Ultimate Weapon (47 page)

‘They think we’re coming in with the heavy stuff, the chances are they’ll kill Sarah,’ said Nick. ‘To have a chance of getting her, we have to get up so close we can smell their aftershave. Then catch them off guard.’

Jed looked up ahead. Rezo was leading the way, with the five Kurds following close behind in single file. They were like mountain goats: thin and wiry, they glided across the rocks and stones the way skaters move across the ice. This is their territory, he reflected. The trouble is, it’s Salek’s territory as well.
We’re fighting on foreign soil. Their soil
.

After two hours’ walking, they stopped. Rezo handed out some dried pitta bread and dates, and they drank from a mountain stream. The water tasted pure and fresh, melted from the snow, which, as they climbed higher and higher, was drawing closer all the time. ‘How far to the caves?’ said Jed, spitting out a date stone and looking towards Rezo.

‘Another hour,’ he replied.

He pointed to the east. They were already two thousand feet above the floor of the valley, tucked into a flat shelf of rocky ground that stretched for a half-mile in
front of them. Then the mountains started to rise in a series of steep ridges, before soaring up into the snow-covered peaks just beyond them. Where the steps started, Rezo explained, they would find the caves: a long, dark set of interlocking tunnels and spaces carved into the rock over hundreds of centuries.

They started walking again. It was getting chillier as they rose higher into the mountains, and even though Jed could feel himself starting to perspire from the climb, it was a cold sweat that was running down his spine. Nick was starting to slow down. Jed could tell that the wound in his leg was too bad for him to attempt a long mountain trek like this. For a brief moment, he considered telling him that he should wait for them back down in the village, that he was just going to slow down the march, and they’d have more chance of finding Sarah without him. But there was no point. You could no more keep a raging bull tethered to a matchstick than you could keep the old guy out of a fight to save his daughter. If they couldn’t find her, it would ruin what was left of him.
There is only so much punishment one man can take, and he’s reached his limit
.

‘You going to make it?’ he said, looking at Nick, and the way he was dragging the wounded leg behind him.

‘I’ll be fine.’

Jed noticed that his teeth were gritted, and there was sweat pouring off his face. As he glanced down, he could see fresh blood seeping from the wound, and staining the outside of his trousers.

It was just after ten in the morning by the time they
closed in on the entrance to the caves. The ground was rocky and barren, covered in a dusting of hard frost. The wild flowers and grasses of the valley couldn’t grow up here. Rezo called them to a halt, and pointed to a slit opening up in the rock in front of them. ‘Right there,’ he said. ‘That’s where the cave network starts.’

Jed looked into it. You could see the way the thick slabs of granite opened up, and a few feet of the tunnel were visible, but after that it was completely dark. They were equipped with AK-47s, and they still had some stun grenades in their kitbags, about a dozen in total. ‘How many men do you reckon are in there?’ said Jed.

‘A dozen,’ he said firmly. ‘We counted them as they went past. We like to know how many Iraqi bastards are on our land.’ He paused for a moment, exchanging a few words with his men in Kurdish. ‘They will have built their defences by now. The Republican Guard have fought in these tunnels before and they know their way around.’

‘We draw them out,’ said Nick. ‘Fight the bastards in the open. That’s our best chance.’

Jed glanced at Nick. ‘A diversion?’

Nick nodded. Scanning the area, he could see two cuts in the rock: one here, and another four hundred yards to their right, across a strip of barren rock. There was clear open ground between the two entrances. About twenty yards back from the second entrance there was a group of rocks, about ten feet high: natural cover for men contemplating an assault. He nodded towards Rezo. ‘You take your men over there, then lay down some
heavy machine-gun fire, and a few grenades. Make plenty of noise, but make sure you’re well dug in behind the rocks. Jed and I will stay right here. When the bastards come out to see what all the fuss is, we’ll open up. Let them have it right where they deserve it. In the back.’

Rezo nodded. A few more words were exchanged in Kurdish, then he looked back at Nick. ‘How many grenades do you have?’

‘A dozen.’

‘Then let us have six.’

