by Chris Ryan
‘Gone,’ he said.
A moment of silence in the comms.
‘Shit,’ Sam hissed as a surge of anger burned through him. How the hell had this happened? They’d only been on the ground five minutes. How the hell had it happened?
He didn’t get long to think about it. As he looked back across the clearing he saw more movement. ‘Tyler, Cullen – you still down?’ he demanded.
‘Roger that,’ they both breathed in unison.
‘Stay where you are. I’ve got a visual on another shooter.’
He raised his Diemaco once more. Looking through the sights he tried not to concentrate on the crumpled mound ahead of him that he knew to be Craven’s body. As he fired, the round exploded in the green light of his NV, like some kind of ghostly firework. His target fell immediately to the earth.
‘Did I say three others?’ he growled. ‘Make that two.’
‘We’re coming up from the south.’ Mac’s voice sounded as though he was running. ‘It sounds like they know where you are. You sure you only heard three others, Sam?’
‘Makes sense,’ Sam replied tersely. ‘Four-man unit. Tyler and Cullen are in open ground. I’m by the tree line. Guys, stay down. I’ll keep you covered from here.’
‘Wilco,’ came the grim reply.
Sam pressed his back against a tree, his weapon raised and ready to fire. His mind was in turmoil. He couldn’t make sense of it. These Spetsnaz guys – if indeed that’s what they were – seemed to be expecting them. But how? Nobody knew they were coming, did they?
Did they?
He stayed close to the ground. Occasionally over the comms he heard Mac hissing an instruction to Andrews, Davenport and Webb; other than that he could do nothing but scan the surrounding woodland, keeping his NV-enhanced eyes peeled for unexpected movement. Briefly he thought he saw something again; but whatever it was settled into stillness. Sam kept alert, watching over the prostrate forms of Tyler and Cullen, his finger twitching on the trigger, ready to fire at a moment’s notice.
All around him, the silence of the night was broken by sudden, unexpected noises: the falling of a twig, the scurrying of an animal. His senses were heightened; everything seemed louder than it actually was. He could feel his own heart beat, hear his own breathing. He estimated that the others could be no more than two hundred metres behind them. How were they approaching? Had they spotted their enemy?
It must have been about two minutes before the kills came, and they came in quick succession. Sam heard the muted thud – surprisingly close-by – of one of his unit’s suppressed weapons; moments later, he heard another.
‘Two men down,’ Mac reported. ‘Let’s hope no one shows up to do a changing of the fucking guard.’
Sam edged back to the Russian’s body and listened in again on the bloodied comms earpiece. Nothing. Silence.
‘We’re clear,’ he stated flatly. ‘Damn it, what the hell happened there?’
In the clearing, Tyler and Cullen rose slowly from their lying-down position, looking for all the world in the eerie green hue of the night vision like corpses rising from the dead. ‘Came out of fucking nowhere,’ Tyler replied. From a distance, Sam watched as he went over to where Craven’s body was lying. And then, echoing the suspicion that had been buzzing around in Sam’s head: ‘Almost like they knew we were coming. Jack just caught one. Could have been me.’
As Tyler spoke, the others came into sight, running into the clearing with their weapons raised. Mac spoke, his voice terse. ‘Leave Craven there,’ he instructed, almost purposefully lacking in emotion. They were still in country; the mission might be going tits up, but it still had to be completed. ‘We’ll scoop him up when we extract.’
Tyler hesitated. ‘They were fucking waiting for us. We need to get out of here. What if the contact’s been reported?’
‘We’re carrying on,’ Mac overruled him. ‘Get to the edge of the tree line. Matt, Steve, Hill – retrace steps back to original attacking positions. We’ll reassess the situation when we’ve got a view on the camp. Quick, before anybody else decides to join the party.’
Sam looked at his watch. 03.27. They still had time before sunrise, but Tyler was right: they needed to watch their backs. It was never easy leaving the fallen behind; Sam had to break through a barrier of reluctance to make himself do it. But they had to keep moving. And he had to concentrate on the important stuff.
