“What next, boss?”
“I just want to have a further look along the line of the vehicles. Then we’ll head back for that brew.”
“And get this bloody mask off.”
They walked further north, along the hard shoulder, the cars shunted up against the central reservation blocking all other routes. Some vehicles had been compressed hard up against the next car in line. Many were overturned lying on their sides; others had been flipped upside down, their shells mangled. The two soldiers walked past an upside down Mini Cooper and a Luton van on its side, rear doors split open with the contents — mattresses, bedding, chairs, suitcases, much of it burnt — strewn over the other transport nearby. Some the suitcases had been torn open. Not from the blast, surmised Glen, but later, by some other means.
“We may not be on our own, so keep your eyes peeled,” Glen’s muffled voice warned Rolly.
“Yeah, looks like the dust has been disturbed. Maybe in the last couple of days?”
“Or less. See the fuel caps?”
“I do now. Someone’s been bleeding the tanks.”
At least a dozen vehicles could be seen in the immediate vicinity without their petrol tank caps on. They had been left dangling from the filler tube of the car or van, or torn off and dropped nearby.
“Cover me.” Glen dropped down next to a Ford Focus, sniffing at the petrol cap opening, but, apart from a whiff of stale fuel, he sensed the tank was empty, sucked dry by its owners or by looters to satisfy their own demands for petrol. As he rose up from his crouching position, he got another smell, less pleasant than that of fueclass="underline" the smell of death. Looking through the window of the car, the driver, or what was left of his decomposing body, was slumped over the gearstick, no doubt knocked unconscious when the hurricane-like blast wave struck. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen death by a long shot, but this was different somehow, more ominous. He was sure that there were many millions of dead bodies out there, across the country, rotting as this one was in the car. Glen moved away, raising his left arm and signalling Rolly to go left, which he did, finding a gap between a Ford Transit and a 3 Series Saab. He stepped back over the central reservation barriers, a ten-metre gap in between them, and turned right, tracking Glen on the opposite side, but keeping ten metres back. In places, the gap between the cars on the southbound carriageway narrowed considerably, where larger vehicles such as HGVs had been hammered by the blast wave, forcing them to strike other vehicles, like balls on a pool table. It wasn’t easy keeping track of Glen as he often vanished from sight, disappearing behind stacked vehicles or something large like a coach. Glen came into view again, signalling with his arm before dropping down, triggering Rolly to respond likewise.
Something had caught Glen’s peripheral vision. Something fleeting, but enough for his trained eye and subconscious mind, sifting the data, for Glen to react, signalling with his arm, then dropping down, halting them both. He had just saved his friend’s life.
A chain of events was set off: Rolly dropping down to a crouch behind a Vauxhall, wary of what Glen might have observed; the woman over anticipating the kickback from the shotgun and pulling the weapon up a fraction of a second before she fired; and the soldier’s quick movements putting her off her aim, ensuring that the pellets flew harmlessly over Rolly’s head. Glen responded in an instant, firing towards the gun flashes. Two bullets struck the individual. Her body, swaddled in a thick coat and layer upon layer of clothing beneath, was thrown back over the bonnet of an Audi A6. She was dying as she slid down onto the tarmac. One bullet had shattered her shoulder, but the fatal first bullet had punched a hole straight through her chest.
Then all hell broke loose. A high-velocity round punched a hole straight through the door of a flipped-over Vauxhall and through the opposite door, passing less than a metre from Rolly. A second shotgun opened up. Glen felt the pellets peppering his small rucksack as they ricocheted off the bonnet of a Volvo lying on its side. However, they caused no injury: the range was too great, and the vehicle absorbed most of the pellets’ velocity. Another high-velocity round, this time aimed at Glen, dug its way into the engine block of the Volvo.
“Damn,” Glen cursed to himself. “We should have had comms.”
But they didn’t. That meant he couldn’t communicate with Rolly, not easily without warning their ambushers, and he couldn’t guide Plato and Greg in, who he knew would be hotfooting it to their location by now. But what he did know, and so would Rolly, was that their two comrades would not come onto the motorway, and risk getting caught up in the crossfire. They would try and position themselves alongside the enemy, and would make sure they didn’t place themselves in Glen’s and Rolly’s lines of fire.
Glen quickly raised his body, and fired a double tap in the direction of the incoming fire before dropping down again. Time to move forward, he thought, knowing the exact same thoughts would be running through Rolly’s mind. He heard two rounds fired to his left, and immediately did the same. Rolly then fired four shots, giving Glen a message that he was in a bad position and would be best providing cover. Glen fired a further two shots confirming he understood. Five seconds, and he would need to move. They had wasted enough time as it was, and whoever was firing at them would have them tagged by now.
Four shots in quick succession from Rolly, and Glen was up. He put two shots into a location where he had seen movement earlier, then darted forward about ten metres before finding cover and taking stock at the same time. He pumped a further four rounds towards the enemy, eyes would be on him now. He heard a satisfied squeal as Rolly skirmished forward, firing and hitting one of their ambushers. Glen was up again, but quickly hit the deck as a hail of gunfire ensued, rounds zipping past him. He made a quick assessment of the firepower they were up against: two automatic pistols, pretty useless at the range they were firing at, two shotguns, a hunting rifle, and something more sinister — a semi-automatic weapon, a British Army SA80 by the sound of it.
Recognising Glen’s situation, Rolly was up again, moving forward, peppering the likely area of the enemy with half a dozen well-placed rounds. Glen didn’t waste any time either, and also scrambled up, weaving around an old Suzuki pickup truck and a Clio before firing four shots in the general direction of the enemy force. Then, spotting a figure on the move, he pumped two more rounds, the first taking a middle-aged man in the shoulder, spinning him around so that the second shot bore into his back, exiting the other side. The man tumbled forwards as two more rounds struck the area around him.
Rolly had set the momentum now, and Glen had no intention of letting him down. A fresh magazine and he was up and racing forward. Two more shots fired, and a long burst from Rolly, enabled Glen to keep moving forward. The dull clang of bullets punching holes in the car bodies followed by the sharp cracks of the automatic weapons as their rate of fire increased as the two SAS soldiers upped the pressure. Their attackers suddenly broke. At least half a dozen figures were up on their feet, blankets flapping around their shoulders as they raced to escape the now incessant rate of fire as the two SAS men’s bullets sliced through them. Fire came from the left as Greg and Plato added to the rain of lead peppering the escaping group.
There was a sudden shout: “Stop, please stop.”
Another voice joined in as a man threw down his hunting rifle. “We give in, we give in.”
Within minutes, the four SAS troopers had disarmed the assailants, covered their arcs, and waited until satisfied that the immediate threat was over. Greg was the first to rise and move inward, the other three shifting position to fill the gap. There were eleven people in total. You couldn’t distinguish male from female such was the bulk of clothing worn. All were in a huddle, in a semi-circle, up against an overturned HGV trailer unit. Glen sucked in air, needing to fill his lungs, the sides of his mask concave as he tried to pull in more air than the filter would allow. The masks would eventually clog up with dust, and the few filters they had left wouldn’t last forever.