Stephen Leather - True Colours

Khan saw the outline of night vision goggles on the men’s faces and crouched lower, laying a restraining hand on Ghulam’s arm, for fear that he might open fire. For the moment, neither Piruz nor the two guards at the door were aware of any danger, because the two men’s angle of approach meant that the building was blocking them from Piruz’s sight.

Cloud still blanketed the sky, shrouding the moon and reducing its light to no more than a faint glow. Silent as ghosts, the two figures slipped between pools of shadow, blacker even than the surrounding darkness, until they reached the outside wall of the money house.

As they turned to look back the way they had come, Khan caught a glimpse of their faces. He recognised the man called Spider at once and felt a pang of guilt mixed with unease as he saw that it was Captain Todd alongside him. The SAS men had no reason to trust him, he knew, and every reason to hate him. If they saw Khan, it could cost him his life, but if he allowed them to be ambushed and killed, his ticket to freedom and a new life in the West could well disappear.

His mind raced. There was nothing he could do to alert them. He would simply have to watch and wait. He sensed Ghulam’s impatience and motioned for him to be still and silent.

Khan watched as the SAS men placed their ladder against the wall. They paused to listen and scan the surroundings for movement, then Spider climbed up the ladder and fixed shaped charges against the wall on each floor.

Again Khan had to restrain Ghulam from firing. He twisted around and leaned close to Ghulam’s ear, breathing, ‘Not yet, wait.’

Spider slid back down the ladder and Khan saw him mime protecting his ears to Todd. Spider covered his own ears a fraction of a second before there was a massive blast and a flash of light tearing the darkness apart. By the time Khan raised his head again, the two SAS men had rushed up the ladder and were disappearing through a gaping hole in the upper storey. Smoke was also swirling from similar holes on the lower two floors. Ears ringing from the blast, Khan barely heard Ghulam’s whispered query. ‘Now?’

Khan shook his head and breathed, ‘Not yet.’

On the far side of the building, he saw Piruz start to rise from cover, then think better of it and sink back down, but a moment later Khan saw twin red dots appear on the house as Piruz and his comrade trained their laser sights on the building.

The minutes ticked by in silence as Khan watched the building. Then flames flared inside and he heard the crackle of flames.

Suddenly a figure burst from the blazing building. It was Captain Todd. At once the red dots flickered across the building. A moment later Khan heard a double tap and saw the SAS officer fall backwards.

There was an immediate answering burst of fire from away to his right and, using it as cover, the second SAS man, Spider, burst through the hole in the wall. Firing as he ran, he dived and rolled and came up alongside his wounded comrade.

As firing continued around them, Khan saw Spider crouching over Todd, clamp a dressing on his wound, then cradle the dying officer’s head against his chest.

As Khan watched, Spider looked up and their eyes locked. The SAS man swung up his weapon, oblivious to the red dots now tracing a path across the ground towards him. Piruz and his partner were less than a second away from firing.

Khan turned towards Piruz, took aim and squeezed the trigger once, then twice, and felt a surge of satisfaction as Piruz’s head exploded like a melon struck with an axe.

In that same moment, Spider’s weapon flashed. Khan heard a double tap from it but also a simultaneous whipcrack from Ghulam’s AK-47 behind him. Spider’s weapon went flying as Ghulam’s shot smashed into his shoulder and sent him sprawling to the ground.

Khan had flattened himself and rolled sideways a few feet, just as return fire from the SAS cordon, zeroing on the muzzle flash from his weapon, ripped through the ground where he had been lying. Although Piruz now lay dead, his comrade was still firing, rounds smacking into the ground and striking Todd’s already dead body, half shielding the place where Spider was lying.

Khan zeroed in on the muzzle flashes and then saw the Taliban fighter’s face bottom-lit for a moment as he fired another burst. Even before his features had faded back into the darkness, Khan had put a single shot into his brain. He saw the Taliban fighter’s head disintegrate, the tail of his turban blowing out behind him as if caught in a sudden gale.

Khan was already rolling across the ground again as a fresh torrent of fire from the SAS cordon blitzed the area. He heard a grunt, choked off as soon as it began, and when he looked back he saw Ghulam spreadeagled, a pink froth bubbling from the hole blown in his chest.

Khan felt sick to his core. Ghulam’s loyalty to him had now cost him his life, for one glance at the wound showed there was nothing that could be done for him, and his own life was still in danger. He lay motionless as the suppressing fire from the SAS slowed and then ceased, and he watched as one of them ran to Spider, pulling a field dressing from his jacket. ‘Stay down,’ the soldier shouted, clamping the dressing over the wound. Khan heard him cry out, ‘Geordie, get over here! Spider’s hit!’ and saw Geordie sprinting to him, keeping low to the ground. The medic spared Todd no more than a cursory glance and then stooped over Spider.

Khan began to worm his way back into the shadows and then rose to a crouch, but as he prepared to creep away, some instinct made him look back and, as he did so, he saw Spider looking directly at him. The SAS man tried to speak but coughed, choked and spat blood, and though Khan saw Spider raise his arm to point towards him, Khan was already moving behind the cover of the rubble heap. He heard a burst of fire and rounds whined and ricocheted from the stones but he was already running fast, keeping the rubble heap between him and the SAS, bent double to stop his outline breaking the line of the horizon.

Lights had now flared in several of the outlying houses and he could see torches waving as villagers and Taliban fighters hurried towards the blazing money house. He dropped into cover and let them pass, then moved on as the glow from the burning house grew brighter and fresh bursts of firing erupted behind him. A few moments later he heard the sound of motorbike engines as the SAS tried to make their getaway.

Khan found the track leading up into the mountains and moved along it, sure-footed even in the darkness. As he crested a rise, he heard the thunder of rotors away to his left and saw the lumbering shape of a Chinook rising into the sky, its mini-gun thundering, while answering fire struck sparks from its fuselage. He watched until it had vanished into the darkness and even the distant echo of its rotors had been silenced, and then, steering by the stars, he strode on into the mountains, making for the rendezvous with his American handler that would lead him to Lailuna and a new life in the West.

The four men stood in amazement as Khan finished his story. Harper’s gun was at his side, his finger no longer on the trigger. ‘No fucking way,’ he said. McIntyre and Shortt had also lowered their weapons and they looked over at Shepherd.

‘Every word is the truth,’ said Khan. ‘May Allah strike me dead if I say one word of a lie.’

‘He saved you, Spider,’ said Shortt. He slid the gun into his pocket.

‘Looks like it,’ said Shepherd.

‘The guy’s a bloody hero,’ muttered McIntyre. He looked at Khan. ‘You’re a hero, mate. They should have given you a medal.’

Khan shook his head. ‘I am no hero, and I have done many bad things. But I did not shoot those three paratroopers in the back, I did not kill Captain Todd and I did not shoot you.’