Juggernaut

by Adam Baker

Genres: Horror

Synopsis

They searched for gold. They found death Iraq 2005 Seven mercenaries journey deep into the desert in search of Saddam's gold. They form an unlikely crew of battle-scarred privateers, killers and thieves, veterans of a dozen war zones, each of them anxious to make one last score before their luck runs out. They will soon find themselves marooned among ancient ruins, caught in a desperate battle for their lives, confronted by greed, betrayal, and an army that won't stay dead...

Release date: February 16, 2012

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 417

Sample

The locomotive punched through the barrier. It wrenched fence stakes from the sand. The plough blade sheering through chain-link like it was paper.

The Blackhawk flew low over dunes, chasing its shadow. It drew parallel with the locomotive.

Captain Flores held the chopper steady. She lifted her visor and surveyed the cab. Smashed windows. An empty driver’s chair. She adjusted her helmet mike.

‘The bridge at Anah is out. That thing is going to drop into the fucking ravine.’

Sergeant Tate sat in the cargo compartment. He had a goatee, and a big tattoo on his forearm: the Pegasus insignia of the 160th SOAR. Night Stalkers Don’t Quit.

He tossed his rifle to Frost, the combat medic. He unbuckled his harness. He pulled on sand goggles and adjusted the earpiece of his radio.

‘Put me down on the roof.’

The Blackhawk banked and hovered over the five-hundred-ton juggernaut. Flores adjusted airspeed, lowered the collective and nudged the cyclic forward.

The starboard tyre of the chopper gently touched down on the locomotive roof. Tate stepped onto the blackened, wind-scoured metal and the chopper pulled back. He crouched, lashed by downwash.

Tate crawled on his hands and knees along the cambered cowling. He climbed over louvered intake grilles and belching exhaust stacks.

He reached the roof of the cab. He climbed down onto the nose, holding the smashed air horn for support. He spat sand, crouched and peered through the broken windshield.

‘Anything?’

‘Ghost train.’

He swung his legs through the windshield. He slid across the engineer console into the cab.

Suede desert boots crunched on broken glass. He crouched and inspected debris that littered the floor. He examined Glock pistol clips and US STANAG magazines. He scooped up a handful of brass cartridge cases and let them spill through gloved fingers.

‘Spent rounds. Plenty of them. AK. Nine mil. Muzzle burn round each window. Fucking war zone.’

‘Better cut the power. Few more miles you are going to run out of track.’

Tate pulled off his goggles. He examined the lashed controls. He reached for the combat knife strapped to his webbing. Then he noticed the door ajar at the back of the cab. An access hatch with a big voltage zag. The engine compartment. He drew the Sig from his quick-release chest holster. He flicked the safety and chambered the pistol.

He kicked open the metal hatch. Deafening machine-howl from the cramped engine bay. A huge turbo-charged twelve-cylinder generator. Massive alternators and rectifiers. Pounding motive power.

He let his eyes adjust to the gloom. Sunlight shafted through roof vents. Fan blades projected swirling cartwheel shadows.

‘Hold on. I’ve found something.’

A dusty boot protruding from behind the power plant. Tate edged along the wall of the tight engine compartment. A crouched shuffle.

Two figures in combat fatigues slumped in the corner, positioned beneath the down-draft of an overhead vent.

Ripped, ragged clothes. Blood spatters and sweat salt.

‘What can you see?’

‘Couple of bodies.’

Tate leant forward. He pulled aside the lapel of a prairie coat and examined dog tags.

S9346448

WHYTE

LUCY

NON AFF

O POS

MAR

He brushed black hair aside.

Lucy opened her eyes. Blue, like ice chips.

‘You all right?’ asked Tate. She snatched the knife from his chest rig. He caught her hand as she slammed the blade at his throat.

The locomotive at a standstill. Tate carried Lucy in his arms. He kicked open the slide door and jumped from the cab.

The Blackhawk performed a steep combat landing and set down among the dunes. Tyres settled in soft sand. Lucy and Tate were engulfed in a cyclone of rotor-wash.

