Kill Zone (A Spider Shepherd Short Story) (6 page)

 
Jock and Shepherd rode at the head of
the column, with Lex, Todd and Jimbo behind them and Geordie as “Tail-end
Charlie” at the rear of the line. They rode without lights, their Passive Night
Goggles allowing them enough vision to avoid potholes and obstacles in the
path. They passed through fields of opium poppies. Milked of their sap, the
remaining seed heads had withered and dried brown and hard under the fierce
Afghan sun and as the mopeds passed between them, they made a rattling sound
that Shepherd could hear above the sound of the moped engine.

Jock led the way
up a ridge, following the ghostly line of an animal track and passing the
skeleton of a long dead goat. Stripped by vultures of its flesh, patches of
skin still clung to the bleached bones, mummified by the sun and the dry cold
wind that was constantly blowing through the mountains.

The night was
icy, the wind stinging their faces as they cleared the top of the ridge. Jock
checked his GPS,
 
signalled to the
rest of the team, silenced his engine and freewheeled down the slope, towards
the dark, indistinct shape of a tall building set into a fold of the hills.

They hid the
mopeds in a clump of trees a hundred yards from the target and moved forward on
foot, carrying the sections of ladder and the prepared charges, and leaving a
faint trail of their boot-prints on the frost-covered ground. Shepherd caught a
whiff of woodsmoke on the breeze as they approached from downwind, and a moment
later, the tall shape of the target building loomed out of the surrounding
darkness, the wall facing them glowing an eerie yellow through the goggles as
it caught and reflected the moonlight filtering through the clouds.

There was a
straggle of huts and outbuildings surrounding it and a pile of rubble that
might once have been another house. While the others kept watch on the main
building, Jimbo and Geordie made sure that all the outbuildings were deserted.

 
They dug in and watched the main
building. In the early hours of the night, two small groups of men arrived and
left again. Another hour passed and then a solitary figure, shrouded by a black
cloak, emerged from the door and disappeared into the darkness. After that,
there was no more traffic, and the faint glow of a lantern inside the building
was extinguished well before midnight.

Eventually the
area was in darkness, the cloud cover masked the starlight. They waited another
full hour before assembling the ladder. Shepherd and Todd crept silently towards
the building while the others set up a cordon and covered them. Even if any of
the Taliban managed to escape before the charges were detonated, they would not
avoid the deadly crossfire from the waiting soldiers.

Shepherd and the
Captain placed the ladder against the wall and, after listening for any sound
from within the building, Shepherd climbed up and began to place shaped charges
against the wall on each floor. He allowed the cables of the initiators to
trail over his shoulder as he moved up. When he’d finished, he slid back down
the ladder without using the rungs, slowing his descent by using his hands and
feet on the outside of the uprights as brakes. He glanced at Todd and mimed
protecting his ears.

Todd slipped
round the corner and Shepherd followed him, pressing his fingers into his ears
to protect them from the shock wave as he triggered the charges. The blasts of
the three shaped charges came so close together that they could have been a
single explosion.

Within seconds of
the detonation, Shepherd was on the move, rushing up the ladder with Todd hard
on his heels. The two men stormed through the gaping hole that had been blown
in the top floor wall. A thick fog of dust and debris still hung in the air as
they swung around their AK74s. Four Taliban lay on the floor, killed as they
lay sleeping, their internal organs pulverised by the devastating concussive
force of the blast wave. They moved slowly through the building, clearing the
rooms one at a time.

The top two
floors were sleeping areas, littered with Taliban dead, but the ground floor
was where the cash was stored and disbursed. As they blew in the walls, the
shaped charges had created a blizzard of hundred dollar bills.
 
The cash was all in US dollars, traded
for drugs in Pakistan, extorted from businesses in the areas they controlled,
or plundered from the avalanches of cash that the Americans had been pouring
into the country in their attempts to buy the loyalty of warlords and tribal
elders. Stacked on the floor were crates of ammunition, a few rocket-propelled
grenades and a rack of AK 47s.

