Tom picked up the scope again. The thick smoke haze, exacerbated by the small-arms discharge and explosions, obscured his view in front, so he checked around the vehicles. An operator knelt about two metres from the base of the dune. He aimed his HK at the rear vehicle. The suppressed cracks from the muzzle meant he was attempting to disable it and cut off a retreat. But after the burst had ripped into the side-on tyres, the vehicle reversed. Tom figured the car must have been fitted with run-flats.
Nathan had said that the wooden hut held one occupant, which was likely to be the secretary. The drones had picked up a heat signature there, which hadn’t moved since it’d been monitored. But she could be in one of the other huts, or the two remaining vehicles. He just hoped she wasn’t in the one that had been scared off, although had no way of knowing for sure.
He glanced sideways. Kali had his eyes closed now, and appeared to be content to leave matters to fate, although he was making a faint mewing sound, like a puppy, as he shielded his ears with his hands.
Feeling impotent, Tom watched a group of Arabs retreat and crouch down behind the second vehicle. Too close, he thought, knowing they were susceptible to ricochets and flying metal shards from rounds hitting the bodywork. He spotted the SEAL with the scar emerge from the nearest dune, aiming the grenade launcher, the XM25 CDTE. A couple of seconds later, a microchip shell exploded in a white flash a metre or so from the rear of the vehicle, the noise loud enough to wake a hibernating bear. The men were scattered like bowling pins as the blast and shrapnel hit them, their screams hysterical and unnerving.
Tom focused back on the hamlet, where the smoke had thinned a little, but almost immediately noticed movement in his peripheral vision on the crest of the dune to his right. He jerked the scope away.
An Arab from one of the vehicles was aiming a sub-machine gun at Nathan’s back. The platoon chief was heading towards the nearest hut after dragging the master chief a quarter of the way up the dune and covering his head with his own ballistic vest. As the Arab aimed Tom jumped up from behind Kali’s trembling body. He couldn’t risk shooting over him, since, if he missed, the interpreter was clearly incapable of defending himself or even rolling down the slope.
As he ran along the crest he pointed and fired. Nathan turned just as Tom’s third round hit the sand by the Arab’s head. But then the handgun jammed. The sand, he thought, knowing that if it stuck to a cartridge it could prevent the breech mechanism from working. He cursed himself for not checking the clip. With that, the area was lit up by an airborne flare. It must have been ignited by a fighter, Tom thought, because all the operators had NVGs and thermal imaging scopes.
But he kept running, despite the sand collapsing beneath his feet. He saw that the Arab was turning the weapon in an arc towards him. Before he could fire, Tom launched himself into the air, landing onto the still-outstretched gunman. He grabbed the muzzle and thrust it up. The Arab shouted out and headbutted Tom’s hand. He winced as it connected, the metal preventing a give. As the Arab sank his teeth into Tom’s exposed thumb he used the butt of the SIG to bludgeon him. After the third hit, the man was rendered unconscious.
He tried to prise the Arab’s fingers from the weapon, but, despite the man’s state, they seemed to be lodged tight. A round hit the sand by Tom’s shoulder. A split second later, another pinged over his head. Tom dived a metre or so down the leeward slope and began scrambling his way back to the interpreter.
By the time Tom got to Kali, he was still ducking his head down and the mewing had been replaced by feverish praying in Arabic.
Tom released the clip on the SIG, and blew on it furiously, removing the disabling grains before slipping it back into the well.
Then Kali freaked.
Screaming, he swivelled around and got up onto his knees, about to bolt down the leeward side of the dune. Tom twisted at the waist and grabbed him by his pants. A shot rang out and Kali toppled sideways, half covering Tom with his twitching body. Peering down, Tom saw three men scaling the steep slope beneath. He struggled to pull the pin on one of the hand grenades before lobbing it down towards them. The grenade exploded as he eased Kali off him. The Arabs’ bodies were shredded by the shrapnel, the blast flinging them backwards. He drew the SIG and fired two rounds into each of the splayed bodies before turning his attention back to the interpreter.
Kali had an entry hole in his chest, but was still breathing. The air was being drawn into his chest cavity through the hole, making a distinctive gurgling sound. Tom knew a sucking chest wound would collapse the man’s lungs if left untreated. He didn’t have a radio to call over one of the medics, even if that had been a possibility.
He took out the med kit from his pocket. He removed the sterile latex gloves and a pre-packed Asherman Chest Seal, a disc-shaped dressing consisting of an adhesive seal with a one-way valve in the middle. Cleansing the wound of blood, he applied the seal, ensuring that the valve was working, allowing air and blood to escape without re-entering. Then he gave him two shots of morphine.
With Kali stabilized, he focused back on the hamlet. A SEAL stooped down in front of the wooden hut, a pump-action shotgun in his hands. He blew the door off with a couple of breaching shells called TESARs, after aiming at the hinges. The shells were designed to disperse into a harmless powder once they had impacted with the target. But before the operator behind him could move in, both men were felled by rapid fire, the rounds slamming into their unprotected legs.
About three metres away, Tom watched a man lower an assault rifle before crawling towards the wooden hut, the weapon resting in the V between his forearms and biceps as he utilized the odd pocket of heavy smoke that still lingered above the sand for cover.
The secretary, he thought, lowering the glass and grasping the SIG.
Three of Tom’s rounds hit the sand around the man, the impact of each flinging up a handful of grains. Just as the shooter raised himself up at the entrance to the hut, a flicker of sparks signalled that one of Tom’s rounds had hit the muzzle. The rifle spun out of the fighter’s reach, but he flung himself forward, bursting through the opening and disappearing from sight.
Tom decided to act, despite Nathan’s words. As he pushed himself up, preparing to run down the dune, he twisted his head. Another Arab from one of the vehicles had reached the crest about twenty metres from him, his hands clasping an MP5K sub-machine gun.
Aiming the SIG, Tom heard a nearby burst. The man’s chest erupted, his weapon landing to his left. Tom stuck the SIG into his pants and crawled over to where the MP5 had landed, hoping it was still functional. He checked the chamber and the clip before wrapping the sling around his hands instinctively and turning his attention to the hamlet below, readying himself to run down the dune and join the ongoing gunfight.
As operators stormed the outlining huts, gaining the upper hand, he knelt onto one knee, aiming at a fighter who was shooting from the hip as he raced between the huts. But before Tom could squeeze the trigger, an intense pain erupted above his ribcage. The ballistic vest covered his torso, but as he’d raised the weapon he’d exposed an area about the size of a fist under his arms. A split second later, the pain seemed to career throughout his whole upper body, as if it had travelled in his blood vessels.
And then Tom was rolling down the steep, leeward slip face, the sounds of the ensuing firefight muted and remote now, each turn making him grit his teeth and moan as the entry wound made contact with the sand.
Finally, he was lying on his back, the MP5’s strap still wrapped around his hands. He went into a spasm. The night sky turned red, as if blood had filled his eyes.
He blacked out.