Strike Back Read online

  ‘Twenty seconds, twenty seconds,’ shouted the pilot over their headphones.

  The chopper shook violently as it dropped the last few feet out of the sky. The pilot knew exactly where the house was: the Coke tin in the gutter was sending out a signal powerful enough to guide him right home. But he was flying low now, skimming right through the streets, at roof level. Any higher, and it would give an opponent a chance to lock onto the Puma with a rocker launcher. Suddenly the chopper lurched violently upwards, and Porter could feel his stomach heaving. It shuddered then hovered in the air.

  Porter gripped his M16 tight to his chest. Lights were flashing on the Puma, and the roar of the engine as the hatch opened was deafening. ‘Go,’ shouted Steve. ‘Bloody go.’

  Four sets of ropes were tossed out of the side of the Puma. With his legs kicking across the metal, Porter pushed himself out. Steve went first, then Porter, then Mike and Keith. Collinson was hanging back, Porter noted. A cloud of dust was shooting straight up into the sky as the chopper hovered a foot above the building, creating a brilliant, illuminated light that made it impossible to see anything. Porter gripped hold of the rope, and slipped down it, then threw himself down hard onto the roof of the building.

  ‘Move up,’ shouted Steve, his voice raw and hoarse.

  They had practised this manoeuvre a hundred times back at the killing house. Go in hard and fast. Maximum speed and maximum aggression. The tactics were settled. But it was always different in real life. Back at base, the opposition was just pretending to kill you.

  They had landed on a flat roof, with a single doorway leading down inside the two-storey building. Steve and Mike had already shot the door open, and the two men were fearlessly leading the way. Porter ran after them, his ears cocked for the first round of gunfire that would inevitably greet them, and weapon cocked tight to his chest, his finger poised on the trigger, ready to fire. Collinson was lagging a couple of yards behind the pace.

  ‘Take out, take out,’ Steve shouted.

  Porter dropped to his knees as soon as he hit the first-floor landing. He could see the man clearly enough: a solitary figure, swathed in black robes, with an AK-47 tucked into his chest and dark glasses covering his eyes. Pressing the trigger on his M16, Porter loosed off a barrage of fire. At his side, Mike and Keith had done the same. A lethal hailstorm of bullets was biting chunks out of the bricks and mortar. Enough of it lodged into the chest of their sole opponent to send him crashing back against the wall, blood spurting from a dozen different wounds, and a pitiful moan erupted from his lips as he clung miserably on to the last few seconds of his life.

  Steve kicked the body out of the way, affording it the merest glance to make sure there was no more breath left in it. The house was a simple, flat-fronted concrete structure, and it was only the intelligence reports that told them it was the front for an underground complex of bunkers. Another man was already running into view. A burst from their assault rifles quickly finished him off. Another bullet-ripped corpse lay in front of them. Porter could feel the excitement rising within him, making him stronger as each second passed.

  With a rapid burst of fire, Keith and Mike had kicked their way through to the ground floor of the building. There was a simple square room, measuring twenty feet by twenty-five, with a couple of motorbikes stored in one corner. It smelt of soldering irons and diesel oil. To the back, there was a staircase, leading downwards. A pale light was snaking its way up to the surface. Porter paused for a moment. There was a brief, eerie silence as the guns stopped their murderous fire. He looked left, then right. Suddenly there was cry, followed by a burst of fire. Porter could feel a chunk of the wall right next to him being cut open by bullets. He dropped to his knees and squeezed the trigger on the M16. He didn’t even know what he was firing at until he saw his assailant keel over.

  ‘How many have we killed?’ he barked.

  ‘Three, maybe four,’ said Steve. ‘But there must be more of the bastards.’

  Porter walked towards the staircase. They could be certain there would be more Hezbollah fighters downstairs.

  ‘Stun grenades,’ muttered Steve.

  Both men unhooked the oval devices from their ammo belts, pulled the cords, then tossed them down into the stairwell. There was a delay of three seconds, then the muffled sound of an explosion. The blast of the grenade unleashed a wave of heat, followed by a rolling cloud of gas that would temporarily disable anyone who encountered it. In the two minutes it bought them, the unit had to get their man.

