It took Luke just a few seconds to size up the situation.
It was a busy street. The concrete buildings along either side were mostly four storeys high. One of them, fifty metres ahead, had a flagpole sticking out at an angle, with the bright green flag of Hamas hanging limply from it. Many had balconies on the upper floors, and although some of these were dilapidated and clearly not suitable for anybody to stand on, others were occupied.
At ground level there was a smattering of parked cars on either side of the road. The street was lined with shops, most with metal grilles closed over them, and the grilles themselves were covered in graffiti. Behind the Land Cruiser and to the right, twenty-five metres from their position, was a particularly run-down building. There was no glass in the windows, and the concrete facade was streaked with black marks which suggested a fire had raged through it at some point in the past.
But it was something else that told the unit things were turning to shit.
About 150 metres ahead, the road was blocked — not by vehicles this time, but by a mob of people, maybe a hundred of them. They were advancing chaotically, but even at this distance and through the bullet-resistant glass of the Land Cruiser, the voices of the crowd were audible. They were shouting some slogan — a dull, rhythmic sound, like the beating of drums — and at least twenty of them were waving rifles in the air.
Behind the vehicle the same story — a crowd had appeared from nowhere and closed off the access to the street. The mob to their rear was perhaps half the size of the one in front, but it was closer — 100 metres maybe. Luke looked left and right, searching for side streets from which they could exit the position. Nothing.
He was aware of Finn raising his weapon to his closed window. ‘Let’s not go the way of those Signallers in the Province,’ his mate said. Luke knew what he was talking about. During the Troubles two green army boys were driving round Northern Ireland when they came across a Republican funeral, heavy with IRA marshals. The Provos mistook them first for a Protestant hit team. A crowd developed round the car and some of them dragged the Signallers out and examined their ID. One of the soldiers had been stationed in Herford, Germany. The IRA misread that as Hereford and the moment they thought their captives were SAS, their fate was sealed: they were stripped naked, dragged over some wrought-iron fencing, where one of them had his calf ripped off, and then they were executed with their own pistols.
If the Signallers really had been Regiment, it might have been different. The SOP would have been quite clear — start shooting before the mob managed to drag you out of the car. Finn was preparing to do just that.
Fozzie put the Land Cruiser into reverse. He hit the accelerator and the tyres screeched as he sped backwards, moving faster and faster towards the smaller crowd.
‘What’s going on?’ Stratton demanded.
‘You tell me,’ Luke retorted. Through the rear windscreen he saw a few members of the crowd run to either side of the road as the Land Cruiser approached, but the bulk of them — about thirty men — stayed where they were, chanting and thrusting their fists in the air.
‘Hamas?’ Finn demanded.
‘They wouldn’t dare,’ spat Stratton.
Luke was still looking through the rear windscreen. ‘ Incoming! ’ he shouted. He had picked out the shooters when they were about seventy-five metres from the crowd: two men in jeans and T-shirts and carrying old AKs. The age of the weapons made no difference: they pumped several bursts of 7.62s at the Land Cruiser.
Moving instantly, Luke pushed the back of Stratton’s head violently down so that he was bending at the waist and out of view of the rear window. As he did this there was a sudden drilling sound at the back of the vehicle. Although 7.62s, especially from that range, weren’t nearly enough to penetrate the armoured Land Cruiser, they still made an ear-splitting noise as they hammered into the black metal. Several rounds had hit the rear windscreen. They had failed to shatter it, but three sudden spider webs with bullet-hole centres splintered their way across the toughened polycarbonate.
‘ Stay down! ’ Luke roared at Stratton, who was wriggling under his fierce grip like a petulant child. ‘ Fozzie, fucking get out of here… ’
Fozzie spun the steering wheel as the rhythmic shouting of the advancing mob grew more frenzied. He swerved the vehicle round 180 degrees so they were facing the smaller crowd, which had fired on them, then shoved the gear lever into first and revved the engine to screaming point. When he let his foot off the clutch, the 4 x 4 lurched forward violently, jolting all the passengers as it shot towards the crowd like a stone from a catapult. Fozzie accelerated, his face set. It would have been obvious to anyone who saw him that he had no intention of stopping for anything — or anyone — in his way.
He did stop, though. He had no choice.
It was Russ who noticed it first. ‘ RPG! ’ he yelled when they had gone barely thirty metres.
