Chapter 28: Some you win

The two teams split up and individual members began to spread out to circle the dormitory buildings. There were three in all, relatively close together and that allowed all twelve to keep in touch with their throat mics and earpieces.

One of Stuart's team had come equipped with a special army video camera that could film what was going on in low light. Jamie had learned the value of marketing and he hoped to get some further footage for the SIS web site.

Half an hour later, they were sure they had identified all of the tangos who were up and about still. There was a pair stationed outside the door of each accommodation block, while a further ten appeared to be patrolling, again in pairs, their weapons held loosely across their chests. The NVGs allowed Jamie and his teams to pick their opponents out easily.

"Stuart, you and your team will need to take out the patrols. If I do it I'll be in plain sight of the tangos guarding the doors," Jamie whispered into his mic.

"Roger."

Jamie chewed the flesh on the inside of his cheek for the next twenty minutes. Stuart only had four others and a cameraman with him and he needed to take out ten terrorists without alerting anyone. He found his palms were sweating and there were beads of perspiration on his forehead too. When it came, Stuart's quiet voice in his ear was startling.

"Strike ten tangos. I'm going to lead my team round to my left, your right, and come up behind the last dorm building. Suggest you edge round and use the cover of the first building to get closer to the guards there."

"Roger. Moving," Jamie replied.

He moved cautiously to his own left and motioned for his team members to close up. Once they had circled far enough to be out of sight of the terrorists at the dorm building doors, they scuttled quickly across the grass and hugged the side of the building. Jamie led the other five slowly back to the corner of the building and allowed his head to peer round to the front.

The three accommodation blocks were slightly staggered, so he could only see the two tangos in front of the building he was sheltering against. Jamie was conscious that it wouldn't be long before the terrorists became suspicious or alarmed when they noticed the patrols were no longer circling. He knew they couldn't delay their assault for much longer, but he had realised a major flaw in their plan for this next part of the assault. He motioned for his team to take off their NVGs and pull on their respirators

"In position," he whispered into his throat mic. "We need to deal with the middle block too. I'm detailing two of my team to circle back round and take up positions to assault the tangos there. Suggest you send one of yours to do likewise."

"Roger."

Despite the position, Jamie smiled at how few words Stuart was using. He tapped two of his team on the shoulder. They had heard his words to Stuart and knew exactly what he wanted. They moved quickly but quietly back the way they had come so they could take up a position to assault the middle block.

A few minutes later Jamie heard a voice in his earpiece.

"Three in position."

Jamie guessed that meant that the member of Stuart's team had joined his own pair. He realised they had slipped up by not agreeing call signs for the individual team members. There was no time to rectify that now. Jamie felt his mouth suddenly very dry indeed as he prepared to give the command that would launch the assault.

"Team leader. Go on my mark. Flash-bangs first. Three, two, one. Go! Go! Go!" Jamie whispered urgently.

He already had one of the flash-bang stun grenades in his hand and he wasted no time in lobbing it round the corner towards the two terrorists. As soon as he heard the grenade explode he rushed round the corner, his Heckler and Koch at the ready. He could still feel the last of the shock wave from the blast and could see both of the tangos were down. He focussed on one, firing two short bursts of 9mm rounds into the prone body. He heard the suppressed cough of another of his team dealing with the other tango and then something thudded between his shoulder blades and knocked him over.

As Jamie fell forward he registered the echoing sound of an un-silenced weapon, which was immediately answered by more of the distinct coughs from the team's MP5s.

"Team leader is down. More tangos inside the block. Repeat, team leader is down, more tangos inside the building."

Jamie heard the voice of one of the girls in his team through his earpiece and he realised she was talking about him.

"Fuck! Is he okay? One of you stay with him. The rest of you secure the building before this all goes down the shitter."

Jamie recognised Stuart's voice.

The girls were huddled together on the bed in the quarters Jamie had used to grab some rest earlier. They comforted each other while they waited and prayed for Jamie's safe return.

"Why does he have to play the big tough guy all the time?" Christine asked, close to tears.

