BooksBarbecue
Back Manhunter
Chapters (37)
  1. Cover
  2. One
  3. Two
  4. Three
  5. Four
  6. Five
  7. Six
  8. Seven
  9. Eight
  10. Nine
  11. Ten
  12. Eleven
  13. Twelve
  14. Thirteen
  15. Fourteen
  16. Fifteen
  17. Sixteen
  18. Seventeen
  19. Eighteen
  20. Nineteen
  21. Twenty
  22. Twenty-One
  23. Twenty-Two
  24. Twenty-Three
  25. Twenty-Four
  26. Twenty-Five
  27. Twenty-Six
  28. Twenty-Seven
  29. Twenty-Eight
  30. Twenty-Nine
  31. Thirty
  32. Thirty-One
  33. Thirty-Two
  34. Thirty-Three
  35. Chris Ryan Readers’ Club?
  36. Letter from Author
  37. About the Author

Then Webb said, ‘I see them! The treeline! Here they come again!’

Twenty-Nine

Twenty-Nine

Bowman ran over to the northern side of the parapet. He propped up his GPMG barrel on the stone coping and centred the sights on the woods beyond the body-strewn clearing. Loader took up a spot to the right with the other Gimpy. Mallet went down to a prone firing position between the two soldiers, aimed the .50 cal barrel through a hole in the decorative stonework. All four of them targeted the treeline on the north side of the clearing.

Bowman saw the figures at once. A throng of Machete Boys, clearly visible in the thin light of the early dawn, creeping forward from the wooded area to the left of the approach road. Maybe another thirty guys, he estimated. They were moving in a rough line formation, three ranks deep, staying low as they crept towards the entrance. Bowman swiftly grasped their intention. The Boys were hoping to sneak up to the archway using the natural cover available. They would slip through the gap between the upturned technical and the stone pillars, then spread out across the estate, taking on the defenders in detail. Not a terrible plan, thought Bowman. Not as foolish as strolling up the approach road in massed ranks.

But still a bad idea.

One of the Boys in the front rank had an RPG resting on his shoulders. A skinny rebel wearing a trapper hat, a rope of gris-gris charms tied like a belt around his waist. The others were armed with AK-47 rifles or machetes, or both. They were five hundred metres from the stronghold now. A hundred metres from the fence.

‘What’s the plan?’ said Bowman.

Mallet rolled his tongue around his mouth and spat.

‘We’ll let the buggers get through the archway,’ he said. ‘Once they’re inside, Patrick will take down the fucker with the RPG. As soon as he’s down, you’re free to go.’

Mallet relayed the orders over the mic. Bowman tracked the enemy as they advanced stealthily across the clearing. They were moving in a loose group, crouch-walking through the tufts of long grass to conceal their approach. He watched as the front rank of rebels picked their way past their slotted comrades and reached the archway. They waited for the rest to catch up, then slipped through the gaps either side of the technical.

Bowman felt his pulse quickening as he centred his sights on the enemy. The rebels shuffled past the overturned truck blocking the road and spread out across the estate in a ragged line. The guy in the trapper hat motioned to the others to hurry up. Only four hundred metres separated them from the stronghold and the president’s family. Revenge was on the cards. The Boys thought they were going to win.