by Chris Ryan
He dipped his head below the window, released the empty clip. Reached for another.
‘Reloading!’ he shouted to Gregory. ‘On my last mag!’
Thirty rounds left.
He came up. Through the blown-out pane he spotted five more figures storming across the terrace. He lined up the sights with the nearest target. Double-tapped. Missed. Gregory shot a second guy through the chest. The other rebels spread out and found cover, firing at the salon from behind statues and stone ornaments. One figure bolted towards an enormous planter crowning a stout plinth. Bowman clipped him with three rounds to the guts. His body slapped dully against the floor, like dropping a bag of cement.
The six others kept up a continuous stream of gunfire, punching holes in the French doors and the Steinway. One burst struck the wooden bar on the back wall of the salon. Bowman glanced back and saw the bottles racked on the shelves exploding, spilling shards of glass and premium whisky over the counter.
As he returned fire, Bowman noticed two of the rebels were moving off to the left side of the terrace. He hooked the C8 round, but they swept out of sight before he could pull the trigger. A moment later, another three enemies sprinted up from the lower garden level to join the fight. The nearest rebels were twenty metres from the salon.
They’re almost on top of us now.
‘There’s too many of them!’ he yelled.
‘Keep engaging,’ Gregory shouted back. ‘Don’t let them get inside!’
Bowman put down another two rounds.
He didn’t think about dying. He didn’t think about anything beyond the next three seconds. He was operating on a purely mechanical level. Picking out targets, aiming, firing. Like a runner fixed on completing the next mile, the next lap, the next metre. His entire world had reduced to the twenty metres of ground in front of him.
He shot a scrawny soldier through the head as he scrambled across the terrace. The round uncorked his brains like champagne. Then Bowman heard the shrill crash of shattering glass. It came from somewhere to his left. His nine o’clock.
The room next to the salon.
‘They’re coming through the dining room windows,’ Gregory said. ‘Get over there, Josh!’
Bowman shrank back from the window, his heart hammering frantically. He scudded round to the open door on the left, past the abandoned teddy bear and the dried patches of blood marking the spot where the president’s brother and niece had been killed hours before. Bowman stopped just inside the doorway, his rifle at shoulder-height as his eyes skated across the chandeliered room. He saw a mahogany table the size of a spaceship, pictures of bare-breasted women on the wall.
He saw a rebel in wraparound shades on the other side of the room, jumping down from a broken window. A second figure was climbing through the opening after his comrade. The rebels freeze-framed at the sight of Bowman standing in front of the door. They stared in horror at the dark mouth of the rifle barrel.
Bowman gave them four blasts from the C8. He aimed at a third figure crawling through the next window, squeezed the trigger and got the click. He tossed the weapon aside, ripped the Glock out of the holster and put two shots into the man’s centre mass.
‘That’s it,’ Gregory hollered from the salon. ‘I’m out. Nothing left! Fall back!’
Bowman backed out of the dining room. At the rear window, Gregory retrieved a hand grenade from his pocket. He tore the pin out, posted it through the broken pane. Then he ran over to Bowman and the two men retreated towards the corridor. There was a loud bang from outside as the grenade exploded, momentarily scattering the rebels.
Bowman pushed the pressel switch attached to his vest. ‘We’re out of ammo,’ he said. ‘Down to our pistols. Rebels about to breach the back of the stronghold.’
‘Enemies are almost at the front door,’ Casey said over the team radio. ‘I can’t hold them off! Falling back.’
Bowman and Gregory ran on. They had only a few seconds before the building was overrun. Seconds to find a secure part of the building to hole up in. Retreating to the basement or the rooftop wasn’t an option. They were too far away. The atrium would be overrun with rebel fighters by the time they got there.
Gregory stopped in front of the door to the private study.
‘In here,’ he said.
They darted into the room. Gregory slammed the door shut, twisted the lock. He shouted to Bowman, and they dragged over a bulky bookcase and wedged it sideways against the jamb. The sounds of splintering glass and wood came from the other side as the rebels tried to gain entry through multiple points along the terrace and the front of the building.
