Kashmir Rescue

It suddenly occurred to him that he was probably the only one present who had made the connection between the various cars, recognizing them as all part of the same terrorist gang. The two that had taken the motorway could not have got far. There was still time to go after them.

He ran back to his car, slipped into the driving seat, gunned the accelerator and shot out for the entrance to the motorway. A hitchhiker stood at the roadside thumbing a lift. Don screeched to a halt and when the youngster jogged up to his car, instead of opening the door for him to get in he wound down the window and said, ‘There’s been a shooting in the service station. There’s a police car coming up behind. Wave them down and tell them there are two cars on the motorway heading west and some of the men responsible are in them. Tell them to block the next exit and get a helicopter in the air. Another car crashed out of the back of the car park. Have you got that?’

The youth stared at him dumbstruck. Don repeated, ‘Have you got that? I haven’t got time to stick around.’

‘A shooting?’

‘That’s it.’

The youth nodded. ‘I’ll tell them.’

‘Good lad.’

Don put his foot down hard and sped away. The cars he was chasing had already pulled away out of sight, so he drew out into the fast lane and put the accelerator to the floor. It felt as though there was a hand in the small of his back pushing him along. He thought briefly of the car that had burst through the barrier. Perhaps he should have chased that one. But no. By the time he could have gone after it the driver could have veered off on to any one of a dozen minor roads. He had a far better chance of catching the cars that had stupidly chosen the motorway.

The road bent into a long, steady curve as it entered a cutting. When it emerged from the far side of the chalk hillsides he had a clear view for several miles ahead. Like a vast fat snake, the tarmac unfolded across the gently undulating countryside and there, way in the distance, he spotted the two cars, one blue and the other red. Both had now slowed to a more normal speed and he assumed that their occupants imagined they were in the clear. After all, it had been the men in the other car who had done the killing at the service station. It was unlikely that anyone had linked them to the shooting. Who could have known that they were all part of the same team?

Don knew. He eased back on the accelerator so as not to arouse their suspicion but continued to steadily close the distance. Mile after mile passed and all the while he drew closer until eventually he was barely three hundred yards behind the rear car. Out in front he could see the blue Honda Accord powering ahead, the red Ford Orion behind it and closer to him. The two cars were separated from each other by about a hundred yards, and Don could see the men in the rear of the Honda turning to exchange hand signals with the driver and front-seat passenger of the Ford. They appeared to be smiling and carefree, and he could make out their cheery waves.

‘Enjoy it while it lasts, you murderous bastards,’ he said quietly, closing the gap a bit more.

He was almost level with the Ford when in the distance behind him he caught the sound of a police siren.

‘Bugger!’ he growled.

He looked in the rear-view mirror and saw the blue light of a police car flashing far behind. It was a good couple of miles away and he wondered what on earth the police intended to do from that distance.

‘Nice one, lads,’ he said. ‘You’ve just warned them you’re coming.’

Sure enough, he looked at the Ford and saw the men in the back crane round at the sound of the siren. One of them pointed and said something to the driver, and the next moment the car surged ahead, pulling away fast. But as yet they were unaware of Don’s presence and as they accelerated so did he. He knew it would not be long before he was noticed but he had to keep up with them. The driver of the Ford must have flashed his lights to attract the attention of the Honda in front, because the next thing Don saw was the Honda veering away as well. He eased gently up beside the Ford, keeping his eyes fixed on the road and trying not to look suspicious. But the police car was closing steadily and he knew that at any moment the two cars would have to give up all pretence of innocence and make a break for it.

He glanced at his speedometer and saw that the needle was touching ninety. Surely he couldn’t escape their notice much longer?

The answer came a second later when the Ford swung across into the middle lane and almost rammed him. Don tugged the steering wheel hard to avoid a collision and almost lost control, as the driver of the Ford had intended. Struggling to keep on the road, he glanced across and saw the men in the Ford staring hard at him.

‘Time to forget the pretence, fellas,’ he said through gritted teeth, and steered straight towards them.

In response they accelerated, swerving to overtake an articulated lorry. Up in the cab the driver stared at the two cars in amazement and blew his horn as the Ford swung dangerously close to his front bumper.

To Don’s horror he saw the rear window of the Ford opening and the next instant a pistol appeared, waving unsteadily in the blast of wind. The firer aimed it in Don’s direction and pulled the trigger repeatedly. Over the noise of the engines Don heard the thin cracks of the gunshots and saw the puffs of blue smoke erupt from the muzzle. Although the firing was appallingly inaccurate he knew that there was always the chance of a lucky shot finding its mark. And it wouldn’t even have to hit him. At that speed it would only have to rupture a tyre or other vital component to send his car spinning out of control.

