State of Honour (34 page)

Tom picked up the scope again. The thick smoke haze, exacerbated by the small-arms discharge and explosions, obscured his view in front, so he checked around the vehicles. An operator knelt about two metres from the base of the dune. He aimed his HK at the rear vehicle. The suppressed cracks from the muzzle meant he was attempting to disable it and cut off a retreat. But after the burst had ripped into the side-on tyres, the vehicle reversed. Tom figured the car must have been fitted with run-flats.

Nathan had said that the wooden hut held one occupant, which was likely to be the secretary. The drones had picked up a heat signature there, which hadn’t moved since it’d been monitored. But she could be in one of the other huts, or the two remaining vehicles. He just hoped she wasn’t in the one that had been scared off, although had no way of knowing for sure.

He glanced sideways. Kali had his eyes closed now, and appeared to be content to leave matters to fate, although he was making a faint mewing sound, like a puppy, as he shielded his ears with his hands.

Feeling impotent, Tom watched a group of Arabs retreat and crouch down behind the second vehicle. Too close, he thought, knowing they were susceptible to ricochets and flying metal shards from rounds hitting the bodywork. He spotted the SEAL with the scar emerge from the nearest dune, aiming the grenade launcher, the XM25 CDTE. A couple of seconds later, a microchip shell exploded in a white flash a metre or so from the rear of the vehicle, the noise loud enough to wake a hibernating bear. The men were scattered like bowling pins as the blast and shrapnel hit them, their screams hysterical and unnerving.

Tom focused back on the hamlet, where the smoke had thinned a little, but almost immediately noticed movement in his peripheral vision on the crest of the dune to his right. He jerked the scope away.

An Arab from one of the vehicles was aiming a sub-machine gun at Nathan’s back. The platoon chief was heading towards the nearest hut after dragging the master chief a quarter of the way up the dune and covering his head with his own ballistic vest. As the Arab aimed Tom jumped up from behind Kali’s trembling body. He couldn’t risk shooting over him, since, if he missed, the interpreter was clearly incapable of defending himself or even rolling down the slope.

As he ran along the crest he pointed and fired. Nathan turned just as Tom’s third round hit the sand by the Arab’s head. But then the handgun jammed. The sand, he thought, knowing that if it stuck to a cartridge it could prevent the breech mechanism from working. He cursed himself for not checking the clip. With that, the area was lit up by an airborne flare. It must have been ignited by a fighter, Tom thought, because all the operators had NVGs and thermal imaging scopes.

But he kept running, despite the sand collapsing beneath his feet. He saw that the Arab was turning the weapon in an arc towards him. Before he could fire, Tom launched himself into the air, landing onto the still-outstretched gunman. He grabbed the muzzle and thrust it up. The Arab shouted out and headbutted Tom’s hand. He winced as it connected, the metal preventing a give. As the Arab sank his teeth into Tom’s exposed thumb he used the butt of the SIG to bludgeon him. After the third hit, the man was rendered unconscious.

He tried to prise the Arab’s fingers from the weapon, but, despite the man’s state, they seemed to be lodged tight. A round hit the sand by Tom’s shoulder. A split second later, another pinged over his head. Tom dived a metre or so down the leeward slope and began scrambling his way back to the interpreter.

By the time Tom got to Kali, he was still ducking his head down and the mewing had been replaced by feverish praying in Arabic.

Tom released the clip on the SIG, and blew on it furiously, removing the disabling grains before slipping it back into the well.

Then Kali freaked.

Screaming, he swivelled around and got up onto his knees, about to bolt down the leeward side of the dune. Tom twisted at the waist and grabbed him by his pants. A shot rang out and Kali toppled sideways, half covering Tom with his twitching body. Peering down, Tom saw three men scaling the steep slope beneath. He struggled to pull the pin on one of the hand grenades before lobbing it down towards them. The grenade exploded as he eased Kali off him. The Arabs’ bodies were shredded by the shrapnel, the blast flinging them backwards. He drew the SIG and fired two rounds into each of the splayed bodies before turning his attention back to the interpreter.

Kali had an entry hole in his chest, but was still breathing. The air was being drawn into his chest cavity through the hole, making a distinctive gurgling sound. Tom knew a sucking chest wound would collapse the man’s lungs if left untreated. He didn’t have a radio to call over one of the medics, even if that had been a possibility.

He took out the med kit from his pocket. He removed the sterile latex gloves and a pre-packed Asherman Chest Seal, a disc-shaped dressing consisting of an adhesive seal with a one-way valve in the middle. Cleansing the wound of blood, he applied the seal, ensuring that the valve was working, allowing air and blood to escape without re-entering. Then he gave him two shots of morphine.

