from the moment they crossed the border into Yemen.

He looked once again at Hopper. ‘You a happy man, Hopper?’ he called out.

‘I will be when we’re on our way home.’

Stratton should have expected such a reply. He would bet fifty quid that Hopper was thinking about his family even then. But he took a moment to ask himself what he would feel like if he had the ideal girl waiting for him to get home.

Headlights suddenly appeared, coming from the coastal highway, and flashed across their position. It was a vehicle speeding along the track towards the village and the two Suburbans.

Stratton and Hopper dropped to the bottom of the wadi just before the vehicle, some type of 4?4, tore by, kicking dirt and stones into the wadi and on top of them. They knelt back up to watch it head towards the oncoming Suburbans.

‘What the bloody hell was that?’ Hopper called out.

Whatever it was, Stratton didn’t like the look of it.

A sudden loud bang came from the direction of the two Suburbans. Not so much like a gun going off, more like the muffled burst of a tyre. Stratton and Hopper watched as the headlights of the leading Suburban bounced hard before turning sharply to one side like the vehicle had lost control. It came to a dusty halt and the second Suburban behind slid to a stop.

Stratton quickly took up the thermal imager and saw several figures running from a fold in the ground where they had obviously been hiding. There were four of them in total and they split into pairs as they went towards both vehicles. He could hear popping sounds as the figures reached the Suburbans. Then he heard a shot.

The red tail lights of the 4?4 flared as it came to a hard halt on the stone track right in front of the Suburbans. The sound of men shouting carried across the night air, the language impossible to decipher.

Hopper stood to get a better look but also out of mild shock. ‘Is what I think I see going on what I think is going on?’

Stratton couldn’t think what else could be going on.

‘Someone’s beaten us to them,’ Hopper said.

Stratton didn’t ask the question, who was carrying out the attack? All he could think of was what he needed to do about it. His team wasn’t equipped for any kind of major firefight against numbers. They only had a pistol each. This was all now about coming up with the right reaction.

The 4?4 carried out a u-turn, its headlights pointing back the way it had come. They heard more shouts accompanied by the slamming of the vehicle’s doors.

Stratton watched through his imager at what appeared to be the original ambush party: four or five men running across the rocky ground in the direction of the coast. The 4?4 accelerated along the track back the way it had come – towards Stratton and Hopper.

‘Pull the claws!’ Stratton shouted.

Hopper hesitated, looking for confirmation. He’d had the same concerns as Stratton – they weren’t equipped for a firefight beyond a handful of pistols.

‘They’ve got our target,’ said Stratton. ‘We’re gonna take him back.’

Hopper yanked on the wire and dragged the multi-barbed snake out of its housing until it was stretched across the full width of the track.

‘Nothing’s changed other than we have just the one vehicle to take on,’ Stratton called out. ‘We also have surprise. They won’t be expecting us.’ He looked behind him and back up the mountain track hoping the Gurkhas would be ready to react as they had originally planned.

The 4?4 came fast along the dusty, rocky track, skidding on the bends, its lights bouncing violently over the ruts. Whoever was driving it was at the limit of his abilities. Stratton and Hopper pulled on their gas masks and braced as the vehicle closed on them. The driver was reckless, Stratton could see, the guy could easily skid into the wadi after hitting the claws. He hugged the edge of the riverbed, crouched below it as the headlights came on.

The vehicle shot over the claws, the teeth biting into the rubber and the links then wrapping around the front wheels as they were designed to, shredding the tyres. The driver fought to keep the SUV under control but he couldn’t and slewed off the track opposite the wadi, the wheel rims gouging the ground. As the car stopped, Stratton and Hopper strode up and out of the wadi, pulling the pins from their grenades as they walked.

The front passenger door opened as Stratton arrived. He tossed a grenade inside. But as the cap fired with a loud pop and smoke hissed loudly from it the passenger climbed out. The man was wearing a gas mask. He was reaching inside his jacket. Stratton had several distinct thoughts in the space of half a second. Going for his own pistol could be the wrong move. The guy could be anyone. He was kidnapping a bad guy so he wasn’t necessarily a bad guy himself. Stratton kept his forward momentum. He rapidly closed on the man, whose pistol came into view, and slammed into him, knee to crotch, palm to face, slapping the gun away with his other hand. The man dropped back into the vehicle with the force of the contact, his feet still on the ground. Stratton grabbed him by his front, ripped him from the vehicle and threw him to the ground.

On the other side of the car, Hopper had grabbed the driver, who was also wearing a gas mask, and pulled him out of his seat. The man crumpled to the ground and submitted the instant Hopper leaned his weight on him.

Stratton’s man had no intention of giving up. As Stratton moved over him, the man kicked out, a hard blow to the torso that knocked Stratton back. The guy was some kind of a martial artist. He got to his feet, grabbed Stratton, swung him back against the 4?4 and gripped his collar with both hands in a judo-style strangle -hold. Thick white vapour continued to stream from the gas canister, gushing out of the SUV’s open door around the pair. Choking under the power of the man’s grip, Stratton ripped away the guy’s mask. He immediately began to succumb to the knock-out gas, loosening his hold on Stratton. The operative swept the man’s legs out from under him and he landed hard on his side.

Stratton slammed the door shut to cut off the gas and placed a knee and his full weight on to the man while he removed his own gas mask and levelled his pistol at the guy’s head.

‘Hopper!’

‘I’m good,’ his partner called back, breathing hard. ‘Driver’s down. One man unconscious in the back. It’s Sabarak.’

As he spoke, a vehicle came careering to a stop on the track. Prabhu and Ramlal. Ramlal hurried to help Hopper haul the prone Sabarak out of the back seat. Prabhu joined Stratton and they looked down on the man lying on his side breathing heavily as he fought against the effects of the gas.

He rolled on to his back, coughed and spluttered. He looked East Asian, his eyes narrow, a large, flat face. Stratton went through his pockets and produced a wallet and passport. The man was Chinese, or so the documentation showed.

‘Who are you?’ Stratton asked.

He remained expressionless, looked away like he had not even heard anything.

Stratton felt like his gut instinct had been right. This man was the vehicle’s commander and he wasn’t linked to terrorism, he was part of some organised security service like Stratton. He had used the same technique to carry out the kidnapping as Stratton. A controlled, sophisticated approach. But Stratton doubted he would volunteer any information about who he was and why he wanted Sabarak. Not without some help.

He aimed the pistol at the man’s head. ‘You attacked me and tried to prevent me from arresting a suspected terrorist. I’d be justified in shooting you. No one here’s going to say it wasn’t self defence.’

The man still didn’t react.

‘I don’t have much time,’ Stratton said. ‘All I’m asking for is a reason not to kill you. Why do you want Sabarak?’

The man blinked. But that was all. Hopper came over to take a look at him.

‘I think we’re going to have to add a dead Chinese person to our report,’ Hopper said.

‘Unfortunately I think you’re right,’ said Stratton. ‘Get Sabarak into our vehicle,’ he said to the Gurkhas.

Prabhu and Ramlal dragged the unconscious Saudi into the back of their Land Cruiser.

Hopper looked through the thermal imager monoscope towards the village. ‘Bodies moving this way. His ambush party have worked out what’s happened, I expect.’

Stratton stepped back and clenched his teeth like he was about to shoot. ‘Sorry, mate. You chose the wrong day to play the strong, silent type.’

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