The Kill Zone

by Chris Ryan

  When night fell, Jack and the guys had gone straight to the kitchen to get some scoff. And then he’d got his head down. The MoD goon had talked about the raid like it was a walk in the fucking park, but Jack knew damn well that he was leading his team into an area of Helmand where the Coalition couldn’t hold the ground. It was common knowledge that Taliban activity was more concentrated in this part of Helmand than anywhere else. It was from this area that the commanders organised their troops; intelligence reports even suggested the existence of some kind of Taliban arsenal in the area. Other Regiment guys had been tasked to locate it, but up till now they’d been totally unsuccessful.

  There were Taliban strongholds on both sides of the insertion zone, and if the fuckers got wind that an SAS unit was on ops in the area, they’d be all over them. The idea of being surrounded by heavily tooled-up militants wasn’t exactly enthralling, but Jack slept well anyway. He never had trouble resting before an op, so now that it was time for the off, he felt clear-headed, prepared for whatever the Taliban decided to throw at him. He had given himself a few extra minutes to study the terrain where they were about to deploy. The unit was his responsibility, and he wanted everything straight in his head before he took them out on the ground.

  And now it was T minus thirty. The lads had pushed a big flight case up against one of the thick Hesco walls. Jack approached the case. It contained all the tools of their trade. Jack already had his suppressed M16 with underslung 40 mm grenade launcher and Maglite torch attachment with IR filter strapped to his body, a full magazine loaded and plenty of extra rounds stashed in his ops waistcoat, along with his Sig 9 mm pistol, locked and loaded. His lightweight green Kevlar helmet, cut away round the ears, was fitted to his head, and a set of Gen 3 NV goggles was firmly attached to it.

  ‘Everyone ready?’

  He looked at each of the team in turn and they all nodded. Red, tooled up almost exactly like Jack, one kneepad over his right knee to protect the joint when he adopted the firing position; ‘Fly’ and Dunc Forsyth, cousins, both medics, both as good at hosing people down as they were at patching them up; Ray Duke – Dukey – a relative newcomer to the Regiment but no less respected for that; Al Heller, a Northern Irish Protestant – always tough bastards; ‘Pixie’ Tucker, a man with a squint so bad that if he cried his tears would roll down his back; and Frankie McBride, the squadron’s favourite ladies’ man. Piled around them was all the equipment they would be taking. Two Minimi light machine guns, sat phone, a laser target designator should they be forced to call in fast air, and an evil-looking black LASM – complete with thermobaric rounds. All this in addition to their assault rifles, pistols and other bells and whistles.

  Well prepared. Heavily armed. Grim-faced.

  ‘Yeah,’ they replied, almost with one voice. ‘Ready.’

  03.30 hrs. Ninety minutes until dawn.

  The Black Hawk’s blades were spinning, whipping up a cloud of dust around the Bastion LZ. Delta Five One ran towards it, heads bowed, loading their gear and climbing in. The two crew already had their NV goggles fixed – they’d be flying blind this morning – and within seconds the aircraft rose from the ground, quickly gaining height in order to put itself out of the range of most of the enemy’s arsenal.

  Estimated flying time to the insertion point, fifteen minutes. It was dark in the helicopter, the only light being the faint glow from the pilots’ control panel and the reflection of the moon on the Helmand River far below. The unit made good use of their time, though, checking and rechecking their weapons.

  ‘Five minutes out!’ the loadie called.

  ‘What do you reckon’s going to happen to those shakyboats who lost the Stingers?’ Fly asked above the noise of the chopper.

  ‘OC’s been given a one-way back to Poole,’ Red answered. ‘That’s what I heard, at least.’

  ‘Lucky fucker,’ Fly shouted. ‘Probably knocking the hole of his missus right now.’ The guys laughed, but everyone knew they didn’t really mean it. Poor sod had already lost one of his men, and now his career was down the pan for a fuck-up probably not of his own making. Anything to stop the suits taking the blame. But it had always been that way.

