Masters of War by Chris Ryan Read Free Book Online Page B

itself, showed how close to sea level they were flying. There couldn’t be more than ten feet between the chopper and the water. The Med remained undisturbed despite the proximity of the skimming aircraft, but it was a reminder of how bright the moon was that he could make out a faint shadow of the Sea Knight on the flat surface.
    Danny’s earpiece crackled into life. A member of the flight crew communicating with the SF ops room on the aircraft carrier. ‘Zero, this is Desert Wanderer. Requesting permission to cross from water on to land. Repeat, requesting permission to cross from water on to land.’ They’d already had a briefing with the pilot so he could explain their flight plan. Danny pictured their location on the mapping, near the southernmost point of the Gulf of Sirte, fifty klicks west of Brega.
    A five-second pause. And then, as clearly as if he were on the Sea Knight with them, he heard the familiar voice of the ops officer – a broad-shouldered American major who was also liaising with the ops room back at Hereford. ‘ Desert Wanderer, that’s an affirmative. The op is still a go. ’
    Ten seconds later they made land. A deserted beach where the flight crew extinguished the chopper’s lights and started flying blind. Through the window, the ground beneath them resembled a fast-moving photographic negative. ‘Welcome to the dark continent, gentlemen,’ the pilot’s voice came over the comms. ‘That’s twenty minutes till target.’
    Danny turned his eyes back to the inside of the chopper. Boydie, Tommo and Five Bellies were still sitting in silence, their faces calm as they mentally prepared themselves for their insertion. Danny was doing the same, reminding himself in simple terms of their objective: insert by helicopter, tab to a predetermined location in view of the deserted encampment where the militants were thought to be, set up an OP about a kilometre from the encampment and try to get a visual on the militants themselves. If they did, they were to laser-mark so fast air could come in and bomb the place to hell.
    Theirs was a non-offensive role. The real violence would be done by the bombs of the RAF Tornado squadron once the patrol had marked the target and given the go-ahead. That didn’t mean it was safe. You could stare at a patch of satellite mapping till you were cross-eyed, but it wouldn’t tell you half of what you needed to know about the terrain of an insertion zone. You’d be an idiot to think any time spent on the ground in a country like Libya wasn’t a risk. Eighteen months earlier an SAS patrol had been compromised by a group of farmers. It had sounded comical to everyone back home, and the papers had enjoyed a good laugh at the Regiment’s expense. To Danny it had simply highlighted one thing: on unfamiliar ground you had to expect the unexpected. Sometimes a stray farmer could fuck your mission just as surely as a landmine. And although Gaddafi might have assumed a horizontal position while the rebels who ousted him were scrabbling around to form a government, the situation on the ground was still extremely volatile – not to mention the international news crews crawling round the place, sniffing for stories.
    The pilot’s voice again. ‘Patrol commander, we’ve flown over the main highway. One vehicle, heading east.’
    ‘Roger that,’ Boydie replied in a flat voice, his face betraying no emotion.
    The loadie was holding up the fingers of one hand. ‘Five minutes till target.’ Danny checked his watch. 23.08 hrs. On schedule. Each member of the patrol disconnected his radio from the Sea Knight’s comms system, before picking up their packs and settling them on their shoulders. Through the open tailgate, Danny could just make out the dark shadow of the desert floor zooming past ten feet below.
    The loadie had moved to the tailgate end of the fuselage, where he was holding up three fingers. Three minutes till target.
    Two minutes.
    One.
    Danny engaged his NV. The