With Kali stabilized, he focused back on the hamlet. A SEAL stooped down in front of the wooden hut, a pump-action shotgun in his hands. He blew the door off with a couple of breaching shells called TESARs, after aiming at the hinges. The shells were designed to disperse into a harmless powder once they had impacted with the target. But before the operator behind him could move in, both men were felled by rapid fire, the rounds slamming into their unprotected legs.

About three metres away, Tom watched a man lower an assault rifle before crawling towards the wooden hut, the weapon resting in the V between his forearms and biceps as he utilized the odd pocket of heavy smoke that still lingered above the sand for cover.

The secretary, he thought, lowering the glass and grasping the SIG.

Three of Tom’s rounds hit the sand around the man, the impact of each flinging up a handful of grains. Just as the shooter raised himself up at the entrance to the hut, a flicker of sparks signalled that one of Tom’s rounds had hit the muzzle. The rifle spun out of the fighter’s reach, but he flung himself forward, bursting through the opening and disappearing from sight.

Tom decided to act, despite Nathan’s words. As he pushed himself up, preparing to run down the dune, he twisted his head. Another Arab from one of the vehicles had reached the crest about twenty metres from him, his hands clasping an MP5K sub-machine gun.

Aiming the SIG, Tom heard a nearby burst. The man’s chest erupted, his weapon landing to his left. Tom stuck the SIG into his pants and crawled over to where the MP5 had landed, hoping it was still functional. He checked the chamber and the clip before wrapping the sling around his hands instinctively and turning his attention to the hamlet below, readying himself to run down the dune and join the ongoing gunfight.

As operators stormed the outlining huts, gaining the upper hand, he knelt onto one knee, aiming at a fighter who was shooting from the hip as he raced between the huts. But before Tom could squeeze the trigger, an intense pain erupted above his ribcage. The ballistic vest covered his torso, but as he’d raised the weapon he’d exposed an area about the size of a fist under his arms. A split second later, the pain seemed to career throughout his whole upper body, as if it had travelled in his blood vessels.

And then Tom was rolling down the steep, leeward slip face, the sounds of the ensuing firefight muted and remote now, each turn making him grit his teeth and moan as the entry wound made contact with the sand.

Finally, he was lying on his back, the MP5’s strap still wrapped around his hands. He went into a spasm. The night sky turned red, as if blood had filled his eyes.

He blacked out.

When the wooden door had been blown off its hinges, Linda had flinched and gasped into the cloth gag. Sitting upright on the concrete floor, still blindfolded, she’d prayed that her captivity was at an end. The US military have finally come for me, she’d told herself.

Gunfire and the screams of the dying and injured assaulted her ears. But now, just above the fearful racket, she heard something like a trapdoor being pulled up a metre or so by her head, and a waft of air brushed her face as it crashed to the solid floor.

Her shackles were released and a large hand yanked her up.

“We’re going down, missus. Just me and you. So relax or I’ll open up those healing wounds of yours.”

She recognized the voice instantly. It was the man who’d beaten her at the chateau. The Englishman. But the thought of going under something as unstable as sand filled her with a terror far greater than being in his presence again. She shook her head frantically, screaming into the gag, and flailed her arms about. But she was grabbed by his muscular arms in a bear hug. Smelling his tobacco breath a few centimetres from her, she was picked up. Sensing he was manoeuvring her into position, she braced herself as best she could for what she guessed would be a fall.

Tom blinked open his eyes. The pain was still intense, but the red haze had faded. Snapping back to reality, he gripped the MP5, testing his strength. His hands were weak. He heard the crack of gunshots and realized that he’d fallen backwards, because the now intermittent small-arms fire was coming from the other side of the dune.

With the acrid smell of battle in his nostrils, a descending flare half illuminated the area around him. He squinted, then focused. The ground was rising less than twenty metres ahead of him. He figured he was hallucinating. But then the unmistakable shape of the back of a man emerged from the sand. Then another person. A women dressed in a burqa. Just before the glare from the flare fell beyond the dune, the man turned sideways. Tom sucked in air and clenched his jaw muscles. It was Proctor. And that meant that the woman in the burqa was likely to be the secretary.

He kept perfectly still. Proctor appeared to be unarmed, but he could be concealing a handgun under his woollen jacket. Forcing himself not to groan, he saw Proctor walk in the direction of the beach, the woman he took for the secretary being hauled behind him.

He struggled up, seeing that the sand was wet with blood where he had landed. He began to drag himself after them along a scratch, the narrow trough between the dunes, the pain almost making him pass out. After about ten metres, he dropped to his knees, blood leaching from his wound, his breath laboured and ragged.

