Murray McDonald - Assassin

While the watchtower guards had been taken out, Kano and Kisho had been dealing with the guards at the gate. They had slammed the handles of their pistols into the base of the guards’ skulls, rendering them unconscious. Thankfully, the shouts and screams from inside the prison had covered the noise of the small explosive charge used to open the gate and allow the islanders into the prison.

As they opened the gate, a swarm of prisoners rushed towards them. Papa could not afford to let the prisoners go just yet as they would create confusion on the outside and interfere with the SBS task.

“Keep them in,” he ordered, holding onto Lela’s hand, she was staying there next to him.

Kano, Kisho and the other four islanders rushed forward towards the mass of prisoners. Within two minutes, the flow had reversed and the prisoners, recognising Saki’s skills backed off, leaving behind a few wounded bodies. Papa left two islanders to guard the gate, nobody was leaving until he said they could. Kano picked up one of the unfortunate prisoners who had tried to leave but he didn’t speak English. He tried another, neither did he. As he made his way to the next wounded prisoner, a shout came from the group of prisoners who had been forced back.

“I speak English,” the prisoner shouted.

“Do you know where they are keeping two men and a woman?” asked Kano.

“Yes but what do we get in return for telling you?”

“Your freedom but not just yet. The prison is surrounded, you’d be shot the minute you put your head through the gate.”

“When then?”

“When we leave, we’ll leave the gate open for you.”

“OK, they’re in that building there, top floor far end,” said the prisoner pointing to the next block where 10 guards and six prisoners were seen entering.

“Quick,” shouted Kano. “Let’s go!”

The first gunshots of the night rang out. Not from outside but inside the prison and the tell-tale gun flash told them that it came from the top floor of the building they’d just been directed to.

Donald and Saki rushed into Rachel’s cell just as she screamed. The guard who had unlocked the cells had come back to pay her a visit. Saki tapped him on the shoulder and as the guard turned around, Saki smiled and delivered a punch so hard that the guard’s jaw shattered. The snap of the bone ricocheted around the bare stone walls of the cell as the guard dropped to the floor. It would be a long time before he was back on solids. Saki then noticed that it was his friend with the fancy gun, the small sub machine gun. He grabbed it along with the spare cartridges and ran back to the cell door.

Donald grabbed Rachel and hugged her.

“What now?” she sobbed.

“We stay behind Saki,” replied Donald remembering his instructions.

Saki looked down the corridor. It wasn’t good. There were 10 guards working their way slowly and carefully down the corridor towards them. Saki considered their options, they didn’t have any. All he could do was hold them off as long as possible and hope for a miracle. He pointed the gun down the corridor and sent a barrage of bullets towards the guards. They were still quite far away but he did manage to hit three of them. Three down, seven to go. As well as reducing their number, he had slowed them down and they would be even more careful now.

“What’s happening?” asked Donald.

“There were 10 of the new guards we spotted earlier coming towards us.”

“What? Did you get them?” asked Donald hopefully.

“Now there are seven,” replied Saki. He then paused for a second and put his hand up, indicating quiet.

“There are more coming, I can hear feet pounding up the other staircase. They’ll be surrounding us soon,” he whispered.

“What do they want?” asked Rachel.

“I don’t know,” lied Donald.

The two SBS snipers, having taken care of the watchtower guards, moved back to their initial targets. The suggestion that the gate guards didn’t know about the perimeter guards was accurate. The SBS soldiers had observed the same uncoordinated behaviour and as suggested by Papa, were going to try something a little out of the ordinary.

They lined up their shots and waited for the Go command from their leader.

“Ready…ready…fire!”

As the order came through, they both pressed their triggers. The bullets hit just one second apart. Although they did not kill their targets, the shots were accurate and perfectly timed.

One of the guards at the gate screamed as a bullet struck his shoulder, just glancing off the bone, causing no real damage but resulting in the guard being thrown to the ground in excruciating pain. The gate guards reacted to their colleague’s distress and frantically looked around to discover what had happened.

As they reacted to the first shot, the same wound befell a perimeter guard within their sights. The gate guards were so stunned to see somebody so close to their position that they didn’t even wonder how the injuries had been inflicted. No gunshots had been heard other than those inside the prison which they had been told to ignore. The gate guards, unaware that Jones’ men were officially guarding the perimeter, opened fire on the screaming perimeter guard, killing him and two of his colleagues. Before they knew what was happening, a major fire fight erupted between the two teams of guards. Jones’s men, who were aware of Smith’s team, had no means of communicating with them and had no option but to fire back. It didn’t take long before the two remaining watchtower snipers entered the fray and began to pick off Jones’ team using their thermal night scopes.

The SBS team just sat back and waited. They weren’t going to risk being shot in the crossfire. The SBS snipers, however, continued their efforts and helped Smith’s men pick off the perimeter guards.

Eventually, Smith and Jones were made aware of what was happening and instructed their respective units to stop firing. But over half the guards were already dead. It was a complete disaster. Smith and Jones were screaming at each other.

Meanwhile, the SBS leader gave the signal to his men. They moved forward and dealt with the remaining men, taking advantage of the confusion.

The escape route was clear.

The islanders split into two groups. Papa and his three islanders in one group and Kisho, Kano and Lela in the other. Papa’s group took one side of the building and Lela’s group took the other. They raced up the stairs. Lela’s group went towards the gunfire and Papa’s went towards the guards and prisoners they had followed in.

Papa’s group caught up quickly with the guards and prisoners, the narrow staircase allowing the islanders to work their way through them without alerting those in front. Within two minutes, sixteen men lay across the staircase in varying degrees of agony, each having been plucked from the tail of the group and dealt with.

Lela, Kisho and Kano didn’t have such an easy time. They raced to the top of the stairs and found themselves at one end of a very long corridor. Between them and the Kennedys were 7 heavily armed men in excellent defensive positions. Kano and Kisho made it very clear that under no circumstances was Lela to follow them. She grudgingly agreed.

As Kisho and Kano began to make their way down the corridor, a burst of gunfire had them diving out of the way, narrowly missing them.

“Did they see us?” whispered Kisho.

“No. It came from beyond them, it may have been Uncle Saki,” replied Kano.

“Perfect. We fly 3,000 miles to rescue him and he bloody shoots at us!”

“He’s shooting at them,” said Kano pointing at the guards.