Chris Ryan: Who Dares Wins

They climbed out of the car, each of them switching on their comms as they did so. ‘I’ll go first,’ Jacob announced. ‘I’ll stake out the front. Sam, take the rear. Mac, the street. RV back here in fifteen minutes.’

‘Roger that.’

They left at thirty-second intervals – Jacob first, then Mac and finally Sam, his dishdash flapping around his legs and his carpet-wrapped Diemaco C8 held nonchalantly under his arm – to avoid attracting unwanted attention. Sam followed his mental map and in less than a minute he was turning into a broad, tree-lined street. The houses here were grand, some with ornate columns on either side of the door that wouldn’t have been out of place in Mayfair. But there were other things you wouldn’t see in London: as Sam walked down the street he noticed bullet marks along one of the walls. AK rounds, he thought to himself. Maybe a scar of the invasion; or maybe they had been there before. In Baghdad, everyone had a gun. There were plenty of people in the street, but they all walked in a hushed, hurried manner, avoiding each other’s eyes.

Sam had walked about thirty metres when he saw the drinks can carelessly discarded in the street. Nobody paid it any attention – it was just one of any number of bits of litter. He glanced up at the house outside which it was lying. It was a big place, more like a compound, with a large whitewashed wall surrounding it and a vaulted gate with iron spikes at the top and a heavy padlock. As he sauntered past, Sam collated all the information he could about the place. There was a large courtyard at the front. The main door looked like it was made of heavy, thick wood – difficult to force down with the limited weaponry at their command. The roof was flat, with plain little turrets at each corner. As he glanced up Sam couldn’t see anybody on it, but he had no doubt that if Sadiq was right and this place really did house the man the unit was after, they would be there. There were two low, shuttered windows on the ground floor, but none further up. His eyes flickered around looking for Jacob. He saw him fifteen metres away, leaning against a tree. They acted as if they didn’t know each other.

The house occupied a corner plot and Sam turned into the small road that went alongside it. On this side of the house there were first floor windows, three of them, but he could not see any further down because of the high external wall. At the back of the house was a smaller street, on the opposite side of which was another dwelling place. This house was much less grand; indeed it looked deserted, as if it had been the scene of fighting in recent days or weeks. Sam slipped into the house and up the stairs onto the roof. The fierce sun beat down on him as he kept his head low and approached the front wall. Here there was a lattice of holes in the brickwork, allowing him to look through and onto the roof of the other house.

It didn’t take him long to see movement. Two people keeping guard over the back of the house; no doubt there were at least two more on the other side. Below them was a garden of sorts – palm trees and even a patch of rough grass and some flowers, a strange sight in the middle of a war-torn city. The back wall had a wooden door. It was flimsier than the one at the front, easier to break down; but he wouldn’t want to do that while it was overlooked. Still, that was their most likely point of entry. All they had to do was make sure there wouldn’t be a welcoming party when they came knocking.

Sam looked at his watch. Nine minutes had passed; RV in six. He slipped back downstairs, out into the street and round the other side of the house. As he walked back to the car he could see Mac up ahead. He controlled his natural urge to catch up with his friend; keeping his head down, he wove his way through the people in the street and a minute or so later was back at the RV point. The Toyota had gone – no doubt Sadiq had picked up his car and got the hell out of there – but Jacob and Mac stood where it had been. The three of them took shelter in the doorway of a closed-down shop.

‘Front gate covered from the roof,’ Jacob stated, his voice brisk and businesslike. ‘Three of them at least, maybe four. Two snipers in the front yard.’

‘I clocked two more on the roof at the back. Good point of entry. Wooden door. Flimsy.’

The two brothers looked at Mac. ‘No obvious lookouts in the street,’ he said.

‘Good,’ Jacob replied. ‘We need that chopper to extract us the moment we’ve apprehended the target.’ His eyes flashed. ‘It’ll be Yankee scran for our man tonight.’

‘Fuck of a sight better than the filthy Iraqi stuff he’s used to,’ Mac observed. ‘We’re practically doing the bastard a favour…’

‘ Shut up! ’ Sam barked.

The other two looked at him in surprise. Sam was holding his palm out towards them, indicating that they should keep quiet. He had dialled HQ on the sat phone and there was a noise of confusion at the other end. Panic at the Farm. Clearly something was going wrong.

And then the instruction came. ‘ Yankee Delta Three, hold your mission! Repeat, hold your mission! Do you read?

‘Yeah,’ Sam snapped, ‘I fucking heard you. What’s the problem?’

‘Black Hawk down,’ came the curt reply. ‘Small arms fire. Fucking Iraqis. All helicrews diverted to assist. Sorry, Sam. This is going to have to wait for another day. You’re ordered back to base.’

A crackle and then silence.

‘ Shit! ’ Sam hissed, thumping his hand against the wall.

‘What is it?’

‘Chopper down. We’ve got no support. They’re scrubbing us.’

‘How many we lose?’ Jacob demanded.

‘Didn’t stay. Still, they’re not going to be queuing up for sticking plasters, are they?’

Jacob and Mac both turned away, silently cursing. Sam felt himself sneering as a hot surge of anger ran through his veins. The Regiment had taken a hit. He was damned if they were going to return to the Farm with nothing to show for it.

‘Let’s do it,’ he said.

The others looked round at him.

‘What do you mean?’ Mac demanded. ‘If we can’t…’

‘Listen – the moment the Yanks know we’ve got this bastard, you can bet your boots they’ll have someone along to extract him. And if they don’t… fuck it, he’s only one guy. We just have to make sure everyone surrounding him goes down.’ Somewhere deep inside, Sam knew he was being reckless. But he also knew they had a chance. He looked at Jacob. His brother’s dark eyes were unreadable. ‘We just need a distraction, J. Something to draw everyone out.’

The two brothers stared at each other. Jacob’s eyes narrowed as he considered the suggestion. ‘We’ve got our own distraction,’ he said finally. He inclined his head slightly before dipping once more into his bag. He fished out a small device, about the size of a mobile phone. Just a black box with a small switch. ‘I gave the Coke can a bit of extra sugar.’

Sam could sense Mac tensing up next to him. ‘What the fuck are you talking about? I thought it was just the tracker.’

Jacob nodded. ‘The tracker, yes. And a bit of plastic explosive, just in case. Enough to get our friends running to the front of the house when it blows to see what’s going on.’ His demeanour became instantly more serious. ‘Sam, you and Mac take the back. I’ll fire a few rounds to disperse the civilians, then explode the device and start picking the guards off when they come to check out the fireworks. Reckon it’ll give you enough time to gain entry?’

Sam gazed at his brother. Mac was right to be pissed: if Jacob had this planned, he should have shared it with them. But his brother always did like to pull the cat out of the bag. Or in this case, the C-4 military-grade explosive out of the tin.