I grinned. “A sergeant deferring to a corporal? That’s a first.”
“We’re a team. Ranks mean nothing today. What do you have?”
I laid in, expecting him to shoot me down in flames, but, to his credit, he heard me out.
“Okay,” I said, “the cover’s pretty good until we reach this treeline, yeah?” I pointed to a wooded area on the map that bordered a narrow valley—about four kilometres from where we knelt. After the trees, open land ran mainly downhill, skirting close to one of the areas of orange hatching. The valley, bisected by a small stream, led directly towards the target. “I reckon we could make it to this treeline, without too much bother.”
“And then what?”
“Dig in and hide until dark. After that, we can hug the trees and hedges most of the way to the ammo dump. From where we rest, it’s a five-kilometre yomp to the start of the no-go area, which is when we really take our time. Ghost walking won’t be good enough. We’ll have to kitten-crawl the whole damn way.”
I stopped talking, waiting for his argument.
“Yep, that’s exactly what I was thinking. I chose pretty much the same route, too.”
“Really?”
“When Sergeant Rollason told us there’s no time limit to the exercise, it got me thinking. Seems the obvious thing to do.”
Well, stuff me. Great minds or what?
“Okay, what we waiting for?”
I folded the map in such a way as to leave our agreed route exposed and slipped it into the clear map pocket on my trouser leg. We shucked into our backpacks and headed to the opening in the corrugated iron wall that used to house a door. The first five hundred metres hugging the shadow of a hedge would be tricky, but once we made the cover of the woods, things would be more or less cushy.
Tom popped his head through the doorway and into the sunlight. He held still for a moment, cocking an ear, before giving me the thumbs up, and we split.
Team Alpha was on its way.
Chapter 6
In the Nest
Kaine narrowed his eyes as a fiery orange sun sank low enough to kiss the gently curving western hills, backlighting the trees, darkening the shadows and stretching them ever-closer towards the small, slug-shaped lake. It wouldn’t be long before the gloom covered the water, turning it from shining silvered glass to an inky black hole. Pretty soon, the dusk would turn to full night, but for the moment, the dappled light made the place beautiful enough for a Constable landscape. If he allowed his imagination to take over, Kaine could have conjured up a rickety hay wain and a couple of old-fashioned haystacks to complete the image. He smiled gently at the thought and raised the binoculars to his eyes, scanning the scene for his targets.
Won’t be long now.
From his north-facing treetop nest, Kaine had the perfect view of the small lake hiding the mythical ammunition dump and the tree-lined river valley it bisected. Although officially a lake, it had shrunk closer to a pond after the mini-drought the county had suffered during the long summer. Running diagonally from northeast to southwest and bordered on either side by dense woods that were carpeted by brambles and hawthorn bushes, the valley acted as a funnel to the lake. If they wanted to reach their target without being hacked to pieces by the undergrowth, Teams Alpha and Bravo had no option but to take the easier valley routes.
Kaine had set the exercise so that Team Alpha would have to approach from the north east, which encouraged Team Bravo to arrive from the opposite direction. Kaine had fitted nothing more than a high-performance scope to his sniper rifle of choice—an Accuracy AXMC, chambered for 7.62x51 mm, 155-grain, modified NATO cartridges.
Neither team had a hope in hell of reaching the target unspotted, but getting past Kaine wasn’t the real point. Kaine and his men had trained in the county for years and knew the area intimately. The whole reason for the exercise was to determine how the candidates reacted to real world conditions, including live fire. Kaine and Rollo had devised the exercise to test the men’s decision-making under fire, and to identify the weaklings and the braggarts. DefTech needed intelligent, highly skilled men who could react quickly when things went wrong, and without freezing, unlike the unfortunate Sergeant Fleetwood.
The sun dipped lower, now more than half-eaten by the hills. The men would arrive soon, trying their best to sneak through the fence and gain entry into the fake compound. No doubt, they’d be preparing to wade into the centre of the lake and plant their dummy explosives.
