Spider Shepherd: SAS: #1 Read Online Free PDF Page A

Harry had chosen their location well. A low rise, studded with rubble, boulders and a couple of tree stumps gave them cover but they also had an uninterrupted view of a long section of the ridge-line and hills above them.
    They ate some of their rations and drank some water, then went to work. ‘Right,’ Harry said. ‘Diesel and I will provoke a reaction, Spud, you target spot, while Dan marks those targets for our friends upstairs.’ He spoke into his radio: ‘Foxtrot Eight, Top Cat. Stand by.’
    The reply was almost instantaneous: ‘Roger that.’
    Harry and Diesel moved away in opposite directions, using all their field craft and every inch of cover to avoid detection by the Serbs. Shepherd caught glimpses of them from time to time as they slipped across patches of open ground. About twenty minutes later he heard Harry’s voice in his headset. ‘In position, stand by.’
    ‘In position,’ Diesel echoed a moment later.
    ‘Foxtrot Eight. Top Cat.’ Harry said
    Again the reply was instantaneous: ‘Roger that.’
    Shepherd heard the roar of fast-jets echoing from the hillsides above him and glimpsed black specks against the sky as he crouched over the LTD, his gaze fixed on the ridge-line. There was a whoosh and a roar from half a mile away to his right as Harry loosed off an M-79 round at the ridge. Shepherd caught a momentary glimpse of Harry haring away, moving fast towards a new location before the retaliatory fire came in. Then he focused his whole attention on the ridge. He saw the plume of smoke from where the grenade had struck and exploded, and a moment later a mortar opened up from nearby. Its first shell fell short of Harry’s firing point and there was no time for a second shell. Shepherd flashed the LTD onto the mortar position for a couple of seconds, and it was enough. Moments later there was a blinding flash and an eruption of earth and smoke from what remained of the mortar site.
    Diesel was already launching another M-79 round, provoking more Serb mortars and artillery into action and they met a similar fate as Shepherd painted each target in turn with the LTD, and the F-16 pilots took their revenge for the shooting down of their comrade earlier that week, their laser-guided bombs blasting the guns and reducing their crews to bloody fragments.
    The hairs rose on Shepherd’s neck as he saw the hot streak of a SAM missile flash upwards, but the F-16s’ counter-measures, pumping out chaff and flares while their ECM jammed the enemy radar, saw it fly wide of his target and detonate harmlessly. Fire was now erupting all along the ridge as more Serb mortar and artillery positions were drawn into exchanging fire, only to be blitzed almost immediately once by bombs or missiles.
    Shepherd was working with relentless speed, switching the LTD from target to target, firing short identifying bursts of laser light, and then shutting it down. At his side, Gus was constantly monitoring the device, muttering to himself as its operating temperature continued to rise. Both men had to flatten themselves as a heavy machine gun opened up from the ridge, firing rounds that smashed into the stones and rubble surrounding them with a sound like a pneumatic drill. Shrapnel and sharp stone fragments flew in all directions, scything through the air like murderous hornets, but Shepherd had spotted the muzzle flashes and marked the machine gun nest for the fast jets, and it too disappeared in a searing explosion.
    The Serbs eventually ceased firing back even when directly targeted, but Shepherd and the rest of the patrol remained in cover throughout the rest of the daylight hours. Soon after dark Harry and Diesel rejoined them. ‘That’s given them something to think about,’ Harry said, with a broad grin. ‘Good work everyone and well done, Dan, not bad for a Para. Right, I’ve spoken to Sunray and, as usual, now the hard work’s been done, the Yanks are coming in to take over. So we can get back to the job we were