by Luke Duffy
Described as an extremely lethal strain of flu by the ‘nerds in white’, as Bull referred to them, was all the detail that was given to them.
A doctor, named Joseph Warren, had been searching through the villages of Sierra Leone, east of Freetown, where he believed that the virus had originated. He had been hoping to find patient zero, dead or alive, but no one as yet could explain how the illness could have crossed the Atlantic and seized South America in the same vice like grip.
The doctor, along with a group of British soldiers assigned to protect him, had gone missing nearly two weeks earlier, and no trace had been seen since. A report containing pictures of a massacred village arrived from the Sierra Leone government, but it was unclear if the doctor was amongst the dead.
“So, why are you sending us?” Stan had asked. “Surely this is a simple search and rescue op’ that could be carried out by a regular army unit, even the SAS if you want to give them the VIP treatment?”
“Doctor Warren is the leading expert on this right now and it is vital that we recover him, or at least, his notes,” Gerry replied. “Besides, there isn’t anyone else. In case you haven’t noticed, our army is pretty stretched at the moment.”
One of the ‘nerds’ had stepped forward.
“We believe that the doctor was close to something, and we need his ground knowledge and research.”
“Does this have anything to do with the village in Syria? Has the virus spread from Africa to the Middle East?” Stan asked, finally able to put someone on the spot and maybe receive some answers.
At the very least, he was hoping to see their reaction and judge things for himself, forming his own conclusions on the scale of the problem.
The ‘nerds’ glanced nervously at one another, none of them wanting to continue the line of questioning that Stan was steering them towards.
They turned towards Gerry for support.
“It’s strictly on need to know at the moment, Stan. When you get back, and if you’ve recovered the doc’, then hopefully, more information will be made available,” Gerry replied, coming to the rescue of the uncomfortable scientists.
Stan nodded. He had heard that same phrase a thousand times.
“You and the guys will be going in as conventional soldiers on this one, Stan,” Gerry informed him as they came to the end of the briefing. “Weapons and equipment will be arranged and issued. We’re using the Quarter Master for Hereford. They’ve been kind enough to let us do a ‘supermarket sweep’ of their stores.”
From there, they had gone into detailed mission planning, collating all the intelligence they could get their hands on, scrutinising maps and aerial photography and studying the political situation and the likely rebel groups who may have been responsible for the disappearance of the doctor and the soldiers.
Four of the bodies from the village had been listed as being western and it was assumed that they were part of the British unit attached to the doctor. Other bodies were so badly burned, or already decomposing so rapidly, that their DNA was having to be checked before any identification could be made.
At the very least, the team had a potential starting point for their search…
“Two minutes,” Stan shouted at the top of his lungs, trying to be heard over the din of the aircraft. He held out his hand, showing two fingers to each of the others to ensure that they had all understood.
They nodded back at him, confirming that they had received the message, and began preparing themselves to move. They unbuckled their harnesses, checked their pouches were secure and then, pulled the cocking levers back on their rifles and machineguns, chambering a round, ready for action should they happen to arrive at a hot Landing Zone.
The men moved towards the doors on either side, ready to jump down and fan out on the ground as soon as the aircraft touched down.
As the Black Hawk slowed, it banked to the left and began a three-hundred and sixty-degree sweep of the area.
Below, the remains of the village came into view.
The river to the west, twisted its way through the grassy plains, snuggled close to the tree-covered foothills. A road, little more than a red dust covered track, ran out from the jungle, dissecting the small community in two. On either side, the crushed and scorched mud brick huts, once the homes of the families that had worked the land, now sat empty and dead, their roofs caved in or burned away, and their owners butchered.
Animal carcasses, their bodies bloated and swarming with insects, littered the sides of the road, gradually being consumed until only bones remained.
Danny immediately recognised the signs of a battle, not just a massacre. A number of trucks, mangled and burned to their frames, lay discarded on the outskirts. They had been destroyed as they had made their way along the track during the rebel advance on the village. The earth around the vehicle remains was scorched and splinters of metal and piles of fragmented glass were scattered in a wide arc around them.
He knew that, the only thing that could have caused the widespread shrapnel, were detonations from High Explosives. The fuel tanks igniting would not cause the metal frames to twist and shatter, and the windows to blast outwards. They had probably been hit by the 40mm grenade launchers attached to the weapons of the British soldiers.
As the helicopter completed its circle and moved closer, the evidence of battle became even more apparent. Piles of empty brass cases, strewn in the dirt and scattered between the small huts could be seen twinkling in the bright sunlight. Disintegrated masonry and small craters marked the spots where grenades had exploded. Pockmarks, where machinegun and rifle fire had punched through brick and steel sheeting, scarred the walls that had escaped complete destruction.
The Black Hawk slowed to a hover and began decreasing altitude. The downwash from the rotors flattened the long grass in a large circle below the aircraft, and as it settled to just two metres from the ground, Stan gave the order to jump.
