Hellfire

by Chris Ryan

  They let the sound of motorbikes die away. Then they pushed themselves to their feet again and continued to march. Danny fell in beside Caitlin. ‘You okay?’ he asked.

  A flicker of a smile crossed her face. ‘Maybe I’ll let you rub down my sore bits when this is over,’ she said. She looked towards Ripley. ‘Up your pace,’ she called. The unit increased their speed through the vegetation. Danny found himself frowning. He couldn’t work Caitlin out. Her ruthless soldiering and flirtatious nature seemed at odds with each other. She distracted him. Made him think about Clara and the baby, and not in a good way.

  After five minutes, the terrain made an upward incline, sudden and sharp. The brow of this hill was thirty metres ahead. Danny pushed his body to maintain a constant speed and, five metres from the brow, hit the ground, along with the others. Keeping low, he crawled through the undergrowth to the brow of the hill, and looked beyond it.

  Chikunda. Time check, 11.28.

  Danny checked the position of the sun. Almost directly overhead, it wouldn’t glint on the lens of his spotting scope, which he now removed from his pack. He scanned the main road passing through the village – distance from their position about five hundred metres – and counted two militants. There was no traffic in this out-of-the-way place, but there was movement. The militants were carrying what looked like sandbags and placing them in the middle of the road. Barricades. A couple more guys appeared from the north, with more sandbags. They piled them on top of the existing ones, then left the original two militants to engage their weapons over the top of their barricade. One of them had a rifle, the other a grenade launcher.

  ‘They’re expecting an attack from the south,’ Ripley said.

  ‘Fucking muppets,’ Tony breathed. ‘They’ve driven up and down the road. Can’t they tell we’re not there?’

  For a moment, Danny didn’t say anything. A strategy was forming in his brain. He directed his sight towards the three rectangular buildings – blocks North, West and East – on the eastern side of the village. There was activity there. Two guys standing guard at Block North, another five milling about the open area, and maybe three different militants coming in and out of blocks East and West. A single vehicle – it looked like an open-topped Land Rover – parked by the side of the road adjacent to the buildings, about fifteen metres from Block West.

  ‘We’ve got movement of armed personnel around the target area we identified. A minimum of twelve hostiles, including the two on the road,’ he said. He scanned north towards the three circular huts in the enclosed compound. There was a gate to the compound on the western side, by the road, but no sign of anyone in the vicinity of those three huts, nor anyone guarding them. ‘I’d say the three circular huts are deserted. No evidence of armed personnel. We need to concentrate on blocks North, West and East. They’re guarding something there. My money’s on it being Target Red and Target Blue.’

  ‘What if it isn’t?’ Tony said.

  Danny lowered his scope and turned to look at Tony. ‘What if it is?’ he said.

  He lifted the scope and kept eyes on for another thirty seconds. A man emerged from the westernmost building. ‘What the fuck . . .’ Danny breathed.

  ‘What is it?’ Ripley asked.

  Danny focused in on the figure. From the brief glimpse he got of his features, he could see that he wasn’t African. ‘We’ve got a Chinese guy down there,’ he said.

  ‘What are the Chinks doing in the Nigerian bush?’ Tony said. ‘I’m guessing they’re not here to open up a fucking takeaway.’

  Danny didn’t have an answer to that. Maybe when they got down there, he’d ask the Chinese guy what he found so interesting about this Nigerian backwater – if he was still alive.

  But that wasn’t their main concern. First they had to get down there and clear the village. Four of them, against a minimum of twelve armed militants.

  He lowered his scope and turned to the others. ‘Here’s what we’re going to do,’ he said.

  SEVEN

  Five minutes later, they were on the move again. They headed east, away from the road, still in patrol formation – Ripley, Danny, Caitlin, then Tony – through the treeline, and started skirting anticlockwise around Chikunda. It took twenty minutes for them to reach the point where they were directly east of the village. From the treeline, they could see across about thirty metres of open, deforested ground, to where the three rectangular buildings – Blocks North, West and East – were located. Their line of sight was compromised by Block East, but they could hear the militants occasionally shouting at each other, though not in English.

