Who Dares Wins (20 page)

Sam was running on pure adrenaline now. Everything else that had been preoccupying him – Jacob, Mac and what the hell was going to happen when they hit land – took second place. Every cell in his brain was concentrating on the jump. Outside it was pitch black: from where he was standing he had the impression that he was about to dive into nothingness.

The loadmaster touched one hand to his headphones then held up a single finger. One minute. Sam and Mac looked at each other, but through their equipment the expressions on their faces were unknowable. They both faced forward again.

Green light.

There was no order. No hesitation. Davenport and Andrews jumped to the edge of the tailgate and fell out, their bodies arched and their arms spread out as though they were about to embrace the empty air. Tyler and Craven followed immediately.

A pause. Webb and Cullen waited for perhaps thirty seconds before they jumped. An eight-man unit freefalling in close proximity to each other could cause a splash on a radar; two four-man units were less likely to. Once Webb and Cullen had disappeared, Sam and Mac shuffled behind them. And then, the moment they reached the edge of the tailgate, they toppled forwards.

The wind hit Sam immediately, roaring in his ears and lashing against his body as if a powerful wave had just crashed over him. He fell belly downwards, his body arched and his palms outstretched. He was vaguely aware of the Hercules roaring away into the distance above him, but he didn’t concentrate on that. Instead he looked around to check the position of the others. They manoeuvred themselves so that they fell in a circular formation. It was possible to see them all perfectly clearly: the half moon provided plenty of light – it even glowed slightly on the helmets of the unit as they fell. Thirty thousand feet down, he could make out the twinkling of sparsely separated settlements. In a corner of his brain he wondered if any of these would be their target. It was impossible to tell from this height. They would have to wait until they were closer to the ground.

That wouldn’t be long.

They hurtled towards the earth, deafened by the rush, their senses keen with adrenaline. Terminal velocity, the maximum speed they could achieve. Thirty seconds passed.

A minute.

A minute and a half.

Everything was as it should be. Despite himself, Sam felt a surge of wild excitement. A thrill. As his altitude decreased, his view of the landscape below became less extensive; but those bits he could see became clearer. They were freefalling into a widely deserted area. In the distance he thought he saw the headlamps of a vehicle. But it was the only one. From what he could tell at this height, there were very few people around who might possibly notice the unit HALOing in.

The freefall suits of his troop ruffled in the fast-moving air, like a banner being whipped in a gale. Below and in the distance, Sam saw the chutes of the four men who had preceded him burst open. The others were under canopy. They intuitively adjusted the direction of their freefall to get closer to them. Any second now it would be their turn to open.

Four thousand five hundred feet. Cullen was the first to open his chute; the rest of them followed suit immediately. Sam tugged on his rip cord and felt the chute erupt into the air. There was a sharp jolt through his body as his velocity suddenly reduced; the rushing sound eased off and the unit started to float gently towards the earth.

Under canopy, it didn’t take long for them to see the band of forested area towards which they were headed. Currently they were a little too far east, so almost with a single mind they changed their course to bring them down safely in the area beyond the trees. Perhaps a mile to the north, Sam saw buildings. Three of them, set in a horseshoe shape.

The training camp.

His eyes narrowed as he gazed at it through the dark visor of his helmet. All thoughts of the thrill of the HALO jump dissolved away. He could think of nothing now but getting back down to earth.

The camp disappeared from his field of vision. All he could see below him now were the trees and the area of flat ground behind them where they were to land – and where the others already had. Unclipping the straps that bound his rucksack to his legs, he allowed the pack to fall to the ground, still attached to him by virtue of a long, tough lanyard rope. As the pack fell to earth, he prepared his body for the impact of landing.

Ten seconds.

Five.

He hit the ground running with that strange sense of regret that always follows a jump. Behind him the chute wafted silently to the ground. He quickly unstrapped the cords of the rucksack from around his legs, then unclipped the whole thing. Pulling off his helmet and removing the mask, he started tugging the chute towards him, bundling it up into a crumpled ball. All around him, the others were doing the same thing. They made hardly any sound.

