One

Santiago, Chile

Warrant Officer Jamie Carter stood at the edge of the training range, the stiff afternoon breeze scraping through his dark hair, and wished to fuck he was somewhere else.

A few paces away, the last soldiers were piling out of the assault vehicles that had ferried them over from the main compound two kilometres away. There were twenty guys in total. Recruits to the Pumas, the newest addition to Chile’s Special Forces brigade.

The cream of the crop, Carter had to remind himself. The country’s finest warriors. Though some of them didn’t act much like it.

Every day for the last month, Carter had been reporting to the camp shortly after dawn to oversee a training package for the soldiers. Under his guidance, the lads had spent hours on the ranges and in the lecture rooms, practising shooting drills, doing range work, studying navigation techniques and fieldcraft, intermingled with gruelling fitness sessions.

Now they were about to undertake their latest exercise.

They had gathered at the edge of a wide parcel of land the approximate size of a football field. A hundred metres away, in the middle of the field, piles of car tyres had been arranged in two-metre-high stacks, filled with sand and laid out in the shape of a hedge maze, with doors hanging from wooden frames denoting the various entry points.

Tyre Village was part of a wider military training area. Beyond the maze there were separate zones for shooting ranges, grenade and mortar practice, fields for conducting physical drills and digging hides and murder holes. Everything the soldiers needed to know to transform them into a decent SF outfit.

The camp was set on the floor of an arid valley, surrounded by a patchwork of scrubland, bare hills and irrigated fields. Shreds of tissue-like cloud clung to the peaks of the distant mountains. They were eight kilometres from the nearest small town, fifty kilometres north of Santiago.

More like the bloody arse end of the world.

He had arrived several weeks ago, on a two-year posting. Continuation training, they called it in the Regiment. Overseas instruction for friendly SF units.

Carter had another name for it: purgatory. Send over a Blade to spend a couple of years in-country, overseeing a programme for a bunch of sub-level operators. Train one section of soldiers for six months, get them up to scratch, pass them out, then move on to the next intake.

Rinse and repeat.

No one liked continuation jobs. Fact. The work was lonely and dull, and it was hard to stay motivated when you knew that most of the students would let their standards drop as soon as you left. But it was big business for the British government, Carter knew. Foreign countries were willing to pay a small fortune for the privilege of having their troops schooled by a Regiment man. More importantly, the programmes had the Whitehall seal of approval: the prestige of the SAS was a useful tool for currying favour with tinpot dictators and foreign rulers.

No one seemed to give a shit that the guys you were educating might end up facing you on the battlefield one day.

Some years ago, a bright spark had changed the rules so that the money from these contracts went straight back to the Hereford coffers instead of the government. Now roughly fifty per cent of the work done by the lads involved training packages for foreign armies.

But it was still a crap assignment.

Carter knew he was in Chile for purely political reasons. The British government leased a base in the south of the country, which was critical for mounting airborne operations around the Falklands if things ever kicked off there again. In return for the lease, Whitehall had agreed that 22 SAS would help to train up a new covert SF unit, drawn from the ranks of the Chilean armed forces.

Another twenty-three months of this shite, Carter reminded himself.

And all because I pissed off the wrong people.

Carter shoved aside his anger as he marched over to the soldiers.

They were decked out in their standard-issue camo uniforms – no one wore black kit to conduct house assaults these days, not even the lads back home in Hereford. Fifteen of the Pumas had M4 assault rifles slung over their shoulders. The others carried PGM 338 French-manufactured sniper rifles, chambered for the .338 Lapua Magnum round. All of them were equipped with leg-holstered Beretta Px4 Storm semi-automatic pistols as their side-arms. Each man also had a swept-back ballistic helmet, tactical plate carrier with front and rear armour, knee and elbow pads. Plus L2 grenades and flashbangs stowed in the pouches on the front of their vests, spare mags for their primary weapon systems, tactical radio sets, throat mics and headphones.

Carter wore the same uniform as the rest of the lads, but a rank above. The Regiment liked its instructors to keep a low profile while they were on the job. For security reasons, mainly. Better to have the trainers blend in with the regular troops, especially if Whitehall didn’t want to advertise its relationship with the domestic government. Having to put on a foreign uniform every day only added to Carter’s foul mood.

This isn’t why I joined the Regiment, he thought. Dressing up in the gear of some second-rate military and lecturing a bunch of amateurs.

I shouldn’t be here.

Carter had nothing against these lads personally. They were no different from the soldiers he’d trained in a bunch of other countries during his nine years in the Regiment. But he knew how these units operated. Often, the training programmes were a waste of everyone’s time. Whether a student passed or failed had little to do with his capabilities as a warfighter, and a lot to do with politics.