"You're reading him all wrong Christine. Jamie was really scared about going out tonight, but he won't ask anybody to do something he wouldn't do himself. So he's trying to lead by example," Laura said.

"Please god, don't let anything happen to him," whispered Debbie.

"I have to admit the boy has two big brass ones. Are we sure he's not from Texas?" joked the President.

He was referring to the updated material on the SIS web site.

"If his position as monarch proves to be a sham though he's got no legal basis for what he's done and surely he's guilty of murder and has just confessed that to the world?" queried one of the President's advisors.

"After what his country's been through, what he's probably suffered personally, I don't see that anyone will be rushing to arrest him," answered another.

"Mr President, why don't we just let his people go over there and help him? Why does it have to be our troops who do the clean up?"

The President looked at the man who had asked this question. He knew that there were many people in the country who were asking the same thing, a good number of them on his staff. He was surprised that none of his so called advisors could see the problem that he could see and decided it was time to share his wisdom with them all.

"Well Charlie, that's a real easy one to answer. You see, if I let all these Brits go home, who is gonna be next? Apart from the US and Canada every other country in the world is in much the same shit as the UK. Okay, they've got some terrorists to deal with as well, but every other country has been reduced to a handful of kids.

"Do we let the Irish, the Dutch, the Germans go? What about the Mexicans or the Chinese? How many people do you think will want to go back to their country of origin to see what rich pickings there are or to help rebuild?

"If we let them all go what'll that do to the US economy and our way of life? Will the country even be able to keep functioning if all of these people leave? I don't think so. Sure in time we could probably get things back on their feet, but how long would it take us? No gentlemen, if we give in to the Brits we'd open the floodgates and I'm not prepared to do that," the President ended his lecture.

Jamie hauled himself to his feet and looked round to see an additional two tangos lying outside the door to the dorm building. One of them had a pistol close to his outstretched arm and Jamie paused to kick it away. His team members looked relieved to see him on his feet and he moved to take the lead and enter the block.

"Team leader preparing to enter block one," he spoke into his throat mic.

"Hallelujah!"

Jamie couldn't help but grin inside his respirator as he heard the single word response from Stuart. The front door to the block was open and he could see the passageway beyond the door was clear. Jamie moved forward cautiously, his weapon once more levelled in front of him. The flash-bangs and the un-silenced gunshot had obviously woken quite a few of the survivors and several heads peered out of doorways as he paced down the corridor.

Jamie and his team were of course dressed all in black and with respirators, body armour and MP5s they were a frightening sight. The heads soon disappeared and doors were closed. He continued forward until he reached what looked like a large dining hall. A quick examination confirmed this room was clear and the team retraced its steps until they came to a set of stairs that led upward.

Each member of Jamie's team hugged the wall and peered up the stair well as they began to climb. Turning the bend in the stairs, they could see the entrance to the next floor and they proceeded towards it. Jamie tapped one of the team and indicated that he should remain on the stairs to cover their rear. He led the other two into a corridor that mirrored the one below. There were perhaps twenty odd doors facing onto the corridor and all of them were shut. Nothing seemed to be moving and Jamie hoped that meant all of the remaining tangos were sleeping their drug-induced sleep.

They found the same situation on the floor above. Jamie and his team removed their respirators and started at the far end of the corridor. They began opening doors, one of the team throwing the door open while another two covered the room within. The occupants were cowering in fear but were obviously not tangos and not asleep. The team re-assured them and ushered them out and towards the stairs. The same procedure was used to clear each room until they found one with two obvious Pakistani's sound asleep.

Plastic ties were used to tie the hands and feet of the two suspected tangos and the team moved on to the next door. By the time they had reached the end of the corridor they had found one more room containing drugged terrorists.

Jamie warned the team to keep up their guard, mindful that they could become complacent given how well clearing the top floor had gone. He needn't have worried, as they managed to clear the next floor without incident, only finding one room with sleeping tangos.

By the time they had cleared the ground floor there was of course a large number of teenagers outside in various states of undress and still clearly nervous about what was going on. The ground floor had no further terrorists and Jamie reported his block clear.

"Team leader, block one clear. I have six, repeat six captured tangos and four down," he said.