Sam checked out his surroundings. The moon that had illuminated them in freefall now cast shadows on the ground and gave him surprisingly good vision. He was standing about thirty metres from the tree line in a field of stubble. South of him there appeared to be another field with a crop a good two metres high. Hemp, he reckoned. A lot of it. An acre of that would earn him more than a Regiment salary. Sam turned his back on it as the others started to congregate around him.

‘Get into the cover of the trees,’ Mac hissed. ‘We’ll dump our gear there, out of sight.’

The unit hauled their rucksacks onto their backs and ran towards the forest.

It was much darker under the canopy of the trees. No moonlight for them to see by. They removed their freefall rigs and piled them by a tree. Only then did Mac speak again. ‘All right, guys. Listen up. Two units. Jack, Luke, Cullen – you’re with Sam. Matt, Steve, Hill – you’re with me.’

Craven, Tyler and Cullen moved towards Sam. Mac addressed them as a group. ‘Head north through the forest,’ he told them. ‘Approach the camp from the west. We’ll hit it from the south. Let us know on comms when you’re in position.’ He shot Sam a sharp look.

They all nodded briefly, absorbing their instructions.

It took a minute or two for everyone to engage their comms kit and attach their NV. The moment he brought his goggles over his eyes, Sam felt that the whole forest had been illuminated in the familiar, hazy green. Gnarled tree branches spread out before him like witches’ fingers. It was eerily silent, apart from the sound of the men around him preparing themselves. He unclipped his Diemaco from the side of his body, then looked round. Everyone was ready. Sam gestured at Tyler, Craven and Cullen then pointed sharply in a northward direction before starting to run through the forest.

Sam moved quickly but with care. The NV allowed him to see where he was going, but it didn’t completely reveal the smaller possible hazards underfoot. As he ran, he scanned the area all around, his senses acute as he kept an eye out for anything suspicious. Behind him he heard the firm, steady footsteps of the other three. They were keeping close, but not
too
close so they didn’t present a bunched up target for any unseen enemy.

A patch of open ground – a kind of clearing. Sam upped his pace. He wanted the cover of the trees again. He felt exposed here.

Far too exposed. It was like a sixth sense.

Sam didn’t even hear the shot. The weapon that fired the round must have been suppressed. The first he knew about it was from the sudden, alarmed voice over the comms.

‘Man down!’

SOPs kicked in. He instantly threw himself to the ground, a horrible, sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach. The comms was suddenly filled with voices, with panic. He heard Tyler’s voice above it all, hissing, in an urgent whisper.

‘Craven. Craven’s down. Jack, can you hear me? Bollocks!
Craven’s fucking down! We’re being dicked!
’

Sam crawled round on all fours to look back the way they had run. There was no one standing: Tyler and Cullen had also gone to ground. In the distance, there was a flash of movement. He pulled up his Diemaco so that it was lying on the ground in front of him and aimed into the thick darkness of the trees up ahead.

There was barely any time to think. The figure had taken cover behind a tree, but even now was emerging from its protection and raising his weapon. Sam could see enough to be sure it wasn’t one of his troop, and that was all he needed to know.

He fired.

The suppressed round ripped from his Diemaco and the figure up ahead crumpled to the earth.

‘
Sit rep, now.
’ Mac’s voice. Angry. A bit panicked.
‘What the hell’s going on?’

‘Enemy down,’ Sam hissed urgently into the comms. ‘Tyler, do you copy?’

‘Roger that.’ Tyler’s voice was tense.

‘Cover me. I’m going to make sure I don’t need to finish the job.’

Sam pushed himself to his feet and ran across the open ground to where the body of his target was lying. Bending down, he pulled the corpse back into the trees. Then he examined it.

The guy was dead, there was no doubt about that. It looked like Sam’s round had hit him directly in the left eye; most of one side of his skull seemed to have exploded. Sam wasn’t interested in the hole in his head, however. It was the clothes on his back and the weapon in his fist that caught his attention. The sniper was carrying some variant of the AK-47; an ops waistcoat contained a large quantity of ammo and other weaponry; but what really stood out was not the Kalashnikov or the other bells and whistles – it was the weapon strapped across the dead man’s back. Sam had only fired a GM-94 grenade launcher once, but once was enough to know that it was perhaps the most effective weapon he was ever likely to use. This wasn’t the kind of toy you expect to come across just anywhere.

