PROLOGUE

At night he came, like pattering footsteps sneaking through a forest. Every now and then a shuffle could be heard underfoot, a bramble snapping, desert sand softly sliding. He didn’t care. He had no reason to care.

When the first gunshot rang out, the camp erupted. A man, partially curled beneath blankets, exploded outwards in a shower of cloth, blood and gore. His head lay upon the ground, mouth agape and eyes staring into the distance.

The second bullet was of much the same effect, ploughing straight through another man and leaving air where a body should have existed. A curtain of viscera waterfalled from his body before the weight of the earth dragged separate portions back down. A third man hit ceased to yell and the fourth man disappeared from the waist down. It was over in ten seconds. Only the gently falling rain of blood and the odd thunk of something bigger could be heard.

‘Team Indigo? Team Indigo? Do you copy?’ The radio buzzed and spat to no response.

‘Team Indigo… confirm?’ More static.

Delicate human fingers reached for the radio.

Click. Click. More Static. ‘Team Indigo, switch to channel 3. We copy your correspondence.’

A snarl replaced the static as the button was indented. ‘Copy?’ a hissing snarl replied, deep enough to vibrate the earth. ‘You’ll fucking copy alright. We’re coming for you and we’ll drink the blood from your still beating corpse, you slack-jawed yokels.’ Click. The delicate fingers threw the radio away in disgust followed by a foot slamming down to crunch it into blood and dust.

He then set about enjoying his meal of sheep-fucking inbreds.

CHAPTER ONE – SANTA’S GIANT SACK

2025: Northeast Afghanistan – Near Lake Chaqmaqtin

‘Hey Baz, stop clowning around and get over here. This truck ain’t going ta drive itself.’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘Stupid Australian.’ They were all the same. Big, dumb and – yeah, stupid. Strangely enough, that didn’t stop them from firing a gun. ‘At least you’re not a Canadian though, I’d have to shoot you myself then.’

The big Australian looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Your mother is Canadian, isn’t she?’

‘Only when she decides to stop being American, you cock. Now let’s get this truck up that path before some bastard pastes a stinger into our backsides. Simeon is already waiting ahead.’

He flicked the key in the switch and the truck jerked and bounced.

Again Baz provided helpful commentary: ‘Don’t crunch the gears too much or we’ll roll back down the hill.’

‘Are all Australians such pricks?’ Charlie asked as first gear gargled in distress.

‘Pretty much. Why do you think I left?’

He snorted in reply and set out up the hill. They were two-thirds of the way on a drive from Caladaan Military Base in the northeast of Afghanistan and it felt like a trip from hell. It looked like hell really, dust and dirt that went far enough for you to completely stop caring where it ended. It didn’t help that truck he was revving looked like something developed in Siberia; it ran exceptionally hot and had a habit of clunking to a stop. This was the third time they’d had to pull up in what could only be described as unsafe territory just to wait for the engine to cool down to a level that actually registered on the scale. Still, it was a Russian scale and Charlie had no idea how the Russians knew what ‘hot’ meant.

In short, a simple supply trip had turned into a fucking nightmare. There wasn’t any other way to describe it. All they needed now was ten to twenty bullets embedded into the side of their truck, a few flames and the hiss of an rpg burning their way - that would make everything more interesting. Either they’d be dead, or they have someone to shoot.

Despite Charlie’s fears, the truck managed to crawl up the hill and reach a small outpost, more likely classified under the title of ‘shed’. It certainly wasn’t a house as it barely had a roof, and if anybody could actually live there, Charlie would cry himself to sleep. He’d been in this country thirteen years and how people lived still amazed him.

Their superior, Simeon, poked his head out of the doorway as the truck rumbled into view. A stooped and greasy fellow from Belgium who spoke multiple languages, yet somehow could barely muster a word or two in English. Why CFOS has decided that he was worthy of promotion to Lieutenant was a joke he couldn’t quite comprehend. In fact, he was still waiting for the punchline to that humorous piece of work. Probably had something to do with those idiotic Australians.

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‘Simeon,’ he nodded in greeting.

The man only smirked in reply and Charlie had to repress the urge to knock his lights out right then. Smug bastards had that coming to them.

‘Smimom,’ Baz wheezed and Charlie turned incredulous. ‘Smiiiiimom.’

Simeon looked at Baz, then at Charlie. ‘What wrong?’

‘Fuck me if I know, Sir. He was born, that’s enough isn’t it?’

‘Smiiiiimmmoooomm.’

The car rumbled off again and Charlie had to hide his grin whilst looking out the side window. He was definitely right when he’d decided that Baz was a prick, a funny prick, but a prick nonetheless. The truck rolled onwards, bouncing over the rough terrain that only made the strange moans coming from the passenger seat all the worse.

The radio on the dash crackled and burst into life, a deep male voice. ‘Base. Identify. Over.’

Simeon pointed at Charlie to pick up the com. “This is Corporal Charlie J. Rodgers, identification code 398 Alpha Alpha. Over.’

‘What the fuck do they want?’ Baz asked beside him, attracting a glare from Simeon as he reverted to a semi-normal human being.

‘Probably just a comm check.’

