Black Ops Omnibus Page 12

  He looked across at Bykov. “I want every man to get ready,” he barked.

  Alex, Jack and Richmond took an hour to shower, change out of their mud-splattered clothes, and grab some food from the canteen, before getting back to work. Bykov had thirty mercenaries under his command, and another twenty were bussed up from the villa compound. A United Nations convention of hard men and borderline psychopaths decided Alex as he was quickly introduced to them. Plenty of Russians, but a sprinkling of South Africans, a few former Ghurkhas, some French Foreign Legion guys, and a couple of lads from Manchester who had served in 3 Para out in Helmand, but had somehow washed up here after getting out of the Army. They weren’t much too look at, but they were all experienced, hardened fighting men, and they were well-equipped, and decently led, and that made them a formidable fighting force.

  The day was spent making their preparations. If an attack was imminent, then the site had to be prepared to withstand it. Fortification had to be dug, weapons cleaned and zeroed, and the perimeter secured.

  This was a mine, noted Alex, as the men were split into small units tasked with fortifying its defences. A military camp would have been designed to withstand attack: a stockade would have been constructed, along with trenches, and a location would have been chosen that made an attack simple to repel. But this was a working pit, designed to dig gold from the mountains. It was strung out along a stretch of open ground, there was no fence, and there were literally dozens of places where a small raiding party could infiltrate the operation, and deliver a lethal blow from the inside.

  “We’re vulnerable,” said Alex, when they darkness finally fell, and the men who’d spent the day working on the fortifications had gathered in the canteen for some food before getting a night’s rest.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Jack.

  “It’s our arses on the line as well, pal,” said Alex sourly.

  “An attack is the best thing that can happen?”

  “Really?” questioned Alex. “Forgive me if I missed something, but I’ve never really counted getting shot at as among the things that cheer up a day.”

  “He’s onto something,” said Richmond.

  The three men were sitting in a quiet corner of the canteen. There were thirty men eating a thick chicken and rice stew served up in massive earthenware pots. Bykov had organised the men into shifts, so that twenty guys were out patrolling the perimeter whilst the rest ate and slept before switching the shifts around. Usually there would be just ten men on watch overnight, but they were on high alert right now, and that meant the numbers were doubled, and every man would be sleeping with his boots on and his M-16 ready loaded by his side. An attack might or might not come, they had no way of knowing, but if it did, they would be prepared for it.

  “Like what?”

  “Lower your voice,” said Richmond.

  Alex glanced around. The men stuck with their own nationalities: the Russians ate with the Russians, the South Africans with the South Africans and so on. They’d only been there a day, and hadn’t struck up any alliances with the other blokes yet. They two British lads had been friendly enough but they were out on patrol right now, so they had their corner of the canteen to themselves. Even so, they had to assume most of the men spoke at least some English, and anything they said might well be overheard.

  “Okay, like what?” Alex whispered.

  Jack lent forward, his expression conspiratorial. “Bilado is spending the night here. He’s kipping down in a private room in the main barracks. I heard Bykov detailing a couple of guys to bodyguard him.”

  “So,” Alex shrugged.

  “So if an assault kicks off, this place is going to be chaos. One or more of us can slip into the barracks and slot a couple of rounds into Senor Bilado. If we can do it without anyone seeing us, we can blame it on the attackers, and walk out of here as if nothing had happened. Work for a few more days, resign from the job, and go home.”

  “But...” started Alex.

  “But what, man,” growled Jack.

  Good question, thought Alex. But what precisely? It wasn’t the best plan he’d ever heard, but it was far from the worst either. They had Bilado right here in the mine, away from the guards and security at the villa. Amid the chaos of a fire fight, lots of people got killed. No reason he shouldn’t be one of them.

  “But we can’t just wander up to the enemy camp and ask them if they’d mind launching an assault tonight.”

  “We can attack them.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “I said keep your voice down man,” hissed Richmond.

  Alex looked around anxiously. A couple of the Russian guys had just glanced in their direction.

  “We sneak up to their camp, and lob some dynamite into them. If they think they are under attack, they’ll retaliate with a full-scale assault on our position.”

  “Will they?”

  “It doesn’t matter what kind of army it is,” said Richmond. “The rules are the same everywhere. Attack is the best form of defence.”

  Alex nodded. It was crazy but true. It might just work.

  “We don’t know where they are?”

  “Those two Columbians were taking you back to their camp,” said Jack. “Just follow that trail. We’ll find them soon enough.”

  “You two men are on guard duty at four this morning,” said Richmond. “Get out there and see if you can’t kick off a scrap. I’ll stay here and find a way of laying up close to Bilado.”

  Alex stood up. “I reckon we should get some shut eye then. It’s going to be quite a fight in the morning.”

  He slept only fitfully over the next few hours. The barracks was a long, narrow room, filled with metal beds. No sheets, and the mattresses were just foam laid on wooden planks. A couple of guys were snoring loudly next to him, but it wasn’t that keeping him awake. Back in the Regiment, he’d always been able to get some kip, even before he was dropped into maximum danger. But out here? He was operating in a hostile environment, where he didn’t trust anyone apart from the two men alongside him.

