Defender: Intrepid 1
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The two men downstairs came into view only a few feet below. Collins could make out the pitch-black silhouettes of their heads and shoulders through the large hole in the floor. He could hear one of them fumbling through webbing pouches. What was going on? What was the man searching for? On impulse, Collins again slipped his right hand from the rifle as slowly and silently as he dared and crept his fingers toward the Browning.
Then came the rattle, scratch and flash of a match being extracted then flicked with practiced precision across the red phosphorous strike surface on the side of a box. In the total darkness, the blaze of the match as it was raised to a cigarette lit the entire area as though a distress flare had been fired. His eyes captured everything in the snapshot flash of the match’s short life. He was close enough to smell the sulfur ignite, and see every detail of their faces. The men bore the unmistakable profiles of rebel soldiers, carrying Soviet-surplus weapons and wearing camouflage fatigues. Then it was black again. Collins closed his eyes tight and counted to three to regain his night vision. His hand closed around the silenced automatic. He held his breath. His eyes darted back and forth between the immediate threat just feet below him, and the killing zone across the street.
Bathed in the orange glow of the lamps, the target Land Rover pulled to a stop. Half-a-dozen men sprang from within the rebel headquarters and surrounded the vehicle in a defensive ring of outward-facing gun barrels.
Six feet below Collins, the two men stopped moving.
Collins’s mind raced. He could kill these two first and still take out the targets; if he didn’t, the moment he engaged the targets across the road he’d surely be killed by the two downstairs.
His heart was pounding.
The Land Rover’s engine shut off. A handbrake wrenched across well-worn metal teeth. The compound gates were closing. Sweat was pouring from his brow. He had to engage the targets or there would never be another chance. Car doors were opening. To hell with it! The mission was more important than his own life. His hand returned to the CZ 700, and his eye returned to the scope. A man emerged from the front passenger seat; definitely the first target. A clear shot. Steady. Calm the breathing. He eased the pressure out through clenched teeth with a slow hiss, laid the sights on the target’s head and squeezed the trigger.
“Nice night for it,” came a polished tone inches away.
Sean Collins’s heart leapt in his ribcage. Automatically, his finger snapped tight on the trigger. The hammer fell just as it should and struck the base of the firing pin. But there was nothing but the hollow ring of a dead shot. No explosion, recoil, muzzle flash. A broken firing pin? Dud ammo? He spun toward the voice, his body rigid with tension and shock.
“Fuck!” he rasped, turning back to the silhouette, momentarily relieved, then belatedly, alive to his mistake.
“You should have been more sure about where that weapon came from, sonny,” said the voice in the darkness. “Can’t be too careful these days.”
“But …” Collins’s eyes darted between the useless weapon in his hands and the face, half in shadow, less than a foot away. Recognition. Confusion. Disbelief. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He grabbed for the Browning, but he was too late.
The last thing the sniper heard was a whoosh as a metal pipe came crashing down on his skull.
CHAPTER 3
AUSTRALIA’S ECONOMIC EXCLUSION ZONE
COCOS ISLANDS, INDIAN OCEAN
The trawler was secure. The security team was covering the boat’s crew, and the sweep team had gone below decks in search of the crates that had been transferred across from the Marengo.
Morgan stood steadfast on deck. Something wasn’t quite right; it all looked too much like a textbook boarding. The fishing boat’s crew were undeniably gloomy, most likely simple fishermen caught up in the big game. Their livelihoods were at stake, along with the real possibility of receiving a long stretch in an Australian jail. They were scared and compliant, but the surreptitious glances they exchanged were unsettling Morgan; a dozen pairs of black eyes, darting nervously. The fishermen were all mumbling from the sides of their mouths but it was impossible to discern anything above the cry of the storm. They were expecting something. Trouble? But if it was, it seemed to be trouble they wanted no part of.
