Chapter One
Under a black sky, pierced by icy stars high above the Sulaiman Mountains, we lay shivering, waiting. Then the soft crackle in my ear and the quiet, gravelly voice of Sergeant Bradley, the Kiwi.
“All right, move in. Move in for the kill, boys.”
There were four of us in the patrol. We pulled down our night-vision goggles, the world turned a strange, eerie green and black and we scrambled at a crouching run, moving fast and silent across the sand and loose stones. I was at the back. Ahead of me, scattered at irregular distances, with their C8 Carbines across their chests, were: The Sarge—the big, bearded New Zealander—at the head. Behind him, fifteen feet to the left, was Jones, six foot six of solid black, Welsh muscle; then Skinner, ten paces to his left, small, wiry and lethal, from the East End of London. As at home in a tavern in Senegal as he was in a pub in Whitechapel, as long as he was drinking beer, he didn’t care who he had to fight.
And then me, Bauer, the Yank. I had their backs.
We moved silently, with startling speed over the cold sand, driving uphill, over loose gravel and rocks, among the boulders and the small shrubs. Soon the vast wall of the mountain had blocked out the sky and the small stars ahead, and we were clambering, more slowly now, up a narrow path forged over centuries by cloven hooves and sandals.
After fifteen minutes of climbing we came to a small plateau where scattered, gnarled cypress bushes stood, twisted, tortured silhouettes among the stunted rosemary bushes and the thyme. Here Jones and Skinner peeled off and vanished noiselessly among the shadows. Bradley and I continued along, half-crouching beside the path, keeping low.
Soon, at the northern end of the plateau, the terrain on our right began to climb again, steeply toward a jagged system of ravines and peaks. Bradley dropped on his belly and began to crawl. I followed suit. My own breathing was loud in my ears, and just ahead I could hear the soft slither of Bradley’s camouflage on the dust. A nocturnal bird cried out and from far off came the howl of what might have been a wolf, or a dog.
And then we saw it and froze: the tiny, green glimmer of light from a flame.
Bradley’s voice crackled softly again: “We have eyes on the cave. Light visible. Do nothing. Either they are not expecting company, or this is a trap. Please confirm you are in position.”
Jones came back.
“Affirmative, Sarge. We see the light.”
Bradley signaled me over and I crawled up beside him. He pointed at me, pointed to a small copse of gnarled bushes fifty or sixty feet from the cave and directly in front of it, and touched his eyes with his two fingers in a victory sign.
I moved off at a crouching lope, taking irregular steps and occasionally dropping to a crawl. The air was freezing, but I was sweating with the exertion and the weight of the Bergen on my back. I kept my mouth covered with a thick, woolen scarf, not so much because of the cold, but to conceal the telltale clouds of condensation that could give a sniper a target.
I came to the crop of twisted cypresses and crawled in among the trunks. I raised my goggles, pulled the C8 from my shoulder and peered through the nightscope. Six guys in Taliban dress sitting around a fire, eating and talking. They were at the entrance to a large cave. I spoke softly into my mic.
“Six Taliban at the mouth of the cave, eating. I see assault rifles against the rocks. Looks like we are not expected. I see more light inside the cave.”
Bradley’s voice came back: “OK, boys, close in to ten yards. Bauer, on my word, you open fire. Jones, Skinner, we close in from the sides. Bauer, fuck’s sake don’t shoot us.”
There was no acknowledgment. It wasn’t needed. We all knew what we had to do.
I began to crawl, easy, relaxed, keeping my limbs loose, keeping my head and my shoulders down. At thirty feet I stopped. Now I could see the targets clearly, sitting cross-legged, gesticulating at each other as they spoke. I took my scope and focused on the nearest weapon leaning against a rock. It was an AK47. At that distance, with the scope, I could see the selector set high to the safety position. By the time its owner reached it and flipped to full auto, they’d all be dead. These men were not expecting to be hit tonight. This was not a trap.
I breathed into the mic: “Bauer in position. Nearest weapon six feet from nearest guy. Safety on.”
Bradley’s voice came back without hesitation.
“OK, Bauer, kill them. Repeat, kill.”
Nine times out of ten spraying an area with fire is wasteful and ineffective. Slugs from an assault rifle spray wide, and after a few yards your bullets are passing harmlessly between your targets. Short, concentrated bursts of two or three slugs are more effective. That is, unless your victims are in a small, confined space. In which case, due to ricochet, your thirty rounds are multiplied by ten and become three hundred rounds bouncing unpredictably in all directions.
The stone nook in which they were sitting, to get shelter from the icy desert breeze and keep in the warmth of the fire, was just one such confined space. I aimed at the head of the nearest guy, sitting with his back to me, and muttered, “Just not cricket, old chap,” in a fair imitation of a British officer. Then I opened up.
After the fifth round had exploded from the barrel the weapon was dancing in my hands like a hooked fish and I was struggling to keep it centered on the target. After a couple of seconds the magazine was empty and the small stone alcove was strewn with badly injured, dead and dying men. To the right I could see Sergeant Bradley sprinting toward the fire, and on the left Jones and Skinner closing in.
I pulled out the magazine and rammed in a new one, scrambled to my feet and ran the ten paces to the scene of the slaughter. A couple of cracks, like firecrackers, rang out in the night: one of the guys finishing the job, confirming the kill.
By the time I got there they’d taken up positions, on one knee, covering the deeper entrance to the cave proper. I knelt beside the Sarge and he signaled me forward with his left hand.
I ran four steps to an outcrop of boulders and peered around it. I could see a large opening in the cliff face, ten feet high and about twelve feet across. Orange light wavered on the left-hand wall. I signaled Bradley to follow. He came up beside me and had a look, then pointed to a cluster of rocks beside the mouth of the cave. I made a dash and ducked in beside them while he covered me.
Now I couldn’t see the inside of the cavern. All I could see was the black sky above, the narrow passage of sand I had just crossed and the cluster of rocks fifteen feet away, where the bodies lay. Soft, flickering amber light touched it, and in that light I saw Bradley turn back and gesture. A couple of seconds later Jones and Skinner had joined him. Then, with a brief scuffle of boots in the dust, one by one, they crossed the sand and joined me.
For a moment we remained motionless, listening. We exchanged looks that said none of us could hear anything. The Sarge got on his belly and wormed his way to the edge of the entrance. After a moment he rolled on his back to look at us and gestured me and Skinner to the far side, and Jones to join him.
In that configuration, we moved into the cave. The floor seemed to have been largely cleared of rocks and gave the impression of being frequently used. The firelight we’d seen was coming from a couple of flaming torches that had been wedged into cracks in the rocks. They were positioned at a dogleg where the passage turned left and disappeared from view.
We moved, quickly and silently to the bend where the torches were, and Sergeant Bradley dropped on his belly again, wormed his way along and peered around. I followed suit, keeping in the shadows.