Hellfire- The Series, Volumes 1-3

by Leigh Barker

Well, that’s it, then, Harry thought in the blackness. I’m dead. And he probably was, except that being able to think it kinda negated that possibility. He opened his eyes, but nothing happened to the blackness, except maybe it swirled a bit in counterpoint to the roaring in his ears and pounding in his head. A symphony of agony.

  He told himself to move, and his body told him to go to hell. Beyond the roaring, he thought he could hear something, high-pitched and rising and falling. Probably his eardrums giving up the ghost, although behind all the roaring sound, it sounded like a child crying. Now that was just nuts, what would a child be doing… in a compound of houses and families. Shit.

  He squeezed his eyes shut and open again, and this time was rewarded by seeing the blinding sun just clearing the rooftop enough to get to him. He took a breath and felt a broken rib play let’s stab the lung. Staying still is good; he’d do that, except there was that screaming again. He wished it would just shut up and let him die in peace. No such luck. The screaming got louder, and he knew that he was going to live for at least long enough to suffer the agony of traumatic amputation of various limbs.

  Somebody groaned, and he strained to hear above the roaring. There it was again, and he realised it was him. My hero. He risked puncturing his lung and pushed himself up slowly on his elbows. The pain crashed in his brain like a Hawaiian breaker, and he lay back down. The hell with this; he wasn’t going to die chewing dirt. He sat up, closed his eyes, and fought the inclination to fall flat on his face. Okay, up — well, sitting at least, which was better than lying down and much better than being dead. His body reminded him of the error of that assertion.

  Okay, he was going to do something, but what? Rescue the lads? He heard the scream again and looked across the alley that he’d flown across just a few seconds before. The mud-brick house was on fire, which was nuts. He shook his head slowly, and his brain bounced against the broken bones of his head, or at least that was the picture his mind painted. Thanks a bunch. Mud-brick houses don’t burn. He didn’t get it, must be shock or shit like that. No, dummy, mud don’t burn, but the stuff inside does. Crap.

  He leaned forward onto his hands and knees. Now that wasn’t very bright, and his body tried to fall back into the dust to rest, just for a moment or two, but he resisted it by cranking up his will to breaking point. Okay, he stayed up. Now the hard bit. He pushed himself up into a kneeling position and felt the world spin, but he was up and was staying up. He put his hand against the wall to steady himself and saw it red with blood, but that he could worry about later. He put the other hand on the wall and pushed. The pain was beyond agony, and he heard his cry, as if from a distance. He opened his eyes and was amazed to find he was on his feet. Okay, he was leaning against the wall with his head hanging down like a three-day drunk, but up. He was going to do something, what? Oh, right, the kid, but it’d be dead now, so just let it be. He needed to rest. He’d rest when he was dead.

  He staggered two steps across the fifteen-foot alley and stopped, waiting to either throw up or get over it. He went with option one. The screaming kid focused his attention, and he looked up to see a little girl, maybe seven or eight, standing in great big hole in the building’s first floor, with flames cracking and jumping behind her. Ten seconds, twenty tops, and the kid would be in the flames.

  “Jump!” someone shouted up at her, and he realised it was him. Stupid on two counts: she was Afghan so wouldn’t understand him, and who the hell was going to catch her?

  She jumped.

  He caught her. God above knows how, and he wasn’t telling. One second she was plummeting to her death — okay, probably not death from ten feet, but a bit of a mashing, which come to think of it, is the same thing out here in the middle of shitville, anyway—the next she was in his arms. And man, it hurt like crazy, but was a fair trade.

  “Pappa!” she shouted in a kind of English that explained her jumping as instructed. What? What was she going on about? Oh shit, Pappa was under the rubble with all that fire heading his way. He put the kid down and started pulling at the mud-brick blocks covering a grey-robed body. There was no way he was going to be able to move them, not all busted up like he was, but the slab moved. What the hell? BJ stared at him with blank eyes showing extra white against his blackened face. Harry nodded and tried to say something, but gave up and leaned back against the wall to stop himself falling over.

