Firefight

EIGHT

Once they had RV'd back at the truck, Drew took the wheel, Kennedy sitting beside him. Ismail was bundled roughly into the back by Will and Anderson.

'You sure this is the right guy?' Anderson asked, once they were all inside.

Ismail looked anxiously at Will, knowing that his safety was hanging on the words of the man he had so clearly just pissed off.

Will stared coldly back at him. 'Yeah,' he said, finally. 'I'm sure.'

'Looks like a fucking Fundie Jundie to me,' Kennedy muttered from the front.

'Shut up, Kennedy,' Will snapped. 'Ignore him,' he told Ismail. 'For now, at least.'

Having perfectly memorised the route Sami had taken into Kandahar, Drew retraced it as the others sat silently in the back. Anderson and Kennedy eyed Ismail with distrust; Ismail, in turn, looked as though he was wondering what the hell he had got himself into, stuck in a vehicle with these dangerous men.

Will was certainly angry with the frightened Afghan, but he couldn't quite pinpoint why. The guy was only being careful, after all. Maybe he just didn't like the fact that Ismail had pulled the wool over his eyes. In situations like this, you want to be control and for a few moments back there, Will hadn't been. It had given him a bad feeling.

Once they reached the outskirts of the city, Will spoke. 'OK, Ismail,' he said. 'You'd better start talking. Where are we going and how long will it take us to get there?'

Ismail's eyes flickered anxiously to each of the SAS men in turn before he answered. 'The village where the woman you are searching for is being held is a day's drive from here. The main road south will take you most of the way, but the snow will have blocked off the smaller road that leads to the village itself. You will have to make your way there on foot.'

'Lovely,' Kennedy murmured. 'A walk through the snow in the dark. Maybe we can attack the Taliban with snowballs.'

'I'll fucking attack you if you don't shut it,' Anderson growled, 'and not with snowballs.'

'I'd rather engage the Taliban under cover of night anyway,' Will said. He wasn't worried by the sniping between them — it often happened when adrenaline was running high. As long as they could rely on each other in battle, that was what counted.

He turned back to Ismail. 'Are you sure you'll be able to lead us there?'

'Positive,' Ismail said, confidently. 'It is the village where I was born. That is the reason I know what is going on there.'

'What's the main road south like?' Anderson asked.

Ismail raised an eyebrow. 'Like all roads in Afghanistan,' he said, simply. 'It is very dangerous. There will not be many cars, not in this weather. But we may encounter roadblocks. Some of them will be military, others will have been set up by bandits who will want to take all the money we have. And if we don't give it to them, they will try to take it by force.'

The SAS men maintained a grim silence. Will knew exactly what they were thinking.

11.35. They had been driving for perhaps half an hour and the last remnants of the urban sprawl of Kandahar had finally dissolved into nothing, when Will instructed Drew to pull over. 'What is wrong?' Ismail asked.

'Nothing's wrong,' Will told him. 'We need to get our weapons ready. If we come across trouble, we don't want to be scrabbling around looking for guns.'

'But I thought you had your gun,' he said. 'You pointed it at me.' He sounded so concerned about this, that the others could not resist a smile.

'We've brought some back-up,' Will told him, opening the compartment in the floor of the truck to reveal the weapons cache. Ismail's eyes widened slightly as the Diemacos came out and he fell silent — though from that moment on, Will kept noticing that Ismail would glance anxiously at the guns from time to time. Each time he did so, Anderson looked at him with a certain distaste.

'You do not like me, I think,' Ismail said.

Anderson looked away.

'You do not trust me, perhaps.'

'You're an informant,' Anderson growled. 'You're doublecrossing someone. I just hope it isn't us.'

Ismail smiled a patient smile. 'I think perhaps you do not know how life is in Afghanistan.'

'Bollocks to that,' Anderson replied, vigorously. 'I spent six months this year in the Stan and three months the year before that. I've had every Taliban fucker in this godforsaken country throw everything they've got at me and I've lost count of the number of mates who've had their brains blown out of the back of their heads. So don't tell me I don't know anything about Afghanistan, my friend.'

An uncomfortable silence followed Anderson's outburst — a silence only broken when Ismail spoke. His voice was measured, reasonable.

