James Patterson - Private London

Always listen to your commanding officer – don’t think about it, just do what he says. Pretty much summed up what they’d drummed into us at boot camp before I’d specialised with the RMP. Stay where you are, he’d said. Certainly seemed like good advice just then.

Until Sergeant Anne Jones moved her head.

I rolled onto my side again and hoisted myself up.

Stretching out my good arm, I pushed the revolver over the top of the wrecked Volvo and fired a shot in the general direction of the insurgent sniper.

For God’s sake, didn’t these people know the war was over?

An immediate hail of bullets rocked the Volvo. I was glad that whoever it was that had me locked in his sights wasn’t carrying a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher.

‘What in the name of holy Christ are you up to, Carter?’ my CO bellowed.

‘Anne, sir,’ I replied. ‘I saw her move.’

‘Shit!’

There was no response for a moment or two. ‘We can’t leave her here, sir.’

‘Yes, thank you, sergeant. He’s at ten o’clock to you, first-storey window, right-hand side. On three I am going to come out shooting. When I get to Sergeant Jones, cover me. One, two, three…’

A quick succession of shots rang out as he burst from around the side of the shattered jeep, pistol held in both hands as he crabbed across towards the fallen sergeant. His shots peppering the wall and windows of the sniper’s building.

I groaned as I stood up, rested my arms on the roof of the Volvo and steadied my aim. Captain Smith reached Sergeant Jones, dropped his pistol and bent down to pick her up.

There was a movement in the window that I was aiming at and I squeezed the trigger. The shot was returned – I squeezed again three or four times and caught sight of some more movement. Had I hit him?

‘Clear,’ Captain Smith shouted behind me.

I was about to lower my gun when the sunlight glinted on the barrel of a weapon that had just appeared in the window again. It jerked upwards and I guessed the shooter was reloading.

Without thinking too much about it, I stumbled round the remains of the Volvo and limped as fast as I could towards the building, ignoring the shouts from my CO behind me.

Counting off in my mind the seconds it would take to reload whatever weapon the sniper had, 1 half-stumbled and fell over the entrance step into the building. I replaced the cartridge clip in my own pistol and held it steady, pointing up the staircase as I rose to one knee and then stood up.

I leaned against the wall, keeping the pistol as steady as I could manage with a wounded arm. A trickle of sweat ran from my forehead and into one eye. I dragged the sleeve of my shirt across my eyes again as quickly as I could.

The house, like most of this area on the outskirts of the city, had been hit by heavy mortar fire. The walls were smoke-damaged, any surviving furniture had long since been looted and the staircase in front of me tilted dangerously.

Moving forward, I kept the gun raised at shoulder level, double-gripped and straight out. I climbed each step slowly, aware of the unsteadiness of my left ankle but not conscious of pain any more.

I leaned against the right-hand wall to make myself less of a target. I held my breath as I inched upwards.

I was on the fifth step, about two-thirds of the way up the stairs, when the surface beneath my right ankle gave way. My leg dropped through the shattered wood as my body crashed sideways, my arms flung out to try and keep my balance, my pistol banging against the side of the wall as I slumped against it.

Another trickle of sweat ran into my eye and I looked up to see the muzzle of a rifle aimed square at my face.

The air was loud with gunfire.

A bullet slammed into my thigh, knocking me backwards, my right leg wrenched out of the damaged staircase as I tumbled down the stairs to land on the concrete floor. Captain Smith stood in the doorway, his automatic rifle blazing away.

Moments later the body of the Iraqi insurgent crashed down the stairs to land beside me, his head slapping against the hard floor. He didn’t cry out. He was dead.

I looked up at the doorway. My CO was silhouetted in a nimbus of light. ‘Thanks for the assist,’ I called out to him through clenched teeth.

‘De nada,’ he said and then dropped to his knees, his weapon clattering to the floor.

‘Captain,’ I said, dragging myself up and limping over to him.

‘Anne didn’t make it,’ he said, his voice a wet rasp. ‘I guess I didn’t, either.’

He fell forward and I held him to stop him collapsing to the ground. ‘Looks like it’s just you, Dan,’ he said.

‘Don’t say that. We’ll get help. You’re going to be okay.’

He shook his head weakly. ‘There’s been too many lies in this damn war already. Truth is, we shouldn’t be here in the first place and I don’t think today is going to change anything.’

‘Just hang in there,’ I said. ‘I’ll get help.’

He shook his head again. ‘Do me one favour.’ His voice was a low croak now.

‘Anything,’ I said softly.

‘Look out for Chloe for me,’ Captain Smith said. Then he breathed out and died in my arms.

‘You got it, boss,’ I said, tears pricking in my eyes. ‘You got it.’

I was startled out of my reverie by the buzzing of the seat-belt sign flashing overhead once more.

We were about half an hour away from Heathrow by my reckoning. I checked my belt again, something you learn in the military: take care of your equipment and with luck your equipment will take care of you. The clasp was working fine.

I glanced across at Hannah. She didn’t seem too bothered that turbulence ahead had been announced, and was listening quietly to some music on her iPod. Some thrash rap, no doubt – or whatever the cool kids were listening to nowadays. I guess you could call me old-fashioned but I like my music with a melody to it. Maybe I was getting old.

I aged five years in the next five seconds, though, when the 787 hit an air pocket. It might be called a Dreamliner but air pockets are my worst nightmare. The state-of-the-art plane dropped like a stone. I felt a small hand holding my own and looked across to see my young charge watching me, concerned.

‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Statistically you have a lot more chance being killed crossing the road than you do flying.’

Whoever comes up with these sayings should be taken away and shot, if you ask me.

‘I know that,’ she said. ‘But you looked like you were just about to have a heart attack.’

Hannah was trying to put a brave face on things, I could tell that. I forced the corners of my own mouth to form a smile. ‘Indigestion,’ I said. ‘I should have turned down that lobster sandwich. I never do well with crustacean-based food at altitude.’

‘I’m Jewish,’ she said.

I obviously looked puzzled.

‘Jews don’t eat shellfish,’ she explained.

‘I knew that, and very wise.’ I nodded. ‘Can play merry hell with the gastric juices.’ I winced as the plane was buffeted again.

‘If it lives in the sea it needs fins and scales to be kosher. But I don’t care – I love lobster.’

‘Not Orthodox, then?’

She looked at me again. ‘I’m not sure what I am any more. I didn’t make bat mitzvah, even.’

A sadness seemed to fill her eyes again. I looked down and saw that she was still holding my hand.

Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the turbulence cleared. She smiled up at me, but the sadness in her eyes didn’t go away.

‘So, you’re going to take care of me in England?’ Hannah said, letting go of my hand.