A wretched scene played out at the fence as Manny tried to crouch-walk through the gap with a dead body on his back. The figures merged into one as he encountered trouble fitting through and Jamie tried to help.

  After thirty seconds, a shape slumped to the left of the gap, bounced against the fence, and flopped to the deck with an awful finality.

  Manny emerged from the hole and scurried towards me, rifle in both hands.

  ‘I had to leave him. God forgive me.’

  Tears glistened on his cheeks.

  ‘He’d understand.’ A meaningless reply, but I had to keep Manny focused. The headlights filtering through the trees were getting closer.

  ‘Kingfisher, I have you loud and clear, over.’

  My watch showed 05:36. Didn’t time fly when you were having a clusterfuck. The message from the boat was the standard British military reply to a radio check. That suggested Roper had good comms with Dave on the Kingfisher.

  ‘Kingfisher, this is Sierra Alpha, message, over.’

  ‘Kingfisher, send, over.’

  ‘Alpha, relay to Charlie that we are in contact. Status Grail Two. Shortly inbound to his location. ETA figures two zero, repeat back to me, over.’

  ‘Kingfisher, relaying to Sierra Charlie that Alpha is in contact. Status Grail Two. En route to Charlie location. ETA two zero mikes, over.’

  ‘Alpha, your message all correct. Will notify when approaching Charlie, out.’

  ‘Sierra Charlie this is Kingfisher. Alpha will report when approaching your position. I will relay if comms still difficult, over.’

  That brief interlude from mayhem straightened my disordered thoughts like a trainer slapping his boxer’s face. Cover the road, call Mike’s team in, hoof it down the main drag, blast through the jungle to the beach, get to the RV.

  Jamie and the other two had reached the trees and dropped behind me. Hutch’s pronounced limp was a worry. The approaching vehicle lights an even bigger worry.

  ‘Delta, this is Alpha, we’re firm at the treeline. Be advised we have vehicles closing along the main drag from the north. Pull back to our location, over.’

  ‘Delta, roger. Breaking contact, out.’

  I turned to the four faces behind me. Two pale and two cammed out. Manny was looking across to the fence where Condé’s body lay.

  ‘Manny, we need to stop those vehicles, okay.’

  He looked at me and nodded.

  ‘Shall I take these two along the road?’ asked Jamie, indicating Hutch and Luke.

  ‘No, we’ll wait for Mike. We can’t be sure the route’s clear.’

  I put my hand on Manny’s shoulder. ‘You and me take the lead vehicle. Jamie, you hit the rear one and anything else behind that. Don’t worry about spotting individual targets. We just need to stop them.’

  I pushed down the safety one notch and brought the rifle up on aim. ‘Automatic for this.’

  Both men shuffled into kneeling positions in my peripheral vision and there were metallic clicks on my left and right.

  Vehicle engines rumbled closer. The lights swung right then left into our faces as the front SUV cleared the copse with a second vehicle close behind.

  ‘Rapid fire,’ I ordered before letting go with a controlled burst of five rounds.

  A wall of noise exploded around me as Manny and Jamie joined in. My opening shots knocked out the right headlight of the lead vehicle, which turned away and accelerated towards the road on the left. I smashed a second burst into the side of the target before a line of trees forty metres ahead obscured my view.

  Lights behind the copse were extinguished. ‘Is that car two behind those trees?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, I got rounds into the cockpit. Shithead still managed to reverse into cover. Didn’t see a third car,’ said Jamie.

  With the lights of both vehicles doused, the only illumination of the battleground came from the weak floodlights on the camp perimeter.

  The chain link fence rattled as, one after another, three shadows forced themselves through the jagged grasp of the escape hole. Mike led Ryan and Alain straight to our position, all three of them breathing hard. He landed next to me and said, ‘There’s two vehicles moving up inside, plus guys on the ground. They’ll need to clear the prison, so that should buy us time.’ He loaded a fresh magazine from his vest as he spoke.

  ‘Two vehicles to our front,’ I said, deploying a knife hand for emphasis. ‘One behind the trees forty metres to the left, the other behind that copse a hundred metres on the right. We’ve put rounds into them, but they are still mobile.’