  Danny, Ripley and Tony bedded in, ten metres apart, protected by the treeline, prostrate on the ground with their weapons cocked and ready in front of them. Caitlin parted company, slipping silently away into the vegetation. Her objective: to continue skirting anticlockwise through the trees, heading towards the north of the village. The militants were expecting an attack from the south. Caitlin was going to give them something else to think about. It was a risk letting one person go alone, but that was all they needed to make the diversion, and Caitlin’s 7.62s would make the most noise. The remaining three personnel could take advantage of it.

  They lay in silence for a full twenty minutes, bathed in sweat from the burning midday sun. Heat haze rose from the ground between Danny and Block East, but nobody appeared in the open ground between the block and the treeline, although the occasional shout still pierced the air. He found himself wondering about the Chinese guy. Who the hell was he, and what was he doing embedded with an Islamist faction like Boko Haram? It didn’t make any kind of sense. He had the uneasy sensation that there was more going on here than met the eye.

  His earpiece crackled. Caitlin’s voice came through. ‘In position,’ she said.

  Tony’s voice: ‘Have you removed your suppressor, love?’

  ‘Thanks, Grandad, I’m not stupid.’

  Danny checked his watch. 12.28 hrs. ‘Stick to the schedule,’ he said.

  And the schedule meant that in two minutes’ time, Boko Haram were going to get a surprise from the north. A loud surprise that would hopefully put the shits up them and throw them into confusion.

  Danny got up to his knees, removed his pack, took out his two Claymores in their canvas bag and slung them over his shoulder. He was aware of Tony doing the same thing, ten metres to his right.

  12.29 hrs. A minute to go.

  The moment the second hand on Danny’s watch clicked on to 12.30 hrs, there were two sharp explosions from the north in quick succession. They echoed around Chikunda, and were followed by a sudden surge of shouting from the area enclosed by the rectangular buildings. Danny heard Tony mutter: ‘Good girl.’

  Ten seconds later, they heard Caitlin release two bursts of fire towards the village. It sounded dramatic. Like the village was under heavy attack from the north.

  And that was clearly what the militants thought.

  The voices became louder, more argumentative. And confused. Very confused – which was just how the unit wanted them. Caitlin’s dummy attack was doing its work. Danny listened hard. In the absence of eyes-on, he had to rely on his hearing to work out what the militants were doing. Amid all the shouting, he could tell that most of them were moving away from the buildings, westwards, towards the road. He didn’t doubt that a few would have remained by Block North – especially if there were hostages there – but it sounded like the bulk of the armed personnel were mobilising to head off the attack to the north.

  Danny looked towards Ripley and Tony. They were watching him closely, ready for his command. He held one hand up to say: hold steady.

  Gunfire from the direction of the road: the sharp, distinctive bark of single rounds from AK-47s. Five seconds later, the whoosh of a rocket being fired from a launcher, followed by the shrapnel-crack as the rocket detonated.

  ‘Caitlin, you okay?’

  No answer over the radio. Caitlin’s reply came in the form of a third burst of fire. It was
hard to tell, but Danny thought it was coming from a slightly different direction from the first two. There was no denying it: Caitlin knew what she was doing. The Boko Haram fighters would think they were being attacked from more than one location.

  Danny swiped his hand down, indicating to Tony that they should advance. Thankfully, now things were hotting up, Tony’s professionalism had replaced his argumentative nature. Danny was reminded that beneath it all, he was bloody good soldier.

