Authors: Chris Ryan
‘I know this place,’ Clara said breathlessly. ‘I was here before.’
Danny took in his surroundings. Ordnance had clearly hit in the last few minutes. The green, tree-lined area in the centre of the square was smoking and four or five of the trees that were still standing were burning ferociously. On the far side of the square Danny could make out a mosque, one minaret still intact, the other half-destroyed and also smoking.
‘Someone told me that this was where people who defy the government meet,’ Clara said. ‘Not any more, I guess . . .’
Basheba pointed to their eleven o’clock, where a low, sprawling, single-storey building was apparently untouched by the current bombardment. ‘The safe house,’ she shouted above the noise. ‘That’s Asu’s safe house!’
Distance: twenty-five metres. A single door at the front, but Danny would have put money on there being further exits at the side or the back. Ten metres from the door lay an uprooted tree, and its sprawling branches would give decent cover if he used it as an OP for the door.
‘
Get to the tree!
’ he shouted. ‘
Move!
’ They started to cut across the square, sweating from the heat of the burning trees. From the corner of his eyes Danny was aware of figures retreating from the square. Within thirty seconds the four of them were crouching by the fallen tree. ‘Listen,’ Danny shouted. ‘If they’re still in there, they’re going to be jumpy. Asu will be wondering if the government forces know where he is and if this aerial strike is aimed directly at him—’
‘It probably bloody well is!’ Buckingham hissed.
Danny ignored him. ‘If his men see me armed, they’ll get the wrong idea. Buckingham, Asu trusts you. You need to approach with the women. I’ll cover you from here.’
‘Oh,’ Buckingham sneered. ‘
Very
fucking brave.’
Danny grabbed him by the throat. ‘I’ll have you in my sights, pal. Any crap, I’ll drop you.’ He turned to Clara. ‘There’s no reason for you to approach. You should stay here.’
She shook her head. ‘Not until Basheba’s found her boy.’
Danny shrugged. ‘It’s your choice.’ He set himself up in the firing position, resting his M4 on the tree trunk and aiming it at the door. ‘Go,’ he instructed.
They made a strange trio, Basheba limping with her arm round Clara’s neck, Buckingham creeping along just behind them, his head darting left and right like a frightened animal. It was Clara who banged on the door: three solid thumps with her fist, and three more when there was no response. Only after a minute or so did the door open. An armed figure appeared. Danny recognised him: one of Asu’s personal guards. He felt a weird kind of relief. They could warn Asu, find the kid and then get out of here.
It was a feeling of relief that didn’t last long.
The attack, when it came, was so swift that Danny instantly recognised the hallmark of special forces. If the burning trees around him had not been crackling so ferociously, he might have heard the chopper arrive from the direction of the mosque. As it was, the enormous black Mi8 only came into earshot when it was almost above him. Seconds later it was hovering six or seven metres above the safe house. Everything happened so quickly. Asu’s bodyguard grabbed the women and pulled them into the safe house. Buckingham hesitated, but then he too was yanked inside. At the same time, four fast ropes fell from the chopper and black-clad commandos slid down them with the swift ease of well-practised soldiers. Russian, like the chopper? They looked too slick to be Syrian. Danny counted them: four, eight, twelve, sixteen. He could only watch. He’d have time to take out two, maybe three of them before the remainder laid down fire in his direction. There was no way he’d survive the onslaught of more than a dozen weapons.
But how did they know so precisely where Asu was? Danny’s face hardened as the thought came to him: Taff.
Of the sixteen commandos, six were now by the front door, while the remainder had taken up positions out of sight, presumably at the rear and sides of the safe house. The helicopter remained hovering over the house, but it spun round so its tail was pointing in Danny’s direction. A guy stood guard on each side of the front door. Two more, Danny realised, were carrying a pneumatic battering ram. They smashed through the door in seconds, dropped the battering ram and entered with the remaining two, all four with their weapons raised.
