Death Force by Matt Lynn

Author:Matt Lynn [Lynn, Matt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2010-10-14T04:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Two

THE MOON WAS STILL SLIPPING down towards the horizon as the convoy kicked up sand and dust and started its climb up the track that ran into the hills. Steve glanced back just once. The fire was out, the crap in the oil drums had been burnt off, and all traces of their stay had been eradicated. With any luck they wouldn’t be coming back.

They’d packed five men into each Toyota: Steve, Dan, Chris, Nick, plus Ganju at the wheel in one. Ollie, Ian, David, Maksim, plus Jeff at the wheel in the other. Before they left, they’d run through their roles one more time. They knew the drill.

‘Right then,’ muttered Steve tersely. ‘Let’s go and mallet some ragheads.’

As soon as he’d got up, Steve had prepared his weapons. Each man had his own kit he liked to take into battle, and his own way of arranging it. Steve always put his Kevlar body armour on first, and his webbing over that. Inside, there were two pouches for maps, in case they got lost. There were two grenade pouches, both filled, and four long thin pouches for rifle magazines. Next to those were the field dressings; if you went down, you weren’t going to be in any fit state to fix yourself, so you put those on the outside so one of your mates could rip them off and patch you up. Steve always carried at least two. One bandage would hold in about a pint of blood, but if you took a nasty hit, you were going to need at least two. He stuffed in enough food and water to last twenty-four hours. If you couldn’t feed and water yourself, you were no use to anyone. Finally, he packed in a knife and a compass, and round his neck he clipped into place an old army dog tag, plus a vial of morphine. At his side, he had a hard hat; it wouldn’t stop a high-velocity bullet, but it would deal with shrapnel, and any glancing rounds. Finally, he stripped down his AK-47, cleaned and oiled it, dusted away any muck, and reassembled it. It was a routine, one he didn’t even need to think about. But it made him feel prepared for what lay ahead.

The drive took just under two hours. Again, no headlights. By the time they arrived at the RV point, Steve felt that he knew every bump in the road. He told Ganju to pull up a hundred yards short, and then tabbed across the open county, checking the hollow in the hillside before signalling to the Toyotas to follow. They’d been compromised here yesterday, and he wasn’t about to take the chance of finding there were fifty Afghans waiting to greet them. As far as he could tell, the coast was clear, and within another minute the two Toyotas had pulled up. The men climbed out. They checked their weapons. Each man was carrying an AK-47, a Makarov handgun, two grenades, and a hunting knife.

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