  The two Regiment guys moved swiftly and silently. Ripley remained in position, covering them with his rifle. With their weapons engaged, Danny and Tony ran lightly across the open ground, shielded from the view of any remaining militants by the back of Block East. Ten metres from it, they stopped and laid one Claymore each on the ground ten metres apart. These rectangular anti-personnel mines contained 680 grams of C4 and 700 ball-bearings each. They could certainly do a job on a handful of militants. Danny extended the bipod legs on the bottom of his mine and dug them about a third of the way into the ground next to a tree stump, making sure that the side of the mine that read ‘Front Towards Enemy’ was pointing away from the trees – he always thought that if you had to rely on that printed instruction, you were probably in the wrong job . . .

  Tony set his mine next to a small patch of rough brush. The equipment was hardly invisible, but by the time Boko Haram saw them, it would hopefully be too late for them to do anything about it. Moving quickly, they inserted the blasting caps at the end of their firing wires into each Claymore, then unwound the wires back towards the treeline. Gunshot raged in the north of the village, and Danny heard two more RPGs being launched. Caitlin’s voice came over his earpiece. ‘Heading back to a north-easterly position.’ A good tactic. The militants could fire north all they wanted: they weren’t going to find their attacker.

  But they’d left the centre of the village long enough for Danny and Tony to lay their booby trap.

  Within thirty seconds they were back behind the treeline, still unwinding the firing wires. They continued for five metres, then went to ground again. Danny faced out towards the village, the detonating clacker at the other end of his firing wire just inches from his hand, his rifle pointing back out towards the open ground.

  ‘On my command, open up,’ he said into his boom mike.

  There was a pause. The gunfire in the centre of the village had died down. A few confused shouts from the militants drifted towards the unit’s location.

  ‘Go,’ Danny said.

  The guys had switched their weapons to semi-automatic. They each fired a couple of shots, which hit the back of the building wall, each one erupting in a little shower of loose stone. No heavy bursts: these were simply a beacon. A way of drawing the confused militants back towards their trap.

  And from the sound of things, it was working.

  The shouts in the village increased in intensity. They drew closer. Danny tried to separate different voices out of the hubbub and estimate how many guys were actively defending the village. Seven, he thought. Maybe eight. If they could take that many out with one hit, it would be a lot simpler to pick off the remainder.

  It just required a bit of patience.

  Forty-five seconds passed. The voices grew nearer. There was one, louder than most, that seemed to be coordinating the others. They sounded like they had reached the village centre. The loud voice barked an instruction.

  Danny spoke into his mike. ‘They’re coming,’ he said. ‘Hold your fire.’

  Ten seconds later, the first two militants appeared, one from either end of Block East. Despite the heat, they wore black woollen hats with khaki bandanas wrapped around the brow, and military jackets in the same colour. They were clutching their weapons nervously, and even from this distance of thirty metres, Danny’s sharp eyes could see the sweat glistening on their faces. The militants were looking wild-eyed towards the forest: they wouldn’t have seen the Claymore mines even if they hadn’t been semi-concealed.

  The militant to Danny’s left fired a burst of rounds into the treeline, but it was much too high to be of any concern to the Regiment. As the noise of the burst died away, the gunman called something over his shoulder. Over the next ten seconds, four more militants appeared from the other side of the building. They were dressed identically to the others, apart from one guy who had a red bandana round his hat. Danny marked him out as the leader, and this impression was confirmed when he barked an instruction and pointed sharply forward towards the trees.

  Two more militants appeared from round the front of the building. Eight in all. Each of them had their weapons pointing towards the forest. Two bursts of fire thundered towards the guys, but again the rounds hit uselessly halfway up the trees. When there was no return of fire, the militants stepped forward a couple of metres, their gait suddenly a little bolder.

  One more joined them from the front of the building.

  Danny’s hands left his rifle and felt for the clacker of his Claymore.

  ‘In three,’ he breathed over the radio – an instruction to Tony, but also a warning to the others to expect the blast.

  ‘Two . . .’

  Another random, useless burst of fire from the militants. As a group, they moved forward a metre.

  ‘One . . .’