Lucy turned her head. She wondered if the helicopter was a vivid hallucination. A vision of deliverance. Earlier that day, as temperatures peaked and she took shelter in the fan-blasted cool of the engine compartment, she succumbed to a lucid dream in which she explored the paths and arbours of a perfumed garden. She picked invisible flowers and wore them in her hair.

The main rotor slowed to a standstill. The sandstorm began to subside.

The side door of the chopper slid open. Three Delta jumped out, faces masked by sand goggles and scarves.

‘There’s another girl in the engine compartment,’ said Tate. ‘I think she’s alive.’

He laid Lucy on the ground. A medic crouched beside her. He checked her pupils, checked the pulse in her neck.

‘Severe dehydration. Bad heatstroke. Let’s get her on a drip.’

He unfolded a litter. They lifted Lucy onto the stretcher and laid her in the cramped cabin of the Blackhawk.

They brought a second girl from the locomotive. Blonde. Unconscious. They strapped her to a litter and laid her next to Lucy.

Tate checked dog tags.

‘Amanda Greenwald.’

The medic examined Amanda’s bandaged leg. He pulled away crusted dressings.

‘Shot in the thigh. Looks infected. Crack me some gauze and a suture kit.’

The Delta guys climbed aboard and sat looking down at the women.

Dust-off. Escalating engine whine. Rotor spinning up to full speed. A tornado of sand.

Lucy turned her head. A doorman in a full-face visor. She looked beyond the long barrel-drum of his Dillon Gatling gun, the fuel pods and Hellfire rockets. She watched the dunes fall away beneath her, the locomotive lost in a desert so vast she could almost see the curvature of the Earth.

The medic pulled a trauma trunk from beneath a canvas bench. IV equipment packed in Ziploc backs. He drove a large-bore fourteen-gauge needle into the back of Lucy’s hand and taped it down. He uncoiled tube and plugged a bag of saline solution into her hand. He hooked the bag to overhead webbing.

The medic shouted to be heard above wind noise and rotor roar. ‘Drink.’

He held a bottle to her mouth. She gulped and coughed. He poured water on her face and washed away grime.

‘Look at me. Can you talk? How many fingers am I holding up?’

She tried to speak. Her cracked lips formed words but she couldn’t make a sound.

She tried to reach out to the stretcher beside her and take Amanda’s hand, but her arm was blocked by the centre stanchion.

‘Don’t worry. She’s alive. You’ll both be in Baghdad in no time.’

He gave Lucy more water. She gripped the bottle like it was life itself.

IBN Sina Hospital, Baghdad.

Lucy lay on a gurney. She was in some kind of triage room.

She struggled to focus. Cracked ceiling plaster. A broken light socket.

She turned her head. A smashed window. Glass on the floor. Streaks of arterial spray across the white-tiled wall, blood dried black.

A couple of Iraqi guys walked into the room. White coats, stethoscopes hung round their necks. Cheap sneakers crunched on grit and glass. They murmured in Arabic. They checked her pulse. They checked her eyes. One of them leaned into her field of vision, and switched to English. His voice was clear, educated, like he studied abroad.

‘Lucy?’ said the doctor. He looked like he hadn’t slept for a week. ‘Lucy, can you hear me?’

She wanted to reply, but she couldn’t turn thought to speech.

‘You’re in hospital. We’ll look after you, Lucy. You’re safe now.’

He helped her sip water from a china cup. He helped her lie back.

They cut off her clothes. They sliced her laces with a knife and peeled off her boots. They released the press-studs of her Osprey body armour. They cut off her knee pads. They cut through her trousers and belt with trauma shears. They cut through her Union flag T-shirt. They let her keep her Nike sports bra and briefs.

They tried to remove her watch and pull the gold band from her wedding finger but she snatched her hand away.

They draped her with a sheet.

‘Get some sleep.’

Lucy lay on a hospital bed halfway between life and death. A bare room. Iron bed-frame. Iron chair.

Sometimes she was alone. Sometimes Sergeant Miller sat on the chair beside her.

Come on, Sergeant Miller would tell her. Keep fighting. You’re not done yet.