Together, they dropped from the doors on either side, landing on the soft soil then pushing forward to create a defensive perimeter around the landing site. As the pilot adjusted the angle of the rotor blades, the machine lifted back into the air, the squeal of its engines rising as it increased power and gained altitude, leaving the eight men on the ground to fend for themselves.
As the sound of the aircraft faded, Stan and his team remained still and silent, maintaining their defensive perimeter as their senses adjusted to their new environment. As always, they waited a few minutes, allowing their hearing to acclimatise to the silence of the open landscape, as averse to the harsh mechanical noise of the interior of the helicopter.
With a nod of his head, Stan signalled for Danny to lead them off towards the centre of the devastated village.
Everywhere they looked, the team saw traces of the horror that had befell the locals.
They split into pairs and fanned out through the wreckage, looking for any sign of the doctor and the soldiers.
“Nothing,” Marty finally reported to Stan after they had swept the area. “There’s no trace of them. Plenty of blood and a few positions where the troops may have held their ground, but nothing to confirm where they went afterwards.”
Danny stooped and picked up a brass casing from the dusty ground, holding it up to the sun as he inspected it. He recognised the calibre immediately.
“I think we’re in the right place to start, Stan,” he said as he turned and handed the expended round to his commander.
“Five-point-five-six,” Stan said to himself as he studied it.
The rebels, like most other armies and militias of the world, used mainly Kalashnikov assault rifles and other Eastern European made weapons, firing 7.62mm rounds. Only the western armies used 5.56mm.
“There’s a lot of tracks leading out of the village to the east, both vehicle, and people on foot,” Taff reported as he joined the rest of the team. “The rebels either marched them out, as prisoners, or for some strange reason, they followed the trucks when they left.”
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Bull shook his head.
“That makes no sense, Taff. Why would the villagers follow the cunts that had just attacked them?”
Taff shrugged.
“Don’t ask me, mate. I just work here.”
As well as being the second-in-command, 2ic, of the team, Taff was also their expert tracker. He could gain all kinds of wonderful knowledge just from the smallest of tracks. He was able to scour the terrain in a way that no one else could, searching for ‘ground sign’ and ‘top sign’, and gaining a great deal of information from something as simple as a single footprint or broken branch.
Short and broad, he had been an excellent rugby player for the army, and coming from Wales, he loved to sing the songs about the green valleys and high mountains of his homeland. The only problem was that he could not hold a note.
They headed eastwards, remaining within the trees for concealment and paralleling the road. Through the whole of the day, they patrolled towards the rebel camp that they had seen on the satellite photography.
It was tucked away in a large depression in the ground, surrounded by thick jungle that obscured them from prying eyes. However, nothing could be hidden from the air, especially when they were the centre of the search.
They had estimated that the camp held between forty and sixty rebels. On the imagery, they had identified a number of guard towers, but they could not be sure of further defences. The team would have to conduct a Close Target Reconnaissance, CTR, to confirm enemy numbers, defences, routine and whether or not they were holding the doctor, before they could make their plan. It could take a number of days before the CTR was completed and the team would need to establish a Lying up Position, LUP, to operate from.
They pushed on, their bodies soaked with sweat and their flesh being savaged by the thousands of mosquitos that buzzed around them incessantly. The humidity was at seventy-five percent and to the men, it felt like they were patrolling through a steam room.
Going from the cold of Syria, to the intense heat of the jungle, without acclimatising beforehand, was taking its toll on the team.
Every few hundred metres, they would stop and check the road, confirming that they were still on the right track and taking the opportunity to catch their breath and take in the much-needed fluids that their bodies rapidly sweated out in the African heat.
During one such stop, Taff came back after checking the track, shaking his head with a perplexed look on his face.
“It makes no sense,” he said in confusion. “The tracks are weird, Stan. It looks like there were dozens of them, moving along the road, together.”
“What’s so weird about that?”
Taff shrugged.
“Well, either I need to brush up on my tracking skills or…, the people we’re following are all shit-faced,” he said, scratching his head. “Judging by their footprints, it looks like they’ve all been hammering the vodka.”
With three hours left before darkness arrived, they moved into an area just a kilometre away from where they believed the rebel camp to be. Stan led them into the LUP, checking their ability to defend the area should they come under attack and confirming their exact location. The others conducted clearance patrols, pushing out one-hundred metres, ensuring that they were not being observed or in a location close to tracks or natural walkways that people may travel along.
Next, it was important to get visual confirmation of the enemy position. At least then, they could begin their reconnaissance once first light arrived.
Movement at night in the jungle was out of the question. The darkness was as black as the heart of a witch and they were more likely to get lost or suffer an accident than anything else during the dark hours.
Taff and Brian were tasked to push forward and conduct an initial recce of the area.
In the meantime, the rest of them began to organise themselves, checking their equipment, weapons and taking in some food.
“Fucking hell,” Bull remarked as he stuffed some cold Lancashire Hot-Pot from his rations into his mouth. “It’s like being back in the army this.”
