Bad Soldier: Danny Black Thriller 4 (25 page)

‘Get used to it,’ Danny said. ‘Because that’s what’s happening.’

‘Fine,’ Rojan said. ‘Get out of the car.
We’ll
cross the river, Naza and me. When we’re on the other side, you can walk across. I’ll cover you with my gun.’ He jabbed his thumb backwards to indicate the fifty-cal on the back of the Hilux.

Danny thought about it. It was hardly ideal. Rojan would be putting himself right in the firing line. But if he was willing to do it, they could, maybe, make this work. Because if there was a vehicle fording the river, it would hold the attention of anyone watching it. Which meant that any other activity on the river might go unnoticed . . .

He turned to the other members of his team. Spud nodded, almost imperceptibly. He clearly knew the risk the Kurd was taking, and what Danny was thinking.

‘Naza stays with us,’ Caitlin says.

‘No way,’ said Rojan. ‘She’s my sister, she stays with me—’

‘No,’ Danny interrupted. ‘She’s just a kid. I’m not letting you put her in the firing line.’

‘But—’

‘Forget it,’ Caitlin cut in. ‘You do it alone, or we turn back now.’ She looked so fiercely at Rojan that he instantly backed down.

Naza being a kid was only half the reason for holding her back, of course. They needed at least one of them alive, if they were to hook up with their Kurdish mates on the Iraqi side of the border.

‘Do you know how deep the water gets on either side of the ford?’ Danny said.

Rojan, still sulking, put his right hand at the level of his chest. ‘Maybe a bit higher,’ he said, ‘in this weather.’

Danny sniffed, and wiped a drop of rain from his eyes. ‘OK. You take the vehicle. The rest of us will wade through the river on foot. We’ll be behind you and to your left. If you get into trouble, we can supply fire support.’

‘There won’t be any trouble,’ Rojan said confidently.

‘We’ll see,’ Danny murmured. ‘We need to unload our gear.’

‘The weapons container stays with me,’ Rojan replied.

That was fine by Danny. He got back out into the pouring rain, along with Spud, Caitlin and Naza. They grabbed their bergens from the back of the Hilux. Before they slung them over their shoulders, however, they silently went about the business of preparing their packs for the river crossing. Each bergen had a waterproof lining, with a ziplock-type seal at the top. Danny checked the seal was firmly closed. This would not only keep the contents watertight; the air trapped inside would turn the bergen into a makeshift flotation device – very hard to sink, and useful to hold on to if they found themselves getting washed away. He had two full water canteens in the side of the bergen, which he emptied out before returning them to the side pockets. The empty bottles would add to the bergen’s buoyancy.

Spud and Caitlin were finishing the same operation while Danny moved to the driver’s window, where Rojan had taken his place behind the wheel and was scratching his closed-up eye socket. ‘Wait ten minutes,’ he said. ‘That should give us enough time to get to the water’s edge. When you move, keep your headlamps off. And drive slowly – it’ll keep the engine noise down. Do you understand?’

Rojan faced forward and nodded curtly. He clearly didn’t like taking instructions.

‘When you get to the other side, point your machine gun to the south-east. That’s the direction we saw the vehicle leaving.’

‘I know that,’ Rojan said. ‘I’m not stupid. Just go. It will be dawn soon.’ He wound up his window without looking at Danny.

Danny swore under his breath. He didn’t have time to argue. He estimated that they’d lose the cover of darkness in twenty-five minutes.

If they were going to cross the border, it had to be now.

Thirteen

‘Do you understand what we’re doing?’ Caitlin asked Naza.

The girl looked unsure. She didn’t answer.

‘There’s the river,’ Caitlin said. ‘On the other side of the river is the border fence. Your brother cut a hole in it, which means people on the other side might be expecting us to cross. So your brother is taking the vehicle across by himself. While he does that, we’re going to wade through the river, out of sight. It’s our best chance of keeping safe.’

‘What if Daesh shoot at him?’ Naza asked.

‘Then we’ll shoot back.’

Naza looked across at her brother, who was still sitting behind the wheel, scratching his eye.

