The Kill Zone (12 page)
Authors: Chris Ryan
Twenty metres.
Ten metres.
Five.
He reached the trees and then rolled into the protection of the dried-up wadi.
The moon was up and the wadi was about 100 metres wide, dotted with bushes and veined with deep crevices that he could use as cover. He moved from hiding place to hiding place, keeping low and staying in the shadows, across the dried-up riverbed and up out of the other side.
Jack lay on the ground and looked up. The stars were dazzlingly bright, and he studied them carefully to get his bearings. Ursa Minor wasn’t visible, but overhead he could make out the saucepan shape of Ursa Major and the W-shape of Cassiopeia. Halfway between the two constellations he located Polaris, the North Star. Once he had his bearings, he realised that the wadi was heading north-west to south-east. That meant, according to the map of the area he had studied that morning, that it was the westernmost riverbed. If he headed west from here, approximately five miles from the village there was a Coalition forward operating base.
Which meant safety.
As if to confirm Jack’s deductions, the sky to the west suddenly lit up, illuminating the ground all around. He pinned himself to the floor, waiting for the light to fade. He knew what it was, of course – a lume, sent up from the FOB so that the guys on stag could light up any militants out on the ground trying to dig in IEDs. If they caught anyone, these enterprising Taliban could expect a barrage of artillery shells to be dropped on them with pinpoint accuracy. All Jack could do was hope, as he set off across the sand, that he wasn’t mistaken for the enemy. To have got this far and then be mashed in a blue on blue would take the fucking cake.
But he let the lume fade away, pushed himself up on to his feet and started to trek across the desert.
5
The Republic of Somalia. About two miles outside the capital, Mogadishu.
The road on which the open-topped Toyota truck drove was little more than a dirt track. As the harsh midday sun beat down, the wheels of the truck kicked up clouds of dust, which mixed with the diesel fumes to create a thick, choking miasma.
It didn’t seem to bother any of the men on the vehicle.
There were seven of them – two in the front seats and five outside on the back, one of whom was minding a .50-calibre machine gun mounted on a platform so that he could fire it over the cab of the truck. They were young – all of them between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two. The top-gunner had a bony face wrapped round with a red and white keffiyeh. His skin was dark, his sharp eyes bright and wary. He firmly held on to the .50-cal as the vehicle bumped and trundled down the road.
The four men surrounding him looked similar. They all wore keffiyehs to protect their heads from the punishing heat of the day. Their dirty jeans and T-shirts didn’t disguise their lean, weathered bodies. Unlike the top-gunner, they were armed with assault rifles, and they each had a bandolier of ammo strapped round themselves. They wore casual expressions, and smiles.
None of them spoke, and only occasionally did any of them look down. At their feet there was a silver flight case, firmly locked and strapped to the bottom of the truck to stop it from slipping around. It was no bigger than a small suitcase.
The Toyota hadn’t been going very fast, but now it slowed down.
It ground to a halt.
All the men stood up, guns trained forwards. The top-gunner narrowed his eyes.
A roadblock up ahead. About fifty metres.
It wasn’t an official roadblock, of course, because nothing was official in this country. Just a few shacks by the side of the track, and a couple of ragged-looking men with AKs blocking the road and pointing their weapons directly at the Toyota.
The vehicle’s engine turned over noisily as the top-gunner waited for the man in the passenger seat to give his instructions.
In one of the roadside shacks, a baby girl wailed. She was hungry, but that was something the kid was going to have to get used to. Her mother was hungry too, and her large, dark breasts had no more milk for the infant. They had named the child Khadra, which meant ‘lucky’, but there wasn’t much luck to go around in their world, and what luck there was seldom found its way into this poor, one-roomed home. All Khadra’s mother could do was hold the little girl in the crook of her arm and comfort her.
The child’s father scowled at the crying baby. ‘Can’t you do something to shut her up?’ he demanded of the woman, speaking the Somali language in a thin voice. The woman didn’t reply or even look at him. She just continued to rock the child gently.
