Distant Annihilation. (Tarquin Collingwood Adventures Book 1) (13 page)

My caution had been vindicated! I ducked out of sight and rested against the rocks and felt for my Glock. Who were these men? It was entirely academic at the moment. My men were in danger. I realised that I only had one Magazine in my Glock, which meant just 15 bullets. I had left all my Magazines in my bags. But I could hardly reproach myself – I didn’t think I would need to be armed to the teeth just to go to the toilet. There was therefore no question of a fire fight with these men. I would have to use my ammunition sparingly. I raised myself off the ground and peered again at the camp; which was a little way yonder and several metres lower than my current position. Something was different! I looked harder and realised that one of the five gunmen was walking back from our horses, speaking loudly to their leader, holding up his left hand, with all five fingers raised. This caused the other men to become agitated. Then it dawned on me that he was indicating the number five – five saddles, meant five men, yet there were only four men – I was missing. The leader began shouting orders and one of the other men armed with a machine gun, a Kalashnikov, started walking briskly in the direction I had originally taken when I left camp.

“Christ almighty!” I swore aloud.

They had realised I was missing. I sunk back behind the rocks suddenly feeling horribly alone, realising that I was now a hunted man!

CHAPTER 16 – A VIEW TO A KILL.

I took a deep breath to relax. Think Tarquin! I exhorted to myself. They did not know I had a gun. I got up from where I was lying and ran as quietly as I could to a spot near where I had climbed up on to the plateau earlier. I hid there waiting for my pursuer to come around the corner. My position was elevated and concealed and offered an excellent vantage point from which to conduct an ambush. I lay down on my stomach to better conceal myself, aimed my gun at the corner from which he would be appearing any moment and waited. I could hear my heart beating in the silence and felt the thirst on my throat. A moment or two had elapsed but he hadn’t appeared. Paranoia gripped me for an instant. What if he knew the area better than I? Perhaps he had my back in his sights at this very moment. I was a fraction away from panicking, I remained calm and looked around behind me – there was no one there. Then suddenly I heard him – I turned around to the front and there he was. He was walking tentatively with his Kalashnikov pointed in front of him, having just come around the corner. The way he was looking around was not that of the hunter seeking his prey but of a man lost, leading me to conclude that these surroundings were as unfamiliar to him as they were to me. I wanted to kill him with one clean shot. I waited for him to walk in my direction, so that I might get a better view of the target - his chest. I held my Glock in both hands which were resting on a rock, with my arms outstretched along the ground, taking aim. He presented his breast - I breathed softly and fired one shot that sounded like a dull thud. I raised my head and looked up, he fell to the ground and lay motionless. The shot reverberated for a second around the rocks and then silence.

I got up from where I lay and moved as swiftly as I could to get down to him, taking care that I did not slip and fall on the rocks and uneven ground. I approached him with my Glock still aimed at him. His eyes were staring out into the sky and there was a gentle trickle of blood from his chest – he was quite dead.

“Splendid shooting Tarquin,” I congratulated myself, gratified at my marksmanship.

There was no sign of his companions. I then searched him. The only thing of use was a water canteen. Normally I’m very particularly about the water I drink – god only knows from where this water had been sourced. But I desperately needed to slake my thirst, so I took a sip. It would have to do I decided and I gulped down a couple of mouthfuls. I grabbed his Kalashnikov and hung it over my shoulder; and then exerted an effort to move the corpse out of sight.