  At three-forty, all three men were woken. It was still dark outside, and even though the rain had stopped, there was a fierce wind blowing in from the east. They washed, grabbed some coffee and hot bread rolls from the canteen, then took their positions. Bykov had stationed them close to the trail they’d taken yesterday morning. Equipped with hi-power torches, their job was to march around a tightly marked stretch of land, watching out for any sign of an assault, and putting up the first line of resistance if an attack started.

  “Let’s go,” said Jack.

  They’d spent fifteen minutes on patrol. Now they were ready to take the fight to the enemy. Jack had secured six sticks of P4 explosive, plus detonators, from the armoury. All they had to do now was find the camp.

  It was a hard climb through the darkness. Neither man wanted to switch his torch on until they were several hundred yards away from the mine. All the mercenaries had orders to shoot on sight at any sign of movement. A flashlight would have provoked an immediate barrage of gunfire. They scrambled up the track they had taken yesterday morning, then started to trek along the path Alex’s captor had taken. “Look,” said Jack, finally switching on his torch now they were deep into the woodland. “Footprints.”

  Alex glanced upwards. The rain had stopped falling, and while the ground was still soft, the mud was starting to harden. The tracks were clearly visible, leading up a narrow path that twisted through the hillside. If Bykov and Bilado had any brains, they would have come out here, and taken the fight to the enemy. But the man was a drugs dealer, not a soldier, he reminded himself. His priority was getting as much gold out of the mine as fast as possible.

  It was a half mile before they saw the camp. A collection of wooden shelters built from broken branches and leaves. About ten of them Alex reckoned, although it was hard to say for certain in the darkness. The lights, if there were any, were all out, but there were embers of last night’s fire still glo
wing in the darkness, and their soft glow marked out the territory of the sleeping men clearly enough.

  It was four-thirty in the morning. Dawn would be breaking in a half hour. If they planned to strike today, they might already be getting up. The half-light between night and day was the perfect moment for any assault: there was enough light to fight by, but your enemy would still be half asleep. But there was no sign of any movement.

  “You were right,” said Alex, looking across at Jack. “They need to be provoked into an attack.”

  “Then let’s do it.”

  “At least you’re playing to your strengths.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Starting a fight. It’s about the only thing you are any good at.”

  Jack grinned. “At my Sunday school, they used to say everyone has a special talent.”

  “You went to Sunday school?”

  “Only twice. They threw me out.”

  “Now that I can believe.”

  Alex had already primed four sticks of P4, and attached them to a detonator on a simple two minute fuse. He crawled left through the woodland, while Jack turned right. The explosives would be planted in the ground thirty yards out from the camp. When they exploded, they wouldn’t do much real damage, but they would kick up a lot of smoke and fire, and that should be enough to convince their opponents that a battle had already started.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” hissed Alex as the two men met up again on the path that had twisted up to the camp.

  They moved swiftly, no longer worrying about being spotted. They were halfway down when they heard the roar of the plastic explosives detonating behind them: a juddering cracking noise, accompanied by a violent shudder in the ground, and a sudden flash of light as the flames and debris spat viciously into the air. Both men kept moving, until the light of the explosion had faded, and all they could hear was the wind whistling the trees all around them.

  “We saw them,” shouted Jack towards Bykov, as they re-entered the camp. “The assault has started.”

  Chapter Ten

  Jack and Alex took up position alongside Richmond behind a hastily constructed barrier of sandbags that had been designed as the first line of defence for the barracks. There was no sign of the assault yet, but Alex felt certain it was not far away, and when it started they were going to be in the front line.

  “Where’s Bilado?” he hissed towards Richmond.

  “Back in the barracks.”

  “When are we going to take him?” demanded Jack.

  “Just hold steady,” said Richmond. “There are still two men guarding him, and they are both former Spetsnaz guys. Probably the best two fighters in this whole bloody operation. We won’t get past them easily. Just wait for this scrap to turn nasty, and we’ll find our moment.”

  Alex and Jack both nodded and hunkered down behind the sandbags. All the men were up now, which gave them fifty blokes in total. But they were stretched out along a perimeter that ran for several hundred yards, and that meant their forces were thinly spread. Their opponents could choose a single point, strike with overwhelming force, then pour into the camp from the hole they had punched in it defences.

  Whoever was holding the line where they struck was almost certainly dead. We just have to hope it isn’t us decided Alex grimly.

  An explosion. About fifty yards away reckoned Alex, down close to the heart of the mine. A plume of smoke rose into the air. Three men were station down in that section of the operation, but it looked as if a pair of well-aimed RPG rounds had blown them clean away. “Move, move,” yelled Bykov.

  Alex and Jack started to run across the open ground. All around them RPG rounds were starting to smash into the compound, balls of flame rolling out from the point of detonation, and sending lethal shards of shrapnel flying in ever direction. As the smoke from the first attack started to clear, Alex could see that the men in that section of the mine had already taken a terrible pounding. A well-coordinated missile attack had devastated their position, leaving five dead, and another five wounded, probably fatally. More RPGs were raining down from the hills, either killing men immediately, or else cutting them down with the shrapnel. The attack was well co-ordinated, sturdily lead, and bravely executed. And right now, Bilado’s mercenaries were taking a pounding.

