walls of the cell as the guard dropped to the floor. It would be a long time before he was back on solids. Saki then noticed that it was his friend with the fancy gun, the small sub machine gun. He grabbed it along with the spare cartridges and ran back to the cell door.
Donald grabbed Rachel and hugged her.
“What now?” she sobbed.
“We stay behind Saki,” replied Donald remembering his instructions.
Saki looked down the corridor. It wasn’t good. There were 10 guards working their way slowly and carefully down the corridor towards them. Saki considered their options, they didn’t have any. All he could do was hold them off as long as possible and hope for a miracle. He pointed the gun down the corridor and sent a barrage of bullets towards the guards. They were still quite far away but he did manage to hit three of them. Three down, seven to go. As well as reducing their number, he had slowed them down and they would be even more careful now.
“What’s happening?” asked Donald.
“There were 10 of the new guards we spotted earlier coming towards us.”
“What? Did you get them?” asked Donald hopefully.
“Now there are seven,” replied Saki. He then paused for a second and put his hand up, indicating quiet.
“There are more coming, I can hear feet pounding up the other staircase. They’ll be surrounding us soon,” he whispered.
“What do they want?” asked Rachel.
“I don’t know,” lied Donald.
Chapter 48
The two SBS snipers, having taken care of the watchtower guards, moved back to their initial targets. The suggestion that the gate guards didn’t know about the perimeter guards was accurate. The SBS soldiers had observed the same uncoordinated behaviour and as suggested by Papa, were going to try something a little out of the ordinary.
They lined up their shots and waited for the Go command from their leader.
“Ready…ready…fire!”
As the order came through, they both pressed their triggers. The bullets hit just one second apart. Although they did not kill their targets, the shots were accurate and perfectly timed.
One of the guards at the gate screamed as a bullet struck his shoulder, just glancing off the bone, causing no real damage but resulting in the guard being thrown to the ground in excruciating pain. The gate guards reacted to their colleague’s distress and frantically looked around to discover what had happened.
As they reacted to the first shot, the same wound befell a perimeter guard within their sights. The gate guards were so stunned to see somebody so close to their position that they didn’t even wonder how the injuries had been inflicted. No gunshots had been heard other than those inside the prison which they had been told to ignore. The gate guards, unaware that Jones’ men were officially guarding the perimeter, opened fire on the screaming perimeter guard, killing him and two of his colleagues. Before they knew what was happening, a major fire fight erupted between the two teams of guards. Jones’s men, who were aware of Smith’s team, had no means of communicating with them and had no option but to fire back. It didn’t take long before the two remaining watchtower snipers entered the fray and began to pick off Jones’ team using their thermal night scopes.
The SBS team just sat back and waited. They weren’t going to risk being shot in the crossfire. The SBS snipers, however, continued their efforts and helped Smith’s men pick off the perimeter guards.
Eventually, Smith and Jones were made aware of what was happening and instructed their respective units to stop firing. But over half the guards were already dead. It was a complete disaster. Smith and Jones were screaming at each other.
Meanwhile, the SBS leader gave the signal to his men. They moved forward and dealt with the remaining men, taking advantage of the confusion.
The escape route was clear.
Chapter 49
The islanders split into two groups. Papa and his three islanders in one group and Kisho, Kano and Lela in the other. Papa’s group took one side of the building and Lela’s group took the other. They raced up the stairs. Lela’s group went towards the gunfire and Papa’s went towards the guards and prisoners they had followed in.
Papa’s group caught up quickly with the guards and prisoners, the narrow staircase allowing the islanders to work their way through them without alerting those in front. Within two minutes, sixteen men lay across the staircase in varying degrees of agony, each having been plucked from the tail of the group and dealt with.
Lela, Kisho and Kano didn’t have such an easy time. They raced to the top of the stairs and found themselves at one end of a very long corridor. Between them and the Kennedys were 7 heavily armed men in excellent defensive positions. Kano and Kisho made it very clear that under no circumstances was Lela to follow them. She grudgingly agreed.
As Kisho and Kano began to make their way down the corridor, a burst of gunfire had them diving out of the way, narrowly missing them.
“Did they see us?” whispered Kisho.
“No. It came from beyond them, it may have been Uncle Saki,” replied Kano.
“Perfect. We fly 3,000 miles to rescue him and he bloody shoots at us!”
“He’s shooting at them,” said Kano pointing at the guards.
“I know that but he’s still the one shooting and we’re the ones getting shot at.”
“Come on,” said Kano leading the way.
As they neared the seven guards, they could see where Saki was hiding. His gun nozzle appeared again briefly and he sent another ten bullets flying down the corridor. Seeing the movement this time, Kisho and Kano were out of the way before the bullets whizzed past them. They moved again and got closer to the 7 guards. They dealt with them quickly and quietly and moved along the line until only one guard was left. Unaware of his single status, the lone guard, looking intently towards Saki’s cell, gestured for his colleagues to follow and whispered, “come on, let’s kill them now.”
“I think not,” said Kisho grabbing the guard’s hand and snapping his wrist, before knocking him unconscious.
“Uncle Saki, we’re clear!” shouted Kisho as Papa stuck his head round the door at the other end of the corridor.
“About bloody time, we’ve been here for three days you know,” smiled Saki as he prepared to catch Lela who was running, ready to jump into his arms. She quickly disengaged and did exactly the same to Rachel and Donald.
“Where’s Tom?” asked Rachel not sure whether she could be completely relieved.
“He’s fine. He’s waiting in the jeep,” replied Lela, causing Rachel to burst into tears with relief.
Five minutes later, they were waiting outside for Tom to appear with the jeeps. After an emotional reunion, they headed to the airport. On securing them into the jeeps, the SBS did not hang around. They had a submarine waiting for them 12 miles off-shore and they had no intention of missing it. Similarly, the prisoners did not hang around and made a run for it through the open gate.
It was obvious that the message had got out and that the authorities knew something was wrong. Helicopters and soldiers were swarming towards the prison. Their initial orders to ignore any noise from the prison were suddenly retracted and replaced by orders to get there as quickly as possible.
The jeep pulled into the airport before anyone knew that the Kennedys were missing. Alba One sat dormant at one end of the runway. However, she was fully fuelled and ready to go. Her crew had been held in a nearby hotel and on receiving a call from Tom, they had rushed to the airport, boarded and prepped her for flight. Everything bar