Kaine smiled. Were he a betting man, his money would be on Team Alpha to reach the hot zone and break cover first. Jenkinson and Allenby had performed well in the tests so far, as indeed, had Blake and Kaplan. In fact, all four had exceeded the minimum requirements for most private defence contractors, but this particular exercise was different. For DefTech, Kaine needed the best. He wouldn’t entrust the lives of his existing people to men he hadn’t seen perform under the toughest physical and mental conditions. Although each candidate’s military record sang his praises, Kaine wouldn’t rely on the opinions of others. In the past, he’d been disappointed by men who’d been highly commended by their superiors, and whose records had been exemplary. He wouldn’t do that again, hence the extended weekend trials, which had only just begun.
Despite the difference in their ranks, Kaine doubted the conceited Jenkinson would allow the impressive Allenby to take control, but time would tell. He settled into his nest and continued his vigil.
Interminable minutes passed until movement struck his peripheral vision.
Slowly, silently, Kaine swung the field glasses to his left, southwest. Team Bravo.
Well, blow me down. That’s a surprise.
Two figures, Blake and Kaplan, hugging the darkest shadows at the edge of the southern woods, belly-crawled with infinitesimal patience towards the barbed-wire fence surrounding the compound. After less than three and a half hours, Team Bravo had made good time from their distant drop-off point.
Too fast for comfort. A negative mark on their scorecards, but not a fatal one.
The lead man, Blake, held out a hand to stop his partner. He twisted at the waist and whispered a few words before scuttling forwards, leaving Kaplan where he lay, half-hidden in the undergrowth.
Kaine allowed Blake to reach the base of a concrete fence post, one of the six predetermined fixed targets he’d used to range and triangulate a comprehensive kill zone, before pulling the butt of the sniper rifle into his shoulder. Blake lay a little over seven hundred metres away. A downhill shot in poor light wasn’t exactly optimal, but the light wind reduced the factor of difficulty to tolerable levels. In his life, he’d faced far more testing shots.
He took aim at a point two metres above Blake’s head—a thick, matt plastic disc Kaine had attached to the post earlier in the day. The hollow-point NATO round would disintegrate on impact with the disc, leaving little or no possibility of a ricochet endangering Blake, or anyone else in close proximity.
Kaine took a long, steady breath in then gently let it out, allowing his heartbeat to slow. With his lungs fully emptied, he held still, moving only his right index finger. He squeezed the trigger, exerting pressure slowly. The Accuracy AXMC coughed, its concussive roar reduced by the muzzle’s sound suppressor. The stock recoiled into his right shoulder. Less than a second later, the plastic disc shattered, the crack of the impact louder than the rifle’s report.
Nesting birds took to the skies.
Blake, in the process of sliding through the hole he’d found in the rusty fence, stopped dead. A moment later, he threw his hands in the air and called out something that was lost to the distance.
Kaine swung the rifle towards Kaplan, who’d rolled deeper into the brambles at the sound of the gunshot, but not deep enough.
In moments, Kaine worked the rifle’s bolt, ejected the spent casing, loaded a fresh shell into the breech, and adjusted his aim to take account of the reduced distance. The second bullet impacted the soft turf three metres to the right of where Kaplan
hid, burying itself deep and safe. When Kaplan failed to surrender, Kaine reloaded and targeted the same spot. The third shot burrowed into the newly created hole.
Kaplan finally took the message, throwing his hands high and scrambling out of the brambles. Once in the open, he knelt, arms held high, scanning the area for his assailant.
Kaine lowered his rifle and policed his brass before reaching for his radio. With his binoculars trained on Blake, Team Bravo’s designated leader, Kaine selected the correct channel and hit the PTT button.
“Sniper to Team Bravo, over.”
At first, Blake failed to react. Kaine waited five seconds and repeated his message, which sparked the man into action. After shrugging off his backpack, he dug out his radio and raised it to his lips.
“Team Bravo to Sniper. Receiving you, over,” Blake answered, his voice betraying disappointment and annoyance.
“Sniper to Team Bravo, good effort, men. Please return to your initial drop-off point ready for collection. Sniper out.”
He clicked off the radio.
