This is the continuation of the book I am writing CHAPTER 1
Arthur marched down the cold, sterile corridor, his combat boots making soft stamping sounds every time one of his feet touched the icy white floor. The empty corridor picked up the noise and bounced it back and forth between the walls until it sounded as if an army was marching down the white corridor instead of the solitary figure clad in black.
Spying a door at the end Arthur felt his fear and nervousness grow, he began wishing that he had never told his superior officer about his idea for Excalibur his elite team. Because of that he now had to tell the bosses about it’ and the mere thought TERRIFIED him. At this thought a small smile curved his thin lips up a few millimetres HE Arthur “King” Smith was afraid of a couple of old men!!! HE who had faced dangers most people couldn’t even think about without a cold shiver of fear running down their spine. However they were VERY powerful old men, Arthur reminded himself men who could have him jobless and broke on the slightest pretext.
Reaching the door Arthur felt a shudder pass over his handsome features. In his early thirties Arthur was good looking, clean shaven with close cropped black hair beneath which a pair of blue eyes smouldered with a fire that spoke of a fierce temper hidden underneath an amiable, kind character.
Reaching out a black gloved hand Arthur twisted the door knob, paused, took a deep breath and opening the door stepped into the room beyond. The room was DARK. That was the first thing Arthur noticed about it then as his eyes adjusted to the darkness he saw a table in the middle of the room, it was oval in shape and made of some kind of dark wood. Seated around the table were ten old men the youngest of which had to be at least seventy. Hanging directly over the middle of the table was a single light bulb which illuminated the table and nothing else.
One of the old men raised a hand and spoke, his voice still deep and strong despite his years
“Ah Colonel Smith come in and begin your briefing there is a seat waiting for you” He pointed at a raised area at the head of the table. Stepping up onto the stage Arthur cleared his throat and began “Well sir considering certain recent acts of terrorism and the unrest in some Communist countries I have thought up some plans to establish a secret fast response team which would eliminate threats which our defence forces would usually take a few hours to react to and so could destroy the enemy before they could settle in and set up defences.” He paused and observed the men’s reaction to his briefing so far. The men’s faces were passive and emotionless as they stared straight at Arthur without blinking. Discouraged by their seeming lack of interest Arthur ploughed ahead anyway “This force would have to remain totally secret the very nature of their missions relies upon it, in essence they would be fighting a secret war. I have suggested the code name Excalibur and have already picked out a few possible candidates the records of which I would like to show if you would just look at the folders in front of you.”
In complete unison as if they were the same man the old men opened the red folders in front of them and glanced at the first page, on it was a picture of a blonde haired man with stunning good looks wearing green camo’s. Beside the photo there was a detailed description of the man his personality and background.
Looking down at his own folder Arthur smiled as he talked. “Major James Malone codename “Lance” a good officer and my current second in command, courageous stubborn and self confident he is also extremely loyal I would like him as my second in command.” Flipping over the page Arthur saw another photo and began to describe the next man…………………….
“So King how did it go? What did the big men think of your plan?” Lance was reclining on a red sofa in his apartment paid for by his millionaire family, as Arthur came in Lance sat up with an eager childlike expression on his face. Walking in Arthur headed straight for the nearest armchair and collapsed into its soft embrace, after sitting there few a few silent minutes he looked up and with a picture of utter exhaustion on his face he narrated to Lance the result of his visit. “I tell you spending an hour with those men is more exhausting then it was trekking 10 kilometres through that swamp last year! They approved of my idea and agreed to my first choices of men AND they added a few “suggestions” of their own.
A smile lit up Lance’s features as he heard this news “Why that’s GREAT! Except you don’t seem all that excited about it King what’s the matter?” Raising his head up Arthur looked at Lance’s eager face and said dejectedly “Well they also wanted a demonstration of my ideas practicality, so they will give us a week to train our men and then at some time after that week is over they will send a small unit of special forces to begin a terrorist attack with paintballs on an unspecified location, then Excalibur will move in.”
“So it’s like a test?”
“Yes and they’ll be testing us on our speed, skill, methods and casualties on our side!”
All of a sudden Lance jerked his head up “A WEEK?!! But that’s not long enough to train our men! Excalibur will be torn apart we’ll get caned!!”
“I know! And if we fail the idea will be considered without merit and scrapped!”
