One of the men raised his hands. ‘Sir, there’s been a mistake. I’m a doctor, I shouldn’t be here.’ He was in his early thirties, his beard neatly trimmed, but all Van der Sandt saw was a murdering bastard who was going to get what was coming to him. ‘I was in the camp taking care of casualties,’ said the man. ‘I’m not a terrorist.’

  ‘Me neither!’ shouted another of the men. ‘I work for an NGO, I was helping people, I’m not a terrorist.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m with an NGO too!’ yelled another of the men. ‘Save the Children. I was helping kids, this is all a mistake.’

  Then all the men started shouting and yelling, proclaiming their innocence. Van der Sandt fired a shot into the ceiling and they fell silent. He swung his gun around, his finger on the trigger. ‘If you want, you can die here like this piece of shit. Or you can go outside where you’ll have a chance. Not much of a chance, but then you didn’t give my family much of a chance. So it’s your call. Anyone who wants a bullet now, just raise your hand and I’ll oblige.’

  He glared at the men one by one and they all looked down, avoiding his stare, except for the one who was claiming to be a doctor. The man stood with his head up as if he wasn’t fazed by the gun. ‘I am not a terrorist,’ said the man. ‘I don’t know what the fuck is going on here, but I’m not with them. They were holding me …’ One of the guards walked up behind the man and slammed the stock of his carbine against his head. The man slumped to the ground. ‘Anyone else have anything to say?’ asked Van der Sandt.

  One of the men looked up. It was the only white guy in the group. ‘I didn’t kill your family,’ he said. ‘I was there but I swear that I didn’t harm your family. I didn’t shoot any kids.’

  Van der Sandt walked over to him, his steps echoing around the hangar. He stopped in front of the man. ‘You’re white – what are you doing with these animals?’

  ‘I’m a Muslim,’ said the man. ‘I’m fighting for my religion. But I swear I did not harm your family.’

  ‘So you’re a convert? You became a Muslim? By choice?’

  The man nodded cautiously.

  ‘What are you, fucking retarded? Do you actually believe that there’s a god who doesn’t want you to eat bacon? Who thinks that paedophilia is okay and that gays should be thrown off roofs? You had the choice and that’s the religion you chose?’ The man opened his mouth to reply but Van der Sandt silenced him with a shake of his head. ‘You think I care who actually pulled the trigger?’ said Van der Sandt. ‘You’re all scum and you all deserve what’s coming to you. But you, my little white friend, you I am going to take particular pleasure in killing. You weren’t born into this savagery, you chose it; you embraced it. You’ve got nobody to blame but yourself.’ He turned to Bell. ‘Colonel, if you would be so good as to put them on the helicopter and take them to the drop zone.’

  Bell waved at his men to round up the captives. ‘Let’s get this show on the road!’ he shouted.

  CHAPTER 20

  When Raj came round he was sitting in one of the helicopters again. His neck was burning and it hurt when he breathed. The thudding of the rotors and the roar of the turbine was loud but far from deafening. This time he was sitting on the starboard side of a row of three seats. Next to him was Sal and on the other side of Sal was Mo. They were both staring fearfully out of the window. The helicopter was flying just above the trees, the leaves rippling below like the waves of a green sea.

  Judging from what Raj could see inside the helicopter, it looked like an Airbus H175. He twisted around. There were three armed men sitting on the back row. One of them prodded him with a taser. ‘Eyes front or I’ll zap you again.’ Raj did as he was told. The rear-facing seats at the front were occupied by three of the men in fatigues. The one on the starboard side was grey-haired and older than the rest. His right hand had been replaced by a steel hook. Raj figured he was the guy in charge. Raj got eye contact with the man but there was a coldness to his stare that made it clear there was no point in saying anything to him. The two men sitting with him were cradling their Heckler & Koch sub-machine guns.

  The four seats in the row in front of Raj were occupied by Erol, Sid, Jaffar and Abdullah. In front of them were three more men in fatigues, facing forward. So nine of them, all armed. Raj looked down at his ziptied wrists. He had nothing. They’d taken his watch so he had no idea of the time, and he had no shoes. All he had were the clothes Sid had given him at the camp. The leg shackles had been removed but even if his wrists weren’t bound he couldn’t take on nine armed men.