In one of the man’s ears there was a comms earpiece, much like the one Sam was wearing. It was slightly bloodied as Sam pulled it out and put it to his own ear.

He listened carefully.

It was difficult to tell, but he thought he could discern three separate voices. They weren’t speaking English, however. Sam was no linguist, but he recognised the language.

Russian.

He looked down at the corpse again. This was no ordinary soldier. He was too well kitted out; his equipment was too good. Possibilities tumbled through his mind. Private security? Someone with cash to splash, enough to kit out a private army? In the darkness, he found himself shaking his head. He didn’t think so. The GM-94 was Russian-made, and standard issue for Russian special forces. The man Sam had just killed was no squaddie. He’d put money on it. But then . . .

‘What the fuck are Spetsnaz doing
here
?’ he murmured to himself.

‘Say again.’ Mac’s voice over the comms.

Sam quickly refocused himself.

‘We’ve got more company,’ he said. ‘I’ve nailed the shooter, but he’s got a comms system. I’ve listened in. Estimate three others in the vicinity. How’s Craven looking?’

A silence. And then, his voice strained, Tyler spoke.

‘Gone,’ he said.

A moment of silence in the comms.

‘Shit,’ Sam hissed as a surge of anger burned through him. How the hell had this happened? They’d only been on the ground five minutes. How the
hell
had it happened?

He didn’t get long to think about it. As he looked back across the clearing he saw more movement. ‘Tyler, Cullen – you still down?’ he demanded.

‘Roger that,’ they both breathed in unison.

‘Stay where you are. I’ve got a visual on another shooter.’

He raised his Diemaco once more. Looking through the sights he tried not to concentrate on the crumpled mound ahead of him that he knew to be Craven’s body. As he fired, the round exploded in the green light of his NV, like some kind of ghostly firework. His target fell immediately to the earth.

‘Did I say three others?’ he growled. ‘Make that two.’

‘We’re coming up from the south.’ Mac’s voice sounded as though he was running. ‘It sounds like they know where you are. You sure you only heard three others, Sam?’

‘Makes sense,’ Sam replied tersely. ‘Four-man unit. Tyler and Cullen are in open ground. I’m by the tree line. Guys, stay down. I’ll keep you covered from here.’

‘Wilco,’ came the grim reply.

Sam pressed his back against a tree, his weapon raised and ready to fire. His mind was in turmoil. He couldn’t make sense of it. These Spetsnaz guys – if indeed that’s what they were – seemed to be expecting them. But how? Nobody knew they were coming, did they?

He stayed close to the ground. Occasionally over the comms he heard Mac hissing an instruction to Andrews, Davenport and Webb; other than that he could do nothing but scan the surrounding woodland, keeping his NV-enhanced eyes peeled for unexpected movement. Briefly he thought he saw something again; but whatever it was settled into stillness. Sam kept alert, watching over the prostrate forms of Tyler and Cullen, his finger twitching on the trigger, ready to fire at a moment’s notice.

All around him, the silence of the night was broken by sudden, unexpected noises: the falling of a twig, the scurrying of an animal. His senses were heightened; everything seemed louder than it actually was. He could feel his own heart beat, hear his own breathing. He estimated that the others could be no more than two hundred metres behind them. How were they approaching? Had they spotted their enemy?

It must have been about two minutes before the kills came, and they came in quick succession. Sam heard the muted thud – surprisingly close-by – of one of his unit’s suppressed weapons; moments later, he heard another.

‘Two men down,’ Mac reported. ‘Let’s hope no one shows up to do a changing of the fucking guard.’

Sam edged back to the Russian’s body and listened in again on the bloodied comms earpiece. Nothing. Silence.

‘We’re clear,’ he stated flatly. ‘Damn it, what the hell happened there?’