Читать книгу UNHEROIC - Marcus Calvert - Страница 4

Specialist Richard V. Bently staggered across the Iraqi sand with a bullet in his upper right leg. Early in the chase, he had hastily bandaged the wound as best he could. His intent was mainly to staunch the flow of blood and stay conscious. But another part of his rationale involved not leaving an obvious blood trail for the insurgents to follow (not that they couldn’t find him anyway). Bently knew that his footprints would lead them right to him.

But even though the shootout ended about twenty minutes ago, they hadn’t caught up to him yet. Part of him had hoped that they had decided to leave him to the desert’s tender mercies and bug out before some Allied reinforcements showed up. But Bently knew better.

They’d want his head after what he did to their leader.

Even through the pain, Bently wanted to smile. It wasn’t every day a peon like himself got to bag someone on Uncle Sam’s Most Wanted list. He wasn’t a Special Forces operative or some CIA super-spy tasked with deleting high-level insurgent scumbags. He was a weekend warrior from Indiana who had only killed deer and fish before today.

Bently didn’t remember the asshole’s name, just the butt-ugly, acne-scarred face of a fat insurgent on a wanted poster. The prick was an up-and-comer for Al-Qaeda in Iraq, known for his ability to plan and execute ambushes. The same rat bastard led the ambush on Bently’s supply convoy, which killed everyone else in his unit.

As the shootout wound down, the National Guardsman had gotten lucky with his M-4 and tagged the insurgent leader in the chest – right where he wore his grenades. As concurrent grenade blasts took out a bunch of the attacking insurgents, Bently ducked for cover behind what was left of his Hummer. Then, he threw the rest of his own frag grenades, grabbed his pack, and fled during the pandemonium.

That was when one of the Al-Qaeda fighters sank that bullet into him.

Now Bently limped deeper into the desert, without a clue on where he was headed. The sun was almost down. During the ambush, someone in his unit had probably called for help and backup would eventually show up. If he could manage to double back to the road, he might be able to hook up with them – or maybe some other friendly patrol or convoy. But first, he’d have to avoid getting caught or killed. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a canteen. The soldier allowed himself a quick swig of warm water as he looked over his shoulder. A glint of sunlight reflected and caught his attention.

“Shit!” Bently hissed, as he put his canteen away and yanked out a set of binoculars.

Two convertible military-grade jeeps headed his way, with four gunmen apiece. Bently looked around and realized he was exposed, with nowhere to run or hide. With grim resolve, he swapped out his M-4’s half-empty clip with his last full one. The soldier painfully groaned as he slowly assumed a prone firing position. Bently yanked off his backpack and used it to prop his M-4. He adjusted the weapon’s cracked scope and waited for the insurgents to come a little closer.

Bently had every intention of killing them all.

If he didn’t, he’d end up getting beheaded on Al-Jazeera … or something worse.

And he’d never see his wife and two whiny sons ever again.

Bently set his weapon to semi-automatic fire and zeroed in on the driver of the left jeep. If he got lucky and took him out, the jeep just might tip over and take out the other three insurgents too. Bently’s right index finger caressed the trigger. He inhaled and prepared to make his last stand –

“Excuse me,” a British voice sounded above him.

The American reflexively rolled onto his back and aimed upward, ready to fire. Then he froze like a wide-eyed statue. Six British soldiers surrounded him – all very much dead. Specialist Richard V. Bently could see right through them. That (in his mind) made them well and truly dead. The ghosts wore spec op uniforms of a desert camouflage variety and carried assorted small arms and ops gear. Each of them also had open wounds – minus the blood, but not the gore. In fact, the man talking to him was missing the left half of his face.

Bently peered through the ghost’s incorporeal skull.

“I’m Leftenant Hinnons, with Her Majesty’s Special Air Service,” Hinnons cordially announced. “You wouldn’t happen to have a working radio would you?”

“Sorry,” Bently replied. “It’s shredded wheat – along with the rest of my convoy.”

