Hard-on put his hand slightly above his shoulder. A get-ready signal. Then he picked up the M4, shouldered it and shifted his feet and hips into the marksman position.
Mac stood from his crouch, pulled the SIG out of its webbing, checked for load, checked for safety, slapped his breast pocket for the spare mag. He fi shed the suppressor from another webbing pocket, twisted it on, giving it a fi nal hard screw at the end for good luck.
Then they heard it. Faintly at fi rst, like it might have been a monkey.
But they stopped, tensed. Waited. It came again. A yelp, some words.
Indonesian, female, high-pitched. Yearning then trailing off.
Mac felt ice in his heart. They could barely look at one another.
They’d just heard a young girl crying out in a nightmare. They had the right building. And one of the hostages was alive.
Hard-on looked at him through the holes in the ski mask.
Mac didn’t know how Sawtell had handled the bit about Minky’s girl. But Hard-on seemed focused on the mission rather than angry with him.
Hard-on held up his right hand again, numbered down with gloved fi ngers: fi ve, four, three, two, one. Then he thumbed-up. Mac moved around the Green Beret, trying to keep his eyes on the clay ground while also looking ahead. He kept to the short side of the building but the fl oodlighting increased. He felt like he was walking onto a stage. It got brighter and brighter until he was standing at the last corner before he’d have to turn right and go up the entrance stairs and into the front porch of the building. He squinted – a bug under a microscope.
He paused, stuck his head around. Looked. Nothing. Pulled back.
Looked again. Realised he’d been holding his breath, and made himself breathe out.
To his left Hard-on was circling further into the courtyard, M4 to his eye line. He held a perfect shooting stance while also crabbing silently sideways – right leg over left – and keeping his sights trained on the building. He trained the weapon back and forth down the eight windows of the building. Anyone sticking their head up was going to get shot.
Mac swung around the corner, into the full blast of the fl oodies.
He walked the twenty paces to the entrance steps, stayed close to the wall, under the window line. His footsteps roared like a rock concert.
At the steps he stopped, lay on the dark red clay and pulled himself under the wooden steps like he was inspecting a car. Looked for weight and movement sensors, looked for grenades and trip wires.
Nothing.
He pulled himself out, his wrist aching and his head throbbing from Sonny’s butting. He’d stopped breathing again. He wasn’t feeling so good. Cold sweat soaked into his cap.
Hard-on moved in from the courtyard. No resistance. Still no movement from inside. Hard-on put a hand on Mac’s shoulder, his eyes questioning. Mac gave thumbs-up.
Hard-on handed the M4 to Mac, and walked up the beam on the side of the stairs rather than the stairs themselves, landing like a cat on the porch. Mac covered the courtyard from beside the stairs. Took long sweeps with the assault weapon, looking for movement, sounds.
He glanced over his shoulder a couple of times, saw Hard-on working his lock magic. When he looked back a third time, Hard-on had his gloved hand reached out. Mac handed over the M4 and pulled out his SIG. Then he joined Hard-on on the porch. The door was now slightly ajar and Hard-on took his standing marksman stance. Nodded at Mac.
Mac put his back against the wall, reached his left arm out and slowly, at arm’s length, pushed the door open. It was silent for the fi rst half of its arc. Then it made the slightest squeal which ended in a small croak. Hard-on stood like a statue, the door open before him.
If anyone was waiting, or anyone just happened to be in that zone, Hard-on would nail them and the shit would start.
But there was no shooting. Hard-on looked briefl y at Mac, held up his hand in a ‘wait’ signal. Lay on the fl oor, looked along it for thirty seconds, looking for tripwires and lasers. Mac thought back to the fear he’d evoked in those boys at the Honda Accord. Realised that to a special forces guy this whole mission might look like one big booby trap.
Hard-on stood and fl icked his head. Mac came away from the wall, into the room. It was a kitchen. Mac held the SIG in cup-and-saucer, moved immediately to his right, around the side of the room. Pots and pans hung from hooks along the wall. Musty smell. Moonlight came through the window over the sinks. He moved around the right wall towards a portal without a door and took a position. He turned back and watched Hard-on check behind the door, look up at the ceilings and walls, crouch down to look under the large table in the middle of the area, even open a broom closet door.
They stood either side of the doorway. Hard-on took off his ski mask and stashed it in his back pocket, did a quick peek around the corner. Pulled back. Looked again, slower. Mac took his six o’clock.
Hard-on slipped the M4 strap over his neck so the thing was hanging horizontal across his chest. His eyes were fi xed on something.
He pulled his boot-blacked Ka-bar from the webbing, held it hammer-grip, blade up – less likely to cut one of your mates than if you held it hammer-grip, blade-down.
Hard-on turned to Mac, pointed to himself and held up one fi nger.
He would go fi rst. Pointed at Mac, held up two. Mac was backup.
Hard-on slid into the next room. It was darker, sheets over windows. Two camp beds, one on either side of the room. Walkway down the middle. On the left, an Indonesian man was asleep on his side, facing away from Mac and Hard-on. The other bloke was sleeping on his back, snoring, fatigues on, boots by the bed, M4 leaning against the wall.
Hard-on took two strides to the guy in his fatigues, clapped a gloved hand fi rmly over mouth and nose and slit his throat, all in one movement. He didn’t hesitate, made two strides to the guy under the sheet, who made a humming sound – like he was waking up next to his girlfriend – and Hard-on did the same thing to him, except he entered the bloke’s neck from the side, taking the carotid artery direct.
Total silence. No more snoring, no more breathing. The white sheet was now dark and shiny. The bloke hadn’t moved from his sleeping position. The other bloke hadn’t even opened his eyes.
Hard-on stood up too abruptly, the M4 clattering briefl y on his webbing. They paused. Mac’s wrist had almost seized up in the cup-and-saucer position. Nine-millimetre handguns actually had a decent amount of kick and with the suppressor hanging off the end, he was scared his wrist wouldn’t be able to deal with it.
His breathing was plain embarrassing. Special forces blokes lived, slept, ate and trained together, and after a while their breathing got synchronised. So Mac knew Hard-on was probably spooked by the ragged, gasping sound coming from the intel guy. He could imagine the Green Beret having a beer with his boys after this was over, saying something like, ‘That Pizza Man – he asthmatic or some shit?’
Hard-on put the Ka-bar in his webbing scabbard, brought his M4 up to his eye line again. Pointed. Now they were looking at another doorway, this one with an actual door in it.
Hard-on made a gesture with his hand to show he wanted a low-high team for entry. He wanted Mac covering left, he would cover right.
Mac crouched on one knee in front of the door knob. It was an away-swinging door. Hard-on was in standing marksman pose straight over the top of him. If there were people on the other side, they would look up and see the profi le of one man. Less to aim at.
Mac went to turn the knob, an old brass number, nice and worn and quiet. His breathing was now coming so fast and shallow that it reminded him of what he was like after a fi fteen-minute session with the jumprope at the gym.
He shook it off. Sweat fell onto his forearm. Took a deep breath.
Exhaled. Pushed the door in, brought the SIG up to eye line. His heart thumped in his temples, throbbed at the lump on his head, roared in his ears.
The door opened into a long corridor with doors and rooms. This was not what Mac wanted. It was gloomy but he reckoned there were at least three rooms off the corridor. The only good part? Not all of them had doors.
Hard-on and Mac moved forward, Hard-on in the lead.
