Medal of Honor Read online

  He didn’t finish the sentence, because suddenly our earpieces burst into a mess of radio static. Through it we heard the sound of coughing, and then…

  ‘Jesus.’ Voodoo’s voice. ‘I’m getting too old for this shit.’

  ‘Christ’s sake, Voodoo, I thought you were fried. What’s your status?’

  ‘The fucker was booby-trapped. Remind me to have a little word with Malouf next time I see him.’

  ‘I already did. Is Dusty all right?’

  ‘Roger that,’ said Dusty.

  ‘I heard a phone detonating the device,’ I told them. ‘It means they know you’re there.’

  ‘Fine,’ Voodoo replied. ‘Let ’em come. Me and Dusty are ready for them.’

  ‘Don’t leave the building, guys. If the Taliban have eyes on, they’ll slot you the second you step outside. I’ll be there with Rabbit as quick as we can.’

  I turned to Rabbit. ‘Get the quads ready,’ I told him. ‘We need to double it over there. I’ll deal with Malouf.’

  Our informant was still hugging the ground. I pulled him up. ‘Let’s go, shit-for-brains. We’re getting out of the wadi.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘MOVE!’

  Malouf stumbled up the southern bank with me right behind.

  ‘Get on your knees,’ I ordered him.

  He gave me an appalled look, then shook his head. ‘No,’ he begged. ‘Not that. Please…’

  ‘Get on your knees!’

  I pushed down on his shoulders and he flopped to the ground, his head bowed. The fucker clearly thought I was going to do him there and then. I let him think that for a moment while I pulled two sets of plasticuffs from out of my waistcoat. I quickly tied his hands behind his back, then bound his ankles. Trussed up like that he wasn’t going anywhere fast. He tried to say something, but didn’t get more than a couple of words out before I stuffed his mouth with an oily rag that I used for cleaning my weapon.

  ‘Lie down,’ I said, and to help him along I pressed my knee into his back. He fell to his front. ‘Stay like that if you want to live.’

  Malouf tried to say something, but all that came out were a few muffled grunts. I took a piece of rope and attached one end to Malouf’s legs, the other around a boulder on the edge of the wadi, then I reached into my Bergen and pulled out a Firefly which I clipped to the back of his clothes. A flick of its switch and the little device started transmitting a flashing infrared beam, which would be visible to NV-enabled air crews for miles around. Someone else could take Malouf off our hands. Rabbit and I had things to do.

  As I scurried back down into the wadi, I called base on the sat phone. ‘Zero this is Jock.’

  ‘Go ahead, Jock.’

  I gave them a quick sitrep, briefly filling them in on what had happened to Dusty and Voodoo. ‘Malouf’s got a Firefly,’ I told them. ‘If you want him, come and get him. Me and Rabbit are going after the others.’ I didn’t request permission, and they didn’t offer it. Everyone knew that if our brothers were in trouble, our only thought was for getting them out. Less than a minute later Rabbit and I were on the quads, speeding along the wadi until we found a place on the north side where we could exit. Then we headed towards the village.

  Our way was lit by the IR beams, but we couldn’t afford the luxury of going slowly to keep down the noise of the engines. We skirted round the western edge of the village, past a number of the ramshackle compounds on the outskirts that Jackal had mentioned during our briefing. We stopped behind a little group of outbuildings almost precisely due west of the village, about 200 metres out.

  As soon as the quads came to a halt, Rabbit and I took cover behind them and hunkered down into the firing position. These outbuildings looked deserted, but that didn’t mean they were, so we needed to be ready for any incoming fire.

  We stayed like that for sixty seconds. Nothing. I lowered my gun, took out my Kite sight and edged round to the side of the outbuildings. From here I could use the scope to see across open ground to the northern edge of the village. After thirty seconds I’d focused in on what looked like the compound Malouf had described. There was a wall right along the front, about three metres high and fifteen metres long. The rectangular entrance door was bang in the middle, and if I looked carefully I could still see the remnants of a cloud of dust from the blast settling on it – a visual echo of what had gone on fifteen minutes before. There were also figures moving around the open ground in front of the compound. I counted them carefully. There appeared to be five.

