Kill Zone (A Spider Shepherd Short Story) (7 page)

‘Roger that,’
said Jock, applying his brakes.
 
‘Alpha
3 and 7 drop back and set up an Immediate Ambush. Buy us a little time.’

The bikes slewed
to a halt as Jimbo and Lex peeled off and circled back before jumping off their
bikes and diving into cover.

Jock stayed on
his moped as Geordie hurried over to Shepherd.

Shepherd felt the
fierce pressure on his chest as Geordie slapped on a fresh trauma pack and
tightened the bindings with a savage jerk.

‘Are you okay,
mate?’ asked the medic.

Shepherd nodded
and grunted. He could feel blood still oozing from the wound and it hurt like
hell, but he didn’t feel weak and he wasn’t going numb so he figured that the
injury was survivable, so long as they got him back to base without delay.

A moment later
the agonised bumping and jolting began again as the moped sped on towards the
LZ. Behind them there was the chatter of firing as Lex and Jimbo let rip with
their AK74s, cutting down three of their pursuers and sending the rest diving
for cover. Moments later the SAS men were mobile again, gunning their mopeds as
they sped over the dusty terrain towards the hill where the Chinook was already
landing, its rotors thundering in the night air.

Lex and Jimbo
took up defensive positions while Jock and Geordie manhandled Shepherd’s
improvised stretcher onto the tailgate. The helicopter’s six-barreled M134
Minigun, operated by the co-pilot from the side window, unleashed a further
torrent of fire at the Taliban pursuers as they closed on the hill.

Geordie checked
Shepherd’s dressing while Jock ran back for the Captain. He threw the body over
his shoulder and ran back to the Chinook.
 
Lex and Jimbo fired final bursts at the Taliban fighters and then threw
themselves into the belly of the helicopter.

There was a shout
of ‘Go! Go! Go!’ and the Chinook’s still-bellowing engines wound up another
octave and the airframe juddered and shuddered as the heli lumbered forward.

Shepherd felt a
sudden drop in the pit of his stomach as, engines screaming, the Chinook
plunged off the hilltop and dropped. The whirling rotors fought to generate
lift and then the helicopter started to climb. It climbed higher, swinging away
from the pursuit, the tinny rattle of a few last rounds against its armoured
fuselage fading as it climbed higher and set a course for the distant base at
Bagram.

Shepherd felt the
stab of a morphine syrette in his arm. At once his agony began to fade into a
hazy blur and he heard Geordie’s voice as if it was coming to him from the
bottom of a well. ‘I need to get the bullet out and tie off some of these
bleeders.’

Jock shouted over
the roar of the engines. ‘We’re airborne. Geordie, do what you need to do.’

Geordie loomed
over Shepherd. ‘Spider, I’m going to have to take the bullet out now so I can
stem the bleeding.’

‘Just do it,’
said Shepherd, and he gritted his teeth.

Shepherd saw the
glint of steel and felt the bite as the scalpel opened the wound further and
Geordie began probing for the bullet.

Shepherd grunted
and turned to the side to see Lex looking at him, clearly concerned. Shepherd
forced a smile. ‘There’s one good thing to come out of this,’ he said.

‘Yeah?’ said Lex.
‘What’s that?’

‘At least I’ll be
back with my family for Christmas.’ He closed his eyes and grunted as Geordie
dug deep for the bullet.

###

Spider Shepherd
left the SAS at the end of 2002 and joined an elite police undercover unit. You
can read the first of his undercover adventures in Hard Landing, where he goes
undercover in a high security prison to unmask a drugs dealer who is killing
off witnesses to his crimes. The Spider Shepherd series continues with Soft
Target, Cold Kill, Hot Blood, Dead Men, Live Fire, Rough Justice, Fair Game and
False Friends.

Hard
Landing is available in the UK for 49p at –
 
http://amzn.to/xxX2YU

And in
the US for less than a dollar at –
 
http://amzn.to/xWg1E7

You can read more about Stephen Leather’s work at
www.stephenleather.com