She refocuses on the cross street near the patrol and something catches her eye. A low dwelling with washing on a line. She didn’t realise anyone still lived in this part of the city. But it isn’t the clothes flapping on the line that have caught her attention. Something just slipped beneath the washing line. Someone.
He’s small. Not a combatant. A boy perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old. His clothes aren’t much more than rags, but he’s got a smile on his face as he leaves the little walled area and steps onto the street, heading for the intersection.
‘Itchy?’ she says, but he’s already on it.
‘Charlie,’ he says, clicking the radio. ‘Got a kid to your three o’clock. Just a kid, no drama, copy?’
Nothing but static in her earpiece.
She adjusts her position so she can see the patrol again. They’re still in the shadow of the building. Against regulations, helmets have been removed. Three of the patrol are sitting on the ground. She sees one man laughing. Somebody is eating from a ration pack. They haven’t heard Itchy. She tries her own headset in case Itchy’s radio is down.
‘Charlie, do you copy, over?’
Still nothing.
‘Shit,’ Itchy says. ‘He’s carrying something.’
She looks back at the kid. Itchy’s right. The boy is holding an object in his hands. A metal ammunition box. And, come to think of it, perhaps his smile is more of a grimace than an expression of happiness.
‘Bloody hell, I can see a wire. It’s an IED.’ Itchy is moving now. Out from under the camouflage net and standing as if he could wave or shout even though the patrol is nearly half a mile away.
‘Get down, you idiot,’ she says.
Itchy could call control and try to route a message through them, but there’s no time. The kid will reach the intersection in ten seconds. When he turns left he’ll be within a couple of metres of the men. If the box contains a bomb then the patrol are dead. What remains of them will have to be scraped off the street and sent home in a tub.
‘Charlie, do you copy, over?’
Five seconds.
‘Charlie, come in, over.’
Three.
Two.
‘Take him,’ says Itchy.
One.
‘What’s up?’ comes the answer, the radio net working once more. But the response is too late. It’s now or never.
Her finger touches the trigger. There’s a crack from her rifle and time freezes. The bullet will take nearly a second to reach the target and will drop as it arcs in flight. There’s a left to right breeze. She’s had to compensate for the height of the building she’s on, the drop and the windage, but all that comes easy to her. She’s one of the best snipers in the British army and on this tour has already notched up more than half a dozen kills. Missing the target is unlikely.
In the fragment of his life remaining, the boy half turns. He knows nothing of the bullet approaching him at over nine hundred metres per second, which explains why he’s still smiling. He knows nothing until the bullet strikes him just below his right ear, passing through the lower half of his skull and destroying the brainstem. He collapses to the ground.
The sound arrives at the intersection a full two seconds after the bullet, and the patrol leap up in response.
‘Hostile eliminated,’ she says as the men take cover. ‘Your three o’clock. Five metres.’
There’s a chaotic buzz. Point is on the wrong side of the street but he realises what’s happened. He runs from the doorway and widens the angle so he can see down the intersection. He ducks behind a wall and makes a hand signal. One member of the patrol skirts back the way they’ve come and watches the rear, while another covers the forward position. The rest stand motionless while the patrol leader approaches the boy.
‘Shot,’ says Itchy. He pats her on the back. It’s what he always does when she hits the target, whether it’s on the practice range or in the field. Whether the bullet has hit a bullseye or a human being.
‘There’s an ammunition box,’ she hears the patrol leader say over the radio. ‘I can see a wire near the top.’
Careful, she thinks. There could be a delay on the device or perhaps there might be a hidden operator ready to punch a remote button when someone gets close enough.
The patrol leader is within a couple of metres now. He lowers himself to the ground to minimise the possible blast effect and crawls forward.
‘Oh God,’ he says. ‘Oh shit, shit, shit.’
She wants to scream at him to get out of there, but she lets someone else do the talking.
‘What is it?’ Point says.
‘Sweets,’ comes the reply. ‘The box is full of sweets. The wire was a tie holding the lid shut.’
She stares down the scope. The patrol leader is obscuring the ammunition container, but then he stands and she can see he’s right. The contents of the box have spilled over the ground. Sweets and chocolate and cakes. Something catches her eye and she swings the rifle to cover the movement. The washing balloons out as a woman pushes under the line. Her hands are to her mouth and then she’s on her knees in the dirt, screaming, crying, begging. One of the other soldiers comes forward. He speaks to her and translates.
‘She’s the boy’s mother,’ she hears across the airwaves. ‘He was bringing us a present to say “thank you” for being here.’
‘And we shot him,’ someone else says. ‘We shot him in the fucking head.’
Chapter One
Two years later
In her dreams the boy sometimes lives. Not often, but enough times to suggest there may be an alternate reality. A place where her life turns out differently. A place where the boy’s story doesn’t end with a headline and a blurred picture of a smiling face. Each night she wakes in a cold sweat and stares into the dark and clenches her fists so