  A crackle over my earpiece, then Voodoo’s voice. He sounded tense. Couldn’t blame him. ‘Where the hell are you guys?’

  ‘If your compound is twelve o’clock, we’re at nine o’clock,’ I told him. ‘I’ve got you on my scope. I’ve counted five tangos in your vicinity, but they’re moving around, so there could be more. I reckon they’re too scared to enter the compound in case you’re still alive.’

  ‘Damn right. You see the barn on the other side of the field to our south?’

  I scoped it out. ‘Roger that.’

  ‘If anyone has eyes on us, that’s where they’ll be,’ Voodoo said. ‘You need to check that building for snipers before laying into the others. Try the roof.’

  Voodoo was right, as usual. ‘Sit tight,’ I told him. ‘We’ll deal with it.’

  I edged backwards towards where Rabbit was waiting for me. ‘We’ll head north by foot,’ I told him. ‘Can’t risk the noise of the quads. There’s another old building fifty metres to the west of Voodoo and Dusty. It’s on slightly higher ground – we should be able to use it as a firing point.’

  Rabbit nodded. ‘We got to keep this quiet, Jock,’ he said. ‘If it starts to go noisy, they’ll be coming at us from all sides.’

  We set off using our standard leapfrog formation – one of us in the firing position while the other covered ground as quickly and as silently as possible – and reached our potential firing location within five minutes. At some point in the past this building, whatever it was, had been hit from above by a bomb big enough to destroy the whole thing. The remnants of a square outer wall were still vaguely intact in places, but most of it was tumbledown and demolished, with weeds growing up through the rubble. Hunks of rusted metal were littered around the interior, all that was left of old vehicles that had been corroded and crushed by the extremes of the Afghan climate. However, this flattened wreck of a building suited our purposes just fine. We managed to attain a bit of height by climbing up on to a pile of rubble that was once part of the wall facing towards the village. Then we lay on our fronts, facing southeast towards the barn.

  Even with the naked eye we could see the figures moving about the open ground in front of the compound. Impossible to tell what they were doing there – waiting for reinforcements, most likely, before they stormed the compound to check their booby-trap had done its work. If that was their plan, it meant we had to work quickly.

  These enemy weren’t our biggest problem. Out in the open like that, we could nail them in a few seconds. I was more concerned about any hidden shooters. They had to be our priority.

  I got out the Kite again and trained it on the flat roof of the barn. Ten seconds to focus in, then I saw them. There were two guys, one at each corner of the roof, which made them about ten metres apart. They were lying perfectly still on their front, with their rifles trained on the front door of the compound.

  ‘Two tangos on the roof of the barn,’ I told Rabbit. ‘You shoot, I scope.’ We were both good enough snipers to take either role.

  Rabbit didn’t answer. He just got right down to preparing his weapon while I used the Kite to scan the area for evidence of wind movement. But it was a still night. The few trees I could see in the distance were motionless, and there was no evidence of dust movement on the ground.

  ‘Wind movement zero,’ I said quietly. ‘No need to adjust the shot.’ Sweat dripped from my forehead and into my eyes.

  By now Rabbit had his weapon prepped and wa
s looking through the sights.

  ‘We have two targets,’ I repeated. ‘You got them?’

  ‘I got ’em.’

  ‘Distance to nearest target, 480 metres.’ Just within the range of the M4, but not an easy shot to make. ‘Distance to second target, 487 metres. Take the closest target first.’

  A pause.

  ‘No room for fuck-ups, Rabbit,’ I said. ‘We want these two down without the guys on the ground knowing what’s happening. Take your time, buddy. Let’s make each shot a kill.’

  Rabbit’s breathing went very slow.

  Ten seconds passed.

  Twenty. I kept my eye on the target in the Kite.

  And then…

  ‘Take the shot,’ I said.

  ‘Taking shot now.’

  Rabbit squeezed the trigger. There was a low thump from the weapon and I could sense him controlling the recoil. I kept my eye on the target and saw the sniper’s body immediately judder. A direct hit.

  ‘First target down,’ I confirmed.