In theory, Carter was there to develop a highly disciplined elite fighting unit.

But in reality, he was more like a glorified range safety officer.

It was like asking a World Cup-winning coach to manage a pub team.

‘Right, lads,’ he began. ‘This is the situation.’

The soldiers listened keenly as he briefed them on the mission background. Painting a picture for them. Carter spoke in a deliberate, slow tone. Although these guys were reasonably fluent in English, some of them struggled to understand his Geordie accent.

‘Terrorists have taken over the Japanese embassy in Santiago,’ he went on, waving a hand in the direction of Tyre Village. ‘All attempts to negotiate a peaceful resolution have failed. An hour ago, the terrorists executed one of the hostages. They’re now threatening to kill one civilian every hour unless their demands are met in full. The President has been updated and has authorised the use of violence to resolve the situation. This is where you come in, fellas.’

He paused as he glanced round the sea of faces in front of him. Carter had spent the past few weeks assessing the students and he’d swiftly identified those who were up to the job. There were a few of them, he reflected. Dedicated professionals. Guys who trained hard and took themselves seriously in spite of the crap pay and the political bullshit. Lads who were keen to learn from their mistakes.

Most of the others were willing but limited. Honest soldiers, but not up to scratch as elite operators. Carter had no problem with them, as long as they put in a shift, did what they were told and didn’t pull the piss.

But several of them had no business being anywhere near a Special Forces unit.

Upon his arrival Carter had been dismayed by the poor quality of some of the recruits on the training ranges. He’d seen soldiers getting panicky when handling grenades, dropping them by accident at their feet instead of hurling them at their targets. A few students had failed to cover their flanks or raced too far ahead of their colleagues during fire-and-movement drills. Lectures on navigation and map-reading had fallen flat. Some of their weapon-handling skills were slack.

In the Regiment, you’d weed out the bad apples early on in the selection process. Time-wasters didn’t last long.

Here, Carter had no choice but to grit his teeth and get on with it.

He said, ‘Snipers have been observing the stronghold for the past twenty-four hours. We know that there are sixteen embassy staff and civilians being held hostage inside, and eight X-rays. They have to be dealt with now, to prevent any further loss of life.’

He looked towards the unit commander. Captain Carlos Medel was a single bloke in his early thirties, tall and lean, with a chin so prominent you could hang a coat from it. He was a fundamentally decent soldier who, rather unusually, appeared to have earned his rank on merit. He was diplomatic, disliked small talk and bluster. He was also one of the few friends Carter had made since he’d arrived in Chile. They often enjoyed a few jars in one of the bars in Santiago, shooting the breeze.

‘Captain, I want you to plan a multi-entry assault,’ Carter said. ‘You’ve got thirty minutes. Then I want you to prosecute an attack on the stronghold. Understood?’

‘Yes, Jamie,’ Medel said. ‘No problem.’

‘I should lead the main assault group, Captain,’ one of the soldiers cut in.

Carter slanted his gaze towards the guy who’d spoken. Fabian Vargas. One of the bad apples. A doughy-faced fat kid in his early twenties. Carter had taken one look at the guy and wondered how the hell he had managed to get selected for SF duty. When he’d put the question to Medel, the captain had merely shaken his head and muttered something about the kid’s father, a general who had recently been appointed as the President’s chief of staff. Carter had disliked Vargas on first sight, and nothing he’d seen since had changed his opinion.

The previous day they had been practising a Man Down drill. A straightforward exercise. A couple of guys run over to a soldier pretending to be wounded, lift him up and carry him to safety while their colleagues put down suppressive fire to cover them. Vargas had even managed to cock that one up, dropping the injured lad as they legged it from the kill zone. The guy was a walking disaster.

‘Put me in charge,’ Vargas carried on. ‘I’ll cut those bitches down, Captain. Show the gringos how we do things here.’

Carter laughed. ‘The only thing you should be leading is the line at the camp cookhouse, you fat fuck.’

A handful of the other students chuckled among themselves. Vargas stared at the instructor, jaw clenched tightly with rage. Carter wasn’t bothered by his reaction. He wasn’t here to throw an arm around the soldiers and make them feel good about themselves. Then he noticed something, and his expression shifted.

‘Where the fuck is your rifle?’ he demanded.

The soldiers instantly fell silent, sensing their instructor’s bad temper. Vargas flushed and rubbed the nape of his neck.

‘I asked you a question,’ Carter growled.

‘In the truck,’ Vargas replied. ‘I forgot it. No big deal.’

‘That’s “sir” to you.’ Carter jabbed a finger at his flabby chest. ‘Rule number one. Your weapon doesn’t leave your side. It should never be more than arm’s length away from your person. That’s basic.’

‘It was a mistake . . . sir,’ Vargas replied defensively.