  The trees below flashed by. The sky was a cloudless blue. Raj couldn’t see the sun out of either side of the helicopter, which suggested it was high overhead. That meant it must be somewhere between eleven o’clock and three o’clock. He looked down at the trees below, trying to work out where in the world they were. Europe, maybe. North America, perhaps. Not Asia, he was sure of that. Probably not South America. Most of the trees looked evergreen. Firs and cedars. But he wasn’t an expert.

  Sal caught his eye. ‘What are they going to do with us?’ he whispered.

  ‘You heard what that guy …’

  ‘No talking!’ shouted one of the men behind Raj and he felt the metal prongs of a taser press against his neck. He flinched but there was no searing pain, just pressure. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said.

  Raj’s mind raced. The man in the mansion had talked about hunting them and clearly it wasn’t an idle threat. At some point they were going to be dropped into the forest and he’d come after them. One man with a gun against seven unarmed men, hungry and thirsty and dressed for the desert. It wasn’t going to be a fair fight, but then fairness seemed to be the last thing on the man’s mind. If Raj was going to stand any chance of surviving this he was going to need a weapon, but he doubted that they planned to give him one.

  The engine noise changed and the helicopter slowed. Raj peered through the window. Ahead of them was a clearing, a couple of hundred feet across. The helicopter approached the clearing and slowly descended. Raj assumed they were going to land, but once the helicopter was about ten feet above the grass, it went into a hover. The men in fatigues undid their harnesses. The one nearest the door let his carbine swing on its strap and he used both hands to slide the door back. The noise from the engine was deafening with the door open. The grey-haired man pointed at Erol with his steel hook. Then pointed at the open door. ‘Out!’ he shouted.

  ‘Fuck that!’ shouted Erol.

  ‘Out!’ shouted the grey-haired man, and when Erol shook his head one of the men took out his taser, leant forward and thrust it against Erol’s chest. Erol went into spasm as the man continued to press the taser against his chest. The man put the taser back in its holster, undid Erol’s harness, and then manhandled him towards the door. With the help of the man who had opened the door, he tossed Erol out.

  The man with grey hair pointed at Sid. ‘Now you.’

  Sid stared at the open doorway. ‘Can you go down further?’ he shouted.

  The guy opposite reached for his taser. ‘Okay, Okay, I’ll jump,’ said Sid. He undid his harness, then held on to his seat as he edged closer to the open door. The grey-haired man drew back his right leg and pushed Sid out with his foot. Sid shot out of the helicopter, screaming and waving his arms frantically.

  Jaffar was next, followed by Abdullah. Both jumped out without saying anything.

  It was Mo’s turn next but he had frozen in his seat, his eyes wide and staring. When he ignored the grey-haired man, the man sitting behind him leant forward and tasered him in the neck. The man by the door went over and undid Mo’s harness and together with the grey-haired man carried him over to the doorway and threw him out.

  Sal undid his own harness and shuffled over to the door. He gave the finger to the grey-haired man, told him to fuck off, and jumped out of the door. Now only Raj was left. The grey-haired man pointed his hook at him. ‘Come on, we don’t have all fucking day.’

  Raj undid his harness and shuffled across the row of seats to the door.

  ‘Come on, come on, or do you want us to zap you?’ shouted the guy by the door.

  ‘It’s okay, I’ll jump,’ said Raj. He took a step towards the doorway and he looked out. They were now fifteen feet above the ground. Twenty maybe. He flashed the man by the doorway a worried look. ‘Can’t we go lower?’

  The man opened his mouth to speak but before he could say anything, Raj grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him out of the doorway. Raj kept a tight grip on the man’s shoulders as they fell, twisting his body so that the man stayed underneath him and bracing himself for the impact. They hit the ground hard but the man under him took most of the fall. Raj rolled off him and found himself staring up at the helicopter. The grey-haired man was looking down at them, shouting something, but his words were lost in the roar of the turbine.

