Pirate - Duncan Falconer [122]
By the time they reached a group of huts that appeared to be the centre of the camp, they had seen only a dozen or so dead. If there was a similar ratio throughout, Stratton estimated there could be no more than forty all told. Which was a small portion of the total numbers encamped in the location. It reminded all of them that they needed to do what they had come to do quickly and get out of there. If the jihadists regrouped and pressed a counter-attack, things could quickly go wrong for the teams.
They heard a moan from within a clump of bushes. A fighter lay on the wet ground, the rain dropping on to him from the branches above, his leg badly mangled. He stared pathetically at the faces looking down on him, as much in shock to see them as from his wound. He had no weapons and looked harmless enough. The operatives walked away, just left him. They didn’t have the time or the equipment to be humane. The truth was, after so many years fighting the jihadists, the men didn’t have much humanity left either. It wasn’t something to be proud of, and if asked, most would have admitted that. But it was an easy fault to live with, or at least justify to a degree. If the jihadists caught a Western soldier, they wouldn’t give him the finest medical treatment available and three square meals a day or leave him with the hope of one day seeing his family again.
The men understood why they had to be humane but they couldn’t always maintain it.
Stratton walked to one of the wooden huts and pushed in the door. A fighter lay inside on the floor, killed by a piece of shrapnel that had blown through the thin plywood wall and hit him in the chest. A ceiling-high stack of long green boxes took up half the room.
Stratton knew instantly what they were. He unclipped the lid of one and opened it up. Inside he saw a brand-new HN series Chinese ground-to-air missile.
Downs stepped in behind him. ‘Are these what it’s all been about?’ he asked.
‘Most of them,’ Stratton replied. ‘Not all.’
‘I wonder how many of the ones they’ve already shipped have been offloaded.’
‘I expect London is trying to figure that out right now.’
Downs exhaled heavily. ‘Right. Milton! In here. Film this lot before we burn it.’
The cameraman stepped inside along with a couple of other men.
‘Make sure you get as many serial numbers as you can,’ Downs ordered. ‘Smudge, when he’s done I want this lot done to a crisp.’
‘We’ll certainly take care of that,’ Smudge said.
Stratton walked outside and looked around, unsatisfied. He stepped to the next hut. Nothing but dead bodies. The same with the one after. He stalked through the camp inspecting any dead he saw. The odds were against any being the Saudi but he had to check. He couldn’t bear the thought of that low-life escaping. If the man did manage to get out of Somalia, London had only a slim chance of ever finding him. You only had to look at bin Laden. If that guy could stay hidden, then Sabarak surely could for a fraction of the price.
Stratton walked to another pair of huts, built out of wood just like the last. One had been partially destroyed but the other appeared untouched apart from a few shrapnel holes in it. The door stood open and he could hear movement inside. Voices.
Then two SBS operatives stepped outside and looked around like they were deciding where to go next. Stratton immediately recognised the bigger of the two. It was Matt.
Matt saw Stratton at the same time and stared at him.
Stratton had no interest in the man and turned away from the hut since it had obviously been cleared.
‘Just another wounded in there,’ Matt said to Stratton.
‘No guns,’ Matt’s partner said. ‘He speaks English. Asked if he could light a lamp. I told ’im ’e could set fire to ’imself if ’e liked.’
Stratton looked back at the hut. The only Somali he had heard speaking English during his visit was Lotto.
And Sabarak.
He walked up to the door and pushed it open. Sitting on the floor in the darkness next to a desk was a man holding a kerosene