‘What the fuck?’ said Luke. This was a street mob, not an insurgency. How the hell did they get themselves a piece of kit like that? But then he too caught sight of a thin Palestinian man at the front of the smaller crowd with a rocket launcher on his shoulder. The crowd had parted behind him to avoid the back blast, and as soon as Luke clapped eyes on him the grenade left the tube.
If Fozzie had waited half a second more to yank his left hand down on the steering wheel, they’d have been mincemeat. As it was, the Land Cruiser swerved to the side of the road as the RPG thumped into the tarmac. The impact and explosion sent a shockwave right through them, and the blast caused the right-hand rear wheel of the vehicle to raise what felt like a good metre into the air. When it hit the ground again — to the accompaniment of shrapnel from the RPG showering down on the roof — there was an ominous crunching sound from the undercarriage.
Fozzie tried to reverse again, but as his foot left the clutch there was a terrible grinding noise and a smell of burning.
‘Fucking axle’s twisted!’ he shouted. He looked over his shoulder at Luke. ‘We’re not going anywhere in this piece of crap, mate.’
Luke removed his hand from the back of Stratton’s neck and recced the situation. It looked bleak. The two groups were closing in on them, the smaller one twenty metres away, the larger about fifty. There was a crater in the road where the RPG had hit, and although the shooter had disappeared along with the immediate threat of a second grenade, Luke knew it only took a couple of seconds to reload a launcher. The shouting from the approaching crowds was growing louder.
They had to make a decision. And fast.
‘Finn, you and me are going to lay down warning fire. We need to disperse these crowds. And no stiffs. We start nailing people, we’re going to be in the middle of a riot…’
‘We are already,’ Finn shot back. ‘A few rounds in the air won’t do fuck all…’
‘What the hell’s going on?’ Stratton butted in. His face was moist with sweat.
‘You,’ Luke frowned at him, ‘shut up. Warning fire, Finn. I fucking mean it.’
His mate looked uncomfortable with the order, but nodded his agreement.
‘Exit in three, two, one, go! ’
The two men opened the rear doors of the Land Cruiser and kicked them wide with their feet. In the same movement, Luke raised his 53 so that it was aimed well above the heads of the larger crowd and fired two quick bursts. He heard Finn doing the same and the harsh, mechanical noise of the discharged rounds ripped through the air. Stratton shouted in alarm, but Luke ignored him and, semi-protected like Finn by his half-open rear passenger door, kept his weapon aimed firmly towards the mob.
At first the sound of the rounds had the desired effect. About half the crowd hit the ground, their hands covering their heads. The thought crossed Luke’s mind that these were people used to the sights and sounds of combat. Perhaps that was a good thing. Perhaps it meant they would take a burst of counter-fire seriously. From the edges of the larger crowd he saw perhaps ten people run to the side of the road and take cover in doorways or behind parked cars. There was still a hard core, though, some thirty or forty who weren’t deterred by the warning fire. Most of them were wearing black and white keffiyehs and waving their assault rifles in the air. It crossed Luke’s mind that the threat of death didn’t seem to worry some of them. He’d encountered enemy like that before, in the Stan. It was a dangerous man who wasn’t scared of dying.
Rounds from the crowd. Two of them thudded into the window where Russ was still sitting next to Fozzie in the front.
Finn’s voice. Urgent. ‘The fuckers are still advancing.’
‘Go again!’ Luke shouted, and fired a third burst over the heads of the crowd.
It was as the sounds of these shots died away, and the advancing mob failed to disperse any further, that Stratton spoke again. His voice was shrill. ‘Shoot them down,’ he urged. ‘These people will only disperse if…’
‘ Shut the fuck up! ’ Luke roared. But he had to admit to himself that their options were diminishing. He didn’t want any casualties — not because he was squeamish, but because he knew that in an urban combat situation like this, to slot the bastards would make things ten times worse, not to mention the wider implications of a British unit mowing down Gazan citizens — but if they kept coming, he wouldn’t have much choice.
‘Shoot them!’ Stratton repeated. ‘That’s an order!’
‘Fozzie.’ Luke’s voice was as bleak as his mood. ‘If he speaks again, grease him.’