  He kept running. All around him, he could hear the sounds of men screaming as molten hot shards of shrapnel sliced open terrifying wounds. He’d seen what shrapnel could do on the battlefield before, and while it was not always as lethal as a bullet, the wounds it inflicted were far more painful. Of their fifty men he reckoned at least twenty had gone down in the first few minutes of the assault, and that was going to level up the odds considerably. Men were pouring through the breach in their defences. At least twenty of then, reckoned Alex. Organised into a tight phalanx, moving forward in a single column, furious rounds of fire blasting out of their AK-47s.

  “Stand and fight,” yelled Bykov.

  A group of their men had hastily strung a row of sandbags across the path leading up to the barracks. The lower half of the mine was already lost, but if they could put down enough fire from here, it might still be possible to halt the advance, and perhaps even take the fight back to the enemy. Alex and Jack dropped into position behind the sandbags, alongside the two Ghurkhas. Alex raised his M-16 to his shoulder and loosened off a few rounds. The dawn was still breaking, and there was a glorious sunrise to the east, and its pale, golden light was starting to streak across the mountains. Amid the carnage, Alex looked into the horizon and wondered briefly how such natural beauty could exist alongside the butchery unfolding in front of him. A yelling in his ear snapped him back to attention. He pressed again on the trigger, emptying the rest of the thirty-round mag on automatic, then bombing another into position. He could see one man fall from the column advancing towards them, then another. Who’d hit them it was impossible to say from this distance, and it didn’t matter much. They were willing to take casualties, and it wasn’t stopping the advance. The column was moving relentlessly forwards up the path towards the barracks, its guns still blazing.

  “Where’s Richmond?” yelled Alex towards Jack.

  “There.”

  He was pointing towards the barracks. Where Bilado was hiding.

  “Let’s join him,” snapped Alex. “This battle may be lost any moment now. We’ll finish Bilado, then get the hell out of here.”

  The two men started to run. The Ghurkhas looked surprised, but held their position. Tough sods, reflected Alex briefly. They were trained to fight to the last drop of blood, and that instinct remained with them even when they were fighting for some worthless Columbian drugs dealers rather than their own regiment. He kicked back with his heels and hurled himself across the muddy ground. Jack got there before him and flung open the door to the barracks. Inside, it was quiet, and empty. The men had all thrown themselves into the battle outside. But there was no sign of Bilado.

  Just Richmond running towards them.

  “He’s gone,” he snapped.

  “Where?” demanded Alex.

  “The mountains. There’s a maze of tunnels inside the mine. He’s disappeared into them.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Alex flashed his torch into the interior of the tunnel. It was dark and fetid, with moss growing on the wall, and water dripping from its roof. The entrance started in a natural cave fifty yards from the back of the barracks, but it soon narrowed into a series of interconnecting chambers that had been blasted out of the rock by the men working the mine. Wooden stakes had been wedged into place to keep the roof up and to allow the men to move forward, but Alex needed to glance at it only once to know that it wasn’t going to pass any kind of health and safety test.

  It was touch and go whether they were safer in here or out in the middle of a battle that looked to be lost.

  “Just keep your head down and walk carefully,” hissed Alex.

  Richmond had taken one entrance, and Jack and Alex the
other. They had no way of

  knowing which tunnel Bilado might have taken, nor could they be certain how far the tunnels led into the mountain. All they could do was start searching, and hope they came across him.

  Alex put one foot in front of the other. He kept the torch on, even though it made him vulnerable to a potential attack. It was pitch black down here, and the surface of the ground was pitted with stones, and crevices. Try walking through the darkness, and you’d break an ankle in no time. And then you’d be done for.

  They walked fifty yards, then another fifty. The tunnel twisted and turned, and at one point dipped down so that there was just a three foot crack and both men had to crouch down to crawl their way through. After a hundred and twenty yards, it split into two separate passageways, one going east the other west. “Split up?” questioned Alex.

  “No way,” said Jack with a shake of the head.

  “Scared of the dark are you?”

  “I’m scared of having to fight down here by myself,” said Jack.

  “The Aussie’s gone of by himself.”

  “Then that’s his lookout. If you get into scrap in this darkness, you need two men minimum. One of these fuckers could kill you before you’ve even seen him.”

  Alex nodded. They took the east tunnel and started to advance cautiously forward. Fifty yards, then a hundred, but they ran straight into a stone wall, and had no choice but to re-trace their steps, and take the second tunnel instead.

  “Parada,” shouted a voice.

  Alex didn’t know much Spanish, but he knew the word for stop.

  The voice was coming from the cross-roads, the point where the tunnels split. Alex switched off the flashlight, and paused. He looked across at Jack. “Who the hell are they? Bilado’s men, or the enemy?”

  “Everyone’s an enemy down here,” hissed Jack.

  Alex nodded. It didn’t make any difference who they were. They were down here to assassinate Bilado, and they had to treat everyone as an opponent until the job was done, and they’d safely escaped the country.