12

BEHIND ENEMY LINES

IT WAS 3.45 p.m. by now and the SBS soldiers were some two and a half hours into the battle for Qala-i-Janghi fort, but the firefight showed no signs of abating. Captain Lancer, Mat, Jamie and Ruff were still in the full flow of battle up on the tower roof. The enemy positions at the gateway had been transformed into a mass of blasted debris – the scorched and twisted remains of the Toyota pickups and piles of smoking rubble. The air was thick with the stench of burning, of cordite and of charred human flesh. At times the smell was so strong that it made the SBS soldiers at the battlements gag.

In the next thirty minutes, Mat called in four more air strikes. Two hit the enemy positions at the gateway, and two further strikes went in on the southern end of the fort. The laser-guided bombs rocketed in over the forty-foot-high diving wall to target the pink building, General Dostum’s stables, where the bulk of the enemy were holed up. At all times Mat was coordinating the bombing runs with Tom and Sam, as they tried to push ahead with their rescue mission inside the fort.

As each of the bombs slammed into the fort there was an ear-splitting explosion, and a thick plume of smoke and dust was thrown into the sky. During the short aftershock following each air strike the battlefield fell silent. But then the enemy would come back at the SBS soldiers as strongly as ever before, and no amount of five-hundred-pound bombs seemed to break their will to fight.

Unless the enemy were immortal, which Mat somehow doubted, they had to be reinforcing their positions from places where the air strikes couldn’t hit them. Mat had a sneaking suspicion that each time an air strike hit the enemy at the gateway, they were drawing fresh fighters from the cellars and passageways that ran beneath the fort. Even five-hundred-pound laser-guided bombs would have trouble taking out enemy fighters sheltered deep in those underground chambers – especially as Mat had no way of knowing where they were, or of directing the air strikes on to them. Mat racked his brain for some way of hitting the enemy below ground, but for the moment he was lost for ideas.

As the sun began drifting towards the distant horizon, it lit up the thick pall of smoke hanging above the ancient fortress an angry blood red. Fires were burning fiercely at the gateway in the fort’s central wall, where the air strikes had ignited ammunition supplies. Every now and then a magazine would cook off in the heat, throwing up a series of staccato rifle-crack explosions. And in the silence between the detonations, the cries of the wounded lifted eerily above the fort. There were dozens, perhaps hundreds, of corpses strewn across the northern end of the fort – scattered on the ground in the grotesque, twisted shapes that the human body only ever seems to assume in death. Some of the enemy soldiers lying there were yet to die. They had come here seeking Paradise, and had found instead a slow, agonising lingering death. No one was coming to help them.

For half an hour or more there had been no further suicide charges by the enemy at the gateway. But there were still sustained bursts of gunfire coming from the enemy positioned there. And one of the enemy fighters had now got a mortar zeroed in on the SBS’s position up on the tower roof. The accuracy of the rounds meant that he must have placed someone high up on one of the walls, spotting where his shells were falling and correcting his aim. But as much as Mat, Jamie and Ruff searched for that ‘spotter’, they still failed to locate him.

The enemy mortar operator had been seen firing from several positions in the southern compound. But he was very good and never allowed himself to fire from the same position twice – which prevented him from being targeted. He’d come running out of a building, plonk the mortar baseplate down, lob off a salvo of mortars and get back into cover again – doing it all so quickly that it was impossible to get him. And while the fire wasn’t exactly 100 per cent accurate it was good enough to cause the British forces some problems. With the mortar rounds creeping ever closer to their positions, Captain Lancer decided to act. He ordered his men to relocate to the tower on the north-eastern corner of the fort, some halfway across to the HQ building.

On the way up there, the SBS soldiers picked up a dozen Afghan fighters who had just arrived on the scene. They were the first re-inforcements and had been sent over by General Dostum. Once they had reached their new positions, Jamie and Ruff set up the GPMGs facing south towards the gateway in the fort dividing wall. Although the enemy seemed to have given up trying to break out en masse, they might still try to do so in smaller numbers as darkness began to fall. Jamie zeroed in his weapon on the killing box in front of the gateway, and settled down behind the cover of the battlements. As he did so, he felt someone dragging at the Diemaco assault rifle that he had slung across his shoulder. Turning round, he saw that it was one of the newly arrived Afghan soldiers.

‘Ta-li-ban,’ Jamie said, pointing at the enemy positions and grinning. Then he passed the Afghan fighter the assault rifle, and motioned that he should take a few potshots at the enemy.

‘Taliban,’ the Afghan soldier replied, bringing the weapon to his shoulder and aiming in the direction of the gateway. ‘Bang. Bang. Taliban.’

But as the Afghan went to pull the trigger, nothing happened, and try as he might he couldn’t get the weapon to fire. Finally, Jamie could help himself no longer and he cracked up laughing. From where he was standing he could see that the Diemaco’s safety catch was still on, and that was why the Afghan soldier couldn’t get it to fire. As he gave up trying to shoot and handed the weapon back to Jamie, the Afghan fighter must have recognised the humour of the moment. Suddenly, he too started pissing himself laughing, and the two men did a brotherly handclasp.

Then the Afghan soldier motioned skywards and performed a rotating movement with his finger in the air. While he did so he made the noise of a helicopter’s rotors, then ran his finger across his throat like a knife cut. ‘Taliban,’ he said, grinning. The meaning was clear – the air power would help them finish off the enemy forces in the fort. Suddenly all the British and Afghan fighters were grinning and backslapping each other at the thought of an end to all the fighting. It was the first, truly light moment that the soldiers had experienced since the siege of Qala-i-Janghi had begun. It was the first time that they had felt they could start to relax a little.

‘Take it easy, lads,’ Captain Lancer remarked, as he gazed over the battlements into the darkening fort. ‘If I were those fuckers, I’d see dusk as my chance to break out. Just keep your eyes peeled.’

‘What’s the score on the rescue party, boss?’ Mat asked.

‘I’ve no idea, Mat,’ said the Captain. ‘Since the last call about the air strikes, we’ve not heard from them.’

‘It’s gone pretty quiet in there. A bit worrying, ain’t it?’

‘I guess they’d call us if they needed us.’

