Invasion (28 page)

Haseeb waited impatiently for his two scouts to report back. Behind him, his men had fanned out along both sides of the tunnel walls. It was a pity that the life of the Prime Minister was to be spared. It would have been a good kill, one to add to the many he’d made during—

His earpiece crackled and Haseeb winced as Mousa’s voice barked into his ear.

‘Haseeb, we have reviewed the surveillance tapes from the drone. It was disabled from behind. Acknowledge!’

Haseeb spun around, fingers tightening around his rifle. His men squatted along the tunnel walls, awaiting his orders. A few metres away, the shattered drone spat sparks. If it had been disabled from behind, then surely they would have made contact with whoever had—

Two things happened, almost simultaneously. For the first time, Haseeb noticed the nearby alcove in the tunnel wall. He’d seen them before, of course, but dismissed them immediately
as tactically inept places to hide, especially for a small group who were running for their lives. The second thing that happened was the sudden appearance of two small objects that sailed out from the recess only a few metres away. The objects bounced across the tunnel floor. There was no time to escape.

As he lobbed the grenades, Forsythe ducked his head and pulled his pistol. Seconds later, the detonation of the grenade almost burst his eardrums and he felt a sharp pain in his left shin as a white-hot fragment of metal buried itself deep into his flesh. The tunnel quickly filled with thick green smoke and he heard screaming and angry shouts.

Keeping low, he crawled forward out of the alcove and turned to his left. A burst of machine gun fire raked the tunnel wall around his head, soon joined by another. He heard screaming close by and found the source: an Afghan soldier clutching his groin in agony. Forsythe crawled up over his blood-soaked
legs and then across his torso. He jammed his pistol in the man’s chest and fired twice. The body went limp beneath him and he tore the man’s machine pistol from his shoulder strap. He heard voices shouting behind him as thick green smoke swirled around the tunnel.

Forsythe kept moving, crawling away from the smoke towards the distant platform. Soon, the green fog began to thin out and through the haze he could see the lights of the tunnel wall. Now the enemy was behind him. He rose to his knees and checked the weapon. A full magazine
; g
ood. Forsythe thought the odds were beginning to stack in his favour.

Apart from the screams and moans of the wounded, he could hear no more firing. The enemy troops were obviously afraid of hitting each other in the confusion and, before the smoke fully cleared, Forsythe decided to create some more havoc. He set the weapon to full auto and raked both sides of the tunnel with two long bursts. He threw the empty weapon to one side and headed towards the platform, rewarded by the sound of fresh screaming.

Ahead of him he saw see a pair of boots. They were splayed at an awkward angle and Forsythe realised the man was dead, killed by a grenade by the look of his wounds. He quickly scooped up the man’s weapon,
turned and fired again across the whole width of the tunnel, keeping his shots low. This time he was answered with a short burst of fire that whizzed over his head and chewed up the concrete ceiling behind him. Forsythe cut across the tracks, trying to keep one step ahead of the enemy. He moved forward, a little more quickly now, eager to escape.

Another movement ahead caught his eye and he dropped to one knee and fired his pistol. The figure cried out and hit the floor hard. He heard a scrape behind him and turned to see another soldier dragging himself along the ground, a slick trail of blood on the floor behind him.

Forsythe surged forward. He had taken three or four steps when he lost his footing. He came down hard, his helmet spinning loose from his head and he cried out in pain as his right arm shattered on the concrete floor. His pistol skidded away from him under the impact. Then he felt a vice-like grip encasing his ankle and he spun around in alarm. His fear increased
as the final wisps of green smoke evaporated to reveal the fearsome, bloodied mask of the big Afghan he’d seen earlier. Forsythe pulled back his other foot to kick him in the face but, before he could, the Afghan buried a large knife into his left calf muscle. Forsythe screamed in agony.

Haseeb dragged himself to his knees, the Infidel’s ankle still locked in his huge fist. He brought the knife down again and again, the thick blade shredding the soft flesh under the Infidel’s trousers and scraping agonisingly against the bone. The effort was excruciating.
Haseeb’s body was peppered with grenade fragments and a bullet had lodged under his armpit. Blood coursed down his face from several fragments in his head and his beard was slick and matted with
dark blood. It was only pure hatred that kept him moving. He had failed, he knew that. The majority of his SERTRAK team lay dead or wounded, taken out by a single man, the man that lay before him. It was this white-haired
Infidel that was the cause of his downfall. He crawled forward over the Infidel’s body.

Forsythe tried to fight the man off as the weight of his body crushed his butchered calf. Never had he known such pain. He saw the knife rise up and screamed as it plunged into his stomach, then again between his ribs. A hand gripped his webbing and the big man, the leader, muttering through blood-soaked teeth, dragged himself over Forsythe until he straddled his torso. The Brigadier felt his strength
fading fast. He brought his hand up to his chest, keyed his radio several times, then set it to permanent send. His arm dropped to his side.

‘Your friends cannot help you now, Infidel,’ hissed Haseeb. ‘The time of your death has come.’

With each word, blood sprayed across the Infidel’s face. Haseeb’s breathing was laboured now. He thought the bullet might have penetrated a lung because it was getting hard to breathe, but he still had time. He fumbled with the fastenings of the Brigadier’s body armour and he tore it off. With a huge effort, Haseeb raised the knife in both hands and punched it deep into the Infidel’s chest. The old man’s head came off the ground, his eyes as wide as saucers
as his body doubled under the impact of the blow. He let out a blood-curdling
scream and Haseeb raised the knife and stabbed him again. This time the Brigadier went limp, the knife sunk to its pommel in his bloodied chest.

