44
I hit my radio pressel again as I ran. ‘Mishy, Holly, Maryam, Fuzz, downstairs, follow on me!’
‘
They’re
here
?
’
‘They are. They are.’
The second-in-command coughed vomit through his hand and his pale moon face gazed at mine, shamefacedly. I racked the action on my AK and a cartridge flew. Shit.
Bang-Bang walked up behind me and gripped my shoulder and gave me an enquiring look. Ahead of us was an entrance to the main male prayer hall. Mishy and the crew ran up behind us and dropped into a loose line. Maryam checked the PKM’s belt feed. Pixie had joined us and mouthed ‘what?’ at me. I shook my head. Not thirty feet away and the hall was shuddering under the impact of bullets. Dust and splinters flew into the corridor.
Bang-Bang ran forward and threw the doors open and dropped and fired her carbine into the vortex on full auto.
The hall fired back in a blaze of bullets and debris.
The main male prayer hall was a flaming deafening hell. The crowds were screaming and scrabbling to escape, piling up against each other. The screams of the children rose like a chorus. Tracer zipped and ricocheted. I jumped up and ran forward, loosing off a blind wild burst. I caught a split-second glimpse of a man in a long dark coat aiming a PPSH. His face registered from the screen shots. Davey. A white burst of submachine gun fire drove us back into cover. ‘Jesus Christ, what are they doing?’
We dived behind the doors as the wood splintered outwards and Pixie dropped to the floor, smashed by multiple rounds. Bang-Bang waved at me and chopped the right hand signals and then pulled at Pixie’s bloodied prone body.
‘Holly. Pass me your makeup mirror!’
She rummaged and threw it across the doorway at me. ‘Sikhs and white guys. They’re shooting into the crowds.’ There was a colossal bang that shook the walls. ‘Grenades.’
‘Any ideas?’
‘We go up and over, and’ I chopped my hand, ‘flank ‘em from the other exit. C’mon. Hurry!’ I tripped over the mosque office guy’s body. He was grimacing into space with a jagged bullet hole in his head.
Bang-Bang slapped a new mag into her AK then checked her photocopy. ‘OK. Through the mens’ section. Follow me.’
We ran left, forward into the office section, through the opened door. And slipped on blood.
The stink of arterial blood hit my nostrils and I slipped and slid again. Bang-Bang grabbed my hand as we stepped over the corpses sprawled around the office and pulled me along. ‘Where are they? Get on the radio.’
Ahead were the second, splintered set of doors to the mens’ mosque area. ‘Three…two…’
We hit the doors. A storm of fire smacked and whooshed around us. We quickly made for cover and returned fire. To my left Fuzz turned, rattled off three quick shots round a pillar and ducked back. Maryam had dragged Pixie’s body with us into the office in a slick of blood. She was dead. A dead deadweight. I took her mags. From now it was a race to reload, and whoever won the race won the firefight. Whoever lost died.
A man in a long coat jumped up from behind a barricade of corpses he’d shot and made a break for the exit. He was carrying a screaming child as a hostage. Fuzz shot him in the back and he fell spastically onto the kid in a puff of dust and blood. ‘He’s still moving.’ She shot him again. He died. Fuzz adjusted her floppy hat and chopped her arm down towards the enemy. ‘Heads up, that’s Davey! Shoot!’
Everyone opened up on full auto around me.
Davey had a sick grin on his face as he walked through the hall and machine-gunned the crowd and they were battered away from him like fuck knew what. He looked like he was hopped-up on speed or something as our fire tracked around him.
And then his gun jammed. The grin died on his face. He looked down at the submachine gun and tried to rack the bolt back.
Bang-Bang stood. ‘It’s jammed! It’s jammed, go!’
She ran round the pillar and loosed a burst which took Davey in the jaw. It blew half his face off and he was slammed to the ground. He writhed and lay still. And a grenade rolled towards us from his dead fingers. It detonated with a shattering bang.
I checked my limbs were working. The dust was choking and I could hear a high-pitched ringing sound. Maryam was under a smashed table, her legs kicking. Bang-Bang scrabbled across the carpet, grabbed her mag harness with me and we pulled her back to our barricade
of corpses and wrecked furniture. Maryam flailed and smacked at the bolt of her AK. ‘What. Where. Fuckers.’
I gripped her face and checked her eyes for concussion. ‘Maryam! MARYAM! C’mon, get back in the fight.’
She blinked. ‘Yeah. Hooah.’ She shook her head and jumped up, rifle in the shoulder and let fly. ‘YOU-’ BRRRRAPPP ‘DOZY BRUMMIE SKREWDRIVER-LISTENING NAZI’ BRRRAAPPP ‘SLAGS!’
Rounds whacked and whined around us. She changed magazines. ‘DID I MISS YOU OUT?’
I pulled her back down as tracer zipped one foot above our heads. The windows behind us disintegrated into the street. Above us Bang-Bang jumped up, rattled off a mag, ejected it and slapped a new one in and gave the other side of the mosque the good news with short, controlled bursts. Flames and searing-hot cartridges spattered.
I got on the radio. ‘All callsigns, we are in the mens’ area and in the mix, do you copy.’
Behind me Maryam pulled out a butterfly knife and flicked it 360 degrees with an evil snipping sound.
We were blinking through the last round of incoming. Bang-Bang was wiping at a busted lip and a nick on her shoulder. Her arm was soaked dark with blood. ‘S’ok. Frags. I’ll live.’ She grinned through bloodied teeth and lit a cigarette, pulled on it and passed it to me. I took a drag.
