Shadow Kill: A Strikeback Novel

by Chris Ryan

  Porter arced his sights across the treeline and fired again, clobbering another rebel dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and flip flops. His mate disappeared behind the trees before Porter could cut him down. Around him the other defenders on the roof were all concentrating their fire on the plantation, but the rebels still managed to unleash a few rockets. As Porter searched for his next target he saw another rebel creep into view at the edge of his vision. A guy in an army uniform. One of the soldiers who had defected to the rebels. He carried an RPG launcher, and he moved like he knew how to handle the weapon properly. The rebel soldier took up a position in the hollow ground next to the plantation. He pointed his launcher at the rooftop, and fired before Porter could take aim at him.

  The RPG whirred towards the parapet. Directly towards the spot Bald was occupying. Bald had moved up into a kneeling position to drop a trio of rebels with a couple of bursts from his gimpy, and his attention was drawn away from the soldier with the rocket launcher. He didn’t see the round heading towards him.

  But Tully did. The guy was four metres to the right of Bald when he sighted the soldier lining up his RPG-7. There was no time to shout a warning. Tully shot to his feet and threw himself at Bald a split-second before the rocket struck the parapet. The two men barrel-rolled across the ground as the RPG slammed into the lower section of the wall where Bald had been kneeling a moment earlier. The explosion shook the rooftop, blasting away chunks of the concrete and exposing the steel rebar. Smoke gushed over the rooftop. Bald and Tully landed on the ground next to Porter, bits of incinerated rubble raining down on them. Nilis staggered back from the parapet, hacking and coughing. Porter tasted grit in his mouth, felt the debris nicking at his hands and face. The smoke fizzled out. Bald scraped himself off the ground, his clothes coated in dust. He glanced in shock at the huge hole in the wall where the rocket had struck.

  ‘Fuck, that was close.’ He nodded at Tully. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Thank me later, fella. We’ve got to survive this clusterfuck first.’

  Porter looked over at the two Belgians who had been to the right of Tully. One of the guys had been knocked back by the blast. He lay in a dazed heap next to the air-conditioning duct, his face covered in cuts and his clothing torn in several places. The other Belgian was slumped on the ground next to the wall. Half his face had been blown off. There was a soup of bone and gristle and sinew where his eyes and mouth and nose used to be. The other half of his face was blistered and blackened. Like overcooked meat left on a barbecue.

  The other Belgian stared at his dead mate uncomprehendingly.

  ‘Get up!’ Porter roared at the man. ‘Get back on that fucking wall!’

  The Belgian snapped out of his trance. He scooped up his SLR and moved back over to the parapet, stepping around the guy with half his face missing. The RPG rounds were coming in thick and fast now as the rebels swarmed closer to the hotel, breaking across the open ground and rushing towards the garage. Somewhere behind the plantation the enemy had set up a mortar. Porter heard the shrill whistling sound of grenades arcing through the sky, like someone letting off a ton of fireworks simultaneously. The mortar rounds landed well short of the rooftop, slamming into the access road immediately to the north of the hotel, belching smoke and flames several metres into the air. More grenades launched through the air and landed to the rear of the hotel, some thirty metres behind the men on the rooftop. The temperature on the rooftop went from boiling hot to furnace.

  ‘There’s too many of them!’ Bald shouted above the crack of rifle rounds being discharged and the whoosh of rockets fizzing out from between the trees.

  ‘Keep them on the move,’ Porter said. ‘Don’t give the fuckers a chance to settle.’

  The two Blades fired well-placed bursts at a group of rebels swarming towards the garage and the derelict buildings to the west. But it wasn’t enough. For every one X-ray they cut down, two more targets made it to cover at the slums. The rebels were now two hundred metres from the hotel, edging closer with every passing minute. Those rebels based at the plantation kept up their vicious rate of gunfire, mortar rounds and RPGs. We can’t hold them off for much longer, thought Porter. Fifty minutes had passed since he’d put in the call to Hawkridge. There was still no sign of any top cover coming in.