Exhausted, Haseeb slumped
sideways and sprawled on his back, his energy spent. Death would come for him soon. Darkness closed around his peripheral vision and he prayed that Allah would welcome him into paradise. He heard footsteps close by and the next moment two of his men were kneeling by his side. Ah, the scouts. They began to treat Haseeb’s wounds, rummaging for field dressings and medicines in their personal kit, but they were wasting their time. Haseeb could no longer feel his legs, a sure sign of massive blood
loss. Soon
his heart
would
fail.

As his men busied themselves, the Afghan wondered briefly what they had discovered, then dismissed the thought. It was of little concern to him now. Others would take up the pursuit. Allah had other plans for him.

Haseeb didn’t react when the first soldier’s face disappeared
in a red spray of blood and tissue, but he roared in pain when the other man was similarly despatched and dropped onto Haseeb’s shattered body.
Moments passed and his breathing became more laboured. A shadow fell across his face and he looked up to see a silhouette looming over him. Another Infidel. He smiled. So be it.

Mike Gibson’s eyes roamed the tunnel. The two mid-range
headshots
had been fairly easy, but Gibson was sickened to see the knife that protruded from Forsythe’s chest. He stood over the big Afghan and drew his pistol. As the wounded man closed his eyes and began to mutter something unintelligible, Gibson shot him in the mouth.

He looked around at the devastation and was quietly impressed. The Boss had managed to take out a whole squad of troops. A quick scout around revealed that two of the men around him were still alive, but only just. Three blood trails led away from the scene of the action and Gibson decided to let them go. But there was something he could do.

Gathering grenades from the corpses, he booby-trapped several enemy bodies in the immediate vicinity. It was a distasteful task, but the situation was becoming increasingly desperate and he needed to buy as much time as possible. When he’d
finished setting the explosives, he leant over Forsythe’s body and quickly pulled the knife from his chest, flinging it to one side. He tugged a single dog tag from around the Brigadier’s neck, slipped in into his pocket and headed back to the platform.

‘General, we’ve lost contact with the SERTRAK team.’

Mousa scraped back his chair and walked swiftly over to the command screen. He could see the glowing icons that represented the individual SERTRAK members in the tunnel near the crashed drone, but they were not moving and all attempts to communicate with them had failed.

‘Get another drone up that tunnel fast. And get Major Karroubi on the line. I want a company of paratroopers right behind it!’ Mousa walked back to his chair and kicked it hard across the room. He suffered a fleeting bout of panic, realising that his quarry, once tantalisingly close, might now escape. That was unacceptable. Mission failure would be more than a personal blow. It would also dent his credibility with the highest power in all of Arabia. He looked at his watch. The sun would be up soon. Mousa had a dreadful feeling that, with the coming of daylight, the British Prime Minister would be lost to him, maybe for good. He was racing against the dawn.

He checked the command display again. The tunnel headed
northeast
towards another so-called royal palace, this one in Kensington Gardens. He barked another order.

‘Al-Bitruji! Have two companies of your men proceed to Kensington Palace. Order the engineers to take it apart and find the entrance to the tunnel system. There must be one there. Hurry!’

Al-Bitruji complied, finding it difficult to keep the smile from his face. For the first time since he’d known the man, he thought he detected a hint of panic in Mousa’s voice. This mission was everything
to the arrogant bastard, and failure might not be taken lightly by the Holy One. Perhaps it would be his downfall. If that were so, then Al-Bitruji would gladly see it happen. There was still a hand to be dealt here, he thought. If he played that hand correctly, maybe he himself would replace Mousa at the right hand of the Cleric. This could be the opportunity he had waited for.

Within a few minutes, troop transports and armoured vehicles began to roll out of Buckingham Palace, roaring up Constitution Hill towards the dark expanse of Hyde Park.

Inside the windowless concrete room, Harry and Farrell heard the clang of the steel door at the bottom of the staircase
far below them. The sound made Harry jump, rattling his already-frayed
nerves as he paced backwards and forwards. Farrell went down a couple of flights and returned a moment later.

‘It’s Mike, Sir. Looks like he’s on his own.’

Farrell sat down at the single table on which sat a sophisticated military radio set. There were several other monitors built into the wall above the table, each linked to surveillance cameras surrounding the small building in which they now waited. A few moments later Gibson entered the room, breathing hard.

‘Anything?’ he gasped.

Farrell shook his head. ‘Not yet.’

Gibson then briefed Harry on recent events. Harry leaned against the wall, rubbing his tired eyes with balled fists. So much death. God only knew what it was like across the rest of the country. He shivered, despite the stuffiness of the room, and Gibson laid a hand on Harry’s shoulder.

‘You okay, Sir?’

Harry nodded. This was no time to start dwelling on the lives that had been lost on this awful night. He had to keep it together. ‘I’m alright, Mike. What now?’ Gibson jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘No contact with Alternate One
yet and the sun’ll be up in about an hour. If we can’t raise ’em by then we’ll have
to hole up elsewhere during daylight hours. Of course, if we leave here we won’t have an encrypted radio set, which means we won’t be able to raise Alternate One. In that case, we’ll have to head west on our own.’

Harry nodded grimly. ‘How would we-’

‘Contact! Alternate One, we are receiving you, strength five by five, over!’ Farrell turned and gave them the thumbs up, a wide grin on his face. Harry
was
summoned to the microphone and his voice-print quickly confirmed. Gibson took the headset next, nodding several times. He asked a few pertinent questions then broke the link. He wrenched the power from the radio and smashed it on the ground, kicking the shattered components around the floor. Harry was horrified.

‘For God’s sake, Mike! What if-’

Gibson cut him off. ‘We’ve got our orders and we can’t leave the kit intact for obvious reasons. We’ve got to move now. This may be our only chance of getting out of the city before it’s too late.’

‘What about your other colleagues? Brooks, is it? And the other one?’

‘They’re trained for this type of work. They’ll
stay out of the way, head west.’