The New Enemy Page 12

  Liam nodded, then watched as the sergeant and Carter started to make their way towards the injured man. They were within a couple of steps of him when two shots rang out. The first shattered the skull of the injured man, killing him instantly. The second dropped Carter like a rag doll.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  As the area around them was lit up with automatic rifle fire, Liam saw two men race over towards the sergeant, who was down on one knee, covering the injured Carter. Rifle in the shoulder, Liam caught the first in the chest with a three-round burst. The second he hit in the leg, dropping him no less than ten metres from the sergeant. Despite his injuries, the man raised his weapon again, but Biggs was on to him and put him down sharpish.

  Liam snapped round to Cordner. ‘Cover me!’ He didn’t give the Irishman a chance to answer, but was on his feet, racing over to Carter. ‘Where’s he hit?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter!’ Biggs shouted back. ‘It’s a fucking ambush! That soldier was smashed up and dropped here to lure us. Now help me grab Carter and let’s get the fuck out of here!’

  Liam grabbed hold of Carter’s right arm and hoisted him up as Biggs grabbed the other arm. Then they were racing across to the rest of the section.

  Rounds were buzzing the ground, sending up tiny whirlwinds of dust and dirt, splattering Liam with grit and stones. Normally it would have stung like hell, but he had other things to worry about.

  The rest of the lads had now taken what cover they could, but none of it was much good. They were being fired upon from almost every angle.

  Biggs shot a message down his PRR to Pearce at the rear. ‘We need to move out, Pearce! You’re on point. Shift it!’

  Liam heard a yell and turned to his left to see a man racing towards them, his rifle slung low. This time, though, it was a SCAR, and even badly aimed it had a better chance of smashing the life out of someone than a knackered AK47.

  ‘Cordner!’ Liam yelled. ‘Ten o’clock!’

  In one smooth motion, Cordner was round on the attacker and sent him off his feet. Another followed and Cordner dropped him too.

  ‘Where the feck are they all coming from?’ he shouted, quickly slamming in a fresh magazine.

  Liam didn’t answer – he was looking at Carter, who was now lying on the ground next to him. He didn’t look good: his face was pale, and blood was seeping from a wound in his belly. Another wound to his face, probably from where he’d fallen after being hit, was leaking dark blood into his red hair.

  Liam called to Biggs to cover him and quickly ripped open one of the pouches in his webbing, pulling out his medical kit. With pressure on the wound, he quickly applied a field dressing. It wouldn’t do much good, but at least it would stem the flow of blood.

  ‘We have to get him out of here!’ Liam yelled to Biggs. ‘No way can any of us sort him out with this shit flying all around!’

  Biggs yelled down the PRR again. ‘Pearce! I said fucking move it, you twat! We’re going to get ripped to shreds if we don’t get out of here!’ He then looked to Liam. ‘Bollocks to this,’ he said. ‘Let’s shift it!’

  Again, Liam had Carter by one arm, while Biggs took the other, and they were legging it down the line. Cordner dropped in behind them, followed by Waterman and the others. Then Carter was snatched out of Liam’s grip as Biggs caught his foot and went down hard.

  Time slowed.

  Liam reached for his SA80, pulled it up, made ready to give hell to whoever was about to come at them. Sound was muffled and a ringing in his ears, probably caused by the racket of rifle fire, grew louder as inexplicably the attack stilled and the world fell silent. He glanced around at the rest of the section. They were all breathing heavily, living right at the edge where life can end in a moment.

  A shout barked out from somewhere to Liam’s left. He stared in the direction. He couldn’t see anyone who owned the voice, or make out the words – but the accent was British.

  The shout came again, and he heard words this time.

  ‘You are surrounded. There is no escape. Lay down your weapons or die where you stand!’

  ‘Fuck you!’ yelled Cordner, and a few of the other lads joined in.

  A shot rang out, and down the line Liam heard a yell as Bale crumpled to the ground, blood seeping from a leg wound.

  ‘This is your last warning,’ the voice called. ‘Lay down your weapons!’

