They move on. Flash-bangs blow. Disorientating. Loud. They press towards the house.
‘HERE,’ Safa yells. She drops to a knee and aims ahead to the windows of the house. Sweeping her view across the ground-floor windows, past the front door to the windows of the drawing room as Harry places the Browning down on the bipod. The metal box of ammunition goes down. His right hand finds the trigger. His left stabilises the belt feed. ‘FIRING,’ his huge voice booms. The gun comes to life. A solid, heavy, sustained thud of a large-calibre weapon. He aims at the window of the drawing room as Safa and Emily turn in circles to give Harry cover as he fires. Figures are seen and fired at. Gunshots sound back. Flash-bangs explode. The noise is immense. Ben lifts his weapon and aims through the sight. Breathing as deeply and as steadily as he can. The fucking thing weighs a ton. He spots a figure through the sight and fires. The recoil whams into his shoulder. He braces, snarls and recovers the aim to fire again into the tree line.
‘MOVE ON,’ Safa shouts. Harry rises, pulling the gun up with his right hand still on the trigger and his left clutching the box. Safa leads. Emily covers her. The path is picked. The firefight continues. Water plumes from the explosions going off all around them.
‘BEN,’ Safa shouts.
Ben moves up as Harry fires a heavy machine gun from the waist. His whole body juddering from the recoiling impact against his frame. Ben lifts and aims at the house. He does as he’s told and finds the front door as the marker, moving up and to the right to see through the second-floor windows. He aims, fires and works to steady his body, then fires again. The huge boom of the fifty-calibre sniper rifle so distinctive. He moves position. His right foot hits mud and slides. He goes down hard. Shouting from the pain of hitting the ground while trying to keep his rifle up and out of the surface water.
Harry covers. Safa and Emily drop to either side and pull Ben up. He aims for the door, but his breathing is wrong now. He can’t aim properly. The sights are wavering. He fires anyway.
‘SLOW DOWN,’ Safa shouts.
He winces, breathes and shoots again.
‘MOVE OUT . . .’ Safa gives the order. They move on, running now. To the last, they flinch at the sound of the chopper blades filling the air, whumping so deep and full of bass. They aim for the corner of the house. Sprinting while guns fire and water plumes from detonations. Smoke billowing from somewhere on the right. Then more on the left. They run down past the side of the house towards the back. Safa in the lead. Ben and Harry in the middle. Emily at their backs.
‘FASTER,’ Safa shouts. They slip and slide, cursing foully. They run and shake heads to rid water from eyes.
‘HERE,’ Safa shouts again. Harry moves to present his back to Ben. Ben slings his rifle to the rear and works to pull the missile launcher from Harry’s back. Safa and Emily fire at the tree lines, into the air, at anything that may pose a threat. Magazines are changed fast. Everything frantic and rushed.
‘Got it,’ Ben grunts, pulling the missile launcher free from Harry’s back by unclipping the straps holding it in place. He steps back, flicks the sight up, readies the weapon and aims as the air fills with explosions, chopper blades and gunfire, and his view is obscured by water in his eyes and thick smoke billowing everywhere. ‘READY,’ he shouts.
‘FIRE,’ Safa shouts back.
‘BANG . . . WHOOSH . . . BANG AGAIN . . . OH NO, THE CHOPPER’S BEEN HIT . . . CRUNCHBANGWALLOP . . . MAYDAY, MAYDAY . . . ARGH!’
‘FALL BACK,’ Safa shouts, trying not to laugh.
‘RETREAT,’ Ben shouts.
‘FALL BACK, NOT RETREAT,’ Harry bellows.
‘RUN AWAY,’ Ben shouts as Emily bursts out laughing. ‘LEG IT . . .’
‘Ben,’ Safa gasps, ‘stop it . . .’
‘RUN AWAAYYYYYY.’
‘GRENADE! DOWN! DOWN!’ Emily shouts the warning. They drop again on to backs as the boom sounds out and sends a plume of water sailing into the air.
‘UP, UP.’ Safa springs to her feet, firing in the direction the grenade came from. She glances back to see Harry and Emily rising, but Ben lying on his back in the water. ‘BEN, GET UP . . .’
‘I’m hit,’ he cries out. ‘Go on without me . . .’
‘Fuck’s sake . . . GET UP,’ Safa shouts.
‘Tell Wuffles I love him,’ Ben says.
‘GET . . .’
‘I can’t . . . The chopper landed on me . . . Go on . . . Run for your lives!’
‘BEN. . .’ Safa says, marching back as Emily turns away laughing. Harry lowers the heavy machine gun and turns his face to the rain while chuckling.
‘Poor Wuffles,’ Ben says.
‘GET THE FUCK UP,’ Safa shouts.
Ben looks at her, his eyes finding hers as the corners of his mouth twitch. She tries to stay angry, but bursts out laughing and kicks surface water at him. ‘Who the hell is Wuffles?’ she asks, giving in and lowering the rifle from her shoulder.
‘Our dog,’ Ben says, as though the answer is obvious.
‘Such a twat,’ she says with a smile touching the corners of her mouth.
The noises cease instantly. The whump of the chopper blades, which were still going despite the missile strike, now ends as the gunshots stop, and the air falls silent save for the pattering of rain striking the ground and trees.
‘Best time yet,’ Miri calls ahead, walking through the house dressed in an army-green poncho with a bag over one shoulder and a tablet held in her hands. ‘Despite Ben slipping,’ she adds, emerging from the side wall of the house, which shimmers as she passes through.
‘Not fast enough,’ Safa says, looking at the hologram of the house.
‘My aim was off after slipping,’ Ben says, heaving himself up to his feet using the butt of the huge sniper rifle to brace on the ground.
‘Things happen in live missions,’ Miri says.
‘ARE WE FINISHING?’ Doctor Watson shouts from somewhere in the rain.
‘Harry, tell him we’re taking five,’ Miri says, coming to a stop as she thumbs the tablet and presses the wrong button, which makes the air fill with the sound of the chopper and gunfire for a second. ‘Wet hands,’ she murmurs. The sounds stop again. She looks back at the house and presses another button as Roland’s stately home blinks from view. ‘It’s all just binary,’ she says to herself.
‘TAKING FIVE,’ Harry bellows.
‘THANK GOD,’ the doctor bellows back. ‘I’M SOAKED . . . IS RIA WITH YOU?’
‘OVER HERE,’ a female voice calls out. ‘CAN I GO IN?’
‘Yes,’ Miri says.
‘YES,’ Harry bellows.
‘THANKS,’ Ria shouts.
‘She said thanks,’ Harry says.
‘I heard,’ Miri says, offering him a quick smile, which for Miri is a microscopic twitch of her lips. Safa pulls a face at Harry. Emily lifts her eyebrows as Ben grins at the big man. Miri doesn’t smile at anyone other than Harry.
‘Bloody rain,’ Ben remarks as they start walking back.
‘When you’ve been in a war with rain,’ Emily quips with a grin at Harry.
‘Worse than jungle rain this,’ Harry says, taking no offence at all.