Sacrifice (45 page)

‘Understood.’

Drake’s mind drifted on the verge of unconsciousness, random thoughts and memories coming and going as if his brain were a misfiring engine. But somewhere deep down was a voice urging him to get up.

Sensations came first. He could feel dry wind-blown grit peppering his face and eyes, mixing with the warm slickness of blood dripping down the left side of his face. The chill night air carried an odd mixture of burned plastic, cordite, oil and aviation fuel.

And in a flash, his memory of the sudden explosion, the sickening crash came flooding back. They were down, but they were alive. They had survived.

It must have been Horizon. Somehow they had tracked his chopper and shot it out of the sky, just as they had done with Mitchell.

You have to get up. Get up now
.

With great effort he forced his eyes open. The crew compartment was a mess of broken equipment, shorted-out instrument panels and buckled metal.

Something fluttered past his face. A piece of paper, burned and charred along one edge. They were everywhere, he realised; scattered all across the crew compartment like litter. Mitchell’s evidence folder, torn apart during the crash. He watched as another piece, caught by the fitful breeze, slid across the deck and out through the gaping hole where the crew door had been.

With his growing awareness came the first waves of pain. He felt as if he had been sealed inside an oil drum and rolled off the edge of a cliff, his body battered and thrown around the enclosed crew compartment like a rag doll. Still, experimental movement of his arms and legs told him that nothing was broken. He could still function.

The chopper was lying tilted on its port side at about a 45-degree angle. Crash-landing in open ground, it must have tipped over into some depression or down an embankment before coming to rest.

‘Drake?’ a weak voice called out. ‘You okay? What the fuck happened?’

Looking over, he saw Crawford struggling to get up, his face tight with pain as he clutched his left arm. His harness must have come undone during the crash.

‘We got hit by a missile.’

Crawford’s eyes opened wider. ‘Horizon.’

‘They’ll be coming for us. They won’t take any chances.’ He would have done the same thing in their position. He glanced left, seeing Samantha still strapped into the seat opposite, her eyes closed and her head lolling to the side.

‘Is that arm broken?’

Crawford shook his head, flexing and tensing the limb experimentally a few times. ‘Feels kinda weird, but I don’t think so.’

‘Good. Check on the pilots.’

As Crawford clambered through into the cockpit, struggling to keep his balance on the listing deck, Drake looked over at Keegan, who was fighting to disengage himself from his harness.

‘John?’

‘Yeah?’

‘You all right?’

At last his harness released and he pitched sideways, slamming into the deformed airframe with a hollow clang.

‘Is it a cliché to say I’m too old for this shit?’ he groaned.

‘Only if you’re a cop.’ Drake pointed to the starboard crew door, now raised up off the ground because of the helicopter’s tilt. ‘Get up on lookout. I’ll get Sam.’

‘On it, buddy.’

As Keegan clambered to reach his improvised vantage point, Drake released his own harness and unstrapped himself. Bracing his boots against what had once been the port side airframe, he stumbled through the wrecked crew compartment to reach McKnight.

A quick check of the pulse at her neck confirmed she was alive. She must have been knocked unconscious on impact.

‘Sam, wake up,’ he hissed.

There was no response.

‘We’ve got company,’ Keegan called from above. ‘Three vehicles inbound.’

‘Shit,’ Drake said under his breath. ‘How far?’

‘Three hundred yards, maybe three-fifty.’

It was them, he knew. A Horizon strike team were
coming to finish them. Just as with Mitchell’s chopper, a couple of thermite grenades tossed in through the open hatch would be enough to kill them all and incinerate whatever evidence had survived the crash.

There was no time for gentle coaxing; if they didn’t get moving, they were as good as dead. Turning his attention to McKnight, he drew back his arm and slapped her hard across the face. ‘Come on, Sam! Wake up!’

The blow snapped her head around, but slowly her eyes fluttered open as consciousness returned. She stared at him for a moment, struggling to focus. ‘Ryan?’

‘Yeah, that’s right. It’s Ryan.’

‘What happened?’ she asked, looking around at the wrecked compartment.