Morgan’s sixth sense for danger went into overdrive. His eyes scanned and processed the entire scene, taking in the fishermen and the clearance divers of the security team. High swells of gray water rose and fell constantly and he noticed empty beer bottles rolling around on the deck among the crates and nets. Allowing your crew to get on the piss in these conditions was madness. Morgan kicked a bottle away from his feet. Idiots, he thought. The RHIB was still sitting off to starboard, clear of the fishing boat. The Albany was in the distance, its big guns, a 25mm Typhoon automated cannon, and two 12.7mm machine guns, trained protectively on them from across the expanse of crashing waves. The XO, Randle – where was he? Morgan recalibrated his search. The wheelhouse. With Maddy Lambert. They were looking over the captain’s log, while the captain stood nearby.
Realisation hit Morgan like a jolt of electricity.
Randle and Lambert were on the bridge and had moved the captain to one side as they began poring over the boat’s log and papers. But now, the captain, probably thinking he was beyond the view of the other sailors and with a fool’s disregard for the consequences of his actions, panicked and clumsily withdrew a revolver from the folds of his loose-fitting clothes, raising it to fire into the backs of the two Australian sailors. Randle and Lambert had made a fatal mistake. With their backs to the captain they were oblivious to the threat. They would be dead in seconds.
Morgan dropped to a crouch, wrenched the Browning from his leg holster in one fluid, practiced movement, and braced himself between two crates to counter the erratic sway of the boat. The sea suddenly tossed the boat hard to port and everybody aboard staggered or fell. The captain stumbled as he attempted to steady himself, and his finger tightened on the trigger. A single gunshot exploded across the decks.
With both hands clasped around the Browning, Morgan fired a succession of rounds that struck the captain in the chest and continued up to his head until he sank from sight.
“Cover these bastards!” Morgan yelled to the security team. Then he sprinted across the deck and catapulted his powerful frame up a rickety wooden ladder that led to the wheelhouse. Stunned, the XO and his translator had finally reacted. They’d dived to opposite sides of the wheelhouse, clear of Morgan’s firing line, and were now huddled over the captain’s torn and twisted body.
“You two OK?”
“Yeah and thanks,” Randle answered. “Couple of inches to the left and he would have had me.” He gestured to a shattered portion of a beam.
“Is he dead?” asked Lambert, her voice shaky.
“Yep. He’s dead,” Morgan replied, kicking the captain’s gun away and casting a professional eye over the body at his feet. “Next time,” he added, “don’t turn your back on anybody who’s not wearing the same uniform as you. Now let’s see what they’re carrying and get off this heap of shit before the bloody storm sinks us.”
“XO!” came a yell from the sweep team below decks. “You should get down here.”
Seconds later, Morgan and the XO were leaning over a large crate, inspecting its contents.
“Bugger me!” exclaimed Randle.
Deep within the ice, buried beneath layers of sharks’ fins, were weapons. They were mostly ex-Soviet Bloc: Kalashnikov AKMs and RPKs. Two of the sweep team sailors were holding up a couple of the assault rifles for Morgan to see, while another continued to scrape aside more ice and fins.
“Aren’t they Russian, sir?” It was Lambert. She was standing very close to Morgan, having decided it was the safest place to be.
“That’s right,” Morgan replied. “We’re obviously going to find a lot more in the rest of these crates. Great work guys, but tread carefully. We don’t want any—”
Morgan joined him and, carefully brushing aside more ice, saw that the crate contained an indeterminate number of 85mm High Explosive Anti-Tank projectiles of the type fired from an RPG-7 grenade launcher. The munitions were stacked haphazardly, like toys in a toy box, wrapped in nothing more than greaseproof paper.
“Christ!” Morgan hissed, straightening his shoulders. “OK, Mr. Randle, I suggest that we get everyone off this vessel and back onboard the Albany immediately.”
“Aye, sir!”
“And can someone hand me a radio?” asked Morgan. “I need to talk to your skipper.”
