He ran up towards the shed. The door was closed. It was a wooden door, not visibly reinforced in any way with a locking system. No need to blow it off and risk a close-range shrapnel wound from the round ricocheting off the door. He shut his eyes and prepared to enter.
He didn’t get the chance. When the voice came, it came from nowhere, as did its owner.
‘Drop your weapon!’
Sam’s body tensed up. His head was not turned towards his assailant and he knew that if he made any sudden movement, it would be fatal.
‘I don’t want to kill you,’ the voice hissed. ‘But I will if you don’t drop the gun.’
Sam’s body went hot then cold. He recognised the voice, of course. How could he not?
He lowered his gun, but didn’t drop it.
And then he spoke. Quietly. Hoarsely. But firmly and with one hand over his comms mike.
‘It’s me, Jacob,’ he said. ‘It’s Sam.’
ELEVEN
A pause. It seemed to go on for ever.
‘Drop the fucking weapon,’ Jacob hissed. He nudged the butt of the handgun against Sam’s arm.
Slowly, Sam bent down and placed the Diemaco on the floor. He straightened up and removed the NV goggles from his face.
It took a moment for his natural night vision to adjust to the darkness as he turned round to face his assailant. A moment for his brother’s features to emerge from the blackness like a Polaroid slowly developing. He wore a scraggly beard and looked older. Leaner. Nothing could disguise those eyes, however – those dark, intense eyes that seemed to look right through you. He wore rough combat trousers, a pale T-shirt and a sturdy khaki jacket. His feet were clad in black leather boots.
‘Sam?’ his brother hissed incredulously. ‘What the hell…?’
‘You have to get out of here,’ Sam interrupted him. ‘Now, Jacob. There’s six other Regiment guys with me and we’ve got orders to kill everybody here. You included. Jacob, you have to go.’
No movement. Mac’s voice over the comms: ‘Sam, where are you?’
‘They’re going to come to find out what’s happened to me any second.’
His brother’s eyes were confused. Jacob stared hard at Sam, almost as though he hadn’t heard what his younger brother was saying.
‘Jacob!’
Jacob blinked, then looked around. He nodded and stepped back as Sam bent down to retrieve his gun. The two brothers looked at each other again. And then Jacob spoke. His voice was low.
‘They’ll tell you things, Sam,’ he said cryptically as he took a couple more steps back, retreating further into the inky night. ‘Things about me. Don’t forget that you’re my brother. Don’t believe them.’
‘What are you doing here, J.?’ Sam asked, words suddenly tumbling out despite the urgent need for his brother to get away quickly. ‘What’s going on? What are you doing with these people?’
The expression on Jacob’s face didn’t change. ‘Don’t let them trick you, Sam,’ he whispered. ‘It’s what they’re good at.’ Sam felt a sudden pang of loss. He was forcing Jacob away, but all he really wanted was to be with his brother. ‘Things aren’t what they seem, Sam,’ Jacob pressed. ‘I swear to you they’re not what they seem.’
And in an instant, disappearing as swiftly as he had appeared, Jacob’s dark features melted away into the night. Sam heard the heavy sound of his brother’s footsteps running away, westwards into the forest.
‘Sam!’ It was Mac’s voice on the comms. ‘Where the hell are you?’
Sam felt himself churning up, but he couldn’t allow himself the luxury of hesitation. He quickly pulled his NV goggles on, trying to readjust his mind to the job in hand. His brother had escaped; now he needed to make sure that nobody else did. ‘Job done,’ he replied. ‘I’m on my way back now.’
He hurried round the corner and emerged into the courtyard. The rest of them had advanced. Tyler and Cullen stood on either side of the door to the westernmost building. The others had also taken up their positions, two men to each of the other buildings. Cullen gave him a thumbs-up.
‘Mac? Do you copy?’ he spoke into the comms.
‘Roger that.’
‘We’re ready.’
A pause. The bloodbath was about to begin.
‘Go!’ Mac instructed.
Cullen held up three fingers. Two fingers. One finger. With all his force he kicked the door in and instantly they were inside.
The door itself was situated halfway along the building. It opened on to one long room, a dormitory of some description. There were eight beds, all positioned against one wall. By each bed was a low locker, a chair and very little else. The place had the bare, austere feeling of an army barracks. Sam indicated with a quick point of his finger that Cullen and Tyler should take the right-hand side, while he took the left. They split up and went about their work.
There was movement in the dormitory. Nothing much – just a few bodies drowsily stirring. Through the NV goggles, Sam could see a couple of the occupants sitting up in their simple beds, staring blindly into the darkness and groping sleepily. These were the targets he’d have to eliminate first, before they had the chance to start a panic. Sam raised his Diemaco and aimed directly at the head of one of the sluggish figures.
As he prepared to squeeze the trigger, however, an image flashed cross his mind. It was Clare Corbett, sitting at her kitchen table, her face stained with tears of terror as she recounted what she knew. The red-light runners. These young men, targeted and groomed by MI5.
Sam set his jaw. He wasn’t paid to think about the rights and wrongs of his orders. He was just paid to carry them out. What was more, if he was to cover his tracks, he had to do so without hesitation. Already he had heard the thump from Cullen’s weapon as he eliminated one of the targets.
He fired. The round slammed straight into his target’s neck. The young man was thrown back against the wall, by the force of the round. The bullet exited, tearing a huge hole in the flesh through which a neat, sickly pool of blood slowly poured out. He had slipped to the floor and was on his way over to the dark side. By that time, however, Sam’s sights were elsewhere. He strode down the room without moving his weapon from the firing position. His second target was also sitting upright before the round hit. Not for long. Numbers three and four were just lying there, asleep. They would never have known what hit them.
He turned and looked at Cullen who was already striding towards the door. ‘Then there were none,’ he announced into the comms.
Mac’s voice came crackling back. ‘And the same here,’ he stated grimly. ‘Job done, gentlemen. Let’s do the housekeeping and get the hell out of here.’
The unit retraced their footsteps around that silent training camp, checking that the targets were indeed dead – Sigs in hand in case they needed to administer a final, fatal headshot. They went about their work in a kind of grim silence – not out of respect for the guys they had just killed, but out of professional efficiency and because now that the operation was nearing its end, the reality of Craven’s death was beginning to sink in. It had happened so quickly. So randomly. It could easily have been any of them. It just happened to be Jack Craven who would be returning home in a body bag. It just happened to be his family who would be mourning their loss with scant knowledge about the circumstances of his death. Part of Sam thought, Fuck it, there’s no room for sentimental bullshit here. People died on ops. They all knew that. They all knew the risk. That didn’t make it any easier, though.
Despite all this, Sam couldn’t help feeling a faint surge of exhilaration. Jacob had escaped. He’d done what he came here to do. Nobody spoke as they briskly conducted their business, other than to give or acknowledge instructions. Certainly they didn’t discuss who had been waiting for them, or why. They just knew they had to get out quickly.