  ‘Let’s go,’ shouted Steve.

  Behind him, Porter could hear the sound of puking. At the side of the room, Collinson had just thrown up. He was leaning against the wall, looking down at his vomit in shame, clutching his chest as he tried to recover his breath. ‘You OK, mate?’ said Porter.

  ‘Bloody fine,’ snapped Collinson.

  ‘You don’t look it.’

  ‘I told you, I’m fucking OK,’ said Collinson.

  ‘You can stay here if you –’

  ‘Leave the fucking bed-wetter,’ shouted Steve. ‘We’re going down.’

  Mike, Keith and Steve had already started to descend the staircase. Their boots were rattling across the bare concrete, sending a ripple of echoes resounding through the enclosed space. Porter followed swiftly in their wake. At the bottom of the stairs, there was a narrow corridor that stretched for twenty feet both left and right, with two doors in both directions. One man was lying unconscious on the floor, blood streaming from his nose: he had been knocked out by the smoke from the stun grenade. It was still filling the room with a noxious, brutal odour. A couple of pale light bulbs were filling the room with an eerie glow that struggled to break through though the fumes. With one swift movement, Steve emptied three rounds of ammunition into the skull of the man lying at his feet, shooting his brains out. The corpse twitched on the impact, and a chunk of broken skull bone skidded out across the concrete, but in less than a second the corpse had stopped moving.

  ‘Two men left, two right,’ shouted Steve.

  His voice reverberated around the corridor, and was still ringing in Porter’s ears as he peeled right and started striding through the sealed concrete passageway. His M16 was cocked, as both he and Steve edged their way closer to the first doorway. They had already worked out the standard operating procedure back on the boat. Porter would kick the doors down, and Steve would stand behind him ready to shoot anything that moved. There was no need for either man to say anything.

  From the corridor behind him, Porter could hear the rattle of gunfire, and then the sound of a man screaming. Without pausing to think, he held his rifle in his left hand, balanced himself, then threw his entire weight into the wooden doorway. As it flung open, Steve was already kneeling down at the entrance, his gun held in his arms. It took just a fraction of a second to establish there was no hostage inside, and the decision made, Steve loosed off a volley of fire. The bullets splattered around the ten-by-ten room, taking down the two guards who were still trying to recover from the fumes of the stun grenade. Neither man knew what had hit them: before they had time to reach for their own weapons, their lungs had been perforated with bullet wounds, sending both of them collapsing to the ground.

  They were solid, trained opponents, noted Porter: they were keeping their discipline, and trying to regroup, but they had been overwhelmed by the speed and scale of the attack.

  Porter heard a movement. Up ahead in the corridor, another door was opening. He could see just a sliver of metal emerging through it. Porter recognised it at once. The muzzle of an AK-47. He waited, counting the beats of his heart as he allowed the sniper to expose just enough of himself to waste his own life. An inch, then another inch. It would take just an instant for the man to turn and fire. Porter waited, ticking off one second, then another. The hand was in view. Steadying the M16 cupped into his shoulder, Porter aligned the sights. The man was about thirty, with a slim build, and a scraggy, dirty beard. With a squeeze on the trigger, the bu
llets exploded from the barrel of the gun. The AK-47 dropped to the ground, as the shards of hot metal turned the hand gripping it into shredded ribbons of torn, bleeding flesh.

  With a roar of controlled anger erupting from his lungs, Porter leapt forward, turning the M16 on the wounded man and finishing him off with a rapid burst of fire. Looking up, he could see Kenneth Bratton tied up to a chair that had been nailed to the floor. His arms were bound by rope that was cutting into his bare skin, and a gag had been stuffed into his mouth, and held in place with thick layers of plastic tape. He was wearing a black boiler suit, with staining down the front. In his eyes you could see the look of pure terror: the cringing, pleading fear of a man who knows he is clinging to life by the most slender of threads.