  ‘Get your team down the road through the junction and go firm,’ he replied. ‘How are the lads?’

  ‘Condé didn’t make it. He’s in the grass over there. You must have missed him.’

  ‘Shit. How about Hutch and Luke.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ said a soft Canadian voice from behind us.

  ‘Hutch is suffering, but he’ll make it,’ I added. ‘We’ll be slower than I hoped.’

  A lengthy salvo of automatic fire erupted from the left-hand treeline forty metres away. Spaced out, deadly flashes spat furious swarms of lead into our sanctuary. Bullets zipped through the foliage around us and a red-hot zing flashed across my cheek and snicked my ear. A cry of pain sounded from close behind. I clutched at my face and the fingers came away covered with dark liquid. My ear blazed with pain, but it was still attached.

  Our own enhanced arsenal responded with a withering barrage. After ten seconds, the rate of outgoing fire dropped. Mike and Ryan conferred about arcs and allocated one to Alain.

  ‘Luke’s hit,’ said Jamie as he bustled past my back.

  ‘Can he move?’ asked Mike. ‘You need to get going.’

  ‘It’s my wrist,’ said Luke.

  ‘Two hundred metres and then Jamie can deal with it,’ I told him. ‘Hutch, are you okay?’

  ‘I’m not hit,’ he replied.

  With Mike’s three-man team putting deliberate, single shots into the enemy position on the left and answering sporadic bursts from the copse on the right, I raised into a crouch. ‘My team, with me. I’ll lead. Hutch and Luke you follow. Manny, keep with Jamie and help these other two if they need it.’

  I didn’t wait for answers. ‘Let’s go.’

  My emergence from cover was greeted with an incoming salvo that slapped into the foliage like a sudden hailstorm. Any complaining muscles went unnoticed as I ran left along the track to follow the route Ryan had checked out earlier. People shooting 7.62 mm in my direction has always motivated personal best sprint times.

  Against every instinct, I slowed after thirty metres to check behind. The two recently rescued prisoners might not be so light on their feet.

  Ten metres back, Hutch loped in a rolling gait with the CZ swinging wildly in his right hand. The white sling on his left arm and his bright orange legs were unwelcome aiming marks. Behind him, Luke ran with a hand clamped to his forearm, teeth bared and head leaning away as though trying to escape the pain.

  Bringing up the rear, Jamie knelt and pumped three rounds back towards the nearest enemy position. He’d changed to single shot. Manny squatted a few metres to his left and let rip a satisfying rattle on automatic.

  A flash in the treeline showed the enemy were still engaging. Not at me though. I dropped onto my knee and blasted two automatic bursts into the shooter’s vicinity.

  ‘Good effort, keep going,’ I said to the two stricken men as they reached me.

  Having switched my own selector to single shot, I raced ahead and led them left onto the main road – in reality a hard-packed dirt track.

  Sunrise at 06:45 was still over an hour away, but the black of night was already being lost to the oncoming dawn. Shit – we needed more time. Not that the internal screams of a 21st century King Canute wannabe were going to hold back nature’s rhythms.

  Faraway cracks turned into nearby thumps as our adversaries took advantage of my team fleeing down the road. The firefight continued to pop and snap in the distance as I slowed after fifty metres of hard targeting.

  The Oxford Circus junction was thankfully clear.

  Straight ahead the narrow track led off left down to the cove. The main track veered right where it met the Piccadilly junction 250 metres further on. If troops poured down that route from Piccadilly, Mike’s team still holding the position near The Ritz would be cut off.

  I moved to the bushes at the side of the track and looked back. After cursing under my breath at their slow progress, I shouted encouragement to Hutch and Luke.

  Manny was alongside Hutch pushing him forward. Luke had now pulled ahead and still ran with one arm across his chest. Jamie was tucked low, facing backwards. The gunfire had merged into one and I assumed some of it was his.

  ‘Less than a hundred metres and we’ll go firm,’ I called out, pointing Luke down the narrow track.