He swung the steering wheel to bring himself directly behind the Ford, cutting the pistol’s direct line of fire.

‘If you want me now you’ll have to smash your way through your rear window,’ he said.

By now the police car had closed to within thirty yards of Don and the Ford, but to Don’s surprise it headed straight for him, the policeman in the front passenger seat waving him to pull over and stop.

‘Not me, you stupid fuckers!’ he mouthed through the window. ‘Them!’

He pointed at the Ford but the policeman ignored him, waving again for him to stop. Don shook his head in exasperation and put his foot full down on the accelerator, aiming straight for the rear of the Ford. Before its driver could react, Don’s front bumper rammed into the boot. The car veered to one side and Don watched in satisfaction as the driver fought to regain control.

‘Try some of your own medicine, pal.’

He readied himself to take evasive action as he was certain that the gunman would try to hit him again, but it was the police car that reacted first. Believing Don to be the aggressor, the police driver swung towards him, intending to knock him off the road.

‘Get away, you arsehole!’ Don roared. He stabbed a finger at the Ford again. ‘They’re the ones you’re supposed to be after!’

Once more he surged forward and hit the rear of the Ford, and this time he provoked a reaction. One of the men in the back seat leaned out of the window, the pistol in his fist, and loosed off a couple of rounds at him. Don swerved but one of the bullets punched through his windscreen. A cobweb of cracks fanned out from the neat hole and the bullet buried itself harmlessly in the passenger seat.

He stared across at the police car. ‘See what I mean, you gits?’

The policeman blinked back at him in confusion, looking from him to the Ford and back again. Don felt he could almost see the man’s brain working.

‘That’s it,’ he muttered as he saw the policeman reach for his radio. ‘Who’s a clever boy then?’

As the police car reported the gunfire to its control centre, the driver pulled back from the chase.

‘Well, that’s nice,’ Don shouted at them. ‘Leave it all to me.’

He looked up to see a sign flash past, announcing the approach of an exit. In the Ford he could see the men engaged in a frantic dispute. The driver clearly wanted to stick to the motorway but the others seemed to be against it. Sure enough, when the exit opened up before them several hundred yards further on, the car swung towards it and shot up the incline. Don followed hard on their heels but the police car was too slow to react and continued on past the exit.

By now the Honda had disappeared. Don had been so involved with chasing the Ford that he had lost sight of it. Nevertheless, he was resolved to catch at least part of the terrorist group. If he could only catch one of them an interrogation might reveal the whereabouts of the rest.

The last glimpse he had of the police car was of its brake lights stabbing on, smoke burning off the tyres as it screeched to a halt and the driver shot it into reverse to retrace his steps to the exit road. By that time the Ford was at the top of the incline, where a small roundabout forced it to slow down. The driver swung his car into the turn, heading off down the minor road that cut away across country. Keeping as close as he could, Don hoped that it wouldn’t be long before the policeman’s radio report yielded some help. He didn’t particularly want to get involved in a fire-fight with four armed terrorists by himself. It was all he could do simply to track them.

The road stretched away in front, hedges bordering it on either side with farmland beyond. A low mist clung to the barren fields and everywhere looked bleak and desolate. Driving at high speed was more difficult on the narrow road after the expanse of the motorway, but the advantage was that it was more difficult for the men in the Ford to get a clear shot at him. Nevertheless, every so often one of them would give it a go. The shots all went hopelessly wide but it was unnerving all the same.

A cluster of roadside cottages came and went. He was aware of a couple of white, staring faces flashing past before they were out among open fields again. He felt a grudging admiration for the driver of the Ford. The man obviously knew his stuff. It was a long time since Don had done the SAS fast-driving course, but he reckoned that the man in front must have been through some kind of similar training. He appeared to possess all the skills, and it was all Don could do to keep up with him. The slightest lapse in concentration would mean a crash and, at that breakneck speed, instant death.

For a moment he toyed with the idea of trying to get in a couple of shots himself. He realized that the chances of actually hitting anyone or anything were remote, but he might just be able to distract the other driver enough to send him spinning off the road.

He waited until the chase entered a long stretch of straight road with no houses on either side and then wound open his window. Next he reached under his arm for his shoulder holster and drew his Browning. Keeping his left hand on the steering wheel, he put the barrel under its fingers, gripped it tightly and cocked it. Having flicked off the safety-catch, he put his arm out of the window and rested the base of his fist on the car’s bodywork. Keeping the car aligned with the Ford in front, he fired off one round after another.