  Liam couldn’t believe this was happening. Panic was squeezing his heart. He wanted to puke and scream and run all at once. Then he saw Biggs turn to stare at him. And the look in his eye was enough to tell him that none of them had any choice.

  They were about to surrender to Al Shabaab.

  14

  Liam spat blood.

  Having surrendered, they were now weaponless and surrounded. The thump to his face from the butt of the terrorist’s AK47 would’ve smashed his jaw if he hadn’t turned at just the right moment. Instead of crashing into his teeth at full power, it had glanced off his cheek and across his mouth, splitting his lips and bloodying his nose.

  The pain of it coursed through him as he shook his head, working with every ounce of his strength to keep a lid on his fear and remember his training. The instructional video they had all watched, Conduct Under Capture, seemed like a distant memory. What had the bloke said? Something about accepting that you were going to get hurt, that bones would be broken, that you were going to be beaten up and there was nothing you could do about that? At the time, it had made sense that there was no point trying to prevent injury; it was more important to focus on keeping your mind secure. But now, with every possibility of facing torture, Liam really had no idea if he would be able to take it or not.

  Yeah, he’d survived the training, but he hadn’t been smashed in the face by a rifle during that, had he? No amount of practice role-plays could fully prepare anyone for the real thing. But it was all he had, and it had to be enough.

  ‘Get down!’

  The terrorists trained their guns on Liam’s section and forced the soldiers to their knees. Liam braced his hands shoulder width apart on the ground to stop himself from falling with the force of the blow. In front of him he could make out the feet and legs of the terrorist who had smashed his face, laughing as he’d done it. A volatile mix of rage and terror burned inside Liam. All he wanted to do was crack the bastard in the bollocks, then rip his face off. But that wasn’t an option. Not yet anyway.

  The terrorist edged forward, lifted a foot and pushed Liam over onto his side. As he rolled, the man came in hard with a kick to his gut. Liam had just enough time to roll into a ball and protect himself as best he could, and somehow he managed to deflect the terrorist’s foot with his knees.

  A shock of pain raced through his leg and along his spine, but as Liam looked up he saw pain in the terrorist’s eyes as well. The man had been expecting his toes to connect with soft flesh, but instead they’d hammered into bone and the shock of it was etched across his face. He was clearly trying to man it out, but Liam saw tears, and as the terrorist walked over to some of the other Al Shabaab gunmen milling around, he was showing a definite limp. Liam smiled to himself and hoped that the fucker had broken a toe.

  Rolling himself back up onto his knees, he kept his head down. The last thing he wanted to do was aggravate the captors. It was time to be compliant, do as he was told, even though every molecule in his body was crying out to run.

  The decision to surrender had, Liam knew, been made for them. It was either that or get completely over-run by the terrorists and mown down for nothing. They wouldn’t have stood a chance. But that didn’t make it any easier to swallow. A big part of him was already thinking that being dead would’ve been better than this – at least then they wouldn’t have to experience the terror of anticipation. But thinking like that was no help at all. He had to remain switched on, find a way for them to escape, or hang onto the hope that they’d all be rescued.

  From where he was positioned, Liam could make out the rest of his section.
None of them were exactly in the best of spirits, with the terrorists strolling around, poking them with the barrels of their weapons, laughing, kicking, punching, dragging their bergens off them and throwing them to the side with the captured weaponry. Bale’s injury had thankfully been only a graze – enough to knock him off his feet, but not enough to cripple him completely. He was bleeding but wasn’t in a bad way, despite the agony etched across his face.

  It was Carter that Liam was most concerned about. The terrorists had dragged him over to where they had moved the rest of the section for a bit of gloating and humiliation. He was still unconscious and the dressing Liam had placed on the wound was already soaked through with blood.

  Amid all the chaos and confusion and fear, there was one individual all of the section had their eyes on.

