E-Book, Englisch, 300 Seiten
Mckenna Global Raider
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-3-98756-164-1
Verlag: Lone Cloud
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, 300 Seiten
ISBN: 978-3-98756-164-1
Verlag: Lone Cloud
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
James McKenna was born during the bombing of London in WWII and as the child of a British Army officer, spent time amidst the wretchedness of post-war Austria before travelling with his family to the Far East. At the age of 15 he joined the British Army and attended the apprenticeship college at Harrogate, then the Royal School of Military Engineering. At 17 he passed selection for the Paras serving in the Gulf and Europe. Afterwards running his own electronic and physical protection company gave insider knowledge for his crime thrillers The Unseen, The Uncounted, The Unwanted and Global Raider. Now a father and grandfather, in parallel to these crime thrillers, he has ventured into the action/fantasy world of the young reader aged 12+. The Mind Traveller is the first of a series where Rosie adventures deep into the unchartered universe of Mind Space. As a fulltime writer he lives between the UK, Portugal and Ireland.
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CHAPTER 1
Sweat trickled on Seb’s face. In the still night a fly buzzed, stopped, buzzed again then settled on the barrel of his AK74 rifle. Lying in a hollow scooped from the desert floor, he squinted through his night optic sight, drawing a line of vision over the ambush square, waiting on the enemy, waiting on advanced warning from the UAV twelve miles in the sky.
Since hitting the dropping zone at 2300 hours and burying his parachutes, Seb had felt his adrenalin slowly gain in pressure to feed tension over fear. Fear would come later, when it was done and over. For now he blocked all negatives from his mental preparation. The Combined Agency Taskforce, CAT taught all or nothing and the eight-man ambush team from the Anti-terrorist Warfare wing would expect nothing less of him. He just prayed the outcome would not demand a cold blooded execution. This he knew was his trial for acceptance amongst the elite. These guys were ex-SAS, 9 Para, SBS, Airborne and Commandos, the very finest of British Special Forces; except ambush via US ground control in America and an unmanned aerial vehicle somewhere amidst the stars was untried. Tucked in his hole, Seb knew he was central to the operation’s success, his orders deciding whether he and others of the CAT team lived or died. Tension in his body sparked every muscle and nerve which in turn pumped his sweat into the desert heat.
He brushed at another fly and heard Jock Anderson flick away the same irritation in the adjacent scoop, heard him puff when one settled on his lips. Seb considered him the babyminder but it did not detract from responsibility. Young he might be, but Seb was still the commanding officer. If he messed up, no one would forgive him. The outcome was a steel flask of anthrax en route to London, courtesy of one very dangerous al-Qaeda agent.
From the slit of the sand covered hole he looked up to a star scattered heaven, the crystal air allowing vision thirty metres into the hot, velvet night. To his right lay undulating desert, to his left sand rock hills rose in stark silhouette, the tops shimmered by moonlight. On the lower slopes he had set the team’s RV point and a two-man comms post manning the radio link to base. The team link was through UHF sets. More important was Seb’s own link by satellite-com direct to Global Hawk ground control. Somewhere high above, an unmanned aerial vehicle watched over them like a guardian angel.
Again Jock shuffled his solid bulk, farted and set the flies buzzing.
“What the fuck you been eating?” Seb put a forearm to his nose, glad of the disturbance and the ease of tension.
“Beans.” Jock turned his big square face and grinned. “I always eat beans before an op. Gives more velocity when I run.”
Seb lifted his head and noticed all the flies had deserted. “You’re more lethal than the bloody anthrax.”
“In Al Razi’s face, evil bastard.” Jock laid the crook of his arm over the butt of a Barrett M82A1 sniper rifle, its .50 round capable of piercing an engine block.
“You think the Yanks are up there?” Jock asked.
“Somewhere.” Seb rested chin to forearm and stared at a million stars. “They’ve been watching these guys by satellite for months. The stupid prats are still using mobiles. They’re watching them now. Technology, that’s what wins wars. When it works,” he added in after thought.
“Still takes squaddies on the ground, some poor bastards to sort out the mess.”
“For now. But it will change.”
“We’ll be dead by then.”
“Hope not.” Seb looked back to where a sand track wound its way around the hill at a hundred metres distance. He knew that four miles on the other side an al-Qaeda training camp held three hundred men. Somewhere over the track four of his own team lay waiting, each huddled in a scoop from the desert floor, each listening for his command to open fire. During the protracted silence the earpiece of Seb’s sat-link whispered warning.
