State of Attack Read Free

shrapnel. But as he bent down to recover their superior weapons, he heard two more pickup trucks enter the street.
    The men behind the barrier called out to him to get back. Straightening up, he turned towards the end of the road and saw the unmistakable outline of two shoulder-mounted rocket-propelled grenade launchers being aimed in the direction of the barricade aboard the approaching trucks, the rear tyres fishtailing with acceleration.
    He darted towards a nearby doorway, using his free hand to signal to the men to disperse. As he reached the doorway, he had to duck down under a hanging lintel before spinning around and crouching in the brick dust. He guessed they were Yugoslav-made 90mm RPGs, favoured here due to their light weight, and the reinforced plastic design. Just a little over twenty-four pounds when armed, two trained men could load and fire six unguided projectiles in a minute. He knew the rocket was propelled from the launcher at a speed of two hundred and fifty yards per second. It was accurate enough to be used effectively against large armoured vehicles up to half a mile away. The barricade wouldn’t stand a chance.
    The rockets hit the barricade a couple of seconds later, crippling explosions that sent up a flurry of metal shards and wooden splinters, and caused the middle section of the wall to implode. After the initial din and the devastation caused by the blast, Basilios heard the trucks skidding to a halt. Vaguely, through the dust cloud and to the left of the lintel, he glimpsed the fighters disembarking and running forwards in a jagged line, strafing the remnants of the barrier. They shouted out:
Allahu Akbar
. And he knew it was almost over.
    As those men and boys who were still able returned sporadic fire, Basilios saw a fighter emerge from the subsiding dust. He was sprinting towards the doorway. Basilios scrambled back and stood up, letting the AK drop to his side from the clip. If he shot the man, he would give away his position, and by the way things were going outside, that meant he’d die before he could wreak a sufficient revenge.
    He pulled out a piece of cloth from his cargo pocket and used it as a tourniquet to stem the flow of blood from his leg. Wincing, he eased further back into a dark recess, his right hand going for his combat knife. Gritting his teeth in frustration, he realized he’d dropped it in the melee. Even so, he figured he’d have to dispatch the man quickly and quietly. He squatted down, half hidden behind an overturned wooden table and waited.
    The fighter ducked through the doorway to avoid the swinging lintel before pivoting around to face the street. He was bearlike, the sleeves of his combat jacket rolled up, revealing thick forearms covered in dark matted hairs. His head was wrapped in a black bandana, the hallmark of al-Qaeda-inspired militants. Basilios knew that the noise from the discharge of small-arms fire and the shouting and screams of battle would mask his steps, but thick beads of salty sweat rolled down his forehead and into his eyes as he began to move forwards.
    At the last moment, the man clearly registered Basilios’s presence and, turning his head, he began to swing his assault rifle around. Basilios hit him hard in the exposed floating rib with the stock of his AK, winding him. He cracked his skull with the AK’s metal butt. Dazed, the Salafist buckled, and knelt in the dust, his head lolling to one side.
    Basilios wrapped his arm around the bull-like neck and jerked him up with great force before dropping to the floor. There was a strangely intimate crack as Basilios fractured the man’s C2 vertebrae as if it was parched wood. The burly body went limp, and Basilios eased the dead man’s head to the rubble. But it had been the first time he’d killed a man so close up that he could feel his last breath leaving his body. It left him feeling both energized and shattered.
    He moved to the other side of the building, careful to avoid the