Steve was starting to lose count of how many bullets had shaved past him. A dozen, two dozen - it didn’t make any difference, did it?
The ground all around them was churned into a hot muddy soup of dirt and lead. The rain was lashing into their position and a fierce wind was whipping through the fort. All four men were hunkered behind the wall, their guns at the ready. In front of them, the wall was steadily being chipped away, its edges splintering as the bullets pummelled into it. Maksim had already lobbed another two grenades over the top, but both, like the one Ian had thrown, had been kicked away by the soldiers.
‘We need a stun grenade,’ said Steve, glancing towards Ian. ‘Something to distract these blokes long enough to put some ammo into the bastards.’
‘None left,’ Ian said tersely.
‘Christ, man, couldn’t you have brought some more?’
‘Well, why didn’t you bloody bring them?’ growled Ian. ‘This operation was meant to be wrapped up in the first three minutes.’
‘Well, it sodding isn’t - and we need something to break out of here.’
‘A volunteer,’ said Dan. His voice was strained and there was rainwater running down his sturdy face.
Steve remained silent. He knew exactly what Dan was getting at, and it wasn’t a comfortable thought.
‘One bloke gets out there and puts some fire into those men, distracts them - then the rest of us let them have it from the other direction.’
‘Suicide,’ granted Ian. ‘The bloke won’t stand a chance.’
‘I know,’ said Dan. He fell quiet for a second. ‘But it’s better that one bloke dies than all of us. It’s the only way.’
‘We draw straws,’ said Maksim.
‘No straws,’ said Steve firmly. ‘We’ll give Ollie another five seconds to bring up the cavalry. After that, I’ll go . . .’
His lungs were already bursting as he opened his eyes. He’d tried to hit the water with his legs and arms together, to minimise the impact of the fall, but the waves and the wind had knocked him off-course and it had turned into a belly flop that even his kids would be embarrassed by. A wave crashed over his head, and although he struggled to stay focused, David could feel himself briefly losing consciousness. Fatal, he told himself, as his brain became woozy. Lose it underwater and you’ll drown within a couple of minutes.
He kicked back with his legs. He reckoned he’d dropped twenty-five feet into the water, but the lake was far deeper than that. It was pitch black, and he was only too aware that there were crocodiles all around him. He wouldn’t see them coming, but they could see and smell him, he could be certain of that. Kicking harder, he struggled for the surface, and when he finally broke through, took a huge lungful of air, coughing violently as the oxygen mixed with the water in his lungs. Then he looked around, trying to get a measure of how far he was from the shore. Despite the rain pummelling the water, he could see it was only thirty yards. Taking another deep breath, he started to swim.
A minute later, David pulled himself up onto the shore, panting and bruised.
He looked up at the fort ahead of him. His ears were still clogged from the water, but as soon as they started to clear he could hear explosions and gunfire. ‘Jesus wept,’ he muttered aloud. ‘This was meant to be over by now.’
His AK-47 was gone, but his Uzi machine pistol was still strapped firm to his chest webbing, protected by a waterproof pouch. He pulled the gun free, fired one shot to make sure it hadn’t been damaged by the soaking, then started to hurry towards the fort.
A boy was running away. No more than twelve, reckoned David.
He fired two warning shots into the child’s path. ‘Hold it right there, you little bugger,’ he growled.
‘Straight into their backs, boys,’ hissed Ollie, his voice hoarse and angry.
He, Chris and Ganju had slipped around to the back of the parade ground. The barracks block was to one side of them, its machine gun now silenced. The officer’s mess was to their other side. Straight ahead of them, they could see the line of men advancing on Steve’s position.
Chris had ripped the drum from his ammo belt that would turn his AK-47 into a crude machine gun. Slamming the drum into the weapon, he held it tight to his chest. There was no time to set it up on a tripod: he was going to fire straight from the shoulder.
‘Let rip,’ ordered Ollie.
Simultaneously, Ollie and Ganju started firing with their own AK-47s. Ollie had taken careful aim at one of the men, slotting a bullet neatly into the back of his head, sending the man tumbling to the ground. He felt a brief pang of guilt: there was no military task he hated more than shooting an enemy in the back. But it was Chris who was doing the real damage. The bullets were spitting out of the automated AK at a terrifying rate, punching holes in the line of men. The gun was virtually impossible to control held in your hands, its kickback potentially lethal even for a man of Chris’s strength and experience. He held it steady for three seconds, putting twenty rounds into the line and bringing down five of the men before it flew from his hand, smashing into the muddy ground, a couple of live rounds still spitting angrily from its barrel.