Through the field glasses, Kaine watched Blake mouth a few expletives, climb slowly to his feet, and return to Kaplan, a dejected stoop to his shoulders. For his part, Kaplan stood, dusted himself free of dust and foliage, and met Blake halfway, all the time eyeballing the trees in Kaine’s general direction, searching. Neither men’s gaze landed within fifty metres of Kaine’s actual position.
Carefully, silently, Kaine lowered himself from his treetop perch, and hid behind the huge bowl of the oak. He broke down his rifle, packed it into its canvas tote bag, slung it across his shoulder, and melted into the gathering gloom.
Chapter 7
Lying Doggo — Big Jenks
Lying face down, covered in leaf mould, being slithered over by slugs, snails, and worms ain’t my idea of a holiday. In fact, it’s fucking horrible.
Added to everything else is the worry that Team Bravo might have blown the ammo dump already, and it’s made me twitchy for the past hour. As the afternoon stretches into early evening and then into dusk, there are plenty of times I want to break cover and leg it towards the target, but if Commando Tom can lie doggo for hours on end, so can Big Jenks.
After two hours of immobility, unable to stand and relieve myself without risking exposure, I’m close to bursting. I have to roll slowly onto my side, trying not to dislodge the leaves on my back, and take a leak. Although I slither a couple of centimetres to the side, the warm piss follows me into the slight hollow I’ve made and it quickly cools. Nasty, but I can put up with the discomfort. After countless nights on the piss, I’m used to regaining consciousness covered in cold urine.
At 20:33, gentle snores a little to my right tell me the Royal Marine’s fallen asleep. I nearly scream in frustration.
The fucker actually fell asleep?
No way.
He’s got to be playacting, trying to wind me up. Well, he’s fucking succeeded. The minute we’re back in the barracks and out of sight of Captain Kaine and his minions, Commando Tom and I are gonna have words—and they won’t be quiet ones. Can’t wait to face him on the assault course again, either. I’ll smash the existing course record and rub the commando’s nose in it. It’ll wipe the smug grin off his square face.
The hours continue to stretch on forever.
Eventually, the time on my watch clicks over to 22:15, our agreed start time, and it’s finally dark enough for us to move.
“Ready?” Tom whispers in my ear.
Fuck.
He’s kneeling so close I can smell his sleep breath. I didn’t hear him approach. The guy definitely knows his shit.
“Yeah. I’ve got the compass lined up, let’s go,” I whisper in answer.
While lying in the muck, I’ve been tensing and relaxing the muscles in my legs, back, and arms, and I’ve been moving my fingers and toes the whole time. As a result, when I stand it only takes a couple of easy stretches and knee bends to get me fully loosened.
In silence, we pad out from the treeline, enter the cool open air, and are wrapped in the near total blackness. A few stars dot the clear sky, offering precious little illumination, but my night vision is fully developed and I can differentiate enough shade and texture to avoid most of the obstacles we’ll face.
The air is clean and fresh, and it’s great to be moving at last. We press on, travelling much faster than we did in full daylight. At this pace, a five-kilometre yomp will take us to the edge of the no-go area in two and a half, maybe three hours, tops.
What are we gonna find when we reach the target site? An “Up yours, losers!” note from a victorious Team Bravo?
Fuck.
I have visions of Blake and Kaplan back at base, lying in their bunks after having scarfed down a nice hot meal and luxuriating in an even hotter shower. My blood starts to heat, but I tamp down the growing anger. No value in dwelling on stuff I can’t do anything about, like.
I follow Tom into the black.
Commando Tom is three metres ahead of me, a slightly darker shadow in the almost total blackness. He’s breaking the ground, trailblazing. Got to give him full credit, though. He’s shit hot at this moving-through-the-undergrowth-at-night shit. Not far off as good as me.
We’ve been travelling downhill for the past ninety minutes, following the meandering course of a small stream. This is the valley leading straight to the target dump. A heavy dampness in the air tells me the lake isn’t far away. Earlier, I memorised the map but, in the dark, it ain’t easy to tell exactly how far we’ve travelled, and there’s no way I’m going to ask Tom where he thinks we are. Don’t want to show any weakness. After all, he’s only a temporary teammate. Deep down, we’re competitors, enemies.