‘I don’t give a shit.’ Carter stepped closer, moving into the Chilean’s personal space. ‘Start taking this exercise seriously or do us all a favour and fuck off.’

Vargas stared back at him, lips pressed into a hard line. He said nothing.

‘I didn’t hear you,’ Carter said.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Fuck’s sake. Hurry up and get your weapon.’ Carter watched Vargas hurry over to the truck, then turned to the others. ‘What are you lot waiting for, a bloody invitation? Get a move on. Clock’s ticking.’

Medel turned and barked orders at one of his subordinates. Victor Ramirez was a stocky bloke with short-cropped hair, eyes that were too close together and a nose so wide it looked as if he’d snorted a golf ball. He was the team’s Method of Entry expert. The demolitions guy. He was also a moody fucker. Carter liked him about as much as he liked tofu and low-alcohol beverages.

The soldiers hastily gathered around a patch of dirt on the periphery of the range while their captain took a knee in the middle of the semicircle. Like footballers getting a pep talk from the coach before the big match. Carter looked on from a distance as Medel fashioned a crude map of Tyre Village on the ground, laying out sticks for the walls, rocks to mark the entry points. Then he divided his men into five three-man assault groups and started delegating. Telling the guys who would go where.

Although the soldiers were familiar with the range, they didn’t know the precise layout waiting for them inside. To add to the element of surprise Carter had spent the morning on the range with a pair of staff helpers, laying traps. Targets depicting masked gunmen and hostages had been pasted onto strips of plywood and strategically placed around the rooms, with some hidden behind bits of furniture, or sited inches from the hostages. Booby traps had been planted: smoke grenades triggered by tripwires, some of them strung out at ankle level, others at chest or head height, because guys conducting an assault tended to focus on the ground and often missed the threats closer to eye level.

An instinct thing, Carter guessed.

Medel continued briefing the team.

Carter checked his G-Shock. Counting down the minutes.

As he watched and waited, the hot anger flared up in his chest again. The same rage he’d felt back at Hereford a couple of months ago, when they had told him about his next job.

The head shed had stitched him up. He was certain of it. There had been no good reason to fly him out to South America on a training stint. They had stuck Carter on a shite posting as punishment.

Eleven months earlier, things had been different. He had been the toast of the Regiment back then. Hero of the Bamako siege.

Carter had been posted to Mali to run a training package for the security forces while the rest of the country went to hell. A bullshit job, but he’d accepted it without complaint.

Until one morning, five months into the rotation, his phone had vibrated with an incoming call from a voice he didn’t recognise. Which turned out to belong to the defence minister.

There had been a terrorist attack, the minister had said. Gunmen from a breakaway faction of Islamic State were laying siege to one of the city’s most popular hotels. Dozens of Western aid workers, businessfolk and embassy staff were bottled up inside. The security forces were struggling to coordinate their response and the minister wanted Carter to help organise the assault.

At that particular moment, Carter had been working on the ranges several miles outside of the city. He’d hastily grabbed his gear, bundled it into his civvy vehicle and raced over to the scene. Then he’d thrown on his plate armour, grabbed his suppressed M4 rifle and flashed his military ID at the cops manning the cordon, telling them to point him in the direction of the terrorist attack.

Within minutes, he’d cleared the hotel lobby, dropping three targets.

Carter had then turned his attention to securing the upper floors of the hotel, where the rest of the gunmen were holed up with the hostages. He had been rapidly organising the security forces when he’d received a hostile call from Nigel Brathwaite, the British ambassador, ordering him to back down.

‘This isn’t your job,’ Brathwaite had thundered down the line. ‘You’re here in a strictly advisory capacity. Leave it to the domestic forces to resolve. That’s a fucking order.’

Carter had ignored him. A no-brainer. Lives were at risk. He was in a position to do something about it. He wasn’t going to walk away.

The assault on the hotel complex had been a textbook deliberate action plan. A swift coordinated attack to neutralise the gunmen without having to gamble away the lives of innocent civilians. Carter had directed the security forces every step of the way.

The desperate firefight inside the building had lasted for less than four minutes. By the time it was over, twelve terrorists had been killed for the loss of one hotel security guard. Fifty-eight hostages had been rescued, including the British chargé d’affaires and several American citizens.

If Carter hadn’t formulated the plan of attack, he doubted many of them would have survived. Maybe none.

Although his picture and name had been withheld from the media on the orders of the Regiment, everyone at Hereford knew him as the guy who had done the business on the ground in Mali.

Slotting the enemy. Saving lives.

In the aftermath of the attack, the President of the United States had privately met with Carter to express his gratitude. Later, there had been a discreet medal ceremony behind closed doors in Washington, attended by a coterie of high-ranking generals and members of Congress. There Carter had been presented with the Medal of Honor, the highest award the US can bestow on a warrior. The decoration was traditionally reserved only for American service personnel, but the President had personally insisted that Carter should receive it.