  He shifted his focus back to the plantation. Two figures were kneeling beside a mortar unit. They were visible in the shaded ground between a couple of trees. One guy was securing the base plate while his mate fetched another round from a wooden crate to slide into the tube. Porter depressed the trigger and gave the guy with the mortar grenade the good news. His mate had just enough time to look up and see the other guy’s brains spurting out the back of his skull. Then Porter lined up the second target with the sighting post and sent him over to the dark side with a two-round burst.

  Another mortar team rushed forward to set up shop at the plantation. Porter was about to line them up when he heard a deep low rumble in the distance.

  ‘Technicals!’ Tully screamed. ‘Incoming, two of them!’

  Porter swivelled his gaze to the roundabout. A pair of Toyota pickups were bombing down the Cape Road at a decent clip, tearing towards the hotel. Both trucks were carrying heavy machine guns mounted on tripods on the back platforms. One of the weapons was a 12.7mm, identical to the one Bald had neutralised during the earlier assault on the hotel. The second machinegun was even bigger. Porter identified it as a 14.5mm ZPU Russian anti-aircraft gun. The double-barrelled variant. A serious piece of hardware. The 12.7mm looked almost puny by comparison.

  If the rebels get that ZPU on target, we’re done for.

  He shouted at the others to get down. In the next instant the 14.5mm let rip. Porter threw himself to the ground as a series of deep, loud booms echoed across the road. Four massive rounds sliced through the thinner upper section of the parapet, half a metre to the left of Porter. The top of the wall disintegrated. It was there one moment, and then suddenly it wasn’t.

  ‘This fucker’s mine,’ Bald said.

  He shuffled over to the nearest drainage hole as another furious volley of 14.5mm rounds pounded against the air-conditioning duct. The technical had dropped its speed dramatically to allow the rebel manning the 14.5mm to properly aim the weapon at the rooftop. Bald rolled onto his stomach, shoved the gimpy muzzle through the opening and aimed at the moving target. The 14.5mm sparked up again, punching fist-sized holes in the concrete and keeping the men on the rooftop pinned down behind the thicker, lower section of the parapet. Through another drainage hole Porter could see scores of rebels taking advantage of the savage bursts from the ZPU, darting out of cover from behind the plantation treeline and dashing over to the garage, two hundred metres from the hotel.

  Bald pulled the trigger before the technical could fire again. Porter watched through the drain hole as his mucker pasted the rebel operating the ZPU with a long rattling burst from the GPMG. Bullets shredded the pickup, nailing the two rebels in the front cab. Bald smoothly lined up the pickup equipped with the 12.7mm and peppered that vehicle with rounds too. The second vehicle rolled to a halt in the middle of the road. Two guys tried to climb on the back of the truck and mount the 12.7mm. Both were swiftly cut down by a couple of bursts from the gimpy.

  The relief was temporary. Porter and Bald switched their attention back to the plantation, brassing up rebels with short bursts as soon as they popped out of cover. To his left, Tully and Nilis were concentrating their efforts on the rebels at the abandoned garage. Some of the enemy had set up a firing point on the first floor of the garage and a steady flow of RPGs whooshed towards the hotel, striking the lower floors a few metres below the rooftop. Several more X-rays had taken up positions at the adjacent windows, spraying the parapet with continuous bursts from their AK-47s. Despite the best efforts of the men on the roof, the rebels continued their relentless advance, gradually closing the distance to the hotel. Around thirty X-rays had taken up firing positions at the garage. With forty based at the plantation
. And more pushing forward all the time.

  We can’t hold out much longer.

  A group of four rebels broke across the open ground to the garage. Porter clipped one of them in the back with the last round in the magazine. He ejected the empty mag, dug a fresh clip out of his back pocket and reloaded. Down to my last twenty rounds, he realised grimly. He looked over to his right and saw Bald had worked his way through more than half the belt of 7.62mm. The guy had fewer than ninety bullets left on the belt.

  ‘Shit,’ one of the Belgians on the eastern parapet called out in a frantic tone of voice. ‘They’re flanking us!’

