Instinct (2010) by Ben Kay Read Free Book Online Page B

strapping on equipment and clothing ready for whatever was about to happen.
    It was another dark landing on another remote runway. This time the terrain was featureless, with nothing but blank, flat land as far as the eye could see.
    The soldiers collected their gear, dumped it together on the tarmac and got to work unloading the cargo.
    Webster beckoned Laura over. ‘We’re just changing vehicles. The next destination is our last, but the terrain requires a helicopter.’
    ‘Where are we?’ asked Laura.
    ‘Put this on.’ He handed her a dark-green army jacket. ‘The desert gets cold at night.’
    They walked down the steps at the side of the plane and over to the landing pad where the Chinook CH-47 sat ready for take-off. Two of the soldiers were moving the larger crates with forklift trucks to speed up the transfer, while the others carried the rest of the equipment across by hand.
    Within half an hour of landing, they had taken up their positions on the helicopter. Madison engaged the ignition and the quiet instantly turned to a deafening thunder as the blades of the chopper thwumped into life.
    Laura had never been in a helicopter, so the journey, sweeping low across the plains then soaring up over the mountains, became yet another new and unwelcome assault on her senses. It was dark outside and she was disorientated as the Chinook lurched at sharp angles over jagged peaks then plunged through the turbulence of valleys.
    After an hour, the slowing blades and loss of altitude finally signalled their arrival.
    Major Webster barked a command through the intercom: ‘Approaching target. Approaching target.Prepare for full engagement and containment, T minus twenty minutes and counting.’
    Laura peered out of the window and watched as the helicopter circled a small, flat plain in the foothills of a mountain range that faded into the moonlight behind it.
    The soldiers, already indistinct, were now rendered anonymous by night-vision goggles that obscured most of their faces. Seven of them jumped on to the rocky terrain, taking various camouflaged trunks and boxes with them. Although it was alien to Laura, the soldiers moved without thought, as if this were as familiar as brushing their teeth. Not a second was wasted in mistakes or confusion as the equipment was unloaded and laid out in its proper place across the rocks and sand.
    Webster waited until all the crates had been carried out before approaching Laura. ‘I’m sorry about this,’ he frowned above the whine of the slowing blades, ‘but we need to make sure you are completely safe, so you’re going to stick close by me and I’m not going to let you out of my sight. If you are in any way thinking of escaping, I should just tell you that we are in North-eastern Afghanistan, at least a hundred miles from civilization, and that’s the kind of civilization that has little time for an English-speaking white woman.’ He smiled, trying to puncture the blackmail of his last sentence.
    ‘I know this has been tough on you, but I promise everything will become clear very soon.’ He gave Laura a set of night-vision goggles, strapping his own over his forehead. ‘Come on.’
    They stepped down on to the plain in time to see the final preparations of the soldiers. Although Laura had no problem recognizing a gun, she had never seen anything like the weaponry being set up around her. One piece of equipment resembled a black metallic umbrella with blue lasers where the spokes would be; another consisted of a whirring disc at the end of a funnel which emitted a harsh, grinding drone whenever the trigger was pressed. Covering the entire area was a dense green fog that seeped from a device resembling a portable generator crossed with a Star Wars droid.
    Once every crate had been opened and its contents removed, the froth of activity reduced to a simmer. One of the soldiers was making a few adjustments to some of the smaller devices, but the others had stopped moving with any