Nick took the grenades from his kitbag, and handed them over. Rezo led his men across the four hundred yards to the second entrance. As they started to move carefully up to the open rock, Jed scanned the entrance to the caves. The opening was six feet high and twenty feet wide: you could drive a whole brigade into this mountain if you wanted to. There was no sign of any men, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any listening to them. An attack could come any minute. You had to be prepared.

‘Step back behind those rocks,’ said Nick to Laura.

‘I’m staying right here,’ she said defiantly.

‘You ever been in a firefight?’

Laura remained silent.

‘Just as I thought,’ said Nick. ‘You can do office warfare, but let me tell you, the real thing is different.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ hissed Laura.

Nick knelt down. He pushed his hand into the ground, bringing up a lump of cold moss with a few bits of earth attached to it. Below that, there was just
rock. ‘There’s nowhere up here to build a bloody grave,’ he snarled. ‘So unless you want the local rats chewing up your corpse, I suggest you move back.’

Slowly, Laura started to move away. She positioned herself behind a circular clump of rocks, looking out over the scene of the impending battle. Jed lay down on the cold ground, keeping his body as flat as possible. Nick was kneeling down next to him, tying a rough bandage around his wounded leg as he did so. He was finding it difficult to move. Specks of blood were dripping out into the moss where his wound had opened up, and from the strain on his face, Jed could tell he was burning up from the pain running through him. ‘You cover this entrance closer to us, I’ll fire on the men who go after Rezo and his mates,’ he hissed.

Jed nodded. He put the AK-47 into position, checked that the thirty-round magazine was slotted into place, and that he had a spare lying right next to him. Both he and Nick pulled some moss up around their faces and guns to obscure their position. Unless you were walking right into them, they shouldn’t be visible. ‘Ready,’ he said firmly.

Nick looked up towards where Rezo had taken up position. He was dug in behind a set of rocks, guns lined up in a row. With his right hand, Nick gave him a salute, and Rezo nodded in reply. There was a moment of silence in the mountains. Somewhere in the distance, Jed could hear some birds fluttering down the slopes, and he could feel the breeze whistling across the barren rock. In the next instant, his ears were exploding to the
raucous sound of gunfire. A barrage of heavy fire was spitting against the far entrance to the cave. Bullets were raging furiously into the air, cutting into the rock, hurling splinters everywhere. As they ricocheted, they were striking the ground, then flying upwards. The noise was echoing in a thousand different directions, so that if you closed your eyes, it seemed you were surrounded by guns. Jed looked into the hurricane, keeping himself steady on the ground, tracking the volleys of fire. One grenade was thrown into the air, then another. They crashed near the entrance to the caves, throwing up thick clouds of smoke that swirled through the air. That should grab their attention, thought Jed grimly.
If it doesn’t, there is nobody there
.

A silence. The initial volley of fire died away, and the mountains were suddenly eerily quiet. Jed looked towards the entrance closest to him. The soldiers inside would know they were under attack by now, and they would know they had to respond. The issue was, how? And how long would they wait? Unless they were planning to throw their lives away, they wouldn’t attempt a frontal assault. They would slip out of the other entrance, then try and attack them from the flank. Unless there was some other way out of the caves, thought Jed.
Unless they could mount a surprise of their own
.

‘Get ready,’ said Nick.

A figure emerged from the tunnel. It was no more than a shadow at first. Some kind of animal, Jed wondered as he tracked its movements. No, he could see more clearly now. A man. He was wearing a green
military tunic, marked with the purple insignia of the Special Republican Guard. In his hands, there was an AK-47. He was emerging slowly into the sunlight, inching forward suspiciously, his eyes peering around the corner to see if he could see where the assault was coming from. He let off a few rounds of gunfire, but the bullets struck the stony ground harmlessly. ‘Hold it steady,’ said Nick. ‘Let more of them come out.’

Jed lay tight into the ground, as still and as calm as the rock on which he was lying. The man edged forward again, so that he was now outside the tunnel. He was looking towards the far entrance, and he could see Rezo’s men in their position four hundred yards away. A hundred yards to his left, he hadn’t noticed Nick and Jed. ‘Give it another minute.’ Nick’s voice was no more than a whisper.