CHAPTER 4
MALFAJIRI
The stench of rotting meat permeated the air with an intensity that would make any normal person gag. But there weren’t any normal people within 1000 miles of this shithole. Victor Lundt hated the smell of the place. Even referring to it as a shithole was generous. He was sure that the troops pissed and crapped wherever they felt like it – inside or out.
In the depths of the long house, somewhere to the rear and downstairs, he could hear the muffled cries of a man in pain. He stopped his shuffling and listened more intently, mouth open and eyes closed. There it was again. A series of dull thuds followed immediately by a strained, exhausted scream for mercy. Overzealous, Lundt thought with disdain. When subjected to torture there was always that point when death seemed preferable to living with the physical and psychological injuries of sustained brutality. Knowing how far to push was what separated the professional from the amateur. Then, checking his watch, Lundt realized that he’d been made to wait for twenty minutes. Standing around in the foyer of the old house like a schoolboy summoned to the headmaster. Another third-world wannabe, he scoffed mentally. Patience, man, patience.
He strolled outside onto the worn and splintered boards of the sagging verandah and took the last drags from yet another cigarette. There were rebel soldiers everywhere. They were lounging around the compound, leaning against Jeeps, or finding refuge under the shade of trees, while off in the distance, others moved in packs, creeping around the buildings of the surrounding village. There was no discipline among them other than that instilled by fear. Cruelty and an absolute lack of humanity was what made this rebel army move as one.
A couple of women, prostitutes from the local village, lazed across each other at the far end of the verandah. They were exhausted, sweating profusely, their tattered dresses barely covering them. Rough night, he thought. Lundt flicked the still burning cigarette contemptuously in their direction, gulping air in an attempt to fill his lungs. A faded denim shirt clung to his chest, stained salt rings of perspiration looped around the armpits and collar. The dry red dirt, so much the signature of Malfajiri, filtered through his uncharacteristically bushy dark hair and stubble. Bored and moderately annoyed, he reached high above his head, stretching his tall, lean body upward until his heels left the floor and his fingertips touched the roof of the verandah. He let out a long, low groan as he released the tension of the stretch and then, lazily returning his hands to the pockets of his cargo pants, kicked at the exposed, twisted head of a rusty nail. His eyes naturally found their way along the street to the ruin a couple of hundred yards away where he’d found Collins just a week or so ago. Those stupid bastards at SIS would think twice about interfering again, once they discovered their boy was dead. He let out a deep, remorseless sigh. Collins had known the risks of the game; at least, he should have. Lundt spat a remnant of tobacco upon the creaking boards at his feet. It was always the fucking ex-soldiers who came in draped in all the syrup of the Union-bloody-Jack, chests full of patriotism, doing everything short of singing ‘Rule Britannia’ as they marched into Vauxhall Cross for the first time. Truth be told, there’d been a time when Lundt had been like that himself. Although those days were long gone. Yeah, he thought again, Collins had known the risks. It was just too bad.
There came the thump and boom of half-a-dozen pairs of army boots crossing wooden floorboards.
“Good day, colonel,” Lundt offered languidly. His hands tellingly remained in his pockets.
Baptiste, the rebel leader – tall, blue-black, with thick, wiry hair pressed awkwardly under a dirty green beret – ignored the greeting. Instead he stood close, bristling with self-importance, surrounded by three of his minders and his 2IC, Mobuto, the butcher. Their skin shone with sweat, contrasting with their dull jungle-camouflage uniforms, all tinged ochre by a permanent film of fine dirt.
“This sniper,” Baptiste began. “Trouble is following you, English.”
“Not me, colonel. You have a way of pissing off a lot of very important people, and all you do is draw unnecessary attention to yourself – and to me. I’m not at all surprised he was sent after you.”
“Give Baptiste news of the soon-to-be-dead President Namakobo’s movements,” demanded the colonel, pompously referring to himself in the third person.
“I’m afraid I have none. I’m expecting advice from London at any moment,” Lundt replied.
The rebel leader moved in even closer, standing toe to toe with the foreigner.
“Mobuto tells me that you were waiting for advice from London yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, English. And today – still nothing.”