'I did not mean,' he said, calmly, 'that you know nothing of Afghanistan as a theatre of war. Your ability in that field is beyond question and I thank you for the sacrifices you have made on my country's behalf. I meant that perhaps you do not know what life is like for we ordinary citizens. I despise the Taliban as much as you — they killed my parents, after all. But I would not be running the risk I run simply out of revenge. We are a poor country and many people struggle even to buy food. I do what I do so that I am able to feed my young son — your British government pays me enough for the information to make it worthwhile. Tell me, my friend, do you have children?'

Anderson nodded, curtly.

'And is there anything you would not do to put food in their mouths?'

Ismail's direct question was not met with an answer. Instead, Anderson redirected his gaze out of the window. The young Afghan did not press the issue, but it was clear to all of them that he had given Anderson something to think about.

The snow started to fall more thickly, dancing in the beams of the headlights and flying towards the car like a million tiny bullets. Drew was forced to reduce his speed to little more than a crawl as he peered through the windscreen, his face screwed up in concentration as he negotiated his way through the blizzard. The area south of Kandahar was not mountainous, like other parts of Afghanistan; but there was a steady upwards incline as they drove up out of the geographical bowl in which the city was situated. It was difficult to see clearly through the blizzard, but when Will did manage to get a view of the landscape, he saw it was a gently undulating terrain. There were a few trees, but they were sparse. More striking were the remnants of Afghanistan's past battles that lay abandoned by the side of the road. He counted the hulking shells of Russian T-55 tanks, anything of any use already stripped out of them. There were burned out armoured cars, discarded oil drums — the debris of a country that had been at war for as long as it could remember.

Every now and then they felt the wheels spin ineffectually on the icy road and towards mid-afternoon, despite Drew's skill behind the wheel, they felt themselves skidding towards the side of the road. They jolted around inside the truck as Drew calmly drove into the skid and brought the vehicle to a halt. It was clear that the going was getting tough, so they attached the snow chains that Sami had provided. They drove off again and the chains crunched noisily under them, but the truck held the road much better. As the afternoon wore on, the snow stopped falling and they were able to see around them a bit more clearly. When they stopped to replenish the truck with diesel from one of the tanks that Sami had supplied, the others stood guard around the vehicle, pointing their guns up into the hills, which they all knew from experience of this treacherous country could be hiding unknown dangers.

Everywhere was covered in a blanket of fresh snow and Will felt as if they were the only people for miles around in that spectacular winter landscape. As if to shatter the illusion, Ismail spoke.

'The Taliban are very strong in this region,' he said, quietly. 'It feels like there is nobody around, but there are many villages around here, cut off by the snow. When the Taliban were thrown from power, they took refuge in places like this. They are not afraid to kill the villagers to get what they want, so now they run these places with the same reign of terror as they ran all of Afghanistan only a few years ago. I myself have seen them hang the body of a father in front of his children. I pray my own son does not have to witness such a thing.'

He stared out of the window into the landscape beyond, leaving the unit to imagine that grizzly scene. Will found it turned his stomach, but something deep inside him refused to be entirely horrified by what Ismail had described. At least parents were supposed to die before their children. He looked over at Anderson, who was staring thoughtfully at the floor. Was he thinking about his own kids? Will wondered. Was he wondering if he would be eating Christmas lunch with them in just over a week's time? Despite the snow all around, Christmas seemed a million miles away in this benighted country.

And with the thought of Christmas, the image of Laura and Anna, his family, lying dead on the floor of that department store so many thousands of miles away, flashed into his head. In a brief surge that lasted only a few seconds, he relived all the pain that had been with him ever since. Somewhere, he thought to himself, out in the bleak, uninviting landscape around him, was the key to his revenge. He found himself gritting his teeth, almost looking forward to the business ahead.

'Road block.' Drew said the words calmly, but Will instantly shook off his reverie as the truck came to a halt. On either side of them was a hilly mound with low bushes covered in snow. He leaned over and looked through the windscreen. Sure enough, a couple of hundred metres down the road, they saw a large vehicle parked to one side. Two men were standing in the middle of the road just next to it. From this distance it was impossible to see if they were armed, but Will felt sure they would be.

'ISAF?' he asked, tersely.

'I think it is unlikely,' Ismail replied. 'There are too few of them and I am not aware of any NATO bases in this region.'

'It's an ambush,' Anderson said, quietly. 'Look. Footprints.'