‘Roger that,’ Fozzie replied. Luke didn’t look over his shoulder to see what Stratton’s reaction was. He lowered his weapon so that now he was pointing directly at the crowd and not above their heads. They were about thirty metres distant now. If he fired, things were going to get messy.
He tried to keep a clear head, to work out what the hell was going down. Had these people been sent here directly by the Hamas administration? On the face of it, it seemed unlikely. They were a cobbled-together bunch with little organisation and a mixed bag of weapons. There were no vehicles. No fire support.
But only Hamas had known the route they were taking through the city. As Luke kept his aim on the crowd, a thought jumped into his head. Surely not even Hamas would be so foolish as to make an overt hit on Stratton? But they could leak details of his movements down to the militants in their state who had no such concern for the balance of international relations.
‘ We need to nail them, Luke! ’ Finn shouted.
Nail them. Finn’s default setting. Luke remembered being in Iraq, and how Finn had wanted to waste Amit from the first instant.
‘ Luke! ’
Finn’s warning snapped Luke back to the present. He closed his left eye and with his right looked through the sight mounted on the body of the HK53. Members of the crowd ahead came into sharp focus, the cross hairs juddering over their heads and bodies as they jumbled forwards.
His forefinger, resting on the trigger, twitched.
They’d been forced into a corner. Their choices were limited. In fact, they were non-existent.
‘Fire in three…’ Luke shouted over the pounding noise of the mob’s chanting.
He could sense Russ and Fozzie unlatching their doors.
‘Two…’
Through the sight of the 53, Luke saw a commotion at the front of the crowd. There were four men in their twenties, wearing jeans and black and white keffiyehs round their necks. They had surrounded someone and were pushing him forward. Luke directed his sight into the middle of this little group, every instinct telling him that this was where he needed to direct his weapon.
‘ HOLD YOUR FIRE! ’
He roared the instruction at the top of his voice the moment the scene unfolded with more clarity.
The group of men had parted to a reveal a kid. Thirteen, fourteen maybe. He was a skinny little runt with sunken eyes, and the 53’s sights clearly picked out the unshaven hairs on his upper lip. They picked out, too, the expression of absolute terror on the boy’s face.
As Luke shouted, the noise of the mob suddenly fell quiet. His voice echoed briefly off the concrete walls of the street.
The kid stood motionless a couple of metres in front of the mob. In fact the crowd were shrinking back from him. Luke kept the child in his sights. He could see now that he was trembling. The boy took a step forward. And another. He appeared to be unarmed, so why were the mob retreating?
Fozzie’s voice. ‘What the hell’s happening?’
Luke paused a couple of seconds before answering. His sights had scanned the kid’s body. He was wearing a coat that came down to his knees. A raincoat, but it wasn’t raining.
‘We’ve got ourselves a suicide bomber,’ he stated.
He could almost feel the kid’s anxiety, even from this distance. It wasn’t just the way he trembled. It was his faltering steps, the nervous darting of his eyes left and right, the way he clenched and unclenched his palms as he grew closer and closer to the Land Cruiser.
The mob was running now in the opposite direction, taking cover behind parked cars and putting a good thirty metres between themselves and the boy. Luke flicked the safety catch on his 53 to semi-automatic and kept his cross hairs directly on the kid’s face. A single head shot was what he needed to put him down safely.
But something stopped him. And it wasn’t just that downing this kid would push the crowd over the edge.
He was back in St Paul’s. A shadowy figure had just discharged her first round into the head of a child not much younger than the kid Luke had in his sights.
Chet’s kid.
His face flared with anger at the memory of it.
Now he was about to do the same.
The boy was still advancing. Still trembling. Luke could see beads of sweat dripping down on to his unshaven top lip and chin. He could see the fists closing and opening, faster now than before.
‘ Shoot him! ’
Stratton’s voice was hoarse.
‘He’s a terrorist. Shoot! ’
Luke blocked it out. If he was going to fire, it would be his decision, not Stratton’s.
‘Luke, mate…’ Fozzie’s voice was quiet and tense. ‘ Now would be a good time to take the fucker out…’
But Luke didn’t move. Something wasn’t right. He knew he had to nail the kid if he got much further, but something wasn’t right.
The kid stopped. He closed his eyes. Opened them again. And continued walking.
Fozzie’s voice again. ‘Russ, take him out.’
‘ Hold your fire! ’ Luke barked.