The soldier shouted something back into the tunnel. He tucked himself into the side of the rock, so that he was out of range of Rezo’s men. A minute passed. Jed kept his finger hovering on the trigger of his AK-47. Another man was standing on the side of the rock, then another. Within a few seconds, Jed could see six of them, grouped in a tight unit. They were moving out slowly, making sure they kept themselves under cover as they planned their assault on Rezo’s position. ‘Three seconds …’ whispered Nick.

Jed took aim. One man was clearly in sight of his gun, two others near by. The AK-47 was not a sniper’s weapon: it laid down a barrage of fire that could destroy anything it encountered, but it was impossible to target
with pinpoint accuracy. Both men silently counted down the three seconds. In the next instant, their guns leapt into life, as bullets rattled out through the air. There was a delay of just a fraction of a second before the first shards of lethal metal tore into their victims. The man in Jed’s sights spun round as a dozen different bullets cut open his chest. As he fell to the ground, Jed moved his gun just a fraction of a millimetre, directing his fire at two more men. The bullets lashed into them: one man was hit in the face, another had his back peppered with bullets as he tried to turn and run back into the caves.

In less than five seconds it was all over. Not so much a firefight as a slaughterhouse, thought Jed grimly.

He took his finger off the trigger. Once again, the mountainside was silent. As Nick did the same, Jed looked up to check how much damage they had done. Six men were lying flat on the ground. Picking himself up, he ran quickly across to the corpses. All of them were dead, apart from one man, who was lying on his side, moaning. Without hesitating for a second, Jed dropped his gun to the man’s head.
A double tap, and he was finished
.

‘Good work,’ said Nick, approaching where Jed was standing.

He was trying to run, but it was clear that his leg was hurting too much.

They moved swiftly towards where Rezo and his men were stationed. All of them were unharmed. ‘Six down,’ said Jed to Rezo.

He nodded. ‘Six left,’ he said. ‘At least.’

‘They won’t come out that way again,’ said Nick.

Rezo shook his head. ‘We’ll have to squeeze the others out,’ he said. ‘You wait here.’

Jed grabbed hold of his arm. ‘We’ll come with you,’ he said.

Rezo shook him loose. ‘We know these caves,’ he snapped. ‘It’s our territory.’

He signalled towards two men, exchanging a few brief words with them. Then they started advancing on the cave they had just attacked. ‘What the hell are they doing?’ said Jed.

‘Drawing out the enemy again,’ said Rezo. ‘The only way to beat them is to make them come to us.’

Sounds like suicide to me, thought Jed. He lay up behind the rock, and waited. Two of the men who remained were smoking, filling the air with the smell of heavy Turkish tobacco. The sun was shining down into their faces, making it difficult to see anything. He kept his eyes peeled on the entrance to the cave. Suddenly he heard a rapid burst of gunfire. There was an explosion of noise rattling out of the tunnel, like a car backfiring, followed by flashes of white light.

‘What the fuck’s happening?’ said Nick.

‘We’re luring them out,’ said Rezo.

‘My daughter’s in there, man,’ Nick snapped. ‘The point is to rescue her, not stage a bloody bloodbath.’

Jed was readying himself, holding his AK-47 steady, using the last fraction of a second to decide whether to rush the place. If Sarah was in there, they had to get in,
get hold of her and get her out, before these nutters blew the whole place back to hell. In the next instant, one of Rezo’s two men started to emerge out of the cave. He was facing into the tunnel, firing off round after round from his gun. You could hear screams everywhere. The man was wounded in two places, his leg and his chest, and blood was dripping out of him. He stayed steady on his feet until a burst of fire lashed through him, knocking him several feet sideways, his body split in two. Five Iraqis rushed forwards, their guns blazing furiously. A hail of bullets descended on their position. Jed dropped to the ground, holding his gun in front of him, but it was impossible even to look at what was happening without risking getting your head blown off.