The head shed had been uncomfortable with a Hereford man accepting such a rare distinction and had only grudgingly agreed on condition that the ceremony remained a private affair, withheld entirely from news outlets. That had been fine by Carter. He didn’t want the publicity anyway. He was a quiet man by nature. Happiest in his own company, walking the hills around his home in Credenhill.

For a while, he had been a living legend at Hereford.

Then it had all gone south. Big time.

Brathwaite had given Carter a bollocking for his refusal to follow orders. Soon after his return to Hereford, Carter had realised the extent of his mistake: he’d made a powerful enemy for life. The ambassador had used his clout in Whitehall to make Carter’s life in the Regiment a misery. Turned him into an outcast. Hence the bullshit job in Chile. Punishment, for failing to follow orders.

Now I’m babysitting a batch of second-rate troops.

One thing was sure. He was finished with the Regiment after this posting. No doubt about it.

Carter figured he’d keep his head down, serve his time. See out this gig. Then he’d return to Hereford and tell the top brass he was finished. The Circuit was not as lucrative as it had been at the height of the wars in the Middle East, when there were fortunes to be made for those with the right skill sets, but Carter would find something. An ex-Blade with his credentials would have admirers in the world of private contractors. It wouldn’t be the best-paid job in the world, maybe. Dull work, but steady.

Better than staying at Hereford and being treated like a pariah.

Carter glanced at his watch again.

Two minutes later, he strode over to the soldiers.

‘That’s it. Time’s up.’ He cocked his chin at Medel. ‘Captain. Who’s leading the front assault team?’

The captain gestured to Vargas. ‘Fabian will take the lead.’

From the sheepish look on the commander’s face, Carter had the impression the decision was a political one. The kid had no doubt insisted on being the first man in, and Medel had decided not to argue with him.

A grin stretched across Vargas’s mug. ‘I’m gonna teach these fuckers a lesson,’ he said. ‘Drop them like a bad habit. Just you see.’

‘Right.’ Carter suppressed his anger and nodded at Medel. ‘I’ll be following the main assault group inside.’

‘You will come with us, sir?’ Vargas frowned. ‘Why?’

‘Because I fucking said so,’ Carter growled. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’

‘No, sir,’ Vargas replied icily.

‘Stay alert,’ Carter said. ‘Remember the drills.’

He had a good reason for tagging along with Vargas and his mates. He wanted to make sure the drill went smoothly. Which meant walking in behind the main assault group, following them from room to room. CQB exercises could get tasty, bullets might be flying past you, but Carter regarded it a vital part of his job. These lads were going into a situation with live rounds and live bodies. Multiple teams were going to be pouring into the structure from different directions, looking to maintain the momentum of the attack, pushing forward aggressively and at speed. There was going to be a lot of kinetic action. People running around all over the place. Things could get confusing. That’s when mistakes happened.

It was the job of each individual assault group to clear the rooms in their sector, engaging targets without shooting hostages or accidentally hitting their mates. In that situation, it was vital that everyone knew what they were doing and coordinated the attack properly. Otherwise there was a risk of ending up with a blue-on-blue.

While Vargas wandered off to check his kit, Carter took Medel to one side.

‘Are you sure about letting him lead the attack?’ he asked in an undertone. ‘He’s hardly a model operator.’

Medel shrugged his shoulders. ‘Vargas has friends. It is better not to make trouble,’ he said under his breath.

‘It’s your call,’ Carter muttered. ‘Get the lads ready.’

There was a sudden flurry of activity as Ramirez dished out orders. The snipers snatched up their weapons and quickly fanned out across the range, dropping to prone firing positions to cover the various approaches to the stronghold. Then the five three-man assault groups made for their respective entry points around the tyre maze.

One of the teams hooked round to the far side of the structure. Two more teams made for the entrances on the left; a fourth beelined towards the breaching point on the right. At around the same time Vargas set off with the fifth assault group.

Carter broke into a quick jog as he followed the main assault team across the training ground. Vargas led the way, hurrying towards the entry door on the southern side of the stronghold.

The two other guys on the team ran close behind.

The second guy, Ivan Garrido, was a mean-looking soldier with more muscle than brains. His calves looked like somebody had strapped a couple of sandbags around his legs. His biceps were the size of medicine balls. Too many hours in the gym, probably. Dead-lifting heavy weights and pumping himself full of steroids. The third man on the team, Carlos Zamorano, was a lanky streak of piss. He brought up the rear.