The radio crackled back to life: ‘Corporal Rodgers, this is General Bell, we’re instigating a diversion to your current mission. As of this moment, you are our frontline recon unit on finding missing marines. Over.’

Missing marines? He mouthed an expletive to Baz and looked to Simeon. He simply nodded like he knew this was coming. The fucker had no idea. ‘Copy that. Details?’

‘Indigo unit went AWOL last night with last known coordinates in grid reference 71B. No contact has been entered into since. You are to proceed to 71B exercising extreme caution. This is not a firefight. Intel and withdraw. Over.’

‘Copy.’ Charlie’s thoughts buzzed. Awol marines? That was a dog’s breakfast if ever he’d heard of one. ‘General, is there any reason for their actions? Over.’

He waited for what seemed like a minute, each second ticking his pulse rate higher and higher. ‘Currently no known reasons. Proceed with caution.’ The radio went dead at the same moment the chill shot through his spine. Going for lost soldiers made perfect sense – if you knew why they were lost and where they were.

‘Well fuck me.’ Baz said as he was tossed out of his seat by a sizeable bump in the road.

Fuck me indeed, thought Charlie.

Simeon threw a map at Baz. ‘Find, Corporal.’ He sounded pissed.

It only took Baz a few moments to locate the grid reference on the map. ‘Two clicks up the road, then onto a side road. Looks relatively flat from the elevation ref on this map. Hopefully we’ll be able to take the truck all the way up there... it’s not a small area and there are no immediate features on the grid.’

‘That’ll have to do,’ Charlie replied. “What the hell were they doing so far off track? There ain’t anything out there worth seeing bar a few cactuses and the odd scorpion. Maybe a hill or two made of sand if that’s your thing.’

‘Shut up,’ Simeon interjected. Despite his broken English, he had definitely mastered some phrases.

Charlie threw him a glance but drove on in silence. He wasn’t the only one unnerved by this. You just didn’t get a detour in the middle of a hill in the middle of a road unless there was a damn good reason for it. Missing marines didn’t count as one. Send the fucking army if you wanted to save the day, not three men with standard armaments and a truck that couldn’t escape a horse.

‘Wait, we’re carrying damn armaments... Baz, get back there, see what you can find to make us a bit heavier?’ He looked at Simeon who nodded his approval and with that, his Australian friend jumped across the seat into the back of the truck.

‘Santa’s giant sack! It’s like Christmas in July,’ he heard as boxes started creaking open.

He focused his attention on getting the truck up to speed, which wasn’t the easiest task in itself. It clearly wasn’t designed to do more than 80 kilometres an hour at its peak, and the suspension seemed to have been worn into the ground. Add into that mix the condition of the road and it became an exercise in hazard reduction. Dodge giant hole in the ground, avoid sizeable rock that could break an axle, make sure and ridge-cliff edges remained a fair distance away from the tyres.

‘We’ve got some heavy stuff back here,’ a voice tinged in glee yelled. ‘Frags, snipers, heavier stuff. Heck, we’ve even got landmines and C4 if we want to get a little bit creative.’

‘Good news,’ Charlie yelled over his shoulder, eyes still fixed on a particularly nasty bend. ‘Set us up a pack each, will you? Light and manoeuvrable, but still packing a punch.’ He looked at Simeon but the guy didn’t reply. Even if he understood he did fuck all of nothing. Guess that was how you became an officer.

A few more steep hills and one tight ‘S’ bend later, the mountainous terrain eventually gave way to something flatter, although still just as rocky.

‘Baz, I’m going to need some directions from ya!’ Charlie called back.

The man responded by clamouring back over the seat, somehow managing to plant his foot into the side of his superior officer’s head.

‘You’re a damn child.’

Baz winked and turned his attention to the map and his GPS. ‘Alright… we’re running parallel to grid reference B71, turn off should be around 200 metres if we can. No road is marked though; we might be driving off a cliff for all I know.’

‘That’s what the maps for… it has cliffs on it.’

‘Right. Thanks. Well then, we won’t be driving off a cliff.’

‘Gee, thanks.’ Australians were pricks and their sense of humour was idiotic.

Baz’s tone changed. ‘Pull up, this is it.’

Charlie slowed the growling engine back to well, a lesser growl, and picked his way towards the edge of the road. As far as his eye could see it was flat enough to get the truck onto the sand, but that didn’t by any means make it stable.

‘Sand is shifty,’ Baz said.

Charlie shook his head in disgust.

‘Wait. There! What’s that? Tracks. Ease her up and I’ll take a look.’ He pushed his door handle down and was about to disembark when an arm grabbed him viciously.

‘Arms, Corporal,’ Simeon growled at him.

Baz looked abashed but reached into the back seat for his pack. Charlie did the same. Perhaps Simeon was good for something. His Chisholm automatic was already at hand and he added two grenades, a leg strap pistol, a drop point hunting knife with a wicked edge, and a mould of C4 putty. The Kevlar inset vest he was already wearing held some other goodies, but that would at least see him through heavy fire, if that was necessary. Simeon slung a portable com across his shoulders, although he loaded up with a lot lighter gear. It wasn’t like the officers ever fought on point.

‘On your toes now,’ he said to Baz and they jumped out of the truck.