Strike Back

by Chris Ryan

  Porter took the knife from his belt, and raised it a couple of feet into the air. He was about to plunge it straight into the boy’s neck, when his eyes caught him. He was looking straight at Porter. ‘Please,’ he said, in broken English, his voice croaking with abject fear.

  Blood was dripping from Porter’s wounded hand, and the bolts of pain from the wound were jabbing up from his left arm and thumping straight into his chest. It was like having a hundred hammer drills boring into your body at the same time.

  ‘My, my …’

  The boy was struggling for the words in English but they wouldn’t come. A burst of Arabic, frantic and desperate, erupted from his lips, then he subsided into the stunned silence that sometimes overwhelms even children when they are certain they are about to die.

  Ten yards behind him, Steve and Keith were holding the line, using assault rifles to fight back another wave of Hezbollah attacks. Amid the din and roar of the gunfire, the hostage had bottled it, screaming his lungs out with raw fear.

  Porter held the knife in his hand, his eyes flicking across the smooth skin of the boy’s neck as he searched for the windpipe he would need to sever to make the death as quick and painless as possible.

  He lowered the knife into position, nicking the skin, and drawing a speck of red blood. He thought briefly of Sandy. How old was she now? Into her second day, allowing for the time the telegram had taken to reach the ship.

  ‘Fuck it,’ muttered Porter, the words wheezing through his exhausted lips.

  He’s just a kid.

  With his left hand, he ripped the explosives off the boy’s chest, flinging them to one side. He folded the knife into the palm of his hand, using it as a weight rather than a weapon. Tensing his shoulder muscles, he smashed his right fist into the side of the boy’s face. His deformed lips quivered, then he spat some blood and a broken tooth up into Porter’s chest. ‘Amiat al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun,’ he whispered. His eyes closed, and Porter could tell there was no fight left in him, but he punched again, and then again, draining the last few ounces of consciousness from him. Slowly, he lifted himself from the boy’s body. You’ll take at least three hours to wake up from that, mate, he thought. But you’ll live, at least. Maybe even find something better to do with your life.

  In front of him, Steve and Keith had dealt with the latest wave of attacks. The firing had subsided long enough for them to rush up towards the roof and the Puma. ‘Get out to the chopper,’ shouted Steve. ‘We’ll lay down the covering fire.’

  ‘I’ll stay and fight my way out of here with the rest of you,’ said Porter gruffly.

  Steve took two paces forward, standing so close Porter could smell the sweat and grime dripping off his face. ‘You’re fucking wounded, you tosser.’

  Porter was clenching his left hand. The pain was aching, and the blood was still dripping from the two stumps where his fingers had once been. He could feel the strength bleeding out of him. ‘I can hold on until we get the hostage back to the chopper.’

  With a flicked shake of his head, the anger was evident in Steve’s eyes. ‘You’re wounded, and we have to get the hostage out. We’ll put down some covering fire, and keep the Hezbollah bastards back. No one gives a fuck whether we get shot, but if we lose Bratton then we’re all in the shit. Now run like fuck, get on that chopper and get back to the ship, and there’s a chance the medics can still save that hand. Tell the pilot to call in the backup, and we’ll get out of here as soon as it’s safe.’

  ‘My hand –’

  ‘Bloody move, man,’ snapped Steve. ‘This is the Regiment. We get paid to fight and win. Not to lose a hand, and spend the rest of our careers behind a desk because we’re too sodding stupid to know when to clear out.’

  Porter paused. He was about to speak, but he could see that Steve was already telling Keith how they could make certain the building was safe enough for the chopper to drop down onto the roof.