Proctor reached the crest of a sinuous sand ridge with the woman by his side, the man’s hand grasping her upper arm. It was then that Tom made out the sound of a powerful outboard motor. Proctor was making his escape. If they passed over the ridge, she’d be gone for good. He guessed it was a contingency plan, which had been activated once it was obvious that the hamlet was under assault. He knew he had to act, too. The effective range of the MP5 was two hundred metres, he recalled vaguely. It fired nine hundred and fifty rounds a minute. He hoped that with a lot of luck, he’d only need one.

Still kneeling in the sand, he raised the weapon, extended the retractable butt, and pressed his eye against the reflex sight, aiming for the middle of Proctor’s shoulder blades. His actions were pure muscle memory now, his brain unable to cope with the hormone burst. As he squeezed the trigger he winced and coughed up blood at the crucial moment. The MP5 jerked in his hands and, for a second, his vision was clouded as he squinted involuntarily.

By the time he looked back, they’d both disappeared from view. He cursed himself again. He couldn’t tell if he’d hit him.

Tom’s eyelids became heavy; his head lopped forward. But he forced himself to stand up and, wavering from side to side, lurched towards the ridge, taking advantage of a late dopamine dump. The soft sand would have been heavy going for an able man, but with the disability imposed by the wound Tom was reduced to crawling up the slope on his hands and knees, sweat dripping from his creased-up face. He stopped halfway and manoeuvred the MP5 onto his back after it had fallen forward. He spat something that tasted like bile, his lungs heaving. He glanced back, seeing the dotted trail his blood had made before moving on again.

As he got to the top of the sand ridge his vision was blurred. He pulled the strap around his torso, his arms barely able to hold onto the MP5 as he raised it. As he staggered up his legs felt as if the muscles had turned to gel, and the bleeding from the entry wound had increased significantly. About three metres down the gradual incline of the windward slope, the woman was lying face up, her eyes covered by cloth, her mouth gagged. For a moment, he wondered if he had killed her by mistake, his shot so skewed by his involuntary cough that the weapon had veered to the right. But then he saw Proctor, the back of his thigh seeping blood from a centimetre-wide entry hole in his cotton pants. The man started groaning.

“Put … your hands … behind your head,” Tom said, his voice guttural and slurred.

Proctor just moaned. Tom knew the seriousness of a leg shot. Most people bled out quickly. Proctor wouldn’t be any different. But his adversary was tough, probably ex-military, he thought.

He sidestepped down the slope, every movement making him wince with pain. When he was a metre from Proctor, the man rolled, growling like an angry dog as his thigh touched the firm sand. Tom caught a glimpse of the flash of steel as Proctor’s arm snaked out. He recognized the knife instantly. A Ka-Bar, a favourite of British Special Forces. With his back to the sand, Proctor was holding it against the woman’s throat. Tom inched forward. Proctor’s eyes were bloodshot and filled with hate.

“Drop it,” Tom said, aiming the MP5.

Proctor looked shocked when he registered Tom’s face. Tom figured he’d thought that Major Durrani had killed him. But then Proctor grinned insanely.

“I’ll bleed her like a pig,” he said.

Tom heard the woman’s breath quicken. It had to be her, he thought. It was then that he realized that the firing had stopped at the hamlet. At the same time he heard the spluttering sound from the outboard. Allowing himself to glance up, he saw the speedboat ticking over in the shallows, three dark-skinned men sitting in it.

“It’s … over,” he said, struggling to keep the extended butt of the weapon tucked into his shoulder.

Proctor screamed and jerked his arm away. Seeing that the woman had stabbed what looked like a nail into the man’s forearm, close to the elbow joint, Tom sank to his knees involuntarily, one eyelid closing over, the MP5 falling into his lap. Vaguely, he watched her scramble up, still gagged and blindfolded, and, teetering back and forth, she moved away from her kidnapper.

Tom tried to call out, but his words didn’t leave his mouth.
Run up the slope. Just run
.

But Proctor wasn’t done, either. He pushed himself up with his free hand and twisted his body in the direction of the woman, who’d only managed to hobble a couple of metres away. He swivelled the knife, manoeuvring it deftly between his thumb and forefinger. Pulling his arm back, he readied himself to throw it at her exposed back, a macabre smile breaking on his face, revealing nicotine-stained teeth.

Finding a last modicum of strength, Tom used his left hand to raise the muzzle as his right forefinger squeezed the trigger.

There was a short burst.

Then he collapsed sideways.