Danny took a second to examine the two soldiers guarding the door. Plate hangars. Kevlar helmets. If he was going to take them out, it would need shots to the face. Still shielded by the branches of the tree, he lined up the cross hairs with the face of the guy on the left. He fired. A single shot and he was down. At this range of ten metres, the round made a catastrophic mess of the soldier’s face. The thunder of the chopper above the house masked the retort of the rifle, giving Danny an extra half second before the man on the right realised what was happening. By that time it was too late. Another shot. Another kill.
He climbed over the tree trunk and sprinted the ten metres to the safe house. The door was ajar. Weapon engaged, he pushed it open with his right foot and stepped inside. An entrance hall, twenty metres long. It seemed to extend the entire length of this single-storey building. There was a door at the far end, guarded by a black-clad soldier who raised his weapon the moment Danny appeared. It was the last thing he ever did. Another round from Danny’s M4 and he lay dead on the floor.
There were four doors leading off the corridor, two on either side, and different sounds throbbed in the air: the chopper, the barking of voices in a language Danny instantly recognised as Russian, one gunshot, a second. More shouting, then screams. Danny kicked his way into the first room on the left. There were two soldiers in there, both with their backs to him. Against the far wall were between ten and fifteen of Asu’s child soldiers. Some of them were armed but none were sufficiently brave to raise their weapons against these two black-clad commandos.
The Russian SF soldiers, however, were raising theirs.
It was obvious to Danny what was about to happen. These child soldiers, some of them no older than ten, were about to be massacred.
He wouldn’t let that happen.
He shot the two soldiers from behind, pumping a single round into each man’s back at point-blank range. Their weapons clattered on the ground as they fell, and the children stared at the scene of sudden violence with a weird lack of emotion, as if they were used to such sights. None of them moved until Danny shouted ‘
Go!
’ and pointed at the door. As he stepped back into the corridor he was aware of the kids rushing towards the door, but he had to refocus his attention. There was movement at the far end of the house. Danny watched as two figures emerged from the second door on the right, about ten metres from his position. His finger was resting on the trigger of his M4, but he held his fire as he saw the scene unfold.
Clara and Buckingham had their hands on their heads and looked terrified. Danny expected one of Asu’s men to be with them, but his stomach turned as he saw that they were being held at gunpoint not by the Syrian rebels, but by three Spetznaz soldiers.
One of whom had clocked him and was about to fire.
Danny couldn’t risk a shot. The five figures at the far end of the corridor were all moving, and he was as likely to take out one of his companions as one of the enemy. He hit the ground just in time. A burst of rounds splintered into the wall just above him. There were screams from the child soldiers, but no casualties yet as they made their way out of the main door. One of the SF soldiers dropped to one knee in the firing position, clearly preparing to take Danny out. Staying still was his worst mistake. Danny already had his weapon trained on the target. The Russian went down before he could take a shot.
All the kids were out of the house. They were on their own now: there was nothing more Danny could do for them. All his concentration was on Buckingham and Clara. Of the two remaining soldiers, one was hustling them out of the rear door at the end of the corridor, the other was turning to fire on Danny. Danny took another shot, but this time his accuracy failed him. The round thudded into the back wall of the house, just inches from Clara. He rolled away, through the door of the first room – and just in time, because a burst of rounds thundered along the corridor. Had he still been in the line of fire, he’d have been mincemeat.
He jumped to his feet, desperately trying to work out his next play. These Russian commandos were here to eliminate the occupants of the safe house – that much was clear. That Clara and Buckingham were still alive could mean only one thing: somebody had decided that this stray British pair needed interrogating. And it wouldn’t happen here. The chopper was still hovering above. They had the means of extracting their hostages with ease.
Danny took a deep breath and peered round the door frame.
The corridor was empty. Clara, Buckingham and their Spetznaz guard were gone.
The door at the end was swinging open.