I reasoned the least dangerous option was to lure another one of them out of camp, thereby improving the odds of the remaining captors being successfully overpowered. When the man I’d killed did not return, his companions would come looking for him – that would be when I would strike again. I returned to the point from where I originally saw these captors up on the ridge overlooking the camp. My party were sitting around the camp with now two guns trained on them. The orange bearded leader and the fourth man were looking impatient as they spoke in an agitated manner to each other several metres away from the other men. I assumed that they were discussing the failure of my pursuer to return and so it proved, as just then the man talking to the leader, broke off their conversation and ordered one of the two men watching the hostages, to go and find the man I had killed. The man assigned to this task, was I judged my height to within an inch or two. These men were clearly not robbers, for otherwise they would have taken what they wanted and have been long gone. That left no doubt in my mind that they were the JFF – Mesud’s men. I would ambush this second man - as I had done the other. But this time I would do it differently! I had a plan. I lamented my mistake, if mistake it be in moving the body entirely out of sight. I was after all making this up as I went along; one moment I was innocently going to answer the call of nature and the next I was fighting a deadly game of survival. I urgently ran back to the corpse and dragged the body from where I had left it and moved it, so that the legs of the corpse would be visible from a distance as someone came around the corner, whilst the rest of the body would be concealed behind a boulder. Just a couple of metres away there was another big boulder several feet high, behind which I would hide. I placed my knife in my side pocket; so that it would be readily accessible. I removed my Keffiyeh which I had wrapped around my neck. It was made of cotton and square in shape. I unfolded it and rolled it so that bore resemblance to a rope and then held the cloth taut – and wrapped it couple of times around each hand for a tight grip, knelt down behind the boulder and kept watch.

I waited in ambush, as a Lion waiting for a Thompsons Gazelle. I had never killed a man with my bear hands before. I reminded myself of my exhortation to be ruthless. And then he appeared armed with his Klashnikov. He walked confidently as he carefully reconnoitred his surroundings. He struck me as a more formidable foe than his deceased comrade which rather caused a knot in my stomach, given that I had decided to get to grips with him at close quarters. I watched him intensely. He looked up at the raised ground on his left and then his right and then he looked ahead and saw the legs. I scrutinised his face as well as I could given the distance. It betrayed no fear and told me he was calculating his options. He was clearly intelligent and not to be underestimated. All the more reason for me to give no quarter, lest it’s me who gets slain! He stopped and scrutinised the legs for a moment and then looked around and then started walking towards the corpse.

I squeezed the rolled up Keffiyeh in my hands in my anxiety and my mouth went dry in apprehension. I attempted to control my breathing and resolved not to make a sound and thereby alert him to my presence. An image of my bones scorched in the sun abruptly flashed into my mind. He got to the legs and looked down at the body and then looked around in every direction and then it was as if he visibly abandoned his vigilance. He swung his Kalashnikov over his shoulder took a step alongside the corpse and started muttering, what appeared to be lamentations for his fallen comrade and oaths to avenge him. He then squatted down beside him and went to hold his head and look at the face. This was what I had waited for....he was exactly where I wanted him! The sound of his wailing helped to conceal my approach. In a second I had moved from behind the boulder with my improvised garrotte - as his hands were occupied holding the corpse. It made getting my garrotte over his head and around his neck all the easier - which I did in an instant as I came up behind him. He made a croaking sound as I squeezed the life out of him. He dropped the corpse as his hands came up attempting to pull the garrotte away from his own neck and then when that failed he desperately tried to scratch my hands. He tried to get up and move around to better face me and thus fight off my attack. But I did not permit him such movement with the weight of my body bearing down upon him. He made a horrible choking sound as his cries were stifled and his eyes flushed red in terror. It could barely have been but a minute but my arms were tiring. What if the cloth ripped? I persisted as I began sweating in fear and pulled in opposite directions behind his head as my hands crossed over as his neck was wrung. And then all resistance faded away as his arms fell limp. He was lifeless – so I unbound my hands and threw down the garrotte. But just to be sure I then put my left arm around his neck and with the weight and force of my body I snapped his neck. I released him and his head rolled around like some grotesque child’s doll as I let his body fall to the ground.

