Emily

Effys announcement about Jo was still ringing in my ears, but it wasn't till we had Naomi on a gurney in the sick bay and were cutting her clothes off that it really registered. Jo, dead? It seemed surreal. She was the hard case, the tough Aussie with the best training of all of them, what with her own regiment added to the tough integration course she had done with our guys in Hereford. Even Cook had, admittedly when pissed, conceded that the Aussie Special Forces were every bit as tough as ours. How could she possibly be dead?

We stripped Naomi of her blood soaked uniform whilst Katie treated Cooks twisted ankle with a refrigerator cooled bandage and some Paramol. His slight flesh wound to the hand was no more than a sticking plaster job, so as soon as he was sitting up on the other bed, legs swinging off the floor, I started in on him, earning a stern look from both Katie and Effy, but I was past caring. Once we got Naomi down to her briefs and bra, I could see that the shoulder wound was from a shotgun. About a dozen black pellet holes surrounded by red and swollen skin. Once we cleaned them up, and Effy had used some surgical tweezers to remove the shot, I passed her some neat alcohol, a tube of antiseptic salve and a clean white bandage. That was the minor wound sorted. Her head wound was the real worry, and I knew that because since she had been carried down to this room, she hadn't opened her eyes or even flinched slightly when the shot was extracted pellet by pellet. I was concerned, and by the looks of Effy and Katie, so were they.

"OK Cook" I said coldly "Let's have it. Why the fuck did a group of fucking part time farmers get the better of you three? Jo's dead, Naomi's out of it, and you look like you got the worst end of a street mugging. Come on Soldier Sam, what the fuck happened?"

I knew it wasn't fair, and to give Cook credit, he never made the obvious comment about me knowing absolutely fuck all about combat. Just sighed and looked at his feet. I saw with surprise that there were tears in his eyes.

"It's OK" he said as Effy started to interrupt. "She has a right to be pissed off with us. Three fucking 'super soldiers' and we got our arses whipped by that bunch of part time warriors"

This time Effy did interrupt, looking at me with hard eyes as she did.

"First, Emily" she said coldly "Cook is wrong, no one got their arses whipped. It was twelve onto four out there, and we left exactly twelve fresh corpses for the crows to enjoy. They were waiting for us. Secondly, this is hardly the time or place for a debrief. Your 'girlfriend' has a depressed fracture of the skull I think, and everyone who went on this rescue mission is pretty much fucked and exhausted, OK?"

I swallowed hard. Maybe this wasn't the time to take out my anger at Naomi's wounds on everyone else.

"Sorry Eff" I said quietly "You're right. I'm just worried about Naomi"

"We all are hun" she said, taking the bass out of her voice. " Lets get on with treating her as best we can, and I'll give you the details as we go on, OK?"

I nodded silently. Time for me to shut the fuck up and listen, I thought.

She took a pair of scissors and gently cut the hair away from the side of Naomi's head, pausing to mop clotted blood away and apply disinfectant as she did. Soon there was a 3 inch circle of pink scalp showing, just above Naomi's left ear. She looked so helpless and vulnerable lying there, her body bruised and bloodied, and those intense blue eyes closed. I stifled a sob which came out of nowhere to embarrass me. It was so unfair, I had punished her for days and I didn't want this to be my last impression of her.

Effy then probed gently round the small depression, testing for something, I suppose. She let out a long sigh, and I looked at her quickly. Was it bad news? She looked up at each of us in turn and smiled tightly.

"Well, its definitely a shallow depressed fracture, but until I find out if there's bleeding underneath, we won't know how bad it is. Depressed fractures can be treatable, but if she needs surgery, I'm not the one to do it. She's been out cold for the past hour now, so that's not a particularly good sign, kids. However, she's young, super fit and sometimes these sort of wounds look worse than they are. I'm no combat surgeon, but I think its a bit of a wait and see now"

She gently pulled Naomi's head round until she was lying back on the pillow. She opened her eyes in turn with her fingers and used a small torch on her eyes.

"Both pupils are reacting. Thats a good sign" she said "If one of them was dilated or fixed, I would be more worried. Lets not get ahead of ourselves. Rest and obs is all we can do at the moment. She hasn't lost any significant blood, so we'll just rig up some fluids, and wait and see, OK?"

It was very far from fucking OK, but what else could I say? My medical experience was limited to watching Holby City and reruns of ER on cable, so what the fuck could I offer Naomi?

Effy pulled a clean sheet over Naomi's unconscious form and turned to me.

"OK, Emily. Lets talk about what happened. Cook, feel free to interrupt if I leave anything out, right?"

Cook nodded silently.

"We tracked them to a smallholding on a hill in the area we thought they would be in, about ten miles from here. When we got there, we could see with binoculars that 'Harry's' brother wasn't anywhere to be seen. There was a ten foot square wooden shed with a chicken coop next to it, and about five men sitting or standing around it. There were weapons, but they were all shotguns, and they were standing against the wall. One of the men had a handgun, but it was in his waistband. As we started to talk about making a move, another guy came out of the shed with a girl. I'm guessing this was this Walters fuckpig. I suppose the kid was 14 or 15, thin with long blonde hair"

Harry gasped as Effy said that and choked out "It's Ellie...she was...is my friend"

Effy gave Harry a sad smile and carried on.

