Chapter 19



Julia’s boots slipped over the tumbling rocks as they hurried down the side of the mountain, her breathing growing strained under the weight of her armour and pack.

Catching her balance, Julia looked across the ravine towards the other mountain, searching for those last two insurgents.

They had lost them somewhere in the gunfight and they had not re-emerged. Marcus had taken the opportunity to get his team out of there before they became victims of a rock slide.

If they could just get to the bottom then they ran the chance of making it back to the compound before nightfall.

The sweat on Julia’s skin began to dry almost as quickly as it broke out as the cooling night air breezed softly against her raging flesh.

They just needed to make it to the bottom.

Julia kept that in her mind as she felt Ray’s hand squeeze tightly around the shoulder strap of her pack.

She needed to get Ray out of here. They needed to make it back to the compound.

“Keep your eyes open!” Marc shouted back at them as he led the way.

Julia scanned the cliff tops eagerly. I don’t think I will be shutting my eyes anytime soon.

When her boot slipped again, Julia turned her attention back to the path she was walking on. They were nearly to the bottom, only a few dozen feet away, when the popping sound of gunfire filled their ears once again.

Exposed on the mountain side with no cover to hide behind, they immediately dropped to their knees and returned fire.

After a few seconds, Julia located one of the insurgents. Dressed in khaki, half of his face covered with a scarf, Julia opened fire on his person.

He quickly shielded himself behind a large rock face.

Julia growled in frustration, keeping her scope trained on him, when, after a few moments, he began to run north.

She fired a few rounds but he kept to his course, not deviating from the hidden path.

“Where are you going?” Julia whispered to herself as she pulled away from the scope and looked across the ravine.

The insurgent, a small speck of khaki in the middle of grey rock, was dotting along the mountain side, eagerly heading somewhere.

Julia furiously tried to think where he might be going. There was nothing back there but a . . .

Julia felt the blood drain from her face.

“He’s heading for the RPG.” Julia spoke, her throat dry as she remembered the insurgent she had shot as he tried to reload the missile.

“What?” Ray shouted over the screaming of bullets, his fingers planted firmly in his ears.

“Stay here!” Julia told Ray as she squirmed her way past the others and dropped down beside Marcus.

“Julia?” Marcus’s eyes flickered over to her before re-training on the second insurgent.

“They’re going for the RPG!” Julia shouted but Marcus didn’t hear her over the crack of the gunshot.

“Marcus!” Julia grasped his arm.

Marcus frowned at her.

“They’re heading for the RPG!” Julia shouted, gaining his full attention.

Carlos heard her outcry, “My God, if they hit us with that here . . .” Carlos looked around at their position, “Well, let’s just say you can forget trying to call for that helicopter.”

“We need to go after them.” Julia stated, “We need to get there before they do.”

“We wouldn’t get there in time. Our best chance is to make a run for the compound. If we stay low, we can get there by nightfall.” Marcus wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

Julia and Carlos looked at each other.

“If we run they’ll just come after us, and then we leave an RPG in their hands to kill fellow soldiers. It was an RPG that took out that helicopter a few days ago.” Carlos reminded Marcus.

Marcus turned and looked at Julia intently, his eyes searching hers for something.

“We can get it.” Julia nodded, trusting her instincts.

Marcus let out a small sigh as he laid his weapon on the ground and removed the pack from his shoulders. Unzipping a map from a small pouch, Marcus laid out the map carefully upon the top of his pack.

His finger trailed along the path they had taken before tapping his finger on the location where they were now.

“Where did you see the RPG?” Marcus asked her.

Julia regarded the map carefully as she tried to recall how far away the insurgent had been.

Julia pressed her finger to the place on the map, “Here.”

“Okay,” Marcus licked his lower lip, sounding uncertain.

After a few moments, Marcus spoke again. This time his voice was filled with enthusiasm, as if for the first time he believed it was possible.

