SAS Para-Ops: MEGA SET - SAS Para-Ops Books #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 & #6

by Casey Christie

  For the first time in the three days that Sharpe has been held captive, and despite the bad feeling that King’s words created in his gut, he really started to let himself believe that he may actually be able to escape. While thinking of home he chewed on the goat’s meat with renewed vigour, appreciating the unusual taste and texture.

  Bull sees him enjoying the food.

  “You’re only enjoying that so much because you’re starving.”

  “That’s what I first thought but actually I think it tastes quite good.”

  “No it doesn’t, trust me.”

  Sharpe shrugs his shoulders and takes another large bite of his new found delight.

  Bull chuckles to himself.

  “Do you know what they do to goats, in this part of Syria and Iraq?” asks a still amused Bull.

  “No?”

  “They fuck them!”

  “What!?” exclaimed Sharpe while spitting out the dead animal’s flesh.

  ‘That’s right, my friend. In these parts the children and some of the elders break their virginity or continue a non existent sex life on the goats. They have sex with them up their assess while tied to trees or vehicles.”

  “My god, that’s..”

  Just then the low moans of a group of force-marched men grab the attention of the two prisoners.

  Ten rows of three prisoners chained together by the ankle and wrists are led out of a white walled compound and into the desert.

  “Who are they and where are they taking them?”

  “They are men from one of the lowest tribes in Syria, IS captured their village a couple of days ago and they have taken their women to the new Islamic State market in Raqqa to sell as sex slaves. The children were exterminated. And those men, the husbands, older sons and fathers, will probably be killed later today, there is no use for them. They won’t fetch a ransom and they wont be used as propaganda, no one cares. But first, first they will be used to satiate the sexual appetite of the sex starved ISIS men, you see they weren’t allowed to touch the women sent to the slave market – that was the privilege of the IS commanders alone.”

  “What? Are there no goats in the area for them to sodomise?”

  “No, Bob, goats have more value now, they are for eating. Prisoners, well… and who knows how long it is before they lust after a.. more pink meat.”

  “That does it, tonight, my friend, we make our stand, we either escape or we die trying.”

  Chapter Ten – Ambulance Ambush

  Raqqa, Syria. Capital of the Islamic State.

  The Syrian sniper element hired as mercenaries by the Islamic State lie in the back of an old and battered Land Cruiser parked on a pavement 300 metres away from their new target on a quiet road. The greying man’s binoculars are looking through the blacked out, heavily tinted windows of the vehicle. The scope and the barrel of the young sniper’s M99 50 calibre rifle is carefully placed in a purpose built sniping hole drilled into the rear of the SUV. Both men are hidden from view of the outside world.

  “His name is..” said Aarzam.

  “I don’t want to know his name grandfather, please just tell me what he looks like?” Ali quickly cut in after deciding the night before that in future he would not know the names of the men, and women, that he killed, if at all possible.

  “As you wish, boy. He is the man to the left of the police station’s entrance, sitting down at the round table, drinking tea with the fat policemen. He is blind in one eye and has a patch over it, can you see him?”

  Ali moves the reticle of his scope away from the police station’s main doorway, as he was expecting the target to be a high ranking police officer exiting the building to go home for the day, and very slowly and purposefully floats it over his new confirmed target. He immediately sees that the man is, once again, another Islamic State fighter.

  “Why are we killing another Islamic fighter, grandfather?” asks Ali while keeping his heart rate and breathing to an absolute minimum.

  “Well, not for drinking or smoking, that is apparent. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that this man seems so comfortable with the local police commander and, as even an old man such as myself who is not keen on politics knows, that police commander defied an Islamic State instruction, that once again came straight from the top, not to accept or look for bribes from the local people under the….. ‘protection’ of IS. But it seems the man sent here to make sure that the will of the ISIS commander is upheld is also enriching himself by in turn bribing the police commander.”

  “So do we serve Allah or are we are now nothing more that the personal executioners of the commander of the Islamic State, grandfather?” said Ali in a way in which he immediately regretted.

  The silence that hung in the air was the most deafening noise the young man had ever heard in his entire life and even caused the boy, against all the principles of sharpshooting that his grandfather had taught him, to take his eyes out of the scope and look sideways at his tutor, trying to gauge the reaction to his impetuous question.

  Mercifully, after a few heart beats the older warlord, and the man Ali respected more than any other man in the world, spoke.

  “You will never speak to me in such a way again will you, Ali.”

  It was neither a question nor a statement and the words were not said in an angry or loud manner but the sense of threat they carried sent a shiver up the young sniper’s spine.