  The second sniper looked round. All he could have heard was the sound of the round entering his comrade’s body, but that had been enough to alert him to something being wrong. Rabbit was on to him before he could do a thing about it.

  ‘Taking shot now,’ he said.

  Another low thump from the suppressed M4. I clearly saw the round hit the second target in the head.

  ‘Second target down.’

  We didn’t move. The worst mistake you can make after firing a sniper round is to assume the job’s finished. I scanned over to the open ground between the barn and the compound. There were still only five enemy there, and they clearly hadn’t noticed that the two snipers had been taken out. I continued to pan left and right, keeping my eyes peeled for any sign of unexpected enemy movement. But there was none.

  ‘Job’s a good ’un,’ I said. ‘Now let’s take the rest of these fuckers and get the hell out of here.’

  02.50 HRS.

  The four of us consulted over the radio.

  ‘Snipers down,’ I reported. ‘We still have five tangos in front of the compound. No sign that they know their men are down. My guess is they’re still waiting for reinforcements before going in.’

  Voodoo’s voice was brisk. ‘How far away are you?’

  ‘Five hundred metres.’

  ‘How close can you get without them seeing you?’

  I gave it a moment’s thought. It was open ground between us and them, and the moon was bright. Hardly fucking ideal – but with Voodoo and Dusty needing support, there was no way we were going to stay hidden behind this mound of rubble. ‘I reckon we can get to within 250 metres. Closer than that, it might go noisy.’

  ‘It’s gonna go noisy any which way, my friend. We’ll give you three minutes to approach – then we’ll get a couple of frags over the wall and bug out. You guys do the mopping up for us, huh?’

  ‘You got it.’

  Rabbit and I clambered down from the rubble and switched our M4s to fully auto. We were advancing to contact, and in a situation like this there’d be no time for precision shooting. We tabbed forwards, separated by a distance of about ten metres, our rifles pressed firmly into our shoulders and pointed squarely in the direction of the enemy.

  Silence all around. Just the noise of our footsteps crunching on the stony ground.

  A minute passed. Two.

  ‘That’s close enough,’ Rabbit said. I agreed. Leaving 250 metres of open ground between us and the targets, we hit the ground.

  ‘OK, Voodoo, Dusty, we’re in position.’

  ‘Roger that.’

  A pause.

  ‘Hang on to your nizzos, dudes. Frags coming over in three, two, one…’

  We were too far away to see the projectiles being hurled over the front wall of the compound, but they clearly caught the attention of the targets. There was a sudden shout – something in Pashto, I couldn’t tell what. The enemy started to run.

  But too late.

  A second later there were two orange flashes and, one after the other in quick succession, two loud cracks that echoed off the mountain slopes. I kept my eye on the kill zone. For a few seconds it was nothing but darkness and smoke. From the edge of my vision I saw the front gate to the compound open and two figures slip out. Voodoo and Dusty moved like lightning, firing suppressed bursts from their weapons into the confusion. I caught sight of another figure, just a silhouette, pushing himself up from the ground. A short burst from my rifle and he was back down again.

  The contact couldn’t have lasted more than twenty seconds, and now there was a sudden, eerie silence. Voodoo and Dusty started doubling towards us. We kept their positions covered. The fragmentation grenades had made enough noise to alert anyone to the fact that something was going down, so we needed to get to cover as quickly as possible.

  The second Dusty and Voodoo were with us, we started retreating back to the firing point from which we’d taken out the snipers. We didn’t get there a moment too soon. Just as we were scrambling behind the rubble, we saw two sets of headlamps pulling round into the area in front of the compound. I quickly checked them out through the Kite.

  ‘OK, fellas,’ I said. ‘We got company.’

  ‘How many?’ Voodoo demanded. If he’d been fazed by the events of the last ninety minutes, he showed no sign of it. I was aware of the other three getting down into the firing position, ready for contact.

  ‘Three open-top technicals. Five guys in each. Top-mounted machine-guns. Looks like they’ve got searchlights too, but they’re not switched on.’

  ‘Shit,’ Rabbit said.