  I leapt to my feet, although creaked might have been a more accurate description, took a final look down the main track leading right to Piccadilly, and spurted forward to edge ahead of Luke on the narrower track. If the enemy had already mobilised a blocking force in this area, then we’d be in trouble. Only 150 metres further down this track, the building near the cove also worried me.

  Twenty seconds later, I hadn’t recognised any markers from our inbound march. Panting hard, I pulled up and raised my left hand. ‘On me. Luke. Go firm here.’

  After steering him under the trees, I faced the direction we’d run from. The others weren’t in sight. Had I seen them follow us through the junction? If they’d gone up the main track it was job fucked. We’d never get back together before follow-up troops arrived.

  Clumping boots and low voices approached. Manny had an arm round Hutch’s back. Jamie hovered behind them.

  I stepped out from the deep shadows as they reached me. ‘In here.’

  Hutch collapsed next to Luke, and Manny staggered before sinking to the floor.

  ‘Get some water down your neck lads. You too Luke.’ I peered under the canopy to see he already had a bottle to his lips. ‘Good man.’

  ‘Let me see that arm,’ Jamie said to Luke. He caught his breath before saying to me, ‘Couldn’t see anyone following.’

  ‘Sierra Delta, this is Alpha, gone firm as agreed. Withdraw to me, over.’

  There was an ominous silence. Five seconds later I repeated the message.

  ‘Sierra Delta, roger. On way.’ Mike’s gulped breaths suggested he had heard my first message and was already breaking contact. Not a surprise if he’d taken care of other business before responding.

  Gunfire still crackled in the distance. The enemy were 200 metres from our current position and out of sight around a bend and over a rise in the road. That wouldn’t last long. They’d soon be chasing us now Mike’s team were pulling back. And how many other troops were right now converging on the prison and our last known sighting?

  ‘Arrgh. Arrgh.’

  ‘Sorry, I need to get this shit out of the wound and clean it up,’ said Jamie.’

  Luke continued to whimper as the medic got stuck in.

  ‘You okay?’ I asked Hutch.

  He nodded an unconvincing reply.

  ‘We’ll make it. There’s less than 500 metres to the boats.’

  His second nod carried less enthusiasm than the first.

  ‘How about you?’ I asked Manny.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ he said, raising a hand to his forehead.

  I squeezed his shoulder. ‘I know, mate. Let’s make sure we get everyone else home.’

  Running footsteps approached from the direction of the junction. I knelt in a firing position in case unfriendly faces showed up. When Mike, Ryan, and Alain dashed around the bend, I threw out an arm to signal our position.

  They’d arrived just two minutes after my team. The time was now 05:47.

  ‘How long do you need?’ Mike asked.

  ‘A couple more minutes. It’s just a graze,’ answered Jamie.

  ‘I’ll cover at the bend,’ said Ryan, and he trotted off twenty metres up the track.

  ‘Anything from down there,’ asked Mike, flicking his head downhill towards the cove and its uncharted building.

  I shook my head. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Two more bounds?’ he asked.

  ‘Yep. Let me get the map.’ I pulled it out of my vest, checked my torch was on red filter, brushed stones and a dead branch out of the way, and rotated the map to the ground.

  ‘If we pull back to here,’ – I used a twig to indicate a point midway between our current position and the beach – ‘it’s two hundred and fifty metres. Leaves us two hundred plus for the final leg. It’s a hundred metres east of Regent Street and before the slope becomes a problem. What do you reckon?’

  He studied the map in the pool of red light.

  ‘Yeah. We’ll trail fifty metres behind you, give or take. Be on your tail at first. There’s not enough cover here and they’d bump us straight away if we hang around. You need to keep the pace going up front. Who knows what they’re sending out?’

  ‘If they come from the road, the bush will slow them down. With luck they might think we’ve gone for the cove.’ I traced the twig along the coast. ‘Shit. After that, our beach is the next one that isn’t covered in rocks.’

  ‘Best we get a fucking move on then,’ said Mike with a painted smile.

  ‘Yeah, best we had.’

