False Friends (3 page)

Croft waved his men forward. ‘In we go,’ he said.

Henderson flinched at the sound of shots. ‘They’re taking fire,’ he said, ducking down into a crouch.

‘Al suppressed M4s,’ said Shepherd. ‘And they weren’t from the house.’

They came round the corner just in time to see Croft and his men burst through the front door.

Shepherd looked up at the upper levels of the building. Al the windows were in darkness. If the occupants had any intention of fighting back the best time would have been when the Seals moved into the compound. Then they’d have been firing from cover and with the advantage of the high ground. Now that the Seals were moving inside the advantage switched to the Americans. They were highly trained in close-quarter combat and the night-vision goggles gave them an extra edge.

Shepherd moved forward but Henderson held him back. ‘They go in first,’ said Henderson. ‘You’re an observer, remember?’

Seal Alpha moved through the hal way with his team, using their weapons to cover al the angles. They had spent hours practising clearing the mock-up house in Afghanistan, and the exercises had always included dealing with booby traps – tripwires, alarms and explosives. But the fact that there were children in the house suggested that it hadn’t been booby-trapped, which would make their life easier.

There was a metal cage around the staircase that led to the upper floors and the three-man demolition team hurried over to it and began attaching charges while the rest of the Seals cleared the ground floor. There were four rooms including a kitchen and a bathroom, a sitting room with an old-fashioned television and karaoke machine, a bedroom with single beds. The Seals were thorough, opening al the cupboards and overturning the mattresses.

When they were satisfied that the ground floor was clear they moved to the far end of the hal way while the demolition team finished attaching the explosive charges.

Shepherd walked up to the house with Henderson in tow. Behind them Henderson’s team fanned out, covering the upper floors of the house with their M4s. Shepherd stared down at the dead man and woman on the patio. Blood was stil pooling around the woman’s chest as she lay face down on the tiles. ‘We’re shooting women now, are we?’ he asked.

Henderson gestured at the AK-47 by the dead man’s feet. ‘What do you cal that?’

‘You’ve been around as long as I have, Guy,’ said Shepherd. ‘The only shots we’ve heard have been fired by suppressed M4s. No AK-47s have been fired.’

‘Maybe that’s because we got our defence in first.’

‘Yeah, wel , that doesn’t explain the woman. When did Seals start kil ing women?’

‘We can’t take any chances – under those baggy clothes she’s wearing she could be rigged up with a suicide vest.’

‘It’s a nightdress,’ said Shepherd scornful y. ‘It’s wel after midnight. They were in bed and they came out to see what was going on.’

‘With an AK-47?’

‘Guy, mate, you’re from Texas. I’m betting you’d have a gun in your hand if you heard noises in your garden late at night. We’ve just crashed a bloody helicopter in theirs.’

They heard two dul thuds from inside the house, smal explosive charges. Shepherd looked across at Guy, wondering if he’d been right about the suicide vest.

Henderson read his mind and shook his head. ‘That’s C4. Our guys are blowing the staircase cage.’

Shepherd nodded. ‘Let’s go,’ he said, and he headed inside. Henderson hurried after him.

Croft pul ed open the mangled mesh cage and led the charge up the stairs. As he got to the halfway point he saw a man peering round the corner at the top and he pul ed the trigger of his M4, sending a bul et smashing into the wal inches away from the man’s ear.

The man jerked back. Croft had recognised him from the photographs they’d studied back in the States. It was Bin Laden’s twenty-three-year-old son. He’d been seen in the compound most mornings lifting weights and doing push-ups.

Croft ran up the stairs just in time to see the man reach the end of the hal way. He fired again as the man turned but his shot went wide. Croft cursed, then he flinched as a gun went off behind him, two shots in quick succession. Seal Bravo. Both shots hit the man in the chest, just above the heart, and he fel backwards, hit a wal and then slid down it, his eyes wide and staring as blood spurted from the two wounds. He was one of four adult males that the Americans knew were living in the compound. Now three of them were dead.

The Seals piled up the stairs and began clearing the rooms. There were four, including a foul-smel ing bathroom. They found two women hiding under a double bed in one of the bedrooms and roughly patted them down for explosives before one of the Seals hurried them out and down the stairs. They screamed and cursed and spat at him every step of the way.

The stairway leading up to the top floor was caged too and the demolition team went to work, attaching charges to the metal frame.