‘He’s very brave,’ Naza said.

‘Yeah,’ Caitlin muttered. ‘He’s a regular Ned Kelly.’

Danny walked up to them. ‘Stick close to her,’ Danny told Naza, pointing at Caitlin. ‘When I raise my hand like this, get to the ground immediately. You understand?’

Naza nodded.

Caitlin took Danny to one side. She spoke quietly so Naza couldn’t hear them. ‘If the crossing is compromised, Rojan’s a dead man.’

‘I know,’ Danny said, glancing at the kid.

The three unit members engaged their NV goggles. Danny jogged over to Rojan’s vehicle. The Kurd lowered his window. ‘Give us ten minutes to get to the river,’ Danny said. ‘Then make the crossing.’

Rojan nodded wordlessly, then shut his window. Danny returned to the others. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. He led them back up the slope, with Caitlin directly behind him, then Naza, then Spud. As before, they stopped short of the brow of the hill and Danny carefully scanned the area beyond the border fence. There was no sign of any movement or threat. Maybe Rojan was right. Maybe this was a safe crossing.

But Danny was not about to risk the safety of his team on the back of a maybe.

Crouching low, they crested the top of the hill and hurried back down below the ridge where they would be less visible. They struck off at a bearing of thirty degrees anticlockwise, so that when they hit the river they would be well clear of the shallow ford where Rojan would be crossing. Advancing carefully, it took five minutes for them to hit the water’s edge 100 metres east of the ford. Here it was marshy underfoot, and difficult to walk among the waist-high reeds that lined the river, and which were battered by the heavy rain. Spud stood four metres to Danny’s left. Caitlin and Naza stood an equivalent distance to his right. This was the correct positioning. Danny could see there was a reasonably fast current, flowing from right to left. Danny and Spud would be able to withstand it, and so would Caitlin if she was on her own. But with Naza clinging on to her, there was a chance of them being knocked downstream. Danny and Spud would be there to catch her if necessary.

Danny looked over his right shoulder. In the green haze of his NV, he could see the Hilux slowly cresting the hill towards the crossing point. He loosened his bergen so that it was hanging over just one shoulder. He held his weapon, cocked and locked, horizontally in front of him. Then he waded out, through the reeds, into the river. He was entirely soaked already, so the river water did not make his shoes or clothes any wetter. But he could instantly tell that the running water was several degrees colder than the air. The current was also a little faster than he’d anticipated. He hoped Caitlin would be able to hold on to Naza.

The unit waded forward in a flat line. The river bed was soft, and Danny’s boots sank a good couple of inches into the mud. Eight metres out, he checked on the position of the Hilux again. It had only just reached the bottom of the hill. It looked like Rojan was taking Danny’s advice about driving slowly. Good.

The river became suddenly, unexpectedly deeper. Danny sank up to his chest and almost lost his footing. He felt his bergen floating obstinately behind him. The noise of the rain fizzed on the surface of the water, but he could still hear Naza gasp. He looked to his left, ready to catch her if necessary, but Caitlin had one arm round the girl, and she looked rock solid against the current.

Thirty metres in. Seventy metres to the far side. The river depth had remained constant. The current, if anything, was a little weaker here, making it easier for them to wade across. Over his shoulder, Danny saw that the Hilux had reached the water’s edge. It stopped for a few seconds, then moved slowly into the river.

The unit continued moving forward. They were halfway across now, and Danny thought he could maybe feel the water becoming an inch or two shallower. Looking to his right, he could see that Naza was shivering badly. They needed to get her out of the water as quickly as possible—

‘Shit.’ Spud’s voice to Danny’s left. ‘What the hell’s he
doing
?’

Danny looked again. Now it was his turn to swear. The Hilux was halfway across the river, 100 metres due west of their position. It had picked up speed. Plumes of churned-up water were spewing from its wheel arches. And even over the noise of the rain, Danny could now hear the vehicle’s engine – a high-pitched scream as it revved its way through the water.

The unit instinctively lowered themselves so the water lapped over their shoulders. Danny kept eyes on the Hilux. It was only thirty metres from the far side of the river now. Twenty metres. Ten.

