El Toro stumbled over the bodies to where Mark knelt and made eye contact with the soldier half lying, half sitting against the body of his dead comrade.
‘Talk and I’ll spare your life,’ Mark promised.
The soldier nodded, having just witnessed Mark kill one other for not talking.
‘We’re based at an old UN fortified command centre – Ain M’lila Airfield in Algeria.’
‘What is there? Co-ordinates and mission objective?’ Mark questioned, taking a step towards him.
Mark realised Lundon being so near, made sense he could orchestrate an attack so quickly after Mark’s arrival. The soldier continued.
‘Ain M’lila airfield is an abandoned World War II military airfield in Algeria, located approximately seventeen kilometres north-northwest of Aïn Kercha in Oum el Bouaghi province, about fifty kilometres south-southeast of Constantine.’
The soldier coughed and spluttered so El Toro shook him vigorously, but it was no good; he was dead. Mark stood up and cursed and turned to El Toro for reassurance about their new intelligence. But El Toro’s attention had moved to something which caught his eye on the rocks to the left of their rooftop position. He quickly called Mark over and the two of them spotted four figures moving silently through the rocks towards the main castle gate the same way Mark had climbed. The fading light meant that they stood out, dressed in black combat gear against the bluey grey rocks which guarded the castle against all but the most determined ground assault.
‘This a guy, jeeze! Don’t a know when to QUIT!’ El Toro tutted impatiently.
He reloaded his weapons and made his way to the edge of the roof top to provide over watch. He gestured to Mark to take the left while he took the right and they took up their positions. El Toro held his hand to signal to Mark that he wanted to wait until they got to within a few feet of the gate before opening fire on them. The pair waited and, one by one, Charlie team walked towards the gate, looking confused that their entrance to join the battle above them seemed a little too late. Suddenly, El Toro jumped up onto the parapet, arms stretched upwards, holding his OICW in one hand and his bloodied Kadet knife in the other and screamed at the top of his voice some violent gargling battle cry.
‘I, El Toro, commanda this a land and you, infidels, not wanted here!’
Mark stared at him, disturbed by this seemingly insane outburst. El Toro continued, ‘Who shall a come in years gone a by and say, I was a there, with the El Toro. Who DARES trespass on a my land?’
Mark watched in amazement as Charlie team stood weapons down, motionless and terrified by this raving nut case shouting at them from the parapet above. They didn’t fire at him, they didn’t run, they stood motionless. El Toro reached in his pocket and pulled out a detonator.
‘You scumbags have a choice. You are now surrounded by a mines, no? Run or we kill you dead!’ he shouted.
Mark smiled, realising what El Toro had done. He had mined the main entrance with radio control mines. Not ‘usual’ landmines, these were different. They were only operated by a remote control which armed them. Once armed, they would act as normal mines but if they were not armed, they posed no threat to anyone. Charlie team stood still as each man in the team put his arms out to ensure no one else moved. There was silence and no movement for about a minute or two before one of Charlie team couldn’t resist the temptation any longer and turned tail and ran in the direction they came, thinking somehow he might make it to the rocks before he stepped on a mine.
Sadly, he was wrong and was blown to pieces one step before the edge of the minefield. Seeing him nearly make it, the others were tempted and shot the ground to set the surrounding mines off. This seemed to work and two of them made it forward and out of the mines at the loss of just two of their team. El Toro laughed but then cursed at the fact that two were still alive. He signalled to Mark, who had his rifle trained downwards on the other two Charlie team members. They were busy trying to lace the door with explosives and counting their lucky stars they were still alive. Mark popped an armour piercing round through the first guy who was holding the detonator and he fell, staggering backwards back into the minefield, onto one of the few remaining mines, which promptly exploded. Three down, one to go. Mark trained his sights on the other guy who had his arms up in surrender. Mark was just about to move as his target was neutralised when the last remaining Charlie team member put his hand behind his back and pulled his revolver and pointed it at Mark. As quick as a flash, Mark spotted it and spun his rifle round, had his eye on his sights and found the soldier’s forehead, letting two bullets go in quick succession. Mark watched in horror as the grass around the soldier flew up and he realised he missed. There was no third shot from the soldier however, as repeated shots rang out from the bushes behind him. He dropped to the floor. Mark looked stunned by this, as out of the bushes walked Pablo with his M16 and a flak vest on.