But Miller died two years ago in Afghanistan. He got fragged by a mortar round as his patrol entered a Helmand village on a meet-and-greet. Bled out from a gut wound as he lay in a ditch waiting for a medevac Chinook that took six hours to show up. Clutching his belly, panting and screaming. His coffin offloaded at RAF Lyneham, walked down the cargo ramp of a Hercules with a Union flag draped over the lid, then a slow cortège through Wootton Bassett. The battalion held a service at Camp Bastion. They laid a poppy wreath in front of the memorial wall. The padre led prayers in his sash and fatigues, until a rocket alert sent everyone running for the bunker.

‘What’s it like? Being dead?’

‘It’s not so bad.’ Miller squeezed her hand. ‘It’s peaceful. A long sleep.’

‘Sounds nice.’

He shrugged.

‘No wife. No kids. I had nothing to leave behind. How about you? Do you have a reason to live?’

She woke. She sat up. She sat on the edge of the bed. An old mattress mottled with piss- and bloodstains.

The ceiling fan revolved, gently stirring the air. Must be one of the brief periods each day when Baghdad enjoyed electrical power.

There was a needle taped to the back of her hand. A clear tube ran to an empty bag of saline hung from a rusted drip stand.

‘Hello?’

She peeled tape and pulled the wide-bore needle from her hand.

‘Hey. Anyone?’

Street noise from an open window. Car horns, the heavy throb of twin-rotor Chinooks.

Distant gunfire. Might be fire-fight. Sunni militia and the Mahdi Army duking it out. Or it might be a wedding party.

Crackling speakers. The noonday call to prayer. Muedhin summoned the faithful.

‘Allahu Akbar . . . Allahu Akbar . . .’

Mournful. Alien.

There was an insectocutor on the wall. Two glowing ultraviolet bars. Lucy watched bugs spit and crackle as they were drawn into the lethal light.

A washstand. The faucet gulped and spat. She scooped water in cupped hands and drank.

A sliver of broken mirror screwed to the wall. Cracked lips. Sunken eyes. Peeling, sun-blasted skin. A living corpse. A thirty-three-year-old woman reduced to a desiccated hag.

She pulled shredded mosquito netting aside and looked out the window.

Bullet-pocked houses. Minarets. Saddam mural with his face scratched out. Everything the colour of dust.

Donkey carts. Fucked-up scooters. Diesel rickshaws.

She was outside the Green Zone. A Western security contractor lying in an unguarded hospital bed. She and Amanda could be snatched any moment. Sold out by medical staff, held for ransom by Ba’ath Fedayeen gangsters.

A Czech TV crew had been carjacked the previous month. Two guys shot by the roadside. Two women gang-raped and beheaded, star attraction in the latest al-Qaeda VHS sold in the souk.

She had to make it back to the Western sector.

Lucy bit down hard on her thumb, let a shot of pain and adrenalin shock her fully awake.

She stepped into the corridor.

‘Hello? Anyone speak English?’

A distant doorway. A boy lay on a rusted, blood-streaked trolley. His right leg had been amputated above the knee. His neck was held rigid in a C-collar. Bandage like a blindfold. He counted prayer beads and whispered verses from the Koran.

She could hear a woman crying nearby. Deep grief. Shuddering sobs and babbling despair, rising and falling like waves breaking against the shore.

‘Hello?’ Her voice echoed down the passageway. ‘Mandy?’

The distant corridor junction was suddenly blocked by two figures in white biohazard suits.

The figures advanced towards her.

She turned and ran. Her legs failed and she fell against the corridor wall.

Gloved hands took her arms and carried her back to the room. They pushed her onto the bed.

The suited figures stood over her. She could hear the electric hum of backpack respirators. Air sucked through charcoal virus filters. Their gauntlet and boot cuffs were secured with gasket locks, and sealed with silver tape. Tyvek suit fabric creaked and squeaked.

White hoods. She could see faces behind Lexan visors. A lean, grey-haired guy. He looked military. And a young man. He looked well groomed, collegiate.

‘Give her a shot,’ said the kid. ‘Chill her out.’

