Immediately, the tailgate started to rise. The engines of the Hercules increased in pitch. Dexter picked up the Malinois and allowed him to sprawl out on his lap. Danny didn’t know why. Maybe the dog got spooked by take-offs. Whatever, it was clear his handler was in full control of his charge as he fitted a muzzle to the dog’s snout. The tailgate sealed closed. Almost immediately the Herc juddered into movement. It noticeably vibrated as it taxied towards the runway. It came to a halt for a few seconds as the engines started screaming. A minute later, Danny was airborne for the third time in less than twenty-four hours. He could feel the aircraft gaining height very quickly. As soon as it levelled off, the captain’s voice came over the cans.

  ‘Okay, gentlemen, we’ve levelled out at about sixteen thousand. We’ll be popping her up to 22k in about twenty minutes, and we’ll be above the drop zone five minutes after that.’

  The guys removed their cans, unclipped themselves and stood up. Each of them picked up their freefall harnesses and clipped them on securely, before strapping their weapons across their bodies and attaching their rucksacks to the back of their legs. Sitting down again, Danny watched Dexter securing the dog’s harness to the carabiners on the front of his own rig while he put his own headphones back on. Within a couple of minutes they were ready to jump.

  The time passed quickly. It seemed only a couple of minutes before Danny felt the aircraft gaining altitude again. Each guy had a mask connected to a tank of oxygen. Danny reached out, grabbed his mask, fitted it to his face and continued to breathe normally. A few minutes of this would keep his blood oxygen saturation levels up, ready for the jump.

  The captain’s voice came over the cans. ‘Five minutes out, repeat, five minutes out.’

  As he spoke, the tailgate started to lower. Danny looked outside and immediately saw that they were above the cloud line. Thousands of pinprick stars dotted the sky and although there was no sign of the moon from this angle, there was a silver haze that told Danny it would be full and bright when he jumped. He checked the altimeter on his wrist. The dial was hovering between 20 and 21.

  On the back of Danny’s helmet was a light with an infrared filter. Invisible to the naked eye, but a useful beacon to anyone wearing NV. Danny flicked it on, and he saw the other guys doing the same.

  The loadie stood up and gave them a thumbs-up sign.

  Danny took another few deep breaths of oxygen, then removed the mask. He got to his feet and, along with the others, started shuffling towards the tailgate. His altimeter was nudging 22,000 feet as they lined up two abreast – Tony and Cole first, Danny and Dexter second. Dexter was holding the Malinois in his arms, close to his chest. The dog showed no sign of anxiety. Like the guys, he was ready for the jump.

  A red light appeared on the side of the aircraft. Danny felt his pulse quicken. The loadie raised one arm. Ten seconds later the light turned green. The loadie lowered his arm. Tony and Cole tumbled out. Danny, Dexter and the dog immediately followed.

  All the sounds changed. The constant drone of the Hercules’ interior disappeared. There was a boom as the aircraft burst away from them, then the familiar rushing in the ears that accompanied a freefall jump whether it took place in Helmand or Hereford. Here above the cloud line the stars were like clouds and the waxing moon lit up the cloud bank 10,000 feet below him like a soft, silver blanket. The moon itself was visible now, and would hurt your eyes if you stared at it too long.

  Which Danny didn’t. He was concentrating on falling stable, his arms and legs spread out, his core rigid. Only when he knew he was in the correct position to fall safely did he look at the GPS and altimeter strapped to his wrist. The GPS told him they were roughly on target – they were aiming for the bank of a deep wadi where they could stash the parachute gear – and the altimeter indicated that they were already at 18,000 feet.

  Fifteen thousand.

  Twelve thousand.

  Danny looked to his right and saw Dexter falling at the same height about twenty metres away. The attack dog was still harnessed to his handler’s chest, as calm as he had been on the aircraft . . .

  Ten thousand.

  Eight thousand.

  He looked down and could already see two chutes deploying. At 4,000 feet he deployed his own rig. Seconds later his rate of fall suddenly decreased. He, and the rest of the unit, were drifting towards the earth.