After fifty metres Carter breezed past Vargas. He ran on and reached the entry point a couple of beats after Garrido and Zamorano. Then he glanced back and saw Vargas twenty metres away, face locked in a grimace as he struggled to catch up with his muckers.

‘Get a fucking move on!’ Carter shouted at him.

Vargas staggered on, then reached the pile of car tyres to the right of the door frame, gasping for breath. Sweat glossed his brow and ran down his face in rivulets.

Christ, thought Carter. We’ve only just started the drill, and this idiot looks like he’s about to have a heart attack.

He trained his attention on Garrido as the latter hustled over to the door. Zamorano circled round, reached into a pouch on the back of his colleague’s vest and pulled out a pre-assembled breaching charge. Which was essentially a spool of det cord, about as thick as a clothes line, packed with explosive material, fixed to a strip of double-sided sticky tape and rigged up to a length of electrical wire.

Garrido peeled off the backing tape and applied it vertically to the middle of the door panel, making sure it was firmly stuck down. Then he removed a chunky handheld firing device from his pocket with a lever and a safety catch. Garrido took the end of the electrical wire and plugged it into the clacker unit. He eased back the safety clip from the handle and shouted to the others, telling them to get behind cover. Vargas and Zamorano quickly shifted to the opposite sides of the entrance, stepping out of the blast radius.

They were almost ready.

Carter had taken part in hundreds of similar exercises over the years. The assault drill was simple enough. Once the other teams had confirmed that they were in position, Vargas would give the order to go. Then Garrido would fire the clacker, sending an electrical current down the wire to the det cord. The blast would blow apart the door, allowing Vargas’s team to swarm inside. In the same beat, the other four groups would simultaneously trigger their charges and rush in through their designated entry points.

Once inside, the assaulters would begin systematically going through each room, putting rounds into the terrorist targets until the entire facility had been cleared.

Except Carter wasn’t going to make it that easy for them.

He had a trick up his sleeve.

One more surprise for the team, to keep them on their toes.

Over his personal radio, he heard the other teams checking in as they reached their designated breaching points. The soldiers spoke in English for the benefit of their Brit instructor. Carter needed to hear what they were saying, so he could judge how effectively they were communicating with each other during the chaos and confusion of the attack.

‘Charlie One, in position,’ Medel said.

Vargas tapped the pressel switch on his radio.

‘Alpha One, in position,’ he rasped into his throat mic.

The four other teams came over the radio net in quick succession, confirming that they were ready to commence the attack.

As soon as the last team checked in, Carter thrust a hand into one of the pouches on the front of his vest and pulled out an M84 stun grenade.

The three Chileans weren’t watching Carter. They had their attention fixed on the door, mentally running through the layout and their responsibilities as they prepared to storm inside. They had no idea what was about to come next.

Carter ripped out the firing pin, pushed away from the tyre wall and hurled the grenade over the top, towards the centre of the maze.

He didn’t see the searing flash of light as the grenade detonated, but he caught the ear-splitting bang that followed.

There was a moment of stunned confusion among the soldiers. Just as Carter had expected.

The team hadn’t been anticipating the detonation. All of a sudden, their neat plan of assault was in tatters. Now they had to react.

Good SF teams had to be able to act fast when things went sideways.

This wasn’t a good team.

Garrido and Zamorano were looking towards their group leader, waiting for him to show some initiative. Vargas simply stood there, staring at the door. Paralysed by indecision.

‘The terrorists are on to you!’ Carter yelled at him. ‘You’ve got to go, right fucking now! Give the order!’

Then it all kicked off.

A staggered sequence of loud booms ripped across the air as the other groups depressed their clackers, triggering their door charges individually. They would have heard the blast of the grenade from within the structure and assumed that the main assault force had breached their door, signalling the start of the attack.

It was Vargas’s fault. He should have alerted the groups as soon as the grenade went off, ordering them not to detonate their charges until he gave the signal. Now, instead of a smoothly coordinated assault, the teams would be clearing the rooms at different times. Which could lead to all kinds of problems.

That was the kid’s first mistake.

It wouldn’t be his last.

In the next breath, the fat Chilean started screaming frantically at Garrido, ‘Go! Go! Get in!’

Carter looked towards the entry point. He saw Garrido sidestepping to the left of the door, clacker in his hand. Electrical wire loosely trailing from the firing device, the other end taped to the strip of det cord.

Garrido squeezed the clacker.

The opening was instantly engulfed by a swirling cloud of smoke and debris as the charge ripped through the door. In the next moment the main assault group broke forward. Vargas led the way inside, charging through the smoke-wreathed void, keen as fuck to start plugging enemies.

From inside the facility, Carter heard a series of sharp cracks. Rifle reports. More than one of them. Coming from the nearest room. Vargas, he thought. The guy must have started letting rip as soon as he’d set foot inside.

