The Insurgent LIVE

The soldiers crossed the stubbled field unclad. The video cameras mounted on their helmets ensured they would adhere to strict rules of engagement. They wore no personal body armour due to temporary supply difficulties, budget constraints.

Ellis, 25, the team leader squinted in the bright afternoon sun, hardly reassured by the presence of the rescue helicopter hovering high above him. His heart pounded with stress, his chest heaved with exertion in the torrid heat. He immediately asserted himself, scanning the arid terrain, his Minimi light machine gun resting easily on his arm, primed and ready to kill.

He breathed a sigh of relief. No sign of an insurgent, yet. His shady informant, a tall dark-skinned, barefoot boy in a flowing robe, had told him his adversary was hiding in a nearby goat farm waiting to kill him. His daunting task was to flush out the insurgent, take him alive.

Ellis found a dry ditch in the wilderness for the team briefing. They removed their helmets and huddled in a circle on the scorched earth resting, swigging water, ever-vigilant. Ellis stared far into the distance horizon through the shimmering haze then tried to fire up his team’s enthusiasm for the raid.  

‘When we reach the farm, hog the right side of the path, stay clear of the trees on the left. If we come under fire, take cover in the ditch by the wall. I’ll lead, then Cook, Watts, Scully, Hart, Reed, Parker. Deakin and McKay: guard our rear. We regroup at the far end of the wall. Then we enter the farm and take out the insurgent. Got that, everyone?’

‘Your plan sounds logical, Ellis.’

     Scully eyeballed Reed. The sarge gave her the creeps. He was cold, aloof and withdrawn, especially when he wasn’t with Ellis. Hart had once confided to her that Reed was a eunuch.

‘Logical? Are ye having a laugh with us, Reed?’ McKay, 22, the streetfighter from the Gorbals said, seeing Hart chewing her nails, ‘If we go down that route we’ll be sitting ducks.’

‘I agree with McKay,’ Parker, 24, a reformed acid freak, chipped in, ‘Why can’t we just spread out like we always do, and surround the place?’ 

Cook, 21, an ex-drugs trafficker, nodded, ‘Too right! I don’t fancy being picked off one-by-one, thanks very much’.

‘The Weasel’ Watts, 20, the bank hacker from Oxford, was even more blunt, ‘No way am I getting shot up for you Ellis!’

 Deakin nodded.

Ellis despaired. These morons were meant to trust him with their lives. He’d never lost a soldier on a mission yet. But even he was having doubts this time. Still, the mission plan had been issued to him in ‘Strictest Confidence’ from on high, by the C.O.

‘The mission plan is non-negotiable, must be strictly adhered to at all times and the detail, the ‘small print’, the real reason for the raid, must not be shared,’ the C.O. had instructed.

The C.O. had made it clear to Ellis that he had no option but to see the plan through to its logical conclusion, the capture of the insurgent, with collateral damage, casualties, incurred ‘as necessary’. The C.O. hadn’t told him the whole team had been identified as expendable. 

‘Do I take that as refusal to obey my order, Watts?’ Ellis asked, ‘If so I’m placing you under fucking arrest.’

Watts looked to the rest of the team for support. They stared down at their feet. Ellis had reasserted his authority, for now. He checked out the morale of his non-combatants.

‘Ready, Scully?’

Scully, 21, a long-term unemployed, secondary modern failure from Rainham, had been brought in at the last minute to replace Mort as radio operator, another order from the C.O.

‘Ready as I’ll ever be, Ellis!’ she said, barely managing to hide the sarcasm in her voice.

Ellis fancied her, he didn’t mind, or didn’t notice, ‘Great attitude, Scully! Hart?’

Hart, 28, from Edinburgh, the Cambridge-educated medic, didn’t even bother to reply.

‘Hart, you okay?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Don’t sound so fucking enthusiastic, Hart. Any more questions, team?’

Everyone shook their head except Deakin. The 27-year-old cage fighter aka ‘The Truck’, from Peckham, the most experienced soldier in the pack had previously done time for GBH.