  He engaged the NV goggles on his helmet. The atmosphere turned into a haze of green. The stars and moon became astonishingly bright, but Danny focused on the space below him. He could see the infrared light on the back of Tony’s and Cole’s helmets.

  Then: blackness. Danny had entered the cloud line. The air was thick and humid, but he could still just make out the helmet lights, hazy through the fog, guiding him down.

  It wasn’t a thick cloud bank. In seconds he was through it. The temperature suddenly increased, the hot air radiating from the parched earth below trapped by the cloud line. Helmand Province opened up beneath him. The grainy green of the winding Helmand River was just visible on this dark night, demarcated by the bright clusters of lights that indicated inhabited areas.

  Tony’s voice came over his earpiece. ‘You fuckers still with me?’

  ‘Roger that,’ from Dexter and Cole.

  ‘Black?’

  ‘I’m here,’ Danny said into his boom mike.

  ‘Stack up behind me,’ Tony instructed.

  Guided by the IR lights on the back of their helmets, Danny adjusted his position so that he was banking up in a line above Tony and Cole. He found himself trying to identify certain features that he should recognise from his intense study of maps of the area earlier in the day. The village of Gareshk, where their targets lived, lay three kilometres to the north-east. Beyond that, along the line of the river, was another village. Danny knew that this was Panjika, where Caitlin Wallace and her team were embedded.

  Below he saw Tony make landfall, then Cole. Only now could he make out the line of the wadi they were aiming for: the other two had landed twenty to thirty metres to its north. Danny unclipped his rucksack and let it dangle by a lanyard beneath him. The rucksack hit the ground. Twenty seconds later Danny did the same. He immediately started gathering up his chute. The billowing fabric made only a whisper of a noise in the silent Afghan desert. They were on parched, flat, cracked ground. Danny knew there was a main highway 200 metres to the north, but it was as dark as they’d expected, the cloud obscuring the moon, and he couldn’t see more than thirty metres in any direction. This meant he could only just make out the edge of the wadi that they’d been aiming for, off to his south. Once he’d collected in his chute, he saw Dexter on the ground unclipping the dog from his harness. The dog sat obediently by his handler’s side while Dexter removed its muzzle then gathered up his own chute. It didn’t move as the four men congregated with armfuls of parachute.

  ‘Black,’ Tony said, ‘find somewhere to stash the chutes.’

  Danny didn’t argue. The others dropped their bundles of fabric and spread out in a semicircle, down on one knee in the firing positions, their weapons engaged as they scanned the area. The dog sat by Dexter’s side, its nose in the air, its ears pointed, its senses on high alert.

  Danny bundled up the chutes and ran to the edge of the wadi. The dried-out riverbed was about ten metres deep and fifteen wide. Danny instantly saw a small cave on the far side that would be suitable for hiding their gear. He clambered down a nearby gulley and had weighted down the chutes under some loose rocks within a minute. They were write-offs now. Rejoining his unit mates he fell to one knee like them. ‘Anything?’ he breathed over the comms as he disengaged his NV goggles before scanning the surrounding area through the night sight on his rifle. He saw nothing but featureless desert terrain in the green tinge of NV. Sparse patches of brush sprouted from the dry ground. Apart from that, nothing.

  Nobody answered his question directly. ‘Patrol formation,’ Tony said. ‘Dexter, Black, me, Cole. Eyes on Dexter. He gets any sign from the dog that there’s trouble up ahead, we hit the ground.’

  The men didn’t need to reply. Having shouldered their rucksacks, they slung their weapons across their chests and once more pulled their NV tubes forward on their helmets, then adopted the straight line of their patrol formation. Danny was seven metres behind Dexter, who now had the dog on a short leash. The others were spaced out a similar distance behind him.

  Time check: 23.31 hours.

  They moved at a steady pace, keeping their formation. Danny’s NV capability gave him a wider field of vision than unaided sight, so he was able to scan a full 180-degree vista as he moved. There was nothing. Even the highway, when they hit it, was deserted. The unit jogged across the rough road and continued north-east towards the village.

