Dagger Strike: A Cairo Sloane Short Story

PART THREE

Cairo peered out of the chopper as it blasted its way through the night. Outside the desert was black and only visible when the moon broke through the clouds and everything turned a strange, ghostly silver color for a few seconds. She wondered what could drive a man like Kevin Campbell to cross over to the dark side and work for someone like Erzhan Akmetov.

The two SEALs, Petty Officer John Richards and Seaman Franky Loretto, had joined them at the airbase and were now on the other side of the chopper swapping stories with the British guys and talking about tactics. Cairo could hear them through her headset but she ignored the banter. She was nervous about her first deployment with the regiment and distracted by sudden thoughts of her parents’ bloody execution. She had witnessed it as a child and the psychological scars were deep and rough. The images rose up into her mind like black phantoms and she worked hard to shake them away.

She couldn’t afford to make any mistakes right now — the life of the young photojournalist was in her hands. She comforted herself with a promise — a promise to hunt down and kill the men responsible for her parents’ deaths no matter what it took, no matter how long it took, and then she focused on Dagger Strike.

The pilot told them to prepare for landing and like the others she gave her weapons a final check as the engine overhead began to lose power.

They descended and landed behind a low line of foothills half a kilometre to the south of Akmetov’s compound. As the rotor blades slowed and the pilots switched the machine off, Cairo and the others walked across to the SBS man who had guided them to the landing site. He was dressed in black with a black beanie pulled down to his eyebrows and his face covered in camo paint.

“Nice of you to turn up,” he said cheerily.

“Is that you Michaels?” Hart said. Concern filled her voice and she began to scan the area.

“Sure is, and I was getting lonely out here in this desert all by my sodding self.”

“Pretty crappy company, then,” Cairo said.

Before he could reply, Hart interrupted. “Where’s…”

“Bit of a problem there,” the SBS operative said, shouldering his gun.

Olivia Hart sighed, the anger on her face partially hidden by her own camo paint. “What’s he done this time?”

“About an hour ago we were watching what passes for a main road around here when we saw Akmetov’s men shoot up an MSF convoy and snatch one of the doctors.”

“Medecins Sans Frontieres?” Hart said. “I thought Doctors Without Borders were working further north than this?”

“No idea, boss,” Michaels said. “But Sparrow was off like a shot out of a gun when he saw them take that doctor.”

“And his present location?”

“He left here around thirty minutes ago and.”

His words were interrupted by the sound of distant automatic gunfire.

“I think I can assume his present location,” Hart said. “Dammit — and now we have two hostages instead of one. Brilliant.”

“That’s what he was trying to stop,” Michaels said.

Richards checked his watch. “We need to get on.”

“I’m ready to do it,” Loretto said.

Hart agreed, and the team made its way through a series of low ravines in the moonlight until they reached the compound. On their short journey the gunfire from inside the place had been sporadic and Cairo guessed the SBS guy was still on the loose, but then the party kicked off for real.

Rapid GPMG shots fired out, and they dived for cover. The Americans were to the right of her, to the east, and the SBS guys were to the left. They all saw the muzzle flash on top of the main building’s roof and it looked like the gunner was tracking someone across the yard at the front of the compound.

“He must have Sparrow in his sights,” Hart said over the radio.

“Whoever it is, he’s moving like lightning by the looks of how fast they’re swinging that gun,” Richards said.

“So let’s get in there,” Mack said, readying his submachine gun and shouldering a grenade launcher. “If it’s all right with you bastards I’d like to sleep in a real bed tonight and not on this fuckin’ sand.”

Hart ordered them in, and following their battle plan they divided into their separate units and attacked the compound from different sides with Richards, Loretto and Jonny providing sniper back-up. The SBS went in from the west while Cairo and the rest of the SAS made straight in from the south.

Knowing one of their own was inside the compound taking serious heat, all three teams fought like wildfire to get inside and draw some of the enemy fire away from the SBS man. Akmetov’s men were now facing the fight of their lives — not just to defend their boss’s hideaway, but to stay alive, and they fought like maniacs.

Cairo dashed forward on her own now, Heckler & Koch held tight to her body as she sprinted across the yard and tucked herself in behind an outbuilding. She flicked her head around the edge of the wall and saw her target.

Large man, holding an Uzi and retreating back toward the main property.

He was using an old Nissan pickup for cover, and firing in intermittent bursts to keep the raiders at bay.

Cairo hurled an L109A1 frag grenade over the hip of the outbuilding’s roof and counted three seconds.

The explosion was savage and lethal fragments of bent, twisted steel shards burst in every direction in a terrific fireball.

She checked around the corner and Mr Uzi was long gone. She ran forward through the hot smoke and devastation the frag had just caused, deliberately using it as cover as she pushed forward again. Behind her, Mack was on the roof of the garage block and had just started firing a Punisher at the upper stories of the main residence.

The precision air-burst grenade launcher, officially known as the XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System was a lethal piece of equipment in the right hands, and Mack’s hands were as right as they came. Now, he unleashed hell on Akmetov’s forces on the balcony and the upper storeys behind it, firing a rapid burst of 25 mm grenades at the enemy.

Seeing some of the men leap off the roof and try and make a break for it behind the stables, the sturdy Scot smacked a new box magazine into the weapon, used the laser rangefinder to adjust the distance and let the escapees have some more hell. The grenades exploded all around them, blasting the stables to pieces and sending the fleeing men tumbling into the air.

“Did I get them?” he said calmly over the radio.

“Dead before they hit the ground,” Richards said.

“Before what was left of them hit the ground, you mean,” said Jonny.

Panicked now, Akmetov was visible sprinting through the lower levels and screaming orders at his men to keep the invaders at bay no matter the cost. It didn’t seem to work, and the remaining men who had survived the initial assault now began to scatter and run into the desert to save their own skins.

