Col. Clive Downes. Commanding Officer 22 SAS. After that, who knew? A regimental posting back to the Paras as a colonel? A generalship? A UN or NATO command somewhere possibly, but he knew he certainly wouldn’t be running around leading a four-man patrol of the toughest soldiers he had ever met.
Now that the world had gone to shit his career aspirations were dashed, but those were the last things on his mind. What was important to him were the lives of his men, the others around him and surviving the whole shit show. He turned to Mac and stood for the sergeant to check him over. The dour Scot was the only one of them to actually be permanently posted to their regiment, after years extending his attachment and making the dizzy heights of sergeant, and then leaving behind his original corporal rank when he left the Parachute Regiment years before. The others, Dez and Smiffy, were crap-hats, meaning that they had come from regiments that weren’t prized for breeding the elite soldiers, unlike the parachute or rifle regiments. Who and what they were before hadn’t really mattered to Downes even two months before, and it mattered even less so, now that they were the only ones of their regiment left that they knew of. Downes knew of the doomsday protocol, just as he knew of the various other members of the regiment who had been deployed to other parts of the world. If any of those postings became relevant, then he would say so, but for now, knowing that half of them were deployed to protect key European sites and routes from the risk of the Soviets capitalising on the widespread panic didn’t bode well for their overall numbers.
No, as much as he hated to admit it, they were among the last of their kind.
“Come on,” Mac said, snapping him out of his dark reverie with a slap on the shoulder, “my turn.”
Downes checked Mac’s equipment, making sure nothing was loose and nothing rattled. He counted the magazines in the pouches of his webbing, totalling up the number of individual bullets at over two hundred. That might have seemed like a lot when looked at in the calm, cool daylight, but he knew from experience just how fast ammunition ran out. He liked to carry as much as was possible without hurting himself or compromising speed, because his only contacts with organised sectarian criminals ‘over the water’ had led to a sudden and worrying lack of ammunition available. His memories of cowering in a soggy ditch, crawling a few yards and popping up to fire the magazine from his rifle in bursts before reloading and repeating, were vivid and unwelcome. Ever since the day he had finished his tour and returned to a maroon beret, he’d lobbied his own regiment to increase the standard ammunition issued to each man on active patrol, and each time the bureaucrats shot down his suggestions.
In the special forces he found the welcome rule-bending approach to such matters; if he or any of his men wanted a certain weapon or calibre for a particular deployment and could justify it, they got it. If they wanted new kit, more demolitions, then they requisitioned it and they got it. In the last requisitions they made,
the one for the barrow-load of 9mm rounds for their four MP5SDs as well as their pistols, they had also managed to get their hands on a pair of AA-12s.
As far as weaponry went, Downes knew these to be possibly the evillest things on the planet, with the possible exception of a bear trap. Both Mac and Dezzy carried one and they were the polar opposite to Smiffy’s silent killer of a stolen Soviet sniper rifle. Both 12-bore shotguns were fully automatic, and both were loaded with an eight-round magazine. They also carried a replacement magazine in the form of a twenty-round drum, but the sheer size and bulk of them made it impossible to be carried as a back-up when equipped with the high-capacity load. Checking that it was secure, Downes recalled that Dezzy also carried one, along with the small demolitions pack and a few claymore anti-personnel mines. Along with the big machine gun and three belts of ammunition, Downes knew that he would be overloaded, even though he was the exact opposite of what people expected a special forces soldier to be. Dez wasn’t a huge man, but his strength and stamina were like that of an ant and a goat that had been spliced in a laboratory. Even still, Downes wanted him unburdened.
“Dezzy, give me the shotgun. You’re overloaded.”
‘Aww, come on!” Dezzy whined as though his commander was his father telling him that he couldn’t bring a toy.
“So, the MP5, sidearm and gympy aren’t enough for you? Are you planning on taking on the entire bloody zombie apocalypse by yourself? Don’t be a twat; hand it over.”
Dezzy glared for a second, his sullen face bordering on the belligerent as he removed the attitude only seconds before Downes would have an opinion on the matter. Dropping the kit in his hands, namely a large machine gun normally serviced by two men, he unslung and handed over the shotgun.
“I like to keep this handy,” Dez said with a smirk and an appalling American accent, “for close encounters.”
“Drum mag?” Downes asked, completely ignoring the Aliens quote and taking the gun. He reached out his other hand to receive it before turning to Mac and having him help add the extra armament to his back.
“We good?” Downes asked them, getting nods in return as the four of them filed out of their little den carrying enough firepower to start, or end, a small conflict.
The main pilot, Barrett, was his normal miserable self. Mac put that down to living in the pocket of his co-pilot, who permanently cracked jokes and quoted films, as well as the loadmaster, who was either asleep or else played music which, in a world where silence meant survival, seemed unwise.
Counterintuitive, I think is the word, Mac mused to himself, as was his way. He liked to find the longer words for everyday things as he believed a wider vocabulary made him more sophisticated. Separated him from the beasts. For a man who only spoke when he had to, a wider vocabulary seemed a wasteful hobby.