  Dexter suddenly raised his left hand. The dog had stopped. Danny saw that it was holding its front right paw up in the air. Its nose was raised somewhat. Dexter made a ‘down’ gesture with his hand. The unit members hit the ground. Danny arranged his rifle so it was aiming forward. He saw the dog crouching, head close to the desert floor. It was very still, but Danny sensed that it was waiting for a command to lurch forward and attack.

  But attack what? Danny didn’t know. Whatever the dog had sensed up ahead, Danny himself couldn’t see it. He raised his NV tubes and scanned the terrain up ahead through his rifle sights, panning left and right. It was a full minute before he spotted movement, and another minute before he could clearly make out what the dog had seen long before the humans. It was a single man. He was dressed in traditional robes and headdress and was surrounded by a flock of goats, perhaps eight of them. Distance 150 metres. He was heading directly towards them.

  ‘Where the fuck’s he going with those goats at this time of night?’ Dexter spoke into the comms.

  ‘Who cares?’ came Tony’s voice. ‘Keep the dog close. If he spooks the goats, they’ll make too much noise.’

  ‘Roger that.’

  ‘If he comes within fifty metres, let the dog do him. Better to make it look like a wild animal attack than leave a trail of rounds.’

  Silence.

  Danny could see the dog shaking a little. Its instinct was clearly to go into attack mode, but his handler hadn’t given the word so it stayed pressed to the ground, like a cocked round in a high velocity weapon. Danny focused back on the newcomer. He was only a hundred metres away now and, surrounded by his goats, seemed to have difficulty walking in a straight line. Danny wondered if he’d been partaking of the product of local poppies.

  Seventy-five metres. Danny could hear the dull clunk of bells round the goats’ necks. The guy was still heading directly towards their position, unaware of the danger he was in.

  The dog’s left hind was twitching. It was desperate to do what it was trained for.

  Sixty metres. The Afghan man stopped.

  Had he seen them? Danny didn’t think so. He was drinking from a water canteen. When he had finished, he tucked the canteen back into his robes. When he started walking again, it was in a different direction. South-westerly.

  The dog followed with his head as the man and his goats passed to the west of the unit, but he didn’t move his body. Ten minutes later, the clunk of the goats’ bells faded from earshot. The unit gave it a couple of minutes. Then, on Tony’s order, they got to their feet again and continued their advance towards the village, the dog sniffing and scouting the way as before.

  They covered another kilometre. There was no distinct line that marked the boundary of the village. The landscape simply became less sparse. They passed an old farm vehicle, burned out and neglected. Several buildings were not only run down but practically turned to rubble. An old yellow camper van lay across their path, its wheels removed and stolen, its rusted doors hanging off and holes in the roof. It emitted a pungent, organic smell that told Danny an animal had likely died sheltering in it not too many hours or days ago.

  The terrain started to slope upwards. Danny knew they were approaching the raised ground Isherwood had pointed out in the briefing. When they reached the upper contour, they’d have eyes on Target Red’s compound.

  Dexter raised his left hand again. The dog crouched. Dexter hit the ground and Danny followed suit. He was aware of Tony and Cole doing the same behind him. The unit crawled to the brow of the raised ground and looked out.

  Target Red’s compound was directly ahead of them. Danny recognised it from the satellite map at the briefing: it was the easternmost compound of the village. Distance: fifty metres as expected. Clear open ground between the unit’s OP and the wooden door set in the four-metre-high wall facing them. No sign of movement. No sound. Beyond the compound, Danny could make out a few other buildings, but the unit was too far away and too low to the ground to have a visual on the Helmand tributary that bisected the village north to south.

  They remained static for thirty seconds. Danny checked the time: 23.59. Bang on schedule. An unfamiliar voice crackled in Danny’s earpiece. ‘This is Eagle One control. Do you copy?’

  Tony’s voice replied to the drone operator: ‘Delta Bravo Niner to Eagle One, loud and clear.’