At the break in a hedge surrounding a meadow of long grass, Tom stops. He shoots out an arm and lowers himself to one knee. I follow his lead and drop to his side. The stream disappears into a small bunch of trees.
“What’s up?” I whisper.
He raises a finger to his lips and nods downhill to our left where the shimmer of water through the woods reflects the thin light cast by a sickle moon.
The lake!
Bugger me. We’ve made even better time than I thought.
“Now what?” I ask.
Tom ignores me and lowers himself into a prone position. Again, I follow his lead and we’re lying shoulder to shoulder under the cover of the shaggy, overgrown hedge. A bramble over my head moves under the weight of a featherlight breeze and scratches my cheek. I snap my head away from its thorns, jogging against Tom, who shushes me, but I’m in no mood to apologise.
“Fucking brambles,” I whisper as an explanation.
“Suck it up, squaddie.”
It’s the first time Tom’s shown any irritation with me. The tension must be getting to him. Can’t say as I blame him none. I want this test over and done with, and won, as much as he does.
After a moment, he taps my back and asks to check the map. Once out of my pocket the white paper stands out fairly bright against the dark grass and I cover the worst of it with my arm. There’s just enough moonlight to let me read the map pretty well, but it’s scale is too small to show the hedge we’re hiding under.
The fence surrounding the no-go area lies less than fifty metres ahead, to the southwest, although I can’t actually see it on account of the poor light and the tall grass. The bramble scratches my face again. This time, I can’t help but let out a curse.
“Shut up,” Tom hisses. “You’ll give us away.”
“Sorry, man. Fucking thorns are hacking me to shreds.”
“What thorns?”
“Brambles. Can’t you feel them?”
I sense rather than see Tom shaking his head at me. “Thought you squaddies were supposed to be tough. Lay off the squirming, will you?”
To change the subject, I press a finger on the map, tracing the line of the fencing. “If we follow the fence to the south towards that track”—I tap a dotted line on the map—“there’s bound t
o be a gate. If there’s no way through the wire, we can maybe climb the fence at that point. The lake’s not very big. Maybe the water’s shallow enough to wade in and find the ammo dump.”
Tom shakes his head at me again. He lets out a heavy sigh and says, “Oh dear.”
His attitude is pissing me right off. “What’s up now?”
“Haven’t you twigged it yet?” he asks, annoyed impatience in his voice.
“Twigged what?”
“That little lake’s on private property. There is no ammo dump. Not even a dummy one. The target is the gate, not the lake.”
“Are you sure?”
“Certain,” he says, irritation still clear in a voice that barely carries to my ear although his mouth is only a few centimetres away. “Come on, man. Think about it. If we were on Salisbury Plain, or in one of the MoD proofing grounds in Wales or Scotland, DefTech might have laid on some proper wargames—fireworks and shit—but we’re in the middle of bloody Herefordshire farmland. This is a test to see how far we can make it without being spotted. Wouldn’t surprise me to find a note on the gate telling us to piss off back to the original drop-off point.”
“How the fuck do you figure that?”
Again, he shakes his head, and again, I want to knock it off his shoulders, but before I have time to react, Tom eases up into a racer’s sprint position. Once more, I copy his movements.
“One of my mates applied for a job with DefTech a little while ago,” he says. “Told me all about their process. I’ve been prepping for this weekend for over a year. Now, follow me and keep your bloody head down.”
Staying low to the ground, we kitten-crawl, following the line of the hedge downhill. The back of my neck prickles. It feels like someone’s pointing a rifle at me, and I’m barely breathing.
A couple of minutes later, we reach the fence—a two-metre tall, rusted chain-link job, topped with two lines of equally rusty barbed wire and supported by reinforced concrete posts spaced every ten metres or so. The foot of the fence is buried deep into the mud and scrub grass. With no way to go under or over, and with cutting the fence disallowed, I point to the southwest, towards the gate. Tom’s right. The fence is designed to stop kids drowning in the pond, not to protect military land and equipment. The commando’s proving himself as my only real rival for the job.
The Assessment Page 6