  He held tight to his gun, then glanced up at the staircase. Bratton was standing right next to him: the man was shaking with fear, and his nerves were so shot he could no longer speak. Porter’s feet were pounding against the concrete as he started running. Behind him, he could hear one shot ring out, then another. He dragged Bratton with him, up one flight, then up the second, before bursting onto the open roof. Down below he could see the rest of the unit laying down more fire to keep their attackers at bay. Up ahead, he could see the chopper hovering a few feet above the roof. Within seconds, he had covered the last few remaining yards, and grabbed hold of the Puma’s doorway. He pushed the screaming Bratton through the open door, and flinging himself onto the floor, he shouted to the pilot to take him back, then unhooked a first-aid kit from the floor of machine. As the Puma lifted up into the sky, and started to soar over the city and out towards the sea, Porter found the disinfectant. He winced in pain as he splashed it over the raw, stubby mess where his fingers had once been. If he didn’t clean the wound soon, he knew there was a chance the thing might have to be chopped off at the wrist.

  And the Regiment has no use for a bloke with only one hand.

  Porter walked slowly from the operating theatre. The antibiotics they had pumped into him had made him woozy, and the local anaesthetic injected into his arm and chest left him numb and dopey. It had been a terrible hour, but at least the worst was over now, he told himself. After being dropped down onto the Dorset’s deck, Bratton had been led away, still shaking and sobbing with fear, and he’d been rushed down to the medics, who quickly concluded they could save the hand, but only if they cut through the remaining flesh and bone and reduced both missing fingers to nothing more than stumps. There was an operating theatre on board, but he’d probably be sent on to Cyprus at daybreak to get some more treatment. ‘If you’d kept the fingers we could have had a go at sticking them back on,’ said the doctor with disturbing cheerfulness as he sawed through what remained.

  ‘Yeah, well, some Arab buggers were lobbing grenades at us,’ growled Porter. ‘So there wasn’t really much time for looking around for any bits of your body that might have been shot off.’

  In total, the operation had taken no more then twenty minutes, and the doctors assured him he should be fine so long as he kept it clean, and took some heavy duty antibiotics for a couple of weeks. He’d been lucky, they told him. The wound had staunched quickly enough for him not to lose too much blood: any more and he’d have passed out.

  No point in signing up for the Regiment if you are going to complain about getting hurt, Porter told himself as he climbed the stairs back towards the deck. It had been that tosser Collinson’s fault for sending him up to the doorway, but those were the breaks. In combat, stuff happened. You just had to live with it.

  He looked out at the sea. Taking out a packet of Rothmans, he cupped his hands against the wind, and lit a cigarette. He’d promised Diana he’d give up when she got pregnant, and had managed not to smoke at all on his last leave, but he knew the nicotine would help to dull the pain that would inevitably come raging back once the anaesthetic wore off.

  Lucky I don’t hold the fag with my left hand, he grinned to himself as he chucked the ash into the sea swelling up around the side of the ship. With luck, it shouldn’t hurt his career too much. There were plenty of guys in the Regiment who’d lost fingers, but if they could still hold a gun straight, it didn’t count against them. So long as it didn’t disable you, a wound could even help you get ahead: it showed you could take the punishment.

  He heard the chopper first, its engine growling out over the sea, then saw its lights. It was flying low, skimming over the waves, before gaining altitude as it came in for a landing on the Dorset’s deck. Porter glanced at his watch. It was now just after ten at night. They’d set off two hours ago for the ten-minute flight. They had a maximum half-hour window to complete the mission. Porter had been on Lebanese soil for only twenty minutes. They should have been back an hour ago at least. What the hell kept them?

  Turning round, he watched the Puma h
over for a fraction of a second above the deck before the pilot brought it in to land and killed the engine. As the blades stopped turning, you could hear just the lapping of the ocean against the Dorset’s hull, and the humming of her propellers beneath the waves. Six sailors were already running towards the Puma, securing the machine to the deck, and flinging open the hatch.

  Porter took a deep drag on the cigarette, letting the nicotine mix with the anaesthetic to soothe his nerves. He watched as the first man stepped out of the chopper. Collinson. The little prat, thought Porter. Didn’t fire a shot throughout the whole mission.

  Collinson was reaching inside the chopper. ‘Stretchers,’ he shouted to the waiting sailors.

  ‘Shit,’ said Porter, his voice no more than a whisper quickly stifled by the sea breeze. I hope to hell we didn’t take any more casualties.

