Defender(2)
"Steady boys!" Morgan cried. Then the RHIB thudded into the hull of the fishing boat with a boom. "Go! Go! Go!"
CHAPTER 2
MALFAJIRI, WEST AFRICA
It would be a tough shot. The night was black as death and Sean Collins had been forced to select a firing position deep within the remains of a derelict house.
Built in the old colonial style, the house had once been a grand home with sweeping views of the surrounding landscape. But that was before it had been consumed by the poverty and wretchedness of the shantytown now gathered around it. For Collins, the firing position was too exposed but he had no choice. To complicate matters, he was operating alone, when snipers ideally operate in pairs – spotter and shooter. There was nothing ideal about this. It was something that had to be done and he was the new boy.
He slid a hand across the coarse bristles of his hair, which he kept cropped almost to the scalp, pushing another wave of sweat clear of his eyes. This job bugged him more than anything he’d had to do before, but he didn’t have the luxury of second-guessing orders. They obviously had their reasons back in London. Whatever those reasons were, they were of no value out here. Two targets. No backup. Talk about exposed. Fuck.
On the plus side, if there was a plus side, the local government’s curfew was having the desired effect. The poorly trained troops of the conscript army patrolled to the rim of the city every night, operating on shoot-to-kill orders. Even out this far in the hills surrounding the city, the general population were staying off the streets. Only the rebels had the balls to surface after 2200. That was good, he thought. It meant fewer distractions; less chance of a mistake. With the country already on the verge of collapse, the ramifications of shooting the wrong person were inconceivable.
Collins had selected what once would have been a guest room on the second floor of the southwest wing as his hide. It reduced the risk of his being seen from the street or any of the other neighbouring buildings, and provided the best available line of sight to the enemy compound and the exact 10 square feet of forecourt he had determined to be the killing ground.
This stuff was bread-and-butter for Sean Collins. A former member of the British Special Air Service, Collins was considered a rare find by his superiors in the regiment, quite a compliment considering where it came from. Rising to the rank of sergeant with a Military Medal from Iraq under his belt, it was inevitable that he would be watched and eventually headhunted. But it wasn’t the money offered by private firms that finally enticed him away from Hereford. Collins wasn’t interested in money. He was a queen-and-country soldier. So, when the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6 as it is more commonly referred to outside the service, eventually tapped him on the shoulder, he was a perfect candidate.
He’d moved in just after nightfall, positioning himself well back in the room, ensuring that he was not silhouetted against any areas susceptible to natural or reflected backlighting, like the doorway, or another window. The collapsed stairway and general wreckage between him and the ground floor meant that he’d at least have some warning if anybody started ferreting around unexpectedly downstairs. The fact that the wooden floor below had rotted away leaving a gaping black hole acted as a safeguard against surprises.
Waiting was a killer in this game. Five feet ten inches tall with a physique like an Olympic-class sprinter, Collins knew he couldn’t afford to allow muscle fatigue to set in. He began a series of controlled stretches to ensure he was ready, starting at his feet and slowly, deliberately, working the well-practiced regimen along the entire length of his body.
Fires, smoke, cooking smells and crackling radio music came from the shacks and houses nearby. The headlights of the rare passing vehicles bounced and flared off every surface. Locals, mostly gangs of displaced and angry young men, the rebel foot soldiers, were moving through the streets. A golden hue shone onto the target area from generator-powered lamps around the edge of the enemy compound, covering almost every square foot – it might just as well have been daylight. Perfect. Or was it? There were suddenly far too many dogs nearby, barking, fighting, sniffing around down in the street below.
Collins glanced along the rifle, following the line of the barrel. It was a Czech-made bolt-action Česka-Zbrojovka, CZ 700, standard NATO 7.62mm ammunition. A blunt instrument. Not ideal, but the caliber was right for the job and it had been readily available at short notice. He looked back along the flank of the weapon until he could see the luminous hands of the watch that he wore, its face on the inside of his left wrist, enabling him to motionlessly check the time through the bindings of the weapons sling. 2230 hours. Not long now.