PRIMAL Unleashed (2)

by Jack Silkstone

With the MP7 at his shoulder, Bishop moved cautiously to the bullet-ridden side window and used his weapon-mounted flashlight to penetrate the dark interior. The inside of the vehicle was a mess. Blood and gore covered the expensive leather trim and three of the occupants looked dead, torn apart by the hail of bullets. Bishop shone the light to the rear and caught a glimpse of movement. He moved around to the tailgate of the rolled vehicle and opened the rear door. The copper-sweet smell of blood wafted from the Range Rover’s interior. The fourth occupant moaned. He had crawled into the trunk, barely conscious.

  Bishop slung his MP7 and reached in, grasping the man’s tactical vest with both hands. The Ukrainian thug screamed as Bishop tore him from the vehicle, throwing him roughly onto the gravel.

  “Do you speak English?” Bishop asked, kneeling by the wounded man’s side.

  “Yes, little,” he whimpered.

  Bishop pulled his pistol from its holster. “I’m going to ask you a few questions. If you don’t tell me the truth, I am going to shoot you in the fucking head.”

  One of the other occupants of the vehicle groaned softly and Bishop nodded towards Kurtz, who unholstered his own pistol. He stooped to look through the vehicle’s rear door, saw one of the men was still moving, and raised his pistol. A single shot ended the moaning.

  The wounded Ukrainian’s eyes went wide. Saneh stood by, watching silently, and Kurtz casually holstered his weapon, lighting a cigarette.

  “You, you will kill me anyway,” the terrified Ukrainian stammered.

  “There are worse things than dying, my friend.” Bishop pushed the muzzle of his pistol into the gunshot wound in the man’s thigh. The injured man let out a blood-curdling scream. Saneh bit her lip and turned away; she had watched men die before, but it shocked her that a British agent could be so merciless.

  Bishop leant close, speaking directly into the wounded man’s ear. “Your boss has one of my men. Where will he take him?”

  The man was hyper-ventilating. “Fuck, fuck you.”

  The pistol crunched as it pressed harder into the shattered bone. “No, fuck you. Tell me where he is or I am going to shoot your leg off!”

  The Ukrainian screamed in pain. “The club! They take him to the club. That’s where they take everyone.”

  Bishop pulled his pistol out of the wound and wiped it on his pants. He stood and holstered the Beretta, nodding to Kurtz as he turned. The German reached for his pistol, standing over Dostiger’s man who lay in a spreading pool of blood.

  “NO!” Saneh exclaimed, grabbing Bishop by the arm. “That’s enough, no more killing.”

  He roughly pushed her away and she fell, sprawling backwards into the gravel. Bishop turned back towards the van; his priority was the recovery of Aleks.

  “You’re as bad as them, Fischer,” she screamed at his back.

  He stopped in his tracks, turning to face her. Ragged and dirty, she looked so vulnerable lying on the ground glaring up at him. He glanced at Kurtz, who was watching him intently. “Zip-tie and sedate him, Kurtz.”

  The German nodded.

  “Pavel, see if we can get that Range Rover started,” he ordered as he pointed at the upright four-wheel drive. “Then throw the bodies in the Camry and torch it.” Leaning over Saneh, Bishop grabbed her arm, hauling her to her feet. “C’mon, we’re going back to the club.”

  Saneh’s anger was quickly forgotten as vengeance dominated his thoughts.

  Chapter 45

  Khod Valley

  Mirza shook his head in an attempt to clear the cobwebs of fatigue. He had been moving with Ice non-stop for the last eighteen hours and needed to stay alert; the Taliban were still out there.

  Right now he was sitting with his back against a rock, watching the valley for any threats while Ice scouted ahead. For a moment he was lost in his own thoughts and lifted his night vision monocular away from his eye, gazing at the stars above the horizon.

  The distinctive sound of gravel crunching under combat boots snapped Mirza’s thoughts back to the task at hand and he cautiously raised his sniper rifle to his shoulder, looking through the thermal imager.