The older guy laid a case on a side table. He flipped latches. He loaded a hypo, slow and clumsy with rubber-gloved fingers. Amytal. He flicked bubbles from the syringe. He held her wrist. She was too weak to resist. She watched the needle prick her skin.

The college kid leant into her field of vision. ‘Hi, Lucy.’

‘You won’t get anything out of her for a while, Koell.’

‘They didn’t change her drip?’

‘Lucky she got a single bag. Looters stripped this place bare a couple of years back. They even took doorknobs. I brought an interpreter here last month. Got in a fire-fight. Lost his thumb. They tore his shirt and used it for bandage. Then they gave him aspirin. Charged me fifty bucks. Said they were running low on aspirin.’

The kid waved his gloved hand in front of Lucy’s face and tried to click rubber fingers. ‘Can you hear me, Lucy?’

Lucy decided to hide behind the drug and act stupefied. She ignored the men and stared into the cold blue glow of the insectocutor. She didn’t blink.

‘What’s that on her wrist?’ asked Koell. ‘A Rolex?’

‘An orderly tried to steal it while she slept. He got his eye gouged.’

Koell pulled back Lucy’s eyelid. He flagged a penlight in front of her face and monitored dilation. ‘She’s weak, sedated. I don’t think she can hear us. Where’s the other girl?’

‘Next door. Shot in the leg.’

‘Blotches? Lesions?’

‘Both clear.’

‘Pity. We’ll collect tissue samples anyway.’

The colonel kicked a pile of ripped clothes in the corner. ‘Didn’t have much equipment. Couple of radios. Binoculars. Empty canteen. The blonde had a machete tucked in her belt. Looked like it had plenty of use.’

‘Nothing in their pockets?’

The colonel pointed to a crumpled photograph on the table next to the bed. ‘Just a sorry-ass gang photo.’

Five soldiers. Lucy and her crew in a bar, laughing, toasting the camera.

Koell looked around. A sprig of cable where a light switch used to be. A tattered Koran.

‘Not exactly Walter Reed.’

‘Maybe we should take her back to The Zone,’ said the colonel. ‘This place is a shithole.’

‘I was down at the twenty-eighth CASH this morning. They were overrun. Some Sunni fuck blew himself to pieces in the Al-Shorja Market. A flatbed with a bunch of artillery shells hidden under potatoes. Fucker lit them up and took out a foot patrol. Hell of a mess. Three KIA, two more expectant. Bunch of T-1 evacs with shrapnel, third degree burns. Fuck this bitch.’

‘Even so.’

‘Let’s keep this shit compartmentalised. Let’s keep them outside the wire. Every mercenary the world over has converged on this city. Ex-cons. Transients. Some of these creeps were running Salvadorian death squads. Most of them are hiding behind fake ID. Nobody will give a damn if a couple of privateers drop off the map. Nobody will notice they’ve gone.’

The colonel checked a clipboard. ‘Lucy White. Thirty-three. British citizen. Fourteen Intelligence Company. Target reconnaissance. Honourable discharge.’

‘She’s nothing special. My driver is ex-Delta.’

The colonel flipped pages.

‘No listed next of kin, no home address. Runs her own crew. “Vanguard Risk Consultants”. Dummy corporation registered out of Uruguay. Plays mother hen to a bunch of Tier Two operators. Quality trigger-time. Three US citizens and a guy from Pretoria.’

‘Good for them.’

‘Seems a pretty low-rent outfit. Nickel-and-dime. Did some stuff in Honduras. They aren’t connected. They’re out of the loop. No State Department deals. Losing work to the big contractors. Mostly been pulling taxi runs. Hauled kitchen equipment for the new Halliburton chow halls. Shipped foreign currency to the Interior Ministry. Provided close protection for a couple of Exxon engineers.’

‘Then she’ll be just another KIA. Both of them. No need to complicate matters. They won’t be missed. Let’s tie up loose ends. Triple shot of phenol. Quick and painless. Finish them both, and get the fuck out of here.’

Koell took a pneumatic injector gun from the case and loaded a vial of clear liquid.

‘Hold on,’ said the colonel. ‘This was your call. You found these guys. You sent them out to the valley. What the fuck happened out there? Don’t you want to know?’

