Assassin (John Stratton)

by Falconer, Duncan

  She looked past Stratton where he had pointed. Then she looked back at him, as though studying him. ‘Get in,’ she said.

  It would seem she was up for it, in principle. But he knew saying and doing were two very different things. As was chasing Taliban and then catching them. He walked around the vehicle to the passenger side, opened the heavy door and climbed in. He glanced into the back. Other than some body armour and what looked like weapons boxes, it was empty. He had travelled in Afghanistan on his own but always as a local, and rarely without the support of other operatives not far away. She seemed to be totally alone, in military fatigues, in a US military vehicle. And a woman.

  As he slammed the door shut, she shoved the heavy vehicle into gear and it shunted off, its headlights cutting into the darkness.

  ‘See those tracks,’ he said, pointing at tyre marks leaving the road and going downhill. She followed them. The vehicle jolted heavily as it went over an edge and down a gentle incline. She grabbed a pair of night-vision goggles out of the dashboard and pulled them on. Then the vehicle’s lights went out. For Stratton, everything turned black.

  There was another pair of NVGs in the dash. Stratton pulled them on and the ground ahead appeared in a contrast of white and grey. He could make out the tyre tracks but no further sign of lights in the distance. Judging by the marks, the Taliban had been travelling at speed. They had failed to avoid some dangerous-looking lumps. He hoped they continued to be as reckless.

  ‘How long’ve you been with the DL unit?’ she asked.

  It was a question Stratton hadn’t prepared himself for. He had no idea what a DL unit was, for a start. If he knew anything about her, it would help. She couldn’t be an integral part of the team, not directly. Otherwise she would have known he wasn’t a real member of the team. He was going to have to blag his way through.

  ‘I joined them a week or so ago,’ he said. ‘What were you doing hanging back on your own?’

  She slammed on the brakes and Stratton had to grab the dashboard to stop himself from hitting it. She had her gun out before the Humvee had come to a halt and levelled it at his head. She removed her NVGs.

  ‘Tell me what you’re doing with the team,’ she said. ‘Start with your name. Then explain your accent.’

  He had a bad feeling about how serious she was and so decided to stick as close to the truth as possible. He slowly pushed his goggles onto the top of his head. ‘My name is John Stratton. I’m from British special forces. SBS.’

  ‘Who’s the DL commander?’

  ‘Wheeland,’ he said. ‘Spinter was second in command.’

  ‘What’s a Brit doing with the team?’

  ‘I helped Wheeland secure the arming codes. It was a joint SBS–DL operation. A week ago in Helmand.’

  ‘Who had the codes?’

  ‘Kalil Rohami,’ Stratton said. ‘He died on the op.’

  She kept the gun level, as if he hadn’t given her enough.

  ‘I was later involved in a surveillance operation against certain figures in Pakistan’s ISI,’ he said. ‘I was part of the team that tracked the device to Bagram. Wheeland invited me to stay with the team when they confirmed it was in area.’ He’d taken a leap and could only hope it wasn’t too much of one.

  ‘Who does Wheeland report to?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not entirely sure, to be honest.’

  The gun remained rock steady in her hand.

  ‘I suppose it must be Betregard,’ he said. ‘Wheeland said he gave the OK to let me stay on.’

  She lowered the gun. It went back into its holster and she pulled on the NVGs and accelerated the Humvee down the hill. He felt relieved, to say the least. She seriously looked as if she would have pulled the trigger if he hadn’t come up with the answers. He brought his NVGs back down over his eyes.

  ‘Do you mind if I ask a question?’ he said.

  She didn’t react. She wasn’t the chatty type, that was for sure. He took the silence as a positive.

  ‘Do you have a name?’

  He was met by another wall of silence. She turned the wheel sharply to go around an abrupt ridge then rejoin the tracks on the other side.

  ‘Hetta,’ she said eventually.

  That was a success, he thought. She was dry, to be sure. ‘Everyone calls me Stratton,’ he said. ‘That Magnum would’ve blown my brains all the way to China.’

  She didn’t respond and just changed gear heavily as the hill got steeper.