Down in the fort next to General Dostum’s HQ building, Major Martin’s rescue party were just considering calling off the search. The US Major had finally received a radio call from Boxer Base, informing him that CIA Dave had escaped the fort of his own accord and been found safe and alive. Apparently he had made his way back to Mazar city in a local vehicle. CIA Dave had been able to confirm that things looked bad for his missing buddy, Mike Spann, who had been surrounded and attacked by the enemy at the start of the uprising. But as the intel on CIA Mike was all third-hand, it wasn’t totally convincing. Until someone found Mike Spann’s body, no one could be certain that the CIA officer had been killed. In which case there remained just a chance that he might be lying somewhere in that fort, badly injured but still alive.

Tom, CIA Steve and Major Martin gathered around in the cover beneath the HQ wall, and tried to decide what to do. Sam was still sniping at the enemy from the corner of the building. He’d put down more rounds than any of the rest of them, and just seemed hell-bent on spending his time fighting. Sam seemed to have an unshakeable conviction that their mission would succeed. With all the air strikes that had gone in on the enemy positions, Tom and Major Martin reckoned that the uprising had to be pretty much under control by now. And with the approach of dusk, it would soon become impossible to distinguish friend from foe. In addition to which, more Northern Alliance reinforcements were arriving on the scene to secure the fort.

But the men were also aware of their acute shortage of ammo. They were each down to three or four mags, and Sam had even less than that. And they knew how desperately the enemy wanted to get an American or British soldier. If they stayed at the fort for very much longer they would be the first to be targeted by the enemy in the darkness, that much was for sure. And none of them fancied fighting off any midnight suicide attacks. Eventually, Tom and Major Martin decided that they had to abandon the fort for the rest of the night to the care of the NA forces. It was time to return to Boxer Base for an ammo resupply, a debrief and some rest.

But Sam still appeared torn: on the one hand he knew the others were right, and that they should withdraw from the fort. On the other, he hated abandoning CIA Mike to his fate. As the rescue team carefully retraced their steps to the point where they’d first crossed over the wall into the fort, Sam was wrestling with his conscience. The men climbed back over and started getting their kit together in preparation for leaving. But then Sam came over to have a quiet word with Tom.

‘This just ain’t right, bro,’ Sam announced, quietly. ‘I can’t just leave him in there. I wanna go find Mike.’

‘What the fuck, Sam? It’s dark, mate, we got to get out of here and you don’t know where the fuck he is. Don’t be fucking crazy, mate.’

‘I’m headin’ for the western tower, bro,’ Sam replied. ‘That’s where I reckon I’ll find him.’

With that he turned round, scaled the parapet and climbed back on to the top of the wall. Without a backward glance he jumped down into the darkened fort and headed off into the unknown. Tom immediately felt compelled to follow his fellow SBS soldier, but at the same time he felt he had to inform Major Martin what the hell was happening. The US 5th SOF Major had just got off the radio to Boxer Base and he was unaware that Sam had gone back into the fort.

‘Right, we’re out of here guys, we’re leaving,’ the Major announced.

‘Sorry, mate, but we can’t,’ Tom replied. ‘Sam’s just gone off to find Mike.’

‘Jesus Christ! What the hell for, buddy? It’s gettin’ dark and we just gotta get the hell outta here.’

‘Yeah, I know, mate, but it’s Sam,’ Tom replied. ‘Hang on – I’ll try raise him on the radio.’

As Tom tried to reach Sam on his PRM radio, the commander of the recently arrived Afghan forces started remonstrating with Major Martin that he needed all of his men out of the fort. With darkness descending, the Afghan commander wanted to shut the fort complex down and make any no man’s land a killing ground. Which meant that anyone seen there after dark would be shot on sight. Clearly, he’d be unable to do so if there were any SBS soldiers still wandering around the fort. Finally, Tom gave up trying to raise Sam on the radio. Either he was out of range or he wasn’t answering his calls.

‘Look, buddy, we gotta get out of here,’ said Major Martin, as soon as Tom got off the radio.

‘What about Sam?’ Tom asked.

‘We’re out of here,’ CIA Steve interjected. ‘There’s no way we can wait for Sam, or anyone else, buddy.’

Tom knew that he couldn’t openly try to overrule a CIA officer and a US 5th SOF major. In any case, he doubted that they’d listen to him, even if he tried. But he couldn’t leave Sam behind.

‘Well I’m going back to look for Sam,’ Tom replied. ‘He’s a fellow SBS operator, which makes him my responsibility. And I ain’t fuckin’ leavin’ without him.’

‘What’s that gonna achieve?’ CIA Steve countered.

‘Look, wherever Sam is I’m going to find him and bring him in,’ Tom explained. ‘I’m not fuckin’ leavin’ him behind.’

‘Goddammit,’ Major Martin snapped, dropping his grab bag on the ground. ‘If you’re goin’ in to find your buddy, you ain’t goin’ in alone. We may as well go with ya, search for the other CIA officer, Dave.’

‘I thought he was already outta here?’ CIA Steve queried.

‘Yeah, but the comms are all to fuck,’ Major Martin replied. ‘And if we’re fuckin’ around looking for Mike, then may as well double-check that Dave ain’t still in there while we’re at it.’

Together, the three men vaulted back over the wall and began to retrace their steps towards the HQ buildings, hugging the shadows of the wall and any cover that they could find. There were still sporadic bursts of gunfire ringing out in the fort, but for now at least none of it seemed directed at them. As soon as they reached the HQ building, CIA Steve and Major Martin dived in through the doorway and disappeared into the shadows to search for CIA Dave. Tom was left alone on the outside.

The rescue team was now split up into three groups, and it suddenly dawned on Tom just how badly things were going. Sam had disappeared alone into completely uncharted enemy territory, looking for a CIA officer already believed dead, and with no idea where to find him. Major Martin and CIA Steve had disappeared into the fort HQ – again, potentially hostile territory – looking for Dave, the other CIA officer. But he was believed to be back at Boxer Base already, shocked and shaken but pretty much all right. And as for Tom, he couldn’t see either party, had no comms with Sam and didn’t know what to do next. It crossed his mind that if he stayed where he was he could at least act as a rendezvous point for all elements of the rescue team. But his instincts told him to press on and look for Sam.

Tom set off at a crouching run for the western side of the fort, disappearing into the dark unknown. Hugging the fort’s outer wall he headed for the north-western tower. There, the wall would turn south, Tom told himself, and he should be able to follow it all the way to the western tower, which was where Sam had said he was heading. As he hurried forward Tom couldn’t help but admire the bravery of his fellow special forces soldier. But at the same time he wondered why on earth he had decided to head for the western side of the fort – which was completely unknown territory.