  An insurgent leaned over the roof edge opposite and shot him.

  This time there was no slow-mo realisation of what was happening or descent into unconsciousness. One instant he was leaning against the wall, the next he was dead.

  Tom opened up with the sub-machine gun and just held the trigger and screamed with shock and fury. The shooter came apart under the blizzard of bullets, but there were others, lots of others. Suddenly the rooftops were alive with Taliban intent on finishing the job.

  Tom and BJ dived into the partially collapsed building, indifferent to the fact that it was still burning. Bit of a blister or shot to bits? No contest there. They shot everything that moved. BJ fired grenade after grenade onto the rooftops, snatching up the reloads without looking, while Tom laid down a withering blitz of bullets at anyone stupid enough to look over or get himself blown over. But it couldn’t last; at eight hundred rounds a minute, it took only seven seconds for Tom to expend all the ammunition in the drum magazine.

  On cue, the insurgents appeared across the skyline and began spraying the alley with automatic fire. Tom saw Harry’s leg jump as a bullet tore through it and began to climb over the rubble, but BJ pulled him back and screamed at him not to be stupid. He was right, of course, because he wouldn’t last two seconds out there. He swore and pulled out the last magazine for the sub-machine gun. Somebody was going to pay.

  BJ tapped his arm, and he looked up to see the craziest sight he’d seen since he came to this insane place. The old man they’d pulled from the rubble was out there in the alley, dragging Harry by his blood-soaked webbing, while bullets kicked up the dirt around him like hailstones on a pond.

  “Christ!” Tom shouted and swung the sub-machine gun up and round, firing short bursts at the insurgents leaning over the rooftops to get a shot at the madman. The throaty crack of the grenade launcher told him BJ was on the case. The insurgents shifted their attention away from the old man and to the two men who were killing them faster than it seemed possible.

  They both knew it was just a matter of seconds before all their ammunition was gone, and then the insurgents would be all over them like flies on a rotting dog. What they needed desperately was—

  The Apache gunship roared overhead at roof height, its chain-gun raking the rooftops and killing everyone up there, friend or foe. Mostly foe, because who’s going to be stupid enough to be up there when all this hot metal is flying around?

  Tom slapped BJ on the shoulder and grinned like an idiot. Suddenly the smile vanished, and he jumped to his feet and clambered over the rubble, but the old Afghan was gone, along with Harry.

  BJ followed him through the broken bricks and into the narrow recess leading to a tall wooden door. Harry’s body was leaning limply against the mud wall with the old man sitting next to him, his head in his hands, exhausted.

  BJ knelt next to Harry’s body and put his hand on the old man’s shoulder without thinking. Okay, Harry was gone, but the old guy had stopped him getting all chopped up by those bastards.

  Tom stood over them and felt the life drain out of him. He felt old, old and tired. What was the point of all this? The Brits had done this before, back in the 1800s, and got creamed. Those who fail to learn from history…

  And thousands of men like Harry — no, not like Harry. Tom sat down next to his friend’s body and hung his head.

  Harry opened his eyes.

  2

  Harvey Thorne was a barrister, and even coming from the East End, and so the wrong side of the tracks, he was a scarily successful one, but he was having a bad day, and it was barely nine thirty. His day was about
to get a lot worse. He was sitting behind an oversized leather-topped desk in an oversized office. The black leather chair creaked as it bore his weight — weight which would soon return to normal, as soon as the expensive exercise equipment did its thing, that is, as soon as he started using it. No one could suggest he was fat, no one would ever say that; in fact, he was almost the perfect weight, for a man a few inches taller than his five eleven.

  His dark jacket hung on the curved coat stand by the window, below the motorcycle crash helmet with smoked visor, a signal to anyone who cared to read it that Harvey was having a mid-life crisis, a signal repeated by the shocking neon-pink tie with the lightening motif, and the red and yellow striped socks, which in some cultures would be a hanging offence.

