Shadow Kill: A Strikeback Novel by Chris Ryan

Author:Chris Ryan [Ryan, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2017-02-23T08:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

1058 hours.

Porter launched down the stairs. Blood rushing in his ears, muscles aching with the strain of combat. The sounds of the firefight rattling through the upper floors of the hotel. Nilis lagged a couple of steps behind, breathing hard. A crashing boom sounded from one of the lower floors. The walls shook as another RPG struck the front of the hotel. Porter could hear the broken glass hailstoning, the flames seething. He ran on. He didn’t think about dying. He didn’t think about what might happen in the next few hours, or whether the enemy might win the battle. He thought no further ahead than the next ten seconds. Get down to the ground floor. Kill the rebels. Stop them from massacring the civilians.

As they raced down the main stairwell Porter and Nilis passed several small groups of Nigerian soldiers hunkering down on the landings. Others were slumped against the walls of the corridors branching off to the left and right of the stairwells. A few had crammed inside whatever empty rooms they could find. They stared back at Porter with their wide round eyes as he swept past. There was no shame or embarrassment on their faces at avoiding the firefight. Just evident relief that they weren’t having to take the battle to the enemy. Porter gritted his teeth in anger at their cowardice as he pushed on.

A thick cloud of black smoke greeted the two men as they reached the second floor. Porter glanced to his left. Saw the reflected orange glow of a fire raging inside a room at the far end of the main corridor, twenty metres away. Crowder and a trio of volunteers stood inside the doorway of the north-facing room, dousing down the flames with fire extinguishers and buckets of water. Other teams of volunteers rushed up and down the corridors, struggling to deal with the fires that had broken out when the RPG rounds had struck the hotel. Porter swept past them and made for the staircase leading down to the first floor. He ran into a heavily bearded guy in a bright blue suit scrabbling up the stairs. One of the Lebanese businessmen he’d seen trying to leave the hotel the previous day. The guy waved his arms at Porter, calling out between ragged gasps for breath.

‘Help!’ the man cried, panting heavily. ‘Please. They’re killing them!’

Porter halted and said, ‘Who?’

‘My uncles,’ the man replied, pointing down the stairs. ‘They went down to the lobby, to see if they could leave. Then the rebels came in and attacked. You have to help them!’

‘Wait here,’ Porter ordered.

He stepped past the terrified Lebanese and moved more slowly down the next flight of stairs, with Nilis falling in a metre behind. Weapon stocks tucked against their shoulders, eyes scanning the floor below. Ready to bring up their SLRs and shoot at the first sign of movement. Porter stopped at the first floor and checked both sides of the main corridor. Once he was sure the

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