The western tower was the furthest point possible from friendly forces, from the SBS and 5th SOF positions on the eastern side of the fort. And then it suddenly dawned on Tom that that was probably the very reason that Sam had chosen this route in. As there were no British or American troops positioned on this side of the fort, the enemy were more likely to have left it undefended. If there was one vantage point from where Sam might be able to locate Mike Spann without being detected by the enemy, then his intended destination, the western tower, might just be it.

Suddenly, Tom’s attention snapped back to the present. One hundred yards up ahead of him there was a fierce outbreak of gunfire. It sounded like a heavy machine gun of some sort, and he could hear the sharp reports of an AK47 returning fire. Instantly, Tom knew for certain that Sam was involved and that he had hit trouble. He hurried ahead. As the dark bulk of the north-western tower loomed ahead of him he could just make out a figure hunched behind the corner of a nearby wall. It was Sam all right, and he was putting down fire on to the enemy to his front.

‘Sam, you crazy bastard,’ Tom said, speaking softly into his radio. ‘I’m right behind you, mate.’

Tom figured that Sam had ignored the earlier radio calls when he’d first set off on his lone mission of madness, but that he might react differently now. Sure enough, there was a faint crackle of radio static and then Sam replied.

‘I hear you, bro. Come on in.’

At that, Tom scurried across to join him in the cover of the wall. It was one in a long row of single-storey buildings that clustered at the base of the fort’s outer wall.

‘Say, bro, you just couldn’t keep away?’ Sam said, as soon as he caught sight of Tom.

‘You crazy fucker … Where d’you get the weapon from, mate?’ Tom asked, pointing to the battered AK47 that Sam was using.

‘Picked it up from a dead Afghan on the way over,’ Sam replied. ‘Figured he didn’t need it and as I was all out of ammo …’

‘So, you got a plan, mate?’ Tom asked, as he stole a glance around the corner of the building. It was getting dark now, and the north-western tower was some 150 yards further down the wall from them.

‘Up ahead on the tower, reckon there’s three or four of ’em, bro. They got somethin’ large calibre up there, maybe a Dushka, plus they got some small stuff. But I reckon in this light they can barely see us. So if we can just get around this corner without bein’ spotted … I reckon we could make it to the tower if we stick close to the base of the wall. What d’you think, bro?’

‘Sounds good to me, mate – specially if we belly-crawl it. Once we’re round the corner, we can do the rest at a run.’

‘OK, bro, let’s do it,’ Sam said, dropping on to his hands and knees.

‘Say, mate, those doves,’ Tom began, just as they were about to set off at a crawl, ‘they were real, weren’t they?’

‘Sure they were, bro,’ Sam replied. ‘You doubtin’? Don’t ever doubt the power of bein’ on the side of right.’

With that the two special forces soldiers began edging their way around the corner of the building. As they inched forwards, Tom found himself wondering what the hell they were risking their lives for in such a crazed venture as this – searching a darkened fort infested by a fanatical enemy for a US officer that they’d never met before and who was more than likely dead. But as he did so, he remembered the calm and the sense of peace that had descended upon him as he’d seen those two white doves flying into the air above the battlefield. With it had come the overwhelming conviction that somehow they were being protected. They had already fought their way through more danger and bloodshed than ever seemed humanly possible. And if they had cheated death so far, there was no reason why they shouldn’t make it through this final battle.

They had barely advanced fifteen yards at a crawl, when all hell broke loose. The heavy machine gun up ahead opened up again, large-calibre rounds chewing into the wall behind them. Glancing back, Tom could see that the incoming fire was tearing into the corner of the building where he and Sam had just been standing. Perhaps the enemy gunner hadn’t spotted them and was just laying down some suppressing fire. In which case, they needed to get the hell out of there. Jumping to his feet Tom set off at a crouching run along the base of the wall, with Sam close on his heels. The taller American was faster than Tom and soon overtook him. As they approached the tower, they could hear the enemy gunner laying down further, probing, bursts of fire. Any second now they feared that they were going to be hit.

At last they made the cover of the tower itself. Flattening themselves against the wall, they stood there in the shadows gasping for breath. Up above them was the enemy machine-gun nest. Each man knew what he had to do next, as they had rehearsed and prepared for it so many times during training. They exchanged a few brief hand signals, and then they moved in through the tower entranceway, their weapons held at the ready. Taking it in turns to cover each other, they advanced towards the stairway and began to mount the steps leading up on to the roof. The interior of the tower appeared deserted. But up above there was the intermittent roar of the heavy machine gun, as the enemy kept squirting off bursts of fire into the semi-darkness.

They reached the last flight of stairs, hearts pounding, and prepared to break out on to the roof. With their weapons at the shoulder and on the aim, they crept up the last few steps. Each soldier stayed as light on his feet as possible. As their heads emerged from the stairwell, Tom and Sam were already searching for the enemy. Simultaneously, both men opened fire on the positions right in front of them. They took the three enemy soldiers by complete surprise and cut them down in a hail of bullets. For a split second the Dushka operator tried to spin his heavy machine gun around, but then he took a bullet in the head and slumped over on top of his weapon. His two fellow fighters were already lying dead or dying at the feet of the tripod that supported the giant gun.

Not a word had been spoken between Tom and Sam as they moved forward to secure the rest of the tower roof. They did a quick body-check. All the enemy fighters were dead. Tom reached down and picked up one of their AK47s, pulling several full magazines out of the dead man’s clothing. He knew that his Diemaco was down to the last few rounds. Slinging the AK47 over his shoulder he continued checking over the tower roof for any more of the enemy.

‘I’m movin’ forward, bro,’ Sam called over, softly, once they’d finished securing the position. Using hand signals again, he indicated to Tom that he was advancing along the parapet that ran along the outer wall towards the western tower. ‘I’m going to look for Mike. Cover me, bro.’

Giving the thumbs up, Tom heaved the corpse of the dead gunner off of the heavy machine gun, and gave it the once-over. It was undamaged, and would certainly give him a far greater firepower and range than the AK47 that he had slung over his shoulder. Lowering himself into the gunner’s ‘seat’, he spun the weapon around and pointed the barrel in the direction of the southern end of the fort. If the enemy were to counter-attack, it was from there that they’d be coming. Out of the corner of his eye Tom saw Sam set off at a crouching run along the parapet in the direction of the western tower. Soon, his lone figure was lost in the gathering darkness. Tom knew that the life of this brave and selfless American soldier now depended, in part, upon him.

