Free Sacrifice by Will Jordan Page B

outside to the metal briefcase that served as her portable forensics lab. Selecting a chemical swab held inside a clear plastic tube, she ducked back inside the chopper, knelt down besideone of the areas of melted decking and carefully drew the swab across it.
    Replacing it in the tube, she watched it intently. It took only a few moments for the swab to turn bright purple.
    ‘Interesting,’ she said quietly.
    Drake leaned closer, intrigued by what she’d found. ‘Care to explain?’
    Her vivid hazel eyes focused on him. ‘Barium nitrate. The cabin’s coated with it.’
    ‘Okay,’ he agreed, sounding vague. ‘What does that mean?’
    ‘Barium nitrate is one of the key elements of incendiary grenades. Combine it with thermite and it produces a hotter flame that burns longer and has a lower ignition point. It’s our standard anti-materiel weapon.’
    Incendiary grenades had been in use by most armies since the Second World War. They had even been employed to disable German coastal artillery during the Normandy landings, their intense heat fusing the breech mechanism into a solid mass of metal.
    But why would insurgents have used it? Thermite grenades were specialised pieces of equipment, and not easy to come by. Anyway, destroying an aircraft that had already been rendered immobile was nonsensical – it was no threat. It would have made more sense to strip it of valuable equipment and weapons.
    The answer was as obvious as it was baffling. ‘They were trying to cover their tracks,’ he said. ‘They didn’t want us to know what they were doing.’
    Glancing around, he spotted something on the forward bulkhead. He had seen it not long after entering, but hadn’t consciously acknowledged it amidst the chaos of the chopper wreck. Only now did he examine it more closely.
    It was a small circular hole about half an inch in diameter. Reaching out, he touched it gently with his gloved hand. The metal had deformed inwards, giving way beneath the impact of a high-speed projectile.
    ‘Small arms fire,’ he said. ‘They were shooting in here.’
    McKnight was by his side within moments, leaning forward to examine the damage. Her arm brushed against his, and instinctively he moved aside to allow her better access. His body remembered the brief contact though.
    ‘Looks like a 7.62mm round to me,’ she said after running her finger around it. ‘Fired from a high angle judging by the entry point.’
    Drake’s mind assembled the facts and reached its inevitable conclusion. ‘An execution. One round, right between the eyes. Which means at least some of the crew survived the crash, but our friends executed them.’
    ‘And yet they kept Mitchell alive,’ she added. ‘That makes no sense. More hostages would have meant more leverage.’
    Drake shook his head. Too many aspects of this attack weren’t adding up, and his instincts told him there was more going on here than he was seeing.
    ‘There’s more to this than just a random attack,’ he decided. ‘If the people who did this had access to guided missiles, they could have taken out one of the military transports coming in to land at Bagram. Instead they chose this specific chopper. They shot it down, killed everyone on board and took one man hostage. One man.’ He glanced up at his female companion. ‘They knew Mitchell was aboard. They did this all to get their hands on him.’
    She stared back at him, both puzzled and intrigued. ‘Why? What’s so valuable about Mitchell?’
    ‘Good question. I’d say it’s time we found out.’
    Rising up from the deck, Drake ducked out of the chopper, relieved to be away from that charred, claustrophobic space where men had died.
    Keegan, who had been surveying the area around the crash site, came jogging over as they emerged. ‘I swept the area for tracks.’ He shook his head, confirming what they already suspected. ‘Between the army search-and-rescue team, the forensics guys and our buddies from Horizon, there must