Another bad sign.

A couple of metres away, Garrido was darting through the entrance after Vargas. Zamorano hastened after him.

As Carter started to follow, he heard Vargas’s breathless voice in his headphones. The kid was yelling above the staccato bursts of gunfire coming from elsewhere in the facility.

‘Room X-One clear!’

Carter stepped through the shredded doorway and found himself in the first room, a square-shaped space, four metres by four, sparsely furnished with a table and chairs and a wardrobe shoved against the wall to the left.

In the opposite corner, a pair of Figure 11 targets had been mounted on tripods and placed two or three inches apart. One of the targets depicted the standard terrorist image of a masked gunman wielding a rifle. The second picture showed a woman clutching her child. Carter had deliberately positioned them close together to test the soldiers’ accuracy.

Both of them were punched with bullet holes.

Carter moved on, sticking close to the assault group ahead of him. Unlike the students he wasn’t carrying an assault rifle; he had his belt-holstered Beretta pistol, but he wouldn’t be engaging any X-rays. Not today. He was taking part in a strictly observational capacity.

And trying not to get winged in the process.

Voices crackled over the net as the other groups swept through the rooms in their designated sectors, punctuated with short bursts of gunfire.

‘Room X-Seven cleared,’ Medel reported.

‘Room X-Nine, clear,’ Ramirez said.

Carter crossed the room in another quick stride and caught up with Vargas and his two comrades as they prepared to sweep into the next room.

Vargas caught his ragged breath and shouted something at Garrido. The latter retrieved a flashbang from his webbing, depinned it and posted it through the opening.

Standard CQB tactics, intended to temporarily disorientate any X-rays lurking inside. Stepping through the doorway was the point of maximum danger in any attack. Fail to disable the enemy, and you’d end up getting plugged as soon as you charged into the room.

There was a searing flare of light as the flashbang kicked off. Like a million phone torches flicking on and off simultaneously. A thunderous boom pulsed through the room. Then Vargas swept inside, Garrido and Zamorano trailing in his wake.

Carter hurried after the soldiers, keeping a close eye on them as they began clearing their arcs. Vargas was scanning the right side of the room, his rifle raised, index finger feathering the trigger as he searched for hostiles. He was focused entirely on what was going on at eye level. Carter took another step forward, and then he heard a loud bang at his right. He looked back at Vargas and saw the Chilean swathed in a cloud of acrid smoke, realised that he must have blundered into one of the tripwires.

Christ, this guy is a liability.

In his headphones, he heard the four other teams updating Medel on their progress as they pushed on through their individual sectors. Each team had a number of rooms to secure. Once they had cleared the facility the five assault groups would meet in the middle, and Carter would declare the end of the exercise. Then there would be a debrief to run through the mistakes the guys had made.

A violent blast shuddered from the opposite end of the maze, and Carter guessed that someone had hurled a fragmentation grenade into one of the rooms, dispatching the targets inside.

The assault wasn’t anywhere near as fast or fluid as the Regiment guys in action, but as far as he could tell Medel was doing his best to coordinate his teams’ movements, getting them to maintain a steady flow of information over the net. It wasn’t the worst assault he’d ever seen.

But Vargas was doing his best to screw things up.

Carter hurried after the guy as he barrelled into the next room, mindlessly drilling targetry. Vargas brassed up the terrorist behind the sofa and riddled the two civilians either side as well. Carter couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Even the slop jockeys at Hereford could do better than this.

He figured maybe two minutes had passed since the attack began.

Radio chatter confirmed that most of the rooms had now been secured. Vargas stumbled on towards the opening at his twelve o’clock, setting off another smoke grenade as he waded into the path of a tripwire strung along at waist height. The guy was going for the world record of training-ground fuck-ups.

Ramirez’s voice hissed over the net, reporting that his group had finished securing their next room.

‘Preparing to exit and enter Room X-Four to engage targets,’ the dems man added.

Carter saw Vargas two metres away at his twelve o’clock, ploughing on through the grey tendrils of smoke as he led his men towards the adjacent room. He stopped at the side of the entrance and signalled to Garrido. The stocky soldier tossed in a flashbang moments before Vargas barrelled through the opening.

Carter instantly grasped what was happening.

He hurried towards the assault team, shouting over the comms, but no one was listening.

Ahead of him, Garrido and Zamorano were piling into the next room after Vargas. The two soldiers quickly peeled off to the left to clear their arcs while Vargas scanned for targets to the right.

Carter charged through the opening, his heart thumping terrifically. He swept through a curtain of thinning smoke into a rectangular space, substantially larger than the rooms they had previously cleared, with a metal-framed bed next to a desk with a lava lamp on it. He saw Garrido and Zamorano to the left of the entry point, sweeping their weapons across in broad arcs. Looking for hostiles that weren’t there.