As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Tom tried to make out what movements, if any, the enemy were making up ahead of him. For a second, he caught what he thought were crouched figures running along the base of the fort’s dividing wall, some four hundred yards away from him, moving as if to cut off Sam’s advance. But then he wasn’t certain that he’d seen them at all. In the half-light of dusk, he was struggling to make things out clearly. And at this distance a film of evening mist seemed to have settled between himself and the distant walls of the fort, obscuring any detail.

‘Cover me,’ Sam had told him. Well, how the fuck could he cover him if he couldn’t see properly? Tom thought to himself, frustratedly.

But what the hell. If he opened fire in the general direction of those shadowy figures, it would at least create a diversion. And that might mean that Sam would get a clear run at things. By doing so, Tom reasoned, he’d be sure to draw down fire on to his position, so diverting any attention away from Sam. Sighting the heavy weapon on the base of the distant wall, Tom squeezed the trigger. Suddenly the Dushka roared into life, an ear-splitting percussion shattering the evening stillness. It was dark enough for Tom to follow the giant tracer rounds as they arced across the fort and hit the distant wall. Adjusting his fire, he dropped the target point six feet or so to the base of the wall, and began to fire for effect. If any of the enemy were trying to move across to intercept Sam, they’d now have to walk through a wall of fire to get to him.

Almost immediately, rounds started cracking back across the fort in Tom’s direction. The enemy had woken up to the fact that one of their ‘own’ guns was being turned on them. But at such range, most of the incoming fire was pretty inaccurate, and rounds were slamming into the tower well wide of their target. In any case, Tom had other things to worry about. As the Dushka kicked back with the powerful force of the rounds firing off, Tom felt his feet being forced off the floor. The weapon was obviously adjusted to suit a much taller operator than Tom, who was somewhat on the short side, and he was in danger of losing control of it. Calming his nerves, Tom leaned back, braced himself by getting his boots wedged up on to the weapon’s carriage, and settled into a position where he could continue operating the gun.

After a sustained burst Tom ceased firing and hunched over the Dushka, searching for any signs of enemy movement out there in the shadowy no man’s land of the fort. As he did so, sporadic bursts of enemy fire kept coming back at him. Then Tom heard the crack-crack-crack of several well-placed shots coming from the direction of the western tower. Fuck it, he cursed to himself, Sam must’ve run into trouble. Somehow, the enemy must have got through to him. Tom was expecting a fully-fledged firefight to break out on the western tower, and if it did then his only option would be to advance and try to go to his fellow soldier’s aid. But after those well-placed shots, all seemed to go quiet again.

As he sat there alone on the roof of the tower, Tom listened to the odd, sporadic burst of gunfire drifting across from the more distant sections of the fort complex. The newly arrived Northern Alliance forces would have a long night ahead of them keeping the enemy bottled up here, that much was for certain. A couple of minutes had passed since that isolated burst of shots, and Tom decided it was time to lay down some more suppressing fire. But he had to conserve the big gun’s ammunition. He allowed himself to squeeze off a few short bursts in the general direction of the enemy, and then ceased firing.

In the deafening silence that followed, Tom thought he caught the sound of a voice up ahead of him in the shadows. But then he thought he must have imagined it. Yet as he strained his ears in the echoing darkness he caught the voice again, calling to him out of the night.

‘Tom! Buddy! You hear me?’ came the voice. It was Sam, coming back along the parapet from the western tower. ‘What’s up, bro?’ he added, as soon as he caught sight of Tom. ‘What you got your legs up in the air for? You firin’ that gun or you ridin’ it?’

‘Fuck off, you lanky git,’ Tom replied. ‘Am I fuckin’ glad to see you, mate.’

As Sam appeared from the darkness, Tom was shocked by his appearance. He was ashen-faced, and looked completely drained and shaken.

‘You look like death, mate,’ Tom said, as he extricated himself from the machine gun. ‘What the fuck happened out there?’

‘I’m OK, bro,’ Sam sounded exhausted. ‘I just wanna get outta here. You know, it was pretty dark down there, but I saw this guy, lying there, face down, in jeans and a black shirt. I guess it had to be him … Hell, I don’t wanna talk about it – not now, anyways. Let’s just get the fuck outta here, bro.’

‘Fuckin’ fine by me, mate,’ Tom replied, trying to make light of things. ‘It was your fuckin’ crazy idea to come out here in the first place.’

As far as Tom was concerned Sam was right – it was high time they got the hell out of the fort. They began to retrace their steps. As they did so, Tom was busy trying to figure out what on earth had happened to Sam, out there alone on the western tower. He looked like he had gone through something that had shocked and sickened him – something that had affected him far more deeply than anything that had happened during the whole of that day’s bloody fighting, something that had forced him to face one of the worst decisions of his life. Or at least that was the only way that Tom could make any sense out of things now.

Twenty minutes later and all members of the rescue team had rendezvoused at the main entrance to the fort. Not surprisingly, Major Martin and CIA Steve had failed to find any signs of CIA Dave in the HQ building. The rescue party met up with Captain Lancer’s team and the rest of the 5th SOF boys, and everyone declared themselves more than ready to head back to Boxer Base.

As the SBS Land-Rovers pulled away from Qala-i-Janghi and hit the high road back to Mazar, every single man on those vehicles felt a massive adrenalin rush surging through his exhausted body, a burning sense of exhilaration. At some stage during the last six hours of combat operations, each and every one of them had faced the certainty that they were not going to live through that day. Yet somehow, they had cheated death and made it out alive from the Fort of War.

By the time they got back to Boxer Base it was dark. The first day of the battle for Qala-i-Janghi was over – and the SBS soldiers were wondering just how long the bitter siege would last. The first thing they did was a major ammo resupply. If anything major kicked off at the fort again that night, they’d be heading back up there to lend a hand, of that they were certain. So, before anyone could even think about a good feed and a kip, they had to get themselves battle-ready again.

‘The fookers,’ Mat remarked to no one in particular, as he slotted new rounds into his magazine. On the one hand he was feeling utterly exhausted, while on the other he was still on the adrenalin rush of combat. ‘“Prisoners” be fooked. They weren’t bloody prisoners and they never bloody well intended to be. They went to that fort to fight. They’d never stopped being bloody combatants.’