  ‘One minute out!’

  Jack felt the heli losing height. Take-off and landing in the field were always the most dangerous moments for the pilots, especially when they weren’t making use of an established LZ, and especially at night. The downdraught from the blades kicked the dust up. As the dust hit the blades it had a tendency to spark, causing a glow that could illuminate their position for miles around. They wouldn’t want to be on the ground for more than the couple of seconds it took for the men to exfiltrate. Once they’d dumped their load, they’d continue on the same flight path so it sounded to anyone that heard them as if they were just flying over. And to mask the unit’s insertion even more, an F-16 would fly overhead just as they touched down – the boom of the fast air was hardly an infrequent noise over the Helmand desert and it would hide the sound of the Black Hawk.

  The men took their positions, four of them on each side of the chopper, carrying all their weapons. Suddenly the view from the window took on a different quality of blackness as a cloud of desert sand surrounded them; and then the glow as dust hit the blades. The aircraft touched down.

  They moved quickly. Two seconds, max, before they were out of the chopper and on to the sand. The F-16 appeared from nowhere overhead and as the boom resonated over the desert, the Black Hawk lifted off again and continued its flight path. Thirty seconds later it was little more than a black shadow against the stars that glowed through the green haze of Jack’s night-vision goggles, the hum of its engines like a distant insect.

  And then it was gone.

  Silence surrounded them.

  ‘Only way to travel,’ Dukey murmured into his mike. No one replied.

  Jack took a moment to get his bearings, matching up the landscape to the maps he carried in his head. They were in a shallow valley. To the north, a line of hills, approximately one klick distant. The opening to the cave system was located at the foot of these hills. But to the west and the east, two wadis that formed a V-shape, meeting at its apex about three klicks to the south. Surrounding the wadis to the west and east, dense, lush areas of green zone, four klicks distant either way. The green zones were home to busy villages made up of maze-like patchworks of fields and square residential compounds. The villages were overrun by insurgents and the Coalition couldn’t infiltrate them.

  The ground ahead was undulating, which had its advantages and disadvantages. It meant they had a good chance of staying hidden; but it also meant that they’d be unable to observe any approaching enemy until the fuckers were practically on top of them. Fortunately, the Taliban had a useful habit of talking freely over their radios, and the guys in the ops room were a dab hand at listening in. If the enemy got wind of their presence, the unit would know about it soon enough.

  And they’d need to. Geographical barriers to the north and south. Enemy villages to the west and east. The moon was bright and low and cast long shadows on the ground. Hardly ideal. In fact, in tactical terms, it was a fucking nightmare. Every man in the unit knew it, and there was an air of determination as they prepared to advance.

  There was no need for Jack to issue instructions: every man knew what was expected of him.

  Pixie and Al separated from the rest of the unit and took the Minimis to two raised areas of the undulating ground, 100 metres apart and facing the cave system up ahead. Pixie might have the kind of squint that made kids point at him in the street, but there wasn’t a weapon in the Stan that he couldn’t fire with pinpoint accuracy. From where they were stationed, they could now provide suppressing fire for the others should it all go noisy. The remaining six men formed a straight line, each ten metres from the other with Jack up front. In that extended-line formation they would be less easy to see for any shooters up ahead.

  They advanced.

  Jack didn’t allow himself to think
of the risk of IEDs. This was enemy territory, and if the Taliban were indeed using the cave system up ahead for whatever purpose, it was unlikely they’d have booby-trapped the approach. There was always the risk of legacy mines, of course, left over from the Soviet occupation when the Russkis had mined the whole country to hell and the Mujahideen had responded in kind, but that was a risk they had to take. They needed to approach the caves silently, and that meant on foot.

  Three hundred metres to go.

  Two hundred.

  The hills started to tower above them; the moon disappeared, and they found themselves in shadow at last. Jack raised one hand. Instantly the unit changed their positions to an arrowhead formation – easier to see, but now they were close to the cave it was important that each man had a line of fire if everything went Wild West.