  “Easy, Tiger, it’s just me.” Ice crouched next to him, easing his pack to the ground. He took the map out from his chest rig, laid it on the dirt, and draped a thin camouflage blanket over it. The two men lay face down with their heads under the blanket and Ice activated a tiny light.

  “This is where we are,” he said as he used a pencil to identify the ridgeline on the map, “and this is where I think the recovery operation is being conducted.” He made a little circle on another spot on the map just over a kilometer away. “I think you were right about the missile site being located further up the mountain here.” Ice used the pencil to mark a crest high above the extraction site. “They probably have a number of missiles cached up there. We need to find them all by dawn.”

  Mirza was fighting to stay awake; his head nodded forward till it hit the map, then jerked upright as he woke himself.

  “Mirza, Mirza, here, take this.” Ice held out a small white pill.

  “What is it?” he asked, cursing inwardly at his weakness.

  “It’ll keep you awake. We need you switched on.”

  Mirza nodded, tipped back his head and swallowed the pill.

  Ice brought his attention back to the map. “We need to avoid the camp, edge our way around this side of the mountain, and then climb up towards the missile site.”

  “It’s a good plan.”

  “OK, I’ll check in with Vance. Then we go.”

  He left Mirza to fold up the blanket, moving a few feet away to contact the PRIMAL HQ. “Bunker, this is Ice. Is Vance there?”

  One of the watchkeepers answered the call. “Negative, Ice, he’s offline. Do you have a message for him?”

  “Roger, we’re proceeding with the clearance op. I’ll have the anti-air threat neutralized by sunrise. Is the Train on schedule?” Ice queried. He knew Mitch would be working relentlessly to get the aircraft repaired.

  “Affirmative. The parts were delivered. You’ll have your air support by sunrise,” the watchkeeper replied.

  “OK, we’re on the move. Ice out.”

  The veteran soldier returned to Mirza, who was already gathering up their equipment. The stimulant had kicked in and he was fully alert as they started their cautious move up the mountain.

  Using their night vision equipment, they had little problem negotiating the rugged terrain. The advanced monocular and thermal weapon sights were more sophisticated than anything the Taliban would be using. As the night temperature dropped, the heat signature given off by a human body increased, making them far easier to detect.

  ***

  High up on the mountain, two of Khan’s men were on air sentry duty. They huddled together, seeking refuge from the bitterly cold winds that roared down off the Hindu Kush Mountains. Despite their thick jackets and blankets, the men shivered continuously as the barren ground gave up the heat it had absorbed during the day and the temperature of the thin night air plummeted. They were under strict orders not to light fires, not that there was anything on the windswept mountain to burn. Khan was worried that the Americans would spot them with their satellites and spy planes.

  The two men had pulled the first shift while their two comrades remained warm, wrapped in the team’s two arctic-rated sleeping bags. Despite the death of Khalid and his men, morale in the small missile team was still high. They had successfully driven off the Russian bomber and the operation could still succeed. With most of Khan’s men dead, the payment split between the survivors would be much higher. The promise of fortunes warmed even the coldest of nights.

  One of the warriors shrugged off the blankets and picked up the team’s night vision binoculars, scanning the horizon. Before his demise, Khalid had reported a tiny aircraft flying in the distance.

  “Do you see anything?” the other Afghan asked, not bothering to move from under the blankets.

  “No, there’s nothing out there
.” He panned the binoculars down to the extraction site. The sensitive image intensifier tube picked up a small amount of light spilling from underneath the camouflage nets. Khan had the locals working throughout the night; the plan was to be finished by dawn. He sat back down next to his partner and retrieved a battered packet of cigarettes from his jacket. Using his gloved fingers he pulled out two cigarettes, turned to the other man who was still wrapped in a blanket and placed one of the cigarettes in his mouth.

  “There’s enough light coming from down there. No one will see us.”

  “Thanks,” the other grunted.

  A lighter appeared from another pocket. He shielded the flame with both hands in an attempt to light his partner’s cigarette. The wind whipped the tiny flame away.

