‘That’s getting to be a frickin’ habit…’
Joe turned his sight to the second chopper. It too was descending and wobbling as it disappeared behind the compound’s wall. Hardly reassuring. The SEALs were supposed to fast-rope into the compound, leaving the choppers to fly away out of earshot so as not to attract unnecessary attention until they were needed to extract. Now they’d both set down inside the compound, and half of Abbottabad must have heard them.
The op was turning pear-shaped before it had even started.
Joe kept eyes on. Stuck in here, he felt about as much use as Anne Frank’s drum kit. ‘We’re going to get a fucking audience any minute,’ he muttered. As he spoke, though, he heard a solid clicking sound behind him. He looked round. ‘What you doing, big guy?’ he asked, his voice dangerously level.
For a moment Ricky didn’t answer. He was too busy checking the magazine in his suppressed Sig before replacing it high on his chest rig. ‘I’m going in,’ he said.
Joe straightened up. ‘We’re not going anywhere, mucker. We keep the cordon, no matter what happens.’
‘Fuck the cordon. They’ve crashed. They need help.’
‘There’s two choppers full of SEALs, Ricky. They can take care of themselves.’ As he spoke, he edged towards the door, ready to block Ricky’s exit.
‘Get out of the way, brudder.’ Ricky’s voice was level, but very quiet.
The air vibrated with the roar of the choppers on the ground nearby. The fly that had been buzzing around the stove landed on Ricky’s cheek. He didn’t seem to notice.
‘SOPs, mucker,’ Joe breathed. ‘The Yanks don’t want us in that compound.’
Joe was in front of the door now. Ricky stopped advancing.
Standoff.
Ricky scowled. ‘Fine,’ he said. He turned on his heel, walked back over to the observation post and laid his M4 back on the ground.
Joe joined him. He leaned down over the tripod and looked through the night sight again.
And that was when he saw him.
A man was running along the front wall of the compound. He was keeping close to it and was almost directly in front of the OP, about fifteen metres from their position, across the single-track road. The young couple, who were looking alarmed, were in front of him. He just skirted them, without appearing to acknowledge them, and continued along the wall, clearly uninterested in what they were up to. He was evidently intent on getting to the compound entrance, just twenty metres away.
Joe’s eyes were sharp, but it was difficult to make out his features exactly. He was dressed like a local, though – white
‘Shit,’ Joe hissed.
‘What?’
But Joe was already speaking into his comms. ‘Jacko,’ he barked. ‘Is the Doctor home yet?’
‘Negative,’ Jacko replied tersely, his voice masked with distortion. ‘Why?’
‘I think we’ve found him,’ Joe replied. He was already moving towards the door.
‘You sure it’s him?’ Ricky demanded. ‘Where did he come from?’
Joe
They were at the top of the rickety set of wooden stairs, the stench of the ground-floor toilet wafting up towards them and no trace of their previous argument in their voices. They needed to get to ground level, because to fire from their OP would immediately give away its location. Seconds later they were hurtling towards the front door. Opening it, Joe stepped out into the darkness beyond, his M4 fully engaged. Ricky was with him.
Joe took in the situation at a glance. The Doctor – if it
‘Take them out,’ he instructed Ricky, and turned his attention back to the new arrival.
The guy was seventeen metres away now. Eighteen.
A single head shot would put him down, but Joe made the split-second decision to aim for the body. If this
He fired. The suppressed M4 made a dull knocking noise and the man went down.
To his left he heard the discharge of Ricky’s weapon as he fired on Romeo.
Joe kept his own target in his sight, checking for movement. After five seconds, though, the girl was still screaming. He looked to the left. Ricky had his weapon pointed at Juliet, who was still crouched on the ground ten metres away, to their twelve o’clock. The red dot of his laser marker danced on her throat.
But Ricky didn’t fire. His hand was shaking again.
‘Fuck’s sake!’ Joe hissed. He turned his own weapon in the girl’s direction. The red dot from his gun joined Ricky’s.
One round. A flash of blood and the girl fell backwards.
There was no time for Joe to lay into Ricky for his moment of indecision. An explosion from inside the compound ripped through the air. Both men pressed themselves against the exterior wall of the house. Joe engaged his comms. ‘Zero,’ he shouted, ‘this is Sierra Foxtrot Five. What the hell’s going on in there?’
A crackle of interference, then a voice. ‘Entry team breaching the internal walls to reach target Geronimo. Hold the cordon. Repeat, hold the cordon.’
‘Roger that.’
Joe immediately consulted his mental map of the compound. It was triangular in shape. The main building, situated opposite the triangle’s apex, was connected to the main entrance gates by a pair of high interior walls that formed a thirty-metre-long, open-topped passageway. The Black Hawk had crashed in the western segment of the compound, where, intelligence reports suggested, the occupants burned their rubbish. The explosion must have been the SEALs breaking their way through the walls of the roofless corridor that led from the entrance gates – the same gates Joe’s target had been trying to reach. The man had fallen into a ditch along the bottom of the compound wall eighteen metres from Joe’s position and to his two o’clock. Joe needed to get over there, identify him and finish him off if necessary.
‘Cover me,’ he said.
Ricky nodded, dropped to one knee and pressed the butt of his M4 into his shoulder, ready to provide covering fire should Joe need it.
Joe ran. The distance between the house and the enemy wall was ten metres, but he had to run double that on the diagonal in a south-westerly direction to reach the man. He’d gone down barely a couple of metres from the security gates. He was clutching with one hand the wound Joe had inflicted on the side of his right leg. It was pissing blood through his fingers, and the man was shaking violently. Joe flicked on the Maglite attached to the body of his M4. It lit up the alarmed, sweating face of the wounded man, whose
Joe saw immediately that he was
He was also feeling for a weapon with his spare hand.
He didn’t get very far.
The barrel of Joe’s cylindrical silencer was no more than six inches from the target’s head when he fired. The round made as much noise entering the man’s skull as it did leaving the weapon. Blood spattered over the pale rendered wall of the compound as the shooter slumped back into the ditch, his face no longer a face. But Joe’s attention was already elsewhere. There was a second explosion from inside the compound – louder than the first, or maybe Joe was just nearer. He turned to look at the main gates. He was standing just two metres from