The fists. Clenching and unclenching. There should be a detonation switch in one hand or the other. A cord peeking from one of his sleeves. But there was nothing.
Remote detonation. He’d seen it in the Stan — kids forced into martyrdom against their will, their generals in charge of the moment of bliss in case they bottled it. Was there was someone watching, ready to blast this child to paradise when he’d cause the most destruction?
‘This is madness,’ Stratton hissed. ‘Will someone just do it?’
‘How many more kids are going to die, Stratton?’ said Luke. He focused in on the bomber’s eyes.
‘This is insanity…’
Luke almost missed it. The kid’s eyes flickered upwards and to the right, before returning to the road ahead. It was the smallest of movements. Hardly anything at all. But it was enough.
He redirected his weapon so that it was pointing not at the boy, but across the street. The street was deserted at ground level, but the kid had looked upwards, so Luke raised his sights, scanning the buildings opposite. He moved his field of vision left and right, picking out the cracks in the wall and the railings at the front of balconies.
‘ What the fuck are you doing, Luke? ’ Fozzie didn’t just sound on edge, he sounded angry. Luke knew he didn’t have much time before the unit started ignoring his instructions and opening up of their own accord.
He scanned the buildings. Left to right. Up. Right to left.
When Luke saw him, it was only momentary. He had to pan back quickly to get him in his sights again. The figure was alone on a fourth-storey balcony, about twenty-five metres up and thirty-five metres from Luke’s position. He was looking down at the street below, concentration all over his swarthy face. Luke picked out his short black beard and flat brown eyes; and panning down half a metre, he saw something in the man’s hands. It was the same size and shape as an old-fashioned mobile phone, but it had an antenna, about five inches long, sprouting from the top.
Luke moved the cross hairs back to the man’s head.
‘ Jesus, Luke… ’
‘Hold tight, fellas,’ he said, just as the man in his sights turned his head to notice that Luke had eyes on and was staring directly into his sights.
Luke knew he had only a millisecond. The range was fine, but he had just the one chance. With the cross hairs directly over the man’s forehead, he squeezed the trigger. The 53’s butt jerked sharply into his shoulder, and the sound of the discharge cracked loudly, echoing from one side of the street to another. The recoil of the shot had nudged the target out of Luke’s sight, and he was forced to realign his weapon to see what the result was.
A direct hit.
The man was slumped precariously over the balcony’s railings. On the wall behind him blood was spattered; more was dripping from the head wound down to the pavement below. Luke redirected his aim towards the kid in the road. He was looking frantically left and right and didn’t appear to know what was happening.
His ignorance didn’t last for long.
Luke sensed movement on the balcony and looked over just in time to see his target topple over the railings. He seemed to fall through the air for an eternity, before hitting the ground with a crunch that was audible from the Land Cruiser on the other side of the road.
The kid stopped in his tracks.
He stared at the fallen man.
He turned round to look at the silent, retreating crowd, the nearest members of which had retreated to a distance of thirty-five metres.
And then he ran after them. His arms and legs were flailing and ungainly, but he bolted like a hare, just as the crowd realised what was happening. They parted to let him through, but their silence ebbed away, to be replaced by a low muttering, which quickly grew to something more sinister as they started to advance again.
‘ Shit! ’ Luke cried. First blood had been drawn. Some of the crowd had seen the dead man. It would be only seconds before the rest of them understood what had happened. And then the unit’s only option was to fight.
He turned to the guys in the vehicle and pointed through the front windscreen towards the dilapidated building with the scorch marks on the frontage, which was now fifteen metres from their position. ‘We need to head in there!’ he shouted. ‘It’s a defensible position.’
Fozzie nodded.
‘Finn, Russ, cover me. I’ll get Stratton inside first.’
The two men didn’t hesitate. Russ kicked the passenger door open and started firing towards the crowd, his weapon resonating in unison with Finn’s. Again they aimed above the heads of the mob, now advancing once more. They slowed down, but how long for, and how long until they returned fire, it was impossible to say.
Luke grabbed Stratton and pulled him forcibly from the 4 x 4. His clothes were soaked in sweat. As Russ and Finn laid down another burst of rounds, Luke yanked him towards the building. The doorway was wooden and looked solid, although its yellow paint was peeling. Luke kicked it with his right foot but it didn’t budge, so he took a couple of steps back and aimed his 53 at the lock. A quick burst and the wood splintered and cracked. Another kick and it was open.