The colonel crouched beside Lucy. He waved a hand in front of her unfocused eyes.

‘Can you hear me, Lucy? I want you to concentrate. I want you to tell me what happened.’

No response.

He sat in the chair next to the bed. He took Lucy’s hand.

‘Can you hear me? Can you understand what I’m saying? We’ve got a little something to help you sleep. But first I need to know. What did you find out there in the desert?’

No response.

The colonel examined the gang photo. The faded, smiling faces. He held the picture so Lucy could see.

‘You have to tell me, Lucy. What happened to you? What happened to your team?’

Lucy and her crew sat on crates and watched marines transfer money from a bomb-proof Peli case to a black canvas holdall.

The soldiers had locked themselves in a caged section of the warehouse. Four men stood around a trestle table. Two to count and re-count, two to bear witness. They stacked bricks of hundred-dollar bills in vacuum-sealed plastic.

‘Got to be three, four million at least,’ said Lucy.

Lucy and her team were wearing full body armour. Lucy had a cheery Sheraton conference badge pinned to her flak jacket. ‘Hello, my name is . . . FUCK YOU.’

‘That shit is straight from the Federal Reserve,’ said Toon. African-American. Black Power fist scribbled on the breast plate of his vest. Bald head. ‘Consecutive serial numbers. You could steal it, but you couldn’t spend it.’

‘Bet some oily Swiss fucker would give you thirty cents on the dollar. Still a cool million.’

‘Split five ways? Wouldn’t go far.’

Lucy shrugged.

‘I’ve been broke so long, I wouldn’t know how to spend it.’

‘Look at those clowns,’ said Toon. ‘Cherry motherfuckers. Green as grass. They’ve been in-country five minutes. We could take them out anywhere between here and the Interior Ministry. Wouldn’t even put up a fight.’

‘No. Make the drop. Cash the cheque.’

‘Fuck that shit. Five hundred dollars a day. Is that how much your life is worth? Five hundred bucks is nothing.’

Lucy shook her head.

‘My motto? “Live to spend it.” No use being rich and dead.’

‘No one would give a damn,’ said Toon. ‘Victimless crime. Not like this stuff is going to feed starving orphans. They’re just greasing some Provisional chieftain for a bunch more reconstruction contracts. Only a sucker would stay honest in the middle of this shitstorm.’

Lucy watched a rat scurry along a roof girder high above them. She rubbed her eyes.

‘All right, boss?’

‘Yeah,’ said Lucy. ‘Just tired.’

Huang entered the warehouse by a side door. A combat medic and a good driver. He rejoined the crew and sat on a crate.

‘What did you get?’ asked Amanda. A Californian rich girl gone bad. She had blond hair, a nose ring and a meth habit. She had found redemption in the meditative breath control and serene focus of an airforce rifle range.

‘The orderly is a cool guy. Happy to see a bottle of Jim Beam. He broke out a bunch of Percocet. A few Vicodin. Smoother ride than guzzling fucking NyQuil.’

Amanda and Huang bumped fists.

‘You got to score some more Oxy. Pure, sweet buzz.’

‘Fucking pill freaks.’ Voss. Tall, lean, early forties. He had a thick South African accent. ‘You think you’re dealing with combat stress. You’ll just rot your fucking brain, bokkie.’

‘A person has to relax.’

‘So cook up a spoonful of smack. Do the job right.’

The crew adjusted their scopes, their buckles, their laces. A series of pre-mission survival rituals. They checked mags and chambered. Green tip tungsten carbide penetrators.

Lucy bit the cap from a Sharpie. They wrote call-signs, grids and frequencies on their forearms.

‘Radio check,’ said Lucy.

They each wore a short-wave TASC headset. The radio was clipped to their webbing. Five-hundred-metre range. The mike was a Velcro throat-strap. The earpiece was a constant open channel.

Lucy stepped away from the group. She thumbed the pressel switch on her chest rig.

‘Check, check, check.’

Affirmative ten-fours.

‘Ladies. Gentlemen.’

An uptight CO. Hard to tell rank. Most marines removed insignia and ditched the salute when they moved in-country. Overt signs of seniority might attract a sniper’s bullet.