He glared at the two southerners, waiting for them to switch on and drop their constant clowning, which they always did the second it was time to concentrate. Downes stepped aboard the aircraft, followed by Smiffy, who turned to reach out a hand to take the heavy machine gun from his friend, who then climbed up himself. Mac took one long, lingering panoramic view of the inside of the huge square and the inner courtyard.
“Mac,” Downes shouted, raising his voice again as the whining noise of the starting engines ramped up, “let’s go.”
“Aye,” Mac replied to himself, “still got a bad feeling about this one,” and climbed up into the Sea King.
The flight to Yeovilton took less than half an hour and their arrival was marked by a slowing of their air speed and a looping, banking manoeuvre to allow a clear view of the area.
“Fence is down in a few places,” Morris’ voice came through the headset from the cockpit, “looks like the base was trampled from north to south a while ago.”
“Any sign of movement?” Mac asked just as Downes’ mouth opened to say the same thing. The two men’s eyes met, both waiting for the answer to crackle into their ears over the deafening whine of the engines and rotor blades. That pause stretched on almost reassuringly; reassuringly in the sense that the immediate answer wasn’t an affirmative, and also reassuring in that the man was obviously looking and not giving some half-arsed answer which could put them in danger.
“Nothing moving,” Morris said in a clear, flat tone.
“Okay, put us down as close to the refuelling point as possible,” Downes said as he put an automatic hand to the boom mic attached to his headset and unclipped his belt to rise, “swing by and show me the landing site,” he said as he gripped on tight and leaned his head around to look out of the open side door.
The pilot took them around, slowing almost to a static hover as Brinklow pointed straight down to a rank of large fuel tanks. Downes called into the headset that he had seen it and that they should take them in to land. He turned to face his team and gave instructions, “One-eighty cover. Push out twenty and drop; Dezzy centre with the gympy,” he finished, putting the biggest firepower, that of the GPMG in the hands of his demolitions man, in the middle of their small defence so as to give
it the best arc of fire available. He didn’t need to add that they should keep it as quiet as possible unless forced to go loud by numbers they couldn’t deal with easily.
They all unstrapped, readied themselves and hung on tight as the wheels bumped into the tarmac to signify that they should jump down. Their legs bent under the excess weight of their gear and armaments, and then forced themselves straight again to make them upright through sheer power and strength of will. Fanning out to cover the side from where a threat could come, the four men rested into position and kept their senses fully alert over the sights of their guns. Their senses of sound and smell were useless, as behind them the stink of hot oil and exhaust gases swirled around under the deafening rotor wash, and forced them to use sight alone as Brinklow rushed around with Morris to refuel the helicopter.
Their concentration was such that the refuelling was completed in a time which seemed too short, but Brinklow was tapping Downes on the shoulder before cupping his hands between his own mouth and the Major’s ear.
“Refuelled,” he yelled over the noise of the engines ramping up again, “small arms locker in there if you want it?” he shouted, pointing to a nearby single-storey building which had the appearance of a guard station. Downes nodded, turning and running low to Mac to use hand signals to indicate he should follow him. He tried to catch the eyes of the others, but their position and concentration was such that he had to jog the distances to both of them and repeat the process of giving hand signals for them to redeploy and cover the helicopter with just the two of them.
Brinklow followed Downes and Mac at a respectful distance so as to stay well away from any contact that might present itself.
The two soldiers stacked up on the door and Downes waited for Mac’s hand to rest on his shoulder before placing his left hand on the door handle and turning it. Letting the door swing open a fraction, he fought against the natural urge to reach to his chest and throw in a flashbang to stun anyone in the room; instead, he pushed the door wide and called out a hello to see if anyone or anything inside moved.
Nothing.
The ambient noise of the nearby helicopter still drowned out any chance of detecting the slight sounds of small movement, so he went in to clear the room. Mac followed, going right to Downes’ left as their gun barrels swung left and right, always pointing in the direction of their eyes. Two doors came off the main room and they were cleared similarly, resulting in the posture of both men relaxing as they stood tall and lowered their guns.
“Weapons locker,” Brinklow said, pointing to a badly painted wooden cupboard of a size and design that appeared out of place, “and ammunition,” he said, indicating a heavy lock box underneath a desk secured with a heavy padlock.
Downes opened the tall cupboard, finding the contents to be a squad’s worth of new personal arms. Eight SA80 rifles and a longer, bigger version called the LSW, or light support weapon, which was effectively a smaller calibre version of the heavier GPMG machine guns. The LSW was significantly more man-portable than the older GPMGs, or just a longer-barrelled version of the SA80, however you chose to view them. A locking bar ran through the rack, preventing the weapons from being removed, which was secured with another bar, far smaller than the one on the lock box, and Downes turned to Mac.
“Dezzy got a cutting torch in his dems kit?”
Mac shrugged, turning to the door and checking the outside before jogging across the open expanse towards the helicopter.
Downes saw Mac take the big machine gun, kneeling down to settle behind it, as Dez ran back to the helicopter and reappeared with a black rucksack which he shrugged into, and jogged towards the building. That rucksack, the team’s demolitions kit, was usually condensed for whatever option they had, but having the helicopter to carry them, Dezzy had added everything he could find to cater for their needs.