‘You can say that again, mate,’ said Jamie.

‘Tell you another thing, mate, they’re fuckin’ evil, even by our standards,’ Tom observed, as he cleaned his weapon. ‘I’d say they’re the most hard core of the lot of ’em. You know, the fuckin’ “Arab Afghans”. Bunch of foreigners – Saudis, Chechens, whatever. You saw the way they fought? They’d break cover, take a couple of well-aimed shots – then dive back into cover again before you could even get a fuckin’ bead on ’em. Not bad for a bunch of ragheads.’

‘They were good all right,’ said Jamie. ‘I reckon we’re lucky we made it out of there without taking casualties.’

‘In a way you got to fuckin’ admire them, mate – a grim admiration,’ said Tom. ‘Fighting to the death they were, and fearless –’

‘I don’t bloody admire them,’ Mat interrupted. ‘And I wouldn’t bloody say they were fearless, either. Driven insane for a cause, I’ll grant you. But I can’t see that they was brave. They was bloody fanatical, and I don’t admire them nowt for seeking death. Even the local Afghans, the local Muslims, even they don’t understand it. I mean, those bloody suicide charges. How can you blow yourself up for a senseless cause? It’s crazy, downright mad.’

‘Yeah, all right, mate,’ said Tom. ‘But this fort housed all the foreign fighters. These people come from all over the fuckin’ world to fight, to seek death in this cause. So, call it whatever you fuckin’ want to, mate – bravery, an attitude, madness, suicide, whatever – it ain’t like nothin’ else you’ve ever seen before. And the question is, how do you fight against fuckers like that?’

‘Fuckin’ simple, mate,’ Ruff interjected. ‘You just fuckin’ get your Gimpy and fuckin’ mallet the fuckers.’

‘It ain’t no different from what we trained for back at home,’ Mat added. ‘How long we been training for it – counter-terrorism, close-quarter battle, room-to-room combat – call it what you bloody well like? Years mate, that’s what. And it don’t matter where you are – in Bosnia, Sierra Leone, East Timor or bloody Afghanistan, this is what we trained for. And it don’t matter who the enemy is, we’re still doing what we bloody trained for. Killing the fookers. Every time you train, you do it like it’s for real, and every time it’s for real you’re relying on your bloody training.’

There were a few seconds where no one spoke, as they were all contemplating what Mat had just been saying. The sound of metal scraping on metal, of rounds being slotted into magazines, filled the room.

‘So, it’s just a fuckin’ test for all the trainin’, is that it?’ Tom countered, finally. ‘Is that what you’re sayin’? Is that all it is? Don’t get me wrong, mate. I still think we should put a bullet in every last one of the fuckers. I’m just trying to work out how best we do that, that’s all.’

‘You know why we’re operating so bloody well in there, mate, despite all the madness?’ Mat answered. ‘Cos that’s what we trained for back at home – for it all going to rat shit, for it all going totally bloody pear-shaped. That fort is a fuck-up but not of our making, and it’s one we’ve been sent in to sort out.’

‘Fair enough, mate,’ Tom conceded, after a slight pause. ‘But I’ll tell you another fuckin’ thing – I reckon there’s a good number of ’em will get away tonight, under cover of darkness.’

‘How d’you figure that?’ asked Jamie.

‘Tom’s got a point there, mate,’ Mat cut in. ‘Stands to reason. There’s no way the Afghans will be able to keep all those fookers in there – in that fort – overnight. It’s dark. You seen the bloody size of the place. Like three bloody great big football pitches laid side to side. There’s hundreds of them left in there, got to be. Stands to bloody reason some of them are going to get away, don’t it?’

‘Yeah, and what with the way the fuckin’ Afghans police the place and all,’ Tom added, shaking his head, ‘it’ll be a quick leg-up over the wall and they’ll scarper. What is it, a few guys wandering about on the outside of the fuckin’ fort and the rest of ’em crouchin’ around their fires to keep warm. I mean, there’s no formal sentry system or nothing, is there? Yeah, a good number of the fuckers’ll sneak away tonight.’

‘But we aren’t exactly expecting them to come back for any more, are we?’ said Jamie. ‘There’s a lot of people have died in there today. And they must know that a fuck sight more of ’em are going to get malleted, before this thing is over.’

‘Did someone say it was called the Fort of War?’ said Mat. ‘More like the Fort of bloody Death, I reckon.’

‘Reckon I must’ve malleted dozens of the fuckers while I was on the Gimpy,’ Jamie remarked. ‘Just mowing ’em down I was. So was Ruff there. It was like they were all just looking to die, like they wanted nothing more than to get it over with, to get slotted. Fucking weird it was. Young kiddies a lot of them, too.’

‘Fuckin’ Gimpy’s too fuckin’ good for the fuckers,’ Ruff growled.

There was an interruption as one of the 5th SOF soldiers put his head around the door. ‘Heads up on the top floor, guys,’ he announced. ‘Say, you know, that Tom guy of yours – he’s got balls made of brass from what I been hearin’.’

‘Yeah, well, you had to be there, mate,’ Mat replied, with a forced grin.

‘Well, all right, I’ll see you up on the top floor, buddy,’ the US soldier added.

‘Balls of brass?’ said Mat, once the US soldier had gone. ‘Reckon your missus will be shocked when she hears that, mate.’

‘Fuck off, mate,’ Tom retorted, with a grin. ‘She fuckin’ knows already, don’t she.’

Once the SBS soldiers had finished rearming themselves, they headed up to the top floor of the building. After fixing a brew, they settled down for the debrief and to plan the next day’s operations. First off, CIA Dave stood up to give an account of what had happened in the fort from his side of things. He covered the period from the start of the uprising and seeing Mike Spann go down under a pile of enemy prisoners, to the moment of his final escape from the fort. CIA Dave had eventually taken the same route out to safety as the ICRC workers had done before him. He’d climbed out a window at the rear of the HQ building, scaled the outer parapet of the fort and run down the sloping buttress on the far side. Once there, he’d jumped in a local taxi that had just ferried a news crew to the battle scene, and headed back to Boxer Base.