Not before time. The mob was now just twenty metres from the vehicle. Russ and Finn, who were still next to their respective passenger doors while Fozzie remained in the front, continued to fire warning bursts, but these were no longer sufficient to hold them back. If they grew any closer, the unit would have to start killing people. Then it could only go one of two ways: a retreat, or a massacre…
Luke thrust himself into the building, his weapon pointing up then down as he checked if it was occupied. No sign of anyone. He exited again. ‘ Get in! ’ he bellowed at Stratton, who was staring wide-eyed at the stand-off. When he didn’t move, Luke grabbed hold of him again and sent him flying through the door with such force that he fell heavily to the ground the moment he was inside.
But Luke wasn’t much concerned with Stratton. All of a sudden his attention was elsewhere.
It was Finn who made the first kill. A round from one of the Palestinian AKs had just ricocheted off the Land Cruiser’s armoured chassis. Finn lowered his weapon so that, instead of pointing above the heads of the mob, it was aimed directly at them. As he fired, he panned from left to right; and although the burst from his 53 didn’t last much more than a second, it was brutally effective. The front line of the crowd crumpled like toy soldiers knocked over by a child. There was a heavy groan from the mob, with one man offering up a horrific counterpoint: he had clearly taken a round that had failed to kill him, and was screaming uncontrollably.
Luke ignored the shrieking. He ignored the sudden line of dead, torn bodies. He had noticed something else and he had almost no time at all to deal with it.
‘ Get away from the vehicle! ’ he screamed at his mates as he raised his weapon. ‘ GET AWAY FROM THE FUCKING VEHICLE! ’ But he saw Fozzie was still behind the wheel and the others were pinned down..
Twenty metres away was the guy with the RPG launcher. He had reappeared at the front of the smaller mob, the simple tube of his weapon raised up on his right-hand shoulder and with the curved and pointed shape of a fresh grenade clearly visible at the end of the spout.
Luke stood in the doorway of the building, pressed the butt of the 53 into his shoulder and searched his sights for the shooter. His senses seemed to slow everything down.
The crowd, whose noise had waned, grew louder.
The air was suddenly filled with the renewed chugging of Finn’s 53 as he slaughtered a fresh wave of Palestinians. He had ignored Luke’s warning to get the hell away from the Land Cruiser — perhaps he hadn’t heard it — but hadn’t clocked the RPG either.
It was up to Luke to lock on to the target. The cross hairs hovered over the shooter’s chest.
Both men fired at the same time.
The single shot from Luke’s weapon cracked in the air at precisely the same time as the RPG fizzed towards the unit’s vehicle. The shooter went down, but it was too late.
The projectile hurtled with absolute accuracy towards his companions. The Land Cruiser was tough, but it wasn’t tough enough to withstand that. The grenade crashed through the windscreen. It was inside the vehicle when it detonated.
The explosion was brief, but it was powerful. It sent a shock wave emanating from the 4 x 4 that threw Luke a metre backwards into the building. He fell heavily on his left shoulder, but was able to look back out through the doorway just in time to see the carnage.
Fozzie couldn’t have known what hit him. There was no doubt that the blood and gore that spattered the remaining windows as the RPG’s shrapnel peppered them from inside was his. Russ and Finn were less lucky. As they were both standing at the open rear passenger doors, the shrapnel that emerged from the openings darted into the backs of their bodies in the fraction of a second before they were thrown forward, away from the vehicle. Luke saw Russ’s body flying though the air on the other side of the Land Cruiser; Finn landed on his front no more than three metres from where Luke was lying. Blood was pissing from the back of his neck; his clothes were scorched and burned away; and although there was insufficient life left in him to scream, his body twitched and shuddered like someone was passing an electric current through him. It didn’t take a genius to tell he was fucked.
That all three of them were fucked.