Shepherd ducked as he heard the shots, then smiled rueful y as he realised that it was his instincts that had taken over. The gunfire was upstairs.

Then he heard rapid shouts and Arabic cursing and saw two middle-aged women being pushed down the stairs by one of the Seals. The women were both in their fifties, with weathered skin and bad teeth and hooked noses peppered with blackheads. Their faces were contorted with hatred and one of them spat at Shepherd as she went by, then screamed something at him in Arabic.

‘Nice,’ said Henderson. ‘Something about your mother.’

‘Hearts and minds,’ said Shepherd sarcastical y as he wiped away the phlegm with the back of his hand.

‘We tend to find shock and awe works better,’ said Henderson. ‘We don’t have time for please and thank you and tea and crumpets. And don’t think for one moment that those bitches wouldn’t blow you away in a heartbeat if they were the ones with the guns.’

They went up the stairs to where Croft was watching the demolition team attach their charges.

‘You guys get down the hal way,’ said Croft. ‘We’re just about to blow the cage.’

Henderson put a hand on Shepherd’s shoulder. ‘Come on, we need to get away from the charges.’ He pushed Shepherd down the hal way. They almost stumbled over the dead man lying there. Fresh blood glistened greenly through Shepherd’s goggles, a slightly darker green than the man’s T-shirt. Two black dots showed where the bul ets had struck home. Shepherd looked around the floor but there was no sign of a weapon.

He ducked involuntarily as the explosive charges went off.

The charges had wreaked havoc on the cage around the stairway, mangling the metal frame and twisting the hinges, but it was stil in place and blocking the stairs. Tommy and his number two on the demolition team grabbed it and pul ed hard. It came away from the wal and they dragged it into the hal way.

Croft led the charge up the final staircase. As his feet pounded on the concrete steps a door opened on the top floor. Croft caught a glimpse of a bearded man and then the door slammed shut.

He reached the top floor, hurried along to the bedroom door and paused for a second for the rest of his team to join him. He stepped to the side and Seal Delta kicked the door hard, just below the handle. The jamb splintered and the door crashed open.

Croft went in first, just as they’d rehearsed, bent forward to keep his centre of gravity low, his carbine sweeping the room. One step into the room then a quick shuffle to the right so that the next man had a clear view.

There were three targets in the room. There was a man standing by the bed. A craggy face with a long straggly beard. Two women, both wearing long cotton nightgowns.

The women began screaming in Arabic. The younger one took a step towards the Seals, her hands curved into claws, her face contorted with hatred. ‘
Neek Hallak!
’ she screamed. Croft knew enough Arabic to know that she was tel ing them to go fuck themselves.

The older woman stepped to the side, putting herself between the soldiers and the old man. Her husband. They were both his wives, and both would die to protect him.

Seal Charlie shouted at the younger woman. ‘Shut the fuck up, bitch!’

The woman continued to scream at the Americans in Arabic, shaking her fist, her eyes blazing. Then suddenly she charged at Seal Bravo, wailing like a banshee. Seal Bravo lowered his aim and shot the woman in the left calf. Her leg col apsed and she staggered against the wal , her screams of anger turning into howls of pain.

The older wife grabbed hold of the injured woman and she too began to curse. Seal Charlie let his weapon fal on its sling and he dashed forward, shoving the two women against the wal .

Croft brought his gun to bear on the man, who was stil standing next to the bed, a look of quiet serenity on his face. There was no fear, no anger, just blankness as if he couldn’t comprehend what was going on around him. Croft raised his weapon, his finger tightening on the trigger.

Off to his left, the injured woman had slumped to the floor, blood streaming from the wound in her leg, and the second woman was trying to stem the flow with her nightdress. Croft was barely aware of the women; he was total y focused on the man in front of him. Two more Seals moved into the room, their M4s sweeping left and right.

The man was stil raising his arms, and now he stood almost as if he was crucified, his palms open, fingers extended. His eyes stared blankly at the soldier and a smile slowly spread across his face. It was the smile of a man at peace with himself. Croft pul ed the trigger and a smal dark-green rose blossomed in the centre of the man’s chest and his whole body shuddered, and even before he began to fal Croft fired again, this time at the man’s face. The bul et blew away most of the man’s skul above the eyeline, splattering blood, brain and bone over the wal behind him. The target fel backwards on to the bed, his arms stil outstretched.