I was perspiring, heart pounding, thirsty, sick with fear and utterly nauseous. I felt like retching; but nothing came but some saliva. You might think this all frightfully unbecoming for a former British Army Captain, but I was out of practice, being a civilian and thus out of the military mindset, so to speak. Less than two weeks ago I was living a comfortable, semi indolent and even by some standards effete existence in England and here I was enduring all sorts of discomforts and dangers; whilst wringing the life out of natives who would relish the prospect of smiting me. I composed myself took a swig of my water and washed my face. I started to undress that which I had just killed and began putting on his clothes over my own. This consisted of a turban, a shawl, a frock, a gillet, baggy black trousers and some wretched shoes; I wore all of it – even the shoes, hoping to god I didn’t get a verruca! I unfurled the Keffiyeh with which I had garrotted my victim and carefully covered his upper body with it. Having dispatched him, I resolved that the least I could do was show him some respect in death.

I disguised myself as well as I could, ensuring my hair was concealed under the turban and that the lower half of my face was masked by his shawl. I then checked the Kalashnikov’s barrel, sights, magazines and trigger mechanism. It was an AK74, a type which was first used in combat by the USSR in Afghanistan. I fired off a round just to be sure the thing was working. It rattled away splendidly. I hoped that on hearing the shots my comrade’s captors would believe that I had been killed by the man sent to find me. I surreptitiously reconnoitred the camp and saw nothing had changed since my last observation. I returned to the path leading back to camp and I took a deep breath - holding the Kalashnikov AK74 in an offensive stance, ensuring the safety catch was off and began walking. When I came in view of the camp everyone turned to look at me. The two men stood up in expectation. I began perspiring in cold fear and my legs were seemingly reluctant to put one foot in front of the other. The older man started bellowing questions to me in Azaki, as he walked towards me, holding his AK74 along the ground. The sole gunman on the other side of the camp moved nearer to the hostages to get a better view. My silence was telling. Once they realised I was an imposter I would be exposed to machine gun fire - standing out in the open. I got closer and the questions became more aggressive as my interlocutor got nearer, he picked up his gun to adopt a more offensive posture. That was enough for me; I opened up on him as my AK74 rattled into life and I felt my entire being vibrating, as the clearing was filled with the rattle of the machine gun. His body twisted and convulsed before falling dead.

Just then I heard a commotion and looked to my left in the direction of the camp fire. It seemed a scuffle was going on. I looked back in the direction of the older man with the orange beard; he was running away with his back to me. We needed intelligence! We needed him alive! He was too far away for me to shoot with much accuracy with the AK74, so I put it over my shoulder and got out my Glock and took aim at his legs and fired two shots. He stumbled and fell and I then turned towards the camp, where they appeared to have overpowered their captor. I removed the shawl and the turban so as to reveal my identity to my fellows as I ran toward them. Ismail stood watching me, smiling and full of gratitude. Aziz just looked relieved.

I pointed towards the Orange bearded man, “Make sure he doesn’t get away!” I ordered.

“Yes Offendi,” Aziz nodded and ran after him.

I looked past Ismail to the Germans and behind them I saw a body laying a few feet away of the dead gunman. Mueller held a blood soaked knife. The danger had passed. Their eyes and mine met. Looking at von Weizsacker and Mueller, I smiled in triumph and without straying from their gaze instructed Ismail to get me some water and to make some tea.

“Well meine Kamaraden? This is certainly quite an adventure!” said I attempting to sound insouciant as I swigged at a canteen of water handed to me by Ismail.

Mueller looked me up and down and recognised the clothing of one of the gunmen and deduced what must have happened. He seemed to be lost for words so astonished was he at my endeavours.

“Well Herr Collingwood it seems you are our rescuer,” said Von Weizsacker as he attempted to contain his relief and gratitude.

“Do you think they were members of the JFF?” I enquired brushing aside his praise.

“I have no doubt of it,” replied the Major.

“Good. In that case we can see what he has to say,” I said nodding in the direction of our prisoner who was limping into camp
and being man handled roughly by Aziz.