But saving skins wasn’t on the menu. Orders were to take them all out and now Richards, Loretto and Jonny began picking them off one by one.

The Kazakh drug lord appeared in the door — he was holding the photojournalist at gunpoint, pushing the muzzle of a pistol into his temple. In his other hand he had what looked like a Type 79 Chinese submachine gun. He started screaming at the team as they mopped up the last of the resistance and closed in on him.

He desperately swivelled his eyes at the encroaching Special Forces personnel, hardly able to believe how fast it had all gone down. The game was well and truly up. “I will kill him if you come any closer!”

As he spoke he loosed a volley of fire from the submachine gun, firing wildly in every direction. The journalist winced and tried to duck but Akmetov ordered him to stay where he was. He tossed the pistol away and pulled what looked like a grenade from his pocket, and then fired another burst at the invaders.

Cairo dived for cover behind the Nissan and reloaded her submachine gun, smacking another magazine into it and taking a few short breaths to steady her hands. The adrenalin was coursing through her veins like jet fuel as the bullets traced and whizzed over her and buried themselves into a cheap plaster wall behind the rusted pickup.

Akmetov’s Type 79 blasted a window in the wall and sent a burst of glass shards showering down over her head. He lowered the barrel and began ripping holes in the Nissan she was hiding behind.

The Kazakh now stumbled out of the burning building — ablaze thanks to Mack’s Punisher. “Get back!” he yelled, and made his way toward the garage block. “I’m getting out of here right now.”

From up on the perimeter wall, Richards tracked the Kazakh through his sniper rifle. “You got that right,” he said over the radio. “Crosshairs right between his eyes.”

“It has to be clear shot,” Hart said. “You can’t risk the journalist’s life.”

“I got the shot and I’m going to… wait — damn journalist moved in my way.”

Cairo felt her breath grow deeper as her heart quickened. From her position on the ground behind the savaged Nissan she had the shot but there was no time to call it in. She spun around and rested her arms on the truck’s hood, bringing her gun into the aim in less than two seconds and squeezed the trigger.

Akmetov collapsed like a rag doll and the journalist staggered away, yelling hysterically for a few seconds.

And then they all saw it — what they thought had been a grenade was a dead man’s switch tightly held in Akmetov’s hand. Now, his dead fingers unfurled and released the switch, and the entire lower floor of the compound started to blow up. The explosions lit the night for miles as the place went up in smoke, room by room.

“The whole place is wired to blow!” Mack yelled.

Hud ran forward and grabbed the journalist, dragging him to safety.

“Jesus — the MSF doctor is still in there!” said Loretto.

“And our boy,” said Hart.

Cairo shook her head for a second, hardly able to see the main residence for all the fire and smoke. She could hardly believe her eyes as she watched a colossal fireball consume the entire entrance hall, and then something happened that made her stop breathing.

A man holding a woman in his arms burst out of the raging inferno and sprinted across the yard toward the safety of the Nissan.

He skidded to a halt and fell down into the dirt beside her, and then gently rolled the unconscious woman from his arms until she was free. He started giving her the kiss of life when Hart skidded down next to him, firing off a few rounds at a straggler who was running along the roof.

“You stupid bastard, Hawke!” Hart yelled.

“I had to save her, Liv!”

“Crazy bastard Limey,” Richards said over the radio.

Cairo looked confused. “I thought you said his name was Sparrow?”

Hawke shook his head. “Name’s Hawke — Joe Hawke. Sparrow’s a nickname a few of the lads in the SBS call me. Sparrowhawk.” He looked apologetic. “To them, this is the height of humor.” He returned his attention to the unconscious doctor.

“Don’t change the subject,” Hart said. “You had strict orders not to engage with the enemy until we arrived. You could have blown the whole operation.”

“Sparrow…” Cairo said disparagingly.

The doctor began to splutter back to life, and Hawke sat her up, leaning her back against the wall. “It’s all right, Tuva,” he said, brushing her hair from her face. “You’re back with us and we’re getting out of here right now.”

“Where am I?” She looked at their faces, totally confused, and began to cough again.

“You’re in hell,” Cairo said.

“Leave it, Cairo,” said Hart.

“Cairo?” said Hawke. “You’re taking the piss out of Sparrow and you’re called Cairo. What sort of name is that?”

“The sort that will kick your arse up one side of your massive ego and down the other if you don’t watch your tongue.”

Hawke looked at Hart. “I thought we agreed only tamed newbies from now on?” “Hey! Who you calling a newbie?”

“I hate to break this up,” Hart said, “but we’re out of here — the chopper’s on its way and is meeting us south of the compound.”

As they marched back across the desert the chopper rose up into the air and crossed in front of the full moon low on the horizon. The wind whipped up, promising a sandstorm and their radios crackled: Taliban on their way.

After checking the photojournalist and doctor weren’t too shell-shocked, Hart said, “One night in Karachi and then we’re going in opposite directions. No idea what the US Navy has in store for you guys, but SBS are being deployed on a counter-terror op in Iraq and SAS are going on a holiday to Kabul.”

“That’s a shame,” Hawke said, turning to Cairo. “I was looking forward to working with you again.”

“You call that work, darling?” Cairo said with a grin. “That’s just a warm-up.”

A ripple of laughter went around the group as they approached the chopper. They shielded their eyes from the sand whipped up by the rotor wash.

“Come on,” Hawke said. “I’ll buy you a drink.”

Cairo gave him a look. “Me? I never touch the stuff.”

On hearing this, Mack and the other SAS men burst into laughter but Cairo didn’t flinch. She climbed up into the chopper and closed her eyes for a second. Her first SAS deployment was over.