“These are difficult times, colonel. It’s very important that you make your move deliberately and at just the right moment. When they learn that you’ve killed their man, the British Government won’t be so keen to intervene here. They’ll be afraid that by helping President Namakobo they’ll be over-committed; they’ve already got enough on their plate in Afghanistan. For years they’ve had great influence in Malfajiri. Now, they won’t be so confident. But we can’t afford to have Namakobo here in Cullentown when you make your move against his government. With or without British help, he has strong tribal alliances throughout this country, and he and Dr. Siziba are the only two who could turn things against you. Siziba being in exile, he’s not an immediate problem for you. You must wait until—”
“No! No more wait. You come now.” Baptiste turned on his heel and moved swiftly back into the house. His minders closed around Lundt and led him away in the wake of their colonel. Mobuto followed.
The rebel soldiers herded the foreigner deep into the house. Baptiste continued to lead the way, his chin jutting in the air and his right hand resting on the butt of his holstered .44 Magnum. The stench grew worse as they frog-marched Lundt along the corridors, and then went in file down a set of stairs that had probably been condemned decades ago. Lundt fought the temptation to retch. The rotting concrete walls that cocooned the stairs were smeared with the brown stain of blood splatter and the wooden steps reeked of urine. What had been a basement was now an endless black cavern, a torture chamber. In those first seconds as he was pushed away from the stairs, the darkness, smell and incessant moans of invisible prisoners gave the impression of infinite space. The rebel soldiers moved through it comfortably.
Gradually, Lundt could distinguish shapes and movement. Cages materialized along the walls to his left and right, four or five on each side, and each with a dozen or more people inside. Baptiste withdrew the Magnum from its holster and rattled the barrel along the bars of the cages, taunting the terrified occupants. Clang, clang, clang. They fell silent and scuttled away to the rear of their pens like nocturnal animals away from light, as Baptiste and his posse cut a swath along the bars. The fear was palpable, the stench inhuman. Wretched creatures, all of them, Lundt thought.
Baptiste came to a stop. “Come here,” he snarled. Lundt was grappled forward by the minders and thrust alongside the colonel. “See what Baptiste has for you.”
“I don’t know why you’ve brought me here, colonel,” he replied. For the first time in a very, ver
y long time, Victor Lundt was feeling dread. Surely this wasn’t the end of the line. Not like this, down here. “This has nothing to do with me.”
“It has everything to do with you.” Baptiste pushed him into an open cage.
Lundt stumbled against a solitary figure, a man, sitting in a wooden chair. In the same instant, Baptiste pulled a length of string suspended from the roof and a single bulb blazed to life, illuminating a space 10 feet square. Lundt staggered back toward the wall, his face frozen in disbelief. Baptiste smiled.
The man in the chair, or what was left of him, was the sniper, Collins, arms bound behind him and ankles strapped to the legs of the chair by strands of thin copper wire. Deep, blood-encrusted gouges, the result of many days in this position, were evident around his wrists and ankles. His face was a mess, the flesh battered and swollen, both eyes completely closed over. Blood dripped from his open mouth. Teeth were missing. His head was hanging at an unnatural angle, no doubt from the sheer exhaustion of the beatings he’d received. He stunk of his own excrement. The only sound was the bubbling rasp of his attempts to breathe with lungs full of blood – his ribs must have been broken early in the treatment. Occasionally, his head would move, and Lundt realized that Collins was sobbing, barely audible amid the laughing and jeering of Baptiste’s men.
“You assured me this man was dead, colonel.” Lundt spat the words at Baptiste.
“I am fighting for the destiny of my country, English. My destiny is my country’s destiny and I will take control.” He glared at the man in the chair. “Nobody will stop Baptiste. Not this spy. Not Namakobo. Not even your British Government.”
The rebel soldiers began to laugh. Baptiste smiled, enjoying his audience. Mobuto moved into the cell and was hovering behind the chair, but his attention was fixed on Lundt.