Red Station

TWENTY-NINE

To the west, the British Special Reconnaissance team was also on the move. But their objectives were different. ‘Hunt’ Wallis was scanning the ground in front of him through his glasses, fighting a rising sense of panic. He was desperate to see signs of Jocko Wardle, his colleague. Wardle had gone out on a recce after hearing noises in the trees. They had agreed it was better for Wardle, a former poacher, to do it, using the dark to move rather than waiting for daylight.

That had been an hour ago.

So far, there had been no sign of him coming back, no contact on the tiny radios they were each carrying. The sets had a short range of a few hundred yards, but were sufficient for communicating between OPs without disturbing the airwaves. Wardle should have been on by now, signalling the all-clear, or back in the basha, looking for something to eat.

‘Anything?’ Mike Wilson slid alongside Wallis, bringing an aroma of damp clothing and chocolate, and the familiar tang of oiled weapons.

‘Fuck all. Something’s up.’

Wilson nodded. ‘He’s run into trouble, daft bastard.’

‘Unless he stopped for a crap. Or tripped over and broke his silly fuckin’ neck.’

The dark humour hid a genuine concern for their colleague. But both men knew that if he hadn’t come back by now, he probably wasn’t going to.

He was either captive. Or dead.

Yet they had seen no sign of enemy forces.

Either way, he was beyond their reach. Their orders were not to engage with local forces under any circumstances unless their lives were at extreme risk. Agonizing over the rights and wrongs of leaving Wardle out there would only lead to negative thinking. And that was counter-productive. If there was an opportunity to take a look later, they would do it. For now, they could only watch and wait.

‘Better call it in,’ Wilson said soberly. ‘I’ll get on the net.’

Wallis nodded and continued scouring the darkness while Wilson went back to make the call. If Wardle turned up safe and well, they could cancel the alert. He’d get a beasting for causing them grief, but that was part of the job.

Until then, they had to figure out what kind of trouble had overtaken him… and whether they were next in line.

Wilson made his way carefully into deeper cover, wary of setting off the birds in the trees overhead. The comms equipment, a lightweight electronic pack which fired messages in split-second bursts, was concealed along with their rations and backpacks in a hollow beneath a fallen tree, and covered with camouflage netting spotted with leaves and twigs. Anyone coming through here would practically have to trip over it to see it.

He paused to gently brush aside a spider’s web. Jocko’s non-appearance was the worst kind of news; he wasn’t the type to get lost, and would have found some way to contact them if he’d been compromised. A brilliant birdsong mimic, he’d have sent up a warning, to give them a heads up.

Wilson reached the hollow and checked the area. Just as they’d left it. No sign of intruders. He slipped under the camouflage netting and reached for the radio pack, mentally composing his message. It would have to be short, sharp and without embellishment. Ten seconds and London would know what had happened.

The radio was gone.

A bird flapped from the tree above his head, and he felt a momentary despair as the netting shifted behind him.

Then something cold and sharp pierced the back of his neck.