Bear Grylls - Burning Angels

‘Can’t risk it.’

‘But you can’t just take out a beach resort. It’ll be full of tourists.’

‘I’m not seeking your advice,’ Kammler snarled. ‘I’m warning you what’s about to happen.’

‘You’ll bring seven tons of shit down on our heads.’

‘Then get in and out fast. Kill the kid and anyone who gets in your way. This is Africa, remember. And in Africa the cavalry takes a long time to arrive, if ever. Do it right and you’ll get your biggest ever payday. Do it wrong, and I’ll deal with it by Reaper alone.’

The call went dead. Jones glanced around, somewhat apprehensively. He was starting to get the sense that he was working for some kind of power-crazed lunatic. Deputy director of the CIA or not, Kammler was a law unto himself.

But the money was good. Too good to complain.

He’d never earned so much for doing so little. Plus Kammler had offered him a double-pay bonus on proof of death; proof that the kid had been terminated.

Jones was determined to earn it all.

Anyway, Kammler was probably right. Who was going to rush to investigate, this far out in the African bush? By the time anyone bothered, he and his crew would be long gone.

He turned to his driver. ‘That was the boss. Get a move on. We need to be there like bastard yesterday.’

The driver floored the accelerator. The needle crept up to 60 m.p.h. The big Nissan felt as if it were about to tear itself apart on the uneven surface of the dirt road.

Jones didn’t give a damn. It wasn’t his problem.

They were hire vehicles.

Kicking up a wind-whipped plume of ocean spray, the Wildcat put down on the damp sand. The tide was receding, and the beach was at its firmest where it was soaked with water.

The pilot kept the rotors turning as Jaeger, Narov, Raff, James, Kamishi and Alonzo piled off. They’d landed amongst the most stunning of landscapes. Dale had led the kid south, until they’d rounded a rocky headland taking them out of sight of Amani resort itself. Here, the low cliffs dropped abruptly into the sea, the red rock being cut into a series of dramatic wave-sculpted forms.

They fanned out into defensive positions, taking cover behind the rocky outcrops. Jaeger dashed forward. A figure came running out to meet him. It was Dale, and beside him was the distinctive form of the kid.

Simon Chucks Bello: the most wanted person in the world right now.

After a few days at Amani, the kid’s hair looked even wilder, stiffened by exposure to salt, sand and sun. He was wearing faded shorts that were two sizes too big for him, plus a pair of shades that Jaeger figured he’d borrowed off Dale.

Simon Chucks Bello was one cool dude. And he didn’t have a clue how important he was to all of humankind right now.

Jaeger was about to scoop him up and run him the fifty metres to the waiting chopper, when a chill froze him to the bone. With zero warning, something tore apart the mist of sea spray swirling above the Wildcat’s rotors, the scream of its descent ripping into Jaeger’s consciousness.

The missile ploughed into the roof of the Wildcat, ripping open the thin skin like a tin-opener. It detonated in a blinding flash, a storm of red-hot shrapnel slicing through the helo’s hold and piercing the twin fuel tanks. They ignited, punching a dragon’s breath of fiery death through the disintegrating fuselage.

Jaeger stared, transfixed, as the plume of destruction tore upwards and outwards, the noise of its eruption pounding into his ears and echoing back and forth across the seashore.

It was all over in less than a second.

He’d called in enough Hellfire strikes to recognise the high-pitched, tortured wolf-howl of the missile. He and his team – and Simon Chucks Bello – were the target of one right now, which meant there had to be a Reaper overhead.

‘HELLFIRE!’ he screamed. ‘Get back! Get under the trees!’

He dived into some thick vegetation, dragging the kid and Dale with him. Unsurprisingly, Simon Chucks Bello was wide-eyed and frozen with fear, his pupils dilated to an impossible size.

‘Keep hold of the kid!’ Jaeger yelled at Dale. ‘Calm him. And whatever you do, do not lose him .’

He rolled on to his back and delved into his combats, pulling out his compact Thuraya satphone and punching speed-dial for the Airlander. Miles answered almost immediately.

‘The helo’s been hit! There must be a Reaper above us.’

‘We’re on it. We have the Taranis involved in a nasty little dogfight with a Reaper right now.’

‘Win it, or we’re toast.’

‘Understood. Plus get this. We’ve detected three 4x4s making for the resort. They’re moving fast, maybe five minutes out from the front gate. I don’t believe they’re coming with any good intentions.’

Shit. Kammler must have deployed a ground force, as well as drones. It made sense for him to have done so. He was too careful to leave the kid to an unverified Reaper strike from ten thousand feet.

‘Once we kill his drones, we can get the Taranis to deal with the road convoy,’ Miles continued. ‘But they’ll likely be in amongst you by then.’

‘Right, there’s a bunch of boats along the beach, at the jetty,’ Jaeger told him. ‘I’m gonna grab one and bring the kid out that way. Can you get the Airlander down for a pickup at sea?’

‘One moment, I’m passing you across to the pilot.’

Jaeger spoke a few words to the Airlander’s pilot. Pickup plan sorted, he prepared to move.

‘On me!’ he yelled into his radio. ‘All, on me!’

One by one his team gathered. Having taken good cover, all had survived the Hellfire strike.

‘Okay, let’s move it – and fast.’

With that, Jaeger started sprinting down the beach, his team right on his heels. They knew better than to ask for any kind of an explanation.

‘Keep the kid in the centre of us!’ Jaeger yelled over his shoulder. ‘Shield him from fire. The kid is all that matters!’

A short burst of machine-gun fire echoed out of the resort, a few hundred yards along the beach. Amani had guards, and maybe they’d tried to put up some form of resistance. But somehow Jaeger doubted it.

The shots were most likely Kammler’s force shooting their way in.

Jaeger shoved Dale and the kid aboard the RIB. It was a big, sleek ocean-going craft, and he prayed the thing was fuelled and good to go.

‘Spark up the engine,’ he yelled at Dale.

He ran his eye along the smart-looking wooden pier. There were maybe a dozen boats that could conceivably give chase. Too many to disable, and especially with Kammler’s ground force closing in.

He was about to order his team to break from their defensive positions when the first figures came dashing on to the open sand. Jaeger counted six, with more arriving by the second.

They scanned the beach with their weapons, but Raff, Alonzo, James and Kamishi were quicker. Their MP7s barked, and two of the distant figures crumpled. The first savage return of fire came cutting in. The beach spat vicious gouts of sand, the long eruption ending in the water at Jaeger’s feet.

Narov dashed across to him, dodging fire as she went.

‘Move it!’ she yelled. ‘Go, go, go! We’ll hold them off. GO!’

For an instant, Jaeger wavered. This went against all his instincts and training. You never left a guy behind. These were his team. His crew. He couldn’t just abandon them.

‘GET MOVING!’ Narov screamed. ‘SAVE THE KID!’

Without a word, Jaeger forced himself to turn away from his team. At his signal, Dale gave a quick burst of power and the craft tore away from the pier, a storm of bullets chasing after it.