CIA Dave said that he’d only decided to abandon the fort at the last possible moment, when darkness was coming down and he was convinced that there was no rescuing Mike Spann. The general consensus in the room seemed to be that Mike was unlikely to have survived the initial attack on him by the prisoners. And it was clear that he was even less likely to survive a night alone in the fort. This being the case then, the following day’s battle plan could be very different. If there were no allied personnel left alive in the fort, they could go in hard and just obliterate the enemy positions from the air. The gloves would be off. A plan for the following morning was drawn up which involved the same SBS/5th SOF teams going into action. But now the teams would be tasked almost exclusively with calling in air strikes.

‘All around the walls of that place there’s rooms stuffed full of ammo and weapons,’ Tom remarked. ‘OK, a lot of it might be World War II vintage, but it still goes bang if you point it in the right fuckin’ direction. It’s a fuckin’ stupid place to put your prisoners –’

‘Yeah, an’ they got kinda irrigation channels running beneath the walls,’ one of the 5th SOF soldiers interjected, ‘which, you know, bring in the water.’

‘So, they’ve got weapons and they got water,’ Tom continued. ‘The point being they could hold out in there for fuckin’ weeks, if they wanted to. But I reckon their real aim is to break out and cause as much havoc and mayhem as possible.’

‘No two ways about it, we gotta break that siege,’ said Major Martin. In spite of the earlier friction between the 5th SOF commanding officer and one or two of the SBS soldiers, the US Major was more than rising to the challenge of the fort uprising. ‘An’ the only way I can see to do that is with the air power. That’s unless, you know, anyone else can think of a better way.’

‘Well, consider the options,’ said Tom. ‘We can’t fuckin’ storm the place, that’s for sure. We’re outnumbered and the enemy are well armed and well dug in. We can’t just wait it out as a siege tactic, cos there’s still enough of ’em in there to try and break out. There’s only one option that makes any sense: we got to locate their strongholds and fuckin’ mallet ’em from the air.’

‘We got fast air on standby all day tomorrow,’ Major Martin enthused. ‘Way I see it, they ain’t never gonna give it up unless we break their hold on the place, that’s for sure.’

‘Tell you one thing, mate,’ Jamie remarked. ‘Without them air strikes today we’d have been in real trouble. We had some real angels on our shoulders.’

‘Appreciate you sayin’ it, buddy,’ the Major replied. ‘Question is, where do we best place our FAC teams tomorrow?’

‘Best place is the western tower, mate,’ said Tom. ‘End of today, Sam was there and I wasn’t far behind him. You got the best vantage point to see into the southern end of the fort. Plus they won’t be expectin’ us to be over that way, as we concentrated on the eastern side today.’

‘All right, then my team – that’s Tom, Sam and a couple of the 5th SOF boys – we’ll take the western tower. Captain Lancer, you OK with your guys taking up positions on the eastern side of the fort? You know that area well, n’all.’

‘That’s fine by me, Major,’ the SBS Captain replied. ‘That way we can have FAC teams covering both sides of the fort. But one thing, Major,’ he added, with a grin, ‘your boys will remember their comms antennae this time, won’t they?’

‘Well, you know, you Brits did such a good job n’all in there today, so maybe we’d be best off forgettin’ it,’ the Major retorted.

At that, the soldiers in the room fell about laughing. The mission planning was coming to an end, and they began to talk more freely about the events that had taken place that day in the fort.

‘So, do any of you lot have any idea what they’re fighting for?’ Mat asked. ‘Like, do they have any sort of strategy? Any grand plan that we’re not aware of?’

‘Grand plan? Yeah, like they all want to fuckin’ die,’ Tom answered. ‘You saw those suicide charges, mate. Fanatical fuckin’ death wish or what?’

‘Well, we just might have a take on that,’ one of the CIA officers volunteered, from the corner of the room. He was one of the Agency’s intel experts and had remained at Boxer Base all that day. ‘Seems like at the time those six hundred AQT surrendered, Dostum was undecided as to what they was up to. He reckoned there were three options: the first, that it was a trap; the second, they were surrenderin’ to see how they’d be treated; the third, that it was a genuine surrender. But he didn’t know which it was. So, think about the trap scenario. Right now there are some 6,000 AQT holed up in Kunduz, with heavy armour. And Kandahar – that’s the AQT stronghold in the south – hasn’t been taken yet. So, if the AQT forces could successfully counter-attack out of Kunduz and hit Mazar, you’d then have the Northern Alliance sandwiched in the middle, with the 6,000 AQT in the north and the rest of the AQT forces in the south. We reckon that was their overall game plan.’

‘But how does that relate to the six hundred prisoners, mate?’ Mat asked.

‘Like, how does getting yourself thrown in the slammer contribute to your grand strategy?’ Tom added.

‘Think if it wasn’t never a genuine surrender – the six hundred prisoners real aim bein’ to get their hands on the weapons in the fort and start a counter-attack from the west of Mazar. See what I’m drivin’ at? Then you got AQT breakin’ out of the fort and hittin’ Mazar from the west, and AQT breakin’ out of Kunduz and hittin’ Mazar from the east. So Mazar gets hit in a pincer movement. And then the whole NA forces get hit in a second pincer movement. And that, maybe, was their game plan.’

‘But we’ve got no proof on that,’ said Mat. ‘It’s just a theory, right?’

‘Yeah, it’s still just a theory,’ the CIA agent answered. ‘But it’s one a lot of the local Afghans are talkin’ about right now.’

‘What’s the score on Mike Spann, then?’ Mat asked, changing the subject. ‘We are confirmed he’s dead, right?’

‘There was a guy lyin’ in the southern end of the fort,’ said Sam, quietly. ‘I saw him from the western tower. He was dressed in jeans and a shirt. That ain’t the sort of garb the AQT wear. And it’s the right place to have seen him, according to Dave. He wasn’t movin’, that’s all I can say.’

‘How’s the finger, mate?’ said Tom, deliberately trying to change the subject. He knew that Sam was still troubled by whatever he’d seen from the western tower at the end of that day’s fighting.

‘Which one, bro?’ Sam replied, with a tired grin. ‘Anyhow, thought you promised never to mention it?’

‘Promised? Fuck off, mate. You know, the one you fucked going over the wall – your trigger finger, mate.’

‘You what?’ Mat asked, incredulously. ‘He buggered his trigger finger? Who the hell was doing all the fighting in there, then?’