Lance stared with open mouthed shock mouthing occasional words but with no sound coming from his mouth. Shaking himself out of his depression Arthur stood up the fire beginning to blaze in his sky blue eyes “We ARE going to be ready! What are we doing here just lying around?” He exclaimed “get in the car and get back to base we’ve only got seven days to be ready and we WILL be ready! HUSTLE. Rushing Lance out to the car Arthur started it up and raced down the road towards the army base.
Johnny Rix twisted in his swivel chair and peered out the window of his tiny security checkpoint watching the rain drum on the thick bulletproof glass, this shift had been boring with a capital b, he had spent the entire time just switching his view between the monitor for the surveillance cam’s and the window outside. Both views were exactly the same, rain that was all just rain, he could barely even make out the gate just a few metres ahead, he shifted the position of his legs they were beginning to cramp. He needed a walk! Just a few minutes would fix up his legs after all he had been here for hours, besides he’d been here since 6 and it was midnight now and nobody was scheduled to be arriving for a few hours yet.
Getting up Johnny walked over to where his rain coat was hanging and put it on, should he take his rifle? Nah he would only be gone a few minutes and its weight would get irritating. Johnny unlocked the reinforced steel door opened it and stepped out into the driving rain, he set of at a brisk walk towards the fence he would just go up there and walk back again, just a few minutes and then he would be right as rain, he chuckled at his pun and kept walking. Wait! what was that up there in the rain? Was that headlights? It was someone must be arriving early! He’d better hurry back to the checkpoint before he got in big trouble. He set of at a run retracing his steps.
Just as he reached the gate he noticed that the men were wearing the black clothes of S.A.S but they weren’t supposed to be S.A.S! too late he realized that these men weren’t on his side, as he turned to run the lead man raised an Mp5 machinegun with a little black sausage of a silencer on the end. The man fired a quick three round burst into Johnny’s chest, his sight failing Johnny fell to the floor living long enough only to hear everybody else on the secret Special Forces base dying over the radio.
The base was taken, without a single shot fired in its defence.
Lance crawled through the mud, bullets zinging through the air above his head, reaching the end of his cover he maneuvered his gun into firing position and let of a quick burst then getting to his feet he legged it the metres ahead to the nearby rock glancing around he saw some of his fellow soldiers being shot around him, suddenly he heard shouting behind him as Sergeant Robert Miller codename “Bomb” charged up to the rock next to him. “Hey Lance how are you?” Bomb’s voice was hard and low “Looks were getting wiped, out do you know who’s still in this thing?” Lance gave a short burst around the corner and turned back to Bomb “well a few minutes ago I was taking cover with Blade and Knight and I saw Rocky over to the left a little while ago, I think that’s all that’s left like you said we’re getting killed out here.” Taking a quick peek over the rock Bomb said “We need to round up all the others and begin a concerted assault on the enemies’ position.”
“I agree”
“Okay let’s contact them.”
Speaking into his radio Lance spoke “All remaining Excalibur members call in” Lance waited for his men to reply and realized that it was just Bomb, Knight, Blade and himself left out of the whole twenty man team. “All right Knight and Blade cover Bomb and I as we charge the enemies firing line got that?” Knight’s voice came crackling over the radio.
“Roger that Lance ready when you are.”
”Okay guy’s let’s GO!” Yelling at the top of their voices Lance and Bomb charged out into the open firing their weapons, sprinting the short distance to the enemies sand bags they leaped over and started firing at everything that moved in the area Bomb got hit in the side and collapsed to the floor, Lance stepped over him pouring his shots into the close packed men in front of him, soon he was the only thing left standing in the trench. A door opened behind him and Arthur stepped out “Good work Lance you are the last surviving member of Excalibur and the last man left alive from the battle unfortunately if we weren’t using paintballs the entire unit would be K.I.A THAT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!!”
“But King this exercise was far tougher then any normal unit’s job’s ever are go easy on the men”
“These are S.A.S we will be fighting Lance! We can’t afford mistakes like this or the entire idea will be scrapped”
“I know King but we can handle it RELAX! We’ve got it covered”
“All right Lance but I’ve put a lot of work into this and to have it crushed would be awful” Sighing Arthur spoke into a hand-held radio “Excalibur get back to the briefing room I’ll meet you their in five”
Arthur looked at his men sitting in the chairs of the darkened briefing room, they were all bruised, battered, filthy and exhausted
