Read Spider Shepherd: SAS: #1 for Free Online Page B

shielded from the view of the Serb watchers above him, he moved quicker, eating up the ground with an effortless stride.
    Diesel and Spud covered him while he moved, ready to unleash an avalanche of fire if he was spotted. But Harry managed to remain undetected as he crossed the meandering stream in the valley floor, slipped across the last of the exposed ground and moved up the slopes, going to ground in the patch of cover he had identified through his binoculars before he had set off.
    Sure that Harry was in position, Shepherd settled himself to wait for dawn. As the light strengthened, he took up his position on the driving seat of a tractor at the edge of the trees. He took a deep breath, then revved up the tractor and drove out into the open, going as fast as the creaking old tractor would allow. The remaining Serb guns on the heights opened up half-heartedly, but within seconds, a couple of F-16’s had appeared and they quickly dealt with the threat.
    At the same time, directed by Diesel, the Muslim mortars began to shoot the fire plan. Shepherd was driving hell for leather, swerving from side to side to throw off any snipers’ aim, the tractor bouncing and jolting almost uncontrollably as it crossed the rough ground.
    He drove straight past the dropped parachute loads to the edge of the higher ground, then leaped off the still moving tractor and sprinted uphill towards the rendezvous point he had agreed with Harry. As he got closer he could hear the sounds of a struggle, and saw Harry and a heavy set man in a Russian uniform struggling on the ground. Shepherd ran forward and stuck the barrel of his SA-80 into the Russian’s neck. The man immediately froze, his mouth open in surprise.
    ‘Don’t shoot him,’ Harry said. ‘We want to hear what he’s got to say first.’
    They took their prisoner back to the Muslim lines. The Muslims were all for a summary execution, brandishing knives and spitting in the captive’s face, but Harry forced them back at gunpoint. ‘He’s our prisoner, we’ll deal with him,’ he said, in a voice that brooked no argument.
    Shortly afterwards he was interrogating the prisoner, speaking to him in fluent Russian. The conversation went on for a few minutes, though it was Harry who did most of the talking.
    ‘I didn’t know you spoke his language,’ Shepherd said.
    ‘I speak Russian colloquially and I also speak a lot of other things that he understands,’ Harry said. ‘What do you think, Dan? Do you think we’ve taken out all the snipers?’
    Shepherd shrugged. ‘I hope so.’
    ‘We need more than hope,’ said Harry. He gestured at the captured Russian. ‘I’m giving Ivan the choice of being airlifted back to Sarajevo and being at the centre of a show trial and media circus or giving him a chance to get away Scot free.’
    ‘What have you got in mind?’
    Harry winked. ‘Watch and learn.’ He turned back to the Russian ‘Your options are you get executed or dumped in a Bosnian jail for the rest of your life, Ivan - and think how much fun that’s going to be. If you’re lucky enough to get back to Mother Russia, can you imagine the welcome they are going to prepare for the man who exposed their secret war and humiliated them in the eyes of the world? I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.’ He let that sink in for a few minutes. ‘So, here’s the alternative: you can go for a walk up there.’ He jerked his head towards the open spaces beyond the wreckage of the tractor where the blood of the Muslim boy that the Russian had shot still stained the grass. ‘If you make it to the far side, you’re home free. If not… Well, at least you’ll have a soldier’s death.’
    ‘You’ll shoot me anyway,’ the Russian said in halting English.
    ‘Oh no,’ Harry said, speaking in Russian. ‘We won’t be shooting at you, but I’m betting you know a man who will. So it’s up to you, you can take your chances at the hands of the Muslims in Sarajevo, or you can take your