  Two sailors had already disappeared inside the chopper carrying a stretcher, then two more, then two more. There was a wait of a few seconds. Porter took a step forward, taking a final hit on his cigarette. A stretcher was emerging, carried flat out of the helicopter.

  With a white sheet covering it.

  ‘Fuck, no,’ Porter muttered.

  He could feel the pain stabbing up his left arm.

  Another stretcher.

  And another white sheet.

  Porter could feel his heart thumping. He took another step forward, then stopped. He couldn’t bear to go any closer.

  One final stretcher emerged from the Puma.

  And it too had a white sheet covering it.

  Porter wiped away the bead of cold sweat that had formed on his brow.

  All three of them, he thought to himself. Steve, Mike and Keith. Dead.

  How the fuck did that happen?

  ‘Porter.’

  The voice was sharp, insistent.

  Porter turned round. A young sailor was looking straight at him.

  ‘You’re needed in the debrief room,’ he snapped. ‘Now.’

  With his pulse still racing, Porter began to walk. He knew exactly where to go: the same room where they had been briefed on the mission just a few hours ago. He was walking slowly, gripping on to the rails of the metal staircase. When he left them, Steve said he had the situation under control. He told him they just needed to secure the building, then evacuate. Now the three of them were dead. And I wasn’t there to help them.

  He pushed open the door to the debrief room. Pemberton was already there and so was Collinson, flanked by a pair of officers. Nobody was smiling. Pemberton looked at him coldly. ‘Come in, Porter,’ he said slowly. ‘Glad to see somebody survived the bloody mission.’

  One chair had been positioned directly opposite the main desk. ‘Take a seat, Porter,’ said Pemberton.

  ‘I prefer to stand.’

  ‘I said, take a seat,’ he repeated icily. ‘You’re injured, you need to rest.’

  Porter pulled out the chair. He didn’t recognise the two other officers, but he could see that one of them was taking notes. ‘What happened, sir?’ he said. ‘To the other blokes, I mean.’

  Pemberton rested against the edge of the desk but didn’t sit down. ‘I’ll let Collinson tell you,’ he said.

  Glancing up, he could see Perry taking a step forward. He was standing just three feet from where Porter was sitting and you could still smell the gunpowder on his uniform. There was a tear on his jacket, and a plaster covering a cut on his face. ‘It was like this,’ he began. ‘We evacuated you as well as the hostage. Steve wanted to secure the building. It was a sound enough plan. Steve’s a good man. We laid down some fire, enough to keep the Hezbollah guys at bay. It shouldn’t have taken more than a few minutes. We were getting ready to clear out when the little Arab fucker you left unconsciousness suddenly came round. He’d crawled across the floor, and picked up one of the AK-47s his mates had left on the floor.’ He paused, glancing towards Pemberton before continuing. ‘Then he sprayed the place with bullets. Took Steve and Keith down instantly. Poor blokes didn’t have a chance. Mike managed to start returning fire, and might have winged the kid, but by then he was running backwards out into the alley. He managed to hit Mike just as he was disappearing from view. He was still alive for the next twenty minutes or so but he was losing a lot of blood, and there wasn’t anything I could do to help him. I knew the chopper would be waiting for us, so I laid down as much fire as I could, and started to make my way upstairs. I was lucky. I reckon the kid had already legged it. I told the pilot to stay put, then I went back to get our boys.’

  ‘I left him out cold,’ snapped Porter.

  ‘Then I suppose your punch isn’t hard enough,’ said Collinson. He paused, wiping away some greasy sweat from his forehead. ‘There were two firefights as I went back to collect the bodies. A couple of snipers were trying to get me. I think I may have killed one of them, I’m not sure. Took three runs to get our men, and I don’t mind telling you it was a bit hairy. Still, at least we got out. And, after all, the hostage was rescued.’

  Porter’s eyes remained rooted to the floor. If he could have drilled a hole in the bottom of the boat, he would have gladly sunk himself to the bottom of the ocean. Steve, Mike and Keith. Three of the best mates I ever worked with. All dead. And all because I didn’t finish off that little Arab bastard when I had the chance.

