Shadow Kill: A Strikeback Novel

by Chris Ryan

  Porter gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles shaded white. ‘We had our hands full dealing with the rebels. If you’d pulled your thumb out of your arsehole and sorted out top cover for us earlier, we might have noticed the Russians slipping away.’

  The line went silent for a beat. Porter thought he’d lost the signal. Then Hawkridge’s voice came back. ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘On the road to Kono. Bob Tully is with us. He reckons the Russians are taking Soames to the diamond mine. Soames has been stashing a load of stolen diamonds there. That’s why the Russians have been after him. They’re going to seize the mine and grab the loot for themselves. We’re on our way to intercept them.’

  ‘Listen carefully. You absolutely must—’

  The line abruptly dropped. Porter glanced down at the sat phone. The display had gone blank. He tried turning it on again. Nothing. Shit, Porter thought. The battery’s dead. We’re on our own now. He chucked the phone on the dash and focused on the road ahead. Questions stacked up inside his head. He felt an intense pressure building between his temples.

  ‘Something doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Bald said.

  ‘Why would Soames get involved in the diamond-smuggling business in the first place? He’s got the PMC, plus the concessions from the diamond mine. He must be rich beyond all imagining. Why would he jeopardise it all by nicking a few diamonds?’

  ‘That’s obvious enough.’ Bald rubbed an invisible bank note between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Wonga. Soames is a greedy bastard.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Porter.

  But he wasn’t convinced.

  They rumbled on through the pockets of thick tropical jungle, Porter swerving to avoid the deeper potholes as the road became increasingly treacherous. A few locals were walking along the dirt either side of the road, old men and women dressed in threadbare rags with faces like petrified wood. Porter pushed the vehicle as hard as he dared, keeping one eye on the fuel gauge as Tully guided them towards Kono. After an hour Tully directed them off the highway onto a rutted, muddy track with piles of red earth heaped at the sides. They had officially left civilisation behind.

  Bald said, ‘You sure this is the way, Bob?’

  ‘Course I’m fucking sure,’ Tully said.

  The track worsened. The jungle closed in. Long creeping vines and palm trees crowded either side of the track beyond the ditch, forming an impenetrable dark mass. Random shafts of sunlight poked through the gloomy canopy, spotlighting the road ahead. Porter slowed the Range Rover down as it struggled along the muddied track snaking through the jungle. They carried on for mile after mile without passing a single pedestrian or village.

  Where the fuck is Tully taking us?

  Suddenly the road opened up and the jungle retreated. A sign announced that they were entering Masiaka. The last major stop on the road to Kono. Porter knew from studying maps of the area that Masiaka was approximately fifty miles from Freetown. From the hotel to the town was normally a ninety-minute drive. A quick glance at the dash clock told him that they had reached Masiaka in seventy-five minutes. Which meant they had knocked fifteen minutes off their journey time so far. Which meant they were fifteen minutes behind the Russians now. Maybe less.

  We’re closing the gap.

  Porter was forced to slow down as he steered past the crowds and animals lining the road. Masiaka looked less like a town, and more like the last stop on the railroad in the Old West. Most of the structures they passed were crude mud-brick huts with thatched roofs. Scrawny chickens pecked at the dusty red earth. Naked women and children stood at the sides of the road. The kids stared wide-eyed at the Range Rover, pointing and yelling. As if they’d never seen a car before, or a white person. Hookers jostled for business outside a brothel on the outskirts of the town, pointing into their open mouths suggestively. One of them blew kisses at Tully as they passed by. An overweight woman with chubby thighs and an arse so big it probably had its own longitude and latitude coordinates. Tully grinned at the hooker and waved back.

  ‘Cindy,’ he said. ‘One of my regulars. That bird’s a right goer. Gives a mean tit wank for less than a dollar.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Bald. In the rearview mirror, Porter caught him staring at Tully. ‘No wonder you’re so familiar with this route. Rather you than me, Bob. AIDS being what it is here.’

  ‘You’re missing out, fella. Maybe once this is over I’ll show you around. You can sample the locals for yourself.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Bald replied non-committally.