"She was naked to the waist and the big guy was leading her out on a dog collar and chain.

I saw Cooks jaw work as his face twisted in remembered rage.

Effy went on.

"I was just about to turn to Jo to ask if they were in range of our shotguns, but she had gone. I saw her skirting the hedge to the side of the shed and knew she'd lost it. She was going to kill someone very soon, and we had no time to hatch anything more complicated than a frontal assault"

Cooks voice sounded hoarse and bitter as he took up the story.

"Rule number one for a special forces soldier, fuck ANY soldier – don't get mad, get fuckin' even", he said in a monotone " We should have stood off and slotted the arse-wipes one by one at a distance. Their popguns would have been useless against proper assault rifles"

"Jo got mad and careless, and so she got killed" he rasped "Naomi and I raised our weapons straight away and took out four of the five men with body shots. They all went down" he grimaced as he adjusted his damaged leg "High velocity rounds aren't just about the bullet, kids. Its the kinetic energy, you see. The tissue that's displaced by the entry wound is only the start of it. It goes in as a 7.62 mm round, but when it exits the other side, you can put your fist into the fucking hole. They were all dead men from the time they got hit"

He paused to drink cold water from the plastic cup Katie had brought over to him.

"By the time I lowered my weapon to check who was still standing, Jo was right onto the others. She took out the other guy with a head shot from her 9mm. But the 'dog walker' was quicker on the uptake than the rest. He shot the captive girl in the head with his side arm without taking his eyes off Jo….sorry 'Arry... I fucking knew what was going to happen, but I couldn't do a thing about it. Jo was running at him, about 15 feet away, I suppose, but he was cool, the fucking rapist bastard. He took aim and put one in Jo's body and then one in her head. Like a fucking pro. She never had a chance. Dead before she hit the floor"

I swallowed hard and looked at Katie and Effy in turn. Did I ask the obvious question? Fuck it, someone had to...

"Did you get him Cook?" I said hoarsely

"Oh we got him, princess" he said grimly "I squeezed off a round and hit him in the shin. He went down like a sack of spuds, screaming like a fox cub and we legged it over and reached him in a few seconds, then Naomi put another round into his gun hand, just to make sure he wouldn't be killing any more children. He seemed to lose interest in murder after that"

He gulped another mouthful of water before going on.

"Just then I heard another volley of shots. Another group of guys came out of the trees behind us and started shooting. Fucking amateur stuff, but they got lucky. One 12 bore round hit Naomi in the shoulder and the force of it spun her round and smashed her head against a fence post. She went down straight away. I turned and let off a fast burst. Then Effs and Katiekins here came to the rescue. I heard them blasting away from the trees too, and they hit another two bad guys before I managed to rake the others with a long burst knocking them over like skittles. Lucky I did, my clip was fucking empty then. I dragged my 9mm out of my pocket and went over to finish them for good. Just as I did that, another carrot crunching cunt came out of the long grass and let off both barrels at me. Lucky for me he was a lousy shot, just this..." He raised his wounded hand "But very fucking unlucky for him. I put three rounds into him at point blank range. He's gonna spend the rest of eternity looking up into the sky for Jesus"

Cook chuckled throatily, but there was no humour in it.

"So Jo was dead, Naomi was badly hurt, and I managed to twist my fucking ankle in a rabbit hole running back to the rapist gang leader. Clumsy fucker that I am"

I smiled at Cook "You have other attributes Cook. We'll overlook your Mr Bean impressions"

He grinned at me cheekily. I was relieved and kinda glad that 'our' Cook was still in there somewhere.

"So... our child murdering ringleader?" I said, not really wanting to know the answer.

"Dead by now" Cook and Effy said together. I saw Katie shudder as she stood there and guessed his passing wasn't designed to be peaceful. Cook chuckled again. It wasn't a nice sound.

"We left him blinded, hamstrung and with his shrivelled dick nicely out on show for the wildlife, tied spread-eagled to four short posts in the ground. If the foxes don't get him before nightfall, the crows will have some fun playing Woody Woodpecker on his cock and balls. I'm guessing he might last an hour or so...if he's extremely unlucky"

Cook laughed thinly, and I saw that underneath his cheeky boy exterior, there was a cold killer. I made a mental note never to piss him off any more than was necessary.

We ended the debrief then. Katie and Effy went to shower, so did Cook. I was left with Harry and Naomi. Then it hit me, what about her brother? The whole reason for going on this crazy mission

She saw my look and must have guessed my thoughts.

"He wasn't with them Emily" she said sadly "Either he got away, or Walters killed him last night. Her eyes filled with big tears and I reached out and wrapped my arms round her. We shared a mutual comfort hug. Where was my dad with his Fitch hugs when you needed him...?

XXX

And so my vigil over Naomi began...