The Hawk Is Dead

37

Helmand Province, Afghanistan, 2007

Smoke could not see clearly but he could hear, louder than he had ever wanted to, screams of terror and agonizing pain. Then more screaming. Then he heard his name, howled in desperation. ‘Jon! Jon!’

Jesus Christ.

He reached for his semi-automatic and pointed down. But between the leaves obscuring his view and the dark and the sea of people beneath him he couldn’t tell where Scottie was exactly and did not dare fire for fear of hitting him.

Then he heard the worst, most ear-piercing scream he had ever heard in his life. It was a scream that rose from the very pit of hell.

And a desperate cry again. ‘Jon! Jon!’ But weaker this time.

Immediately followed by another scream that was even worse.

Smoke felt physically sick. He just wanted to fire. To shoot every bastard, but still he did not dare and then—

‘Ahhh a hahhhhhhh... a hahhhhhhh! No — NO! NO! NO! PLEEEEASE. JONNNNNN!’

A final terrible shriek.

Then silence.

A moment of utter silence that was even more terrible than the screams. It was followed by shouting in the same language he did not understand, but which sounded like a command. Then the ragbag platoon moved on, towards his base. And he couldn’t contain himself any more. He clamped on the night scope, set the switch to automatic and took aim.

Squeezed the trigger.

And mowed every one of them down before any had the chance to return fire. He kept on shooting, methodically, until every damned one of them was on the ground.

Then he climbed down from his tree, and as soon as his boots hit the sand he sank into a crouch, pulling out his Glock. He saw several people moving, writhing, and heard moans of pain. Removing the night scope from his rifle, he raised it to his eyes, checking no one was aiming a gun at him. Then he looked for Scottie. And saw his motionless body.

‘Fucking bastards,’ he murmured, very deeply shocked and upset. Then, still crouching, he moved forward. He passed three dead Taliban. Then one who was still moving. He put a bullet in the back of his head and he stopped moving. Smoke had three magazines for the Glock, each holding seventeen bullets. He used thirty-six bullets. Not one of the group was moving now.

Finally, he stood upright and walked back to Scottie’s body. And fought back the bile that rose in his throat, shaking his head, and also fighting back tears at the sight of the remains of his friend.

They had poked his eyes out, then cut him open down his midriff and pulled out his entrails in some weird replication of the old British method of hanging, drawing and quartering traitors and other miscreants.

His blood was boiling.

Then he went to Scottie and, somehow, after hauling him onto his back, managed to carry this deadweight 3 miles to Camp Bastion, keeping up his own morale by shouting out, constantly, ‘Scottie, I’m bringing you home. I’m bringing you to your pregnant fiancée! Hang on in there, just hang on in there!’

Although of course he knew his buddy was dead.

He’d never expected a hero’s welcome when he finally arrived back, shattered, at Camp Bastion. His commanding officer, Jason Finch, had been very supportive on his arrival. But not so Colonel Roland Miles, who accused him of deserting his post, and threatened him with a court martial. It was Jason Finch, in overall command of the division, who had intervened and prevented any further action.

Neither Smoke nor Finch had ever received recognition for their service during this time. Jon Smoke, thanks to Finch’s intervention, had avoided a court martial. But, he was aware, it had cost Finch to do so. He had been grateful to him since. On leaving the Army he had joined the Metropolitan Police and then a few years later he had been very pleasantly surprised to be contacted by the now knighted Sir Jason Finch, recently appointed Keeper of the Privy Purse, and offered a coveted position on Her Majesty’s Royal Protection team.

The colonel who had wanted him court-martialled had been killed a few months later in a helicopter crash in Helmand Province — shot down by a Taliban surface-to-air missile.

As Sun Tzu said in The Art of War: ‘If you stand by the river bank for long enough, the bodies of all your enemies will float past.’

Jon Smoke lived by that quote. Although sometimes your enemies needed a helping hand on their way.