  Porter focused on the road as he drove on past the hookers. He thought about Tully’s night fighter back at the Ambassadors Hotel. Remembered the bruises on her jaw. The look of terror in her eyes. Porter had known one or two guys like that in the Regiment. Guys who had been permanently on the edge. Once they left Hereford, they went off the rails. They got jobs on the Circuit, lived like kings, and did whatever they fucking pleased. But he’d never known anyone as vicious as Tully. Compared to Bob, he thought, Bald is a bloody saint.

  They continued east out of Masiaka. After thirty miles Porter checked the time on the digital clock again. 1628 hours. Two hours since they had set off from the Ambassadors Hotel. Three-and-a-half hours until we reach Kono. If we don’t pick up speed, we’re not going to catch up with the Russians. He drove harder, mashing the pedal. All three men kept their eyes peeled for any nearby rebel troops that might delay their journey. But every checkpoint they passed appeared to have been abandoned and Porter figured that most of the rebels had left the area to join in the looting around Freetown.

  Keep going, he told himself. We’ve got to catch the Russians.

  If they get to the mine first, Soames is a dead man.

  They passed a series of ransacked villages. Dead bodies in various stages of decay littered both sides of the track. Some had been dumped in shallow graves, mothers heaped on top of their children. Others were left to rot under the sun. A few were no more than piles of bones and rags. Many of the villages had been razed to the ground, Porter saw, leaving nothing behind except patches of scorched earth. They passed another shallow pit piled high with severed hands and arms. Smoke rose from several burning wattle-and-daub huts.

  ‘The fuck happened here?’ Bald said.

  ‘The West Side Boys,’ Tully replied. ‘This is their doing.’

  Porter nodded. ‘Hawkridge warned us about them.’

  He remembered what their handler told them at the briefing. About how the West Side Boys abducted children and forced them to kill their parents. How they dressed up in women’s clothing and murdered for fun. They’re volatile and dangerous, Hawkridge had said.

  ‘They’re fucking animals,’ Tully said. ‘They go round all the villages, rounding up the kids. They get the boys high on smack and teach them how to fire an AK-47. The girls are kidnapped and held as sex slaves for the generals to rape whenever they feel like it. When they get older, they turn a profit as hookers.’

  Bald gazed out of the window at the rotting corpses. ‘How do you know the West Side Boys did this?’

  ‘This is their neck of the woods.’ Tully gestured to the pile of severed hands by the roadside. ‘Hacking off hands is their speciality. All the villagers have to swear loyalty to the West Side Boys and hand over their food and savings to their soldiers. Anyone who speaks out against them is taken over to a tree stump and told it’s their birthday. Then they’re asked if they want a short-sleeve or a long-sleeve. Long-sleeve, they cut off your hand at the wrist. Short-sleeve, they hack off your arm at the elbow.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Bald.

  ‘The West Side Boys are worse than those chogies who attacked us in Freetown,’ Tully went on. ‘At least the RUF has some kind of political goal. The Boys don’t give a flying fuck about overthrowing the government. They’re just into rape and murder. That’s their bag.’

  Porter instinctively tensed behind the wheel. They drove on, tooling along at fifty miles per hour past more aban
doned settlements and scorched fields. It was almost five o’clock now. Three more hours till we hit Kono and catch up with the Russians, Porter thought. After another four miles they came to a sharp turn in the road. Porter eased off the gas and wrenched the steering wheel hard to the right. The Range Rover growled as it leaned heavily into the corner, passing the apex. The track ahead swung into view.

  Half a second later, Porter heard the gunshots.

  Four separate cracks, like hammers hitting against a thick sheet of steel. Or a bunch of fireworks popping off at a New Year’s Eve celebration. Porter’s training kicked in. He slammed the brakes. The Range Rover dipped into a pothole then bounced out and skidded to a halt at an angle in the turn, throwing about the guys inside the wagon. Porter felt his guts lurch into his throat. He looked up.

  Then he saw the child soldiers.

  There was a gang of twelve of them, eighty metres further along the track from the Range Rover. They were barefoot and dressed in tattered rags. Some of the kids wore olive-green army t-shirts. Two others were decked out in replica football jerseys. One wore Arsenal, the other wore Manchester United. Another kid wore nothing except a grimy pair of bright-yellow shorts. They were standing in a tight cluster in the middle of the track, shooting their AK–47s from the hip or over their heads as they recklessly emptied rounds at the treeline to the left. None of them had spotted the Range Rover. Not yet, anyway.