A huge roar erupted from the crowd, and several celebratory AK rounds were fired, both up into the air and towards the vehicle. Luke knew there was nothing he could do for the rest of his unit now. He gave himself a couple of seconds to regroup. It was just him and Stratton now. Him, Stratton and the mob. They were surrounding the Land Cruiser, stripping the dead men of their weapons. Luke reckoned it was thirty seconds before the braver ones among them would follow him and Stratton into the structure where they had taken cover. It was as dilapidated inside as out, pungent with the soot-soaked smell of a previous fire. The bare brick walls were crumbling, but from the right-hand side of a hallway a narrow wooden staircase led all the way up the building and it still seemed to be sound. Stratton had shrunk into the shadows just beyond the staircase. His face was pale and he looked rather small, almost childlike. Luke grabbed his arm.
‘ Up,’ he barked, and when Stratton hesitated, he just pushed him so that he stumbled up the stairs. He looked back through the door. No sign of the mob, but he could hear them. They were getting louder.
‘ UP! ’
Stratton started scrambling up the stairs. It was very dark here and precarious too because the banisters had mostly been burned away and there was a sheer drop to the ground floor. Every ten steps or so, Stratton stumbled; but each time he fell, Luke was there to pick him up by the scruff of his neck and urge him on.
They were three storeys high before he heard the sound of voices echoing up the stairwell. Sharp voices, barking instructions. Stratton stopped and looked behind him, to be rewarded with another push from Luke. As the older man scrambled further up the stairs, Luke aimed his weapon down the stairwell and fired a short burst. The sound echoed all over the building and for a moment the voices ceased. It wouldn’t be for long, Luke knew. The crowd had a taste for blood.
They were coming.
On the fourth-storey landing there was an opening where a door had once been, but only the rusted hinges now remained. It looked out on to a set of rusted metal steps that clearly gave access to the roof. ‘Get up there,’ Luke barked. Stratton looked anxiously towards the steps, but he didn’t need any more encouragement. He climbed them, swiftly followed by Luke, and they stepped on to the rooftop.
Both men were black with soot and drenched with sweat. Luke looked around. They were on a flat roof, about thirty metres square. The metal staircase had emerged through a small open skylight approximately five metres from the back wall; on the street side of the roof, also five metres from the edge, was a grey breeze-block shed, about two metres high and four wide, which looked like it housed the building’s electrical supply. There was no barrier around the roof. The front looked straight out on to the street below, the rear on to a concrete courtyard and there was a gap of about six metres — too far to jump — between the adjacent roofs. The sound of the mob below drifted upwards. It was getting angrier.
Luke glanced down the skylight. Nothing yet. He looked over his shoulder to see Stratton cowering by the blockwork shed — a truly wretched picture, but at least he’d had the presence of mind to stay out of sight of both the street below and the windows of the buildings opposite. Three good men had just lost their lives protecting this tosser, thought Luke.
He turned his back on Stratton and activated his sat phone. ‘Zero!’ he shouted into the mouthpiece. ‘This is Tango 17!’
‘ Tango 17 this is Zero. What the hell’s happening th…? ’
‘I’ve got three men down. The Cardinal is safe for now but I’ve got limited ammo. I’m on a rooftop — do you have my position marked?’
‘ Roger that, Tango 17. ’
‘I need a fucking chopper, buddy.’
‘ Tango 17, your location is a no-fly zone. Attempt return by vehicle or foot… ’
‘Fuck the no-fly zone! I can hold these bastards for five minutes. Ten minutes tops. Leave it any longer, you’ll be scraping what’s left of Stratton off the fucking rooftop.’ And me, for that matter, he thought, but he didn’t say it.
Luke disconnected the sat phone. The ops room had all the intel they needed. They’d either infringe the no-fly zone or they wouldn’t. His priority was to go about defending their position.
But there was something he wanted to do first.
He checked the skylight again, then strode towards Stratton. As he grew nearer, he realised that his man wasn’t cowering at all. He was on his knees with his head bowed, his hands clenched together, and his lips moving silently. For some reason the sight just infuriated Luke even more. He grabbed a clump of Stratton’s hair and pulled him shouting to his feet before throwing him down on to the ground again. Towering over him, Luke aimed his 53 directly at Stratton’s head.
‘All right, you piece of shit,’ he growled. ‘Let’s talk.’
Stratton’s face was a mixture of outrage and defiance. He appeared to be quite unconcerned by the sight of the weapon as he pushed himself up on to his elbows. ‘I think,’ he whispered, ‘that the time for conversation is running out.’