  “Damned wind,” he cursed, trying again. The flame sparked for a split second, enough for the cigarette to catch. He let his partner puff on the smoke, establishing the ember, then he used it to light his own.

  “You know Khan said no smoking and no light,” the other sentry mumbled.

  “Have you seen the amount of light coming out of the camp? Khan will not notice.”

  The second Afghan laughed. “By this time tomorrow, my brother, we’ll be back in the village and Khan will not care about matches.”

  Mirza was scanning the terrain through the thermal imager on his rifle when he spotted the faint glow of a cigarette. To the naked eye it would have been invisible, but to the heat-hungry sensors in his scope, it was as if someone had turned on a flashlight. He adjusted the optic’s sensitivity settings. The cigarette flared again as the target inhaled and Mirza smiled with satisfaction. He could just make out the head and shoulders of two men sitting in a small hollow between two boulders.

  “Ice, two men, three hundred meters. Looks like a sentry,” he whispered into his throat mike. With the wind he could probably scream without being heard.

  “Acknowledged. I’ve spotted two men sleeping further to the rear,” Ice replied.

  Mirza scanned further back up the slope and identified the two other men in their sleeping bags. Through his night sight, the sleeping Afghans looked like giant glowing slugs. He swung his weapon back to the smokers and watched as one of them lifted a pair of binoculars, scanning the night sky. The former sniper instinctively dropped onto his stomach, in case the sentry chose to scan the approaches to his position. After a few seconds he carefully raised his head. The man had finished his sweep and was settling back into his blankets.

  Mirza sensed the presence of Ice moving in beside him. A hand on his shoulder reassured him all was well.

  “OK, Mirza, we need to find the missiles and disable them, but we can’t kill the sentries; they’ll know we’re here,” Ice stated. Crouched behind cover and down-wind of the Afghan position, the two men could talk at a reasonable level.

  Mirza nodded in agreement. He didn’t want to kill the men as they slept. Sabotaging the weapons was a far more palatable idea. “Ice, with these Russian missiles, if you take the O-ring out of the canister, the gas will vent and the seeker won’t work.” Mirza had used similar missiles during his time in the Indian army.

  “How long will it take?” Ice asked.

  “Ten or twenty seconds per launcher.”

  “I’ve no idea how to do it.”

  “It’s OK, I will go.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “It will be fine. I can do it with my eyes closed,” grinned Mirza as he placed his sniper rifle beside his pack.

  “Alright, I’ll cover you from here.”

  Mirza nodded, pulled his pistol from its holster and screwed a suppressor on the barrel. He slipped out of his bulky chest rig and left it on the ground next to his pack. By moving light he would minimize the risk of compromise.

  Chapter 46

  Khod Valley

  Mirza hunched over, moving cautiously from one rocky outcrop to the next. The tiny sliver of moon cast long shadows behind the boulders and crags and Mirza used them, disappearing into the darkness. At times he paused while one of the Taliban sat up to scan the horizon. Then Ice gave him the all clear and he continued, confident the American was covering him.

  Mirza’s monocular struggled to pick up the heat of the two sentries. He was reliant on Ice observing them through the more powerful optics of the larger sniper scope, telling him when it was safe to move.

  As Mirza crept closer, the icy wind died down and every noise he made seemed magnified in the still air. The crunch of sand under his feet, the rustle of his jacket, even the heartbeat pounding in his ears sounded loud enough to wake the dead. He was nearly on top of the two Afghans and any mistake could prove fatal.

  Lying in a depression just twenty meters from the sentry post, Mirza paused, assessing the situation. He needed to find where they had hidden the missiles and their launchers. They would be close by, but not where the men were sleeping.

  “All clear,” Ice’s voice came over his radio earpiece. “I think our two friends might be sleeping.”

  Mirza snaked out of the shadows, slithering forward on his stomach. He was thankful for the Kevlar gloves and kneepads; without them the sharp rocks would rip his skin apart. As he slid into the inky black shadow of another rock formation, he raised his head, looking for the two sentries, waiting for any sign of movement. He could feel the frigid sand sucking the heat from his body. The stimulant Ice had given him was wearing off and the dull weight of fatigue was returning.