  Porter caught sight of a white Land Cruiser forty metres downstream from the child soldiers. A hundred and twenty metres ahead of the Range Rover. An old Toyota Hilux with a dented bonnet blocked the road directly in front of the Land Cruiser. Half-dozen kids were crowded around the Land Cruiser, putting down more rounds on the same spot at the treeline to the left of the track. The Cruiser was in a shitty state. The tyres had been blown out, and several bullet holes starred the rear window. All four doors were open. Smoke wafted up from the engine. A body lay motionless in the dirt next to the wagon. Both his hands had been chopped off and an axe was embedded in his back. Porter caught sight of the dead man’s clothes and felt his stomach muscles clench.

  Bush shirt. Dun-coloured shorts. Leather hat.

  Safari gear.

  Bald said, ‘That’s one of the Russians. They must have blundered into a snap ambush.’

  Shit, Porter thought. We might already be too late. The West Side Boys might have killed Soames.

  The kids in both the front and rear attack groups continued to put down rounds at the treeline, thirty metres away from their position on the road. They still hadn’t noticed the Range Rover. Porter scanned the treeline. He saw a drainage ditch running parallel to the edge of the dirt track, backing onto a dense tangle of lush tropical bushes and palm trees. Amid the gloom of the jungle he spied the outline of two figures in the ditch. They were resting their rifle barrels on the top of the ditch, the muzzles sporadically flashing as they returned fire against the kids. They both wore safari hats, identical to the dead guy.

  The other Russians. Nilis and Spray-Tan. They were trying to stem the tide of child soldiers swarming towards them, aiming controlled single rounds at both the front and rear attack groups. One of the children lay slumped on the ground, his belly stitched with bullets. In spite of their piss-poor aim the kids had the Russians pinned down, with no way out. Sooner or later they were going to run out of ammo, Porter realised. Then the child soldiers would be free to move in for the kill. Porter swung around in his seat and pointed out the treeline.

  ‘The other Russians are in that ditch,’ he said.

  ‘What about Soames?’ Tully whispered, craning his neck at the scene. ‘I can’t see him.’

  ‘He must be there too. Fucker’s probably hiding.’

  Bald said, ‘Want me to send these kids packing with the chogie popper?’

  Porter nodded. ‘Do it, Jock.’

  All three of them clambered out of the Range Rover. The dozen kids in the rear attack group still had their backs to the Hereford men. They were continuing to pop rounds off at the ditch, their rifle cracks audible above gangsta rap music they now had thumping out of the Hilux stereo. Porter, Bald and Tully still had the advantage. They moved quickly, swinging around to the side of the Range Rover. Using the vehicle as cover. Bald picked up the GPMG, flipped out the machine gun’s bipod legs and rested the weapon on the bonnet. At the same time Tully reached into the back seat and broke out the box of 7.62 milli ammo that Solomon had linked together back on the hotel rooftop. He passed one end of the belt across to Bald, who took the first round in the link and inserted it into the gimpy’s feed tray. Then he pulled the cocking handle on the side of the machine gun and depressed the safety. Tully crouched to Bald’s left, holding the length of the ammo belt. Porter stayed low behind the Rover’s front wheel, keeping a mark-one eyeball on the targets. Neither of them reached for their Makarovs. Any pistol was only effective up to a range of fifteen metres. The distance between the operators and the child soldiers was more than six times that. They were going to have to rely on the gimpy to do the heavy lifting this time.

  One of the kids in the rear attack group glanced down the road. A scrawny child wearing a filthy LA Lakers jersey that reached down to his knees. The kid looked no older than eleven or twelve. He spotted the Range Rover, spun around and shouted frantically at his mates, pointing to the wagon. The kid in the Lakers jersey was still shouting when Bald depressed the trigger. He fired a short, sharp burst at the child, aiming for the chest region. The kid’s upper torso exploded, showering his mate with blood.