“Bugger!” Hinnons muttered as he pulled a spectral water bottle from his spectral backpack and took a swig. He offered it to Bently.

“Uh, no thanks.”

Hinnons eyed Bently’s wound.

“Waynecrest,” Hinnons called over his shoulder. A wiry little commando ghost walked over with his guts blown open. Waynecrest didn’t seem to notice as he reached into his pack and whipped out a medic’s kit.

“Um,” Bently resisted the urge to crawl away as the medic pulled out a pair of spectral scissors and gently held his leg down to cut at the bloodied dressing and get at the wound.

“Sir,” one of the ghost commandos called out, a fellow with a sniper rifle (and multiple gunshot wounds) across his back. “We’ve got hostiles coming in. Looks like they’ve got jeeps.”

The other ghosts looked off into the distance as the two jeeps came into easy visual range.

“Good,” Hinnons muttered, as his right eye squinted. “My feet are killing me.”

Hinnons turned to the sniper and nodded.

The sniper dumped his backpack onto the sand, dropped into a prone shooting position and zeroed in. Still on his back, Bently craned his head to watch this bizarre shootout about to unfold. He felt a needle sink into his skin and looked back at the medic. Waynecrest tossed the spent morphine injector aside and began to work on the bullet.

Hinnons pulled out a pair of binoculars. The remaining three ghosts knelt and took up firing positions with their assault rifles. Bently wondered if this was some kind of sick dream or hallucination.

“Want me to call it out?” Hinnons asked.

“No need, sir,” the sniper replied.

“Right. Fire when ready,” Hinnons called out.

The sniper fired once.

The driver of the leftmost jeep abruptly died from a head wound. The insurgent in the passenger seat quickly grabbed the steering wheel and hit the brakes as the two insurgents in the back jumped out. The sniper picked off the bad guy in the passenger seat as he tried to switch places with the dead driver. The sniper then adjusted his aim toward the rightmost jeep, just as the insurgents came into firing range with their AK-47’s.

“Lads,” Hinnons grinned, “feel free to join in.”

The insurgents could only see Bently and wasted precious time looking around for the source of the sniper fire. Hinnons’s three kneeling commandos neatly picked off the other four occupants with expert trigger-work. Their jeep veered out of control and toppled over sideways a few times before landing upside-down, crushing the insurgents. The two insurgents from the first jeep continued to run away.

“Dead or alive, sir?” The sniper asked, his right eye locked on his rifle’s scope.

“I tend to like them dead,” Hinnons replied.

“Me too, sir,” the sniper said, a grin creeping over his pale, transparent face.

Two shots later, the final two insurgents were dead.

Bently watched the precision slaughter with quiet awe.

“A souvenir,” Waynecrest said as he dropped an extracted bullet next to Bently’s head.

“How is it?” Bently asked, nudging his chin towards the wound.

“Bone’s shattered,” Waynecrest said, slightly impressed. “I’m amazed you managed to limp this far.”

“How messed up will it be?”

“You’ll need some proper surgery,” the ghost medic replied. “Odds are you’ll end up with a permanent limp.”

“Shit,” Bently muttered.

“Well,” Hinnons said with a dry smile. “It beats dying, old boy. Speaking of which, let’s secure our new jeeps and get the hell out of here before we all end up like you.”

Bently looked up at the ghost for a moment and realized that Hinnons honestly didn’t know that he and his men were all dead. None of them did! Waynecrest closed up Bently’s wound while Hinnons’ other commandos jogged out to the jeeps. Hinnons pulled out his binoculars and did a quick 360, with a keen eye out for any signs of the enemy.

“Um, Hinnons?” Bently hesitantly asked, unsure of how to break the news.

“Yes?” Hinnons replied, lowering his binoculars.

Bently didn’t have the heart to tell them the truth. Besides, the spectral morphine was starting to kick in.

“Thanks,” Bently said with an awkward smile.

“Don’t mention it,” Hinnons replied. “But the first, second, and third rounds are definitely on you.”