He pointed up into the hillock along one side of the road, a scant fifteen metres away. Just as Anderson had said, there was a trail of prints in the snow leading up to a little line of bushes, small enough to go unnoticed, but large enough to hide a man. Will looked to see if he could find anyone there. At first, he saw nothing; but as he squinted his eyes, something moved. It was only a tiny movement, but enough to shake a little shower of snow from one of the bushes on to the ground beneath. He looked more carefully. Sure enough, he could make out the outline of a man's head. He even thought he could see the black metal of a gun barrel pointing out through the bush.

'There's someone there,' he announced.

'Both sides,' Kennedy said. 'I've clocked one on our right too. Looks like someone's preparing for a surprise party — and I bet they've forgotten to bring any cake.'

They needed to move quickly and decisively. 'Drive up,' Will said, calmly. 'When they come to the window, nail them.' He looked at Anderson. 'We'll de-bus as soon as that happens. Fragmentation grenades at the ambushers, then take them out.'

Ismail started breathing heavily. 'You're going to kill them?'

'Not if they kill us first,' Will stated, flatly.

'But what if — ?'

'Shut up, Ismail,' he ordered. 'They haven't set up this ambush for fun. They have the advantage and if we don't take the fight to them, we'll be corpses on the side of the road within a minute.'

Ismail fell silent.

'Their main target's going to be our vehicle, so we need to get the hell out of here. When I say the word, me and Anderson are going to jump out the back and hit the ambushers with grenades. When we do that, jump out and take cover at the side of the road. We'll take it from there.

Can you do that, Ismail?'

The frightened Afghan nodded mutely.

In the front, Drew and Kennedy had taken the Sigs from their holsters and laid them on their laps. Will readied his weapon, while Anderson fished two fragmentation grenades from his rucksack and handed one over.

'Let's try and finish this with the same number of holes in our bodies as when we started,' Kennedy drawled.

No one laughed.

'Go!'Will told Drew.

The truck moved slowly forwards. Ismail's heavy breathing became more panicked as they approached the roadblock, but Will tried to put that sound from his mind as he concentrated on the matter in hand. His awareness had become crystalline and precise; a strange sense of calm had descended over him. The calm before the storm.

The roadblock was ten metres away now and the truck slowed down while the two men approached the front windows, one on either side. Will shifted to the back of the truck, ready to jump out as soon as he heard the crack of the weapons, but he managed to steal a glance at the two of them. There was no way these men were soldiers: they were walking with a louche, arrogant gait and one of them had his weapon — an AK-47 — resting over his right shoulder. They wore warm, heavy Afghan clothing, and their bearded faces were locked in an unpleasant sneer. One of them, as he approached, seemed to look over to where the ambushers were hidden; he nodded, imperceptibly.

The man who had approached the driver's window tapped on the glass, indicating to Drew that he should wind it down.

This was it. In a matter of seconds it would be over.

Drew and Kennedy wound down their windows. Immediately the man on Drew's side started to speak, his voice an incomprehensible babble of harsh, guttural Pashto.

He didn't get the chance to say much.

Almost as one, Drew and Kennedy raised their guns, pointed them directly at the faces of the two men, and fired. Will heard them thump to the ground. 'Now!' he hissed and instantly he and Anderson opened the back doors of the truck and jumped out. They pulled the pins from their fragmentation grenades and hurled them in the direction of the two ambushers, before jumping to the low bushes at the side of the road to get some natural cover. Ismail followed, scampering away from the truck with his arms held protectively over his head and Will was aware of Drew and Kennedy de-bussing too.

He and Anderson engaged their rifles and pointed them in the direction of their targets. The grenades exploded with a deafening crack and seconds later the two men staggered from the bushes where they were hiding. Even from a distance, Will could see that his man was horrifically wounded from the shrapnel in his face. He mercilessly aimed the Diemaco at the guy's head and fired a single shot. The ambusher fell backwards into the bushes, blood from his head spraying over the virgin snow.

Will heard the crack of Anderson's rifle and turned just in time to see the second ambusher collapse to the ground.

And then, all around them was silence. The sort of silence you only experience when there are dead people about.

Silence or not, they needed to check that their targets were indeed dead — leaving a wounded hostile behind you was a sure way to end up with a bullet in the back.

Will strode towards the man he'd nailed. As he did so, he heard two bangs as Drew and Kennedy administered head shots from their pistols to the fallen enemy.

It was the third bang that they didn't expect.

Will felt the shock of a high-calibre bullet whiz past him. It slammed into the open door at the back of the truck, instantly destroying the metal as though somebody had crumpled a piece of paper in their hand.