‘Yes, Deakin?’

‘What about mines, Man?’ he asked.

Mines?! What mines?! Suddenly, all eyes were on Deakin.

Ellis looked narked. ‘Path’s been cleared,’ he said, ‘Okay, let’s go and don’t forget…’

The team rolled their eyeballs at the expected cliché.

He pointed deliberately at his eyes, one at a time, ‘…keep ‘em peeled!’

They pretended to laugh, clambered wearily to their feet and stomped towards the farm.

Ellis reached the path first, scanning the trees to his left, staring up at the top of the wall; no tell-tale glint of metal in the sunlight, no insurgent lurking in the shadows. Now, where was the insurgent? Hiding in one of the dilapidated farm buildings? Skulking in the clump of trees? He glanced back at the gallery of anxious faces: Cook, Watts, Scully, Hart, Parker, McKay. All of them breathing hard, scanning the wall, guns at the ready. Intent on survival…

A tall, robed figure ghosted out of the wall, armed with a semi-automatic machine gun.

Ellis radioed, ‘McKay! Insurgent! Behind you!’

McKay swivelled, too late. The insurgent sprayed a round of bullets, ducked behind the wall. Two bullets punched him in the chest, one penetrating his heart. He stood dumbfounded by the scarlet rose blooming on his chest, crumpled then fell on his front, kissing the chalk soil.

Hart cried out, ‘Iain! No!’

‘Get in the fucking ditch!’ Ellis radioed.

The insurgent re-appeared at the far end of the wall. A hail of bullets peppered the path, riddling Ellis, Cook and Watts with holes. A bullet entered Ellis’s left eye and lodged inside his brain, killing him instantly. He wilted like a dying poppy. Cook was shot in the groin, his penis severed. He writhed in agony on the ground.

‘I’m hit! Fuck the bastard!’ ‘Weasel’ Watts, 20, a one-time fraudster from Oxford, collapsed clutching his punctured belly, squirting blood. Scully, Hart, Reed, Parker and Deakin tumbled into the ditch.

The insurgent disappeared from view and the firing ceased.

Scully watched in disbelief as Hart slid out of the ditch and snaked along the ground towards McKay.

‘Jo! Are you fucking mad? Come back! Come back!’

Hart ignored her, she saw it as her duty to save McKay’s life whatever the danger to herself. Her duty as his illicit lover. Joanna and Iain were the new beating heart of the team, fresh in love. They intended to marry when their stint in this bloody hell-hole ended. Jo edged closer to Iain’s prostrate body. He lay in a wet patch of crimson, drying in the baking heat. She sniffed the ferric smell of blood. It occurred to her she hadn’t menstruated this month. She’d test herself, if she made it back to base. With any luck she was pregnant and the C.O. would have to send her home to Scotland with Iain, if he lived.

She reached him and despaired. He’d stopped breathing. She heard the sound of shooting and looked over her shoulder at the insurgent firing into the ditch…

The insurgent appeared from behind the wall, towering over her as she lay at his feet. That’s impossible! she thought, he’s at the far end of the wall! Jo looked up and saw the pure hatred in his ebony eyes. He wasn’t going to shoot her, was he? She was a non-combatant, a medic for heaven’s sake! He raised the gun. She pleaded for her life. He pointed the gun at her head. Joanna Hart begged him for her life.   

‘God, no!’ Scully buried her head in her hands, couldn’t bear to listen. Parker and Deakin lowered their heads in abject shame, pinned down by machine gun fire, unable to save Jo’s life.

She beseeched the insurgent, helpless, tears streaked her dirty face, ‘Please, don’t kill me!’

The insurgent shot her in the head at point blank range with a carbine. The bullet parted her lips and smashed the teeth, bisecting her tongue, then cut its way through her soft palate and blew away her brains. The beast had killed Jo, an unarmed female medic, in cold blood.

The firing stopped. The insurgent disappeared.

Reed, Parker and Deakin looked around them at the carnage. Deakin was first to react.