  Raj sat up. The man he had pushed from the chopper seemed to be unconscious and his left leg was twisted at an unnatural angle, almost certainly broken. Raj grabbed at the man’s carbine, checked that the safety was off and in the single shot position, and then lay back and aimed it at the helicopter. He fired at the hatchway and the grey-haired man ducked away. There was very little recoil and Raj knew that the rounds wouldn’t do any real damage to the helicopter, but pilots never liked being shot at. He fired again, two single shots, and the helicopter banked to the left. Raj knew that he didn’t have long so he placed the gun on the ground and pulled off the man’s boots and socks. Then he took off the man’s belt. There was a transceiver in a holster on it. As Raj started to remove the man’s fatigues his eyes fluttered open. Raj punched him, hard, and the man went still.

  Raj heard a noise behind him and he turned to see Sid. ‘What the fuck did you do?’ asked Sid.

  ‘We’re going to need gear if we’re going to get through this,’ said Raj.

  Sid reached for the carbine but Raj grabbed it. ‘The Heckler’s mine,’ he said.

  ‘You’re just a medic.’

  Raj pointed the barrel at Sid’s chest and tightened his finger on the trigger. ‘It’s mine,’ he said. ‘I got it, I’m keeping it.’

  Sid raised his hands. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said. He gestured at the Glock in the man’s holster. ‘Can I have the handgun?’

  Raj nodded. ‘And strip off his vest. And shirt. We need everything we can get.’

  Sid pulled the Glock from its holster and stuck it in the waistband of his pants.

  There was a survival knife in a sheath on the man’s right leg and Raj undid the straps and took it.

  Abdullah came over and undid the vest and pulled it off. He put it on over his shirt.

  Sal grabbed the transceiver and hurried away with it.

  As Sid began unbuttoning the unconscious man’s fatigues, Raj heard the roar of the helicopter’s turbine and he looked up to see it heading back towards him. There was a man leaning out of the door with a carbine. Raj grabbed his gun, shouldered it and fired two quick shots at the doorway. The man pulled back and the helicopter flashed overhead. Abdullah and Sal ran off to hide in the trees.

  Raj put the gun back on the ground and helped Sid strip off the man’s fatigues. He unclipped the man’s watch, a black Casio G-Shock, and put it on his own wrist. Erol was sitting up, groaning. Mo was about twenty feet away, lying on his side. His chest was moving so he was still alive, albeit stunned.

  Raj took the fatigues from Sid. ‘Sid, see if you can get Mo up. We need to get away from here.’

  Sid rushed over to the injured man.

  Raj pulled on the socks and the boots. They were loose but he could wear them. He tied the knife scabbard to his leg. The helicopter was banking overhead, preparing to head back in his direction.

  He stood up, threw the fatigues over his shoulder and ran over to Erol, the Heckler in his right hand. ‘You okay?’ he asked.

  Erol frowned. ‘I think so.’

  ‘Nothing broken?’

  Erol shook his head and Raj helped him to his feet. Erol put his weight on his right foot and yelped in pain.

  Sid had thrown Mo over his shoulder. ‘Come on, we need to get into cover,’ said Raj. He headed into the trees with Erol. Sid followed.

  The helicopter banked overhead and bullets ripped across the clearing, tearing through the vegetation and kicking up divots of earth.

  Erol was limping badly and had to lean on Raj with most of his weight. Jaffar came over and helped Raj with Erol. Together they got him out of the clearing. Jaffar stared up at the helicopter. ‘Motherfuckers!’ he shouted.

  ‘They just want us away from their guy,’ said Raj. ‘We’ll be okay here.’ He set Erol down on the ground. Sid had propped the unconscious Mo up against a tree and was staring up at the helicopter. He pulled the Glock from the waistband of his trousers. ‘Don’t bother, Sid!’ shouted Raj. ‘The rounds will just bounce off it.’

  Sid nodded and put away the gun.

  CHAPTER 21

  Colonel Bell tapped the pilot on the shoulder with his steel claw. ‘Pull around and get ready to land on the south side of the clearing,’ he said.

