For King & Country Read Free

goddammit!
" and Murdoch was screaming at them to shut up and keep out of the way. A stiff wind had sprung up, fanning flames and sweeping away clouds of CS gas. Stirling snatched off his gas mask, which was impeding his view, and raked the windows with a frantic gaze, looking for their hidden IRA gunman. He tracked movement at a broken fifth-story window—Christ, a ten-year-old kid without enough sense to hide, watching the riot like it was a thriller on the telly. "I don't see a thing, curse it!"
    "Maybe he's broken through a roof somewhere, shooting through a hole in the roofing tiles? They've done it before, often enough."
    Another constable went down less than a meter from Stirling's position, screaming and badly wounded. Orangemen were in retreat, firing at every window in sight, blasting away at shadows. The IRA sniper was driving them back from the church, at least, but there was no way to contain them as long as the sniper kept Stirling's section pinned, as well. "We've got us one savvy, trained sniper, here," he snarled. "Knows enough to keep back from the window, so we can't see spit!"
    He rolled prone under the fender of their stationary lorry, where McCrombie had the advantage of bulletproof glass. Stirling craned his neck into contorted positions, trying to see the uppermost windows and rooflines without exposing himself to sniper fire. He was studying windowpanes in the building across the street from their riot-happy ten-year-old when he saw it. Reflected movement showed the boy leaping back from the window. The reflection also showed a flash of light from deeper inside the room: muzzle blast from their IRA gunman.
    "Got him! Fifth floor, third window along from the corner! Bastard's using the boy for
reconnaissance
." God, putting the child between himself and the guns of the SAS... Irish Republican Army ruthlessness occasionally horrified Stirling.
    One of the constables crowed, "Marvelous! We'll get that stinking gun out of his hands and off the streets!"
    Stirling shot the copper a disgusted glance. "Isn't the bloody gun that's dangerous, mate, it's the man behind it. Stop thinking like a copper for a change, eh? These lovely blokes are trying to kill us, last I noticed, IRA and Orangemen alike. Take all the guns you can carry, they'll still kill you with rocks and bombs and bottles full of petrol."
    While the copper sputtered, Murdoch growled, "We'll have to take him out, curse him. Can't get across there with him shooting at us and we can't contain those bleeding Orangemen, sitting on our bums!"
    "If we had a Scorpion, like we keep asking London," Hennessey put in disgustedly, "that'd make quick work of it. Those 30mm cannons would take care of our IRA man up there, right handy, like."
    "Yeh," Stirling shot back, "along with his neighbors and the building next door and the county over the border, besides. The very last thing those ministry types want is tracked vehicles rampaging through Belfast. Might look bad on the telly, come election time."
    "So pump a CS canister in with him!" the constable snarled. "Isn't that what you SAS types are supposed to do? Control the bleeding snipers?"
    "That'd be grand," Balfour growled, "if we hadn't shot the last canister three blocks back."
    The constables were out of CS rounds, as well.
    And none of the other squads in his unit could get close enough to resupply them, what with the emergencies under way all around them and the very sniper they needed to take out controlling the entire street. Stirling cursed long and loud. "Right, then. I'm in command of the entry team, so it's my job, isn't it? I'll circle round the block, get in from behind while you draw his fire. Murdoch, you're with me. Lay down a covering fire, mates. And try not to hit the boy, eh? I don't want careers ruined and good men jailed for shooting the lad, no matter what his Da's using him for, up there!"
    "No, no, don't bloody well shoot at
all
!" one of the constables yelled, even as Stirling