He looked beyond, desperately scanning the Iraqi side for threats.

Nothing.

Rojan was going to make it.

He was emerging from the river and heading towards the gap in the fence—

Danny saw the explosion before he heard it. In an instant, the Hilux transformed into a massive fireball. A split second later, the roar of the explosion hit their ears. It was massively loud, even from this distance across the water. Danny knew for a certainty that it would have been heard for a radius of at least a mile. Burning debris shot up into the air, and there were a number of secondary explosions – probably the ammunition in the weapons canister detonating.

A scream from Naza. Blood-curdling. ‘
MY BROTHER!
’

‘
Get under the water!
’ Danny shouted. But Spud had already done that, and Caitlin was in the process of dragging Naza under to protect them from any flying debris. Danny struggled out of his bergen, took a deep breath and then pushed himself under the floating pack.

Ten seconds. Twenty. He remerged, knowing that any shrapnel would now have fallen. The Hilux was a flaming shell. But even worse, he could see the headlamps of a vehicle beyond it, on the other side of the broken border fence. Impossible to tell its distance under these conditions. Maybe 500 metres? Maybe less. But definitely approaching. Fast.

‘
Get back to the Turkish side!
’ he yelled. But a moment later, he realised that wouldn’t be possible. Naza was no longer with Caitlin. They’d become separated. The Kurdish girl was now moving downstream, all arms and legs, a riot of splashes. She was at least twenty metres away, out of control, and the current was pushing her towards the Iraqi side.

Even worse, Caitlin was following her.

The headlamps were getting closer to the burning Hilux. Less than 400 metres, at an estimate. Spud was next to Danny. ‘
We can’t get separated!
’ he shouted.

He was right. They were more effective as a unit of three. It meant following Caitlin. ‘
Go!
’ he said, before launching himself after the women. He felt himself having to restrain a surge of panic. It would only take the headlamps of that vehicle to fall in the wrong direction and they’d be lit up like a Christmas tree. They needed cover, fast. That meant getting to the reeds on the Iraqi side as quickly as possible. Danny half-ran, half-swam, surging through the water that suddenly felt as thick as molasses. Up ahead, he saw Caitlin grab Naza, who was shivering and clearly in a state of great panic.

The water was only waist-deep now, the far side fifteen metres away. Danny checked on the approaching vehicle. It was 100 metres from the blazing Hilux, which put it about 170 metres from the unit’s position, and approaching the gap in the border fence. Close enough for them to be seen if they were unlucky. ‘
Move!
’ he hissed at the others. They surged forward towards the bank, covering the final ten metres in less than ten seconds. The border fence was twenty metres away. As soon as they reached the reeds, they flung themselves down into them, half submerged in the marshy ground. Spud was within earshot, about three metres to his left, while Caitlin and Naza were ten metres behind him. He could hear Naza crying and struggling. ‘Caitlin, keep her quiet,’ Danny hissed into his radio. He slung his wet rucksack in front of him, used it to rest his weapon on, raised his NV goggles and surveyed the scene through the sight on his weapon. ‘
No one move
,’ he whispered.

His field of view was somewhat obscured by the reeds, but he could make out the bare bones of what was unfolding ahead of him. The vehicle had reached the remains of the Hilux, from which thick smoke was now billowing as the rain hit the flames. Whatever had destroyed it was no makeshift IED. Danny’s money was on an anti-tank mine. But who the hell would be laying serious explosives like that? Danny flicked through the possibilities in his mind. IS militants? Turkish border guards? He didn’t think so.

He remembered Hammond’s warning before they deployed. ‘
You realise that you won’t be the only SF team on the ground in northern Iraq 
. . .’

Men emerged from the new vehicle. At least seven, maybe eight. They were armed and possibly dressed in camouflage gear, though it was difficult to see through the rain. He couldn’t make out their faces. But he
could
tell, by the way they surrounded the Hilux with their weapons prepared, that they weren’t idiots. They were taking the time to double-check that there was no chance of any threat coming from the smouldering shell of the vehicle.