A small hole appeared in the Ford’s rear window, then another and another. The car swerved and for a moment Don thought he had achieved his aim, but against all the odds the driver maintained his control on the wheel. In the back, though, he could see that one of the men had slumped across the back seat.

‘Gotcha!’ he shouted.

He fired again but a second later the hammer clicked on an empty chamber. He cursed. There were several spare clips of ammunition in the glove compartment, so, putting his pistol in his lap, he switched hands on the wheel and reached across to hunt for them. When he had one, he pressed the release button on the side of the butt and popped out the empty magazine, sliding in a fresh one, clicking it home on his knee and then cocking the gun as he had done before.

‘A few more ought to do it,’ he said out loud.

He steadied his hand out of the window again and continued firing, but the cars were entering a series of bends and for a while he had to use both hands on the wheel, clasping the pistol between his knees, the muzzle pointing down at the floor.

‘Don’t blow your balls away, Don lad,’ he muttered to himself.

The bends were tighter than he had anticipated and he fought to keep the car under control, but at last they pulled clear of them and after another group of houses the cars were once again out on an open stretch of road. He took up his pistol and aimed through the window again.

‘This time,’ he said, willing himself to concentrate. ‘This time.’

The first shot again found the Ford’s rear window, and in the front of the car Don thought he saw the driver slump. He closed the distance a little and, sure enough, he saw that the man had removed one hand from the wheel and was clutching at his right shoulder.

‘Bingo!’

The Ford started to slow, although in the front seat Don could see the passenger urging the driver on. For a minute or two it gathered speed again, but his bullet had clearly done its job, for the car was now veering all over the road.

‘That’s it, lad. No need to crash. Just pull over and give yourselves up. Nice and peaceful like.’

Going into a corner too fast, the driver was unable to hold the road. He lost his grip on the wheel and the car careered up a bank and ploughed straight through a thick hedge and into the field beyond. Crows burst into the wintry sky from the surrounding trees, startled by the interruption. Don hit the brake, pumping it gingerly to control his emergency stop. Pulling up on to the side of the bank some thirty or forty yards further on, he pushed open his door and leapt out on to the road, his pistol in his hand. He knew it would be dangerous to go back to the place where the car had entered the field. If any of the men had recovered from the shock they would be expecting him from that direction.

Instead he scanned the hedgerow until he saw a gap beside a tree where he reckoned he would be able to gain access without making too much noise.

He dropped on to his stomach and wriggled up the slope. An old barbed-wire fence threaded its way through the centre of the hedge and he rolled on to his back to work his way underneath the lowest strand. For a moment it snagged on the material of his jacket but he managed to work it free and slithered underneath. The ground on the other side dropped towards the edge of the field, the ploughed earth striped into furrows, hard and bare as iron. He rolled out from behind the cover of the tree, bringing his pistol into the aim as he did so. The Ford sat out in the open, its skid marks visible right back to the hole in the hedge. In the front he could see the driver, slumped over the wheel, unconscious or even dead. Beside him, the passenger had shot through the windscreen and his limp body hung across the bonnet, half in and half out of the car. His arms were splayed and there was blood on his face.

‘That’ll teach you to wear your seat-belt next time, mate,’ Don whispered to himself.

The rear doors were both open and there was no sign of the men who had been in the back. He knew that he had hit one of them, but how badly? And that still left the man’s companion unaccounted for as well.

Don’s eyes scanned the line of hedgerow. He knew they couldn’t have gone far and judged that they must have rolled clear as the car entered the field. Perhaps, once the driver had been hit, they had prepared themselves for just such an eventuality. If so, it had paid off.

As he wriggled out into the field Don caught sight of the men on the far side of the car. They were running towards a large copse, the one man helping his wounded comrade. As they ran, they kept glancing back over their shoulders. The moment he identified them, Don sprang to his feet and sprinted towards the car, keeping it between himself and the fugitives to prevent them from getting a clear line of fire on him. One of the men nevertheless loosed off a couple of wild rounds as soon as he saw Don, but both snapped past him harmlessly, cracking in the air like a whip.

Flinging himself down beside the wrecked car, Don gripped his Browning in a two-handed combat grip and then spun round the side, hunting for his target.

‘Stop! Army!’ he shouted at the top of his voice.

In response the wounded man half turned and fired again. Don cursed under his breath and rattled off a double tap. It was as though the man had been slammed in the back with a sledgehammer. He hurtled forward, tearing from his companion’s helping grip, and sprawled face down on the hard, rutted earth. He moved for a second and then was still.

‘Stop!’ Don shouted again. But the other man had made good use of the breathing space provided by Don’s first shots. Instead of trying to fire back, knowing that Don was behind cover and therefore almost impossible to hit, he sprinted the last few yards towards the copse, zigzagging as he went. Don fired another two double taps, but his bullets all went wide, and the next instant the man disappeared from view, diving through the thick bushes and losing himself among the trees.

