Stephen Leather: False Friends

The gate went down and the Seals stormed through into the inner courtyard.

A man appeared at a doorway, holding an AK-47. He was short, portly and bearded, wearing a long nightshirt. It was the courier, Croft realised, recognising him from the dozens of surveillance photographs they’d studied in North Carolina. Three red dots from the laser sights of the M4 carbines danced on the man’s chest then three shots rang out and the courier fell back, the AK-47 tumbling to the ground. There were screams from a woman and children inside the house as four Seals stormed in, stamping over the body in the hallway.

Croft looked round, checked that the rest of the Seals were ready, and pointed at the main house. ‘Here we go,’ he said. ‘Home stretch.’

As they approached the main house a heavyset man with a thick moustache appeared on the patio. Next to him was a middle-aged woman in a nightdress. The man was holding an AK-47 in one hand, and he was holding up his other hand as if telling the soldiers to stop where they were. The three-man unit to Croft’s left fired as one and three bullets slammed into the man’s chest. He slumped to the ground and almost immediately the woman’s face imploded as she was hit. Even with the suppressors the noise of the shots echoed off the courtyard walls as dull thuds.

Three small children ran out of the house screaming. The soldiers let them go, keeping their weapons trained on the entrance to the house.

Croft waved his men forward. ‘In we go,’ he said.

Henderson flinched at the sound of shots. ‘They’re taking fire,’ he said, ducking down into a crouch.

‘All suppressed M4s,’ said Shepherd. ‘And they weren’t from the house.’

They came round the corner just in time to see Croft and his men burst through the front door.

Shepherd looked up at the upper levels of the building. All the windows were in darkness. If the occupants had any intention of fighting back the best time would have been when the Seals moved into the compound. Then they’d have been firing from cover and with the advantage of the high ground. Now that the Seals were moving inside the advantage switched to the Americans. They were highly trained in close-quarter combat and the night-vision goggles gave them an extra edge.

Shepherd moved forward but Henderson held him back. ‘They go in first,’ said Henderson. ‘You’re an observer, remember?’

Seal Alpha moved through the hallway with his team, using their weapons to cover all the angles. They had spent hours practising clearing the mock-up house in Afghanistan, and the exercises had always included dealing with booby traps — tripwires, alarms and explosives. But the fact that there were children in the house suggested that it hadn’t been booby-trapped, which would make their life easier.

There was a metal cage around the staircase that led to the upper floors and the three-man demolition team hurried over to it and began attaching charges while the rest of the Seals cleared the ground floor. There were four rooms including a kitchen and a bathroom, a sitting room with an old-fashioned television and karaoke machine, a bedroom with single beds. The Seals were thorough, opening all the cupboards and overturning the mattresses.

When they were satisfied that the ground floor was clear they moved to the far end of the hallway while the demolition team finished attaching the explosive charges.

Shepherd walked up to the house with Henderson in tow. Behind them Henderson’s team fanned out, covering the upper floors of the house with their M4s. Shepherd stared down at the dead man and woman on the patio. Blood was still pooling around the woman’s chest as she lay face down on the tiles. ‘We’re shooting women now, are we?’ he asked.

Henderson gestured at the AK-47 by the dead man’s feet. ‘What do you call that?’

‘You’ve been around as long as I have, Guy,’ said Shepherd. ‘The only shots we’ve heard have been fired by suppressed M4s. No AK-47s have been fired.’

‘Maybe that’s because we got our defence in first.’

‘Yeah, well, that doesn’t explain the woman. When did Seals start killing women?’

‘We can’t take any chances — under those baggy clothes she’s wearing she could be rigged up with a suicide vest.’

‘It’s a nightdress,’ said Shepherd scornfully. ‘It’s well after midnight. They were in bed and they came out to see what was going on.’

‘With an AK-47?’

‘Guy, mate, you’re from Texas. I’m betting you’d have a gun in your hand if you heard noises in your garden late at night. We’ve just crashed a bloody helicopter in theirs.’

They heard two dull thuds from inside the house, small explosive charges. Shepherd looked across at Guy, wondering if he’d been right about the suicide vest.

Henderson read his mind and shook his head. ‘That’s C4. Our guys are blowing the staircase cage.’

Shepherd nodded. ‘Let’s go,’ he said, and he headed inside. Henderson hurried after him.

Croft pulled open the mangled mesh cage and led the charge up the stairs. As he got to the halfway point he saw a man peering round the corner at the top and he pulled the trigger of his M4, sending a bullet smashing into the wall inches away from the man’s ear.

The man jerked back. Croft had recognised him from the photographs they’d studied back in the States. It was Bin Laden’s twenty-three-year-old son. He’d been seen in the compound most mornings lifting weights and doing push-ups.

Croft ran up the stairs just in time to see the man reach the end of the hallway. He fired again as the man turned but his shot went wide. Croft cursed, then he flinched as a gun went off behind him, two shots in quick succession. Seal Bravo. Both shots hit the man in the chest, just above the heart, and he fell backwards, hit a wall and then slid down it, his eyes wide and staring as blood spurted from the two wounds. He was one of four adult males that the Americans knew were living in the compound. Now three of them were dead.

The Seals piled up the stairs and began clearing the rooms. There were four, including a foul-smelling bathroom. They found two women hiding under a double bed in one of the bedrooms and roughly patted them down for explosives before one of the Seals hurried them out and down the stairs. They screamed and cursed and spat at him every step of the way.

The stairway leading up to the top floor was caged too and the demolition team went to work, attaching charges to the metal frame.

Shepherd ducked as he heard the shots, then smiled ruefully as he realised that it was his instincts that had taken over. The gunfire was upstairs. Then he heard rapid shouts and Arabic cursing and saw two middle-aged women being pushed down the stairs by one of the Seals. The women were both in their fifties, with weathered skin and bad teeth and hooked noses peppered with blackheads. Their faces were contorted with hatred and one of them spat at Shepherd as she went by, then screamed something at him in Arabic.

‘Nice,’ said Henderson. ‘Something about your mother.’

‘Hearts and minds,’ said Shepherd sarcastically as he wiped away the phlegm with the back of his hand.

‘We tend to find shock and awe works better,’ said Henderson. ‘We don’t have time for please and thank you and tea and crumpets. And don’t think for one moment that those bitches wouldn’t blow you away in a heartbeat if they were the ones with the guns.’

They went up the stairs to where Croft was watching the demolition team attach their charges.

‘You guys get down the hallway,’ said Croft. ‘We’re just about to blow the cage.’

Henderson put a hand on Shepherd’s shoulder. ‘Come on, we need to get away from the charges.’ He pushed Shepherd down the hallway. They almost stumbled over the dead man lying there. Fresh blood glistened greenly through Shepherd’s goggles, a slightly darker green than the man’s T-shirt. Two black dots showed where the bullets had struck home. Shepherd looked around the floor but there was no sign of a weapon.