‘Hey señores, you’ll be requiring a boat man no?’ he shouted, waving at Mark and El Toro.
Mark smiled and waved as Pablo turned and made his way back into the bushes towards the cove where his boat was moored. Obviously Charlie team had not seen it when they launched their amphibious assault on the island. Mark let out a relieved deep breath.
El Toro checked the perimeter from the rooftop and both men were satisfied no one else was following Charlie team.
Thomas Lundon was furious and worried. He’d sent his best men after Mark King and they were all dead. There was no word from Charlie team so he could safely assume they were dead too and if he knew Mark King correctly, it’s possible he would have kept at least one of them alive to tell him where he was hiding out. So he had to prepare, for Mark King WOULD come to him.
‘No matter,’ he thought to himself. The area was covered by armed guards and he wasn’t about to let someone as insignificant as Mark King get the better of him. Lundon reached into the drawer of the grand desk he was sat at in his secure room and pulled out his old revolver.
He caressed it menacingly and checked the clip: fully loaded. He put it in his inside jacket holster and felt much more protected now he was armed. What was he thinking? He was sat in a fortified ex-UN airbase which had bunkers capable of withstanding a nuclear blast and a fully stocked weapons room and at least a dozen armed guards, what the hell did HE have to be worried about? He laughed out loud as Roman Vose stood at the crack in the open door, watching his boss.
Vose concluded his boss had lost the plot and had worked out how best to get out when the slaughter began. There was no way Mark King would stop, not until he put a bullet in Thomas Lundon’s skull and once he’d done that, he would come looking for Vose as he was a loose end to be tied up. Vose would not stand about and wait for that to happen. As time went on, Vose had time to sympathise with Mark King about why he was on this mission to avenge his wife’s death. Vose had initially wanted no part in it but revelled in killing just the same. For all his faults, he wasn’t as evil and twisted as many of the others thought he was. All the same, it was time to put his plan into action and he made his way down to the electricity room deep under the ground. He needed to have the strength to pull the plug when the time came so he could get out using Lundon’s car. It was the only way out.
A few hours later, once they had collected all the bodies and put them in the castle grounds incinerator, collected what weapons were still of use and stored them away, mopped the blood up and put things back the way they were before the assault on the castle, Mark and El Toro were nursing their wounds in the main dining area. El Toro had radioed the coastguard to tell them about the two downed choppers and advised them he saw them go down but didn’t know what caused it. There were a few coastguard vessels floating about around the areas in which the choppers met their grisly end. Mark was looking at one of the computer monitors and had found information about Ain M’lila airfield in Algeria. He read aloud to El Toro, who was downing a whiskey and staggering about clearing up.
‘It was built by the Army Corps of Engineers on a flat, dry lakebed at an altitude of 2,580 feet, designed for heavy bomber use by the United States Army Air Force’s Twelfth Air Force during the North African Campaign,’ he read, ‘with concrete runways, hardstands and taxiways. Billeting and support facilities consisted of tents. Due to its high altitude, the days are hot and the nights cold.’
El Toro stared at Mark and raised his eyebrows.
‘You a want another dose of what we just a had?’
Mark didn’t fancy that, but he fancied even less not moving on Lundon before he got word his attack had failed and either moved locations, or sent another team or three in to finish the job. El Toro nodded understandingly.
‘We need to sort ourselves out first before walking into another fire-fight!’
They both looked back at the computer monitor at the same time, which was showing a map and satellite image of Ain M’lila airfield.
