Manhunter by Chris Ryan (the false prince series .TXT) 📗

was shit everywhere. Smoke wafted up from the warped barrels on the two Gimpys. The acrid tang of gunpowder hung in the air. Bowman dropped low beside the parapet and looked down.

The battle was almost over.

Pockets of rebels were fleeing in every direction. The men of D Squadron had swept right across the field of fire, dominating the ground. One of the Jackals had taken up a support-fire position on the east side near the pagoda. The second Jackal was still mopping up resistance to the south. A third vehicle had sheered round the back of the estate and swung round to the west of the mansion. Both the Jackals on the east and west side had Browning .50 calibres mounted on top instead of grenade launchers. Otherwise known as the ‘relish’, because that’s what a human body looked like after you put a burst into it. A section of the fencing to the east had been flattened, and Bowman realised that the Jackals must have bombed in from that direction, crashing through the flimsy chain-link mesh. The guys on foot would have debussed from their transport trucks somewhere further up the main road before moving forward with the support vehicles.

As Bowman looked on, the soldiers picked off the last dregs of resistance. Half of the guys had advanced west from the pagoda. The other half had attacked from the ornamental garden. Caught between the Jackals and the assault groups, the remaining few rebels were brutally cut down, some of them ripped limb from limb. Most of them were killed before they had a chance to escape. Those further back from the struggle turned and fled up the clearing towards the main road. They ran straight into an ambush set up by one element of D Squadron. Several of the rebels tried to resist or return fire. They were swiftly dropped. The rest threw down their weapons and surrendered.

In less than a minute, the rebels had been completely routed.

To the west, through a gap in the woods, Bowman spied four tiny figures jumping into a white Toyota Land Cruiser. The wagon took off west down the main road, wheels throwing up clouds of dust.

A posh clipped voice came over the open comms network. The OC of D Squadron, Bowman realised.

‘One of our fellows has just seen a vehicle speeding away,’ the OC reported. ‘Land Cruiser. Four passengers, he says. Pale-skinned. Any idea who that might be?’

‘Aye,’ said Mallet. ‘It’s the Russians. The guys behind the coup.’

‘Roger that. We’ll put a message across to SFSG. They’ll set up a cordon to intercept down the road.’

‘Leave them,’ Mallet said. His voice was papery, hoarse. ‘Let them get away.’

A short pause. ‘Are you sure?’

‘If you capture those guys, it’ll cause a diplomatic shitstorm. Let them escape. They’re not going to cause any trouble now. They’ll be on the next plane back to Moscow.’

‘Very well. It’s your call, I suppose.’

The gunfire finally ceased, and the OC came back on the radio to report that the estate was secure. Webb threw his head back and laughed deliriously. All the pent-up stress and adrenaline and fear of the battle suddenly rushed out of him in a burst of cathartic laughter.

At his side, Bowman stepped back from the parapet, overcome with relief and exhaustion.

‘It’s over,’ he croaked. ‘Thank God, it’s really over.’

Thirty-Three

They left the rooftop a short time later. As they reached the ground floor a team from D Squadron swept inside the stronghold from the rear terrace and quickly took charge. A handful of the guys searched the rooms for lurking rebels while the others brought up the family from the basement. Once the building had been cleared the guys escorted the women and children to a suite of guest rooms on the first floor, away from the chaos elsewhere. Guards were posted to watch over them around the clock.

With the family secure, Mallet and the others cleared the barricade and made their way outside.

They stepped out to a scene of total carnage. The ground was thick with the dead and the dying and the detritus of battle. Some men lay writhing in agony, clawing at their wounds or trying to shove their guts back into their stomachs. Others screamed at the soldiers, begging for help. The foul stink of death choked the air.

A platoon of Karatandan soldiers had accompanied D Squadron from the garrison at the airfield. Some of them threw up a cordon around the estate while the others assisted the Regiment as they cleared the battlefield. The lightly wounded were checked for ID, plasticuffed and then taken over to the ornamental garden to join the rest of the rebel prisoners. At least a dozen men had been taken captive. They cut a pathetic sight, with their ragged uniforms and blood-encrusted faces. Those with serious injuries were handed over to the local platoon, placed in the back of a waiting truck and driven away to the airfield to be treated by the local garrison. Or at least, that was the idea. Bowman doubted the Karatandan soldiers would show their sworn enemies any mercy. Most likely, they would be locked up somewhere and left to die.

Two guys marched briskly over to Mallet. The OC of D Squadron, Stuart Thriepland, was a buff former Guardsman, tall and ramrod straight, with a shiny blond quiff and an accent so posh it probably had a seat in the House of Lords. The man at his shoulder, Sergeant Major Craig Dundas, was a short wiry Scot, teak-tough and bulbous-nosed, with an aggressive attitude and a permanent angry stare. His voice carried a slight trace of his Aberdeen roots as he addressed the team.

‘Bloody hell. How the fuck did you lot survive this?’ Dundas said as he surveyed the chaos of the battlefield.

‘We almost didn’t,’ Mallet replied. ‘Another minute and we would have been overrun.’

‘What took you so long?’ asked Bowman.

‘We ran into a rebel ambush a few miles outside the airfield,’ Thriepland replied in his public schoolboy