Ollie leaped on the soldier directly opposite him. The man had turned to look at the source of the explosion, at the same time grabbing his AK-47. It took just a fraction of a second for Ollie to cover the two yards that separated them, flinging himself through the air like a rugby player in full flight, then crashing hard into his opponent. The man was built from solid muscle, each sinew hardened by the years of ferocious training on the Sixth Brigade’s parade ground. It was like hurling yourself against a steel pylon. There wasn’t an inch of give in him.
Ollie fought to ignore the pain smashing into his chest, and clung onto his opponent, kicking violently to push the AK-47 clattering to the ground. All around him, he could hear the rattle of gunfire, the screams of the crowd, and the beat of military boots against the tarmac as the soldiers rushed into position. Withdrawing his right hand from his pocket, the two-inch solid steel blade encased in his palm, with one savage movement he slammed it upwards, slicing straight into the side of the man’s neck. The skin was hard, like thick leather, but the angle was a good one, and the blade arced easily enough into the flesh below.
In less than a second, however, Ollie sensed that the soldier would recover and start fighting back. The man had the strength of a bull and, should he get the chance to retaliate, it was going to turn into a brutal scrap. With a deft flick of the wrist, Ollie twisted the blade around. There was no time to fish around for the carotid artery, the main vessel for delivering oxygen from the chest to the brain, and which, once severed, would finish a man’s life in seconds. Nor was there any time to punch through the windpipe: that too would kill him stone dead. Instead, Ollie just twisted and twisted the blade, opening up a bigger and bigger hole in the neck, like a drill bit punching its way through a wall.
Blood loss will have to finish the bastard, Ollie thought breathlessly as the thick crimson liquid poured over him. Empty two pints out of the sod, and he’ll lose consciousness. Then I can use the blade to cut the last remnants of life out of him at my leisure.
Suddenly, the man jerked forwards, roaring with anger. A huge bucket of spit landed right in Ollie’s face, mixing with the hot, sticky blood to create a thick, clingy mixture that took hold of him like seaweed. An elbow kicked into Ollie’s ribs. He was struggling to hold himself steady against the force of the blow. The knife slipped a half inch, then an inch. And Ollie knew that if he allowed the blade to slip out of the man’s neck, the bleeding would start to staunch, and the man would begin to recover his strength.
Thump. The man’s elbow was kicking into Ollie’s ribcage again, knocking the oxygen clean out of his lungs. He choked, and felt a dribble of the blood that was dripping down his face swill into his throat. He spat violently, willed himself to ignore the pain, and twisted the blade again, spinning it around and around, so that the wound it was cutting open was turning into a gaping hole. The blood was flowing more freely now, gushing out of the wound, and as Ollie clung desperately to the victim he could feel the strength slowly ebbing out of the bastard. The man was choking on his own blood, and his heart was beating furiously as the adrenaline coursed through his veins, but the effect was only to increase the amount of blood flowing out of him.
Another thump from the elbow. But it was weaker this time, noted Ollie. The power wasn’t there, and the blow bounced harmlessly off his ribcage.
The soldier’s legs started to buckle. And then he fell to the ground. As he dropped, Ollie drew out the knife, and slashed it once, then twice across the man’s throat, neatly cutting the windpipe in two, and ending whatever slim possibility of survival remained.
Ollie glanced up.
The bottom of the truck was a pool of blood, like an abattoir with blocked drains. Dan had already slashed his soldier to ribbons in a frenzy of strong, disciplined aggression. Ganju had neatly opened up his victim’s windpipe, punching a hole big enough to end his life quickly and relatively painlessly: there were no more skilful knifemen than the Gurkhas, and although his opponent was six inches taller and 100 pounds heavier, he had never stood a chance, and from the passive way his corpse had slumped to the floor, the soldier seemed to sense it from the moment the fight started.
But David was still involved in a nasty scrap. And so was Maksim.
David was being pinned back against the side of the truck by the soldier he’d been attempting to take out. The knife had gone into the man’s neck, causing a nasty wound that was bubbling with blood, but the blade had slipped out, dropping to the floor, and now the two men were trading blows with their fists. Sickening sounds of bone crashing against bone echoed around the small space as the two men attacked one another like a pair of uncaged animals. Dan and Ganju had already moved swiftly to David’s aid, and within a second the victim was lost in a whirl of flashing steel and flying fists.