The barbed and electrified fence loomed up at Mark as he skirted around the perimeter of the airfield for a weakness. There wasn’t one and he couldn’t locate another way in. He decided the best way was to go under the fence and wondered how far under the ground it went. He took out his folding shovel and dug. He had spent the best part of two hours prior to this in a tree high up, scanning the base for guards and anyone else who would pose a problem to him. He spoke into a small headset mic.
‘Eight wooden and metal watch towers with searchlights, which cover the perimeter, complete with armed guards, concrete bunkers looking out towards the open areas and what looks like it used to be a parade or training ground.’
He continued to scan the landscape.
‘Control tower mounted on a large concrete structure with large blast doors at the centre of the complex and some smaller buildings scattered around. Look like barracks or huts of some sort.’
Finally, his eyes came to rest on tarmac.
‘There’s also what looks like the remains of an air strip which has seen its fair share of aircraft, both big and small.’
Mark also spotted a large raised helipad at the end of a narrow concreted road.
‘Guards on the roof, snipers probably, and some patrolling the grounds, some with dogs, some others guarding the smaller buildings.’
He could see floodlight posts every seven feet around the perimeter fence. The whole complex was built in between two huge hillsides with flat ground ahead of it where the runway was situated. He noted that there was an entrance gate at that end with two guard huts and barriers and one further to the rear of the complex. Both entrances were covered by machine guns with sandbag walls. Lundon had really thought this one through before shutting himself away deep within the centre of the complex.
There would inevitably be a series of tunnels underneath the entire complex with potentially a tunnel leading out somewhere, but he had to find it first. He gave up on digging and instead, planted one of his remote detonated mines under the fence and quickly covered over the hole. Looking at it, anyone would think it was a badger or fox hole, at least he hoped they would. He decided again to search for a tunnel entrance and backtracked through the woods, searching for an entrance or anything that looked like it could serve as a tunnel entrance.
Mark had been walking for a while when he came across what he thought was an anti-tank defence block. He skirted round it and realised it was a hatch entrance. The bolts, as he had not expected, were not rusted or welded shut, but instead they were new and polished. Lundon was expecting to flee if the situation arose. He cleared away some of the foliage and tugged for a few minutes on the hatch handle before it squeaked open. He paused and winced at the sound, hoping it had not given his position away. He looked around and nothing happened.
He waited a further few minutes just to be certain before climbing into the hatch and shining his Maglite down the shaft. There was a ladder which, again, was new and he descended into the darkness holding his torch in his mouth. Eventually he stepped down onto the floor about twenty feet below ground and faced a tunnel. He peered into the darkness and listened intently for the sound of approaching boots. He heard nothing except the dripping of water and the occasional rat squeak. He wasn’t worried about the rats as they seemed more afraid of him and concerned with where they heading to worry about nipping him or getting under his feet. He continued on through the darkness until he reached a small, steel door. He tried the door and realised it was bolted shut, but the control panel on the wall proved he was close to something that whoever owned the land didn’t want people to see or get too close. He smiled and lined the panel with plastic explosives.
He wired the detonator up and walked back down the tunnel to escape being injured by fragments. He waited and pressed the detonator. There was a muffled thud as the control panel exploded, revealing bare wires behind it. He knew it wouldn’t be long before the main system detected an intruder, so he worked fast on the wires, reconnecting the door which then released its bolts and he could pull it open.
He faced another long passage and noticed cameras mounted on the walls, luckily facing the opposite way. This meant the system hadn’t detected a malfunction on the door yet so he reached into his equipment vest and took out the small can of black spray paint. As he approached each camera, he sprayed the lens from behind and made sure he waited for it to dry before proceeding to the next camera. He reached a metal staircase which ascended, he guessed, to the upper levels. By his predictions and from what he remembered from the plans he and El Toro found, he was now at the centre of the complex.
