Justin Richards - Sharp Shot

Immediately there was answering fire from the Iraqi guards. An armoured car positioned outside the main gates lurched into life and rumbled round to the back of the perimeter wall to engage the apparent attack.

With the main gates now only guarded by a few nervous soldiers, the SAS team made their move. Silent and swift, shadows in the night, they took down the guards. Chance knocked out two of the soldiers. Halford slammed another into the wall of the guardhouse, where he collapsed unconscious. McCain dealt swiftly with a guard who’d managed to draw his gun, but had no time to fire before McCain’s knife sliced into his leg. Moments later the guard was gagged and bound, his leg strapped up and bandaged to staunch the bleeding.

Only Darrow had to kill. His automatic rifle, fitted with a silencer, took out three guards on duty on the high perimeter wall. Two dropped where they were standing. The third pitched forwards, falling without making a sound to crunch on the ground at Darrow’s feet. He smiled with cold satisfaction.

Chance’s whispered instructions were loud and clear in the earphones of his team. “We have access. Time to go to your positions. Ferdy, maintain surveillance and let us know if the guards realise they’ve been conned. Dex, you take the guardhouse and the watch towers. Mark, you’ve got the offices and admin complex as we agreed. I’ll deal with the main lab. Set the charges to blow in twenty minutes from my mark, and make sure you’re back at the Jeep by then. OK?”

After each of his men had checked in, Chance told them: “Right then. Ten minutes from…Now. Go go go!”

They moved swiftly and silently through the complex. Like so much of Saddam’s weapons programme, the design for the plant was stolen. Chance had studied the plans of the Russian installation it was based on. He knew exactly where the main lab would be, and the quickest, safest route to get there.

He didn’t see anyone on his journey through the dimly lit corridors until he was almost at his destination. Then he pressed himself into an alcove to allow a white-coated scientist to pass. The man was carrying something—Chance got only a glimpse, but it was obviously heavy and it seemed to be made of stone. A statue, maybe, about half a metre tall…The scientist looked worried and anxious as he hurried past.

As soon as the corridor was clear, Chance ran quickly to the security door at the end. There was a numbered keypad beside the heavy, lead-lined door. Chance didn’t waste time trying to work out the code. The door might be strong and the lock might be unbreakable. But the hinges were a weak point.

Chance took what looked like an oversized tube of toothpaste from his backpack. He squeezed thick grey paste from it, like bathroom sealant, down the edge of the door and over the hinges. Finally, he stuck a small metal pin into the grey paste. The end of the pin glowed red.

Hurrying back to the alcove, Chance pulled out a small plastic box with a switch on it. He turned away, and pressed the switch.

The sound of the explosion echoed down the corridor, followed immediately by a cloud of smoke. As the sound and smoke cleared, the high-pitched wail of an alarm kicked in.

The door was lying sideways on the ground. Chance jumped over it as he ran into the main laboratory. Several technicians and scientists were cowering in a corner in fright. Chance spared them a brief glance.

“Are you paying attention?” he shouted in the local dialect above the sound of the alarm.

“Yes,” one of the scientists replied in a quivering voice.

“Good. Make sure you take the guard trussed up in the gatehouse with you, he’ll have trouble walking on his own. And then you’ve got ten minutes to get the hell out of here before the whole place goes up.” Chance was kneeling on the ground, backpack on the floor in front of him, pulling objects from it. He held one up—you didn’t need to be an expert to guess that the stubby brown cylinder was an explosive.

“So, what are you waiting for?” said Chance, positioning the first of the high explosive charges against a bank of computer servers. He checked his watch and set the timer.

When he looked back over his shoulder, the lab was empty.

Five minutes later, Chance had set explosives at key points around the room. He made sure the vital areas would take the brunt of the blasts: the containment vessels, the centrifuges, the data storage…He took the empty backpack with him—there was no point in leaving behind anything that might identify who had been there. The main reason for using Chance and his team rather than an airstrike was that no one would know for sure who had destroyed the place.

With the alarms going, the Republican Guards would be hurrying back from the diversion Halford and Darrow had arranged. Assault rifle at the ready and set to deliver continuous automatic fire, Chance ran from the laboratory.

He had to assume anyone he saw would be hostile. The civilians should be running for their lives. He knew from the regular location and progress updates in his earpiece exactly where all the members of his own team were. Anyone coming back into the facility had to be the enemy. Chance cut down three soldiers in the corridor—taking them out before they even knew he was there.

Out into the central compound Chance hurled several smoke canisters. It would slow down the returning troops, and it would mask his own escape. A dark shape passed him in the fog of yellow smoke, and Chance shouted at it:

“The lab is secure,” he yelled in the local dialect. “The problem is in the admin block.” He smiled grimly as he heard his words repeated by the incoming soldiers.

A bullet meant for Chance ricocheted off the wall close to the main gate. He turned and fired on instinct and a khaki-clad figure collapsed behind him. Chance didn’t wait to see if any others followed. He was running across the sand, away from the noise and confusion, away from the smoke and the bullets. A quick look at his watch told him there was no time to hang around.

He reached the sand dune and hurled himself over, rolling down the other side and skidding to a halt close to the Jeep.

Dex Halford looked down at him from where he was sitting nonchalantly in the driver’s seat. The door was open and he was dangling his legs over the side, swigging from his water bottle.

“What kept you?” Dex asked with a grin.

McCain was in the passenger seat. “If you’re late you ride in the back,” he called. Then he frowned. “Isn’t Darrow with you?”

“He’s cutting it fine,” said Chance, checking his watch. The second hand was sweeping up towards the 12. Just a few seconds. “Five,” he muttered as he counted them off. “Four…three…”

“Here he comes,” said Halford.

A dark shape rolled down the dune, just as Chance himself had done. “Sorry I’m late,” said Darrow as he reached the Jeep.

If he said anything else, it was lost in the sound of the blast. The night sky was turned to sudden daylight. Brilliant yellow washed across the landscape and a ball of smoke and fire mushroomed upwards.

“Time we were going,” said Chance as the noise died away. “You and I get to ride in the back,” he told Darrow, slapping his comrade on the shoulder.

“Chauffeur service, I love it.” Darrow swung his backpack off and dragged it up into the Jeep with him.

Chance watched him, puzzled. The backpack was obviously heavy—very heavy. But it should have been empty.

The Jeep bumped over the rise and tipped down the other side of the dune, gathering speed. In the distance, the installation was burning. Tiny figures—soldiers, civilians and scientists—were milling round it in confusion.

“Job done,” McCain called from the front of the Jeep.