'Hit the ground!'Will yelled and the five of them dived into the thick, powdery snow.

'Where is he?' he heard Anderson yell and Will scoured the hillside to see where this surprise enemy fire was coming from.

Suddenly, from his right, there came a barrage of muffled fire. It was Kennedy. He let off five silent shots from his suppressed Diemaco and somewhere up the hill there was a yell of pain. A figure tumbled forwards from behind a mound of snow.

One final shot from Kennedy was all it took to dispatch him.

Silence again.

Will was breathing heavily, hardly noticing the chill of the snow. They lay there for a good minute, carefully scanning the hillside as they searched for any more hidden ambushes.

Nothing.

'Get back to the truck!' Will called. They pushed themselves up and stepped backwards to the vehicle, firing the occasional shot to give them cover. From the corner of his eye, Will was aware of the corpse collapsed by the passenger door. His head had been completely shot open, the warm blood still oozing from his shattered skull melting the snow around him. Good, Will thought to himself. That was one ambusher they didn't have to worry about. They'd have to leave the guys that Will and Anderson had nailed. There could be other ambushers up there and they couldn't risk examining the bodies. They just had to get out of there as quickly as possible.

He was just by the truck, a couple of metres from Drew, when he heard a voice. From behind the ambushers' vehicle another Afghan had appeared. His hands were stretched in the air in a gesture of surrender and he walked nervously towards them.

Instinctively, Drew had raised his firearm and had it aimed firmly at the surrendering enemy. The Afghan stopped and a tense silence descended. Drew looked over at Will, his eyes questioning.

He was waiting for an order and Will only had a split second in which to give it.

He looked at the Afghan. Then he looked back at Drew and nodded.

Instantly, Drew pulled the trigger. The Afghan crumpled to the ground. 'Get in the truck, everyone,' Will instructed.

They all took their places — all except Ismail, who insisted on sitting on the floor of the vehicle. 'Are they gone?' he whimpered.

'Stay down!' Will told him in a tone of voice that he knew would do nothing for Ismail's state of mind — but he didn't have time to mollycoddle anyone now. The door on his side of the truck had been all but destroyed. He pulled the other one shut as Drew moved the vehicle away. They would just have to drive with the back blown open.

As the truck speeded up, he pointed his rifle out the back; passing the ambushers' vehicle, he aimed precisely and then shot into two of the tyres. They blasted into a mass of shredded rubber. Will felt a surge of grim satisfaction — if any of those bastards were nearby, they wouldn't be following very easily, if at all.

Ismail was hyperventilating now, looking up at Will and Anderson with a strange mixture of awe and fear. Will felt a surge of momentary sympathy — they might be used to situations like this, but Ismail sure as hell wasn't.

'You can get up now,' he told the shivering Afghan.

Ismail pushed himself up almost reluctantly and took a seat on one of the benches along the side of the truck. His eyes darted around from man to man, then widened when Kennedy looked at them over his shoulder: his face was spattered with the blood of the man he had shot at close range.

'You all right?' Kennedy grunted.

Ismail nodded.

'You did well,' Will told him.

'I did nothing,' Ismail replied. 'I am not—' he struggled to find the right word, '- I am not suitable for this kind of situation.'

'Well you'd better get used to it,' Will told him, bluntly, 'because chances are it's going to get harder than that.'

He stared at Ismail, who did his best to stare back. But after a while the Afghan lowered his gaze back down to the floor.

No one said anything and the truck trundled on down the icy road.

A dusty red light from a small fire illuminated the hut, but only just. Seated in a wooden chair by the fire was a tall, bearded man. His face was scarred, from the lower lip up to his cheek, and no hair grew where the ancient wound had marked his face.

Two other bearded men stood a little distance away from him. One of them spoke. 'We should just kill her now, Jamal,' he said. 'It is clear that the woman will not tell us what we want to know.'

Jamal stroked his scarred lip with a long, slender finger. He remembered the day the wound had been inflicted. His slight sneer flickered across his damaged lips as he recalled the face of the man who did it. 'I do not agree,' he said, quietly.

'What more can we do?'

Jamal's eyes narrowed. 'Many things,'he whispered. He gazed silently into the fire, as though contemplating the embers.

'Is it so important, Jamal?' the other man asked. 'Is it so important that we find this brother of hers? It is becoming a struggle to keep her alive. It would be much easier if we killed her now.'