To reach the copse, Don decided to take a roundabout route along the hedgerow. To risk crossing the field the way the man had gone was far too dangerous as he could well have been lying in wait. It would be no joke getting caught out in the open without a shred of cover.

There was no sight of the police follow-up and he could only assume that they had taken a wrong turning.

Brilliant, he thought as he darted through the hedge and began to snake along its outer side. They’ve probably stopped to issue a few parking tickets along the way.

About fifty yards along, the hedge veered towards the copse, leaving only about twenty yards of open space between it and the nearest of the trees.

‘That’ll do nicely,’ he whispered, crouching down when he reached the bend and slipping under the wire. His jacket snagged once again and he made a mental note to lose a few pounds. Better get in some runs, he thought. I’ve been with the cops too long. All that riding around in patrol cars does sod all for the waistline.

Without pausing he was on his feet the moment he was through the hedge, and sprinting for the trees. Expecting to be fired at every foot of the way, he zigzagged, but a moment later he pounded through a screen of low-hanging branches and found himself in the copse.

It was gloomy inside. The trees stretched away in every direction and in between them thick bushes and undergrowth sprouted. The floor was a mat of sodden brown leaves and he felt the water soak quickly through the knees of his trousers as he crouched down to lower his profile. He steadied his breathing and listened. After the shots the rural calm had quickly returned. Somewhere far away he could hear a tractor in another field, and overhead a flock of geese screamed raucously as they flew by.

Suddenly he heard the crack of a branch and swung towards the tell-tale sound. He lowered himself on to his stomach and crawled steadily forward, holding his Browning in one hand and using the other to sweep aside the brittle dead branches lest he give his own position away with a similar signal. In the pit of his stomach he could feel the knot of tension curl into a ball, pushing his heart into his mouth until he had to stop and calm himself.

‘Steady, lad. You’re behaving like some new kid on selection, for God’s sake. Get a grip on yourself.’

With his new resolve he moved on, slower than before, forcing himself to relax into the stalk, prepared at any second for a flurry of deadly exchange shots. There was another crack, this time towards the other side of the copse. He frowned, puzzled how the man could have crossed so silently in front of him without being seen.

This bugger’s good, he thought. Be careful, Don.

Painfully slowly he closed the gap between them, but as he drew closer he became puzzled. Where he had heard the crack of the twig he could now hear a shuffling. What the fuck’s he up to? he thought. Is he digging a sodding trench or something?

But then he was on him. The sound was coming from just beyond the next tree. Drawing his legs up under him, Don rose stealthily from the ground and prepared to rush forward. He took a deep breath, and exhaled. Then one more breath before he burst round the side of the tree. To his astonishment he found himself face to face with a roe deer. For a split second the creature froze, its round, startled eyes fixed on his own, and then it was off, scudding away across the open field beyond the trees, its white tail bobbing furiously as it vaulted over the iron-hard furrows.

Don threw himself to one side, aware that he had just given away his position, furious with himself for having been so stupid. It was a drill he had used a hundred times, rolling twice and coming up in the ready position, but never before had it paid off as it did now.

As he was halfway through the second roll he heard the crack of a gunshot and felt the sting of blown earth on his face. Bullets were ripping into the ground around him and when he came out of the roll, starting to return the fire even as he spun to face his attacker, he caught a fleeting glimpse of the man from the car, partially concealed behind a stout oak.

Don blazed at him, round after round, seeing them impact into the shattered bark until they found their target at last and the man was flung backwards. Without giving him time to recover, Don rushed towards him, his pistol aimed at the prone form. As he rounded the oak he saw the man was still alive.

‘Freeze!’ he shouted. ‘Not one move or I’ll drill you!’

The man’s gun was a good yard out of reach, cushioned on a bed of leaves, still smoking.

‘That’s it,’ Don said calmly, locking his eyes on the man’s. ‘There’s been enough killing for one day. Don’t make me shoot you.’

The man stared back fearlessly. His hands were under him and he seemed to be clutching something to his stomach.

‘Show me your hands, mate. Nice and slow like.’

In answer, the man rolled slowly on to his back and Don gaped in horror at the hand-grenade he was cradling against himself. He had already pulled the pin and as Don watched he released the lever. It spun clear with a metallic crack and Don knew that he had only a second or two before the detonator exploded it, rocketing white-hot splinters towards him. Instead of throwing the grenade at Don, however, the man clutched it to his own stomach, simultaneously curling into a ball as if to wrap himself around the deadly object.

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