Bowman stepped back. He waited in front of the barricaded door. Pistol in his hand, his clothes caked in sweat and dirt and lead particles. His adrenaline levels were through the roof. Any second now, the enemy was going to storm inside.
And then it will all be over.
‘Give us a couple of those,’ Gregory said, pointing to the grenades Bowman was carrying.
Bowman handed them over. ‘Never thought I’d die in this shithole,’ he said.
‘It’s not over yet.’ Gregory smiled grimly. ‘We can still take down as many of these bastards as possible. Let’s give them something to remember us by, eh?’
Bowman nodded. ‘I’m ready.’
They waited.
The crashing noises suddenly cut out.
Bowman stared at the closed door.
‘What the fuck’s going on?’ he asked after a few seconds.
‘Listen,’ Gregory said.
Bowman pricked his ears.
At first, he didn’t hear it. Then a sound came from somewhere beyond the walls of the stronghold. A noise that was instantly familiar to any seasoned Hereford operator. The deep throated bark of a Browning .50 calibre machine gun.
‘Christ, have they got more hardware coming in?’ Bowman said in despair.
Gregory crinkled his brow. ‘I didn’t think the rebels had any Brownings.’
Bowman spoke into his throat mic. ‘What’s going on out there?’ he asked.
Silence.
He tried again. ‘John? Patrick?’
Still nothing.
Then Webb came over the radio, shouting excitedly, ‘They’re here! It’s D Squadron! They’ve arrived!’
Bowman and Gregory hastily dragged the bookcase away from the door. They paused outside the study for a moment, checking for any sign of the enemy. Then they hastened down the hallway into the salon, Bowman sweeping his eyes left to right as he led the way. Gun smoke hung like a veil over the room. He hurried over to the shattered window, gazed out past the empty terrace at the rear garden.
An armoured vehicle had gone static to the east. Bowman recognised it at once. A Regiment-modified Jackal, rigged up with a fearsome amount of firepower. Twin-mounted GPMGs on the front, a belt-fed MK19 grenade launcher operated by a third man on the back. Twenty soldiers in camo kit and plate armour charged forward on foot while the bloke on the back of the Jackal pumped the grenade launcher. They were engaging the enemy using the tried-and-trusted fighting tactics of 22 SAS. The Jackal providing the heavy support fire, the men on foot sweeping forward in five-man assault groups. The soldiers blasted away with their C8s at the rebels as they bolted towards the rear fence.
Mallet had made contact with D Squadron. Bowman heard the Scot in his earpiece as he talked with the squadron over the open comms system.
‘There are friendlies in the stronghold,’ he was saying. ‘Do not engage, repeat do not engage.’
Behind the assault groups, the guy on the MK19 chugged away at the fleeing targets. Grenades churned up the earth, shovelling clumps of loose soil into the air, atomising the few rebels left standing. Within seconds, the ground to the rear of the stronghold had been almost cleared of enemy combatants.
Bowman felt an indescribable sense of relief. ‘They made it. Thank fuck.’
‘They’ll slice through this lot in no time,’ Gregory remarked. ‘It’ll be over in a minute n
ow.’
‘Yes.’
He turned to Gregory. The two men shared a look. Something unspoken passed between them. A bond only those who had stared death in the face could understand.
‘Check on the family,’ Bowman said. ‘I’ll check on the rooftop.’
They jogged out of the salon. Back down the corridor, past the study, into the atrium. Casey appeared from a separate hallway to the left, a dazed look on her face.
‘Is it over?’ she asked in a weak voice.
‘It will be shortly,’ said Bowman. ‘The lads in D Squadron are taking over now. Our part’s done.’
‘Thank God.’
She slumped to the floor, as if her tired legs simply couldn’t support her any longer. Bowman left her by the stairs and climbed back up to the roof, his weary muscles making one last effort.
On the rooftop, Mallet was busy giving fire orders to D Squadron. Bowman heard him directing them onto targets from his vantage point high above the action. Webb crouched beside him, a blood-speckled field dressing wrapped around his head. There was shit everywhere. Smoke wafted up from the warped barrels on the two Gimpys. The acrid tang of gunpowder hung in the air. Bowman dropped low beside the parapet and looked down.
