He heard the bolts slide back, then more gunfire upstairs. He let the wire swing loose from his wrist.
The door flew back and Mitchell put up a hand to stop it. One of the kidnappers stepped into the room, his Kalashnikov at waist level. Mitchell kicked out at the weapon, knocking away the barrel. It went off and bullets hammered into the far wall, the shots deafening in the confined space. He stepped forward and threw the wire round the man’s neck, caught the free end and pulled it tight. The Kalashnikov went off again and two shots smacked into the ceiling. Mitchell pulled back on the wire and the man lost his balance. He looped the wire round the man’s neck again, then stepped back, pulling it taut. The man twisted, trying to point the weapon at Mitchell, but the wire bit tighter into his throat.
A second figure appeared. It was Wafeeq, holding a Kalashnikov. He pointed it at Mitchell, but before he could fire Mitchell kicked at the door, which slammed shut. The man he was strangling tried to slam the butt of his Kalashnikov against Mitchell’s knee but he moved backwards to avoid the blow.
The door slammed open again. Wafeeq was screaming in Arabic as he pulled the trigger.
Shepherd hurtled down the stairs. There was a doorway to the right and as he reached the bottom of the stairs he heard Wafeeq shouting. He brought up his Glock with both hands as Wafeeq’s Kalashnikov fired a quick burst and the air was filled with the tang of cordite. The door to the basement room was half shut and Shepherd couldn’t see inside so he ran forward and kicked the door open.
Mitchell was in a corner behind an Arab whose torso was peppered with bloody holes. As the door flew open the dead man’s Kalashnikov clattered to the ground.
Wafeeq was standing in the middle of the room, still screaming.
‘Wafeeq!’ yelled Shepherd.
Wafeeq turned and Shepherd fired. The shot missed the back of Wafeeq’s skull by an inch and thwacked into the wall. Wafeeq’s finger tightened on the trigger and Shepherd dropped into a crouch and fired again, hitting him in the shoulder. Wafeeq staggered back. Mitchell dropped the man he was holding, rushed forward and kicked Wafeeq in the small of the back. Wafeeq staggered forward, Shepherd slammed the Glock against his temple and he slumped to the ground without a sound.
Mitchell stood where he was, panting. ‘Bugger me, what took you so long?’ he gasped.
‘You weren’t easy to find,’ said Shepherd. ‘Are you okay?’
Mitchell rubbed his hand down his face. ‘I thought it was all over, Spider.’
‘Yeah,’ said Shepherd. ‘I know how you feel.’
‘The Major’s outside?’
‘Yeah. And the guys.’
‘Thanks.’
Shepherd grinned. ‘Don’t get all sentimental on me, Geordie.’ Mitchell gripped him in a bear hug, and Shepherd hugged him back, hard.
The Sniper pressed his eye into the scope’s cup. All he saw was black until his eye was in the correct position, then through the scope he found the target. An American soldier. Superimposed on the soldier was the sight’s reticule. A curved line was marked from one hundred metres to one thousand metres. All the Sniper had to do was aim his rifle so that in the scope the soldier’s feet were at the bottom of the range-finder. The number closest to the target’s head was the distance away in metres. The manufacturer had calibrated the sight for the average height of a Russian soldier back in the early sixties when the rifle was first manufactured, a shade under five feet eight inches. The Sniper knew that the average American soldier was substantially bigger than his Cold War Russian counterpart. Americans were brought up on full-fat milk and fast food diets and most were a good six inches taller than the height for which the scope had been calibrated. It was an easy adjustment to make.
The one-thousand metre line was optimistic, the Sniper knew. The Russians liked to claim that their snipers could hit a man with a Dragunov at a thousand metres, but the Sniper preferred never to work above five hundred. Six hundred on a windless day, perhaps.
He moved the sight slowly down the soldier’s body, and frowned as he reached the man’s feet. He wasn’t wearing army boots: he was wearing brown shoes with tassels. The Sniper had never seen a soldier in footwear like that. He raised the sight again and focused on the man’s face. It didn’t matter what sort of shoes he was wearing. All that mattered was that he was an American soldier and that he would soon be dead.
He forced himself to relax as he stared through the scope. The soldier was four hundred metres away. The wind was negligible and it would be an easy shot. But he had to wait until the helicopters had left.
Yokely watched the marines pile into the house. No shots had been fired for several seconds and from inside he heard shouts of ‘Clear!’ as they moved through the rooms.
‘I should be in there,’ said the Major.
‘It’s a military operation. We’d be in the way,’ said Yokely.
‘They were happy enough for Spider to go in,’ said O’Brien.
‘They needed the diversion,’ said Yokely. ‘Anyway, all’s well that ends well, yeah?’
‘You can say that when Spider and Geordie are out here in one piece,’ said O’Brien.
‘Speak of the devil,’ said Yokely. Two big marines led the pair out of the house. Yokely grinned. ‘They look fine.’
The Major and Yokely went towards them. One of the marines was a captain. ‘Everything okay in there?’ Yokely asked.
‘Four dead,’ said the captain. ‘No casualties on our side.’
‘Excellent,’ said Yokely. ‘Wafeeq?’
‘We’ve a medic working on him now.’ The captain gestured at Spider. ‘He shot him in the shoulder.’
‘He’s okay, though?’
‘His injury isn’t life-threatening,’ said the captain.
‘We’re fine, too. Thanks for asking,’ said Shepherd.
‘I can see that,’ said Yokely. He called up the lead Blackhawk helicopter on his transceiver. ‘Thanks, guys, we can take it from here,’ he said.
‘Roger that,’ said the pilot.
The two helicopters banked and flew south, turbines screaming.
‘Are you okay, Geordie?’ asked the Major.
‘I will be after one of Martin’s fry-ups and a couple of pints.’
Yokely clipped his transceiver on his belt and nodded at him. ‘This is Richard Yokely,’ said the Major. ‘He arranged the heavy artillery for us.’
‘Thanks, Richard,’ said Mitchell.
‘All part of the service,’ said Yokely, with a grin, and saluted Mitchell.
The Sniper frowned as he saw the soldier salute the man in the orange jumpsuit, then realised the significance of what he’d seen. The man in the orange jumpsuit must be an officer. The Iraqis in the house had been keeping a high-ranking officer hostage and the Americans had rescued him.
The Sniper slowly moved the rifle until the head of the man in the orange jumpsuit was in the centre of his sights. He took a breath, slowly let out half, then squeezed the trigger.
The bullet hit the man in the side of the head. His knees buckled and he fell to the ground.
‘ Allahu Akbar,’ whispered the Sniper. A perfect shot.
‘What the hell just happened?’ shouted Simon Nichols, sitting bolt upright. He stared at the real-time video view of the Baghdad city block. The man in the orange jumpsuit was sprawled on the ground. Richard Yokely had dropped into a crouch, scanning the buildings round him. ‘Did Richard just shoot the guy? Is that what happened?’
‘Get a grip,’ said Will Slater. ‘There’s a sniper. Phillip, can you slow it down?’
‘I can drop a few knots but we’re close to stall speed,’ said Howell.
Slater toyed with a joystick and the view on the screen swung to the left. He pulled it back so that he could see more of the city and narrowed his eyes as he stared at the screen. ‘Check the infrared, Simon,’ he said.