  He looked up from a close-typed report and out at the Thames flowing grey in the summer rain. Some people would kill for the location his chambers occupied, overlooking the river and in easy walking distance to The Strand, but Harvey had done that, been there, got the— well, not actually the T-shirt, he wouldn’t have been seen dead in one, but he’d done the prestige bit, and… yes, he was bored. He wanted to do something else, instead of having to deal with rogues and villains, thieves and crooks, but politicians are the same the world over.

  He wished something would happen to break the monotony. Someone should have told him to be careful what he wished for.

  The office door opened silently, and a young woman with shoulder-length auburn hair and ink-dark eyes came in, stopped for a second, and brushed a speck off her immaculate dark business suit. She looked out at the river. One day.

  “Something I can do for you, Laura?” Harvey asked, slightly irritated at having his brooding moment interrupted.

  “Morning, Harvey,” Laura said with a smile that lit up her face.

  He sighed. “You know I like to be addressed as Mr Thorne in the office.”

  She shrugged. “Course you do, and I’d like a barman to ask for my ID, but neither is going to happen, is it?”

  Which was true.

  She continued to look out of the window distractedly. Harvey coughed, and she sighed and came back to this planet.

  “That chap from the MOD is waiting.”

  Harvey frowned and waited.

  “You know,” Laura said, but obviously, he didn’t. “The grumpy one with the moustache.” She shook her head. “Who wears a moustache, since Mafeking was relieved?”

  Harvey sighed. “All those nice, respectful young people, how did I get you as junior counsel?”

  “Like winning the lottery, Harvey. Just plain luck.”

  “Quite. Are you going to show Sir Richard in any time soon?”

  “Why,” she asked, “doesn’t he know the way?”

  Harvey raised his eyebrows and was about to say something witty, but looked past her as a tall and very thin man in a wrinkled pinstripe suit ducked and entered the office. He did indeed have a moustache, not a handlebar, but one of those walrus things that usually had bits of whatever was eaten last stuck in it. At least he managed to avoid that, so it wasn’t all bad.

  Sir Richard stepped past Laura without a glance, as if she was one of those subalterns who had made his life so bothersome. He didn’t look happy, but then he never did. He sat in the chair opposite Harvey, composed himself for a moment, and then told him. “Your eldest boy,” he began, but Harvey was ahead of him.

  “Something has happened to Harry?” Harvey’s voice shook with the urgency of the question, and his soul seemed to fall out of him.

  Sir Richard raised a long, slender hand. “No… well, yes.” He waved the hand. “He’s not… well, you know dead, well, not yet. Injured, I’m afraid, but I’m told he will probably recover.” He was clearly a loss to the church of tact and compassion.

  Harvey picked the good news out of that and breathed out slowly.

  “I thought I’d better come and tell you myself,” Sir Richard said a little pompously. “Rather than one of those dreadful people from the ministry, or God forbid, the regiment.”

  Harvey hadn’t heard any of that. “Thank you, Richard,” he said, in case he needed to. “What happened?”

  Sir Richard frowned for a moment. “Got shot, I understand.” As if that was enough.

  “God!” Harvey said, with the confirmation of what he already knew still hitting him like a fist.

  “Wounded twice, I believe,” Sir Richard added, getting into the compassion role. “Chest and leg.” He thought about it for a moment and nodded confirmation.

  “But is he all right?” Bit of a dumb question, but Harvey was stunned and, for the first time in his life, struggling for words.

  “Oh, I believe so,” Sir Richard said. “On his way back to the UK. Fixed up in Camp Bastion and put on a transport home. Selly Oak Hospital first, I’m told.” He waved his thin hand and smiled. “Back on his feet in no time, you’ll see.”

  If that was his attempt at reassurance, he probably shouldn’t give up his day job.

  Harvey stood up, and Sir Richard frowned. “Are you going somewhere, Harvey?”

  “Of course, I’m going to Birmingham.”

  Sir Richard frowned again. “Why?”

  Harvey stared at him while his brain tried to reconcile the lunacy of the question.

  Sir Richard caught up. “Oh, he’s not there yet,” he said, waving his hand again dismissively. “On his way. It’s not a five-minute flight, you know.”