On Jacob.
As he ran towards the tree line, he found himself wondering what would happen if he found one of the guys about to put a bullet in his brother. It was an uncomfortable question and one which he quickly put from his mind.
The tree line, twenty metres ahead. And then, for the first time Sam laid eyes properly on the camp. It would take Mac and his team a couple more minutes to get back into their original positions, so in the meantime he could get his breath and gather his thoughts. Tyler and Cullen joined him, spaced out at ten-metre intervals, while Sam examined the training camp itself.
Just as the aerial map had suggested, there were three buildings. They started about twenty metres away from where Sam was standing. What they had originally been built for, he couldn’t tell. They were very simple concrete blocks, long and low, with corrugated iron roofs and rusting metal doors. It was the kind of place you wouldn’t look at twice; you’d probably think it was derelict. The buildings surrounded a courtyard, in which there was an old pick-up truck, as well as some oil drums and diesel canisters. Sam observed that one of the buildings was connected to an electricity pylon – this place might have been the arse end of nowhere, but there was power, which meant they could expect to be illuminated.
There was one other thing that caught his attention. In the gap between two of the buildings he saw the smaller, shedlike structure that he had observed on the map back at the briefing. And outside the shed, he noticed with a sharp intake of breath, a dog on a leash lay sleeping.
A vision hit his mind. Jacob, with a black Labrador at his side. He liked dogs more than he liked people, they used to say.
Was he alone, away from the others, in that little shed? Sam didn’t know, but it seemed likely.
Mac’s voice crackled over the comms. ‘You in position?’
‘Roger that,’ Sam replied.
‘Do you have a visual on the truck?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How far?’
‘About twenty-five metres.’ He felt his eyes narrowing. In an ideal world, the vehicle needed to be put out of action: in the frenzy that was about to occur, the last thing they wanted to do was have one of their targets making it to the pick-up and getting away. Exploding the tyres from this distance, however, was risky. Their weapons might be suppressed and next to noiseless, but a round going into one of those tyres was going to make a bang…
And then, slowly, Sam smiled, despite the events of the last few minutes. It wasn’t exactly standard operating procedures, but when the unit was debriefed he could concoct a perfectly reasonable operational excuse for taking out the truck; and the noise could just give Jacob the few seconds warning that he needed.
He raised his weapon, quickly before anyone could instruct him to do otherwise. The moment the tyre burst the unit would move in. Silently. Deadly.
Sam fired. His aim was good. Through the NV he saw the shredded remains of the tyre explode into the air.
A bang. The truck jolted and sank down on one corner.
‘Jesus!’ Tyler hissed over the comms. ‘Who was that?’
‘Me,’ Sam said. ‘Don’t want anyone doing a runner.’
‘You’ll wake the whole fucking camp…’
‘All right!’ Mac’s voice snapped over the comms. ‘Shut up, everyone.’
Sam felt a surge of gratitude towards his friend. ‘There’s a dog tied up to the north-west,’ he said quickly. ‘Don’t want the fucker barking. I’ll deal with it before we go in. Then we can hit the buildings.’
A pause.
‘My job, Mac,’ Sam continued
cryptically into the comms.
More silence. And then, ‘Roger that.’
Sam nodded with satisfaction. He set his jaw and prepared to skirt around the edge of the camp.
Towards the dog.
Towards the shed.
And towards whatever was inside.
*
He awoke. Like a drowned man unnaturally brought to life, he splashed through the surface tension of his sleep, his senses suddenly alert.
He blinked in the darkness, sitting up in his simple bed and instinctively feeling for the handgun that he always kept by his side. He knew the noises of this place: the occasional screech of an owl, now and then a truck trundling down the nearby road – though these were few and far between. But the bang that had awoken him? That was unusual. And he had come to learn that unusual meant suspicious.
Silently, but quickly, he stood up and pulled on his clothes. To the side of his bed was a window. The mechanism was old and rusted up – just like everything else in this shit hole – and it took him several goes to loosen it.