  ‘We have your position marked. Currently eyes on your first location. We’ve just seen a single male enter the north-eastern room of the compound.’

  ‘Expect that to be Target Red,’ Tony said. ‘If his family are there, they’ll be in a separate room. They always are.’

  ‘That’ll be the south-western room,’ said the drone operator. ‘We think there are personnel inside – there’s a heat signature coming from the door. We also have two human signatures thirty metres beyond the target compound, but your approach is clear, repeat, your approach is clear.’

  ‘Black, Dexter, get over there,’ Tony said. ‘We’ll cover.’

  Danny hesitated. Crossing the open ground towards the compound was hazardous. Did he trust Tony to cover him properly if there was a problem?

  He didn’t have a choice.

  ‘Let’s move, Black,’ Dexter said. He made a clicking sound in the back of his throat as he got to his feet. The dog started moving forward, nose up, ears pricked. Danny followed, his weapon slung across his front.

  CHAPTER 8

  Danny and Dexter moved across the open ground at a jog. Danny’s every sense was heightened. The four NV tubes on his headgear gave him an extended field of vision, and he was aware of a jumbled layout of houses and compounds further into the village, but his principal focus was on the wall of the compound up ahead. It would only take a moment for someone to appear above the parapet and open up. If Tony and Cole weren’t on the money, Danny and Dexter would be goners.

  Thirty metres.

  Fifteen.

  They safely reached the compound wall and positioned themselves on either side of the wooden door. It looked like a couple of decent kicks would knock it in, but they didn’t want to alert their target. They raised their weapons and aimed them towards the top of the exterior wall. The dog remained on all fours. Danny could sense its prickling canine awareness as it listened for movement.

  ‘In position,’ Dexter said over the radio. ‘That’s a go.’

  Silence. Danny didn’t look across the open ground to check Tony and Cole were approaching. His job was to make sure the drone operators hadn’t given them dodgy intel about the position of the personnel inside the compound.

  A whole minute passed. Tony and Cole reached the compound. Tony removed a set of bolt cutters from his pack. He pointed at Danny, then pointed up. His instruction was clear: you’re going over.

  Scaling the wall would be a risky moment. No surprise that Tony was telling him to do it. Whatever. Danny knew the drone operator would warn him if there were any immediate threats waiting for him on the other side. He grabbed the bolt cutters before approaching Cole, who was crouching by the wall ready to give a leg up. He put one foot in his unit mate’s hands, launched himself up on to Cole’s shoulders and grappled for the top edge of the wall. Seconds later, he was over and down.

  He raised his weapon and scanned the interior of the compound. The central courtyard was sparse: a few old tyres and a beaten-up motorbike against the far wall. One room to Danny’s right – that was where they expected the target to be – and another room to his eleven o’clock. The compound’s external door was two metres to his left. It was locked from the inside with a sturdy iron padlock on a chain. Danny lowered his weapon, took the bolt cutters and cut through the padlock. Quietly, he unbolted the door and opened it.

  The rest of the unit entered in complete silence, the dog keeping to Dexter’s heel. Tony turned to the team. Danny was waiting to be given the lesser job of dealing with the family. But no: Tony jabbed one finger at Cole then pointed in the direction of the south-western room where they expected the family to be located. Cole made no complaint: he crossed the courtyard and took up position by the door of the room. Tony led Dexter towards the target’s room, the dog following. They positioned themselves on either side of the entrance, while Danny got down on one knee four metres from the door itself, weapon engaged, ready to put down rounds if necessary.

  Tony held up three fingers.

  Two fingers.

  One.

  Dexter kicked the door open with a solid blow from his heel. The Malinois didn’t need a command. It shot forward into the dark room. A fraction of a second later there was a scream: a male voice, in pain.

  Everyone moved. Cole took the scream as a sign to enter the other room and restrain the family members. Tony and Dexter followed the dog into the target’s room. Danny did the same, his weapon still engaged, his NV goggles giving him a perfect, wide-angled vista on to the scene inside.