Read Online Hostage Crisis by Craig Simpson - Free Book Online Page B

located at the far end of the street.
    “Sparks, any luck raising the site staff?”
    “No, sir.”
    “OK, we’ll do a recce on foot. Sam, you stay here and establish a line of fire to the rocks above us. Ben, you’re up top. Danny and Jacko, come with me.”
    Connor grabbed his M4 rifle and jumped out. Lieutenants Danny Crow and Jacko Alvarez ran to take up tactical positions on either side of the road. Connor walked, his eyes darting from doorway to doorway. He checked the flat rooftops and alleyways, but the place appeared to be deserted. The only thing he could hear was the thud and hammering of construction traffic in the valley beyond. After twenty metres he stopped and knelt down. He waved Jacko forward, and signalled for Danny to move up.
    “It seems OK, sir. Sounds like everyone’s at work on the dam.”
    “Perhaps.” Hearing an approaching Black Hawk, Connor realised the VIPs would soon arrive. “Let’s get a move on and check out the site office.”
    The site office was a grey Portakabin at the entrance to a large, wire-fenced compound protecting heavy machinery and materials. The door was open. As Connor approached he called out. There was no reply.
    He pressed up against the wall next to the door, counted to three and then spun round into the doorway, M4 raised and finger on the trigger. A fan whirred noisily, fluttering piles of paperwork. Connor saw a body on the floor behind the desk. Blood was splattered on the wall. Then he saw the large package and a mass of coloured wires. He turned quickly. “Fall back to the GMV, now! This place is rigged to blow.”
    They hurried along the street towards their GMV. Connor spoke into his helmet mic, telling Sparks to warn the convoy to abort the visit. The sergeant’s reply made Connor’s guts tighten.
    “They’re already here, sir.”
    “Then tell them to take up defensive positions and hold. The bomb might be detonated remotely by Taliban as soon as the VIPs are in range.”
    A boy leaned out of a window in one of the temporary houses. He waved and pointed to a house opposite. “Boom! Boom! D kor deneneh! ” he yelled, before ducking back inside.
    Connor’s instinct kicked in. The boy was telling him that there was another bomb inside the house. They were in the middle of a Taliban trap!
    “Prepare for incoming,” he warned his team. Had the convoy reached the site office and the bombs been detonated, there’d be no evac route — no way out.
    Gunshots cracked from the hillside above. Danny let out a cry and sank to his knees. Connor grabbed Danny’s webbing and began to drag him back towards the GMV. Jacko covered their backs, laying down a blanket of covering fire.
    “Danny is hit,” Connor announced into his helmet mic. “Ben, there’s a second bomb in that house I’ve just passed. Hit it with everything you’ve got. Sparks, there are snipers up on the hillside. Call in our Hawks to take them out.”
    “Roger that, sir.”
    Connor hauled Danny to the cover of the armoured GMV. Coughing between gasps for breath, he managed to speak, “I’m OK, sir. Body armour did its job. Just winded me.”
    Next to them, Sam steadied his aim. He had a target in the crosshairs of his rifle sight: a figure crouching behind a rock some five hundred metres away. Sam exhaled, gently squeezed the trigger, and absorbed the recoil. “That’s two down, sir, but there are at least five more of them up there.”
    The pair of Black Hawks screamed overhead, and fired rockets at the hillside, turning it into a dust-laden fireball.
    “Not any more, there aren’t,” Sparks added with immense satisfaction.
    Grenades pumped from Delta Force’s GMV launcher, blasting the house where the boy had been. “Jesus, cease firing, Ben! Cease fire! That’s the wrong house!” Connor shouted.
    He grabbed the trauma kit from the GMV. “Sam, cover me!” he ordered, and then hurried back along the street to the remains of the house. Connor searched through the debris,