The barking grew louder. It was frenzied and Will tried to work out how many animals he could hear. Three? Maybe four? It was impossible to telclass="underline" the noise of their yelps seemed to merge into one great howl of fury. The more of them there were, the more difficult this was going to be. He would have to wait until they were close enough to see, but they would be fast-moving, unpredictable targets. He'd need to take them all out before they got close enough to attack.
Will stopped to give himself time to prepare. He turned round, hit the ground and lay on his front, ignoring the uncomfortable sensation of cold snow seeping through his clothes. He pressed the butt of his Diemaco hard into his shoulder, then surveyed the darkness, waiting for the first sign of the animals he could hear so clearly, but could not yet see.
The horrific noise of their barking grew even more frantic. It was as if they sensed they were close.
They emerged like ghosts from the darkness, silhouettes that seemed to dart around without coming any closer. Will knew they were coming closer, however. It was just a trick of the light. As if called to attention by that one thought, the moon suddenly emerged from behind the clouds and the ground was illuminated before him like a floodlit football pitch.
He only had a few seconds to take it all in. There were five of them, running as a pack. One dog strayed a few metres away from the others, but immediately rejoined them. It got too close to another of the animals, however, and was snipped and snarled at by its pack mate. It was obvious that they were hunting like this out of necessity, not unity. They were lean and vicious-looking, as if they had not been fed for many days; even from a distance Will could see a wildness in their eyes that chilled him.
These were mad dogs. They were hungry and they had caught the scent of food.
They were about thirty metres away and had not yet seen Will pressed down in the snow. That soon changed, however. As soon as they caught sight of their quarry, their snarling and yelping became hysterical. Their pace quickened as they bolted towards him. Twenty metres. Fifteen.
One of the dogs was out in front. The leader of the pack. It took all Will's self-control not to rush the shot. Fifteen metres was close range, but the target was moving unpredictably. He kept the gun trained accurately at the head of the beast and only when he was sure he was on target did he squeeze the trigger.
The bullet entered the dog's skull with a deadly silence.
As soon as it was hit, the dog raised up in the air. The animal's forward momentum, combined with the power of the bullet, caused it to flip a somersault on to its back, spraying blood from its exploding head across the surrounding snow and all over the rest of the pack. The remaining four dogs halted. They looked back at the fallen animal and, as if they had suddenly forgotten about Will, they turned on its corpse. Easy meat. As one, they started to rip into the flesh of their dead pack mate.
'That's right,' Will whispered as he watched the horrific scene with a crashing sense of relief. 'Get stuck in.'
He started to aim at a second dog. They might have been distracted, but he wasn't going to leave any of them alive. His eyes narrowed and he squeezed the trigger.
Click.
'Fuck,' Will whispered. The weapon had jammed. He tried to fire it again, then a third time, but no luck. It was as good as useless.
Gingerly, he started to push himself up. The dogs were thankfully distracted, but as he got to his feet, a fight broke out among them. Two of the animals, more dominant than the others, started to snap at their mates, warning them off from helping themselves. The two losers whimpered slightly, but they clearly understood the pecking order. Low growls rumbled in their throats; one of them allowed its tongue to loll lazily from the corner of its drooling mouth; and they turned to look at Will, who had no firepower now with which to stop them.
Then they fell silent.
Will swung the Diemaco over his head just as the two of them, in unison, started to bound towards him. Gripping the barrel of the gun firmly, he prepared to fight off these snarling animals using his weapon as a bludgeon. But their teeth were sharp and they were desperate. He knew his chances were slim.
It all happened in what seemed like a fraction of a second. The dog in front leapt at him, just as Will raised the gun over his shoulder like an axeman preparing to chop wood. The beast was so close he could smell it and he knew in that instant that without a working gun, he would be no match for the animals.
But just as he was beginning to swing the Diemaco, there was a loud bang from behind him and the dog fell to the ground, its head blown away. Will felt the animal's blood spatter over his face as, from behind him, a weapon cracked repeatedly through the night air, despatching the remaining three animals with pinpoint accuracy.
Will turned to see a familiar figure lower his Kalashnikov.
'Jesus Christ,' he breathed at Kennedy. 'Leave it a bit later next time, will you?'
Kennedy grinned. 'Didn't really think you'd need my help against a few Snoopies.'
'Fucking weapon jammed,' Will spat. 'I'll have something to say to the armourer when we get back home.'
'Yeah, speaking of which—' Kennedy peered into the darkness beyond the carnage of the dead dogs. 'They probably heard the sound of this fucking AK back in Hereford.'
'The Taliban won't be far behind,' Will agreed. 'How far ahead are Drew and the girl?'
'About a hundred metres. I only came back because I heard the sound of the dogs — figured they probably hadn't been let out just for a bit of fresh air and a run around. Did you find Ismail?'
Will nodded.
'You plug him?'
Will sniffed and looked back towards the village. 'He's dead,' he said, quietly. 'But it doesn't matter. We've still left a trail.'
'OK,' Kennedy said briskly. 'I don't think it's far to the truck now. Let's get moving.'
'Roger that,' Will said with relief and the two men started running through the snow, leaving the scene of their sudden and violent butchery behind them.
It only took a couple of minutes for them to catch up with Drew and Latifa. Drew was carrying her, but still moving surprisingly quickly. Will did his best not to look at the woman's face. Drew himself seemed neither surprised nor pleased to see them; he just spoke as if they'd never been away.
'I've found the tracks we made on the way in,' he stated. 'We're going in the right direction.'
'We need to up the pace,' Will told him. 'There's Taliban following. They're not waiting for us at the truck, but they won't be far behind.'
Drew nodded and silently they hurried on through the darkness.
It took about ten minutes to get to the truck. Snow had fallen, leaving a thick blanket over the chassis and drifting heavily against one side; it had even entered through the hole at the back where the rear door had been ripped off. Drew deposited Latifa in the back of the truck, where she sat gazing expressionlessly into space; then he stood back with the rest of them. 'We're going to have to dig it out,' he said.
Immediately they went to work on their hands and knees, shifting armfuls of snow out of the way so that the vehicle could move freely. Now that he had stopped running and without his snow suit, Will started to feel the cold all the more; his hands and feet were numb and he put more energy into digging to try and keep warm.
Soon they had dug the car out. Drew handed his Kalashnikov to Will, then took the wheel once more. Kennedy sat beside him in the front, his own gun pointing out of the passenger window back the way they'd come. Drew turned the ignition and their ears were filled with the thin, reedy sound of the engine trying, unsuccessfully, to turn over.
No one spoke. Drew tried again; again the engine coughed and spluttered before dissolving away into nothing. 'Battery must be cold,' he muttered. 'It's below freezing out there.'