They turned over
the last bodies, three men killed as they slept around the fire on the ground
floor. Their faces were contorted in their death agony, but none of them had
the distinctive milky white eye of Ahmad Khan. ‘He’s not here,’ Shepherd said.
‘We missed him. Bastard.’ He looked over at the Captain.
 
‘No point in leaving what’s left of the
cash and weapons and ammo for any Taliban who turn up later,’ he said. ‘Flip
your goggles up or turn your back while I get a nice fire going for them. The
flare in your goggles will blind you for ten minutes if you don’t.’

He dragged a few
bits of bedding, rags and broken chairs and tables together in the centre of
the room, kicked the embers of the fire across the floor and then stacked boxes
of the Taliban’s ammunition next to the pile. He surveyed his handiwork for a
moment, then scooped up a stray $100 bill and set fire to it.
 
He dropped it onto the pile of debris
and waited until it was well alight before murmuring into his throat mic,
‘Coming out’.

Todd climbed out
through the hole in the wall first. As Shepherd moved to follow him, he heard
the whiplash crack of an assault rifle and saw Todd fall backwards. There was a
second crack as the Captain dropped to the ground, gouts of blood pumping from
his throat. Shepherd had seen no muzzle flash but heard answering fire from the
SAS cordon and swung up his own weapon, loosing off a burst, firing blind just
to keep the muj heads down before he slid down the ladder and ran over to Todd
and crouched next to him.

Todd lay sprawled
in the dirt, blood still spouting from his throat. The first round had struck his
head, close to the left ear, gouging out a chunk of skull.
 
The second had torn out Todd’s larynx.
Either wound might have been fatal, the two together guaranteed it. Shepherd
cursed under his breath, took a syrette of morphine and injected him, squeezing
the body of the syrette to push out the drug like toothpaste from a tube. He
began fixing a trauma dressing over the wounds, even though he knew he was
merely going through the motions, because nothing could save the Captain now.
Death was seconds away, a minute or so at the most.

Once the
dressings were in place he cradled Todd’s head against his chest, listening to
the wet, sucking sound of the air bubbling through his shattered larynx as
blood soaked his shirt.

The Captain
grabbed at his arm as his body began to shudder.
 
There were more bursts of fire off to Shepherd’s left.
 
Todd was staring at Shepherd, his eyes
fearful. ‘You did good, Captain,’ Shepherd said. ‘You did good.’

A fresh spasm
shook Todd, his eyes rolled up into his head and he slumped sideways to the
ground.

As Shepherd
looked up, he saw a movement in the shadows by a pile of rubble at the edge of
the compound. A dark shape resolved itself into a crouching figure and Shepherd
saw a milky-white eye staring at him, though, seen through his goggles, it
glowed an eerie yellow. Shepherd grabbed his weapon and swung it up but in the
same instant he saw a double muzzle flash. The first round tugged at his
sleeve, but the next smashed into his shoulder, a sledgehammer blow knocking
him flat on his back, leaving the burst of fire from his own weapon arcing
harmlessly into the sky.

A further burst
of fire chewed the ground around him, and his face was needled by cuts from
rock splinters, though they were no more than gnat bites compared with the
searing pain in his shoulder. From the corner of his eye, Shepherd saw Jock
swivelling to face the danger and loosing off a controlled burst of double
taps, but Ahmad Khan had already ducked into cover behind the rubble.

Shepherd looked
down at his shoulder. There was a spreading pool of blood on his jacket,
glistening like wet tar in the flickering light of the muzzle flashes as his
team kept up a barrage of suppressing fire.

Jimbo ran over,
pulling a field dressing from his jacket. ‘Stay down,’ he shouted and slapped
the dressing over the bullet wound. Shepherd took slow, deep breaths and fought
to stay calm. ‘Geordie, get over here !’ shouted Jimbo. ‘Spider’s hit!’

 
Geordie sprinted over, bent double. He
looked at Todd but could see without checking that the Captain was already
dead.
 
He hurried over to Shepherd.
‘You okay?’ he asked.