The buzz cut surveyed Lucy’s team with contempt. Mercenaries. Long hair and tattoos. All kinds of trophy jewellery and charms: sharks’ teeth, rosaries, bullet pendants. They wore their sidearms at the hip instead of the chest plate snap-holster favoured by regular army.

Soldiers of fortune. No code. No honour.

They signed for manila packets. They tore open envelopes and counted cash. They tucked money in the map pocket of their vests next to sweetheart photos, goodbye letters and power-of-attorney.

‘Time to move out,’ said the CO.

The team stood and headed for the trucks. Voss had FUCK THE ARMY scrawled on the back of his vest.

A three-car convoy. Marines up front in a Humvee with a .50 cal mounted on the roof. Two black, twelve-cylinder GMC Suburbans behind. The GMCs were ghetto-rigged with heavy ram bars, ballistic windows and Kevlar panels.

They climbed into the first Suburban. A marine private took the wheel. Lucy rode shotgun. Amanda and Toon took the back seat. A young marine sat between them, hugging the padlocked money bag, trying to hide his fear.

Huang took the wheel of the third vehicle. Voss was rear gunner. He took a fire position at the tailgate.

Lucy watched the crew of the lead Humvee form a huddle and butt helmets.

‘These fucking kids are going to get us killed,’ muttered Lucy. She turned in her seat. ‘Weapons very free, all right? Don’t wait for an order.’

‘Fuckin’ A,’ muttered Toon, adjusting his grip on his carbine.

Amanda cracked her knuckles.

‘Wire-tight and good to go.’

The marine kissed a St Michael medallion and tucked it into his ballistic vest.

‘Don’t feel ashamed, kid,’ said Amanda. ‘Only a fool wouldn’t be scared.’

Engine roar echoed through the vaulted warehouse. High-beams shafted through broiling diesel fumes.

A marine private hauled back the hangar door and the convoy rolled out into torrential rain.

They drove parallel to a row of warehouses. They sped through a field of Conex shipping containers and headed for the perimeter wire.

The compound gatehouse was a narrow breach in a HESCO sand barrier with twin machine-gun sangars either side.

They got waved through. They sped down a fresh strip of asphalt laid across desert to the expressway. Route Irish. The twelve-kilometre thunder run between the airport and the Green Zone. They passed bullet-pocked signs for Fallujah and Ramadi.

They drove fast and tight. Rain lashed the windshield. Wipers swept-double time.

Adrenalin high. Lucy stroked the rubber custom grip of her rifle. Every smell, every texture, hitting with the heightened clarity of dreams.

A few other cars on the road. A white Toyota pulled close behind the convoy. An old man and his son. Windshield decked out with prayer beads and a gold fringe. Voss waved them back. They didn’t respond. He shouldered his assault rifle and put a shot through the front grille. The Toyota swerved across the median and hit a ditch jetting steam.

‘Salaam Alaikum, motherfucker.’

They raced past checkpoints, blast barriers and concertina wire.

Baghdad up ahead.

Ministry buildings split open by Tomahawks. Homeless families bivouacked in burned-out offices. Campfires flickered in upper floors throughout the night.

The ‘Mother of All Battles’ mosque. Each minaret shaped like a SCUD.

The skyline veiled in rain.

A tight side street. Slum housing. Crumbling concrete apartment blocks flanked a dirt road with a sewer trench either side. Lean dogs pawed garbage. A few locals in dishdashas sheltered in doorways.

Lucy pulled a map from the sun-visor pocket.

‘What’s he doing? Your CO. Why the detour?’

‘JTAC says a truck flipped outside the old college. It’s going to take them an hour to clear the road.’

‘Not many people around,’ said Toon. ‘I don’t like the atmospherics.’

Lucy slapped the driver on the shoulder.

‘Tell your boss right in two hundred metres. We have to get out of these side roads.’

Burned-out cars. A rat-run alley blocked by oil drums full of rubble.

‘They pay for a kill,’ said Amanda. ‘You know that, right? Sunni militia. Plant a bomb, kill a white skin. There’s a bounty.’