'Important?' Jamal asked. 'Yes, it is important.' He looked at each of the men in turn. 'The Taliban are the true students of the Koran. We will be returned to power in Afghanistan. God will see to it. But what will people think when they discover that this man who betrayed us at the highest level has been allowed to go free? What will that do to our authority?'

'But he may not even be in this country.'

At this, Jamal looked angry. 'Do you not think that we have influence that extends further than Afghanistan? Do you not think that we have people willing to do God's work in America, the Great Satan? Do you not think that we have brothers in Washington and London and all over the West? Believe me, if that woman knows where he is, she will tell me, and in the name of Allah I will have him hunted down and killed.' He looked meaningfully at the two of them. 'Or perhaps the name of Allah is not as important to you as it is to me.'

The two men shifted uneasily. 'Of course it is, Jamal,' one of them replied. 'But is it necessary for so many of us to guard her day and night? She is too weak even to stand up, let alone try to escape.'

Jamal continued to stroke his scar. 'It is very necessary,' he stated. 'We are not the only people who wish to learn the whereabouts of Faisal Ahmed, of that you may be sure. It is not a matter of if they try and rescue her; it is a matter of when.'

'But who would be so foolish? We are heavily armed, and with all this snow — '

'It is not our weapons or the snow that will bring us victory,' Jamal insisted. 'We fight in the name of Allah. To die in his name will be glorious. Who in this room does not crave shihada, martyrdom?'

Jamal's face shone as a silence fell on the room and the irrefutable truth of his statement sunk in.

'I suggest you go back to your positions,' he said, after a while. 'Allahu Akbar.'

The two men bowed slightly. 'Allahu Akbar,' they said, before turning to leave.

'We need to stop here.'

Will checked his watch: 18.30 hours. Ismail had not spoken in the two hours since the ambush and even the SAS men had been quiet. They all sensed, Will knew, that they had been lucky. The people in this part of the world were well armed and life was cheap. If the hidden ambusher had been a bit more precise with his shooting, there would have been some British corpses lying back there in the snow with their Afghan attackers.

Will stared out of the window. It was twilight and the landscape looked no different to him than any they had passed for ages. 'You sure?' he asked Ismail.

'Positive,' their informant nodded. 'The village is about two kilometres east of here.'

'OK,'Will called to Drew. 'We need to find somewhere to stow the vehicle.'

Finding a suitable place was difficult — the region did not offer any natural cover and in the end they were forced simply to leave the truck by the side of the road. As Drew turned the engine off, Will was struck once again by the ominous silence all around.

'We should scran up before we go,' Kennedy said. They all delved into their rucksacks and pulled out army rations: silver-foil packs containing high-energy food. Will threw one over to Ismail, who tore it open suspiciously and picked without enthusiasm at the beef and dumplings inside.

'Eat it up,' Will told him. 'It's fucking freezing out there — you need the energy.' He squeezed the cold food from his own ration pack into his mouth. Beans, he realised as it went down, though these things all tasted pretty much the same. Hardly gourmet stuff, but it was welcome and it wasn't exactly as if Will was used to dining in the finest restaurants. Sami had supplied some bottled water in the truck, which they drank from. They wouldn't be taking it with them, though — it was unnecessary weight and with the snow all around they'd be fine.

When they had finished eating, they started getting their clothes ready. The Afghan garments that Sami had given them were discarded, to be replaced by Goretex jackets over which were pulled their thick, all-in-one snowsuits. Will handed a spare snowsuit from his pack to Ismail, who seemed uncomfortable with it, but pulled it on nevertheless — now that the engine of the truck had stopped running the temperature inside was rapidly dropping thanks to the fact that the back door had been obliterated in the ambush.

Over their snowsuits they attached military vests covered with pouches in which they stowed grenades and ammunition — all of them ignored Ismail's frightened, wide-eyed stare at the extent of their firepower. Once they were dressed, it was almost fully dark outside. Will pulled a GPS unit from his pack and recorded their current location; the others did the same. Then he stowed it away and addressed his men.

'Two kilometres,' he said. 'In this weather, we should be able to cover that in an hour.' He glanced at Ismail. 'Maybe an hour and a half. It's 19.25 now. We'll have good night cover when we hit them.'

'Do we have any idea where the target is being held?' Anderson asked Ismail.

Ismail shook his head. 'I do not know,' he admitted. 'But it is not a big place and from what I understand they are guarding her heavily.'