  There was no movement from the sentry position so he rose to a crouch, using his night vision to methodically scan the terrain around him. The sentries were slightly to his right between two boulders. Further up the gentle slope to the left, he could just make out the two other men sleeping. Now that he was closer, he could see that it was a campsite. A number of backpacks and boxes were littered around the sleeping bags.

  Mirza scanned between the two positions. An unusual-looking rock formation drew his attention. He adjusted his monocular and noticed the corner of the little mound move slightly, flapping in the wind. The grey mound was actually a camouflage net.

  “Mirza! Shift change.” Ice’s voice came through urgently over the radio.

  He dropped to the ground, his hand grasping the grip of his suppressed pistol. If the sentries were swapping, they would walk right past him.

  He slowly turned his head, lifting it slightly so he could see the sentry position. One of the Afghans was standing, stretching his arms. Mirza dared not move and placed his head back on the ground, willing himself to disappear. The wind had eased off and he swore his thumping heartbeat would betray him.

  Mirza heard the man cough slightly and start to move, the crunch of boots in the sand sounding close. He waited for the footfalls to pass and sat up slowly, scanning the area. The sentry was now in the administration area, waking his replacement. Mirza didn’t hesitate. He only had a moment before the two men would return to the sentry position. It took him a few seconds to reach the missile cache. He knelt down next to the camouflaged netting, looking over his shoulder. The sentry had woken one of his colleagues and the two men were walking back down to the sentry point. Mirza watched as the off-going sentry gave a short set of orders to his replacement before making his way to the warm sleeping bag. Another sentry change was unlikely for at least an hour.

  The weapons cache was small. The Afghans had dug into a shallow depression in the ground and draped a camouflaged net over it. Mirza lifted a corner of the net and looked in. There was zero ambient light inside but he could just make out the cylinders that contained the missiles. He ran gloved hands quickly over the hard curve of one of the missile tubes. The weapon was definitely Russian; it had the distinctive gas cylinder attached to its foregrip. To Mirza it felt like an SA18, an advanced missile that he had only seen once before. He wouldn’t be able to confirm his suspicions without using a small light to check the serial number, not something he was going to do with the Afghan sentries so close.

  Mirza scrabbled around in the tiny
space, making sure he found all the weapons. There were eight missile tubes and three launchers. One of the tubes was empty, the missile fired at the Pain Train. He unscrewed the first gas cylinder and used the point of his knife to remove the rubber O-ring that sealed the canister to the missile tube. Without it the gas would simply vent, negating the seeker head. It took him fifteen seconds to remove the first tiny piece of rubber and two minutes later he had rendered all seven missiles useless. There were no replacements in the cache and any spares would probably be with the weapons cases, back down at the main camp. By the time the Taliban realized their missiles were useless the Pain Train would have destroyed the extraction site.

  Mirza activated his radio, whispering, “All weapons disarmed.”

  “Nice work, our two buddies are sleeping like babies.”

  “I’m moving back now.” Mirza slipped out from under the camouflaged net, back into the icy wind.

  As he crept back between the two positions, he could hear one of the men in the sleeping bags snoring gently. On the other side the two sentries were sitting close together, one of them with his head slumped forward on his chest.

  It took another half an hour for Mirza to cover the distance back to where Ice was holding his silent vigil. He fought the urge to race, forcing himself to remain disciplined, moving slowly and sticking to the shadows. Twice he lay silent in a fold in the ground as one of the sentries woke to scan of the night sky with the binoculars. Both times the PRIMAL operative started falling asleep, his eyelids getting heavy and his head nodding up and down like a puppet. He needed another of Ice’s pills.

  It seemed like an eternity but eventually Mirza returned to Ice’s hiding spot. They gathered their equipment in silence and moved back a hundred meters, finding a place they could rest out of the freezing wind. Mirza ate a protein bar while Ice contacted the Bunker on his satellite radio.

  “Bunker, this is Ice.”

  There was a short pause as the staff in the Bunker responded to the call.