The battle was almost over.
Pockets of rebels were fleeing in every direction. The men of D Squadron had swept right across the field of fire, dominating the ground. One of the Jackals had taken up a support-fire position on the east side near the pagoda. The second Jackal was still mopping up resistance to the south. A third vehicle had sheered round the back of the estate and swung round to the west of the mansion. Both the Jackals on the east and west side had Browning .50 calibres mounted on top instead of grenade launchers. Otherwise known as the ‘relish’, because that’s what a human body looked like after you put a burst into it. A section of the fencing to the east had been flattened, and Bowman realised that the Jackals must have bombed in from that direction, crashing through the flimsy chain-link mesh. The guys on foot would have debussed from their transport trucks somewhere further up the main road before moving forward with the support vehicles.
As Bowman looked on, the soldiers picked off the last dregs of resistance. Half of the guys had advanced west from the pagoda. The other half had attacked from the ornamental garden. Caught between the Jackals and the assault groups, the remaining few rebels were brutally cut down, some of them ripped limb from limb. Most of them were killed before they had a chance to escape. Those further back from the struggle turned and fled up the clearing towards the main road. They ran straight into an ambush set up by one element of D Squadron. Several of the rebels tried to resist or return fire. They were swiftly dropped. The rest threw down their weapons and surrendered.
In less than a minute, the rebels had been completely routed.
To the west, through a gap in the woods, Bowman spied four tiny figures jumping into a white Toyota Land Cruiser. The wagon took off west down the main road, wheels throwing up clouds of dust.
A posh clipped voice came over the open comms network. The OC of D Squadron, Bowman realised.
‘One of our fellows has just seen a vehicle speeding away,’ the OC reported. ‘Land Cruiser. Four passengers, he says. Pale-skinned. Any idea who that might be?’
‘Aye,’ said Mallet. ‘It’s the Russians. The guys behind the coup.’
‘Roger that. We’ll put a message across to SFSG. They’ll set up a cordon to intercept down the road.’
‘Leave them,’ Mallet said. His voice was papery, hoarse. ‘Let them get away.’
A short pause. ‘Are you sure?’
‘If you capture those guys, it’ll cause a diplomatic shitstorm. Let them escape. They’re not going to cause any trouble now. They’ll be on the next plane back to Moscow.’
‘Very well. It’s your call, I suppose.’
The gunfire finally ceased, and the OC came back on the radio to report that the estate was secure. Webb threw his head back and laughed deliriously. All the pent-up stress and adrenaline and fear of the battle suddenly rushed out of him in a burst of cathartic laughter.
At his side, Bowman stepped back from the parapet, overcome with relief and exhaustion.
‘It’s over,’ he croaked. ‘Thank God, it’s really over.’
Thirty-Three
They left the rooftop a short time later. As they reached the ground floor a team from D Squadron swept inside the stronghold from the rear terrace and quickly took charge. A handful of the guys searched the rooms for lurking rebels while the others brought up the family from the basement. Once the building had been cleared the guys escorted the women and children to a suite of guest rooms on the first floor, away from the chaos elsewhere. Guards were posted to watch over them around the clock.
With the family secure, Mallet and the others cleared the barricade and made their way outside.
They stepped out to a scene of total carnage. The ground was thick with the dead and the dying and the detritus of battle. Some men lay writhing in agony, clawing at their wounds or trying to shove their guts back into their stomachs. Others screamed at the soldiers, begging for help. The foul stink of death choked the air.
A platoon of Karatandan soldiers had accompanied D Squadron from the garrison at the airfield. Some of them threw up a cordon around the estate while the others assisted the Regiment as they cleared the battlefield. The lightly wounded were checked for ID, plasticuffed and then taken over to the ornamental garden to join the rest of the rebel prisoners. At least a dozen men had been taken captive. They cut a pathetic sight, with their ragged uniforms and blood-encrusted faces. Those with serious injuries were handed over to the local platoon, placed in the back of a waiting truck and driven away to the airfield to be treated by the local garrison. Or at least, that was the idea. Bowman doubted the Karatandan soldiers would show their sworn enemies any mercy. Most likely, they would be locked up somewhere and left to die.