As if to confirm Stratton’s observation, Luke sensed movement over by the skylight. He turned in time to see a black-haired head poking out. ‘ Get down! ’ he shouted as he raised his 53 and discharged a single round into the new arrival’s skull. There was a cracking sound, followed by a tiny fountain of blood, before the head disappeared as its owner tumbled back down the stairs. With luck that would discourage anyone else. For a bit, at least.
Luke turned back to Stratton. Far from looking to protect himself, the idiot was back on his knees.
Again Luke sensed movement. Again he turned to fire a single round in the direction of the skylight, and to down the enemy that was bravely — or stupidly — coming for them. And again he returned to Stratton, and this time swiped his weapon down on the side of his face, knocking him from his kneeling position so that his body slammed against the shed and a large welt appeared immediately on the side of his face. Luke bent down, grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back up to his feet, before pressing him against the wall.
‘What are you planning with Maya Bloom?’ he demanded.
Stratton’s eyes widened. ‘Maya Bloom. She has even more enthusiasm for killing people than you do…’
‘ What are you planning? ’
But Stratton just smiled.
Movement from the skylight. Luke turned and discharged a third single round as the top of a head appeared. They weren’t giving up. But neither was Luke. He returned his attention to Stratton, who still had his back to the wall of the shed. He looked a mess — his clothes ripped and his face dirty and bruised — and yet that strange smile was still on his face. Luke felt an overwhelming urge to get rid of it.
‘Do you know how easy it would be for me,’ he said, ‘to shoot you now and tell everyone you caught an enemy round?’
No reply. Luke pressed his weapon against Stratton’s forehead.
‘You think I won’t do it? Ten years ago, you ordered that woman to take out a friend of mine. I should kill you now just for that…’
No reply.
‘I know you’ve got something to do with the train bombings. You and Maya Bloom…’
Stratton’s eyes shone, but still he gave no reply.
‘ Why? ’ Luke yelled, suddenly losing control of any restraint he had. ‘ Money? The Grosvenor Group? ’
When Stratton finally spoke, it was barely more than a whisper, and at first Luke thought he’d misheard.
‘ He told me to do it.’
Luke blinked. ‘What?’
‘I pity you,’ Stratton said, ‘if you have no faith.’ He stared at Luke with such arrogance that the Regiment man yanked him by the collar once more and hurled him to the ground so that he was lying on his front with the left side of his face pressed against the roof. Kneeling down, Luke dug his right knee sharply into the man’s back, knocking the wind from him, and pressed the 53 hard into the fleshy area under his ear.
‘You think I’m not serious, Stratton? You think I won’t waste you right now? I’m going to give you one more chance — who told you to do it? ’
Luke could hear shouting from below the skylight, but all his attention was fixed on Stratton, who had started to whisper again. ‘I told you you should have paid more attention to the scriptures.’
Luke twisted the butt of the 53 harder into Stratton’s flesh.
‘The troops of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary…’ Stratton went on.
‘What the fuck are you on about?’
‘Its end shall come with a flood…’
More noise from below the skylight.
‘And to the end there shall be war…’
Luke raised his 53 again. He’d had enough of this bullshit. He struck the side of Stratton’s face once more and this time the cunt gasped with the pain. But he continued whispering, repeating himself. ‘The troops of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary…’
‘What city?’ said Luke. ‘What are you talking about?’ And then, almost without hesitation as he remembered the conversation he’d overheard with Maya Bloom, ‘Jerusalem?’
Stratton smiled again. A chilling smile, devoid of mirth. ‘Hanukkah is almost here. When the wall falls, no one will be able to stop the war that is coming…’
‘When what wall falls?’ He hit the side of Stratton’s face again. ‘What the fuck are you planning?’
He didn’t have time to listen for an answer. Two things had caught his attention. The first was the noise of an aircraft in the distance. But at the same time he saw another figure emerging from the skylight, forcing him to turn his 53 in that direction to nail him. Luke aimed and squeezed the trigger, only to feel and hear a loose click. He swore. The mag was empty. He had another in his ops waistcoat, but to reload would take about fifteen seconds. The enemy was almost out — Luke could see his shoulders.
Luke got to his feet and yanked Stratton up from the ground, dragging him behind the shed, where he threw him down again. ‘Don’t fucking move,’ he said as he removed the empty mag and inserted a fresh one. He’d been at it long enough, though, for the guy he’d just seen to be on the roof, and maybe more of them.