  No sense of humour, he decided. Perhaps she liked more direct talk. ‘Why’d you bring me along?’ he asked.

  ‘We have to take the device back. You would be up for that, right?’

  Maybe she did have a sense of humour. ‘Sure. Do you think they know what they’ve got?’

  ‘No. It was a coincidence. They ran into some bad luck.’

  ‘We certainly did.’

  ‘I didn’t mean your guys,’ she said. ‘I meant the Taliban.’

  He hoped she was as full of bravado when the time came. ‘I estimate eight to ten of them. A dozen at the most,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.’

  That’s pretty big talk, he thought. But the way she was driving, her body language, he had a feeling she wasn’t going to turn back.

  ‘No more questions,’ she said. ‘I don’t like talking.’

  That suited him perfectly. No talking meant no more questions about him. He settled back and studied the way ahead. The ground was beginning to level out, more or less. Lights appeared over to their right a couple of miles away. Judging by the brittle cluster, it was a village. The Taliban tracks didn’t appear to be heading in that direction. He saw similar lights further to the left. Straight ahead, in the direction the tracks were going, he could see nothing but blackness.

  Stratton raised the NVGs from his face to look at the internal console. The navigation system wasn’t working. The monitor that should have been attached to it was missing. He looked around: the vehicle was a mess. Ration-pack wrappings littered the floor and inside the dash. It looked like it had been taken from a regular Army patrol.

  They had been driving for nearly two hours in silence when the Humvee bumped heavily and the terrain suddenly changed. The middle-ground seemed to disappear, as if it dropped away steeply. It was hard to tell with the NVGs. They didn’t provide great depth of field. The image gave the impression they were heading towards a cliff. The tracks continued to head towards it. She slowed the vehicle enough so that she would have time to react if it was too steep.

  She dropped a gear as they approached what was looking like a steep edge, then another until they were moving slowly. Then she stopped them completely. Not because it was a cliff – the incline was navigable for the Humvee. They could see pick-ups at the bottom of the slope. Hetta turned off the engine and opened her door. Both of them climbed out and walked to the front of the Humvee. Hetta removed her NVGs, placed them on the hood and raised a thermal imager to her eye. Stratton had to make do with his NVGs.

  It looked like there were four vehicles altogether. He could see a fair bit of movement, perhaps a dozen or more people. One of the vehicles looked much larger than the others. A truck perhaps. A hundred metres further away, near a fire, he saw kerosene lamps and a couple of structures that could have been tents.

  ‘Nomads,’ Hetta said.

  She was able to make out the various images better than he could. Other figures near the tents were animals. Goats or sheep. ‘Any idea what’s going on?’ Stratton asked.

  She didn’t reply.

  ‘Taliban and nomads don’t usually mix well,’ he said. ‘You ever met any?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘They’ve little respect for anyone. They’ll make a deal with the Taliban one day and sell them out to the coalition the next. And the same goes for any coalition people they stumble on.’

  ‘The people with the pick-ups, the Taliban, they’re changing a tyre,’ she said.

  That made more sense. The Ta
liban must have had a flat and caught the attention of the nomads. Stratton lifted the NVGs, wondering what his new-found friend was planning. If it was up to him, and it clearly wasn’t, he’d take the opportunity to skirt around the hold-up. They knew the Taliban’s track, their general direction, so all they would have to do was get back on it and find a good site to ambush as the Taliban came on through. Give them a taste of their own medicine.

  Several flashes suddenly fired below them, followed by the distant crack of rifle fire. It was around the vehicles. Figures were running but a couple had dropped. He watched others run but they didn’t get far. The shooting ended as quickly as it had started and several figures walked in. There was another flash and bang. He watched the figures go from body to body.

  Back at the tents, more figures were emerging, some very small. Women and children. The families looking on at their proud sons and fathers. Stratton removed his NVGs. Things had suddenly changed and he wasn’t sure if it was for better or worse. The nomads had taken the booty for themselves. There were a lot more of them than there had been Taliban. But they wouldn’t be in a hurry to go anywhere. They were by nature slow-moving. And unconcerned about being pursued. If the Taliban had no idea what they had been carrying, the nomads certainly wouldn’t.

