Chase was back at the barn. This time Stikes, not Castille, was with him. The captain lurked by the pile of garbage and corpses, while Chase squatted in the shadows against the rusting refrigerator.
Minutes ticked by. Chase’s calf muscles started aching, but he ignored the discomfort, staying focused on his task. This time there was no self-doubt, no uncertainty; the knowledge of what the Taliban had done to the four dead hostages, and what they were likely to do to their other prisoners, had eliminated any concerns about whether he was doing the right thing. He flexed his legs, trying to keep them from stiffening. He couldn’t afford to be even a second late in reacting . . .
‘Psst!’ Stikes, signalling that a guard was beginning another patrol round the barn. Completely still, Chase listened to the plodding crunch of the Taliban’s footsteps, the rustle of loose clothing as he drew level—
Chase leapt up, left hand locking firmly over the Afghan’s bearded mouth as his right whipped up the knife. This time, though, he didn’t drive the blade deep into muscle and sinew, but pressed it flat across the man’s throat to choke him. Simultaneously, Stikes rushed to them, yanked up the Taliban’s robes and jabbed his own knife up between the man’s legs as he hissed in Pashto: ‘Make a noise and I’ll cut off your balls.’
Chase felt the Afghan tense in utter terror. ‘I think he gets the point,’ he whispered.
Still holding the knife to the Taliban’s groin, Stikes straightened and waved at the ditch. Two figures emerged: Castille and Starkman. Stikes spoke again in Pashto, his intense blue eyes glinting in the moonlight as they fixed on the prisoner’s. ‘If you don’t do exactly what I tell you, I’ll gut you like a pig. Nod if you understand me.’ The trembling man did so. Starkman and Castille pressed against the wall just short of the barn’s front corner. ‘Good. Now, call to the other guard – not too loudly – and ask him to come here. Okay?’
Another feeble tip of the head. Stikes nodded to Chase, who took his hand away from the man’s mouth, keeping the point of his knife pressed against his windpipe. The Afghan took several long, gasping breaths, then spoke in quavering Pashto. Stikes pushed his knife harder against the man’s testicles. ‘Again. Less frightened.’ The Taliban repeated himself with fractionally more confidence.
The other guard, out of sight round the front of the barn, replied dismissively. One look into Stikes’s eyes was enough to convince the prisoner to be more insistent. Complaining, the second man padded round the corner – to find five figures in the moonlight where he had expected only one. Fumbling for his AK, he opened his mouth to yell a warning—
Bullets from the silenced C8s of Green and Baine, the two SAS men still concealed in the scrub three hundred yards away, blew out the back of his skull in a spray of brain and bone. His body flopped grotesquely forward – to be caught by Castille, Starkman lunging to grab his Kalashnikov before it could clatter to the ground.
Stikes withdrew the knife from his captive. For a moment, there was a faint flicker of hope in the Taliban’s eyes, but it vanished when Stikes placed the blade’s point over his heart. The captain spoke again, this time in English. ‘Give my regards to the seventy-two virgins.’
The man stared in fearful incomprehension – and the blade sank to its hilt into his chest. With a hint of a smile, Stikes twisted it, then yanked it out. The man’s robes darkened as spewing blood soaked them. Chase clamped his hand back over the Afghan’s mouth as he struggled, trapping an animalistic sound inside his throat . . . until both noise and movement dwindled to nothing.
Suppressing shock, Chase let go. The corpse slumped to the dirt. Without even giving it a look, Stikes turned away as Mac and Bluey emerged from the ditch. ‘Bluey, watch the front of the barn; Alexander, cover the back,’ Mac ordered. He pointed at the fridge. ‘Everyone else, move that. Let’s get them out of there.’
With four men to lift it, the corroded fridge was hauled clear in moments. Chase looked into the barn. The confrontation had caught the hostages’ attention, and the bound man he had seen earlier was staring at him in alarm. ‘It’s okay,’ he said quietly. ‘We’re here to get you home.’ He squeezed through the gap, Mac, Starkman and Castille