and pulled hard. There was a ripping sound from behind the wall and several feet of wire came out of the hole. He stared at it. He would have given anything right then for a knife or a pair of scissors. He smiled to himself. If he’d had either a knife or scissors he wouldn’t have been messing around with the wire. He bent over, put his head close to the wall and began gnawing at the wire with his teeth.
Shepherd pulled out the Glock and shot the man in the forehead twice in quick succession. He slumped to the ground without a sound. Wafeeq stood in the doorway, holding a Kalashnikov. Shepherd dropped into a crouch and brought the gun to bear on Wafeeq’s chest but before he could fire the door slammed.
The two Iraqis who had walked him to the house dived to the ground and lay face down with their hands over their heads. There were no rounds in their guns and they had been told to stay down until the shooting was over.
Shepherd heard shouts above his head and looked up to see two men at the upstairs windows. One was aiming an RPG, the other had a Kalashnikov. The Kalashnikov fired and bullets sprayed round the gate as one of the Blackhawk helicopters swooped down to hover above the buildings on the far side of the street.
He kicked the door, which burst open, dived inside, rolled over and got to his feet, Glock in both hands. The man with the Kalashnikov had gone, and blood was pooling round the head of the man Shepherd had shot. Outside, he heard the Blackhawk’s massive chain guns burst into life. The high-explosive dual-purpose rounds ripped into the upper floor of the house for five or six seconds, then there was silence. He heard shouts outside, American voices, then M16s being fired, the thump of footsteps below him. He looked around for the door to the basement.
Mitchell had felt the shells smash into the upper floors of the building. Now he could hear the throb of helicopter blades, which meant the Americans were outside, more gunfire – M16s – and shouts and yells.
He had been standing with his back to the wall waiting for Kamil and the rest to come back, but now he knew that all bets were off. He had a length of wire wrapped round his right wrist. When he heard the thump of feet on the stairs, he moved quickly to the far side of the room and stood to the left of the door. It was all about survival now. The Americans had the technology and the manpower. It was only a matter of time before they overpowered his kidnappers. All Mitchell had to do was stay alive until that happened.
He heard the bolts slide back, then more gunfire upstairs. He let the wire swing loose from his wrist.
The door flew back and Mitchell put up a hand to stop it. One of the kidnappers stepped into the room, his Kalashnikov at waist level. Mitchell kicked out at the weapon, knocking away the barrel. It went off and bullets hammered into the far wall, the shots deafening in the confined space. He stepped forward and threw the wire round the man’s neck, caught the free end and pulled it tight. The Kalashnikov went off again and two shots smacked into the ceiling. Mitchell pulled back on the wire and the man lost his balance. He looped the wire round the man’s neck again, then stepped back, pulling it taut. The man twisted, trying to point the weapon at Mitchell, but the wire bit tighter into his throat.
A second figure appeared. It was Wafeeq, holding a Kalashnikov. He pointed it at Mitchell, but before he could fire Mitchell kicked at the door, which slammed shut. The man he was strangling tried to slam the butt of his Kalashnikov against Mitchell’s knee but he moved backwards to avoid the blow.
The door slammed open again. Wafeeq was screaming in Arabic as he pulled the trigger.
Shepherd hurtled down the stairs. There was a doorway to the right and as he reached the bottom of the stairs he heard Wafeeq shouting. He brought up his Glock with both hands as Wafeeq’s Kalashnikov fired a quick burst and the air was filled with the tang of cordite. The door to the basement room was half shut and Shepherd couldn’t see inside so he ran forward and kicked the door open.
Mitchell was in a corner behind an Arab whose torso was peppered with bloody holes. As the door flew open the dead man’s Kalashnikov clattered to the ground.
Wafeeq was standing in the middle of the room, still screaming.
‘Wafeeq!’ yelled Shepherd.