Shepherd shook
his head. He was far from okay. He opened his mouth to speak but the words were
lost as he coughed and choked and his mouth filled with blood. Helpless, he saw
the dark shape of the Taliban killer move away, inching around the rubble heap
and then disappearing into the darkness beyond. He tried to point at the
escaping Afghan but all the strength had drained from his arms.

‘I’m on it,’ said
Jimbo, standing up and firing a burst in the direction of the escaping Afghan.

Spider tried to
sit up but Geordie’s big, powerful hand pressed him flat again. ‘Keep still and
let me work on you,’ he growled.
 
Geordie clamped the trauma pad over the wound, compressed it and bound
it as tight as he could. ‘Oboe! Oboe! All stations minimize,’ said Geordie into
his mic, SAS-speak ordering all unnecessary traffic off the radios. Geordie
looked down at Shepherd and slapped him gently across the face. ‘Stay with me
Spider.’

Shepherd nodded.
‘I’m all right,’ he said, though each word was a strain.

Geordie spoke
into his mic again. ‘Oboe! Oboe! We have casualties: Alpha 1, Alpha 5. One KIA,
one serious trauma of the right shoulder and chest. He needs fluids fast and
we’ve no plasma or saline because of weight limits. We have to get him out of
here. Request immediate casevac. Repeat: one serious trauma of chest and
shoulder, request immediate casevac.’

Geordie was
leaning over Shepherd again. ‘I can’t give you morphine yet, Spider, we need
you alert for this. We’re going to have to take you out Red Indian style.’

Jock rushed over
with a section of the ladder that Shepherd had used to gain access to the
building. Jock and Geordie lifted Shepherd onto the ladder and tied him to it
with a nylon tac line.

Jock nodded over
at the body of the Captain. ‘We’re taking him with us,’ he said.

Geordie nodded.
Todd was dead but the SAS made a point of not leaving its people behind, no
matter what the circumstances.

Covered by fire
from Jimbo and Lex, they ran with their makeshift stretcher to the first RV
point where they’d left the mopeds. Geordie began lashing the end of the ladder
to the back of one of them, leaving the other end and Shepherd’s feet trailing
in the dirt.
 
Jock ran to get
another section of ladder and lashed Todd to it before dragging it back to the
mopeds.

Shepherd heard a
voice in his earpiece. ‘Speed it up. They’re round us like flies on shit.’ He
couldn’t tell if it was Jimbo or Lex.

Drawn by the
noise of firing and explosions, tribesmen and Taliban fighters were pouring
from their scattered huts and houses and racing over the fields towards the
burning building. They fired from the hip as they ran so their bullets went
wide. Jimbo and Lex fired methodically, taking out more than a dozen of the
Taliban fighters with carefully-placed shots.

Geordie fired a
short bust at the wheels of Shepherd and Todd’s mopeds, disabling them so that
the Taliban couldn’t use them to give chase.
 
Jock attached the ladder with Todd’s body to the back of
Geordie’s moped, then checked it was secure.
 
‘Let’s get out of here!’ he shouted.

Jock climbed on to
the moped attached to Shepherd’s makeshift stretcher. ‘This is going to hurt,
Spider, but we’ve got to get you out of here.’

Shepherd nodded,
using his hand to keep the pressure on the dressing.
  
Jock kicked the engine into life.

As Jimbo and Lex
continued to give covering fire, Jock and Geordie sped away. Shepherd gritted
his teeth as the improvised stretcher bumped and jolted over the rough terrain.
Jimbo and Lex fired final bursts, climbed onto their mopeds and sped after Jock
and Geordie.

Behind them, they
heard a barrage of explosions and saw the sky light up with tracer as the fire
in the burning building reached the Taliban’s ammunition store.

Every bump and
jolt caused Shepherd agonising pain but he clamped his jaw to stop himself from
crying out and tried to focus on the column of flame shrinking behind them as
they sped towards the heli landing site. They had covered only half the
distance when Shepherd heard Geordie’s voice in his earpiece, ‘We’ll have to
stop. The jolting’s loosened his trauma pads, he’s bleeding like a stuck pig.’