‘I don’t think we need to see any more,’ interrupts the President. Sagan nods and presses a switch in front of him. The images disappear from the screen. Silence falls in the room.
Todd raises his camera.
Snap.
Abbottabad, 0130 hours local time.
Joe’s heart hammered in his ribcage as he kept watch on the courtyard from the darkness of the pile of rubble. How the hell had they got themselves into this situation? What was going on with Ricky? How was Joe going to get them both out unseen?
Five minutes passed.
There were still six SEALs in the courtyard, kneeling in the firing position, clearly waiting to bring down anybody attempting to flee the building. They didn’t flinch when the front door of the house opened and a line of people emerged. They were women and children. Joe counted seven, all of them cuffed and blindfolded. Two SEALs followed, and they directed the captives to the right-hand side of the house before making them lie on the ground face down.
More movement at the doorway. Another two SEALs emerged. They were carrying a body bag, one man at either end. Joe had seen enough body bags in his time for it to be an unremarkable sight. Somehow, though, he couldn’t keep his eyes off this one. He knew he was watching the SEALs extract the corpse of the most wanted man in the world.
The two SEALs were about five metres out of the house when he saw yet more movement at the doorway. Another two appeared, carrying a second body bag. Both pairs of soldiers were moving with grim purpose across the courtyard. They stepped over the underwear-clad corpse four metres from Joe’s position, each body bag scraping over the dead man’s bloodied vest as the SEALs carried them past the pile of rubble – less than a metre from Joe’s position – through the demolished walls of the open-topped corridor and into the rubbish-burning area that doubled as an LZ.
The movement of the body bags was like a signal. US troops spilled out of the house. Two men were carrying crates – Joe assumed that these contained materials they were confiscating from the compound – and they were preceded by a tracker dog whose silhouette Joe had already seen. Joe recognized it immediately as a Malinois, a variety of Belgian shepherd – intelligent and highly aggressive – that the Regiment’s own dog handlers used as both sniffer and attack dogs. It was wearing a harness that suggested the troops had been intending to winch it down to the ground from the chopper, and had a small IR camera, the size and shape of a Smarties tube, fixed to its side. It scampered ahead of them, clearly unfazed by the noise and stopping only when it came to the dead body near Joe, which it sniffed, paying particular attention to the area around the bullet wound.
The dog looked up. With a sensation like cold ice sliding down his spine, Joe realized the animal was looking in his direction. It tilted its head and scampered over the body. Two seconds later it was inches from Joe’s hiding place, its wet nose worming its way into the crack in the wall. He could smell the rank stench of its breath.
The dog sniffed.
A low growl escaped its throat.
Joe’s hand moved slowly to the holster on his chest rig, his fingertips feeling for the Sig.
A harsh voice. American. ‘Cairo! Cairo!’
Joe saw a hand grab the dog’s collar and pull it away. Its handler came into view. The SEAL looked young, most likely no more than twenty. He had a lean face and pronounced cheekbones, but there was a small scar on his upper lip, which looked slightly out of shape – a harelip that had been fixed surgically, Joe reckoned. The soldier pulled Cairo out of Joe’s field of view, which meant he could see the whole courtyard again.
The six SEALs were standing but kept their weapons trained on the house while another eight soldiers started to extract, as did the two who were guarding the main security gate. Thirty seconds later the final six hurried from the courtyard. Joe could hear the undamaged Black Hawk returning to the ground, ready to lift them out.
Joe was drenched in sweat, and not just because of the heat. He remained absolutely still for thirty seconds after the last SEAL had passed by him. Only then did he creep out of his OP. Ricky was still hidden, fully obscured by the darkness, his back up against the concrete slab behind which he had secreted himself. Joe edged towards the opposite side of the corridor, and peered round the damaged wall. He squinted as the choppers’ lights blinded him, but he was able to make out the second of the two body bags being loaded into the unharmed Black Hawk. Three SEALs were running from the compromised chopper to the intact one; ten seconds later the LZ was deserted and the frequency of the helicopter’s engines became a little higher as it prepared to take off.
Joe’s stomach knotted. They were abandoning the second chopper. He knew what that meant. To leave a military asset on enemy territory was a no-no at the best of times. And when the asset in question was a stealth chopper, and the enemy was Al-Qaeda…
‘It’s going to blow, brudder.’
Ricky was standing half a metre behind him.
Joe grabbed his arm. ‘Fucking run…’
The two men were ten metres from the main gates through which they’d entered the compound when the undamaged chopper rose above the walls again; and they were only two metres away from the gates, alongside the body of the man Joe had killed outside the compound and which Ricky had dragged inside, when the explosions came: a succession of short, sharp detonations, followed by a single, much larger one that made the walls shake and threw Joe to the ground. He jumped up immediately to see Ricky already throwing himself at the gates, knocking up the latch with his M4 just as a shower of dust and shrapnel started to rain down all around them. They hurled themselves out of the compound as a twisted chunk of what was once a helicopter slammed into the meat of the fresh corpse; then both men covered their heads and ran across the narrow dirt road, out of range of the debris that was still showering down.
‘What the hell?’ Joe almost screamed.
But Ricky was looking back towards the compound. A bright orange glow was emanating from inside the walls where the downed chopper was burning. The second Black Hawk was already thirty metres in the air, and swerving in their direction. It thundered overhead and headed north-west, into the distance.
Ricky was refusing to catch Joe’s eye. ‘Let’s get back,’ he said tersely.
Without a word, they ran thirty metres back east along the road to their original OP, where the owner of the house was still tied up on the first floor, trying to breathe slowly as his body shook with fear. It didn’t take more than a minute for them to gather their things – the tripod and the optics – and don their robes once more. Ricky was heading for the door again; Joe had stopped stock still.
The two friends stared at each other.
‘What?’ Ricky demanded.
Joe didn’t answer. He strode over to their captive and ripped the tape from his nose, though he left him blindfolded, silenced and bound. Only then did he follow Ricky to the doorway.
‘You’re out of control, mucker.’
Five seconds of silence.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Ricky retorted, his chin jutting aggressively. ‘You gonna go squealing to the frickin’ ruperts?’ But his friend knew how insulting that suggestion was: Joe sneered at him.