Kill Zone (A Spider Shepherd Short Story) by Stephen Leather Read Free Book Online

marvelled at their ability to fall asleep anywhere, even
on their way to a job that might see them killed, riding in a bucketing Chinook
with the thunder of the rotors so loud it was rattling their teeth.
    They had been
flying for over five hours, when he heard the pilot’s voice in his earpiece.
‘LZ in fifteen minutes.’
    Jock and Geordie
were instantly as awake and watchful as the others, their weapons at the ready
in case the LZ was compromised. A quarter of an hour later, the Chinook cleared
a low ridge, dropped to the floor of a plateau and then rose again, following
the steep slopes of the round-topped hill they had identified from the map. The
heli came to a hover and landed as the groundwash stirred up a storm of dust
and debris.
    Jock, Geordie, Jimbo
and Lex jumped down and went into positions of all-round defence while Shepherd
and the Captain unloaded the mopeds. They remained crouched and watchful as the
Chinook took off, rolling forward and plummeting off the hill-top, building
speed to generate additional lift. It crawled into the sky, then wheeled away
to fly a circuitous holding pattern twenty or thirty miles away, far enough
away to avoid any risk of compromise to the operation but near enough to make a
fast return when a signal on the tactical beacon called it back to the LZ to
extract the team once their job was done.
    The team took a
few more minutes to watch and listen, allowing their hearing to become attuned
to the quietness of the night after the din of the heli. They scanned the
surrounding countryside for any movement or sign that might suggest they had
been spotted. All was dark and quiet, and eventually Jock signalled to them to
move out.   He led the column of
mopeds down the hill before looping around to make their way to the target.
      Jock and Shepherd rode at the head of
the column, with Lex, Todd and Jimbo behind them and Geordie as “Tail-end
Charlie” at the rear of the line. They rode without lights, their Passive Night
Goggles allowing them enough vision to avoid potholes and obstacles in the
path. They passed through fields of opium poppies. Milked of their sap, the
remaining seed heads had withered and dried brown and hard under the fierce
Afghan sun and as the mopeds passed between them, they made a rattling sound
that Shepherd could hear above the sound of the moped engine.
    Jock led the way
up a ridge, following the ghostly line of an animal track and passing the
skeleton of a long dead goat. Stripped by vultures of its flesh, patches of
skin still clung to the bleached bones, mummified by the sun and the dry cold
wind that was constantly blowing through the mountains.
    The night was
icy, the wind stinging their faces as they cleared the top of the ridge. Jock
checked his GPS,   signalled to the
rest of the team, silenced his engine and freewheeled down the slope, towards
the dark, indistinct shape of a tall building set into a fold of the hills.
    They hid the
mopeds in a clump of trees a hundred yards from the target and moved forward on
foot, carrying the sections of ladder and the prepared charges, and leaving a
faint trail of their boot-prints on the frost-covered ground. Shepherd caught a
whiff of woodsmoke on the breeze as they approached from downwind, and a moment
later, the tall shape of the target building loomed out of the surrounding
darkness, the wall facing them glowing an eerie yellow through the goggles as
it caught and reflected the moonlight filtering through the clouds.
    There was a
straggle of huts and outbuildings surrounding it and a pile of rubble that
might once have been another house. While the others kept watch on the main
building, Jimbo and Geordie made sure that all the outbuildings were deserted.
      They dug in and watched the main
building. In the early hours of the night, two small groups of men arrived and
left again. Another hour passed and then a solitary figure, shrouded by a black
cloak, emerged from the door and disappeared into the