  CHAPTER 75

  Jamie finished patching up Luke and issued both him and Hutch with pills he promised would take the edge off. He spotted my new action-man facial decoration and made a half-hearted offer to take a closer look. He’d already turned away before I declined.

  I took point as we set off through the uneven forest terrain. Even in the open ground between clumps of trees we couldn’t run like on the tracks – the risk of a twisted ankle or worse was too high. And I had to balance the tactical situation. We needed to move at a decent clip but also stay alert in case the enemy outflanked us.

  Now 05:50, the morning had turned a noticeable shade or two lighter. I hoped that was due more to my improving night vision than an oncoming early sunrise. It was twenty minutes since the opening contact outside the prison.

  My imagination pictured troops being hauled out of bed, packed into vehicles, and ordered to hunt us down.

  Five hundred metres to the beach. Regular jungle patrolling could take half an hour. Way too long. I wanted to be at the beach in less than fifteen minutes.

  I lengthened my stride. ‘Come on guys, let’s drive forward.’

  ‘Negative, nothing heard. I’ll try them now. Hello, Sierra Alpha this is Kingfisher, Charlie is requesting sitrep, over.’

  The message from the boat was a morale boost, a reminder that we weren’t alone. I scanned the dark canvas to my left where Dave and the Kingfisher would be waiting. No lights. They’d be running dark routine.

  ‘Kingfisher, Sierra Alpha, At Charlie’s location in figures one five, over.’

  ‘Kingfisher, relaying to Charlie your ETA figures one five. Out to you. Sierra Charlie, did you get that?’

  Any more of the communications were lost in a blizzard of scratching foliage and cursing as I fought my way through thick bush. Once clear of the suffocating undergrowth, I nuzzled the water bladder mouthpiece like a baby and sucked greedily. Open terrain meant quicker movement through less cover. That was a balance I was happy to accept.

  We swerved between dark clumps of thick cover as we climbed a gentle slope to its crest. Vehicles and voices carried through the air, the loudest behind and to our right in the direction of Piccadilly. The enemy could be only 100 metres away if they’d slapped a roadblock at that junction. Fortunately, that 100 metres comprised dense jungle, in a straight line at least. There were bound to be tracks and routes through or around it.

  The four men behind me stayed with the pace. They were arranged in two cosy pairs: Manny pushing and dragging Hutch; Jamie guiding and encouraging Luke. Mike and his gang were somewhere in the murkiness to our rear.

  From the crest, the south-eastern coastline emerged like a map. Our beach was only a couple of hundred metres away, although that short distance included some tough going. The 300-foot-high hill in the south of the island loomed directly ahead like a huge shadow. Lights twinkled in the town at its eastern base, beyond our beach. Other lights, moving lights, were a concern. Vehicles heading north from the town – in our direction.

  With the jungle thickening around us, I signalled a halt and checked the GPS. Close enough. ‘Delta, this is Alpha, firm at waypoint, over.’

  ‘Roger, we’re right behind you.’

  Jamie checked Luke’s bandage while Hutch slumped against a tree trunk. Manny fiddled with something on his hip. He pulled out the guard force radio he’d taken at The Ritz. ‘They’re talking. I couldn’t hear while we marched but now it sounds like English.’

  I crunched down into an uncomfortable kneeling position sat back on my foot. The other four guys were either busy or crimped, so I was force protection. I kept the butt of the AK in my shoulder and lowered the stock to rest across my thigh. ‘Turn it up.’

  Manny adjusted the volume.

  ‘…no escape.’

  We frowned at each other. Before I could say anything, the radio crackled to life again.

  ‘Redcoat, I know you’re out there. I’m coming for you and there’s no escape.’

  Mamba was here. And he knew I was on the island. Or at least he thought I was on the island. On balance, there weren’t many other candidates to lead a prison break of his latest guests. I wasn’t going to disappoint him.

  I let go of the rifle stock with my left hand and grabbed the radio from Manny. ‘Listen Mamba. You’re lucky I didn’t kill you yesterday when I had you in my sights.’

 

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