affair.
But that was enough.
Castille was about to add something when the pilot’s voice crackled over a loudspeaker: ‘Ten minutes!’ The mood instantly changed, the eight men straightening sharply in their seats. The red interior lights went out entirely, the only remaining illumination the eerie green glow of the cockpit instruments. Combat lighting, letting the troops’ eyes adapt to night-time conditions.
‘Okay,’ said Mac, now entirely serious, ‘since we were a little short on prep, let’s review the situation one last time. Alexander?’
Stikes leaned forward to address the other men. ‘Right, now listen. As you know, we’ve got eleven United Nations aid workers – and one undercover MI6 officer – being held hostage by the Taliban, and twelve spare seats in our choppers.’ He glanced towards a window; flying a hundred metres from the US Army Black Hawk was a smaller MH-6 Little Bird gunship. ‘I want all of them occupied on the way back. And I want
‘Makes you wonder if we’d be going on a rescue mission if one of ’em wasn’t a spook,’ said Bluey.
‘I don’t wonder,’ Chase told the shaven-headed Australian with dark humour.
Stikes was unamused. ‘Keep it closed, Chase. Now, the GPS trackers on the UN trucks showed they’d been taken to an abandoned farm, and as of thirty minutes ago they’re still there. A satellite pass earlier today showed one other vehicle and a couple of horses, so we estimate no more than ten to twelve of Terry Taliban. We go in, reduce that number to zero, and recover the hostages.’
‘Just to clarify the rules of engagement here,’ said Starkman in his Texan drawl, ‘we’re not only rescuing the good guys, but taking out the bad guys, am I right?’
Even in the green half-light from the cockpit, Stikes’s cold smile was clearly visible. ‘Anyone who isn’t a hostage is classified as hostile. And you know what we do to hostiles.’ Grim chuckles from the team.
‘Any more word on air support, sir?’ asked the fifth SAS trooper, a chunky Welshman called Will Green.
‘Nothing confirmed as yet,’ said Stikes. ‘All our aircraft in the region are engaged on another operation – the ones that aren’t broken down, at least. If anything becomes available, it’ll almost certainly be American.’
‘Fucking great,’ muttered Baine. ‘Anyone got spare body armour? Nothing I like more than dodging friendly fire.’
‘That’s enough of that,’ said Mac sharply. ‘If it wasn’t for our American friends, we wouldn’t even have these helicopters. Be glad we’re not driving out there in Pink Panthers.’ The SAS Land Rovers, painted in pinkish shades for desert camouflage, had inevitably acquired the nickname.
‘Sorry, sir.’ Baine gave Starkman a half-hearted nod of apology.
‘Any further questions?’ Stikes asked. There were none.
‘One last thing,’ said Mac. He regarded his men, focusing particularly on Chase. ‘You’ve all been in combat before, but this might feel different from anything else some of you have experienced. No matter what happens, just stay calm, keep focused, and remember your training. I know you can get these people to safety, so stick together, and fight to the end.’
‘Fight to the end,’ Chase echoed, along with Green and Castille.
The next few minutes passed in as near to silence as it was possible to get inside the Black Hawk’s industrial clamour. Then the pilot’s voice boomed again: ‘One minute!’ Chase glanced out of the window. His eyes had now fully adjusted to the darkness, revealing that the landscape was climbing towards ragged mountains to the north. There were still expanses of desert plain, but they were broken up by steep, knotted hills. Tough terrain.
And they had six miles of it to cross.
The Black Hawk’s engine note changed, the aircraft tilting back sharply to slow itself before landing. Chase tensed. Any moment—
A harsh thump. Green slid open the cabin door on one side, Bluey the other, and the team scrambled out. Chase already had a weapon ready – a Diemaco C8SFW carbine, a Canadian-built variant of the American M4 assault rifle – as he ran clear of the swirling dust and dived flat to the ground, the others doing the same around him.
The Black Hawk heaved itself upwards, hitting Chase with a gritty downblast as it wheeled back the way it had come. The Little Bird followed. With surprising speed, the chop of the two helicopters’ rotors faded.
The dust settled. Chase stayed down, scanning the landscape for any hint that they were not alone.
Nothing. They were in the clear.
A quiet whistle. He looked round, and saw Mac’s shadowy figure standing up. The other men rose in response. Still wary, they assembled before the bearded Scot as he switched on a red-lensed torch to check first a map, then his compass. ‘That way,’ he said, pointing towards the mountains.
Chase regarded the black mass rising against the starscape with a grumbling sigh. ‘Buggeration and fuckery. Might have bloody known we’d be going the steepest possible route.’
‘Enough complaining,’ snapped Stikes. ‘Chase, you and Green take the lead. All right, let’s move!’
For most people, traversing six miles of hilly, rock-strewn terrain – in the dark – would be a slow, arduous and even painful task. For the multinational special forces team, however, it was little more than an inconvenient slog. They had night vision goggles, but nobody used them – the stars and the sliver of crescent moon, shining brilliantly in a pollution-free sky, gave the eight men more than enough light. After covering five miles in just over an hour and forty minutes, the only ill effect felt by Chase was a sore toe, and even Mac, oldest of the group by over fifteen years, was still in strong enough shape to be suffering only a slight shortness of breath.
Not that Chase was going to cut him any slack, dropping back from Green to speak to him as they ascended a dusty hillside. ‘You okay, Mac?’ he asked jovially. ‘Sounds like you’re wheezing a bit. Need some oxygen?’
‘Cheeky sod,’ Mac replied. ‘You know, when I joined the Regiment the entrance exercises were much harder