  “No, grandfather, I am sorry it’s just…”

  “Enough, Ali. You take your orders from me. That is all, that is all you need to know or worry about. We have been paid four times our usual fee for killing men for the IS commander. And after this job we can go back to our home, things here are going too far and I need to call the tribes to gather for a council of war.”

  “Thank you, grandfather, I look forward to..”

  “No, Ali, never look forward. Live in what is. Now, still your mind and when ready, complete your purpose here and take that shot, and make sure that none of the policemen are injured or struck by the bullet.”

  Aarzam was not nearly as confident as he made out to be, about the reasons he had been tasked to kill the man who was about to die by the bullet of his young grandson’s weapon, but he couldn’t let Ali know that. Something was not right and as he had said to Ali he did indeed intend to make this their last kill on behalf of this new Islamic State. He planned to go home and he did plan to gather the local chiefs for a council of war – somebody had to stop the Islamic State and although he was not entirely ready to lead that army he wanted to have it mustered and as ready as possible in case the day came when the Islamic State intended to enforce its double standard rule on Aarzam’s large, but modest land.

  As he finished his thought he heard the muffled and largely silenced shot leave the chamber of Ali’s weapon and an instant later his binoculars showed the target’s head explode.

  “Why did you take a head shot, Ali. I told you, chest is always a safer bet?”

  “I know grandfather, but that man had explosives in his vest, and I was afraid they would explode if hit by the bullet and injure or kill the policemen so I went for the head. But don’t worry grandfather, it is no more difficult for me to shoot a mans head than it is to shoot his chest.”

  Ash'abah’s confidence as a sniper and a killer had never been greater. Which, Aarzam knew was a trait any good warrior needed but he had to make sure that it didn’t turn into arrogance.

  “Confidence in your shooting abilities is good, Ali. But never let that confidence become arrogance. And always go for the chest where and when possible. It helps reduce the chance of a miss because of wind or other factors by more than 100 percent because any man’s chest is at least twice as big as his head.”

  Then, without giving away their position in the vehicle the older man put his hand on the shoulder of young Ali and gave him a reassuring squeeze of affection – something he didn’t do often at all.

  “Now, get some rest. In the morning somebody wil
l drive the vehicle away from here and we will begin our journey home.”

  “Yes, grandfather.”

  For the first time in over six months Aarzam saw a genuine smile steal across the face of his young grandson.

  Just then the two front doors of the Land Cruiser burst open and two burly men chatting loudly to each other got in. Without looking behind him in the direction of where Aarzam and Ali lay hidden, the front passenger of the vehicle began to speak in Arabic.

  “Why did you shoot him in the head? You were supposed to shoot him in the chest.”

  Aarzam responded in a barely audible voice.

  “We identified explosives in the vest of the target and did not want to kill or injure more than we had to, as per the orders of our commander.”

  The two men in the front of the vehicle argued in whispered tones between them. Aarzam could not hear what they were saying or even see their body language but he knew something was amiss.

  After a few more moments of hushed argument the man spoke once more.

  “Shoot the dead man’s vest now or shoot the fat policeman in the leg! You decide but, whatever you do, do it now!”

  “What, why?!” demanded Aarzam.

  While Aarzam had let his surprise and anger about the two men drawing so much attention to the vehicle and then making a bizarre demand of them to shoot again, distract him from his binoculars and the scene now playing out around the dead IS extremist Ali had kept his focus and his eyes down his scope and on the police station.

  “Grandfather, look!”

  Aarzam quickly composed himself and looked down his optics and immediately saw handfuls of policemen exiting the station and begin to draw their firearms and radios while pointing in the direction of where the two men just entered a vehicle.

  Then a moment of realisation struck the old warlord and a sense of idiocy washed over him like a blanket of shame.

  “How could I have been so stupid! Shoot the vest Ali, now!”

  “Grandfather?!”

  “Don’t question me, boy, just fire, now!”

  Ali was confused and hurt at the way his grandfather had been speaking to him and by how little sense everything was making these days, before ISIS everything was clear and the work they did was for, and the will of, Allah. He had to bite his lip so as to not talk back and try and rein in his emotions.

  Then, once more looking down his scope he found his sight and zeroed in on the explosives he had seen earlier carefully secreted in the vest of the now dead extremist. He squeezed his trigger and a moment later the vest and the man it was on exploded into a thousand tiny, dangerous pieces. Steel balls that were in the pockets of the now apparent suicide bomber flew through the air and indiscriminately tore into the flesh and bones of the dozen or so policemen now in the area.

  Ali had killed plenty of men before but he had never purposefully set off an explosion, something he promised himself he would not do and something his grandfather had always told him was not an honourable act of war.

  The engine of the vehicle they were in fired into life and the vehicle’s wheels screeched as the getaway vehicle lurched as it began to abscond from the scene.