The man was less hungry than his wife and child, but that was only because of the khat he was chewing. He’d spent his remaining money on a bunch of the leaves two days ago, and the mouthful that he rolled round between his tongue and his cheek was the last of it. He made a sucking, slurping sound as he milked the leaves of their precious stimulant juices.
A shout from outside. The father grabbed the rifle that was leaning up against the wall of their shack and ran out into the road, ignoring the woman’s shout of ‘Dalmar, no!’
Dalmar’s friend Korfa was there, if friend was not too loose a word for the bandit who stood pointing his own rifle towards the truck that was arriving from the distance. Dalmar knew that Korfa would put a bullet in him any time it suited him, but that would leave just one of them to man this roadblock where they stopped any passing vehicles and extorted cash from the occupants at gunpoint. How else were they going to earn any money around here? Extortion was the local industry. The police couldn’t stop them because there
were
no police. No, out here, you earned a living however you could, if you didn’t want to starve.
were
no police. No, out here, you earned a living however you could, if you didn’t want to starve.
‘Clients,’ Korfa said. Dalmar stood by him and raised his rifle as well.
The truck stopped.
Sweat dripped down Dalmar’s face.
They waited.
The driver of the Toyota turned off the engine.
His passenger opened his door. He bent over and leant out, using the metal of the door as a shield against the gunmen up ahead, then addressed the top-gunner. ‘Fire above their heads,’ he instructed.
The top-gunner didn’t need telling twice.
Dalmar, who stood fifty metres away, had heard the sound of many weapons in his life. In his country, firearms were more common than toothbrushes. But he had never been fired at by a .50-cal machine gun before, so he was unprepared for the noise.
The thundering of the rounds sent a shock all the way through him, and for a moment he thought he had been shot. But they landed harmlessly about twenty metres behind him, kicking up bursts of dust. Dalmar stood his ground.
The same couldn’t be said of Korfa. The moment the gunner had opened fire, Dalmar’s accomplice had hit the dirt, and was even now crawling to the side of the road. Dalmar watched him from the corner of his eye. If Korfa wanted to be a coward, that was his decision; but if Dalmar got any money from this lot, there was no way he was going to share it. He sucked a little bit more enthusiastically on his khat.
‘
Dalmar!
’
Dalmar!
’
His wife’s voice from the door of the shack. Dalmar looked over his shoulder. She still had the baby in her arm.
‘Don’t be so stupid!’ the woman told him. ‘Get back inside!’
Dalmar stared at her, his eyes a little wild. ‘This is
my
roadblock,’ he hissed. ‘If they want to pass, they must pay.’ He was vaguely aware of Korfa, who had reached the side of the road and was now up and running away.
my
roadblock,’ he hissed. ‘If they want to pass, they must pay.’ He was vaguely aware of Korfa, who had reached the side of the road and was now up and running away.
‘Don’t be an idiot!’ his wife screamed. ‘They will kill you. And who will look after your child then?’
‘What is the point of having a roadblock, if I don’t use it to get money?’ Dalmar countered. ‘We have nothing for food.’
His wife narrowed her eyes. ‘If you hadn’t spent it all on khat—’ she started to say, but she fell quiet at a harsh look from her husband.
Suddenly, the .50-cal thundered over his head again. The child woke up and started to scream. Dalmar sucked harder at the leaves in his mouth as he turned back to the vehicle. ‘
You
get inside,’ he instructed. And then, as an idea hit him: ‘
No! Wait!
’
You
get inside,’ he instructed. And then, as an idea hit him: ‘
No! Wait!
’
He turned to the woman and child again. ‘Come here,’ he said.
The woman looked at him suspiciously, then started backing away into the shack.
‘
Come here!
’ He strode towards his wife, grabbed her by the hair, then pulled her and the screaming child out into the road. Dalmar faced the stationary vehicle, then raised his AK-47 in the air and fired it in a gesture of defiance.