  The English voice that had called for them to surrender belonged to none other than Abdul Azeez. The Al Shabaab poster boy was out here with them and it was clear that he was more than a little pleased with his prize. He was strolling around like a newly crowned king, his subjects cheering his every movement, clapping and waving their arms in adoration. Liam thought back to what he’d witnessed during the CTR. Azeez was a cold-blooded bastard, and killing was something he did with as much ease as breathing. Their situation couldn’t have been much worse.

  Liam knew that back at the FOB, and no doubt in the UK too, word of their capture would be spreading. It wouldn’t be in the news, not yet anyway – not until the terrorists decided to go global and boast about their trophies. But across the MOD, anyone who was anyone would be informed, specialists would be called up, and every avenue to secure a possible rescue would be explored. Hell, for all he knew, the SAS were probably already en route.

  A foot shoved Liam in the back and he toppled forwards.

  ‘Move!’ came a gruff voice from behind him, one of the terrorist’s thick Somali accent making the English word barely understandable.

  Liam shuffled forwards as the foot pushed again. Around him he saw that the rest of the section was also being moved. They were being herded together like sheep – only rather than dogs doing the work, these were wolves hungry for blood. And any thought of escape was hopeless, at least for the moment. The clearing in which they’d found the KDF soldier was little more than a hundred metres away, and beyond that was a long trek through trees to the extraction point.

  A minute or two later, Liam was up close with the rest of the lads. He exchanged glances with Cordner, then Biggs. No words were spoken, but the grim determination they shared in that moment was enough. They had to get through this.

  Two terrorists walked over to where Carter had been dragged. They shouted to Abdul Azeez and trained their weapons down on his chest.

  Oh, fuck, no . . .

  Was there going to be a repeat of what he’d witnessed during the CTR? A ripple of fear coursed through Liam and the soldiers around him. He almost choked on it and desperation made him scream.

  ‘Don’t you fucking dare!’ he yelled, and he wasn’t alone. They weren’t all just thinking and fearing the same, they were voicing it.

  ‘Leave him be, you bastard!’

  ‘Don’t fucking touch him!’

  Liam saw Abdul Azeez start to smile. He was enjoying this! Fury burned hot inside Liam and he made to move, but a rifle barrel jabbed him hard.

  Then bullets rang out and everyone fell silent.

  15

  For a horrifying moment, Liam thought Carter had been shot, but then he spotted Abdul Azeez pointing his weapon over their heads.

  ‘Get down!’ The terrorist leader pulled the trigger again, just to make sure everyone got the message.

  Liam realized that there was nothing any of them could do, especially without their weapons. With the terrorists fired up by their victory, he had no doubt that any attempt to fight back would potentially end with them all in trouble. Life was cheap here.

  Happy that everyone was now silent and on the ground, Azeez walked over to where Carter was lying. Holding his breath, Liam waited for what seemed like the inevitable. Azeez crouched down at Carter’s side and, for a moment, seemed to consider the soldier’s fate. He then stood up and walked over to where Liam and the others were surrounded by the rest of the terrorists.

  ‘The man is badly injured. I do not know if he will live. I can of course hurry him along the road to hell and kill him here and let him rot. But I am not the monster your government would have you believe. So, you can tend to him and carry him yourselves. You have five minutes.’

  Liam was struck by how out of place Abdul Azeez’s accent seemed in the setting. He knew there were plenty of British lads keen to carry out jihad in hotspots across the globe, but it still jarred. Azeez was eloquent too, speaking not just with clarity, but with an intelligence that made him even more dangerous. And as for not being a monster, they all knew that was a lie. Even a shark looks like it is smiling, thought Liam.

  ‘Well?’ said Abdul Azeez. ‘Do none of you want to save the life of your friend?’ He gave a lazy grin, and twisted his beard between his fingers. Up close, Liam noticed blood splatters on his white tunic.

  Liam pushed himself to his feet.

  ‘Go,’ said Azeez. ‘You now have four minutes.’