“What do you need, Boss?” he asked as he strode in. In answer, Downes pointed at the locking bar and the heavy padlock on the metal box under the counter. Dez nodded, dropped the bag and rummaged for a set of heavy bolt croppers. The tool made short work of the smaller lock, with only the strength of the man’s arms needing to be employed. Snapping the lock away, he knelt and began to work on the far thicker metal of that padlock, making difficult crimps into the bar at intervals before dropping the tool and reaching into his kit to spark up the small gas cutting torch he carried. Downes knew that without a far larger gas tank, the tool wasn’t going to last for long, but it didn’t have to. Even such a small prize of a few hundred rounds of 5.56 was worth the effort, so Dez worked the torch into the gap where he had cut crimps into the metal, killing the torch to snatch up the croppers before the metal cooled too much. He sat down and brought up his knees to brace one arm of the tool against his knees, with both hands on the furthest arm away.
A grunt built up low in his belly, building into a growl of massive effort as the long arms of the tools flexed, before a muted click sounded. Relaxing, he prised the tool open again and used his gloved hands to swivel the hot remains of the lock and remove it before shaking his hand at the radiating heat.
“Good to go,” he said, looking up at Downes with a smile and breathing hard from the effort.
“Then let’s get gone.”
TWENTY-FOUR
In some bizarre mirror occurrence of the last time Peter had been inside a house when it was broken into, he grabbed the girl and bundled her ahead of him into the airing cupboard. To her credit, she never once resisted him and never once made a single sound; she understood the importance of speed and silence. Throwing himself inside on top of spare sheets and towels as he had done before, he cursed himself as he remembered leaving his camouflage backpack and pitchfork on the rug at the end of the bed where they had been when the noises began. Panicking at the lack of reassurance of having the shotgun in his sweaty grip or the trusted ‘sticker’ of his pitchfork, his grip found the backup spike and held tight to it.
The wood of the front door frame cracked and splintered and the muffled sounds of boots on carpet echoed up the stairs to where the crack of light came through to their hiding place. Amber’s hand sought desperately in the dark for his and their fingers interlocked tightly, and although Peter wanted to keep two hands ready to use the only weapon at his disposal, he could not bring himself to let her go.
Muffled voices, spoken low and not whispered, carried inarticulately up the stairs to where he hid, but they gave no clues as to who or what they were.
They’re alive, he told himself, not that it makes them any less dangerous.
His thoughts were interrupted by footsteps, louder now as they combined with the creaks of the stairs and the banging of his own pulse thudding in his ears to drown out the minute details. He breathed steadily, trying to force his heartrate to slow down, and failing.
When it was just him, before he was responsible for Amber, he would have allowed his fear to dominate him and take over, but now, with another life which he saw as more important than his own, he steeled himself and prepared to fight.
They aren’t taking her, too, he swore to himself, I’m not losing someone else.
Just as he thought this, two soft clicks grabbed his attention. Peering into the gap of the door and trying to interpret the slight shifting of shadows, Peter tried to make sense of what he was hearing and tried even harder to keep his rapid breathing quiet.
Johnson took his turn using the crowbar on the door. While not as overtly muscular as Bufford, his longer limbs and height advantage made him very strong. Bufford had the stocky look of a power-lifter, whereas Johnson just looked big.
The door came open easily and the second two behind him made their entry. Buffs and Astrid moved fluidly, working as a well-drilled pair who had no intrinsic link of training together, although their efficiency spoke of hours drilling from the same manual. They cleared the downstairs rapidly and effectively, muttering to the other two who had filed in to adopt defensive stances, then pointed out a small, wheeled truck loaded with
food cans and packets enough to sustain a person for a few days. Nodding to Bufford, Astrid took the lead as she climbed the stairs quietly, freezing near the top of the stairs at a soft double click of the SBS man’s fingers. She glanced back briefly to see where he was pointing. Her eyes followed the line of his outstretched finger to fall on the strange double-pronged spear propped against a bedroom wall and a battered green camouflage rucksack below with the obvious grip of a modified, sawn-off shotgun protruding from the opening. Astrid and Buffs locked eyes, retreating a few paces down the stairs to give themselves space.
“What’s going on?” Johnson asked softly as they stepped carefully backwards whilst keeping their eyes on the top of the stairs.
Buffs came down first, cupping his hand and placing his mouth close enough to Johnson’s face for his beard to catch in the SSM’s stubble.
“Signs of someone holed-up,” he muttered, “weapons and equipment.”
Johnson pulled back and regarded him, looking at Larsen, who kept her eyes glued to the top of the stairs with her gun raised. Deciding what to do in a heartbeat, Johnson stepped forward to the foot of the stairs and called out in a powerful but unthreatening voice.
“Hello? We don’t mean any harm, I assure you…” he said, turning an ear towards the stairs to listen intently for any sound in response. He heard nothing.
“We’re from the British Army,” he announced, ignoring the fact it that what he had said applied only to himself, “and we know you’re up there. We are just looking for supplies,” he explained, not bothering to say that they were clearing the village to make it safer, “and we won’t hurt you or try to take what you have.”
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