Three more Seals piled into the room. They began whooping when they saw the dead man on the bed. Croft clicked on his radio mic. ‘For God and country – Geronimo, Geronimo.’ His breath came in ragged gasps, the adrenaline stil coursing through his system. He took a deep breath to steady himself before clicking the mic again. ‘Geronimo EKIA.’

EKIA. Enemy kil ed in action. The most hunted man in the world was dead.

Croft turned to look at his col eagues and punched his fist in the air. ‘You do not fuck with Navy Seals!’ he shouted. ‘Who do you not fuck with?’

‘Navy Seals!’ they chorused, then began whooping and pumping the air with their fists.

Shepherd stood in the doorway, his Heckler & Koch cradled in his arms as he watched the Seals cheering and slapping each other on the back.

Henderson came up behind him and put a gloved hand on his shoulder. ‘We should go, Dan. It’s over.’

The woman who hadn’t been shot tried to get over to the dead man but Seal Bravo pushed her back down on the floor. ‘Stay where you are, bitch, or I’l shoot you too!’

‘Stand down!’ shouted Croft. ‘I want the place searched from top to bottom. We want computers, papers, photos . . . Anything that looks like intel we take. And let’s get his body into a bag.’ He saw Shepherd looking at him.

Shepherd took off his night-vision goggles. There were thin curtains over the windows and there was enough moonlight filtering in for him to see.

There was a big-screen television on a table in one corner of the room, along with a video recorder and a stack of tapes.

‘What’s your problem?’ asked Croft.

‘Dan, come on,’ said Henderson, trying to pul Shepherd out of the room. Shepherd shrugged off Henderson’s hand.

‘What the fuck did you do?’ shouted Shepherd.

Two Seals pushed by Shepherd and headed for a cupboard on which there was a laptop computer and a stack of DVDs. They knelt down and took off their backpacks.

Croft pushed his goggles to the top of his head. ‘What do you think happened?’ he growled at Shepherd.

‘I think you shot an unarmed man, that’s what I think.’

Croft pointed at an AK-47 leaning against the wal by the bed. ‘What do you cal that?’

‘I cal it murder. He didn’t make a move for the weapon and yet you double-tapped him.’

‘Yeah, wel , I wanted to make sure he was dead. That bastard was responsible for Nine-Eleven. He deserved what he got.’

Seal Delta appeared in the doorway, with Seal Echo close behind him. Seal Echo was holding a tube of rol ed-up white plastic. ‘Got the body bag,’ he said.

‘You and Pete put the body in it,’ said Croft. He nodded at Seal Delta. ‘Are they searching the rooms downstairs?’

‘We’re on it,’ said Seal Delta. ‘They’ve already found a stack of porn.’

‘Make sure they take it with us. We need to show what degenerates these bastards are,’ said Croft.

Seal Delta disappeared out of the doorway and thudded downstairs. Seal Echo and Seal Charlie went over to the bed and unrol ed the body bag.

Croft realised that Shepherd was stil staring at him. ‘What the fuck are you looking at?’ he said.

‘I’m here to observe, remember?’ said Shepherd. ‘That’s what I’m doing. Observing.’

‘Get back to the chopper,’ said Croft. He pointed at Henderson. ‘You’re supposed to keep him out of trouble, Guy, and at the moment you’re not doing a great job.’

‘This isn’t over,’ said Shepherd. ‘No one told me this was a kil mission. I was told that we were here to capture and remove for interrogation.’

‘Yeah, wel , maybe you weren’t in the loop,’ said Croft. ‘Now get back to the chopper. We’re leaving as soon as the body’s bagged.’

‘Who authorised you to kil him?’

Seal Bravo came up behind Shepherd. He elbowed Henderson out of the way and jabbed the barrel of his weapon against the side of Shepherd’s neck. ‘Do as he says and get the fuck out of here,’ he growled. ‘You won’t be the first Brit to get caught in friendly fire.’

Shepherd slowly turned to face Seal Bravo and stared at him with unblinking eyes. ‘If you want to pul the trigger then you go right ahead,’ he said.

‘But, just in case you’re wondering, that hard thing pressing against your leg isn’t my cock, it’s my Glock, and if you do shoot me my gun’s going to go off and blow away your nuts. To be honest, I’d rather be dead than live the rest of my life with no bal s, but maybe you’re okay with that.’