  ‘Roger that,’ said the pilot, and he put the helicopter into a right-hand turn. The treetops flashed below them.

  Bell turned back to address his team. ‘Right, we’re going to land and retrieve Nick. We’ll do a fly-by at low speed and I need Barry, Chris and Charlie to bail out and move across the clearing to the north to establish a perimeter. The only firepower they have is Nick’s Heckler and his Glock, and if they have any sense they’ll be running and not looking back.’

  Barry, Chris and Charlie nodded. They were all Delta Force veterans who had worked with the Colonel in trouble spots around the world for the last five years.

  ‘As soon as the clearing is secure we’ll land near Nick and retrieve him, then you three return to the heli and we’re out of there.’ Barry opened his mouth to speak but Bell beat him to it and silenced him with a wave of his claw. ‘This is not a search and destroy mission, our client wants those men alive so lay down covering fire but that’s as far as it goes.’

  Barry tightened his grip on his carbine. ‘Roger that, sir.’

  The helicopter pulled a tight turn, then swooped down to the south side of the clearing. The pilot hovered a few feet above the ground and Bell shouted for the men to go. Barry, Chris and Charlie jumped down and immediately fanned out, firing short bursts towards the trees.

  The pilot took the helicopter up and headed south. Bell peered out of the open doorway and saw the three men moving determinedly across the clearing. From the look of it they weren’t taking any return fire.

  He could see Nick, lying on the ground. He’d been stripped down to his boxer shorts. Bell couldn’t see any blood, but the man wasn’t moving.

  He heard the cracks of the Hecklers as the three men continued to move, fanning out so they were now more than thirty feet apart. He tapped the pilot on the shoulder. ‘Down we go!’ he shouted.

  The pilot put the helicopter in a sharp turn, then he approached the clearing from the west, into what little wind there was. He put the helicopter into a hover about twenty feet away from Nick. Bell jumped out and ran away from the helicopter, bent double at the waist even though there was plenty of clearance. Two more men followed him, carbines at the ready.

  The helicopter’s rotors continued to spin, kicking up dirt and grass. Bell knelt down besides Nick and grabbed his hand. ‘Nick, are you okay?’ he shouted.

  Nick squeezed his hand but didn’t answer.

  ‘We’re going to get you out of here, buddy,’ said Bell. Nick squeezed again. He was breathing shallowly, his chest barely moving, and he kept his eyes closed. There didn’t appear to be any bones protruding through the skin but there was no way of knowing what the internal damage was.

  ‘Let’s get him to the heli,’ said Bell.

  The two men let their carbines swing on their slings as they bent down and grabbed Nick’s feet and shoulders. Bell kept his Heckler at the ready as they carried Nick to the hovering helicopter. The pilot had taken the helicopter so low that its skids were just a few inches above the rocks.

  Barry, Chris and Charlie were continuing to fire sporadic bursts into the trees but there was still no returning fire. Bell took a quick look over his shoulder. The two men were lifting Nick into the helicopter and the men inside reached for him. Together they lowered him to the floor. One of them gave Bell the ‘okay’ sign.

  Chris and Charlie turned and ran back towards the helicopter, keeping low, as Barry laid down covering fire.

  Once Chris had covered twenty metres he looked and started shooting at the tree line as Barry turned and ran.

  For the next thirty seconds they took it in turns to lay down covering fire as they crossed the clearing. Bell waited for them by the door. Barry and Charlie climbed in and took their seats as Chris fired a final salvo into the trees. Then Chris climbed in and Bell followed him and the helicopter’s engine roared as it leapt into the air. The pilot banked to the left and headed south-east.

  CHAPTER 22

  Raj peered out from behind the tree and watched as the helicopter flew off. ‘Have they gone?’ asked Sal from behind him. He was standing next to Erol who was sitting with his back to the tree, his legs outstretched. They had moved further into the forest when the helicopter had landed, but all the covering fire had gone high, ripping through the upper branches.

  ‘Yeah, they picked up their injured guy and took him away,’ said Raj.

 

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