“Okay,” Marcus shifted closer, “If we take this northern path, we can cut around the back of them. It’ll take time off our journey and we’ll have the element of surprise.”

Julia nodded, “We need to get going.”



* * *



They were too late.

The northern pass had shortened their journey but it wasn’t enough as they waited a few hundred yards out of view, and clasped their eyes upon the loaded RPG.

Waiting patiently in the hands of the terrorist, Julia suddenly regretted bringing the team this way.

All the insurgent had to do was turn around and squeeze the trigger. A simple pull of a muscle and tendon and they would be gone from this world.

It was enough to make someone weep.

The only consolation Julia had was that, if they fired the RPG this closely, then they too would be caught in the explosion.

But somehow, Julia did not think that that was enough to calm her about her impending death.

“Is there any way we could get closer?” Julia whispered to Kazeem as he stood beside her with Ray.

Twitch, Carlos and Marcus occupied the boulder across from them as they looked down the small incline at the two insurgents.

“No,” Kazeem murmured in his thick accent, “If we go any closer then . . .”

Kazeem’s features seemed to freeze as the two men began to talk in their own dialects, the sound of their voices sending a chill through Julia’s body.

But what caused Julia more upset was the look upon Kazeem’s face as he heard their words.

“Kazeem?” Julia frowned as she saw his eyes turn ghostly and his lips part. He did not look like the type of man to be scared by anything but right then, Julia would have bet a fortune she did not have that he was terrified by something.

“What is it?” Julia leaned forward, trying to catch his eyes but they were wide with shock, “Kazeem?”

“N- nothing,” Kazeem growled suddenly, breaking out of whatever trance he had been under.

Julia just watched as Kazeem seemed to look at her in minute detail for a second before he turned away from her.

Rising his weapon, Kazeem trained it on the man in khaki holding the RPG, “The only way is to shoot them.”

Julia looked past Ray and towards Marcus, waiting for their orders.

They could not let them fire that weapon, if they did, it would mean their deaths.

Marcus lifted his head, giving Kazeem the signal as Carlos trained his gun on the other insurgent.

And, in unison, they fired a single shot into the heads of the insurgents.

Their bodies fell like a sack of potatoes as the RPG imbedding itself in the rock beside them.

“Move forward.” Marcus spoke softly but Julia was already moving out from behind the boulder.

Julia walked up to their bodies, her gun hanging by her side, as her eyes absorbed all of the carnage.

They absorbed all the blood and the brain matter that burst out on the rocks before them.

Julia knelt by their bodies, her hand reaching out to turn them over.

Julia noted how warm their bodies felt against her hand whilst she gazed into his eyes and saw that they had not yet found that empty, vacant look most corpses had.

Swallowing in difficulty, Julia began to search their bodies.

They held no papers, nothing that could identify them so she turned her attention to the RPG that lay innocently by her side.

There was only one warhead left and that was loaded into the missile, waiting to wreck chaos on the world.

“Um, boss?” Twitch’s voice suddenly called out, “We have company.”

Julia lifted her head and looked towards where Twitch was stood upon the incline they had just occupied, a pair of binoculars raised to his eyes.

“Who is it?” Marcus raced to his side.

Leaving the bodies to bleed out onto the rocks, Julia led Ray back to the top.

What she saw when she reached the peak sent her blood running cold through her veins, she felt like one of the corpses they had just shot.

Julia suddenly felt lost at sea by what she saw.

Because on the other side of the mountain, there was a dirt road. And on that dirt road were three militia trucks heading straight for them.

They would be upon them in twenty minutes.

Everybody went silent as they saw the approaching trucks. With six to as vehicle, that made eighteen insurgents, not including the drivers.

Three to one, Julia scoffed, that wasn’t too bad.

“What do we do?” Julia didn’t know who the question was aimed at, anybody that could give her an answer.

Marcus was the first to find his voice. “We get the hell out of Dodge.”