A corpse came back to life and started moving next to us. One of the attackers. He was jabbering in some Eastern European language and hauling himself towards us through a pile of his own intestines and filth, like a snail. The guts didn’t look real, not even sausages. White sausages. His voice wound down. Russian? Polish? His hand grasped my left trainer. Bang-Bang shot him with a double-tap and he dropped to the carpet in a puff of dust. ‘No hablo.’
My headset bleeped. ‘
Riz
,
it’s
Sadie
.
There’s
another
wave
and
they’re
coming
through
the
... ’
‘
Shit
,
that
was
close
.
They’re
coming
through
the
main
junction
.
’
‘Well pin ‘em down Sadie! You’re it.’
‘
OK
.
Inshallah
.
Firing
.’
We sought proper cover and I switched ears. I’d gone deaf in one in spite of the earplugs. I pulled out my crumpled photocopy of the mosque floor plan and jabbed at it as we huddled round. ‘OK girls, listen in. At the moment we’re like lab rats rattling round the outside of a
massacre. We’ve got the perimeter covered, but we need to clear INTO the building. And when we get there and hit that start-line, we use the overmatch weapons.’
‘Hooah.’
They nodded. Below us, the mosque complex shuddered. I continued. ‘The only way we’re going to do that properly is through shock and speed. Divide it into sections and burn through those sections. Coordinate via radio. Smoke ‘em out, gun ‘em down. With me? We’re going up and over and into the womens’ section.’
They nodded again. Bang-Bang checked her ammo pouches. ‘Shit. Last two mags. OK, op order from me. Better start scavenging. Take the enemies mags or weapons.’
My radio bleeped. ‘
Sasha
for
Riz
.
Got
cameras
showing
X
-
Rays
regrouping
downstairs
.
Four
or
five
.
They’re
reloading
their
weapons
.
’
I hit the pressel. ‘Thanks Sasha. How you lot holding up?’
‘
OK
so
far
.
Gonna
go
down
and
wipe
them
out
over
.
’
‘No. Sasha, don’t-’
The radio went dead. Car alarms were honking uselessly outside. Bang-Bang took a quick glance through a window. ‘Where are all the cops that were outside?’
‘You know the Active Shooter guidelines, love. If it starts going kinetic, they have to fall back.’
‘So it’s just us?’
‘Yep. Again.’
She shrugged and checked her glasses. ‘By the way, drone sees an open fire exit on the eastern side. Might be a problem.’
Machine gun fire roared through the smoke and we ducked and scrabbled for kit and cover.
Suddenly Maryam took leave of her senses, flinging down her gun and boonie hat. ‘I’ll kill ‘em!’
Rounds exploded around us and the refugees screamed. We wrestled Maryam back under cover but she kicked us away and I grabbed her shirt. We blinked and spluttered in the cordite and dust. ‘Maryam, hold it. Let’s catch ‘em out. HOLD it.’ But it was no use. She broke free and went forward yelling curses and brandishing that butterfly knife. Mishy stood over me and let off a burst of green tracer which took out a row of bookshelves and a fire extinguisher. Her PKM jammed. ‘Stoppage!’
I leapt up to frantically work at un-kinking the belt. Incoming rounds flamed all around. Me and Mishy fell to the floor and I scrabbled at the linkeage. Got it. The belt was smoothed and working again. Bullets puffed plaster over our heads. Mishy nodded and jumped up and resumed firing the PKM, deafening us both with hellish flame.
I got Sadie on my headset. ‘Sadie. SADIE. What ya got?’
‘
Buncha
…
CRACK
,
dead
guys
in’t
road
.
CRACK
.
Wait
one
…
squad
MG
setting
up
at
junction
.
Engaging
.
CRACK
.
’
‘You OK?’
‘
Sure
.
Got
fifteen
so
far
.
MG
squad
is
…
wait
one
.
Down
.
La
ilaha
illa
l
-
Lah
,
Muhammadur
rasulu
l
-
Lah
.
CRACK
-
CRACK
.
Reloading
.
SNAP
.
Sixteen
.
’
I could hear screams. ‘Sadie who’s that?’
‘
Opposition
.
Looks
like
an
Infidel
.
I’m
shooting
chunks
off
him
in
scrap
yard
.
Can’t
say
he’s
happy
about
‘
bout
it
CRACK
CRACK’
‘Sadie come back.’
‘
Checking
.
Wait
one
.
Target
down
.
OK
stand
by
,
hold
fire
.
We’ve
got
Duckie
coming
in
on
exit
two
.
Unsighted
...
Jesus
.
I
nearly
shot
her
.
’
Maryam had taken cover behind a pillar three metres in front of us and was breathing heavily. She was holding that knife in her right hand and her fingers were flexing and unflexing on the grip. Her eyes were closed and her lips were moving. I knew what she was saying to herself. “Allahu Akhbar. Allahu Akhbar. Allahu…”
More rounds kicked round our position and the man I’d recognised stood and started walking purposefully down the hall towards us, his weapon in the aim. To his right, an Asian-looking guy got to a crouch and fired a PPSH, covering his approach. We dropped back under the white flame of the gun. There was a shriek. I checked with the mirror. The man had marched past Maryam and she’d stuck him in the eye with the knife and was now hacking at him like he was meat as rounds pocked around her, flinging up dust.