  A fire began where the attack had taken place. Stratton held his NVGs to his face again. The flames quickly became fierce. It was one of the Taliban’s pick-ups ablaze, the one that had got the flat. The other was being driven away. His first fear was that they were burning the box as well – but that would have been uncharacteristic. Nomads were scavengers and wouldn’t leave a thing like that without inspecting it at least. They were destroying half the evidence of the attack and stealing the other half.

  He watched the nomads toss the dead bodies onto the flames and head back towards their camp.

  Hetta turned and walked to the back of the Humvee, opened it up and rummaged through the box inside. When she came back she was carrying an M4 assault rifle and wearing a chest harness, its pouches filled with magazines. She wasn’t wearing any bulletproof vest or ballistic helmet.

  ‘Everything you need for a fight is in that box,’ she said. ‘Help yourself.’

  ‘Do we have a plan?’

  ‘Two. One with you. One without you.’

  Ouch, he said to himself.

  He went to the Humvee and looked in through the open rear door. There was another M4 and webbing, along with an assortment of grenades. He took the gun and webbing but couldn’t find any body armour. He wondered whose oversight that was. He slipped the chest harness over his head and tightened it, put a couple of first field dressings into a pocket and grabbed a flashlight. There were a couple of hand radios. They reminded him that she had not made radio contact with her controllers, whoever they were. They had been on the road for several hours and she had made significant decisions that would normally warrant informing a higher authority.

  He checked his watch. It wasn’t yet midnight. They had six more hours of darkness. If she called her people now, she could have an assault team in the area before dawn. He couldn’t see any satellite communications anywhere. There was no mobile phone coverage in the area. She must have something with which to communicate with her bosses. Perhaps the spook team was all there was. Maybe she really was on her own in Afghanistan.

  It reminded him of the number of times he’d been at the sharp end without support, trying to surmount a problem on his own. Maybe she was in the same boat. She also seemed to have a similar attitude as he did to working alone.

  He walked back to her as he used a soft cocking technique to load the weapon quietly.

  She looked at him, as if judging the way he wore his hardware. ‘You had much experience of fighting?’ she asked.

  ‘Some.’

  ‘I’m talking about open field combat.’

  He decided not to answer and let her think he was inexperienced. Perhaps she would take more of the lead. Get shot in the process. That might not be a bad idea.

  ‘If you don’t feel up to it, don’t push it,’ she said. ‘I don’t need you.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to the experience.’

  She loaded a magazine into the breech of her M4 and silently cocked it.

  The cold wind stroked his face as she set off down the slope. Stratton let her get a few metres ahead and followed, walking to the side. They moved at a steady pace towards the nomad camp. The ground was powdery underfoot. The wind blowing towards them would mask any sound they made before it reached the camp. And unless the men were sitting in complete silence, they wouldn’t hear the pair until they were close.

  Hetta raised her thermal imager while they walked. She was obviously content with what she saw since her pace and direction didn’t alter.

  As they closed in, the camp began to take better shape, illuminated from two locations – the burning pick-up and the campfire. They saw three large tents in all, animals beyond them. Each tent had a light inside from a kerosene lamp. He counted fifteen men around the campfire, but no women or children. They had gone back into the tents. The men’s voices drifted to them on the wind. The Afghans were deep in conversation.

  Stratton and Hetta slowed as they got closer. There was a large box near the fire and a couple of the men were inspecting it. He couldn’t be certain but it looked like the box. He wondered what they would do if they knew what it was. Probably tear off in their vehicles at a fast pace, leaving it behind.

  Fifty or so metres from the fire Hetta came to a stop. Stratton kept a strategic distance. They took in the encampment: the burning vehicle on the far left, the nomads’ truck and pick-up on the right, the tents left of centre, the men around the fire, the box right of centre.

  The men’s voices were clear, though Stratton couldn’t understand a word. As well as some Farsi, he spoke a little Dari, but many nomads spoke Gujari, a dialect of which he knew nothing.