  Aarzam looked at his grandson and once more put his hand on his shoulders. But he had no words, he truly didn’t know what to say to him. Everything he had taught Ali about the way of being an honourable warrior had just been blown to bits. Then a cold sense of shame and embarrassment came over Aarzam as he realised how they had been used: The IS commander knew Aarzam would never take the contract had he said it was to activate a suicide vest, that’s why he gave the instruction to not fire on any of the policemen and to not injure them. He needed to make it look like an accident and he also needed to keep his most feared and talented sniper in his good books.

  The unmistakable sound of two ambulances came to life and Aarzam could hear them passing one on the streets. The two men in the front laughed and to his dismay Aarzam heard the driver say:

  “Just on time, our little present will give them a nice welcoming and teach them a lesson for thinking the emergency services are more important than the soldiers of the Islamic State!”

  He then put his foot on the gas and drove the vehicle away at breakneck speed.

  A couple of minutes later, when the extremists were sure that both ambulances had arrived on scene, the front passenger pulled a mobile phone from out of his jacket pocket and began to dial a number.

  Then… BOOM!

  A massive explosion rocked the city and immediately flattened the police station and surrounding buildings and instantly killed the responding paramedics and all the policemen on scene.

  “Allahu Akbar” “Allahu Akbar” “Allahu Akbar” roared the driver and front passenger of the vehicle in unison.

  Realising that staying hidden was no longer necessary Aarzam and Ali pulled themselves out of the back of the 4X4 and onto the rear seats.

  “Take me to your leader, I need to speak to him” said Aarzam flatly.

  The front passenger turned to him with a wicked grin on his face and said:

  “Of course, sniper, but first you have new instructions, we are to take you to the border town of Akçakale. You have more work to do.”

  “That is not what I had agreed with our commander, and what could he possibly want with me in Akçakale – the border gate with Turkey has been closed for months and there are no fighters there?”

  “There are - The British, some fixers from across the border tell us that a very small team of their Special Forces are headed for our great city, utter madness, but apparently they have air support and if they get close enough will be able to send in their bombs and try to free their hostages. So, you must set up a welcoming for them. But don’t worry you will not be alone, you will have some of our best fighters with you.”

  “But why me?”

  “Because you are our finest sniper, apparently, and according to our intelligence this is the one thing they fear as you will be able to hide among civilian buildings while engaging them, rendering their bombs useless.”

  The man who obviously had less belief in Aarzam than his commander, looked at his friend and smiled before continuing: “And because, old man, you are Ash’abah aren’t you, hahaha.”

  The man then turned and drummed his fingers on the vehicle’s dashboard, clearly excited by the day’s events and what was to come next.

  Aarzam on the other hand hung his head in shame. He had been well and truly played. Manipulated masterfully and used like a pawn on a chessboard. Ali saw this and looked sheepish and confused.

  Then Ali saw the expression on his grandfather’s face change instantly to that of total and utter unbridled anger. It was as though he was possessed and the man’s eyes turned to stone.

  Chapter Eleven – Escape or Die Trying

  The pit was hot, dark, depressing and the dirt and dust that coated the floor and walls was suffocating. Richard King was coughing up blood in the corner and crying out for one of his captives to mercifully bring him water. His cries for help were punctuated by what sounded like gunfire from somewhere nearby. Three distinct double tap shots.

  Sharpe looked over at Bull who simply shrugged his shoulders in reply to the unspoken question.

  They had planned to escape sometime after the moon, which they could just see through cracks in the roof, indicated to them that it was past midnight when they knew the majority of their ill trained and undisciplined captors would be asleep, high or drunk. But King had been coughing claret and crying out for the best part of 30 minutes, even after Sharpe tried to shut him up. The reporter was in a bad way and Sharpe doubted whether the man would still be lucid enough to attempt an escape in the couple of hours more they would need to wait to make it past midnight.

  Bull crouched next to Sharpe and looking less than confident spoke: “We’ll have to move now, it’s not ideal. They won’t be as drunk or high as they would be in a couple of hours but judging by the amount of time it has taken them to com
e down here and forcibly shut up your.. friend, I would guess that they are inebriated enough not to give a shit.”

  “In fact why don’t we use this to our advantage?” said Sharpe.

  “How?” said Bull

  “Well, we were going to try get them in here by making it look like we were trying to escape, which in itself is dangerous enough as they may well have just opened fire. So let’s use this as an opportunity – if we make it look like their prized ransom asset is at death’s door then maybe they will be concerned enough to drag him out of here, or get us to drag him out of here, so that he may take in fresh air, water and maybe give him some meds? He is useless to them dead, after all.”