‘How much are we worth?’

‘About three hundred dollars. Lot of money round here.’

‘It’s the rain,’ said the driver. ‘Everyone is hiding from the rain.’

‘Your command vehicle. It’s got electronic countermeasures, right? For roadside?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t like it.’ Toon craned to look up. Balconies and snarled phone cable. ‘Classic choke point. Sitting ducks.’ He turned in his seat and addressed the marine beside him.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Rubin.’

‘Tell your boss to speed up.’

The young marine hesitated, then spoke into his radio.

‘India One, this is India Two. Come in, over.’

‘Go ahead India Two.’

‘Contract suggests we move a little faster, over.’

‘India Two, maintain radio silence, over.’

‘Roger that.’

‘Tell him to keep out of the road ruts,’ said Lucy. ‘Perfect place for a pressure plate. Seriously. Tell him.’

‘India One, this is India Two, over.’

‘Maintain silence, India Two.’

‘Contract suggests we keep out of ruts in the road.’

‘Tell her to fuck herself, over.’

‘Roger that.’

‘Your CO is a fucking idiot,’ said Toon.

‘That’s Lance-Corporal Cortez. You call him Sir.’

The lead Humvee stopped.

‘What’s the deal?’ demanded Lucy. ‘What the fuck is going on?’

Cortez kicked open the side door of the Humvee and got out.

‘Fuck,’ muttered Lucy. She extended the butt-stock of her assault rifle. She flicked the safety to Off, selector to Burst. She popped the door of the Suburban, ran across the street and threw herself against a cinder-block wall. Rifle to her shoulder. She scanned windows, parapets and balconies. No movement.

Voss in her earpiece:

‘Fuck is going on, boss? Fucking dead meat out here.’

‘Hold on.’

She wiped rain from her eyes and looked down the street. A Fiat Tempra station wagon parked by the roadside fifty yards ahead. The vehicle was empty. It sat low on the rear axle. Might be stacked with artillery shells. Might be a bunch of twenty-litre palm oil drums filed with a bath-tub brew of ammonium nitrate and aluminium filings.

Cortez slowly walked towards the Fiat. He stopped seventy-five yards out. He checked for disturbed earth. He scanned the ground for secondaries or a command wire. He checked balconies and windows, tried to gauge probable line-of-sight for a trigger man crouched with a cellphone detonator and a video camera.

‘Hey. Cortez,’ shouted Lucy. ‘Let’s back up, all right? We’ll turn round. Get out of here.’

The corporal peered through the Fiat window. An empty back seat. An empty trunk. He relaxed. He jogged back towards the Humvee.

‘Okay,’ he shouted. ‘Let’s go.’

Slow motion:

Guy steps out of a doorway and shoulders an RPG. Flash. Billowing back-blast. Streaking projectile. Lucy screaming ‘Get Down!’ Cortez looking at her like ‘What the fuck?’ The grenade hits him between the shoulder blades and suddenly there is nothing left of the CO but pink mist.

It rained meat.

RPG guy stepped from the doorway again. He hurriedly clipped a fresh sabot into the smoking barrel and shouldered the weapon. A young, bearded guy in baggy trousers and white shirt. Lucy shot him through the left eye and blew out the back of his skull. He was thrown clean out of his flip-flops.

A compadre ducked out of the doorway and snatched up the RPG.

The driver got out of the Humvee and looked at scraps of wet muscle draped over the hood and windshield. Shock. Paralysis.

Lucy ran across the street. She grabbed him by the collar of his tac vest. His name patch said DANVER.

‘Specialist. Did you radio it in?’

‘No. Yes.’

‘You have to get it together. Every mobbed-up Sunni in this quarter of the city will be heading this way.’

‘We can’t leave the Corp.’

Lucy glanced around. Scorched flak jacket and ribs beneath the Humvee. Arms and legs in the street. The corporal’s head lay in the sewer trench, still wearing a K-pot helmet. Pooled blood and rainwater.

‘We do not have the time to police this shit up.’

Crack of AK fire. Muzzle flash from a high window. Dirt kicked up around their feet. The. . .