This is a lesbian love story. But be warned. It takes place in Afghanistan and begins with a fairly long battle sequence. There are scenes of blood and death.
*****
"Let's move it guys." Came the order and eight heavily camouflaged soldiers of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR) started to quickly load their equipment into the two newly delivered Foxhounds.
It was just getting dark at the Kabul base camp in Afghanistan. We never loaded in daylight, they didn't like us being seen by too many prying eyes. Special Forces weren't supposed to be there!
There was several hundred British Army personnel stationed at the base. Their job was training the Afghan security forces in the fight against the Taliban. But unofficially, a number of support operations were carried out under the guise of training.
Four snipers and four spotters. Made up of seven sergeants and one lieutenant had completed the loading in less than a minute. The Foxhounds moved away in a cloud of sand and shot by the raised barrier, their muffled exhausts barely heard as they disappeared into the dark.
The only comment heard was, "At least these bloody things shouldn't break down this time of night."
"Shut it Jones, don't want to tempt fate." The Lieutenant said even though he was himself worrying about the vehicles reliability.
The Foxhound at around Β£400,000 each was the very expensive replacement for the hated snatch Landrovers. It was heavily armoured with protection against IED's, in fact, it was a superb fighting vehicle. It did, however, have one big problem. The engine cooked itself in the high temperatures of Afghanistan, anything above fifty degrees was fatal, the breakdown rate was staggering.
Sergeant Jones, or Jonesy, was my spotter, as such, he was in my superior. Even though we were both the same rank, the sniper has enough to do, so the spotter always takes command during a live opp.
Jonesy nudged my arm, "Reckon we'll get there, Pat?" He asked in a low voice. I could hear the laugh in his voice. Jonesy liked to joke when we went live, it kept him calm.
"You heard the officer, Jonesy, shut it!" I grinned at him but I crossed my fingers anyway.
We'd been climbing into the mountains for just over an hour and a half. I felt the vehicle slow to a stop. We waited.
"All clear." The top gunner reported having scoped the area with infrared. Slowly we eased around the corner, before one last climb and we were there.
In complete silence, we unloaded and within thirty seconds, the four teams were spread wide apart, each spotter combing his sector through night vision binoculars.
The Foxhounds whispered away, back down the hill. We were on our own now, for the next fifteen hours.
There was no talking from now on, all communication was done with hand signals. We knew our order of march, it had all been well covered at the mission briefing. Jones took up position behind the Lieutenant and his sniper, I followed.
We had an hours march ahead of us, which under normal circumstances is a stroll in the park but up here among the rocks and gullies, it was a different matter. In the dark, it would be all too easy to damage an ankle with a wrongly placed step. If that happened to any member of the squad, the mission was off. It would almost certainly have been a death sentence leaving anyone behind. We trod carefully.
...
The sun crested the mountain, shadows rapidly disappeared and temperatures started to climb after the almost freezing night. A solitary hawk cruised among the crags as it searched for any sign of prey. Nothing else disturbed the desolate landscape. Hidden from sight were seven men and one woman. Using their ghillie camouflage, they had merged themselves into the terrain some two hours before dawn.
The four teams were spread well apart, roughly two hundred feet above the excuse for a road in the bottom of the tight little valley below.
"Shit!" I thought, "Only two hours gone and already I need a piss." That was the worst part of these kinds of gigs, having a piss. We all had urine bags connected. It was easier for the guys with a tube to a bag, no leaks, no mess. But for me, I had a funnel stuck to my pussy which led to the bag. Poxy things always leaked when you were lying down, I hated them. It was a balance between not drinking too much or dehydration when it got hot.
My thoughts were interrupted. "Ten o'clock high," Jonesy whispered.
I scanned my rifle slowly round, searching among the rocks the other side of the valley. There he was, a solitary towel head squatting down on a rock, a Kalashnikov across his knees. He was peering through an old pair of binoculars, lazily checking for any presence. His binoculars passed right over our position without a pause.
I saw Jonesy reaching for the radio, then we froze. Pebbles tinkled close by, then rattled their way down the hill. Soon we could smell rough cigarette smoke. We could hear the person moving about, he seemed to be moving slightly away from our position. I guessed he was looking for a convenient hideyhole.
Jonesy clicked a radio switch twice. A second later the Lieutenant's voice could just barely be heard. "Alpha Two, you've got one to your left, about thirty feet away. We've got him covered, concentrate on your target area." After a short pause, he came over again, "Alpha Three cover the one over the valley to the north. Alpha Four keep scanning." Three clicks were heard as the three positions acknowledged.
Three and Four had something to watch, I had nothing until the expected vehicles arrived. I could relax and lower the butt of my L115A3 sniper rifle. It wasn't a handheld rifle, at 6.8 kilos, it was much too heavy for that, so it rested on a short-legged tripod.
I loved my rifle, it was the best sniper rifle ever designed. A large calibre bolt action rifle, taking an 8.59mm bullet. It was fitted with day and night all-weather telescopic sights as well as a spotting scope. It had a six hundred meter one shot kill range but was effective up to one thousand one hundred meters for harassing fire. Every target I had ever had in my sights was dead. I had stopped counting how many that was, it seemed a bit morbid. I was doing my job, not collecting notches on my gun.
My thoughts wandered back to what Jonesy had been saying to me a few days back. "You seen that chick checking you out Pat?" A huge grin on his face. I glared at him. "Oh c'mon, she can't keep her eyes off you, follows you around with her tongue hanging out."
He was loving this. I didn't do relationships of any kind and he knew it. Jonesy was different, my life depended on him and vice-versa, we were a team and had worked together for eighteen months now. We were buddies and knew each other's needs inside-out. He usually treated me like any other guy so I thought it was a bit odd that he should bring up the subject of some squaddie drooling over my muscles.
And I did have muscles. I chucked weights every day. I ran a minimum of ten k every day. I was super fit but then, so was everyone in the SRR.
He fetched us two more beers and was still chuckling when he sat. "Shit pal, what's got into you giving me this shit?" I asked him.