  Behind him, there was one more guard. He was a boy, maybe no more than fifteen, with a shaved head and a week of untrimmed beard growing on his face. In his hand, there was a Browning BDA 380 snub-nosed pistol. And it was pointing straight at Porter. For a second, Porter could feel a cold sweat pass across his skin: he thought briefly about Sandy and reflected sadly that maybe he never would get to meet his new baby daughter. He’d had guns pointed at him before. But not with the same lethal certainty that they were intent upon killing him.

  ‘Easy, mate,’ said Porter.

  The boy barked something in Arabic.

  There was a hit of nervousness in his voice, Porter noted.

  He’s just a kid. He’s bottling it.

  Porter stood his ground, pointing his M16 straight at the man, his finger poised on the trigger. He could kill him in an instant. And yet he knew that in the same moment, the Arab could kill him. Or the hostage.

  ‘Drop the gun,’ snapped Porter.

  ‘Back, back,’ shouted the Arab.

  He was gesturing wildly with the Browning. Porter kept his gun level with the boy’s head. Let him lose his rag, he told himself. Maybe then I can get a clean shot at the bastard.

  ‘Back, back,’ the boy shouted again.

  His voice was ragged and there was sweat pouring off his face.

  Porter could see his hand waving with the Browning first at him, then at the hostage. He was moving too fast to get a decent shot, he reckoned. His finger started to close on the trigger of the M16. Right then, a sudden burst of gunfire rattled through the room. The first bullet caught the Arab on the chin, smashing the bone, and snapping his head straight back. A flicker of flame lashed out of the muzzle of the Browning as the shot was fired, but it struck the wall harmlessly, loosening off a chunk of dusty concrete. The boy staggered backwards with blood already pouring from the lower half of his face. He was trying to cry out in pain but his mouth was smashed to pieces. Porter twitched the M16 towards him, and put one bullet straight into his skull. By the time the third bullet pierced his heart, he was already dead.

  Ugly work, decided Porter. But you started it …

  Steve was standing in the doorway, the smoke still smouldering out of the barrel of his M16.

  ‘Nice work,’ muttered Porter.

  ‘You’ve done all the heavy lifting, mate,’ said Steve. ‘Now let’s get the fuck out of here.’

  With their Regiment-issued Spider knives, it took just a few seconds for the ropes that bound Bratton to his chair to be severed. His hands snapped free of their captivity, but with the tape still covering his mouth he was unable to speak. Porter grabbed his shoulder, helping him to his feet, but, like a man who has had his leg in plaster for a month, his nerves had grown rusty and he couldn’t find his balance. He was holding on to Porter’s shoulder as they navigated their way back towards the staircase. Porter could feel his pulse slowing down. The buzz of the adrenalin was starting to drain out of him as the immediate danger passed, and he felt empty and exhausted.

  As they reached the end of the corridor, Mike and Keith were standing next to them. Collinson was at their side, some grime on his face. ‘Bloody good show, men,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t see you lining up to take a bullet,’ snapped Steve. ‘Where the fuck have you been?’

  Collinson was about to say something, but then stifled his words. As he glanced into his eyes, Porter could tell he had been humiliated, and the pain was stinging through him. ‘Let’s just get out of here,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘Leave it to some proper bloody soldiers,’ said Steve. ‘The fighting kind.’

  He pointed to Keith to keep hold of Bratton, then started climbing the stairs. Mike and Porter followed him with Collinson bringing up the rear. As Porter pushed his head up into the main room, the way seemed clear enough. They just had to get back up to the roof, then the chopper could pick them up and they could fly home.

  ‘Clear,’ said Steve, as he looked out around the empty room.

  Porter motioned down the staircase. Keith and Mike started helping Bratton up the staircase.

  In the next instant, an explosion splintered the night air. Porter looked round, startled. His pulse was beginning to race again.

  The grenade had exploded just inches from the front door. Steve had already fallen back, crouching down low next to the staircase. ‘Covering fire,’ he snapped at Porter.