“Global Hawk to Desert Snatch. Convoy preparing to leave compound. Three vehicles, estimated enemy strength, eighteen. ETA, ten minutes.”
Seb listened to the American voice of the UAV ground control, someone in a far distant place who watched this patch of desert through darkness and space.
“Roger that.” Seb switched mikes and spoke to his team over UHF. “Eighteen players, three vehicles, ETA ten minutes. Pete, Mike, you take lead vehicle. Dave, Rich, end vehicle. Jock and I will do middle. Everyone to mop up runners. Barretts to stop vehicles,” Seb paused. “Priority is the flask, probably in the central vehicle. Try not to cause fire. We don’t want it red hot or broken. Some poor sod has to carry it.”
“Guess who?” Jock grinned.
Ruperts do have their uses, Seb thought as he listened to the team’s radio acknowledgement. In his mind he knew each person was aware that if a convoy took just ten minutes to arrive, so could three hundred al-Qaeda. A Puma helicopter with a second on standby would have been alerted for their run to the RV, waiting on his order to pick up when safe. For a clean withdrawal the time factors became crucial. He remembered words from his boss, Colonel Fox, that to lead men you had to be at one with them, mentally and physically. To give them confidence and get them the hell out of any position when they were being shot to pieces. “Stand to,” he said and looked back to the night. The tension left his body under a surge of adrenalin. This was his life, what he had trained for. He felt totally focussed. The target was Dr Al Razi, a British mullah and long known supporter of al-Qaeda. Left to preach his hatred in London and travel at will, Al Razi had just collected some of Syria’s stolen anthrax. His intended place of distribution, the British populous.
Seb shifted the butt of his rifle and took grip of the stock. As Rupert it was his duty to ensure Al Razi stayed in the desert. Long, silent minutes passed which left him time to think. Execution would need anger, hatred.
“Hawk to Desert Snatch, convoy now traversing hillside to your position. ETA three minutes.”
“Roger that,” Seb answered. He felt calm now, an inner control filled with solid determination. Every sense became alert to the stillness, the slow encroaching sound of engines. He wanted these bastards, this little shit Al Razi who would kill thousands in satisfaction of self-righteous bigotry.
“All positions fire on my action.” Seb gave his last order and squinted through the night optic sight, watching the lead vehicle come round the hillside, a Toyota FWD with twin mounted machine guns over the cab. Full blaze headlights cut across their position and the desert floor, sweeping down the track as the second vehicle came into view, an enclosed landcruiser. Target vehicle, Seb was certain. He felt Jock shift the Barrett to aim at its engine cover. Last vehicle was an open truck carrying a dozen armed men.
“See you in paradise,” Jock whispered.
“No way, we’ll piss this.” Seb took first pressure on his trigger and listened to the sat-com earpiece come to life.
“Hawk to Desert Snatch. A tracked vehicle has also left the compound, possibly an APC, repeat, armoured vehicle ETA your location eight minutes.”
“Shit.” Now or never. Seb squeezed the trigger and put a series of three round bursts into the landcruiser’s side windows. Beside him the heavy calibre discharge of the Barrett imploded on his eardrums.
A crescendo of ear stunning noise came instantly amidst flickering darts of light. Flame spat across the black velvet sky from the single rounds of the massive Barrett sniper weapons while the snatched, chattering fire of HKG3s and AK74 assault rifles gave constant barrage. Seb shouted the last message from Global Hawk over his UHF.
Return fire from the convoy terminated within sixty seconds. Sergeant Pete Shaffer on the opposite side of the track called ceasefire. The sudden cessation of noise returned the desert to stillness, the silence only disturbed by the crackle of flames from the rear truck and intermittent cries of the wounded.
Seb pushed up from the dugout, Jock beside him, the heavy Barrett cradled in his arms. Half a dozen bodies shadowed the desert floor, fanned out from the vehicles like scattered clothes bags.
“Move it.” Seb heard the order from Pete Shaffer as he came out of his hole. Figures emerged from the desert floor, all running at a crouch, all knowing they had minutes before an enemy armoured vehicle arrived.
Seb was within twenty feet when the fuel tank on the rear truck exploded. In the shock of fire, three of the supposed dead stood up and ran, four more figures leaped from the back, two of them ablaze. The team’s response came immediately, their weapons raking the night with fire, twitching bodies as they scattered and fell. Seb kept running for the landcruiser, his sole objective to secure the canister of anthrax, the rest was now Pete Shaffer’s; except for Al Razi, whom he hoped was dead.
The landcruiser sat fat and dark on deflated tyres, the windscreen and front side window shattered. Smoke and steam drifted...