Wafeeq turned and Shepherd fired. The shot missed the back of Wafeeq’s skull by an inch and thwacked into the wall. Wafeeq’s finger tightened on the trigger and Shepherd dropped into a crouch and fired again, hitting him in the shoulder. Wafeeq staggered back. Mitchell dropped the man he was holding, rushed forward and kicked Wafeeq in the small of the back. Wafeeq staggered forward, Shepherd slammed the Glock against his temple and he slumped to the ground without a sound.
Mitchell stood where he was, panting. ‘Bugger me, what took you so long?’ he gasped.
‘You weren’t easy to find,’ said Shepherd. ‘Are you okay?’
Mitchell rubbed his hand down his face. ‘I thought it was all over, Spider.’
‘Yeah,’ said Shepherd. ‘I know how you feel.’
‘The Major’s outside?’
‘Yeah. And the guys.’
‘Thanks.’
Shepherd grinned. ‘Don’t get all sentimental on me, Geordie.’ Mitchell gripped him in a bear hug, and Shepherd hugged him back, hard.
The Sniper pressed his eye into the scope’s cup. All he saw was black until his eye was in the correct position, then through the scope he found the target. An American soldier. Superimposed on the soldier was the sight’s reticule. A curved line was marked from one hundred metres to one thousand metres. All the Sniper had to do was aim his rifle so that in the scope the soldier’s feet were at the bottom of the range-finder. The number closest to the target’s head was the distance away in metres. The manufacturer had calibrated the sight for the average height of a Russian soldier back in the early sixties when the rifle was first manufactured, a shade under five feet eight inches. The Sniper knew that the average American soldier was substantially bigger than his Cold War Russian counterpart. Americans were brought up on full-fat milk and fast food diets and most were a good six inches taller than the height for which the scope had been calibrated. It was an easy adjustment to make.
The one-thousand metre line was optimistic, the Sniper knew. The Russians liked to claim that their snipers could hit a man with a Dragunov at a thousand metres, but the Sniper preferred never to work above five hundred. Six hundred on a windless day, perhaps.
He moved the sight slowly down the soldier’s body, and frowned as he reached the man’s feet. He wasn’t wearing army boots: he was wearing brown shoes with tassels. The Sniper had never seen a soldier in footwear like that. He raised the sight again and focused on the man’s face. It didn’t matter what sort of shoes he was wearing. All that mattered was that he was an American soldier and that he would soon be dead.
He forced himself to relax as he stared through the scope. The soldier was four hundred metres away. The wind was negligible and it would be an easy shot. But he had to wait until the helicopters had left.
Yokely watched the marines pile into the house. No shots had been fired for several seconds and from inside he heard shouts of ‘Clear!’ as they moved through the rooms.
‘I should be in there,’ said the Major.
‘It’s a military operation. We’d be in the way,’ said Yokely.
‘They were happy enough for Spider to go in,’ said O’Brien.
‘They needed the diversion,’ said Yokely. ‘Anyway, all’s well that ends well, yeah?’
‘You can say that when Spider and Geordie are out here in one piece,’ said O’Brien.
‘Speak of the devil,’ said Yokely. Two big marines led the pair out of the house. Yokely grinned. ‘They look fine.’
The Major and Yokely went towards them. One of the marines was a captain. ‘Everything okay in there?’ Yokely asked.
‘Four dead,’ said the captain. ‘No casualties on our side.’
‘Excellent,’ said Yokely. ‘Wafeeq?’
‘We’ve a medic working on him now.’ The captain gestured at Spider. ‘He shot him in the shoulder.’
‘He’s okay, though?’
‘His injury isn’t life-threatening,’ said the captain.
‘We’re fine, too. Thanks for asking,’ said Shepherd.
‘I can see that,’ said Yokely. He called up the lead Blackhawk helicopter on his transceiver. ‘Thanks, guys, we can take it from here,’ he said.
‘Roger that,’ said the pilot.
The two helicopters banked and flew south, turbines screaming.
‘Are you okay, Geordie?’ asked the Major.