  Without thinking, Porter laid down a burst of fire in the direction of the doorway. One fighter appeared, and was killed instantly, then another walked into the same hailstorm of bullets. Both corpses were lying bleeding across the doorway. Then a grenade was tossed into the doorway, ten yards in front of him, and for a split second Porter could see it hissing. His blood was pumping. He could tell it was about to blow, possibly bringing the whole house down and killing all of them. He ran forward, grabbing hold of it, tossing it through the doorway and watching as it rolled back down the alleyway: two seconds later, it exploded, bringing down half a wall in a heap of rubble.

  ‘Take the doorway,’ shouted Collinson behind him.

  Porter glanced back. With his right hand, Collinson was directing him towards the doorway. Straight into the line of fire.

  ‘Go, man,’ screamed Collinson, his face red with anger. ‘I’ll cover you.’

  ‘Since when were you in charge, you tosser?’ snarled Steve.

  Moving forward, Porter crouched in the doorway. Amid the deafening roar of the explosion from the grenade, he took a second to catch his breath. His pulse was racing and his nerves were shredded. As his lungs filled with smoky, dusty air, the sniper eluded his gaze. It was only later that he realised the bastard must have been perched right in front of him. The shot came as if from nowhere, and the first Porter knew of it was when he felt the index finger of his left hand dropping clean away from his body. He looked down, at first unaware of the pain, then felt a strange tingling sensation running through his arm, like a mild electric shock. He was using his right hand to position the M16, looking through the murky night to see if could get a fix on his assailant. Then the second shot struck, hitting him just below the existing wound, and smashing the bone that connected another finger to his left hand. This time he felt it. The numbness and the shock had started to subside, and the pain was like a blistering explosion. His nerve endings were screaming from pain, and the gun dropped from his right hand. He could feel the blood pouring from the wound, but the tears already welling up in his eyes meant he could hardly see anything. Another shot blasted the concrete in front of him, and instinctively Porter fell back from the doorway, edging back inside the room.

  That’s just a hand, he thought to himself. He could feel the desperation rising within him. There was no way of telling how many of them were out there, or how long the firefight would last. The next shot was going to be far worse.

  ‘Get up here,’ shouted Steve down the staircase.

  Keith and Mike ran up the passageway, their guns blazing, but Collinson had already fallen back, dropping down the stairs where he was out of the line of fire. The assault was starting in earnest now. Three, four, then five heavily armed men started to charge the doorway, their guns cocked, their expressions grim with the determination of soldiers who had alread
y prepared themselves to die. Steve was holding their position, managing to shoot a couple of guys as they approached the entrance. Keith took out another one, then the fourth and fifth, slicing into them with deadly fire, but there was still no sign of the attack abating.

  It’s us against … how many? Porter wondered. A whole bloody city.

  Suddenly, Porter could see something rushing towards him. Twenty feet away, it was coming at him from the left: it must have slipped in through a hidden window, or crawled up through the sewers. A small dark figure, no more than three and half feet tall, and weighing seventy or eighty pounds. A child. The bastards were using kids to break through the lines. There was what looked like an explosive charge strapped to his chest, and he was heading straight for Porter. Desperately, he reached for the gun that had dropped to the floor. Then he realised, he couldn’t shoot the kid without detonating the explosives. That’s what the bastards wanted. To blow the whole place up. The kid was reaching for his belt, just feet away from him now, searching for the cord that would take them all to meet their God. Porter lunged forwards, grabbing hold of the kid by neck, pushing him to the ground. He fell on top of him, smothering the child with his body, determined that even if the explosives did blow he would absorb enough of the force himself to save the others.

  The black robe that covered his face fell away. Porter looked down. He was a kid, no more than twelve, with a slight, delicate build. Porter could feel his anger rising at the way the terrorists were using children to fight their battles for them. Why can’t they send in men to take us on? he asked himself. The boy’s eyes were a soft brown, and the expression of terror on his face suggested that whoever had persuaded him to die for his cause hadn’t finished the job. His mouth was twisted out of shape, with the lower lip looking as if it had been severed in half, and at first Porter thought it was just the fear, but then he saw the poor kid must have been deformed at birth.