  ‘Move right beyond the truck,’ she said. ‘Check anyone trying to use them as cover.’

  ‘What’s the plan?’

  ‘Kill them. Take back the device.’

  Brilliant, he thought. How subtle. He looked at the attack angles. She needed to maintain the element of surprise, and, ideally, kill as many as they could before the nomads reacted. He sighed, did what he was told and walked away from her, keeping his footsteps quiet. As he moved behind the truck, it masked his view of the men around the fire. He kept walking until they were back in his line of sight. He stopped when he had a clear view of all the nomads. The three tents were now beyond the fire. Stratton hoped the women and children would remain inside when the fighting started.

  He could no longer see Hetta, the truck being in the way. The fire seemed to illuminate him but he knew from experience he was still in the blackness as far as the nomads were concerned. He could even afford to get a little nearer and improve the accuracy of his fire. As he took a step, he heard her voice. She wasn’t going for any kind of surprise attack.

  The nomads’ conversations stopped instantly and they got to their feet to face her, every one of them holding a rifle, though none yet up on aim. Stratton could see her moving slowly towards them out of the darkness. She held the M4 in both hands, with the end of the barrel pointing at the ground in front. She was speaking fluently to them in Dari, too quickly for him to understand much, but he was impressed. The nomads might speak Gujari but they would understand Dari well enough.

  Stratton stepped closer as the nomads moved apart. They must have been highly confused. It would have come as a big surprise for anyone to walk into their camp in the middle of the night. Alone would have been unheard of. A foreigner, impossible. But a foreign woman alone. That would be beyond their comprehension.

  Stratton wondered what she was saying. Maybe she was simply asking for the box. He didn’t think she had a chance of convincing them to hand it over – but surely she knew that? He wondered why she was taking the risk of even speaking to them. Standing alone and facing them with
a gun in her hand was akin to holding a red cape in front of a bull. Knowing her even as little as he did, he doubted she was being at all polite and humble.

  Whatever she was saying, she finally succeeded in getting a rise out of them. One of the older men, probably the tribal elder, seemed to have had enough of the intrusion and let out a wail as he raised his weapon. That was as far as he got and where his life came to an abrupt end. Stratton watched as she fired a controlled burst at him and he went flying back, his arms outstretched, the weapon released into the air.

  Before he hit the dirt the others had gone into action, and before any could return fire two of them suffered a similar fate to the elder. The nomads quickly spread, several towards the nearest cover, which was the truck.

  Hetta crouched and fired before quickly getting up and changing position. She moved deliberately, without great haste, not staying in the same spot for more than a second. She hit another, judging by the way he doubled over while dropping his rifle. Two of them were coming towards Stratton. It was time for him to join the fray. He fired two single shots into both, enough to drop them for good.

  Two others headed away from both shooters. Neither got far. Stratton dropped both of them. When he looked for any other targets, Hetta had stopped shooting. For a second he thought she’d been hit, but it was only because there was nothing more to shoot at. Every nomad was down. He couldn’t help being impressed with her. She had not fired her weapon on fully automatic, which was the Hollywood version of a gunfight with an assault rifle. Like him, she’d fired single shots in rapid succession. It saved ammunition, retained accuracy and reduced the need to change a magazine, during which time the shooter was most vulnerable, especially out in the open. But shooting at a crowd was the ideal time to use fully automatic firepower. To select single shot when so outnumbered had been audacious. It displayed serious confidence in her own ability. That or she’d selected the wrong setting. Somehow he didn’t think that was the case.

  Stratton remained where he was, content to wait. If you don’t need to move among the victims then don’t, was one of his many mottoes. There was always the chance one of them would be wounded. No point in risking a bullet or a grenade. As he looked at the men lying motionless in the dirt, he couldn’t help feeling a tinge of regret. They would have been brought up with guns all of their lives, to shoot and hunt like natural. And they were fearless. But they’d obviously never come up against someone like her before. If they’d had time to think before they died, it would have been devoted to utter stupefaction.