  ‘So, as Perry says, mission accomplished,’ said Pemberton. ‘The hostage is back, and unharmed. But three of our men died, and the Regiment doesn’t take casualties lightly. This is our worst day since the Falklands. So, the question is this, Porter. Why didn’t you kill the boy?’

  Porter’s eyes were still rooted to the floor. He couldn’t move them. He wasn’t sure they would ever move again. ‘I … I …’

  He could start the sentence. But how the hell could he finish it?

  ‘Well, man?’ snapped Pemberton. ‘What’s the bloody answer?’

  He was just a kid, thought Porter. He was begging me. A child …

  ‘Sod it, can’t you even speak?’

  ‘We’re not butchers,’ said Porter suddenly. ‘I left him unconsciousness. There was no way he should have come round.’

  ‘But he did, didn’t he?’ said Pemberton. ‘And three good men lost their lives. I can’t discipline you, Porter. In this Regiment, every man makes his own decisions in the moment of combat. We don’t have a lot of officers analysing them afterwards.’

  Pemberton leant closer into Porter’s face, and he could smell a trace of whisky on his breath. Burying his face in his hands, Porter was desperate for a drink. Any kind of drink. ‘Under the Geneva Convention, you’re not supposed to kill a child, so I don’t think I can court-martial you, as much as I might want to.’ He paused. ‘But I will say this. Perry here deserves a bloody medal, and I’ll make sure he gets one. And you … well, I wouldn’t want to be looking at your face in the mirror every morning knowing that I had the blood of three of my mates on my hands.’

  Porter turned round, and started to walk back towards his cabin. He felt empty and bitter inside. Nobody was looking at him, but he heard one man whisper: ‘There’s going to be a lot of dead eyes looking at that bloke.’

  ONE

  Vauxhall, London: Monday, 23 October 2006

  Porter could feel the dampness in the sheet of cardboard that was covering him. There had been some light drizzle during the night, and although he had taken shelter inside a railway arch, that didn’t stop the rain from seeping in. On Goding Street, between the Albert Embankment and Kennington Lane, it was one of a strip of arches that the developers hadn’t yet got their hands on. He could feel a dirty light from the river flicking down the alley, and painfully opened first one eye then the next. Some rubbish from one of the local kebab shops was overflowing in the bin next to him – the guys running the shop tipped it out there when they shut up at three or four in the morning – but from the smell he could tell there was nothing that he’d want to eat. One dog had already walked past without stopping.

  He pushed the cardboard
aside, and stood unsteadily. A thumping pain was ringing through his head, like having your skull drilled open. There was a pain in his left leg. The nerves were shot to pieces, he could tell, and there was some nasty bruising. He knelt down to take a look and noticed the state of his feet. It was more than a week since he’d taken off his shoes and socks, and although he didn’t much feel like taking a look, he sensed there was some blood starting to coagulate somewhere around his toes. Just ignore it, he told himself. What difference does it make anyway?

  He started walking, trying to put as little weight on his left leg as possible. For a brief second, he thought about his daughter Sandy, and wondered what she might be doing. What day was it today? he wondered. The weekend? He glanced towards the tube station. No. Too many men in suits. Must be the week then. Maybe the start of a new one. Not that it makes any difference. One week is much like another down here.

  The Travel Inn was a half-hour walk away, along the side of the river. Pleasant enough if you were in the mood for walking, but Porter found the pain in his left leg was increasing the more he used it. Something was definitely wrong there. He’d take himself to a hospital, but if there was anything seriously wrong with him, they’d make him stay in. And then how was he going to get a drink? No, he told himself. You’ll be OK in a day or two. And if not … well, who cares anyway.

  Washing-up wasn’t a great job, but when you lived on the streets it was usually all that was available. The Travel Inn wasn’t a classy place, but they often needed someone to clean up the breakfast dishes. They didn’t pay even the minimum wage – not many hotels in London did any more – but the work wasn’t too hard, even though the two missing fingers on his left hand made it hard to keep a grip on the plates. And they didn’t mind too much if you finished off some of the grub left on the plates before you put it in the bin. All in all, there were worse ways to start the week.