  The five other kids in the fire group instantly turned to face the new threat. Bald gave them the good news, cutting one of them in half at the waist with a raking burst and dropping another kid who looked young enough to be in primary school. The three remaining children returned fire at the Range Rover. They may as well have been shooting blindfold. The rounds were so far off target that Porter didn’t even see where they struck. Bald lined up the GPMG sights with the three kids and emptied four long, controlled bursts. The three child soldiers, fell, screaming.

  Porter glanced at his mucker. He’s slotting children and he’s not even flinching.

  The child soldiers in the second fire group at the Hilux saw their mates getting dropped and panicked. They spun away from the track, fleeing towards the treeline to the right. They were children first and soldiers a poor second. None of them had ever found themselves on the business end of a machine gun before. Porter drew Bald’s attention to the retreating kids. Tully paid out the belt as Bald aimed at the right side of the track and raked the surrounding trees and bushes with six-round bursts. The gimpy rattled as it chugged through the linked rounds. Porter could feel the heat coming off the barrel in waves. A couple of the kids returned fire haphazardly from the edge of the treeline, emptying their clips at the Range Rover. The rounds zipped wide, thwacking into the dirt several metres to the right of Porter.

  Bald kept on firing. The last of the kids ditched their weapons and ran for cover, screaming in terror as the incoming rounds ripped into the tree trunks. Bald had almost reached the end of the ammo belt now. Twenty rounds left. Porter glimpsed a stroke of movement at the ditch to the left of the track. He looked across. Saw the two figures springing up from the depression in the ground. They turned briefly towards the Range Rover, presumably wondering who was manning the gimpy. Porter got a clear look at their faces as they looked over. Nilis and Spray-Tan. There was still no sign of soames. He didn’t seem to be with the Russians.

  So where the hell is he?

  The Russians broke north across the track, sprinting towards the Hilux. Porter instantly grasped what they were doing and turned to Bald. Soames is in the pickup truck. That’s where he must been hiding.

  The Russians are going to escape with him.

  ‘They’re getting away, Jock!’ he shouted.

  Bald arced the gimpy an inch across the bonnet. Aiming for the wagon a hundred and twenty metres downrange. Spray-Tan had already climbed inside the front
cab and was gunning the diesel engine. Nilis jumped into the wagon as Bald squeezed the trigger. The 7.62mm rounds landed low, thumping into the panelling on the back, shredding metal. One of the bullets struck higher and punched through the rear window. Glass cascaded. Nilis aimed through the shattered window and unloaded a burst from his SLR. Bullets hammered against the Range Rover bonnet, forcing Bald to duck low. Then Spray-Tan hit the gas. Nilis twisted in his seat, grinning as he gave Porter and Bald the thumbs-up. The Hilux truck fishtailed as it picked up speed, churning out clouds of dust in its wake. Bald went to fire again, but the pickup swerved round a tight bend before he could centre his aim.

  Then it was gone.

  ‘Bastard,’ Bald hissed.

  He swivelled the gimpy sights back to the treeline, searching for any more opportune targets. But the kids were long gone. Their screams fading as they fled deeper into the surrounding jungle. The dust settled along the track.

  Silence.

  Then Porter heard a pained cry.

  At first he thought it was one of the wounded child soldiers. But the cry had the gravelly, throated tone of someone much older. Porter and Bald looked at each other. Then they swept out from cover behind the front wheelbase and broke forward, hurrying towards the ditch to the left of the Land Cruiser. Heading towards the cries. Porter picked his way past the slotted kids, avoiding the pools of blood and entrails. He passed the butchered Russian lying in the middle of the track, blood gushing out of the ragged stumps where his hands had once been. The noise was coming from the ditch. He rushed over, stopped by the edge and looked down.

  Lying on his back, at the bottom of the ditch, was Soames.

  Relief instantly swept through Porter. Thank fuck, he thought. Soames is alive. The mission isn’t a disaster. His old CO raised his hands above his head, shading his eyes against the stark sunlight as he gazed up at Porter and Bald. His arms and face were streaked with cuts. Bits of loose soil clung to his greying hair, and there was a dark patch on his trousers from where Soames had pissed himself. His hands were shaking, Porter noticed. The guy didn’t look like the ex-CO of 22 SAS. Not any more. He looked anxious. Shaken.