Murder Team by Chris Ryan Page A

on the Land Rover, and running toward it. The rear passenger door was open, though blistered with gunshot. He ran round it, and relief crashed over him like a bucket of cold water.
    Spud was there. He looked like death warmed up, but he was there.
    He was sitting, slumped, against the back of the Land Rover. His eyes were rolling and every limb seemed to shake violently. But when he saw Danny appear, the beginnings of a grin creased the edge of his mouth.
    ‘Thought you were bailing out on me,’ Spud whispered. His voice was so quiet and dry and cracked that Danny could barely hear it. He knelt back down beside his mate.
    ‘Can you walk?’
    Spud shook his head. ‘Final answer?’ he said.
    Danny nodded. Without hesitating, he lifted Spud’s body from underneath the armpits, then slung his right arm round his neck. He was a heavy bastard, even in his thin, weakened state, but Danny was strong enough to take the weight, even if Spud’s feet did drag across the ground as Danny carried him through the dust cloud toward the chopper.
    ‘Fucking owe you one, mucker,’ Spud said as they staggered across the open ground.
    ‘We’re not out of here yet,’ Danny said. He had a deeply uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. The Israelis’ plans had been thwarted. The drone strike had failed to take out their target, the terrorists were leaving, and the Regiment were clearly on to their little game.
    Something told him this was a situation Tel Aviv was unlikely to accept.
    There were two guys waiting at the side door of the Black Hawk. It took both of them, and Danny too, to haul Spud into the body of the chopper. The guys immediately took him to the back. One of them fitted an oxygen mask over his face. The other took his pulse. They worked with the calm, unflappable professionalism of trained medics, and Danny knew his mate was in good hands.
    The chopper rose. It turned in mid-air so that it was once more facing the settlement. Danny moved up to the front, where he stood at the shoulders of the pilot and navigator. The bewildering array of instruments glowed in front of him.
    ‘We’ve got a problem,’ the pilot said. He was right. Through the front window Danny could see the second Black Hawk hovering twenty metres from the settlement. And beyond the settlement itself, about five hundred metres from the position of Danny’s Black Hawk, a third helicopter hung in the night sky, facing them.
    Danny recognised its shape immediately. It was narrower than the Black Hawks. Sleeker. The unmistakable outline of an Apache attack helicopter. Danny couldn’t make out the detail of the Hellfire missiles attached to its body, but he knew they – or something similar – were there. And he knew they would make short work of workhorse utility choppers like the Black Hawks.
    The Apache hung in the air, facing the two Regiment helicopters, its nose slightly dipped.
    ‘Eritrean?’ the pilot said.
    ‘No,’ Danny said flatly. ‘Israeli.’
    ‘How do you know?’
    ‘I just know. Are you missiled up?’
    ‘Negative. We’re principally crewed for medical evacuation.’
    Which meant the Apache could make mincemeat of them.
    From behind, the loadie handed Danny a headset. He put it on. Instantly there was a hiss, and then a crackly voice came over the earphone.
    ‘ Identify yourself. ’
    The pilot and his navigator exchanged a nervous glance.
    Danny spoke into this headset. ‘Hereford, are you getting this?’
    A pause, then a British voice in his ear. ‘ Roger that. ’
    The crackly voice repeated itself. ‘ Identify yourself, or we will engage you air to air. ’
    ‘This is Danny Black. Can the Apache hear me?’
    Another pause. And then, from Hereford: ‘ You don’t have authority to make this negotiation, Black. ’
    Danny suppressed the surge of anger that drilled through him. ‘Listen to me, you’re seconds away from a blue on blue. The Israelis were behind Spud’s capture, and it would be the easiest thing