He opened the window. It was small; but not so small that he couldn’t squeeze his way through. He wriggled through the opening, closed it again as best he could from the outside, then pressed his back to the wall and listened.
Listened hard.
His beard itched. He realised he was sweating.
He continued to listen, holding his breath so as to hear better.
Footsteps. He could definitely hear footsteps.
His eyes darted to and fro. He edged along the wall, reaching the corner where he stopped once more and held his breath. Firmly clutching his handgun, he raised it to shoulder height.
It had only ever been a matter of time before this happened. Somewhere deep down he had always suspected. Always suspected that they would send someone after him. But he wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction.
Then he went tense.
Footsteps again.
There was someone approaching.
There was someone very close.
*
Sam ran towards the shed. When he was ten metres distant, he raised his weapon, aimed at the sleeping dog and fired. The suppressed round slammed silently into the animal’s body. It jolted, then lay still once more.
He ran up towards the shed. The door was closed. It was a wooden door, not visibly reinforced in any way with a locking system. No need to blow it off and risk a close-range shrapnel wound from the round ricocheting off the door. He shut his eyes and prepared to enter.
He didn’t get the chance. When the voice came, it came from nowhere, as did its owner.
‘Drop your weapon!’
Sam’s body tensed up. His head was not turned towards his assailant and he knew that if he made any sudden movement, it would be fatal.
‘I don’t want to kill you,’ the voice hissed. ‘But I will if you don’t drop the gun.’
Sam’s body went hot then cold. He recognised the voice, of course. How could he not?
He lowered his gun, but didn’t drop it.
And then he spoke. Quietly. Hoarsely. But firmly and with one hand over his comms mike.
‘It’s me, Jacob,’ he said. ‘It’s Sam.’
ELEVEN
A pause. It seemed to go on for ever.
‘Drop the fucking weapon,’ Jacob hissed. He nudged the butt of the handgun against Sam’s arm.
Slowly, Sam bent down and placed the Diemaco on the floor. He straightened up and removed the NV goggles from his face.
It took a moment for his natural night vision to adjust to the darkness as he turned round to face his assailant. A moment for his brother’s features to emerge from the blackness like a Polaroid slowly developing. He wore a scraggly beard and looked older. Leaner. Nothing could disguise those eyes, however – those dark, intense eyes that seemed to look right through you. He wore rough combat trousers, a pale T-shirt and a sturdy khaki jacket. His feet were clad in black leather boots.
‘Sam?’ his brother hissed incredulously. ‘What the hell…?’
‘You have to get out of here,’ Sam interrupted him. ‘Now, Jacob. There’s six other Regiment guys with me and we’ve got orders to kill everybody here. You included. Jacob, you have to go.’
No movement. Mac’s voice over the comms: ‘Sam, where are you?’
‘They’re going to come to find out what’s happened to me any second.’
His brother’s eyes were confused. Jacob stared hard at Sam, almost as though he hadn’t heard what his younger brother was saying.
‘Jacob!’
Jacob blinked, then looked around. He nodded and stepped back as Sam bent down to retrieve his gun. The two brothers looked at each other again. And then Jacob spoke. His voice was low.
‘They’ll tell you things, Sam,’ he said cryptically as he took a couple more steps back, retreating further into the inky night. ‘Things about me. Don’t forget that you’re my brother. Don’t believe them.’
‘What are you doing here, J.?’ Sam asked, words suddenly tumbling out despite the urgent need for his brother to get away quickly. ‘What’s going on? What are you doing with these people?’
The expression on Jacob’s face didn’t change. ‘Don’t let them trick you, Sam,’ he whispered. ‘It’s what they’re good at.’ Sam felt a sudden pang of loss. He was forcing Jacob away, but all he really wanted was to be with his brother. ‘Things aren’t what they seem, Sam,’ Jacob pressed. ‘I swear to you they’re not what they seem.’
