Come home
The next chapter is exceedingly long, so will probably be a while coming.
15/5/98
Martin Coomes looked down at his watch. Ten to midnight. They'd made good time. He glanced over the team in the back of the van with him; The four combat officers he spent half his life with, and Sarah Cole, a girl from HQ. Everyone except her was carrying a silenced M5 assault rifle, she had a pistol. Martin sighed.
"OK everyone, speed is of the essence here. Keep to your pairs, go room by room, thoroughly, ho heroics. Nile and Sarah, on our six. If one of us goes down, radio code is..."
"Osprey." The men chorused.
"Then Nile takes their place. Sarah, you stay put unless two of us go down, or specifically ordered otherwise. There should be one of our guys in there, alive, so..."
"Don't shoot to kill unless it has a weapon." They chorused. Martin sighed again.
"We need to be ready for this one boys. These guys sent HQ a tape of our guy being tortured, didn't they?" He glanced at Sarah, who nodded grimly. "Just... be ready for the fact that what we find in there isn't going to be pretty. Don't let them beg. These guys don't deserve any mercy." The men nodded grimly again. "Ned, with me. Oscar, with Ben. Nile, Sarah, on our six. Go."
They burst from the van, running in a column, to cover each other, sprinting for the door of the house. Martin and Ben each fired a few rounds in to the lock on the door. Raised the alarm, but gave less warning than using a ram on a door this weak. The windows were boarded. Ben dropped back, letting Oscar charge the door. The door caved in, splintering between the bullet holes as the huge Scotsman threw his weight against it and dropped to a roll, trusting everyone else to cover him.
A lone man stepped from a doorway on the left, shouting, drawing a pistol. Martin's right index finger curled. Three of his rounds hammered in to the hostile's chest. He fell silent and crumpled. Martin hadn't been the only one who'd shot him. Someone had got him through the eye, so definitely dead. He was young, eighteen? Nineteen? He looked like he'd been trying to grow a beard.
Martin pushed his pity aside and pushed in to the room the hostile had come from, feeling Ned at his side.
The room was empty. Another pistol was lying on the floor. No bodies, no other people. Martin tapped Ned on the shoulder and turned to leave.
Next room on their side. Much smaller, no live people, but the room stank of death. There'd been a body in here. Hopefully not Adam Carter's.
They turned back to the corridor. As he crossed the threshold, a bullet hummed past Martin and embedded itself in the doorframe. Martin leapt back in to the room for cover, looking around. There. At the top of the stairs. One man, bare-footed, bare-chested. He must have been asleep. But he still had a gun, and he'd moved so that, in order to shoot at him, Martin would have to leave his cover, and probably be shot trying. He had Kevlar, but at this kind of range, it wasn't much good. Nile and Sarah were in the same situation, but the hostile hadn't counted on Oscar and Ben.
Martin heard five shots as the hostile fell, tumbling down the stairs, long, tapering moustache flopping almost comically, two small circular holes in his forehead.
Up or down? The stairs led in two directions. Martin motioned Sarah and Nile forwards, listening. A thump from below, nothing from above. If there were hostiles above, they'd be more likely to escape than those below.
Martin decided. He motioned Nile and Sarah to stay and Oscar and Ben to go up, then led Ned down.
The stench of blood was everywhere, and urine. The torches on their guns provided the only light. This place made the hair on the back of Martin's neck stand up. Two doors, one on the right, one on the left. Martin motioned Ned right, both doors looked firmly closed, but attack from behind was very possible. Less so if they were quick. He shouldered the door, Ned covering his side. A few iron girders stood like sentinels. They could be cover for hostiles. The smell was almost overwhelming in here. Blood had pooled on the floor in a few places, congealed there. Ned advanced, checking the girders. Martin put a wall at his back. It barely made him any less uneasy.
Ned came back, shrugging. Martin nodded. The pair of them went for the other door. Ned paused just outside it. Breathing. They looked at each other. Martin nodded.
They kicked the door open.
"Freeze!" A man's voice bellowed from the right. Martin turned, Ned at his back. Two men, one holding the other upright, with obvious effort. The man behind had dark hair, his back to a wall, and a gun pressed in to the other's neck. The man in front was barely conscious, eyes dull, breathing laboured, covered in blood. "If you move, I will kill this man." Martin hesitated. He didn't doubt that the dark haired man would kill the other as a last move, the key would be to distract him.
"Who is he?"
"He is Adam Carter. The one you came for, yes?"
"His heart's stopped." Martin said, flicking his torch away from the hostage's face. "His pupil reflex is gone." Whether the hostile meant to or not, he glanced across at his hostage, so he didn't see Ned fire. One bullet to the temple, that was all it took. Both men crumpled to the floor.
Ned darted forwards, right hand going straight to the hostage's neck.
"Still alive." He said, after a moment, rolling the hostage in to the Recovery Position.
"Foxtrot leader, this is foxtrot two." Martin's radio cracked in to life. "We are clear above. Repeat: clear above."
"Copy." Martin replied. "Foxtrot two, take foxtrot three's position. Miss Cole, get down here. We need you to ID someone."