  Liam raced over to Carter. His airway was clear, and he was still breathing. Pulse was weak, but it was there. Liam checked him again, top to toe, for any signs of other wounds, running through the checklist for assessing an injury. He could feel no broken bones, and the bullet was still lodged inside him somewhere as he found no exit wound. It was still just the wound to his stomach, and the dressing was soaked through. He pulled it away carefully, then poured water from his bottle over the wound. Next he removed a sachet of chemical hemostats from the medical kit in his webbing, ripped it open with his teeth, and, opening the wound with his fingers, poured the powder into it, before covering it again with a fresh dressing and applying pressure. The hemostats would help stem the bleed. That was all he could do for now.

  Wiping his bloodied hands on his legs, Liam looked over to the rest of the section. They were all thinking the same thing: unless Carter got proper medical help, the soldier’s chances of survival were poor to non-existent.

  ‘You are finished?’ Abdul Azeez was at Liam’s side and staring down at him and Carter.

  ‘Yes,’ said Liam. ‘But he needs medical attention. A doctor, a surgeon. There’s only so much any of us can do.’

  ‘Can you carry him?’

  Liam nodded, though he knew that moving Carter would only make his condition worse.

  ‘Good,’ said Azeez. ‘Then we shall get moving. Up!’

  The final word was a barked order to the whole section. To hurry them along, the terrorists were in amongst them, kicking and punching them to their feet.

  Liam waited for someone to come and help him with Carter, but when it was clear that Azeez meant for him to carry him alone, he carefully hoisted him onto his back, across his shoulders. As he walked over to where the others were now standing, Azeez signalled for his men to fetch the bergens, making the prisoners carry them again while two – as neither Liam nor Carter could carry one – were pushed towards two of his own men. It was clear that they didn’t want to leave anything behind, no doubt happy to put to their own use any kit they happened to chance upon. Liam hoped they’d try the rations and choke on them.

  The march to wherever they were heading began as it meant to go on, with the terrorists pushing and yelling at Liam and the others to keep moving. The ground was flat, though their progress was hidden from prying eyes by trees and brush. With Carter’s weight on him, Liam soon began to fatigue, but he refused to give in. The pain in his back matched that in his legs and feet and each step was an effort. Yet he kept going, pushing the pain deep down and locking it away. For all he knew, if he stopped the terrorists might simply shoot him on the spot and keep on moving. After a while, though, as daylight ebbed and darkness slipped across the land, Liam began to falter. Then his
foot twisted and he stumbled, dropping to his knees and falling forward with Carter toppling over his head. Shouts came at him immediately, then a kick into the ribs, but he couldn’t move. He needed water, he needed rest. He wasn’t about to be given either.

  ‘Up! Up! Move!’

  The terrorist yelling at him had death in his eyes and his finger was on the trigger. Liam struggled to his feet, reached down for Carter, but it was too much. There was no way he could carry him any further.

  ‘Move!’

  Liam was exhausted, couldn’t move, had nothing left. Then Pearce and Cordner were next to him, lifting him up and grabbing Carter, even as punches and kicks rained down on them both.

  A shove in his back and Liam was moving again. With Carter off his shoulders and only a bergen to carry, it initially felt like he was weightless, but then the tiredness and fear kicked back in and reminded him that he was anything but. All he could do now was focus on putting one foot in front of the other and just keeping moving.

  When darkness took over completely, the sky above bright with moonlight and stars, they were allowed a break, but for only a few minutes. Water was passed round, as were more slaps and yells.

  For the rest of the trek they all took it in turns to carry Carter. All except Bale, who was struggling along with his bleeding leg.

  Despite everything that was happening, Liam still managed to stay alert enough to keep a track of their direction. OK, so their destination was unknown, but if he was able to keep some idea in his head of where they were heading, and where they had come from, he might have a chance of navigating his way back should he ever break free. The stars were all he had, but it was enough, and he kept glancing up, forcing himself to memorize not just their position but the direction in which they were heading.

  Just when it seemed like the march would never end, he and the others were pushed and jabbed into a clearing, which was covered by a thick canopy of trees above. It struck Liam that the only way to find a location like this would be to know where to look in the first place. It was well hidden from prying eyes.