‘Fuck, Man! Radio for assistance!’

Scully lay face down in the ditch wailing and moaning, ‘No! Jo!’

Her headset crackled into life, Parker: ‘She’s gone! She’d want us to survive this hell.’

The insurgent re-appeared at the far end of the wall.

Deakin: ‘Scully! Move it!’

She recovered, ‘I’m on it!’ She knelt, fumbling with the Bowman secure VHF radio.

The insurgent assessed Cook, still writhing on the path, clinically shot him dead then sprayed the ditch with bullets.

Parker: ‘Keep your fucking heads down!’

The firing suddenly stopped and the insurgent disappeared.

Enraged, Parker stood and fired bullets into thin air. He sagged to the ground defeated.

The insurgent appeared again at the other end of the ditch…

Parker: ‘Deakin, for fuck’s sake, Man, watch your back!’

‘On it, Parker!’

Deakin shifted position in the ditch. There was a brilliant white flash as the IED detonated. The explosion blew off his legs and genitals and ripped open his belly exposing the sloppy, blood-streaked mass of mauve intestines.

Scully felt her eardrums burst and the world went into silent slow motion. Deakin collapsed clasping his guts to him and died. Parker and Reed lay dead on the ground with no heads, arms or legs. Scully stood and screamed, clutching her deaf ears, bleeding from both nostrils.

She felt a sucking sensation, then ringing as the sound returned. She heard shouts in the distance, felt the wind on her face. The helicopter landed, its rotors still turning, as the medics crouched and ran towards her. Scully retched at the sight of Deakin, then recovered. She had to save the man. She threw herself onto his bloody carcass and pumped the bloodied chest, opened the sticky mouth and gave him her sacred kiss of life. She touched the side of the neck and felt a pulse. The man’s chest rose. She wept like a baby as she cradled the man’s intestines while trying to stem the deluge of blood that gushed from his butchered thighs and groin. Deakin’s eyelids flickered open, revealing his mad red eyes; his state of delirium…

‘Kill me, Scully…’

She drew out her revolver, then remembered the video camera, ‘I can’t!’

A shadow crossed her face.

Both the insurgents appeared above them, two masked ghosts in flowing robes armed with AK-47’s, carbines. Scully shook her head in disbelief. Slowly, they unwound their head-cloths.

‘No! No!’

The tall, dark-skinned, barefoot ‘boy’ glowered at her. Except that it wasn’t a boy. Its skin was bronze-tinted metal.

The second tall, dark-skinned barefoot ‘boy’ removed its head-cloth, its ebony eyes alight.

The identical robotic clones raised their machine guns in synchronisation, took aim…

‘Please, don’t! I beg of you…’: Scully.

‘Stop!’ the C.O. ordered.

The clones froze, immobilized. The medics arrived and stood in silence beside the ditch.

Scully heard Deakin exhale, the death rattle in his lungs. She let him go, feeling a huge wave of relief for him. She closed her eyes, knelt and prayed that he, Ellis, Cook, Watts, Parker, McKay and her beloved Joanna would find peace in death.

When she re-opened her eyes the scene of the massacre had become a hive of forensic activity. The bodies of Hart, McKay, Ellis, Cook and Watts were swiftly sealed in body bags and removed to the helicopter. A team of medics crowded round the clones inspecting them, presumably for damage, she thought, shaking her head incredulously. A second team climbed into the ditch, ignoring her, and swept the trench for further mines, before scouring the earth for body parts. The remains of Deakin, Parker and Reed were efficiently gathered up and sealed in hygienic, biodegradable, lidded, translucent pots.

Except for Reed’s head. They brought his head and perched it on the ridge of the ditch above her. He opened his eyelids and stared at her. She’d encountered so much horror that afternoon, she thought she’d never scream again. Then he rolled its eyes and opened his mouth to speak…

She screamed…

*****

Author’s Note: the soundtrack narrated by astonishing American actress Linnea Sage is of the later book version, so there are differences -it’s probably even more scary! HJx

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