  Harvey sat down slowly and put his head in his hands as it whirled with shock. He’d objected loudly when he’d been told the boy was joining the marines, throwing his life away, almost literally it would appear, but he’d been wrong, it turned him from a timid, overweight teenager into a man any father would be proud of. One day he would tell him so and just hoped he’d get the chance.

  “Harvey,” Sir Richard said gently, “he’s a tough boy. He’ll be fine.”

  Laura strode in and crossed to the coat stand without speaking, unhooked Harvey’s jacket, and came back to the desk, ignoring their puzzled expressions.

  “Alan will have the car out front by the time you get down there,” she said, holding the jacket for Harvey to put on. “You have a helicopter at Docklands that will get you to Birmingham in forty-five minutes.”

  Harvey’s mouth opened and closed slowly, like a hooked fish, but no words came out — for a change.

  Laura waved him up, thrust his jacket on, and pushed him gently towards the door. “What?” she said in response to his puzzled look. “I left the door open, couldn’t help but overhear.” She threw what could have been a smile at Sir Richard. “And it isn’t such a long flight after all. He arrived at Selly Oak this morning, so that’s good.”

  Harvey nodded, grateful for once that he hadn’t chosen one of those nice respectful young people as a junior. “And Margaret?” he asked, struggling into his jacket.

  “I think she can fly there herself,” Laura said under her breath, “I’m sure she has her own broomstick.” She saw how tired Harvey suddenly looked and nodded. “It’s done, Harvey. Now you get out of here and go see your son.”

  Harvey and Margaret were standing at the foot of Harry’s bed, both remembering him as a small child asleep on his Tigger pillow.

  “Well, it certainly wasn’t me who encouraged him to join the damned marines!” Margaret was shouting in a whisper, a technique she had mastered when the children were very young and shouting quietly was a necessity. “It’ll make a man of him, you said. Get him away from all those layabouts, you said. Give him a sense of responsibility, you—”

  “Did I say that?” Harvey said, having a completely different memory of the row with his son when he’d told him of his plans.

  “You said I’d get myself killed,” Harry said, in a voice that sounded like he’d had his larynx sandpapered.

  Harvey and Margaret stopped discussing his imminent demise and turned as one — the first time they’d done anything as one for the past five years.

  “He’s awake!” Margaret s
aid with a grin that would have surely scared the horses.

  “Do you think so?” Harvey said, displaying the quick wit that had got him the separation he so regretted.

  “So,” Harry said, his voice a little less painful, “not dead, then?”

  “Not for the want of trying,” Margaret said stiffly. “What were you thinking, getting yourself shot like that?”

  As questions go, it was right up there in the top ten most stupid.

  “Dunno,” Harry said with a shrug that paid him back ten-fold. He recovered from the daggers stabbing him in the chest and forced a thin smile.

  “Don’t ask stupid questions,” Harvey said, taking the water cup and putting the plastic straw in Harry’s mouth.

  “Should you be giving him that?” Margaret said quickly. “I don’t think you’re supposed to give sick people water.”

  Harry and Harvey exchanged that old familiar look.

  “That’s only people you don’t like,” Harvey said and held the cup while Harry slurped tepid water that tasted as good as an ice cold in Alex.

  At that moment, the men in white coats arrived. In fact, one man in a white coat with no name tag and nothing in the pockets. A consultant, then.

  “Are you a doctor?” Margaret demanded, stepping up way too close to the man.

  “No, madam,” the doctor said, body-swerving past her and approaching Harry from the other side of the bed. “I am an accountant, here to help this man with his annual return.”

  Margaret blinked to clear the misfire, giving Harvey a rare opportunity to get in first.

  “How is he?” he said, asking the question required at such times.

  “Very lucky,” the consultant said.

  “Lucky would’ve been not getting shot,” Harry said.

  “Quite,” the consultant said. “It would appear the bullet glanced off something in your pack, scored a deep groove in your chest, and clipped a rib, but it could have been a lot, lot worse.”

  “Good to hear, Doc,” Harry said with a smile that was mostly morphine high. “A hero’s wound, then?”