the tufts of long grass to conceal their approach. He watched as the front rank of rebels picked their way past their slotted comrades and reached the archway. They waited for the rest to catch up, then slipped through the gaps either side of the technical.

  Bowman felt his pulse quickening as he centred his sights on the enemy. The rebels shuffled past the overturned truck blocking the road and spread out across the estate in a ragged line. The guy in the trapper hat motioned to the others to hurry up. Only four hundred metres separated them from the stronghold and the president’s family. Revenge was on the cards. The Boys thought they were going to win.

  Bowman said to Loader, ‘I’ll take on the guys to the left of the group. You aim for the rebels on the right. We’ll work our way in and meet in the middle.’

  The last of the rebels stole through the archway.

  ‘Nowhere for the bastards to go now,’ Loader said eagerly.

  Mallet said, ‘Patrick, do you see the bloke with the RPG? The guy in the trapper hat?’

  ‘Got him,’ Webb said.

  ‘Wait for my signal. As soon as I give the word, take him out. Then the two Gimpys can get to work.’

  Bowman locked his sights on the Boys. They were as strangely dressed as the men he’d seen outside the presidential palace. One rebel wore a zebra-print jacket. Another had a rusted steel chain wrapped around his neck, like some oversized necklace. The guy to his left wore an animal headdress. A fourth man had a pair of ivory tusks draped over his shoulders. Their bodies were festooned with amulets and pouches containing their good luck charms.

  The Boys were five metres inside the estate now, shuttling down the front drive in a disorganised rabble as they stole past the weeds and the burned-down trees. One rebel drew his machete and raised it above his head, encouraging his mates forward, like an officer on the Western Front.

  Six metres beyond the entrance.

  Eight.

  ‘Now,’ Mallet said.

  Bowman heard a splintering hollow crack as Webb fired a single shot from the AWC. He didn’t see the guy in the trapper hat drop. Bowman was focused on the main cluster of rebels. But he knew Webb had hit the target because Mallet was suddenly shouting, ‘That’s it! Let them have it!’

  Bowman gave the rebels a five-round squirt from the Gimpy. Loader unleashed a burst at his targets in the same beat. The machine guns roared, chewing up the enemy. Bowman saw the guy in the zebra-print shirt go down, and the Boy with the headdress, the guy with the steel chain. They went down one after the other, like pins in a bowling alley. The rebels didn’t stand a chance. Not against the combined firepower of the GPMGs.

  A handful of rebels managed to survive the initial killing frenzy. Some of them broke to the left and right, fleeing across the open ground, diving behind any scraps of cover they could find. Two guys in matching red headscarves dropped to the grass and let off a couple of quick bursts at the rooftop. But it wasn’t accurate fire. They were reacting on instinct, firing in the vague direction of the opposition. Shooting because they felt they needed to, because they were confused and afraid. Bullets slapped into the parapet somewhere off to Bowman’s right. The bee-like buzz of a bullet several inches above his head. He fixed his cross hairs on the headscarf twins and hit them with a blast from the Gimpy. They disappeared in a spray of blood and guts.

  Bowman was dimly aware of several muzzle flashes from the gun pit beside the pagoda. The Karatandan soldiers were getting ahead of themselves, putting down rounds on the rebels.

  ‘Cease fire!’ Mallet thundered over the radio. ‘Tell your men to cease fire, Major! You’re wasting rounds. Leave them to us!’

  By now, five seconds into the skirmish, at least twenty of the attackers were dead. Bowman and Loader swept their GPMGs from left to right, tearing up any surviving rebels, the mechanical patter of the machine guns punctuated by the sounds of the .50 cal and the AWC rifle. Webb and Mallet focused their fire on the archway, killing those few rebels attempting to escape back to the clearing. The remaining Boys fell back from the entrance and tacked left or right, looking for another way out. They ran straight into the hail of murderous gunfire from the two Gimpys.

  Mallet called out across the roof, directing the GPMGs towards a section of the fence to the right of the arch. Bowman slid his weapon across, saw three figures trying to scale the chain-link fence in a futile effort to escape the massacre. Before he could open fire the earth suddenly exploded around the rebels as Loader cut them down with two controlled bursts. They dropped to a bloodied heap at the foot of the fence.

  ‘Two more rebels in dead ground,’ Webb shouted over the cacophony. ‘Three posts to the left of the archway.’

  Bowman arced the Gimpy back across to the spot Webb had identified and fixed his sights at the swale a few metres south of the fence. He waited a beat. Two heads popped up from the grassy trough, like meerkats looking out from their burrows. Bowman fired. Flames burped out of the muzzle. Spent brass dinked against the cement floor. The rounds thumped into the rebels. Their jolting bodies fell back into the swale.

  ‘Got them,’ Bowman said.