‘We took a Stinger hit. We crash-landed. Hang onto me,’ he advised, unlatching her harness. He caught her as she fell forward, but was unable to keep from groaning in pain as his broken rib protested at his exertions.

‘Are you hurt?’ he asked, hoping she hadn’t noticed.

‘I don’t think so.’ She was well and truly conscious now. Pushing her dishevelled hair out of her eyes, she looked at Drake again. ‘They’re coming to kill us, aren’t they?’

The grim finality in her voice made it seem as though it had already happened.

‘Two hundred yards,’ Keegan called down from his makeshift lookout position. ‘They’re splitting up, moving to outflank us.’

Drake gripped McKnight by the shoulders, staring right into her eyes. ‘We’re not dying here. Not now, not after all this. I’m getting us out. Understand?’

Before she could say anything further, Crawford stumbled through from the cockpit. The look in his eyes told them everything they needed to know. ‘Both pilots are history,’ he confirmed, unwilling to go into more detail.

Drake nodded. He had expected as much. A high-speed impact like that would have crumpled the cockpit like cardboard.

‘If it’s not too much trouble, I sure could use a weapon,’ Keegan called down.

Drake looked around. ‘Where’s the weapons bin?’

Choppers like this always kept a stash of weapons on board in case they came down in hostile territory. The problem was, he had no idea where they were on Black Hawks.

Crawford pointed to a storage locker fixed into the wall on the port side. ‘There!’

Sliding down to it, Drake grabbed the release handle and pulled. It wouldn’t budge. The crash must have buckled the hinges, but a couple of hard kicks were enough to dislodge it. Wrenching it open, he was met with a rack of four P90 sub-machine guns.

The P90 was a compact, lightweight weapon; two characteristics that made it ideal for use in cramped spaces like vehicle interiors. They looked futuristic and intimidating, but like most 9mm sub-machine guns they were basically useless beyond 100 metres. An AK-47 was still lethal at more than four times that range.

‘John, heads up,’ he called, tossing one up to him, followed by a couple of spare magazines.

‘Thanks, pal,’ the older man replied, then added in a more urgent tone, ‘Better hurry. They’re closing in.’

Sure enough, Drake could see headlight beams reflecting off the ground outside. Rather than flickering up and down as the vehicle bumped over uneven terrain, the beams were burning steadily. At least one of the vehicles had stopped while the others circled around behind their position.

‘Any cover nearby?’

The sniper craned his neck around, doing his best to survey the landscape from his limited vantage point. ‘We’re pitched into a wadi or something. Can’t tell how far it runs, but it should give pretty good—’

He was interrupted when a burst of automatic fire tore through the night air, and instinctively dropped down inside the chopper just as several high-powered rounds slammed into the airframe. Most ricocheted off the armoured skin, but one or two punched right through to bury themselves in the rotor column.

Drake recognised the distinctive bark of AK-47s. The Russian-made weapons were ubiquitous in countries like Afghanistan, which made them a perfect weapon of choice for the Horizon strike team. Anyone finding dead bodies riddled with AK rounds would assume they had been killed by insurgents.

‘Shit! Sons of bitches must have snuck in behind me,’ Keegan said, visibly angered at having missed their approach.

Taking a breath, he rose up from the listing deck with the P90 up at his shoulder and capped off several rounds before ducking back down again.

His short burst was met with a storm of automatic fire, heavy-calibre rounds slamming into the dirt around the hatchway, kicking up clouds of dust and broken stones.

‘I think they’re pissed at me.’

Quickly Drake unlatched two more weapons from the rack and thrust them at Crawford and McKnight. ‘Grab as much ammunition as you can carry and get ready to move.’

‘Where are we going?’ McKnight asked, sliding the unusual box magazine into its groove along the top of the weapon. As soon as it was home, she racked back the priming handle to chamber the first round.

With dubious armour protection and hundreds of pounds of aviation fuel still in its tanks, the crashed chopper could easily be turned into a steel coffin by a single well-thrown grenade. Their only chance was to make a break for it.

