The voices behind the treeline went silent. Bowman heard nothing except the faint whisper of the wind moving through the long grass, the gentle swishing of leaves. He surveyed the palm grove intently, waiting for the first sign of the enemy. Behind him, the other guys were spread out across the rooftop, watching their separate OPs.
‘Rebels approaching,’ said Webb. ‘Three of them.’
‘Where?’
‘Treeline, due east of the approach road.’
Bowman scrambled across the rooftop with Loader. They joined Mallet and Webb along the parapet, aimed their weapons at the dead ground to the south of the wooded area. A moment later, Bowman laid eyes on the rebels.
The three rebels were scuttling across the clearing towards the chain-link fence to the right of the archway. One of them wore a purple basketball shirt. Another sported an orange cap. The third guy was dressed in a gilet and a female blonde wig. He carried a pair of bolt cutters in his left hand.
‘Machete Boys,’ said Webb.
‘Must be the dregs,’ Mallet said. ‘The guys we didn’t wallop first time round.’
Bowman squinted at the treeline. ‘Looks like they’re alone,’ he said.
‘Why haven’t they got any support?’ Webb asked.
‘Them idiots must have a death wish,’ said Loader. ‘Either that, or they’re pissed out of their minds.’
‘Patrick, wait until they get closer,’ said Mallet. ‘As soon as I give the word, I’ll slot the bloke in the wig. You drop the others.’
They watched the rebels as they drew closer to the fence. The guy in the blonde wig was trailing a couple of paces behind his comrades, increasing his stride in a bid to catch up with them. He was almost level with the other rebels, fifteen metres from the fence, when the .50 cal exploded.
The man jerked, as if he’d run into a clothesline. He was still falling away as Webb fired two quick shots at the other targets. The guy in the basketball shirt, the guy in the orange cap. They were both dead before they hit the ground.
‘Keep your eyes on the front,’ Mallet said. ‘There might be more of the fuckers on the way.’
Bowman and Loader scanned the woodland on the left side of the approach road, looking for movement in the narrow gaps between the trees. Webb and Mallet watched the patch of ground to the right. But no one emerged from the woods. The ground outside the estate was eerily quiet and still. Mallet got on the open radio and briefed the team on the ground.
‘What was that about?’ Gregory asked. ‘Why would the Russians send those guys to their deaths?’
‘They’re testing us,’ Mallet said. ‘Probing for weak points. They want to know if we’ve got eyes on the perimeter fence.’
Gregory was silent for a beat.
‘They’re going to hit us soon, then.’
‘Looks that way,’ Mallet said grimly.
‘Reckon we’re in for a proper fight this time, guys,’ Loader said. ‘These Russians ain’t stupid.’
‘No. They’re not.’
‘Do us a favour, John,’ Gregory said over the comms.
‘Aye, what’s that?’
‘Leave some of the enemy for us this time. You bastards have had all the fun up there.’
Mallet laughed drily. ‘Be careful what you wish for.’
The stillness continued. Bowman and the rest of the rooftop team searched the treeline for the enemy. Every few minutes Mallet checked in with the team on the ground to see if they had spotted anything. Time inched past. Like a sports team watching the clock and finding out they were only three-quarters of the way through a gruelling match. Bowman sipped bottled water, squinted at his G-Shock.
08.12.
He looked back at the woods.
In the distance, a single shot rang out.
‘What the fuck was that?’ Loader asked.
Then the fence exploded.
Bowman glimpsed the split-second pulse of orange flame in the north-west corner of the estate. Then came a deafening bang as a pall of smoke spread outwards, engulfing the chain-link fence in a teeming mass of earth and debris. Acrid smoke bubbled upwards, mushrooming into the early morning sky.
Amid the chaos, Bowman saw that four sections of the steel mesh had disappeared. A forty-metre-long stretch. Only a single scorched post remained standing.
‘Fuckers have planted charges!’ Loader yelled.
Bowman stared in shock at the breach, his stomach knotting. The KUF rebels must have crawled right up under our noses, he thought. We were busy watching the forest, waiting for more rebels to appear, while they were rigging up the fence with explosives. It wouldn’t have taken much to bring the fence down. An ounce of PE on each post would have done the trick. The gunshot must have been the signal for the team to detonate.
These guys are good at fieldcraft. They had a plan to distract us from the breach and it worked perfectly.
He glanced quickly round the rooftop, wondering if the rebels had sent any more teams to sneak around the flanks or the rear. His heart was beating so hard it threatened to burst out of his chest.
We’re about to get hit hard.
‘I see them!’ Loader bellowed. ‘They’re coming!’
Bowman swung back round. He gazed out across the northern fringe of the woods. As the smoke cleared, he saw a long line of figures charging out from the treeline. He counted roughly sixty of them. They were spaced widely apart and decked out in olive-green T-shirts, military jackets, dark jeans. Some wore black berets or armbands. Two rebels in each group brandished large machine guns with bipods mounted to the barrels and metal ammunition boxes attached to the underside of the receivers. Bowman had seen such weapons before. PKMs. Manufactured in Russia. Similar to the Gimpys, and just as deadly.
Webb and Mallet scrabbled over from the other end of the parapet wall. They dropped down and went into prone firing positions beside Bowman and Loader in the north-west corner.
‘Alex!’ Mallet roared. ‘Start lobbing mortars on the treeline! Fire for effect!’
The rebels charged across the