Nick grinned back at him from behind his machinegun, seated in his sentry position.
“Nah, it’s more like camping. It’s all good fun, mate.”
9
The crunching footfalls and gasping breaths of the two men could be heard echoing through the jungle as they approached the LUP, returning from their reconnaissance. The remainder, alerted to the sound of them running and ploughing through the jungle, uncaring of the noise they were making, immediately took up defensive positions, believing that danger was advancing towards them.
Stan watched as Brian and Taff closed in, their faces soaked with glistening beads of moisture as their exertion caused them to sweat profusely. They were moving fast, indifferent to any tactical requirements, or the sign that they were leaving behind as they crushed the jungle foliage beneath their heavy boots and bashed against trees with their equipment.
Stan began to feel angry at their reckless behaviour, but he knew that they would not be acting in such a way if the situation did not warrant it.
They crashed into the LUP and fell into a heap, cursing and panting for breath. Their faces were pale and their startled eyes darted from Stan to one another, continually glancing over their shoulder in the direction they had come from.
Everyone turned to them, waiting for an explanation to why they were behaving in such a way and what they had seen.
“You need to see this for yourself, Stan,” Brian gasped, visibly shaken.
“See what?”
Taff looked at Brian, and then turned to their commander.
“The camp. It looks like they were attacked.”
“Saves us the job then,” Bobby remarked with a shrug.
Taff shook his head as he regained control of his breathing and wiped his brow with the back of his hand.
“Whoever did this,” he panted, “was severely pissed off over something. There are bits of them all over the fucking place.”
Brian nodded.
“Weapons, ammunition, equipment, supplies…it’s all still there, so I don’t think it was a raid of any sort.”
“Bits of them all over the place?” Danny repeated, unsure if he had heard correctly.
Taff nodded.
“Yeah, the rebels. Looks like they were fed through a fucking meat-grinder, mate. Proper butchery style stuff.”
The light was steadily growing fainter, but they needed to move forward. It would soon be pitch black, and Stan did not savour the idea of a night under the trees without knowing what was happening in their immediate area.
Quickly, they covered the ground to their target and arrived at the outer perimeter of the rebel camp. As they drew near, they began to see an abundance of ground sign. Footprints swathed the whole area, leading in all directions. Strike marks covered the trees from bullets that had smashed into them, their bark stripped away and the white pulp shining brightly in the fading light.
Blood spatter was clearly visible and ground into the thick mud at their feet, they began to see dozens of bodies.
“Looks like they’ve been trampled,” Danny whispered.
He continued forward, glancing down at the lifeless corpses leading up to the outer perimeter of the rebel base. They were twisted, with arms and legs splayed at strange angles, and ribcages crushed and flattened.
Barbed wire had been erected, strung from one tree to the next as a barrier against anyone attempting to penetrate the defences. In a number of places, it had been levelled and pushed to the side. Scraps of clothing hung from the barbs and below, numerous feet had churned the ground to squelching mire.
They could see bullet casings littering the ground all around them as they carefully stepped through the dismantled defences. Weapons, their magazines empty, were everywhere, discarded by their owners as they ran out of ammunition and fled from whoever was attacking them.
Inside the perimeter, rows of canvas tents and huts lay in ta
tters, tables and chairs overturned and boxes containing equipment scattered far and wide.
Then, there were the bodies, dozens of them.
It was hard to estimate the number of dead due to the condition of the corpses that lay in piles all around. The one thing that they all had in common was that they had all suffered head wounds. Skulls lay open to the air, congealed blood and mashed brains oozing from the gaping holes. Dismembered limbs and crushed ribcages littered the muddy jungle floor, buzzing with flies and already crawling with tiny white maggots.
The stench was overpowering. It hung in the air, trapped beneath the canopy of trees, as though it had a physical form and clung to anything that it came into contact with.
Danny gagged and had to step to the side to avoid vomiting over the man in front of him. His stomach churned and he swallowed hard to keep his last meal within the confines of his stomach.
“Jesus,” Nick grunted, holding his hand over his mouth and nose. “What the fuck happened here?”
“These don’t look like rebels to me, boss,” Bobby commented.
He squatted beside the body of a woman that had been torn open from her neck, down to her genitals. He leaned in closer and inspected the ghastly wound then, looked up at Taff who was standing close by.
“She’s completely empty.”
“Empty?” Taff questioned, looking down at the mangled corpse.
Bobby nodded, poking at the woman’s ribcage with the muzzle of his rifle.
“Yeah, empty, as in, there’s nothing inside her. Fucking weird, mate.”
None of the dead looked like rebels, Stan suddenly realised. They were all dressed completely in civilian clothing; men, women, and children alike. There were young and old, all mixed together, all with gunshot wounds to their heads.
That was the one thing that was consistent throughout the rebel camp and the countless bodies strewn in the mud.
“What about the rebels?” Bull asked to no one in particular.
“All over the fucking place,” Danny replied with disgust, nudging a headless torso with the toe of his boot.