  Suddenly one of the militants shouted out. Danny realised it was the leader with the red bandana. He’d seen one of the Claymores, and his eyes were following the firing wire back towards the treeline. He started screaming a frenzied instruction – whether to retreat or to fire, Danny didn’t know.

  And it didn’t matter either way. They were all in the kill zone.

  ‘Go,’ he said, and with a sharp yank of his wrist he engaged his clacker at exactly the same time as Tony.

  The sudden crack of the double explosion sent a shock through Danny’s body as he immediately covered his head with his hands to shield his skull from any stray shrapnel that might back-blast from the Claymores, and pierce the protection of the trees. His position meant he didn’t witness the immediate effect of the blast.

  But he sure as hell heard it.

  Two Claymores at point-blank range would have been enough to clear a football pitch. The screams that suddenly came from their direction immediately told Danny that the munitions had done their work effectively. He looked up. All nine guys were on the ground. Five were motionless, clearly already dead. One was sitting up – Danny recognised him as the leader with the red bandana. He was clutching his head as blood pissed out from behind his clenched hands. The remaining three were squirming on the ground, clutching legs and arms, inhuman wails echoing from their damaged throats.

  The three Regiment men rose quickly from the undergrowth. Weapons engaged, they advanced. They burst through the treeline and covered the open ground in less than ten seconds. When he was ten metres from the guy sitting up, and with his weapon still switched to semi-automatic, Danny released a single suppressed round to the wide open target of the man’s chest. He hit the ground with a heavy slump, but Danny was already firing a shot at one of the remaining three militants, eight metres to his ten o’clock, while Tony and Ripley took out one more man apiece.

  The Claymore had only detonated ten seconds ago. Already the battlefield was strewn with dead.

  Danny ran to the cover of Block East, back pressed against the wall next to the right-hand corner. Tony went left and took up a similar position at the other end of the building, while Ripley went down on to one knee in the firing position, covering their backs. Carefully, Danny looked round the corner.

  Of the three rectangular buildings surrounding the open area they had identified on the satellite map, Danny now had line of sight on Block North, in which he reckoned Targets Red and Blue were being held. The two guards were still there, but they looked terrified. Their backs were up against the wooden door in the centre of the building, and they were waving their rifles around like a couple of kids with sticks.

  Distance to the targets: forty-five metres. Danny lined up
his first shot – the nearest of the two guards – and squeezed the trigger of his assault rifle.

  Target down.

  The second guard fired a burst. It was poorly aimed, but Danny withdrew behind the protection of the building to avoid any stray rounds. Three seconds later he looked round again. The door to Block North was open ninety degrees. The guard was ineptly hiding behind it: Danny could see the barrel of his raised weapon peeping out from the leading edge of the door.

  With his own rifle engaged, Danny stepped out from behind the protection of Block East. As he paced forward, he fired five shots directly into the solid wood door. The wood splintered harshly as the armour-piercing rounds penetrated it. The militant tumbled forward, the whole side of his body pierced by Danny’s rounds.

  Danny had full line of sight on the central area now. It was deserted. Two motorbikes were lying on their side in the dirt, and there was a circle of ash in the centre where they had clearly lit a fire the night before. Apart from that, nothing and no one. Tony emerged from the other side of Block East, carefully panning the area with his weapon. Ripley appeared fifteen metres behind Danny, his weapon also engaged.

  ‘Ten guys down,’ Danny said into his mike. ‘We still have at least two hostiles remaining. Caitlin, what’s your status?’

  ‘I’ve got eyes on the road heading north,’ she replied through the headset.

  ‘Stay put. Lay down fire on any vehicle you see trying to head that way.’

  ‘Roger that.’

  ‘I’m heading into Block North,’ Danny told Tony and Ripley. ‘Keep me covered.’

  Danny ran towards the building. The door was still half-open, the two dead and bleeding militants stopping it from opening fully or swinging shut. Danny didn’t lower his weapon as he approached. Inside the building was an unknown quantity. He needed to be fully prepared for anything.