Come here!
’ He strode towards his wife, grabbed her by the hair, then pulled her and the screaming child out into the road. Dalmar faced the stationary vehicle, then raised his AK-47 in the air and fired it in a gesture of defiance.
‘Please, Dalmar,’ the wife whimpered. ‘Think of the child.’
He stood behind his wife and child and grinned. They thought they were men, with their expensive truck and big gun. But his khat-addled brain persuaded him that they wouldn’t fire upon an innocent woman and her child. They were the perfect shield, and Dalmar felt pleased with himself.
He would charge these people double, he decided. And none of it would go to that coward Korfa.
In the Toyota, nobody spoke.
The man in the passenger seat watched as the idiot ahead fired his rifle in the air, then stood in the road with the woman and her child. He looked at the driver sitting next to him.
‘We could just pay him,’ the driver said.
The passenger shook his head. ‘And let him try to rob us? With what we are carrying in the back?’ He looked towards the gunman again. ‘You think the boss would let us live if we mess this up?’
The driver’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the steering wheel a bit more firmly. ‘We have more men than him,’ he countered. ‘More weapons. We could overpower him easily. Do you really want to kill a woman and her child?’
The passenger thought for a moment, then spat out of the open door. ‘Look at them,’ he said in his raspy voice. ‘Look at where they live. You think that child will live long enough to be a man to fight?’ He raised one eyebrow. ‘Or a woman to fuck.’
And he was right, of course. These people were at the bottom of the food chain. And those at the bottom of the food chain got eaten.
He leaned out of the door again and called up to the top-gunner.
‘Kill them,’ he said.
The first round to be fired from the .50-cal killed the woman immediately, blowing away half her head but miraculously missing Dalmar, who was still standing behind her.
As her body slumped, the screaming baby fell to the ground. Dalmar did nothing to help his daughter. He just turned and ran. But he didn’t get far. The second burst of fire followed him up the road, before slamming three rounds in a neat line up his spine. A fourth round just missed his head, but by that time he was dead.
The gunner wasn’t taking any chances, though. He aimed his weapon at Dalmar’s body again, discharging another short burst straight at it. The corpse shuddered from the impact of the rounds, and blood sprayed on to the road around him. When the gun fell silent, there was only one sound to be heard. The noise of a small child crying as it lay helpless on the floor.
The gunner readjusted his sights and aimed at the prostrate figure of the woman. Then he sprayed another burst of fire in her general vicinity.
And when the gun fell silent this time, there was no crying.
There was no sound at all.
The passenger pulled his door shut and the driver started the engine. The smell of cordite permeated the air, overpowering even the diesel fumes. In the back of the van, the armed men sat down again, but this time they had their guns pointed over the edge of the truck in case the shack by the side of the road contained any unseen surprises. They didn’t look overly disturbed by what had happened – gun battles were an everyday occurrence for them, after all. They did, however, glance at the silver flight case perhaps a little more frequently.
As the Toyota reached the corpses, it swerved round them.
None of the occupants looked down, so they didn’t see the remains of the woman and her child, turned into mincemeat by the vicious rounds of the .50-cal. Certainly they didn’t think of stopping to move them off the road. The wild animals could take care of that. They had other things to attend to, such as the safe delivery of their small cargo.
The truck swerved a second time to avoid the body of the man. Then it kicked up a bigger cloud of dust and accelerated so that soon it was just a trembling, shining mirage in the sun-ravaged distance.
6
The residence of the American Ambassador, Regent’s Park, London.
Nathaniel D. Gresham looked out from one of the elegant white windows on the first floor of Winfield House on to the acres of parkland below, golden-green in the early evening sun. He’d been in the job a couple of years now, but it never failed to impress him that such a large, peaceful space should exist here in the heart of London. His days, whether at the embassy or here at the residence, were busy. To be able to take a few moments between meetings to gaze at the grass below was, for him, like taking a lungful of fresh air.
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