  A hundred metres.

  Fifty.

  And up ahead, an opening.

  It was small – about three times as high as Jack and then twice as wide again. There was a large, craggy overhang and two man-size boulders obscuring the entrance. If you saw it in passing, you wouldn’t give it a second look. And that, no doubt, was why the enemy had selected it. The sand was churned up with vehicle prints leading up to the cave. Stuff had been coming in and out of here – that much was clear. When they reached the boulders, Jack pointed at Fly and Dunc. They understood his instruction and took up position, crouching down on the outside edge of each boulder with their M16s pointing back out towards the desert. They melted into the darkness – you wouldn’t know they were there until their rounds ripped through your skin.

  The remaining four men silently slipped into the cave mouth.

  It stank in here – the detritus of whatever animals or insects used this cave as a shelter. The cave stretched back to form a kind of natural corridor. And as they headed further in, Jack found that his NV goggles became less and less effective as the ambient light for them to magnify decreased. He flicked a switch on his Maglite. An infrared beam, invisible to the naked eye, shot straight ahead. The others did the same, and soon there were four beams, lighting the way ahead like moving spotlights. Jack stepped forward again, keeping close to the right-hand wall of the cave. He could sense the others: Red walking along the opposite wall a little behind him, Dukey and Frankie taking up the inside.

  They moved with total stealth. Over the years Jack had learned to keep his footsteps light and he did that now; but every tiny crunch underfoot was like an alarm bell.

  Something moved up ahead.

  Jack stopped, dead alert. He put his left hand out with his thumb down. Everyone halted. They knew what the signal meant: enemy up ahead.

  Jack cast around with his IR beam. Silence. Just the sound of his heartbeat thumping in his ears. And then, a scurrying sound. Jack caught the glint of two eyes just ahead, about half a metre from the ground. An animal of some kind, disturbed by its night-time visitors. Jack continued to move forward.

  A minute passed. Then another noise ahead of them. He stopped and listened.

  It was a humming sound. Electrical. And above it, maybe the sound of voices. Jack held up one hand and the others halted. He crossed the corridor to where Red was standing, and the others joined them. They were fifty metres from the mouth of the cave.

  ‘Stay here,’ Jack breathed at Dukey and Frankie. ‘Me and Red to recce. Make sure we don’t get any unwanted company from behind.’

  ‘Roger that,’ they murmured, and they quickly took up their positions.

  Jack and Red raised their M16s up into the firing position and continued on into the darkness, following the wall of the corridor as it bent round to the right. The electrical hum grew louder. Jack found himself holding his breath. He forced himself to breathe normally as they continued to advance.

  A light source up ahead.

  As they grew closer, the ambient light grew too bright for their NV. Jack raised his goggles from his eyes. Red did the same. The light was perhaps thirty metres away. It was coming from an opening off to the left of the corridor, and what they were seeing was the glow escaping from the mouth of this cave within a cave.

  They looked at each other. Jack nodded, and they moved forward.

  There was no doubt now that the noise and light were coming from this side cave. Jack and Red reached the edge of the opening and, moving very slowly, peered round the corner. Jack’s eyes narrowed.

  A poppy-processing plant, the MoD man had said. Jack had never seen one, but he knew for sure that this wasn’t what he was looking at.

  The cave was too large and high for Jack to be able to see the back or the roof, but in the middle, approximately twenty metres from where they were now standing, were two floodlights, each one powered by a noisy generator. The floodlights illuminated three long, steel workbenches; and standing around the workbenches were a number of people. Jack counted them carefully. Twelve in all – ten men and two women – eight with dark Arab skin, four who looked more European. One of the tables had several white all-in-one suits laid out on it, and each suit was accompanied by a black mask and breathing apparatus. The nearest bench carried a flight case, approximately a metre wide, half a metre deep and twenty centimetres high. Like a small suitcase, but Jack had the distinct impression it wasn’t there to carry anyone’s toothbrush.