‘Who d’you fuckin’ think, mate?’ Tom replied. ‘Tom “Balls of Brass” Knight, mate, that’s who.’

For several minutes the SBS lads ripped the piss mercilessly out of Sam over his strained trigger finger, each of them using it as an excuse to relieve some of the stress and tension of the day. As the meeting broke up, Major Martin quietly drew Tom to one side.

‘Say, buddy – you guys always, you know, dress this way, kinda informal, like?’ he remarked, as he put an arm around Tom’s shoulder. ‘An’ you always kinda call your officers “mate” and “boss”, an’ they don’t object or nothin’?’

‘That’s just the way we do things, mate,’ Tom replied. ‘It’s the ethos behind UK special forces – everyone is respected and has their say, pretty much regardless of rank. No one stands on fuckin’ ceremony. That’s just the way we go about gettin’ things done.’

‘I mean, no offence intended, buddy, you guys did a great job in there today. It’s just, you know, from where I’m standin’ it all seems pretty kinda strange is all.’

‘Well, I reckon you must be gettin’ used to it by now, eh? Cos I tell you one thing, mate, it won’t be no fuckin’ different tomorrow.’

After the debrief had ended, Mat and Jamie went for a smoke and a stroll around the Boxer Base compound. Jamie handed out the Marlboro to his friend, and they lit up. He still wanted to talk about the events back in the fort.

‘You scared in there today, mate?’ Jamie asked.

‘Didn’t have time to think about it,’ Mat replied. ‘I’m bloody petrified now, though, mate.’

The two men laughed. Then Jamie spoke again.

‘I killed a lot of people in there today.’

‘Me too,’ said Mat.

‘Yeah, but on the Gimpy, I was just murdering them.’

‘How many d’you reckon?’ asked Mat.

‘Dozens,’ Jamie answered, quietly. ‘Maybe hundreds. Who the fuck knows? I reckon I saw white faces in there, too. You know, like Europeans. Maybe there was Brits in among them, like Muslim converts.’

‘Can’t be helped, can it, mate? If they’re Taliban or al-Qaeda it doesn’t matter where they’re from. Just got to take ’em out.’

‘Just fuckin’ call me the “Executioner”,’ Jamie said, ignoring Mat’s last remark. ‘Just fuckin’ call me the “Executioner” –’

‘Look, mate, way I see it is this,’ said Mat, trying to get Jamie’s attention again. ‘Back in the Naka Valley I saved a lot of people that needed saving. And I killed a load of people in that fort today that needed killing. Simple as that. And I ain’t troubled by it.’

Jamie took a long drag on his Marlboro and as he did so Mat stole a quick glance over at him. In the glow from the cigarette he could see that Jamie’s face was looking haggard and exhausted. Jamie was one of Mat’s closest mates and he knew that the big man was a tough and fearless warrior, with hidden strengths. But he was also a sensitive soul. And Mat could tell that Jamie was troubled by today’s killing – the wholesale slaughter that had taken place in that fort. It was all so different from their image of how war should be fought. They’d expected tough and bloody combat, and that they’d found today. But they’d also encountered a senseless, numbing, mindless slaughter.

Yes, Mat knew that he too had killed that day, but only a fraction of the numbers accounted for by the two GPMG gunners. He didn’t exactly expect Ruff to be disturbed by the killing – it wasn’t in his nature. But he made a mental note that when they got back to Poole he’d get Jamie out on the lash. They’d have a proper talk over a few beers, and probably both get all emotional. Which was about the nearest any of the SBS lads ever got to analysing and dealing with the trauma of their job.

As the men retired to their beds, Sam Brown found himself unable to sleep. He was deeply troubled by the day’s events. At the end of their rescue mission, he had spotted a figure that he was convinced was CIA Agent Mike Spann. None of the Afghan soldiers, or the enemy for that matter, wore jeans and a dark Western shirt. They wore combats and djellabas. So it had to be CIA Mike. He was lying in the courtyard outside the enemy stronghold, face down and unmoving, and Sam had been unable to tell if he was dead or alive. So the soldier had proceeded to put two bullets into the ground, as close to the CIA agent’s head as he dared, to see if the figure moved or flinched. Both times he squeezed the trigger there had been no sign of life from the CIA agent. But Sam still didn’t know for sure that Mike Spann was dead. He could conceivably have been unconscious and badly injured, but still breathing.

Sam had known that it was impossible for him and Tom to fight their way any further into the fort alone. As it was, they had taken their lives in their hands even to get this far. But it was the thought of abandoning CIA Agent Mike Spann – when there was just the chance that he could still be alive – that troubled him so very, very deeply.

‘Brother Ali, Brother Ali.’ It was Ahmed speaking, as he gently tried to shake Ali’s comatose form awake. ‘Brother Ali, it’s me, Ahmed.’

‘What is it?’ Ali replied, groggily. After the day’s vicious and bloody action he’d been sleeping the sleep of the dead. ‘What time is it, brother?’

‘A little after four thirty,’ Ahmed answered. ‘Brother, during the night several of the brothers broke out of the fort via the drainage channels. They said they were going to seek help in the village. I could do nothing to stop them. We’ve just heard an outbreak of fighting. A firefight, mainly AK47s, down in the village. It’s all gone quiet now. I think the brothers were intercepted.’

‘As sure as Allah is the All Merciful One, anyone who tries to escape now is a fool,’ Ali replied, angrily. ‘We should expect no quarter from the kafir, and give none in return. If they catch you they will kill you and that’s one more brother who has died in vain. We stay here and fight. To the death. Until the last drop of kafir blood that can be shed has been shed.’

‘Al-hamdu Lillah, brother, I am with you,’ Ahmed replied, quietly. In the faint light of the coming dawn Ali could see just how drawn and haggard his giant warrior friend was looking. ‘But some of the brothers are still talking of surrender. They do not want to face another day of the kafir bombing. How can we fight them, they ask, when they just use their air power to massacre us? How many brothers have we lost like that already, Brother Ali? One hundred? Two hundred? Maybe more? Brother Ali, the fort grounds are littered with the bodies of the shouhada’a.’

‘Is this truly the other brothers speaking, Brother Ahmed, or is it you?’ Ali asked, softly. ‘Do you agree with them, brother, that this is no way to die, to be shaheed? If so, do you really think the kafir would accept our surrender, after all that we have now done? After “surrendering” and then betraying them? After killing the American CIA dogs? After killing the Northern Alliance whore commanders? After taking the alcohol-drinking and pig-flesh-eating Dostum’s fort and destroying it? After all that, do you really think they would accept our surrender?’