Two guys marched briskly over to Mallet. The OC of D Squadron, Stuart Thriepland, was a buff former Guardsman, tall and ramrod straight, with a shiny blond quiff and an accent so posh it probably had a seat in the House of Lords. The man at his shoulder, Sergeant Major Craig Dundas, was a short wiry Scot, teak-tough and bulbous-nosed, with an aggressive attitude and a permanent angry stare. His voice carried a slight trace of his Aberdeen roots as he addressed the team.
‘Bloody hell. How the fuck did you lot survive this?’ Dundas said as he surveyed the chaos of the battlefield.
‘We almost didn’t,’ Mallet replied. ‘Another minute and we would have been overrun.’
‘What took you so long?’ asked Bowman.
‘We ran into a rebel ambush a few miles outside the airfield,’ Thriepland replied in his public schoolboy accent. ‘Had to clear the area before we could get over here. Unavoidable.’
Dundas spat on the ground. ‘Rebels had us pinned down for an hour. Proper ambush tactics. They knew how to fight.’
‘The Russians must have sent them over,’ said Mallet. ‘Bastards know every trick in the book.’
Thriepland cleared his throat and said, ‘I count only four of you. Where’s the other fellow?’
‘Loader’s dead,’ Mallet said.
‘I see.’ Thriepland nodded sombrely. ‘Sorry to hear that. And the rest of you?’
‘Alex took a couple of frags to the shoulder. We’ve got a few nicks and cuts. Nothing major.’
Dundas smiled at Casey. ‘I hear you’re deadly on the old mortar.’
‘Something like that,’ she replied tonelessly. Her expression had a faraway quality.
‘Looks like you fought off half the rebellion,’ said Thriepland. ‘There’ll be some citations coming out of this, I imagine.’ He looked at Mallet, and a sarky tone crept into his stiff voice as he went on. ‘Pity you guys in the Cell can’t be named.’
Bowman stared wordlessly at him.
‘What happens now?’ asked Webb.
‘We’ll stick around here and guard t
he family,’ Thriepland said. ‘We’ve got orders to wait here until the country is fully secure. Which will take a few days, I expect.’
‘It’ll take us that long to clear all them bodies away,’ Dundas muttered. ‘This is a right bloody mess.’
Bowman said, ‘Why isn’t the president flying straight back? The coup will be over soon enough.’
‘There’s a force coming in from 2 Para,’ Thriepland explained. ‘A long-term training team. We’re due to hand over to them in a couple of days. The president’s refusing to return until the handover is complete.’
‘Probably wants the extra boots on the ground,’ Dundas added.
Webb snorted. ‘Yeah, that fucker will want this place like Fort Knox before he comes in.’
‘So much for caring about the welfare of his family,’ Bowman said. ‘If he was that concerned, he’d be flying back now.’
‘Why aren’t you escorting the family back to the city once the coup has been crushed?’ asked Casey. ‘Why wait here with them?’
‘Orders from the top.’ Thriepland swept a hand through his magnificent hair. ‘The president doesn’t want his family to return to the palace in its current state. I gather there was some heavy fighting there last night.’
‘More like a massacre,’ Mallet said.
Thriepland shrugged. ‘Either way, the president has instructed his family to wait here until his aides and household staff have given the palace a thorough cleaning. He wants it spick and span for their return, apparently.’
Webb laughed weakly. ‘Well, at least they don’t want to rough it.’
Thriepland didn’t look amused.
‘You’ll be leaving soon, I imagine?’ he asked.
Mallet said, ‘That depends on Six. I’ll have to make some calls. We might need to be on-site for a while.’
‘As you wish.’ Thriepland straightened his back. ‘In the meantime, help yourselves to a brew and some food. I suggest you get one of the medics to clean that shoulder up,’ he added to Casey.