'OK,' Will continued. 'We'll be heading east into the village. When we get there, we'll pair off: me and Anderson, Drew and Kennedy. Ismail, once you've led us there, you stay where we put you and we'll pick you up on our way out. If we get separated, RV back at the truck. And listen to me carefully, everyone: I don't care what happens or how many ragheads you have to nail, she comes out alive.'

There was a serious kind of silence from the men before Will spoke again.

'All right,' he told them. 'Let's go.'

They slung their weapons over their shoulders and debussed in silence.

The snow was thick — a good couple of feet, which made the going slow; but a bright moon lit the way, casting shadows on the white ground. It meant that for now they did not need their night-vision goggles. The snowsuits and the exercise kept them warm, Ismail was less of a hindrance than Will thought he would be and it was not long before they saw lights in the distance. Minutes later they were in range of the village.

Ahead of them — thirty metres, Will estimated — they saw a low concrete building. A bright light shone from the roof out into the snow. Will jabbed his finger to the left to indicate to everyone that they should head in that direction to avoid being floodlit, but as he did so, the light failed. The unit were left temporarily blinded as their night vision adjusted to the sudden darkness.

'The village gets its electricity from a generator,' Ismail whispered. 'But it can only supply electricity for a few hours a day. They have switched it off now.' He pointed in the direction of the building in front of them. 'That is where the generator is kept.'

'We'll head there,' Will replied. 'It's a good place to leave you.'

They moved towards the generator building. As they approached, Drew and Kennedy crept around each side, guns at the ready, to check no one was standing guard. As soon as the place was clear they signalled for the others to approach.

The snow in front of the entrance to the generator was well trodden, but now that the electricity had been turned off for the night it was unlikely anyone would come back here, so it would be safe for Ismail. It was difficult to make out in the heavy snow, but the village ahead of them looked much as Ismail had described it — not too big, maybe 200 buildings crudely created from some kind of breeze block. The roofs were covered in snow and there was, of course, nothing in the way of street lighting.

'Ahead of you is the main square,' Ismail told the unit as he pointed away from the building. 'Most of the dwelling places are along the west and the south sides of it and I think it unlikely that anyone will be held prisoner in that area. On the far side are some other buildings — a schoolroom and various run-down shacks. I think you will find that a more profitable place to start searching.'

Will nodded. 'Get inside,' he told Ismail, 'and stay out of sight.'

'You will come and find me?'

'When we've done what we need to do, yes.'

Ismail bit his lip. 'And how long will that be, do you think?'

Will glanced towards the village. 'As long as it takes,' he replied. 'But if we're not back in half an hour, you can assume something's gone wrong.'

'And what do I do then?'

'Fucking run for it,' Kennedy said, tersely. 'And hope the X-rays don't feel like chasing.'

Ismail looked at the SAS man as though he could not work out if he was joking or not. 'What are X-rays?' he asked, his simple question betraying the total innocence that marked him out as being totally unsuitable for this situation.

'Enemy combatants,' Will said, quietly. 'But don't worry about it. We'll have them covered.' He gave the scared Afghan what he hoped was a reassuring smile, then handed him his Sig 230. 'In case you need it,' he said. 'Good luck, Ismail.'

Ismail took a deep breath. 'Thank you,' he replied, before slipping quietly inside the generator room, leaving the fourman unit outside.

'Thank God we've ditched him,' Kennedy muttered, and it was true. Will might feel sorry for the guy, but it was a relief to be on their own. They had needed Ismail to get them this far, but from now on a man who gibbered at the sight of a firearm was only going to be a hindrance. Silently, they removed their NV goggles from their packs and placed them over their heads. Will blinked as his eyes adjusted to the sudden, green-tinted clarity. Ahead of them was a cluster of single-storey dwellings; from most of these places he could see smoke curling from the chimneys — clearly the inhabitants of the village had fires in their humble houses to keep away the chill. It suggested to Will that not many people would be about.

A sudden howl filled the air — a dog, probably, scavenging around the village. The sound seemed to echo over the snow-covered plains. Will hoped for the dog's sake that it didn't come across any of them. They wouldn't be able to risk it alerting anyone else to their presence, so their only option would be to put a bullet in its head. The dog howled again. It was eerie, like this whole fucking place. The sooner they could get out of here, the better.