He saw Vargas to his right. Weapon raised.

Aiming at a paper target on the far side of the room, six metres away.

Right next to Ramirez’s assault team.

The three soldiers were stacked up beside a separate exit point leading to another room. Ramirez stood at the rear of the line. One of his colleagues was shaping to chuck a flashbang through the aperture. None of them had noticed Vargas charging in behind them.

Carter’s heart stopped.

He had no time to shout a warning at Vargas. The guy was already squeezing the trigger. He didn’t appear to have seen the other assault group.

The Chilean was suffering from sensory overload. Carter had seen it happen before. Some guys panicked when they found themselves in a highly stressful situation. They stopped looking at what was in front of them and saw only what they wanted to see. Vargas had obviously caught sight of the paper terrorist in his peripheral vision and decided to engage.

Ramirez was six inches from the target.

Dangerously close.

Rounds flamed out of Vargas’s M4.

Three of them.

Vargas’s aim was terrible. The bullets missed the Figure 11 target. Two of them thumped into the rubber treads of the tyre directly behind Ramirez, missing him by no more than two or three inches. A third round smacked into a knackered old stereo resting on a table beside the wall, shattering the cassette deck.

Ramirez and the two other guys in his team were already rushing into the next sector, completely unaware of what had happened behind them. None of them would have heard the gunshots over the incessant chatter in their headphones.

Carter snapped his gaze back towards Vargas. The guy didn’t seem to realise he’d come close to slotting his muckers. He was already charging headlong through a separate exit point at his twelve o’clock, hard on the heels of Garrido and Zamorano, plugging away with his rifle. Carter clenched his jaw and set off after the soldiers again.

Fifteen seconds later, he heard Ramirez’s voice coming over the net, confirming that the final room had been secured.

Carter tapped the pressel switch on his radio.

‘Endex! Endex!’ he said. ‘Weapons safe. Repeat, weapons safe. All groups to Room X-Five for the team debrief.’

He walked back into the large room with the metal-framed bed and the glowing red lava lamp. Vargas stood a few paces away, playfully punching Garrido on the shoulder, the pair of them grinning like idiots.

Celebrating.

Carter felt the rage simmering in his veins once more.

The rest of the assault teams trudged into the room, the selectors on their assault rifles set to ‘SAFE’ to guard against the possibility of a negligent discharge. After what had happened a few moments earlier, Carter didn’t want to take any chances. He waited until the last stragglers had filed inside, then folded his arms and looked round the sea of faces as he prepared to debrief them. The drill had lasted no longer than three or four minutes but the men were drenched in sweat from the exertion and adrenaline rush and the weight of the kit they were carrying.

‘That was good shit, boys,’ Vargas said. ‘Great work, no? That’s how we roll in the Pumas.’

He grinned again, bumping fists with Garrido and Zamorano.

Carter fought a powerful desire to punch the kid in the face.

He stared levelly at Vargas and said, ‘I’ll discuss the other lads in a moment. But you should be ashamed of yourself. I’ve never seen anyone perform as badly as that.’

Vargas pulled a face. ‘Who, me? What did I do?’

‘You’re a fucking embarrassment. You haven’t listened to a thing I’ve been saying for the past month.’

Carter pointed out the section of the wall Vargas had riddled with bullets.

‘See this?’ he went on. ‘You were a cunt hair away from putting a round in Ramirez’s group.’

Ramirez’s eyes widened in shock. ‘Shit. No way.’ He stared at the bullet-studded tyres, then looked round at Vargas. ‘What the fuck, man? I could have been killed.’

Carter expected a show of contrition from the kid. An admission of guilt, perhaps. Or a promise to learn from his mistakes. Instead Vargas spread his fat lips into a grin.

‘When I come through the door, people better hide, eh?’ He chuckled. ‘Fabian Vargas don’t take no fucking prisoners, bro.’

A few of the other guys burst into laughter. Carter glared at him. ‘Make another joke, and I’ll knock the taste of blood out of your mouth.’

The smile fell from Vargas’s face. ‘You can’t talk to me like that.’

‘I’ll talk to you however I bloody want. You almost slotted your own guys, you stupid bastard.’

‘Not my problem. They shouldn’t have been in my way.’

Carter stepped into the kid’s face. ‘If you had bothered listening to the radio, you would have realised that Ramirez’s team had already secured this area and was about to move on to the next room. Instead of staying put, you stormed in here and started engaging targets without thinking. A couple of inches to the right and them lads would be lying in a pool of blood right now.’

Vargas grunted. ‘You told us to clear this place of bad guys. I was doing my job. Sir.’

‘I told you to pay attention and keep your wits about you,’ Carter replied. ‘Not ignore the orders from your mates and charge around the place like a maniac.’

