Read Online Immediate Action by Andy McNab - Free Book Online Page A

fired ten rounds. The last two of the magazine were tracer again; when the fourth tracer fired off, I'd know I'd fired my second-to-last round and the working parts had come back and picked up the last round. I'd take the magazine off, put on another one, and that would be my reloading drill done. Time and time again I'd practiced all this, until I could almost do it blindfolded. Come the day, it all went to ratshit.
        For one thing, I was far too close for the tracer to ignite. And I certainly wasn't counting the rounds. I was just firing like a man possessed.
        Then: bang, bang, bang, click. The dead man's click.
        The working parts still worked, but there wasn't a round in the chamber to fire. I was flapping like fuck. I got on the floor, screaming my head off: "Stoppage!
        Stoppage!" to let everyone else know I wasn't hit but unable to fire. I could hear the different noises of the weapons: The SLR mode a loud, bass sound as it fired;.the Armalite was not as loud, and they were firing bursts.
        I tried to get hold of another magazine out of my pouches, and everything seemed sort of slow and deliberate. It wasn't; it was all really fast, but it was as if I were outside myself, watching myself going through the drills.
        I knew what to do, but the faster I was trying to do it, the faster I was fucking up. I had that feeling I'd had when the kid fell through the roof: I wanted to pull the covers over my head and wait for it all to go away. I concentrated on my mags; I didn't want to look up and see what was going on. If I didn't look, maybe I'd be all right.
        What I should have been doing was getting into a position where I could look at the enemy; I was supposed to be so good at changing mags that there was no need to look at what I was doing. But I wasn't. I couldn't get the pouch opened up, I was fumbling inside getting my magazine out. It was the wrong way around.
        I had to turn it around, put it in, cock my weapon. It was all done in a matter of seconds, but it felt like forever. I could hear some firing, I heard shouting, but loudest of all was the sound of me hollering and shouting inside my head: "I don't like this! I know I've got to do it!"
        I knew if I just lay there, twenty meters from him, the chances were that I'd be killed; as long as I was firing, things would be okay.
        My chest was heaving up and down. I knew I had to do it. I knew I couldn't just lie there.
        I rolled over and started firing again. The stoppage had taken me out of action for no more than three to five seconds.
        Twenty rounds later, bang, bang, bang, click.
        The vehicle was moving, and by this time Scouse was firing into the cab area of the wagon, hoping to drop the driver. But these cattle trucks were armored. They were sandbagged up with steel plates welded in to give them some form of protection.
        I was still the only one that side of the fence. As the vehicle started to move off, I got up and ran forward, past the shop.
        I didn't know if there was anybody left outside the wagon who'd done a runner. Had they run into the housing estate? Had they run into the shops? Had they run down to the junction, which was only about ten meters away, and turned left? Or turned right, up an old disused railway line? Who knew? I had no idea what was going on.
        In my peripheral vision I saw a group of people on the floor of the shop, cowering. A man stood up quickly. As far as I was concerned, he could have a gun. I turned around and gave it a couple high through the window so he got the message. The glass caved in, and the bloke threw himself to the floor.
        "And stay down!" I shouted. I didn't know who was more scared, the people in the shop or me. It was a stupid, bone reaction of mine to shoot through the glass, but I didn't know what else to do; I was so hyped up that anything that moved was a threat.
        I ran up to a