  Elsewhere around the cave were what looked like scientific instruments, a couple of laptop computers and other bulky items of electronics that Jack failed to recognise. He stepped back round the corner into the darkness and looked at Red.

  ‘What the fuck?’ he asked his friend, confident his voice was masked by the noise of the generators.

  ‘Looks like our friend back at base was shitting us,’ Red breathed in his dour Scottish accent. ‘If they’re processing heroin, I’m Howard fucking Marks.’

  ‘Quiet!’

  From inside the cave came a voice, louder than the others. ‘All right everyone, protective gear on.’ Someone else translated the instruction into Arabic.

  Jack frowned. Whoever had just spoken was British. No doubt about it. But what were they doing here in this makeshift lab hidden away in the heart of Helmand Province? It didn’t make any kind of sense at all.

  ‘I don’t fucking like it,’ Red whispered, echoing Jack’s own thoughts. ‘I say we exfiltrate, get on the radio back to base.’

  Jack thought for a moment. Maybe Red was right. Report back, await further instructions. But then he looked at his watch. 04.12 hrs. Forty-five minutes until first light. They had the advantage of darkness and they weren’t going to keep that for long.

  They had their orders. Eliminate everyone.

  ‘Get the others,’ he said. ‘Quickly.’

  ‘Your call,’ Red muttered, and he slipped away into the darkness. Jack peered round the corner once again. The occupants of the cave were starting to get into their protective gear. One of them even had their breathing apparatus on and was approaching the silver flight case. Jack felt his mouth going dry. Whatever was in there, he didn’t want to get close to it protected only by standard-issue Regiment digital camouflage gear.

  He heard the others approach. Their faces were expressionless, their eyes narrow. They all knew what they had to do next.

  ‘Twelve targets,’ Jack whispered. ‘There’s a table with a metal flight case on it. Fuck’s sake don’t hit it. Me and Red will take out the lights first, then we’ll pick them off.’

  Dukey and Frankie nodded, then engaged their night-vision goggles. Jack and Red took up position – Jack at the corner of the cave, Red against the far wall.

  Jack held up five fingers.

  Four.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  Their suppressed weapons hardly made a noise – just a low pop, like someone knocking on a door – but the floodlights shattered loudly as the rounds hit them with unerring accuracy. Jack was momentarily blinded by the sudden darkness, but he could sense the others taking up position in the cave mouth. By the time Jack had engaged
his own NV, four bursts had already been discharged, each of them nailing the nearest targets, and the smell of cordite had already overpowered the smell of the cave.

  The darkness was cut by the four IR beams slicing through the air as the men cast around. Screams and shouts of panic echoed around the cave as Jack calmly got one of the green targets – a man looking blindly into the darkness – in his sights. He squeezed the trigger of his M16 and saw a burst of wetness: a perfect headshot that flung his victim a good two metres back. But Jack was already searching out another. His beam panned left and, as he expected, found one of the targets running to the edge of the cave.

  He didn’t run for long.

  Jack’s round caught him in the neck, causing the man to spin round, spraying blood around him like a Catherine wheel before he fell to the ground.

  And then silence.

  The guys stepped forward, their IR beams pointing exactly where their rounds would land so there was no need to use their viewfinders. Mangled corpses lay everywhere as they searched under tables and behind generators. But Jack could only count eleven bodies. Either he’d missed one, or there was a survivor.

  It didn’t take long to locate the twelfth target. It wasn’t a him, though. It was a her. And it was the noise she made that gave her away. You can never tell how a person will react when they know they’re about to die. Some shout; some beg; others whimper and become paralysed with fear. This was one of them. She was crouched against the side of the cave, her head in her hands and an uncontrollable sobbing sound escaping from her throat.

  ‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘Please . . .’

  That was her last word. Jack nailed her from a distance of three metres with a short burst of fire. The bullets passed right through her hands and into the top of her skull. A brief fountain of blood sprayed through her clasped fingers, but it didn’t last long, subsiding suddenly like a hose when the water’s been switched off. She crumpled to the ground.