  Porter and Bald broke into a crouching run and hurried over to the Belgians. They were ducking low beside the wall as rounds buzzed overhead in vicious little bursts, sounding like a hive of yellow jackets right after someone had trashed their nest. Porter looked through the nearest drainage hole. He could see scores of rebels jumping down from half a dozen pickup trucks that had pulled up next to the athletics track three hundred metres to the east. Forty of them. A 12.7mm machine gun mounted on the back of a Nissan pickup spat round after round at the parapet, providing covering fire for the rebels as they debussed. Porter and Bald started putting rounds down through the openings, picking off the closest targets. The pickup responded with a hailstorm of gunfire from the 12.7mm, forcing the two Blades to bunker down. Bullets pinged off the duct behind Porter, ricocheting off the water tower. Others smashed apart the upper wall. Porter tried to return fire through the drain hole. But there were too many rounds coming in and as he looked down he noticed a cluster of rebels had broken forward. Fifteen of them. They were racing south towards the low wall that enclosed the rear of the hotel. Closing in.

  ‘I’m almost out, lads!’ Tully called out from the northern wall.

  Tully shrank back from the parapet as another RPG round whizzed low and struck the top floor immediately below the rooftop, throwing up a cloud of smoke and shattered glass.

  ‘Fuck,’ Porter said. ‘There’s too many of them.’

  ‘If we had bayonets,’ Bald said, ‘we’d be fixing them right about now.’

  The two operators shared a look. Porter half-smiled at his mucker. They both knew what the other was thinking. It’s curtains for us now. There’s no way out. Not this time.

  Anyone else in our position, would be bricking it, thought Porter. But that’s not who we are. I’m not scared of the rebels. I’m not afraid of bloody dying. I’m not even angry at dying for nothing, in a shithole country I don’t give a flying fuck about, protecting some twat of an ex-Rupert. I just wish I’d had the chance to see Sandy’s face one more time. To say goodbye to my daughter. Tell her that her old man’s sorry for fucking everything up.

  There was a lull in the rounds chipping away at the wall. Porter crawled back over to the drain hole and hefted up his SLR, ready to put down the enemy with his last twelve rounds. He was about to pull the trigger when he heard Tannon’s voice calling out to him above the rumble of gunfire and the hideous pained screams of the dying. He shrank back from the drain hole and hurried over to the ventilator. Tannon handed him the sat phone.

  ‘It’s Angela,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I’ve got her on the line. She said she wants to speak with you.’

  For a moment Porter couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He snatched the phone and pressed it to his ear, plugging his other ear with his thumb to block out the noise.

  ‘Angela?’

  The voice on the other end of the line said, ‘Dominique tells me you’re in a bit of a tight spot.’

  Porter almost laughed. ‘That’s putting it fucking mildly. The rebels have got the hotel surrounded. We’re about to be overrun here. We need some help.’

  March said, ‘That’s why I’m calling. Look, I’ve been discussing your situation with the American Secretary of State. It wasn’t easy, but she’s agreed to intervene personally. We’ve got air support coming in as we speak. Two gunships.’

  ‘About fucking time. What’s their ETA?’

  Rounds buzzed over the wall and pinged against the side of the water tower, pinballing across the rooftop. March said, ‘I don’t have the details. The USS Lauderdale will be calling you any minute now to confirm. Keep this line clear, okay?’

  She hung up before Porter could get another word in. He didn’t feel any immediate sense of relief. The situation on the ground was still critical, he knew. The rebels are closing in on all sides, and we’ve got fuck-all ammo. We’re not out of the woods yet.

  Thirty seconds later, the sat phone beeped again. Porter answered, heard nothing but static. ‘Hello? Anyone there?’

  There was a long pause. Then the static faded. A stern, humourless voice came over the line.

  ‘Sir, this is Colonel Joshua Hendricks,’ the voice said in a strong Texan accent. The kind that made every word sound like the twang of a guitar string. ‘I’m the commander of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit here on the operations bridge of the USS Lauderdale. Am I speaking with John Porter?’

  Yanks, Porter thought. Never say one word when ten will do.

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘Sir, I’m authorised to report that we have two Black Hawks inbound to your position. ETA is nine minutes. I repeat, two Black Hawks inbound, ETA nine minutes. What is your present situation?’

  Porter said, ‘Not fucking good. We’ve got about a hundred and fifty X-rays here, plus two technicals with 12.7mm machine guns approximately a hundred and fifty metres from our position. We’ve had at least forty RPGs fired on us and the enemy has got a mortar set up somewhere too.’