‘What’s the big deal?’ Vargas flapped a chunky arm at one of the Figure 11s. ‘We nailed the terrorists. Problem solved.’

‘Bollocks,’ Carter snapped his teeth. ‘You’ve messed up every step of the way on his drill.’

Vargas flushed with anger and shot him a screw-face. Carter counted the kid’s mistakes on his fingers as he continued.

‘Before we came in, you got flustered by the flashbang going off and failed to coordinate with the other groups. As a result, the teams carried out a staggered entry. That’s a fail. In the first room, you shot a hostage. Another fail. In the second room, you killed two more civilians. Then you missed a target hidden in the wardrobe. On top of that, you triggered two tripwires because you didn’t look where you were going. Either one of those would have wiped out your entire team.’

‘This is bullshit.’

Carter ignored his protest and said, ‘Your attitude is pathetic. If it was up to me, you’d be binned. You’re more of a threat to your mates than the fucking Taliban.’

A dark look flashed across Vargas’s face. He opened his mouth and started to say something, then thought better of it and pressed his lips shut again.

Carter continued with the debrief. For the next half-hour he walked through the stronghold with the other soldiers, pointing out where they had gone wrong and why, commenting on their targeting skills and coordination. Most of them at least made an effort to understand what was required of them. A few of the better-quality recruits even asked questions.

Maybe some of these lads have got potential after all, Carter mused. Better than the dross served up by Vargas and his mates.

The sun was already beginning to dip down behind the mountain peaks as the men trooped out of Tyre Village and walked back across the range towards their vehicles. Behind them, the safety officers were busy clearing up the site, removing debris and targetry. Carter made for his Land Cruiser, looking forward to changing into his civvies and getting back to his rental apartment in the city. He had almost reached the driver’s side door when Medel called out to him.

‘See you at the party tonight, Jamie?’ he asked as he trotted over.

Carter gritted his teeth as he remembered. Vargas’s father, General Juan Vargas, was hosting a barbecue at his mansion in El Arrayán. The entire SF team had been invited to attend, including Carter, along with the British ambassador and a few other officials involved in the training programme. Carter had been tempted to give it a miss, but the ambassador had insisted that he put in an appearance, implying that there was a lucrative deal in the pipeline involving the British government and they needed to keep the general sweet. A big arms contract, the ambassador had hinted. Worth a few hundred million pounds down the road.

Carter had grudgingly accepted.

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there. As long as I don’t have to speak to that prick.’

He tipped his head at Vargas. The kid was folding himself into the front of one of the trucks, laughing and joking with his muckers like a bunch of teenagers.

Medel laughed.

‘You won’t have to,’ he said. ‘Fabian will be too busy entertaining his friends.’ He noticed the uncertain look on Carter’s face and smiled. ‘Besides, it will be fun. Free drinks, food. Music. What more could you possibly want?’

I can think of one or two things.

A transfer back to Hereford for a start.

He grunted and said, ‘I’ll not be staying late. We’ve got a lot of drills to run through tomorrow.’

‘As you wish.’ Medel hesitated. Then he added, quietly, ‘A word of advice, Jamie.’

Carter looked evenly at the captain. Waited for him to continue. Medel glanced over his shoulder, making sure no one else was in earshot before he continued.

‘Don’t single Fabian out for criticism. Not in front of the other men. It’s not a good idea.’

‘The kid’s an accident waiting to happen,’ Carter said testily. ‘If you want my opinion, he shouldn’t be within ten miles of this unit. He could have killed someone today.’

‘Maybe so. But his father is Chief of Staff,’ Medel reminded him. ‘Which makes him one of the most powerful men in the country. General Vargas has lots of friends in high places.’

‘He’ll need them,’ Carter said acidly. ‘When his son accidentally plugs one of his mates in training, he’s going to need all the help he can muster to get the kid off the hook.’

Medel gave him a look. But Carter knew that if there had been a shooting during the exercise, he would have been held accountable. The ambassador would have hauled him in, dragged his feet over the coals. Demanded answers.

It would have been my neck on the line.

Not the kid’s.

Medel grimaced. ‘Just try to be diplomatic. He could make life difficult, you know.’ He raised his hands and went on. ‘You speak your mind, I can see that. But that mouth of yours will get you in trouble one of these days.’

‘It already has, mate,’ Carter muttered.

‘What do you mean?’ Medel asked, creasing his brow.

‘Forget it. Just a figure of speech.’

‘Look, I’m just trying to help.’ The captain paused before adding, ‘Trust me, OK? You really don’t want to make enemies of the Vargas family.’

Enemies, thought Carter.

Too bloody right.

I’ve made enough of those to last me a lifetime.