  Ten seconds in. Four rebels left. Four panicked silhouettes. Loader plugged two of them as they crawled towards a dip in the ground in front of the fence. One rebel was hit in the neck by the AWC as he attempted to climb over the technical blocking the archway. A Boy in a white string vest bolted past his mate as he ran for the gap between the truck and the archway pillar. Another boom erupted as Mallet aimed the .50 cal at the fleeing figure. The back of the rebel’s head exploded in a red mist. He fell forward and face-planted on the ground beside the technical, kissing the blacktop.

  The firefight had lasted twelve seconds.

  Bowman scanned the killing ground. The grass was thickly carpeted with the mangled dead. Thirty slotted rebels. None of the bodies showed any signs of life. He wasn’t surprised. The GPMG had a rate of fire of 650 rounds per minute. No one could survive an onslaught from two well-aimed Gimpys.

  Loader lifted his gaze from his weapon. He stared across the parapet at the archway and shook his head in astonishment.

  ‘Jesus. Now I know what people mean when they talk about a turkey shoot.’

  ‘So much for the Machete Boys being rock hard,’ Webb said.

  ‘We’re not out of the woods yet,’ Bowman said.

  ‘These Boys ain’t gonna lay a glove on us fighting like this.’ Loader sniffed. ‘If they keep this up, we’ve got no worries. This is a piece of piss.’

  ‘So is taking the mick out of your love life, Tiny,’ said Webb.

  Mallet shot them both a stern look. ‘Don’t get ahead of yourselves,’ he warned. ‘You won’t be laughing if we get overrun by those bastards. Back to your positions.’

  The team returned to their observation points on the other sides of the parapet. Looking out across the flanks and rear, watching for the enemy. The sun climbed above the mountains to the east, burning fiercely in the cloudless blue sky. Sweat leached down Bowman’s face as he scanned the ground to the west. He suddenly remembered he was thirsty, grabbed a bottle of water from a crate near the skylight and took a long swig. The warm liquid refreshed him. Like the best pint he’d ever had. He set the bottle down, checked his G-Shock.

  06.57.

  Still more than an hour to go until D Squadron was due to land.

  Mallet called out to him.

  ‘Get down to the mortar pit,’ he said. ‘See if you can bolster the defences around that garden wall. Give them two some more protection.’

  ‘Roger that.’

  ‘Take the RPG from that dead fucker as well,’ Mallet added. ‘Leave it with Alex. Might come in handy.’

  ‘I’m on it,’ said Bowman.

  He ran downstairs, hurried out of the atrium and broke into a steady jog across the heat-baked ground. Bowman ran past the water fountain, past Gregory and Toothbrush in the gun pit with one of the platoon’s GPMGs. He willed his exhausted body on as he cont
inued up the front drive, his throat burning. He reached the sprawl of dead rebels ten metres from the archway, found the guy with the trapper hat next to a blackened stump of a tree. The bullet from Webb’s AWC had struck the rebel through his left eye, boring deep into his skull. Instant death. There was a dark glistening crater where his eyeball should have been. Bowman rolled the man onto his front and tore off the canvas backpack containing the three spare rockets. He slung the backpack over his shoulder, snatched up the RPG launcher and cantered back down the driveway to the ornamental garden.

  Casey was hunkered down beside the mortar, gazing out through a gap in the crumbling wall at the treeline. Pockmark, the other member of the mortar team, grazed on a chocolate bar while he kept an eye on the fence to the west. Casey looked up at Bowman as he dumped the canvas bag and the RPG at her feet.

  ‘What’s this for?’ she asked.

  ‘Extra firepower,’ Bowman replied. ‘Compliments of the Machete Boys.’

  One of her eyebrows hitched up. ‘Do you think we’ll need it?’

  ‘We’re not likely to get hit again,’ Bowman said. ‘Not unless the Machete Boys want to send any more of their mates to their deaths.’

  ‘Those KUF rebels won’t be so easy, will they?’

  ‘No,’ Bowman said. ‘But D Squadron is an hour out. As soon as they arrive, we’re safe.’

  ‘Unless the KUF gets here first.’

  Bowman nodded. He pointed to the missing sections of the wall beside the mortar pit. ‘We’ll need to reinforce this position. Get some more stones around it. Stay here.’

  He called over to Pockmark. The two men worked hastily, grabbing rocks from the loose stonework on the other sections of the garden wall, then carrying them over to the mortar pit. Casey helped them pile the stones around the base of the wall, plugging the holes. They added more rocks on top, raising the height of the wall so that it was level with their waists. Once they had finished, Bowman sprinted back across the front lawn, into the mansion and up the emergency stairwell. Out of the fire exit. Back to his OP on the western side of the rooftop. He guzzled water. Took up the GPMG. Checked his watch.