The Protector Read Online Free PDF Page A

bag, elected not to wear his helmet at that moment since it impeded his hearing, clipped it around the nylon line by the chin strap, took his pistol from its holster and opened the door.
    He crossed the yard and checked inside the opposite building. There was a partially open door at the far side and he crossed the dirt floor towards it.
    The door led onto a street and Mallory carefully looked out and checked in both directions. A man was on the road in the distance but far enough away not to be an immediate threat. Otherwise it looked clear. Mallory focused on the entrance to an alleyway directly opposite and, holding the box in place with the same hand that was holding the bag and AK, his pistol in the other, he moved off.
    Mallory wasn’t far along the alleyway when the difficulties he had expected to have carrying his load became a reality. He paused long enough to undo the helmet, drop it to the ground, and kick some rubble over it. Then he moved on.
    Halfway along the alley he ducked through a gap between the houses, stepping around what looked like an old generator to arrive at a corner where he stopped. In front of him was a large expanse of open ground, marked with the rudimentary boundaries and goal-posts of a football pitch, whose perimeter was lined by brick buildings, many of them two-storey. A few metres away in a corner of the waste ground was a flimsy wooden shed that looked as if it had been built to keep animals. He needed somewhere to wait until dark; he didn’t fancy backtracking and since he couldn’t risk moving in the open any more it was the only option he felt he had.
    Mallory moved towards it at the crouch, eyes checking in every direction while the box swung awkwardly behind him. He ducked inside the rickety construction.
    The dirt floor was covered in old palm leaves and the ceiling was not high enough for him to stand upright. He dropped to his knees, quickly removed the line from around his neck and moved to the back of the hut to watch the direction he had come from in case he had been followed.The smell and the absence of any man-made implements suggested that animals had probably been the hut’s last occupants. Mallory remained still for several minutes, listening intently to the local sounds, until his breathing returned to normal.
    A glance at his wristwatch told him he had at least another hour before the sun began to set and probably an hour more until it was really dark. He couldn’t remember if there was a moon or not that night but it didn’t matter. He was moving out whatever happened.
    Mallory quickly set about his next task and emptied the contents of the sandbag onto the floor. He quietly unloaded two old AK47 magazines and one by one pushed the bullets into the ones that were in better condition. Once they were loaded he firmly pressed a magazine into its housing on the weapon until it clicked home. Then, pulling the working parts to the rear, he controlled the return spring, letting the breech-block slide forward to push a bullet out of the magazine and into the breech. He could not allow the return spring to fly forward as normal because of the noise it would make and so the breech had not seated properly and he spent a couple of minutes working it into place. Once he had the AK47 properly loaded he left the safety catch off and rested the gun across his lap - not normal safe practice as he was taught but this wasn’t a normal situation, alone and unsupported.
    His ears gradually tuned to the noises that surrounded him, far and near, and he leaned back against the wall that moved a little under his weight but held firm. He stretched out his legs. The pain in his foot had eased and Mallory’s thoughts drifted home to Plymouth and to the apartment he had shared with Jenny, his girlfriend, until she’d dumped him for a policeman two days before Mallory left for Iraq. Her reason for leaving after two and a half years together was that she did not want to live with someone who