He nodded at Drew and Kennedy, who took the lead, skirting around the back of the crude, box-like dwellings, while Will and Anderson aimed their Diemacos forward, ready to take out anyone who caught sight of them. But so far they had seen no one. There was nobody outside. There was nothing to suggest their arrival had been clocked.

Drew and Kennedy stopped, pressed their backs against the wall of one of the buildings, then gave Will and Anderson the cover they needed to advance. They continued in this way, silently, for a couple of minutes until the dwelling places started to thin out. Up to their left, fifty metres away, they could see the larger buildings Ismail had mentioned. There was movement here, men standing outside carrying guns. Overt security. It looked hopeful.

'We should attack from both sides,' Anderson breathed.

Will addressed Drew and Kennedy. His voice was tense. 'You two, stay here. We'll skirt round to the other side. Once we're there, take them out.'

'Roger that,' Kennedy replied.

Will and Anderson waited until they were sure the guards were not looking their way, then ran to the back of the large building, confident in the knowledge that if anyone saw them, Drew or Kennedy would nail them in seconds — and at fifty metres they would be sure of hitting their targets. Once there, they peered around the other side. There was a large concrete building with a corrugated iron roof on the north side of the village. Standing outside it, rifles in hand and surveying the surrounding countryside, were two men. In front of them was a metal bin, flames flickering from the top. The snow around it had melted. They did not seem to want to stray far from the warmth of that fire and Will didn't blame them.

It was instantly clear to both SAS men that they would have to take these guys out if they wanted to alert Drew and Kennedy to their presence here and a cursory nod between them was all it took to establish that this was what they were going to do.

They raised their rifles, got the targets in their sights and fired. Their suppressed weapons let out two almost silent shots as they doubled-tapped each of their targets. Two head-shots: they fell immediately.

Will didn't even see them hit the ground. Once they were neutralised, his attention had to be elsewhere. He edged round the corner of the building and looked back towards the area where they had left Drew and Kennedy. His NV illuminated all the dwellings they had sneaked behind, he could see the snow-covered square in the middle of the village and the two guards in front of the main building were in plain view.

But he couldn't see the two SAS men.

He gave it thirty seconds. Still no sign.

'Shit,' he whispered. 'Where the fuck are they?'

As he spoke, Will turned round to look at Anderson. He was facing Will, the butt of his weapon still dug firmly into his shoulder, ready to take on anything that came at him. What he wasn't ready for, however, was what came from behind.

The instant Will saw the three Taliban fighters approaching from behind the building, he raised his gun to fire.

Anderson inclined his head slightly — it must have looked to him as though Will was aiming the weapon in his direction. The surprise was not allowed to register for long, however, because within a split second the sound of gunshot filled the air and Anderson hit the ground, a bullet lodged firmly in the back of his skull.

'Anderson!' Will roared. The situation had gone noisy now and there was no need for silence. His stomach was turning over as he realised that his partner had just been nailed. Sheer rage descended on him and on instinct he started pumping bullets into the Taliban who had just killed Anderson. Two of them fell, then a third. For a moment all thoughts of the mission left Will's mind — he just wanted to kill these people.

But suddenly they were swarming around him — four of them, maybe five, all armed, all pointing their guns directly at him. His weapon was knocked from his hands and landed with a clatter next to Anderson's still-warm body.

Instantly they were upon him, smashing the NV goggles from his face, beating him with their guns and then, when he was on the ground, kicking him brutally in the stomach and the head until he was helpless with the pain. Finally, he felt himself being dragged to his feet and pulled out towards the central square.

Drew and Kennedy were there too, captured, their hands bound behind their backs and their NV goggles ripped from their faces. They looked stunned. And well they might. It had all happened so quickly and none of this made any kind of sense. They had approached in darkness; they had kept out of sight; the mission had barely even begun and nobody in the village could have known that they were coming.

Nobody, Will realised with a sickening lurch in his stomach, except one person.

As he was pushed roughly towards Drew and Kennedy, his eyes scoured the groups of bearded Taliban extremists who had congregated to witness the capture of the SAS unit. He knew who he was looking for and he saw him soon enough.

Ismail was standing on the corner of the square, flanked by two Taliban men, both considerably taller than him. One of them had a deep scar on his lower lip. Ismail hadn't been roughed up; he hadn't been bound. As Will's eyes met his, he gazed at him expressionlessly.

Then, unable to keep up that stare for long, the young Afghan's eyes fell to the ground. He turned and wandered off, alone, through the door of a small hut in the shadows beyond.