As he went upwards, the light grew brighter, and he found rooms off corridors to the left and right along a metal gangway. It looked like plant rooms and water and air treatment rooms, probably so that in the event of a nuclear attack, they could be fully self-sufficient. The sound of approaching footsteps forced Mark to flatten himself against one of the steel doors as the sound grew louder. He un-holstered his suppressed Glock and flicked off the safety catch. Holding it up to his right ear, he held his nerve until they were almost next to him. Mark saw the barrel of a semi-automatic machine gun pass him and threw himself towards it, grabbing at the barrel and forcing it up towards the ceiling. While he did this, he fired one shot at the other guard, square in the forehead. He didn’t have time to react and hit the floor, while Mark elbowed the guard whose gun he was holding, and knocked him off balance before shooting him twice in the chest. Mark stood between the other two, careful not to get blood on the soles of his boots.
‘Radios and weapons,’ he demanded. Reluctantly, they handed them over.
Hauling them into a room next to him, Mark carried on his way. As he ran silently through the maze of steel corridors, he realised they must have been on their way to investigate the malfunctioning door he blew up and knew his time was limited. He checked his watch and set the timer on a countdown. By El Toro’s calculations, he had approximately thirty minutes to reach the top of the complex before all hell rained down on top of him and he was at a strategic disadvantage in these corridors as there was nowhere to hide if someone came up behind or in front of him. He reloaded his suppressed Glock and regulated his breathing, now regretting every cigarette he ever had.
Mark stopped running sharply as he came to a wider corridor with huge glass windows to the right. He stopped and looked through them and stared at the rows of tanks, guns and ammunition which spread out in a warehouse sized chamber behind the glass. This was someone preparing for something huge and it was much bigger than he thought.
‘If this lot get free,’ he said out loud, ‘I’m up shit creek without a paddle!’
Another twenty minutes of more metal staircases and rooms and Mark reached a steel door with a circular glass hole of reinforced glass. He peered through and saw several guards on the other side guarding a door to another part of the complex.
‘Two on the left, and two on the right, damn!’ he said to himself.
He ducked away out of sight and wondered what the hell he would do next. Suddenly, he realised he had his repelling belt on, the same one he used in Holtenau to spy on Azidi’s meeting of terrorists. He detached it from its belt fastener and used some of the plastic explosive to ‘glue’ it either side of the door at ankle level. He looked around and found a fire extinguisher hooked to a wall and took it, setting it down facing the door. Next he wired a plastic explosive to the fire extinguisher and to the door and set the trigger, which was the wire from his repelling belt. Finding a sufficient hiding place behind some old office tables stacked in a corner, he tapped the glass with his torch and ran to hide behind the stacks of tables.
He waited and a few seconds later saw the door open. When it did, the guards tripped the wire from Mark’s belt, setting off the explosives. The explosion took the first two guards out at once. The next two and two more who had shown up were met with a whack from a flying fire extinguisher, which hit them in the chest as part of it ruptured. Mark quickly stepped out of his hiding place and dispatched the remaining guard, who was lying injured on the floor. The fire extinguisher was still going down the corridor beyond the door Mark had just stepped through, streaming foam and smoke as it went: the perfect cover, he thought as he stopped to hear screams from up ahead of him.
The fire extinguisher, still under its own power, had ricocheted off the walls and hit the guard’s commander as he ran down the bend in the corridor ahead of Mark. Mark reached him a few seconds after he died and noted his rank from the insignia on his jacket; he must be close to Lundon’s location. Suddenly a Tannoy announcement almost defended him as the voice of Thomas Lundon addressed him.
‘Welcome Mr King. I’m so glad you could join us. I see you have found our escape route. Pity but no matter, I should imagine you will be dead before you reach me. Oh, and you are not the only one armed!’
Mark searched anxiously around until he found the reasons he was being addressed. There were small, rounded black CCTV cameras embedded outside every steel door in the corridors Mark had passed and he was being watched. Lundon advised that Mark give himself up but congratulated and baited him for coming this far undetected. Mark’s response to this was quick. With a blast of the guard’s sub-machine gun, he obliterated all the CCTV cameras he saw back down the corridor and those further ahead as he came to them. Now they were blind!