‘I don’t know, brother. I doubt it,’ Ahmed replied, looking at the ground. ‘If it were only me, brother, I would fight back to back with you until either the last kafir had his throat cut or we were both shouhada’a. And then, insh’Allah, we would be together in Paradise. But some of the brothers are young and scared and tired, and their hearts are not firm, brother. What do we tell them? What do we say to them to make them stand and fight?’

‘We tell them the truth, Brother Ahmed,’ Ali replied. ‘We tell them what the forces of kofr have done to this beautiful, pure Islamic country. What these dirty infidel dogs have done to the Muslim sisters, the Muslim children, the young babies and the grandparents. How they have bombed our villages, our towns, our mountains and our fields. Call the brothers together, Brother Ahmed. I will speak to them. And I will put fire back into their hearts. And I will make them yearn to kill the kafir like never before.’

Some thirty minutes later, the surviving brothers were gathered together in the darkness of the largest of the underground bunkers. Ali stood up to speak to them.

‘Brothers, remember the words of the Holy Koran, chapter nine, verse fourteen: “Fight against them so that Allah will punish them by your hands and disgrace them and give you victory over them and heal the breasts of a believing people.” Brothers, from the four corners of the world we came to the jihad, to Afghanistan and now to this fort to heal the breasts of a believing people. And how the believing people have suffered, brothers, under the murderous hand of the kafir. That is why we are here, brothers. Remember, the All Merciful One never promised that the path we have chosen, the path of the jihad, would be easy. And now is not the time to lose heart, brothers. Now is not the time to lose heart.’

‘He’s right, brothers, he’s right,’ said Ahmed, as Ali paused for breath. ‘Listen to the wise words and reflect on the path of the jihad.’

‘This war is, in the infidel leader Bush’s own words, a “crusade”, brothers. It is a war of kofr – disbelief – against the one true faith, Islam. The history of this conflict does not go back only to the glorious day of 11 September, when the Nineteen Lions roared and changed the course of history. It goes back to the time when the Jewish tribes gathered against the Prophet, peace be upon Him, and the Christians launched the Crusades against the Muslims. It goes back to the American government’s murderous policies on Iraq, Palestine, Bosnia, Kashmir and the Sudan, to name but a few. Like Bush himself said, you are either with the forces of kofr, the disbelievers, the forces of Zionist-controlled America, or against them. Did the Prophet – peace be upon Him – not say, “A Muslim is the brother of a Muslim, he does not forsake him or betray him”?’

‘Brother Ali speaks the truth, brothers,’ one of the young men in the group shouted out. ‘And what if we do die? There lies the path to Paradise.’

‘As soon as the first hostile disbelievers entered this land, this Holy Land of Afghanistan, defensive jihad became obligatory on all Muslims,’ Ali continued. He could tell that he was winning the brothers round. ‘Those who have not answered that call and were able to do so, brothers, will be punished by Allah in the hereafter. Have no doubt about that. And those who have answered the call, as we have, brothers, they will be lifted up in the hearts of green birds into Paradise itself. Remember the words of the Holy Koran, chapter three, verse 140: “Allah may distinguish between those who believe so that He may take from your ranks the Martyrs. And Allah does not take the wrongdoers.”

‘And do not think the path of the jihad is without pain, without sacrifice, without blood, without fatigue, without torture.’ Ali was growing in confidence as he spoke. ‘For it says in the Holy Koran, chapter two, verse 214: “Do you really think that you will enter Paradise without such trials as came to those who passed before you? They were afflicted with severe poverty and ailments and were so shaken that even the Prophet and those others who believed said: ‘When will come the help of Allah?’ Yet, certainly, the help of Allah was near!” The path to victory is long and arduous and full of challenges, brothers. Brothers, without suffering, where is the test of the true believers? And when the suffering is at its greatest, believe then that the help of Allah is nearest at hand.’

‘Hear him, brothers,’ Ahmed interjected. ‘Al-hamdu Lillah, those are fine words.’

‘Now is not the time to turn aside from our path, brothers. For it says in the Holy Koran, chapter nine, verse 111: “They fight in Allah’s cause, so they kill and are killed … Then rejoice in the bargain you have concluded. That is the supreme success.” Can we give up the path of jihad now, brothers? Can we break the bargain that we have made with the All Merciful One? Can we desert our duty to the jihad, to kill the kafir or be killed in the process? We cannot turn away from the true path now, brothers. The gates to Paradise lie before us, brothers. Those gates are open for us, ready to welcome each and every one of us in.’

‘Death to the kafir!’ Ahmed started to chant. ‘Death to the kafir!’

The call was quickly taken up by the other brothers, growing in power and volume as more and more joined in.

‘I know you are with me, brothers,’ Ali shouted, raising his hands to silence them. ‘I know I can count on every single one of you to do your duty to Islam. This war in Afghanistan is the start of a war that will last for decades, and after much suffering it will end in victory for the believers. For it says in the Holy Koran, chapter sixty-one, verse nine: “It is He who has sent His Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth, that He may make it prevail over all other religions, no matter how much the disbelievers detest it.”’

‘Al-hamdu Lillah!’ several of the brothers shouted, excitedly.

‘Now, today, brothers we will fight differently,’ Ali continued. ‘Listen to me carefully. Unless absolutely necessary, no one is to go outside and expose himself to the kafir bombings. We will stick to the underground chambers and we will fight from the cover of the windows and doorways. In that way, brothers, we will force the kafir to come into the fort and fight us. And then – by the grace of Allah – we will massacre them and wipe them out. We have water to drink from the irrigation channels, brothers, and the meat of Dostum’s horses to eat. We can survive here as long as it takes, brothers, until the kafir are forced to come and fight us here, on our own terms.’

‘Allahu Akhbar!’ several of the brothers chanted.

‘I promise you, brothers, that this morning you will see a sign that the help of Allah is near at hand. A great and magical blow will be struck against the kafir, and you will witness the wondrous power of the All Mighty One. This morning, brothers. This very morning. Allahu Akhbar!’

As the brothers took up brother Ali’s war cry, their cries of Allahu Akhbar echoed thunderously around the underground basement, their clenched fists punching the air in time with the chanting.