  ‘Hold your fire,’ I told them, and continued to examine the trucks. Two guys – they both wore shamags and had bandoliers of ammo strapped round their bodies – got out and examined the dead men on the ground. They said a few words to each other, then looked around. From their body language it looked like they didn’t know where we were or which way we’d gone.

  As I scoped the enemy, the others were talking in low, urgent tones. ‘Where’s Malouf?’ Dusty demanded.

  ‘We left him back at the wadi,’ said Rabbit. ‘He’s got a beacon. If base want to come and get him, they know where he is.’

  ‘He gave us another lead on Al-Zaranj’s location,’ I butted in.

  Dusty snorted. ‘Thing is, Jock, Malouf’s track record ain’t so good.’

  ‘Let’s just say I encouraged him to tell the truth this time round. There’s a valley up in the mountain, locals call it Bakharov.’ I still had my eye on the technicals. The two guys were climbing back into their vehicles. ‘Whether he’s shitting us or not, we have to check it out.’

  I glanced at my watch: 03.00 hours. The sun would rise a few minutes after six.

  ‘If Malouf’s boss is in touch with Al-Zaranj, chances are our man knows we could be on to him. He’ll want to move as soon as the sun comes up. That gives us a three-hour window.’

  ‘We’re going to need a bird,’ said Dusty.

  ‘I’m on it,’ Voodoo replied. He shuffled back behind the firing position to radio back to base. Trouble was, Voodoo wasn’t the only one to move. The three technicals were driving in our direction. They fanned out and came to a halt about twenty metres apart and a couple of hundred metres from our position. The enemy didn’t know where we were, but there were only so many places we could hide. They’d made a guess and it was a good one.

  Behind me, I could hear Voodoo calling in air support; but suddenly his voice was drowned by the sound of firing.

  The machine-guns on the top of the three technicals opened up at exactly the same time. The two on the outside fired blindly into the desert, but the middle one was trained firmly on our firing position. The rounds splintered into the rubble, throwing up clouds of dust and showers of bullet-hard shrapnel.

  Dusty, Rabbit and I rolled backwards.

  ‘They’re firing blind,’ I hissed. ‘They don’t know we’re here. If we return fire, we’ll give away our position…’


  Another burst of fire, followed by the faint noise of the technicals’ engines coming close.

  ‘Gimme some good news about that chopper, Voodoo,’ Dusty growled. ‘They’re not morons out there. They know there are only a few places we can take cover. They’ll flush us out sooner…’

  A third burst of fire, higher this time so several rounds flew above our heads. I could feel the rush of air as they whizzed past.

  ‘… or later.’

  ‘Five minutes out,’ Voodoo announced. ‘We’ll have to hold ’em back till then.’

  As Voodoo spoke, the darkness was splintered by beams of light breaking over the rubble. At least one of the technicals had clearly switched on its searchlight, and it was aimed at our position. We could hear the enemy’s voices now, shouting at each other from one vehicle to another.

  ‘We can’t let these fuckers get any closer,’ Voodoo said. ‘They’ll be over us like rats.’

  He was right. If we stayed where we were and they carried on advancing, we’d soon be surrounded. It would only be a matter of time before they saw us. Sometimes you’ve just got to take the fight to the enemy. We didn’t have to win the battle; we just had to hold them back long enough for air support to get here.

  ‘Roger that,’ Dusty agreed. ‘We got to take it to them.’ I nodded, and so did Rabbit.

  ‘Jock, Rabbit, take out the searchlights.’ Made sense to put ourselves on a level playing field, rather than have us lit up like a fucking Christmas tree. ‘Me and Dusty can go for the tyres. Once the machinery’s down, we can start nailing the bad guys. Go for the machine-gunners first. We good with that?’

  ‘I just hope that chopper gets here when it says it will,’ I muttered.

  ‘We just have to hold our position till it does.’

  Another burst of fire thundered over our heads as each member of the patrol located a firing position. Rabbit and I took up the same positions we’d adopted when we were taking out the snipers, lying on our fronts over the top of the rubble, but slightly further apart this time – about five metres to stop ourselves bunching up and presenting an easy target. The other two got down to ground level – Voodoo to our left, Dusty to our right, peering round from the edges of the broken-down wall.