He gripped her arms and gently pushed her away from him. ‘Now you have to go,’ he said.
She nodded regretfully. ‘All right. I’ll go.’
They drove the truck round to the front of the house, checked the oil and the tyres and the fan belt. Everything seemed fine. Ben went to fetch Zoe from her room, and explained to her that she was leaving. She nodded quietly and followed him back downstairs, climbed in the truck and sat quietly.
It was hard to watch Alex leave, but Ben was glad that she and Zoe were escaping to safety. He tried not to let his feelings show on his face as she started up the engine and pulled away with a last wave. He shielded his eyes from the sun and watched the truck lurch away down the uneven lane towards the gate.
Then it ground to a halt. The driver’s door flew open, and Alex jumped out. She ran back to him, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. ‘You take care, Ben Hope. That’s an order.’
‘This isn’t goodbye,’ he said. ‘Now go. Get out of here.’
She ran back to the truck, tears in her eyes. She threw herself back in the driver’s seat and put her foot down, wheels spinning on the gravel.
This time, she kept driving. Ben stood and watched the truck bounce over the open ground until it reached the winding country track that snaked away towards the ridge in the distance.
Then Alex and Zoe were gone.
Now he had work to do.
The next hour was a time of sweat and dust as he made his preparations. He studied the layout of the farm, thought about the line of attack, considered how he would do it.
It would be one man against many. They would come heavily armed, and they were professionals who’d hit hard and fast. But it was possible. Just about possible. He had an edge. The biggest edge of all.
He found the things he needed and stacked everything up against the side of the barn. Some of it was heavy, and he dusted off an old sack-cart to shift things around with. Riley was too fragile to join in, but Ira was a quick and willing helper.
As he and Ben were loading up the sack-cart the young guy stopped and looked up. ‘There’s going to be a bunch of them, right?’ He seemed to relish the idea.
‘They won’t take any chances this time,’ Ben said. ‘They want to finish it here. But I want you and Riley out of the way, understand?’
‘I’m Blackfoot Indian.’ Ira’s voice was soft but full of pride. ‘The way I see it, these people are the descendants of the men who took my people off our land and dumped us on the reservation. They took away our sacred birthright.’ He nodded solemnly. ‘If now’s the time to take something back from them, man, you couldn’t drag me away with ten wild mustangs.’ Then he grinned. ‘Anyway, I want to see this.’
Ben looked at him. ‘Don’t romanticise war. What you’re going to see today will be the worst thing you’ve ever witnessed in your life.’
When things were in place, Ben helped Ira herd the horses away to the safety of the far paddocks, a quarter of a mile away across the rolling grassland. The sun was beating down savagely and his shoulder throbbed. When the last horse trotted in through the paddock gate and went off to join the others among the lush grazing, Ben checked his watch. It was just after four in the afternoon.
Just about time.
And as he looked up to the blue sky above the mountain peaks, he could see his instinct was right.
They were coming.
Chapter Fifty-Three
There were three of them, black dots against the sky, flying in V-formation, the thump of their rotors building in volume as they rapidly approached.
Ben told Ira to head fast for the farmhouse basement and to make sure Riley stayed there with him until the fight was over. Ira hesitated for only a second or two before he ran for the house, and Ben made for the block-built storeroom where he had the BAR set up on its bipod at one of the upper floor windows. He bolted the door behind him, climbed the rickety stairs and settled in behind the weapon. Beside him on the floor was his bag, bulging with spare magazines for the rifle and a Beretta pistol.
The choppers closed in fast and hovered over the farm, their thudding beat deafening, flattening the grass with the wind blast and frightening the horses in the distant paddocks.
From his hidden vantage point in the storeroom, Ben peered through the sights of the rifle and watched as the helicopters descended, maintaining their formation, one in front and two behind. Men in black burst from the open sides of the lead chopper and slithered rapidly down abseil ropes, like spiders on silk threads, dropping towards the ground. Six of them, three on each side, clad in tactical body armour, goggles, helmets, armed with automatic rifles. A slick display of intimidating power that was guaranteed to strike fear into most hearts.
Now it was time for Ben to make use of his edge. It wasn’t so much the BAR, now loaded and cocked and ready to lay down a wide field of fire across the farmyard. It wasn’t so much his years of extensive battle training. It was an innate thing, something that had helped him become the soldier he’d once been.
He didn’t like killing. But he knew he had a gift for it. His instinct, right from the start of his military career, had been to go right at them. Hit them with everything. Speed. Aggression. Surprise. Maximum impact. If these people had come looking for war, he was going to give them a war like they’d never seen before. If he didn’t get out of this, he’d at least make a hell of a mark.
So before the six troopers had even touched the ground he was already flipping off the safety on the BAR and opening up on the chopper above them. He went for the fuel tanks. Where a flimsy pistol round had no chance of penetrating, nine hundred rounds a minute of high-velocity.308 full metal jackets sliced like a hot razor through a pat of butter. The tanks ruptured with a screech of ripping metal and fibre-glass and a deafening explosion as the chopper erupted into flame and crashed to the ground, a spreading fireball engulfing the troopers. They had no chance.
No quarter, no pity. You don’t give it, because you don’t get it from the enemy. Ben fired into the flames, the BAR bucking like a pneumatic road drill in his arms, spent cases rolling across the floor at his feet and the smell of cordite filling the air. He saw burning men struggling to get to their feet, arms waving, staggering back, collapsing into the inferno.
A second explosion ripped the chopper apart. A massive unfolding mushroom of flame blossomed upwards. Black smoke rose in a huge column. Flaming debris showered across the farmyard.
The two remaining aircraft pulled back, their pilots hauling them up into a steep escape climb. They roared over the farm and banked in a swooping parallel arc. Then they streaked back towards the buildings. Men in black tactical gear were hanging out of their sides, bringing their weapons to bear.
Ben tracked the leading one through the sky. Spent cartridges streamed from the hot breech of the BAR as he launched round after round into the fuselage. A ragged string of holes punched through its body. A fleeting glimpse of the spray of pink mist as someone inside was hit. Perspex shattering and crumpling under the heavy fire.
The chopper veered at a crazy angle, lost altitude and nosedived. The beat of its rotors became a lopsided
The third chopper thudded overhead, climbing to avoid the flying, bouncing wreckage.
Seconds later, what remained of the black-clad troopers from the crashed second chopper were spilling out of the cowshed door, weapons poised. Ben caught them in his sights and hammered them down in a bloody swathe from left to right.
This was too easy.
Then suddenly it wasn’t.