A round pinged past the shed, a couple of feet from Luke’s position — close enough for him to feel the air displacement. Sweat poured off him and as he tried to work out his next move, he was aware of Stratton’s voice. The man had fallen to his knees again. ‘I know that my rewards will be in heaven,’ he said. ‘Yours, no doubt, will be in a different place.’
Luke delved once more into his ops waistcoat and brought out a fragmentation grenade as the sound of the approaching air support grew louder. He squeezed the detonation lever, pulled out the pin and hurled the grenade over the shed.
One second passed.
Two seconds.
Three.
The frag exploded with a sudden sharp crack, which was followed by the sound of screaming. Luke pressed his back against the corner of the shed, pointed his weapon around the corner and fired a random burst, before peering round to take stock of the situation.
The frag had done its work well. Three militants were on their backs. Two of them were motionless; the third had blood pumping from his leg and was rolling about so frantically he was painting the area around him red. Luke aimed the 53 in the wounded man’s direction and with a quick double tap put him out of his misery.
And then he looked up.
Two helis, both coming in sharp and from a great height. One looked like a Puma; the other, smaller and hovering just above and behind in a chaperone position, was clearly an Apache. Luke pulled his second and final fragmentation grenade from his waistcoat, yanked away the pin and lobbed it into the opening of the skylight. The muffled crack of its explosion was followed by more screaming. Luke blocked that from his senses, and pulled Stratton round to the front of the shed. He waved at the descending chopper, but the pilot clearly already had a trace on his position and was coming in to land, while the attack helicopter stayed about thirty metres clear, hovering at an angle so that its formidable arsenal was pointing directly at the roof. The roar of the two sets of rotary blades was immense; as the Puma touched down it was like a force-nine wind had blown over the building. The side door opened and Luke recognised B Squadron’s Sergeant Major Bill Thomas shouting at them to run on board.
‘ Go! ’ Luke roared at Stratton over the deafening noise. He kept his 53 aimed towards the skylight.
Stratton didn’t move. He was looking from the chopper to Luke as if he couldn’t decide what best to do.
‘ GO! ’ Luke pushed Stratton in the direction of the aircraft door. The crew member grabbed Stratton by the arm and pulled him into the helicopter. Luke followed, throwing himself into the hard, metallic interior of the chopper. The instant he was on board, the Puma lifted off the roof with a lurch. Luke looked back out of the opening to see the bloodied bodies he’d nailed on the roof below; as they grew higher, he could see the remnants of the mob still rioting in the street; and for a brief moment he saw the Land Cruiser.
The image of Fozzie’s blood spattering over the inside of the vehicle replayed itself in Luke’s mind; he remembered the way Finn’s body had twitched and jolted, and the sickening thud of AK rounds slamming into Russ. It went against every one of Luke’s Regiment instincts to leave the bodies of his mates down there on enemy territory, but he knew he’d had no other option.
And so far as he could tell, all this had happened because of one man.
He turned and saw Stratton huddled on the floor of the Puma, a dark frown on his face. Luke felt as if some other force was controlling his body. He threw himself at the older man and whacked him with a heavy fist. Stratton was like a rag doll. He didn’t even try to resist as Luke laid into him; and by the time two of the aircrew had pulled him away, he’d managed to thump his fist three times against the former PM’s face, hearing the nose joint crack each time and seeing blood smear over the lower part of the guy’s face.
Luke didn’t struggle as he was restrained. He knew there was no point. His squadron comrades were holding him and shouting something at him, but he didn’t even register what it was. Just white noise. Interference in his head. He slumped on to the floor of the Puma, suddenly exhausted, his mind ablaze.
His stomach churned.
It wasn’t the bloodshed that made him feel nauseous.
It wasn’t even the brutal and sudden death of his mates.
It was Stratton.
It wasn’t over yet. Alistair Stratton. Maya Bloom. The Grosvenor Group. Together they’d caused death on an unimaginable scale. And from what Stratton had said, there was more to come…
He felt the man’s eyes on him and he looked across the body of the Puma to see a battered face staring at him, blood streaming from his badly broken nose.
To the end there shall be war.
Stratton’s voice rang in Luke’s head as the fields and rooftops of Gaza slipped away underneath him and the aircraft sped out of Hamas territory, back over the border into Israel.