And in an instant, disappearing as swiftly as he had appeared, Jacob’s dark features melted away into the night. Sam heard the heavy sound of his brother’s footsteps running away, westwards into the forest.
‘Sam!’ It was Mac’s voice on the comms. ‘Where the hell are you?’
Sam felt himself churning up, but he couldn’t allow himself the luxury of hesitation. He quickly pulled his NV goggles on, trying to readjust his mind to the job in hand. His brother had escaped; now he needed to make sure that nobody else did. ‘Job done,’ he replied. ‘I’m on my way back now.’
He hurried round the corner and emerged into the courtyard. The rest of them had advanced. Tyler and Cullen stood on either side of the door to the westernmost building. The others had also taken up their positions, two men to each of the other buildings. Cullen gave him a thumbs-up.
‘Mac? Do you copy?’ he spoke into the comms.
‘Roger that.’
‘We’re ready.’
A pause. The bloodbath was about to begin.
‘Go!’ Mac instructed.
Cullen held up three fingers. Two fingers. One finger. With all his force he kicked the door in and instantly they were inside.
The door itself was situated halfway along the building. It opened on to one long room, a dormitory of some description. There were eight beds, all positioned against one wall. By each bed was a low locker, a chair and very little else. The place had the bare, austere feeling of an army barracks. Sam indicated with a quick point of his finger that Cullen and Tyler should take the right-hand side, while he took the left. They split up and went about their work.
There was movement in the dormitory. Nothing much – just a few bodies drowsily stirring. Through the NV goggles, Sam could see a couple of the occupants sitting up in their simple beds, staring blindly into the darkness and groping sleepily. These were the targets he’d have to eliminate first, before they had the chance to start a panic. Sam raised his Diemaco and aimed directly at the head of one of the sluggish figures.
As he prepared to squeeze the trigger, however, an image flashed cross his mind. It was Clare Corbett, sitting at her kitchen table, her face stained with tears of terror as she recounted what she knew. The red-light runners. These young men, targeted and groomed by MI5.
Sam set his jaw. He wasn’t paid to think about the rights and wrongs of his orders. He was just paid to carry them out. What was more, if he was to cover his tracks, he had to do so without hesitation. Already he had heard
the thump from Cullen’s weapon as he eliminated one of the targets.
He fired. The round slammed straight into his target’s neck. The young man was thrown back against the wall, by the force of the round. The bullet exited, tearing a huge hole in the flesh through which a neat, sickly pool of blood slowly poured out. He had slipped to the floor and was on his way over to the dark side. By that time, however, Sam’s sights were elsewhere. He strode down the room without moving his weapon from the firing position. His second target was also sitting upright before the round hit. Not for long. Numbers three and four were just lying there, asleep. They would never have known what hit them.
He turned and looked at Cullen who was already striding towards the door. ‘Then there were none,’ he announced into the comms.
Mac’s voice came crackling back. ‘And the same here,’ he stated grimly. ‘Job done, gentlemen. Let’s do the housekeeping and get the hell out of here.’
*
The unit retraced their footsteps around that silent training camp, checking that the targets were indeed dead – Sigs in hand in case they needed to administer a final, fatal headshot. They went about their work in a kind of grim silence – not out of respect for the guys they had just killed, but out of professional efficiency and because now that the operation was nearing its end, the reality of Craven’s death was beginning to sink in. It had happened so quickly. So randomly. It could easily have been any of them. It just happened to be Jack Craven who would be returning home in a body bag. It just happened to be his family who would be mourning their loss with scant knowledge about the circumstances of his death. Part of Sam thought, Fuck it, there’s no room for sentimental bullshit here. People died on ops. They all knew that. They all knew the risk. That didn’t make it any easier, though.
Despite all this, Sam couldn’t help feeling a faint surge of exhilaration. Jacob had escaped. He’d done what he came here to do. Nobody spoke as they briskly conducted their business, other than to give or acknowledge instructions. Certainly they didn’t discuss who had been waiting for them, or why. They just knew they had to get out quickly.