‘Anywhere but here,’ Drake replied, snatching up what remained of Mitchell’s evidence folder. Many of the pages had been scattered in the crash and he had no time to gather them all, but with luck there was enough left to make the difference.

‘Targets, fifty yards out,’ Keegan warned, flinching as another burst of fire traced its way along the top of the doorway.

‘Headcount?’ Drake asked, shoving the folder down the front of his shirt. This done, he forced a couple of spare magazines into his belt.

‘Fuckin’ lots,’ was the simple reply. ‘I can’t hold them off.’

‘Bin it, mate,’ Drake advised. ‘We’re moving now. I’ll take point, you bring up the rear. Everyone else on me. Crawford, Sam, ready?’

He was met by a pair of nods.

‘All right. Move!’

The reinforced windows of Carpenter’s office provided panoramic views over Kabul, allowing its sole occupant gaze out across the city without fear of attack. The armoured glass would withstand anything short of an anti-tank round.

But Carpenter was oblivious to the impressive vista at that moment. He had shut himself away in his office with explicit instructions that he not be disturbed for any reason. All of his attention was focused on events several miles to the north unfolding in real time on his computer screen.

His bird’s-eye view of the battle came courtesy of a small remote-controlled drone orbiting several thousand feet above the crashed chopper, its only weapon a high-resolution infrared camera mounted in the nose.

Carpenter had vectored one of these little aircraft into the ambush area to survey the crash site for survivors. Sure enough, he could see bright white blobs of colour moving around the interior of the crashed chopper; the unmistakable thermal images of human bodies. Clearly someone had survived the crash, though if Vermaak and his strike team had anything to do with it, it wouldn’t be for long.

Already he could see men converging on the crash site from three separate directions, pausing occasionally to
lay down covering fire while their comrades rushed forward. It was a textbook example of a fighting advance by men who were well drilled and used to working with each other.

And it was just as well, because time was running out. Even he could do nothing to hide the fact that a Coalition chopper had been shot down on the outskirts of Kabul, triggering a search-and-rescue response from all units in the vicinity. The survivors had to be eliminated quickly before any relief effort could be mounted.

Involuntarily his hands clenched into fists. His career, his company, everything he had worked to build in the past five years, and perhaps his very life, now hung in the balance.

It all depended on what happened in the next few minutes.

The RG-31 shuddered to a halt at last. The rear doors were swung open and Anya was pushed roughly outside, making sure to stumble and fall with a groan of pain as she hit the ground.

Cursing under his breath, the big Hispanic operative moved forward and lifted her bodily to her feet. She noticed with a momentary feeling of distaste that his hand found her breast as he raised her up.

Her eyes took in everything as she was escorted towards the main building. She saw a couple of other armoured jeeps parked near a maintenance area, in the process of being refuelled. Several operatives were milling around, some standing off to one side and smoking.

All were armed with M4 carbines; an excellent assault rifle that had served her well on many operations during her long career.

Over by the perimeter wall, she was relieved to see the ruined Toyota pickup truck being lowered from the winch of an armoured recovery vehicle. Its engine bay had been crumpled and deformed by the crash, rendering it inoperable, but that didn’t matter now. It still had a part to play.

Normally at times like this she was able to purge her mind of all other thoughts, concentrating solely on her objective. Yet, oddly, she found herself thinking of Drake.

She felt guilty for leaving him behind, for allowing him to be drawn into this mess when it was of her making. Once again he was paying the price for her mistakes, and as hard as she tried to cut herself away from such thoughts, she couldn’t get past the feeling that she owed him more than that.

She shook her head to rid herself of such doubts as she was led inside the main building.

She had been here once before, a very long time ago. It had been different then, of course. Different owners, and a different purpose. She had been different too. But even now, after all these years, this place still elicited a lingering sense of dread in her.

The holding cells would be down in the basement. That was the way it had been twenty years ago, and she didn’t imagine much had changed since then. Carpenter wouldn’t have troubled himself to alter such a feature of this building, especially when it served such a useful purpose.

Sure enough, after taking a left off the main corridor, she was led down a flight of stairs that she remembered all too well. They might have been given a new coat of paint since then, but what lay beneath hadn’t changed.