Our Lad

CHAPTER FIVE

As discussed, me and Dave led our team out onto the hills where we had planned to keep an eye on the movements of the Taliban. As we peered through our binoculars, we couldn't believe what we saw. The Taliban were all geared up as if they were ready to fight and Abdullah was heavily guarded by five men. It was like they were expecting us to attack.

"Fucking get a load of this" said Dave.

"If you're seeing what I am then I already know, mate." I replied. I went over on the radio to Sergeant Heeley.

"Sergeant, do you copy?" I asked.

"Roger." he replied.

"So either these bastards are just always prepared to fight, or they know what we're planning because they are all geared up, there are vehicles with men in waiting for Karim to leave and on top of that, Abdullah has five men around him as if they're guarding him from something, this bastard looks one step ahead of us" I told him. Within the space of just a couple of minutes, we had to rethink our plan.

"But that's not possible, how could they know we were coming?" he exclaimed.

"Well if I were you, I would look a bit closer to home, Sergeant. One of the members of the Afghan military joining us on this mission is there, I've seen him around camp, I'm sure of it" I replied. "Is there any way we can delay this mission for the time being?" I asked.

"Afraid not, Davies, Alfa team have just left with Karim, right now our main priority is to protect Karim, we can collect your team with the jeep and pursue the Taliban but that will temporarily make Karim more vulnerable so your team will have to be ready to jump in as soon as we turn up to collect you." he replied.

And just like that, our attack on the Taliban became a rescue mission for Karim. Heeley then arrived in the jeep, along with Commander Hanley. Our team jumped into the Jeep and then went off to follow and protect Karim. As we got closer and closer to Karim and the medics, we started to hear gunshots.

"They must have started shooting at her, lets speed this up!" shouted Hanley.

"I'm going as fast as I can, Sir." replied Heeley.

All of a sudden, we started to see smoke in the distance. We drove closer to it and as we got closer, we started to see that it was the car that the medics were driving. My heart started to beat really fast as if it were coming out of my mouth, That's the car that Georgie was in, and I couldn't see her.

"Where are they?" asked Dave.

"I'm afraid I don't know that Mackie. Maybe we should stop for a minute and have a look." said Heeley.

"Are you mad, Heeley?" exclaimed Hanley. "And what if they've taken the car out and are waiting for us next?"

"Everyone be quiet." I said. "I just heard a gunshot in the distance " I added.

I got out the Jeep for a second and I heard a gunshot again, so I had a quick check to see if there was anyone around me which there wasn't, so I started creeping in the direction of where I heard the shots from. I got just at the stop of the hill where there was about a 50-foot drop. I was careful not to slip and positioned myself where it was safe to over-look the situation without being seen. I could see that the hill I was at, had a ledge halfway down with a man-made ladder at the side of it to either climb up or down. I also seen that at the bottom of the 50-foot drop, there were two of our medics and three members of the Taliban just lying there. It looked like they had been in combat on the ledge and possibly have fallen. I looked further along and there he was, Moses Abdullah. He had Karim hostage with a gun pointing at Georgie who was also pointing her gun back at him. She was bleeding from the leg and from the arm. I took my radio and called for sergeant Heeley.