Kara’s Game. Gordon Stevens

      It was too late to call an air strike, the bloody decision-makers at the UN would be too busy wining and dining to make any decisions. Only one thing to do and one way to do it. Only one way of stopping the guns shelling the men on the other side of the valley.

      ‘You have the positions?’ he asked the others.

      ‘Not moved since we targeted them earlier.’

      ‘Charlie One to Charlie Two.’ He used the motorola. ‘Charlie One to Charlie Two. Over.’

      ‘Charlie Two receiving.’ Janner was on the floor of the dip, Max half across him and blood everywhere.

      ‘Charlie One. What are you like?’

      ‘Two missing, presumed dead. Rest of patrol in minimal cover. One injured, I’m also wounded.’

      ‘You can walk?’

      ‘I can try.’

      ‘Give me twenty minutes.’ Which was a bloody eternity. ‘When they stop shelling, get as far out as you can. Romeo Victor is a group of houses over the ridge.’ He gave Janner the co-ordinates.

      Romeo Victor – RV – rendezvous point.

      ‘Got that,’ Janner told him.

      ‘Oboe Oboe,’ Finn told Hereford. ‘Bringing out own wounded.’ No code ranked above OO. When an SAS patrol signalled Oboe Oboe everything but everything stopped. ‘Repeat. Oboe Oboe. Bringing out own wounded. Hot extraction. Landing site not secure.’ He gave them the details. ‘Will confirm co-ordinates. Radio silence from this point. Repeat. Radio silence.’ Because where we’re going and what we’re going to do, we don’t want anyone knowing. Because if they do then we’re dead as well.

      Time to forget the UN. Time to ignore the rules. Time to cut throats.

      ‘Okay, let’s do it.’

      The shells and mortars were falling on the town again. Falling on somewhere else as well, somewhere in the hills, which she couldn’t understand. But falling on the town again. Kara heard the thuds and felt the vibrations. Please God no, she prayed. Please God tell me what to do. Unless I get Jovan to the doctor’s he’s going to die, but if I try he’ll be killed anyway.

      ‘Finn and the boys are on the way,’ Janner told Max. ‘Be out of here soon.’ He waited till the next round exploded then looked out of the hollow, shouted for Kev and Geordie John. Kept shouting for thirty seconds then ducked inside again as another round exploded.

      Kev’s body – assuming it was Kev – was ten metres away. It would be dangerous, but Kev would have done the same for him. Just enough time to get out and check if Kev had a pulse, if Kev was alive. So what would he do if he was? One he might be able to get to the RV, two no. And what about Geordie John? ‘Be back,’ he told Max. He waited till the next round exploded, slid out of the hollow and pulled himself along the ground. Pull Kev back in, which might be difficult, or waste time finding the pulse? Half Kev’s head was missing, Kev hadn’t even known what hit him. Geordie John presumably the same. Janner rolled back and tumbled into the hollow as the next round landed.

      The bridge across the river, a kilometre and a half from the town, was thin and rickety, and swinging slightly in the night, the snow ghostly in the PNGs. The river beneath was cold and grey and running fast, but the bridge itself might be wired. Finn knelt and felt carefully around and under the first sections, the others covering him from the shadows. There were no wires. He nodded and ran across, allowing for the swing of the bridge, then slipped into the dark and covered the next man. There was no cold now, just the adrenalin. The last man came over and they turned up the slope.

      The sites were a hundred metres apart, the support huts fifty metres back from them. Himself and Steve to take the first, Finn indicated, Ken and Jim to deal with the second. Knife job, no noise. Because if the guns simply stopped firing the soldiers in the back-up hut might think the gunners on duty had received a change of order, whereas if there was small-arms fire they might investigate. The guns were still pounding. One minute – they set their watches on count down.

      Twenty minutes, Finn had said, therefore five minutes to go. The bastards had his range now and were pounding the shells in. ‘You ready?’ Janner asked Max. He’d discarded almost everything, destroyed the radios. Four minutes to go. ‘It’s going to hurt like buggery,’ he told Max, ‘but it’s the only way.’ It’s going to hurt me as well, because I don’t know where my head is going and the pain is in my legs again and my chest feels like it doesn’t exist.

      He ducked as the next round came in.

      ‘Ready, Max?’

      Christ, Max was a mess, his legs hanging disjointed and his face and body mangled as hell.

      ‘Ready, Janner.’

      He half-lifted Max so that his body was across his shoulders and Max could still carry his Heckler, still use it if he needed, and began counting since the last round. A minute between rounds now, never more than a minute and twenty seconds. In the distance the other guns and mortars pounded the town. Thirty seconds since the last round. Forty-five. Minute gone. He waited for the next incoming round. Finn would have done it. Finn and the boys wouldn’t let him down. One minute twenty, one thirty.

      Go – he heard himself shout, heard himself scream.

      He was out of the bunker and trying to run. Max bouncing on his shoulders and telling him he was okay. Up the slope of the hill fifty metres, then turn along the contour line – he had worked it out on the map, knew exactly what he had to do, drummed it into his head so he would do it automatically. Christ, Max was heavy. Christ, his legs and his chest and his head were suddenly hurting. He was running slower now, little more than a stagger. Control it, he told himself, keep it calm and measured, just get up the first fifty metres and you’re okay. Still no incoming rounds, still the wonderful blissful silence. Except for the pounding in his head and the heavy metallic rasping in his lungs. Thanks, Finn, thanks, lads. He turned right, along the hillside, the woods green in the night sights and his feet slipping on the ice.

      ‘You okay?’ he asked the man on his back. ‘Okay,’ Max told him. The rounds going into the town were like echoes in his head, the trees around him and the slope of the hillside making it difficult to move. He was walking now, holding on to the instructions Finn had given him and the directions he had instilled into his brain. Can’t be far now, halfway there already, probably more. He was no longer walking, was on his knees, forcing himself forward. Bit like selection: when you think you’ve had it, that’s the point you start really going. Bit like counter-interrogation: get your story fixed in your head and stick to it. So he was going well, going great guns, was getting there.

      He was bent forward now, was on his hands and knees, the pain tearing at his chest and the ice and trees cutting into him. Don’t think about it, don’t think about anything. Just keep going. Finn and the lads will be waiting at the RV, and the chopper will already be airborne. Nice pint of beer at the end, nice fag to go with it. He was crying now, on his face and his front, reaching forward with one hand and grabbing anything, pulling himself and Max on, Heckler still in the other hand. Doing well, doing great, you old bugger. Christ he must have passed the RV point a hundred years ago. He reached forward again and grabbed the tree stump, pulled himself and Max up to it, lifted his face from the ice and reached forward again, felt for the next thing he could, pulled himself forward again. Tell Max to mind his legs on the stump, part of his mind warned him, tell Max to keep his legs clear.

      

      The shelling on the town was continuing but the shelling on the hillside had stopped. Jovan’s fever was burning now, his breathing shallow and his lips moving, as if he was praying. Kara knelt by him and wiped his face and hands. Don’t worry, she told him, everything will be all right soon; you’ll be okay soon. She wet the flannel and held it against his lips. Heard the scream.

      Like an animal caught in a trap. Like a fox when its leg is torn off. Except that it wasn’t an animal. It was a man.

      Someone’s hurt – her mind was