Asia, the Middle East, Afghanistan and other parts of the world. He had been a major contributor to the hijack of the missiles. It was a very proud day for him. He could hardly have been more pleased. The icing on the cake would have been Stratton. But he had that to look forward to. The fool Lotto had no idea who he was dealing with. Sabarak would simply march into the town one day soon and take whatever prisoners he felt like. And he would do to them whatever he wanted.
The jihadist came to a stop behind the Chinese man and slowly lowered the sword as he took the measure of the back of the man’s neck.
The hate-filled crowd became silent in excited anticipation.
The jihadist planted his feet and gripped the haft of the weapon, holding it firmly in his outstretched arms. Stratton could clearly see his face set into a determined grimace, his jaw clench in concentration. The jihadist shuffled his feet to widen his stance and slowly brought the sword up and back over his right shoulder. He held it there over the man whose head looked down and forward. The Chinese man had to be aware of what was happening, but he didn’t move. He stayed absolutely still, just the tiniest sway as he knelt.
The jihadist held the position for several seconds, then he brought the blade down with all of his strength. It cut deep into the man’s flesh and vertebrae. But the blade failed to sever the head completely, the edge of it jamming in the bone. The man fell forward and landed on his face and rolled limply on to his side. Blood began to flow from the partially severed arteries. The sword had penetrated his spinal cord and paralysed his lower body although it had not yet killed him.
The swordsman yanked out the blade and the crowd screamed as the man began to spasm. The girl looked away, unable to watch any more. The jihadist stepped quickly over him, hacking at the neck until the head came free. Then he leaned down and picked up the head by its hair and raised it high for all to see. The warriors roared again.
Stratton stared at the clearing, not so much seeing as thinking, his head buzzing with anguish and intention. The raising up of the head delivered him from inaction. He picked up his rifle and moved the safety catch down two clicks to the single-shot pos -ition. ‘Get ready to run,’ he said in a slow, determined voice.
The girl looked up at him. She looked towards the crowd. Then she looked back at him in horror. Panic spread across her face as she realised his intentions. She opened her mouth, wanting to say something, talk some sense into him. But she knew it was futile. She had been with him for little more than a day and already knew him well enough.
The jihadist dropped the head on to the ground and turned his gaze to Hopper. He walked around the Englishman, blood dripping from his sword. Stratton did not take his eyes from his partner. When the swordsman stopped behind Hopper and planted his feet, the crowd fell quiet again.
Hopper by now had a very good idea of his fate. He remained on his knees, back straight, shoulders back, chin out, his jaw tight. Impossibly still. His bloodied jaw began to quiver and then clench.
The jihadist pushed Hopper’s head forward and down, then gripped the sword firmly. The way he shuffled and repositioned his feet suggested that he was determined to cut the head off with a single blow this time.
But Stratton had other plans for him.
The jihadist raised the sword over his head and held it as he had done before.
Stratton aimed the rifle. He prayed that the old carbine was accurate and that the piece of crap would fire.
The jihadist cocked the tip of the blade back a little, breathed in deep, gathered himself. He started his downward arc and Stratton squeezed the trigger of the Kalashnikov. The gun boomed in the operative’s hands disintegrating the silence and the round spat from muzzle to its target, jerking the jihadist’s head back as bloody detritus flew out of the exit hole and his body went limp. The sword fell from his hands into the dirt and he crumpled down on top of his own feet like a puppet that had had its strings cut.
The crowd seemed to freeze as it fought to comprehend what had just happened. Then as one they became aware that an enemy was somewhere on the slope above them. They reacted in panic, running in search of cover.
‘Go!’ Stratton shouted.
The girl scrambled up out of the cover of the rocks on to the incline.
Stratton adjusted his sights and quickly found Sabarak but men were running across his front. The Saudi was looking in his direction. Sabarak began to run as Stratton fired. The round smacked past the Saudi, grazing his shoulder before punching into the back of a fighter.
The crowd continued to disperse in every direction. Into the wood or to the foot of the slope. Which gave the girl the crucial seconds she needed to pull herself over the top of their position and get across the open ground. She cared nothing for the soles of her feet on the stony, dry ground, expecting a bullet to smash into her at any second. She fixed her eyes on the edge of the first ridge and ran for all she was worth.
Sabarak pulled at the men around him in an effort to get through to the safety of the trees. Stratton fired again. The bullet slapped past Sabarak’s face and struck a man in the neck. The Saudi fought desperately to get out of the line of fire. He knew it was Stratton and knew he was the target. He felt like he was running in molasses, the time between the shots painfully long. He pushed his way in between the men in front of him. Stratton shot the man directly behind Sabarak to clear his field of fire. The target dropped but another replaced him. Stratton shot him too but by the time he had fallen away, there was another where Sabarak should have been. Stratton lowered the weapon to get a better look. The Saudi had gone.
By then, many of the fighters had taken up firing positions in the dirt and were training their weapons up the slope. Stratton’s eyes fell on Hopper, who had not moved, kneeling in the middle of the clearing, a lone figure surrounded by mayhem and bodies, with a headless corpse beside him. Hopper was clearly confused but doing what he knew was best in such a situation and that was to remain still. If it was a rescue attempt, the rescuers knew precisely where he was and in the absence of any instruction from them he would remain still and avoid getting in the way.
The only thing Stratton could now do for Hopper was obvious enough. The only humane thing he could think of doing. Hopper’s fate had been truly sealed the second Stratton fired.
A round came Stratton’s way, the first return of fire, thudding into the rock a foot from his head. He didn’t move other than to raise the barrel of the carbine and set the sights on Hopper.
Another bullet screamed at him, ricocheting close by. As a another struck close to him, he placed Hopper’s head in the sight picture. Hopper still hadn’t moved but he was swaying. Stratton breathed out, then he pulled the trigger, dropping to the ground at the same instant he fired as a volley peppered the rocks around him.
He remained there for a few seconds. The jihadists loosed off wild fire in his direction. But he needed to know Hopper was down. Stratton wanted confirmation. The retribution Hopper could expect would be torturous and malicious. So he had to know he hadn’t missed. He had aimed for Hopper’s head when he fired. He was certain he had struck him. There was a possibility he had flinched as he pulled the trigger but he doubted it. But he realised he could do no more if he was to have any chance of surviving himself.
He gripped the rifle in one hand, moved the safety catch back one click into the fully automatic fire position and put a finger on the trigger. He took a deep breath, aware that it might well be one of his last, and scrambled around the back of the boulder. Without a pause, he stepped out from cover, held the rifle in his outstretched hand, aimed the barrel towards the clearing and fired, running along the incline.
10
The enemy’s reaction to Stratton’s charge from cover was slow, possibly because several of his rounds found their marks in the crowd of men. The clearing offered the fighters little protection. Shouts went up as fighters tried to warn of the enemy sighting but the majority of the jihadists reacted with unrestrained hysteria and anger and a lust for revenge.
It felt to Stratton like he had been running in the exposed open for minutes. He failed to see how they couldn’t bring him down. Several rounds struck the ground around his feet, kicking up dirt and stones. He had expended his ammunition in the first few metres and ditched the weapon because it slowed him down. He felt sure a concentrated volley would hit him before he reached the crest. As another round struck close by, he threw himself to the ground and rolled downhill to break up his predictable direction. A cloud of bullets ripped up the slope where