Danny advanced. As he passed the remaining doors – two on the right, one on the left – he kicked them in to see what secrets they contained. Dead bodies. Ten, maybe more, in each room. They were exclusively male, so far as he could see, and Danny assumed that these were Asu’s commanders and entourage, though their bodies were so freshly butchered by Spetznaz rounds that it was difficult to tell for sure. He looked for Basheba, and Asu himself. It was difficult to be sure, but he didn’t think they were among the dead.
He continued towards the back door. Ten metres. Five.
Something was happening outside. The noise of the Mi8 had grown louder. Closer. The door started swinging to and fro on its hinges. Each time it opened, Danny felt a rush of air against his face. When he was a metre from the door, he could feel the vibrations from the chopper’s engines judder through him. It was landing. The Spetznaz team were leaving, and any hostages would be going with them . . .
He kicked at the door with the rifle butt still pressed hard into his shoulder, taking in his surroundings in an instant.
The area behind the safe house was a dilapidated wasteland. It had once been a large courtyard, about twenty metres square, but the chain-link fencing that had enclosed it now lay on the ground, the uprights broken or ripped out. Surrounding the courtyard were the skeletons of bombed buildings. In most cases the front had crumbled and the roof had caved in. Inside, the ceilings had collapsed, littering the floors with rubble. They were clearly deserted.
Unlike the courtyard itself.
The Mi8 had landed. It sat, a great, black, hulking beast in the centre of the courtyard, its tail pointing towards Danny, its nose away from the safe house. Its rotors were spinning fast, flattening down the air and kicking up dust all around, so that Danny had to half-close his eyes. He was too late to stop the Spetznaz soldiers loading Buckingham and Clara into the chopper. Then, to his two o’clock, he saw Asu. Terror was etched on his face, but he didn’t look nearly so terrified as Basheba. The rebel leader had the crook of his left arm around her neck and was pressing a revolver to her right temple. A kid – Danny recognised him as Basheba’s boy – was tugging at his mother’s arm, screaming something that was totally drowned out by the aircraft’s noise.
What the hell did Asu think he was doing? Did the sickening coward really imagine that threatening Basheba’s life would stop these Spetznaz commandos from doing what they had come here to do? Did he really think they’d spare his life to save hers?
‘
Let her go!
’ Danny bellowed.
Too late.
It was the chopper’s side-gunner who took them. Even the thunder of the rotors couldn’t drown the sound of his Minigun, which was trained directly on all three Syrians from no more than six metres away. The short burst of 7.62mm killed them, of course, but it did more than that. At such close range the rebel leader, his daughter-in-law and her young son practically exploded on the spot. In a handful of seconds, once the nauseating flurry of guts had slapped down on to the ground, they didn’t so much resemble humans as butchered animal carcasses, cut open and bleeding.
Incoming fire. One of the Spetznaz soldiers who had forced Buckingham and Clara into the chopper had spotted Danny and was firing at him from the side of the chopper, even as it started to rise. Danny had no other option. He dived backwards, through the swinging door, into the relative safety of the house, landing with a thump next to the body of the commando he’d downed. He felt like shouting with frustration, like thumping his fists on the floor. Everything had happened so quickly, and now Basheba and her son were dead, while Buckingham and Clara were in enemy hands. In the three or four minutes since the contact had started, everything had gone to shit. The air stank of gunfire, flames and death, and a little voice inside Danny told him it was a miracle he wasn’t among the dead.
He stood. His intention was to get outside again, to see which way the helicopter was headed. But then he noticed movement at his feet.
The commando was still alive.
His face was creased with pain. Danny figured that the round from the M4 had hit his body armour and crushed a few ribs, knocking him out in the process. Now, though, he was coming round. Danny wasn’t going to give him enough time to get his bearings. He dropped heavily on the soldier’s chest, pressing his knees down hard on the plate hangars. The soldier’s eyes widened in agony.