  ‘Sounds like y’all are in more trouble than you can shake a stick at.’

  ‘Put it this way, mate. Now I know how General Custer felt.’

  The Texan didn’t laugh. Officers in the Yank military didn’t have a sense of humour, in Porter’s experience. Must be something in the water over there. ‘Well, sir, our boys are fixing to level things up some. Think you can hold them off till our guys get there?’

  ‘We’ve halted their advance for the moment. Should be able to keep them off for a few more minutes.’

  ‘Good to hear it, sir. We’ll check in once our guys have a visual on your position.’

  ‘Roger that.’

  The call ended. Nine minutes, Porter thought. It’s going to be close. But at least we’ve got a fighting chance now. He looked across at the rooftop. Then up at the cloudless sky. Then over at the smoke billowing up from the exploded mortar shells north and south of the hotel. A thought occurred to him just then. He waved Tully over, leaving Nilis and Spray-Tan to deal with the rebels on the northern side of the hotel. Tully got down on his hands and knees and inched his way over, hugging the ground as bullets cut through the air above, ripping into the wall and showering him with fragmented concrete.

  ‘I need you and Jock to run downstairs,’ Porter said once Tully had reached him. ‘Get to the underground car park, grab a car tyre and one of the jerry cans from the back of the Range Rover. Take a knife from the kitchen, too. Bring everything up to the roof. Make it quick.’

  ‘What the fuck for?’

  Porter pointed to the sky. ‘We’ve got top cover coming in, nine minutes from now. We need to mark our position to the pilots so they know we’re friendlies. We don’t want to find ourselves on the end of a fucking blue-on-blue.’

  Tully nodded, sensing the urgency of the situation. He turned and broke into a crouching run with Bald at his side. The two men edged around the air-conditioning duct, moving as fast as they could under the intense weight of fire bearing down on the rooftop.

  Once they had departed Porter moved over to Tannon. He nodded at her. Pointed to the stairwell.

  ‘You need to get off the rooftop. We’ve got Black Hawks coming in less than ten minutes from now. They’re going to be blasting everything that moves. You’ll be safer downstairs.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘We’ve got to stay up here to direct the fire. Get down to the upp
er floors and find somewhere to keep your head down. It’s gonna get noisy as fuck up here.’

  Tannon got up and left. Porter watched her disappear into the stairwell, then returned to his position at the drain hole to operate the gimpy, putting down a three-round burst on the pavilion. Another ten rebels sprinted out from behind the structure and darted south, hooking around to the wall perimetering the rear of the hotel. They were gone before Porter could cut them down. He crawled over to the south-facing parapet, his knees scraping over the chunks of concrete and spent rounds littering the ground. Then he poked the gimpy muzzle through an opening and sprayed a short burst at six rebels scaling over the low wall. He killed three of them. The survivors sought cover behind the sheds at the far end of the grounds, a hundred metres back from the hotel.

  Fifty rounds left in the belt.

  For the next five minutes Porter madly scrambled from one side of the rooftop to the other, desperately trying to keep the rebels at bay with short, controlled bursts from the GPMG. But the enemy was growing bolder all the time. He kept glancing at the horizon, straining his ears as he listened for the telltale sound of the rotor blades that would signal the arrival of the Black Hawks. He checked his watch. Six minutes since he’d got off the sat phone with Colonel Hendricks.

  Three minutes till the choppers arrived.

  If everything went according to plan.

  Sixty seconds later Bald and Tully charged out of the stairwell, carting a black rubber tyre with worn treads and a dented alloy rim. They dumped the tyre beside the bullet-riddled water tower. Then Bald ducked back inside the stairwell. He returned a few beats later clutching a jerry can in his left hand and a huge kitchen knife in his right. Bald took the knife and slashed open the tyre as if he was gutting a fish. Air hissed violently out of the gash in the rubber. Then he took the jerry can, unscrewed the cap and poured the fuel inside the tyre, filling it up. He emptied the dregs of the can over the top of the tyre, chucked it aside and dug a box of matches out of his back pocket. Struck one against the side of the box. Tossed it onto the tyre. Stood well back.