Chapters (37)
- Cover
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Chris Ryan Readers’ Club?
- Letter from Author
- About the Author
He ran downstairs, hurried out of the atrium and broke into a steady jog across the heat-baked ground. Bowman ran past the water fountain, past Gregory and Toothbrush in the gun pit with one of the platoon’s GPMGs. He willed his exhausted body on as he continued up the front drive, his throat burning. He reached the sprawl of dead rebels ten metres from the archway, found the guy with the trapper hat next to a blackened stump of a tree. The bullet from Webb’s AWC had struck the rebel through his left eye, boring deep into his skull. Instant death. There was a dark glistening crater where his eyeball should have been. Bowman rolled the man onto his front and tore off the canvas backpack containing the three spare rockets. He slung the backpack over his shoulder, snatched up the RPG launcher and cantered back down the driveway to the ornamental garden.
Casey was hunkered down beside the mortar, gazing out through a gap in the crumbling wall at the treeline. Pockmark, the other member of the mortar team, grazed on a chocolate bar while he kept an eye on the fence to the west. Casey looked up at Bowman as he dumped the canvas bag and the RPG at her feet.
‘What’s this for?’ she asked.
‘Extra firepower,’ Bowman replied. ‘Compliments of the Machete Boys.’
One of her eyebrows hitched up. ‘Do you think we’ll need it?’
‘We’re not likely to get hit again,’ Bowman said. ‘Not unless the Machete Boys want to send any more of their mates to their deaths.’
‘Those KUF rebels won’t be so easy, will they?’
‘No,’ Bowman said. ‘But D Squadron is an hour out. As soon as they arrive, we’re safe.’
‘Unless the KUF gets here first.’
Bowman nodded. He pointed to the missing sections of the wall beside the mortar pit. ‘We’ll need to reinforce this position. Get some more stones around it. Stay here.’
He called over to Pockmark. The two men worked hastily, grabbing rocks from the loose stonework on the other sections of the garden wall, then carrying them over to the mortar pit. Casey helped them pile the stones around the base of the wall, plugging the holes. They added more rocks on top, raising the height of the wall so that it was level with their waists. Once they had finished, Bowman sprinted back across the front lawn, into the mansion and up the emergency stairwell. Out of the fire exit. Back to his OP on the western side of the rooftop. He guzzled water. Took up the GPMG. Checked his watch.
07.09. Fifty minutes until D Squadron landed.