Sam moved quickly but with care. The NV allowed him to see where he was going, but it didn’t completely reveal the smaller possible hazards underfoot. As he ran, he scanned the area all around, his senses acute as he kept an eye out for anything suspicious. Behind him he heard the firm, steady footsteps of the other three. They were keeping close, but not too close so they didn’t present a bunched up target for any unseen enemy.

A patch of open ground – a kind of clearing. Sam upped his pace. He wanted the cover of the trees again. He felt exposed here.

Far too exposed. It was like a sixth sense.

Sam didn’t even hear the shot. The weapon that fired the round must have been suppressed. The first he knew about it was from the sudden, alarmed voice over the comms.

‘Man down!’

SOPs kicked in. He instantly threw himself to the ground, a horrible, sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach. The comms was suddenly filled with voices, with panic. He heard Tyler ’s voice above it all, hissing, in an urgent whisper.

‘Craven. Craven’s down. Jack, can you hear me? Bollocks! Craven’s fucking down! We’re being dicked!’

Sam crawled round on all fours to look back the way they had run. There was no one standing: Tyler and Cullen had also gone to ground. In the distance, there was a flash of movement. He pulled up his Diemaco so that it was lying on the ground in front of him and aimed into the thick darkness of the trees up ahead.

There was barely any time to think. The figure had taken cover behind a tree, but even now was emerging from its protection and raising his weapon. Sam could see enough to be sure it wasn’t one of his troop, and that was all he needed to know.

He fired.

The suppressed round ripped from his Diemaco and the figure up ahead crumpled to the earth.

‘Sit rep, now.’ Mac’s voice. Angry. A bit panicked. ‘What the hell’s going on?’

‘Enemy down,’ Sam hissed urgently into the comms. ‘ Tyler, do you copy?’

‘Roger that.’ Tyler ’s voice was tense.

‘Cover me. I’m going to make sure I don’t need to finish the job.’

Sam pushed himself to his feet and ran across the open ground to where the body of his target was lying. Bending down, he pulled the corpse back into the trees. Then he examined it.

The guy was dead, there was no doubt about that. It looked like Sam’s round had hit him directly in the left eye; most of one side of his skull seemed to have exploded. Sam wasn’t interested in the hole in his head, however. It was the clothes on his back and the weapon in his fist that caught his attention. The sniper was carrying some variant of the AK-47; an ops waistcoat contained a large quantity of ammo and other weaponry; but what really stood out was not the Kalashnikov or the other bells and whistles – it was the weapon strapped across the dead man’s back. Sam had only fired a GM-94 grenade launcher once, but once was enough to know that it was perhaps the most effective weapon he was ever likely to use. This wasn’t the kind of toy you expect to come across just anywhere.

In one of the man’s ears there was a comms earpiece, much like the one Sam was wearing. It was slightly bloodied as Sam pulled it out and put it to his own ear.

He listened carefully.

It was difficult to tell, but he thought he could discern three separate voices. They weren’t speaking English, however. Sam was no linguist, but he recognised the language.

Russian.

He looked down at the corpse again. This was no ordinary soldier. He was too well kitted out; his equipment was too good. Possibilities tumbled through his mind. Private security? Someone with cash to splash, enough to kit out a private army? In the darkness, he found himself shaking his head. He didn’t think so. The GM-94 was Russian-made, and standard issue for Russian special forces. The man Sam had just killed was no squaddie. He’d put money on it. But then…

‘What the fuck are Spetsnaz doing here?’ he murmured to himself.

‘Say again.’ Mac’s voice over the comms.

Sam quickly refocused himself.

‘We’ve got more company,’ he said. ‘I’ve nailed the shooter, but he’s got a comms system. I’ve listened in. Estimate three others in the vicinity. How’s Craven looking?’

A silence. And then, his voice strained, Tyler spoke.

‘Gone,’ he said.

A moment of silence in the comms.

‘Shit,’ Sam hissed as a surge of anger burned through him. How the hell had this happened? They’d only been on the ground five minutes. How the hell had it happened?

He didn’t get long to think about it. As he looked back across the clearing he saw more movement. ‘Tyler, Cullen – you still down?’ he demanded.

‘Roger that,’ they both breathed in unison.

‘Stay where you are. I’ve got a visual on another shooter.’

He raised his Diemaco once more. Looking through the sights he tried not to concentrate on the crumpled mound ahead of him that he knew to be Craven’s body. As he fired, the round exploded in the green light of his NV, like some kind of ghostly firework. His target fell immediately to the earth.

‘Did I say three others?’ he growled. ‘Make that two.’

‘We’re coming up from the south.’ Mac’s voice sounded as though he was running. ‘It sounds like they know where you are. You sure you only heard three others, Sam?’

‘Makes sense,’ Sam replied tersely. ‘Four-man unit. Tyler and Cullen are in open ground. I’m by the tree line. Guys, stay down. I’ll keep you covered from here.’

‘Wilco,’ came the grim reply.

Sam pressed his back against a tree, his weapon raised and ready to fire. His mind was in turmoil. He couldn’t make sense of it. These Spetsnaz guys – if indeed that’s what they were – seemed to be expecting them. But how? Nobody knew they were coming, did they?

Did they?

He stayed close to the ground. Occasionally over the comms he heard Mac hissing an instruction to Andrews, Davenport and Webb; other than that he could do nothing but scan the surrounding woodland, keeping his NV-enhanced eyes peeled for unexpected movement. Briefly he thought he saw something again; but whatever it was settled into stillness. Sam kept alert, watching over the prostrate forms of Tyler and Cullen, his finger twitching on the trigger, ready to fire at a moment’s notice.

All around him, the silence of the night was broken by sudden, unexpected noises: the falling of a twig, the scurrying of an animal. His senses were heightened; everything seemed louder than it actually was. He could feel his own heart beat, hear his own breathing. He estimated that the others could be no more than two hundred metres behind them. How were they approaching? Had they spotted their enemy?

It must have been about two minutes before the kills came, and they came in quick succession. Sam heard the muted thud – surprisingly close-by – of one of his unit’s suppressed weapons; moments later, he heard another.

‘Two men down,’ Mac reported. ‘Let’s hope no one shows up to do a changing of the fucking guard.’

Sam edged back to the Russian’s body and listened in again on the bloodied comms earpiece. Nothing. Silence.

‘We’re clear,’ he stated flatly. ‘Damn it, what the hell happened there?’

In the clearing, Tyler and Cullen rose slowly from their lying-down position, looking for all the world in the eerie green hue of the night vision like corpses rising from the dead. ‘Came out of fucking nowhere,’ Tyler replied. From a distance, Sam watched as he went over to where Craven’s body was lying. And then, echoing the suspicion that had been buzzing around in Sam’s head: ‘Almost like they knew we were coming. Jack just caught one. Could have been me.’

As Tyler spoke, the others came into sight, running into the clearing with their weapons raised. Mac spoke, his voice terse. ‘Leave Craven there,’ he instructed, almost purposefully lacking in emotion. They were still in country; the mission might be going tits up, but it still had to be completed. ‘We’ll scoop him up when we extract.’