Black Ops

by Chris Ryan

  It was as if giving up that piece of information had entirely drained Al-Farouk. He collapsed, foetus-like, on the ground. Danny stepped away and walked back to the car, aware that Bethany was watching him intently. He reached into the vehicle and killed the headlights, shrouding them in thick, impenetrable darkness. ‘Did Ibrahim ever mention this Adnan Abadi guy?’

  ‘No. But that’s hardly surprising. His handlers would have exercised basic separation of information.’

  Danny nodded. ‘I think he’s telling the truth,’ Danny said quietly, so only Bethany could hear him.

  ‘Did you have to kill the chauffeur?’ she said.

  ‘Of course. If we let him go, he’d have gone straight back to his bosses. They’d have worked out what we’re doing. Ibrahim would have a description of me, and he’d know you’re out in the open.’

  She looked like she was trying to find fault with that argument, but couldn’t. ‘We need to verify this intel,’ she said. ‘I have some contacts who . . .’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ Danny said. He pulled out his mobile. The service was weak out here, but there were a couple of bars. ‘Watch him,’ he said. ‘Don’t take your gun off him. I don’t want to be scrabbling around in the forest trying to find the fucker if he decides to make a run for it.’

  Bethany didn’t look pleased with that prospect, but she didn’t complain. Danny had to hand it to her. She might not like what he was doing, but she was dealing with it. He crossed over towards the dilapidated building, out of earshot. For a moment, he considered whether he should contact Sturrock or Hereford. Then he remembered how insistent the CO had been about reporting directly to him. He dialled his access number into Hereford. The call was answered immediately. ‘Go ahead.’

  Danny had no call sign, and he knew he didn’t need to speak his name. He simply told the voice at the end of the phone what he wanted. ‘Do me an ID check. Adnan Abadi. He’s an olive farmer, north-western Syria. Does he exist, is he on our radar, does he have extremist links to anybody else in the region? It’s urgent.’

  ‘We’ll call you back.’ The line went dead.

  Danny knew Hereford would work fast. He stayed put and looked back in the direction of the car. The moon was visible through the treetops. It cast silver beams on to the forest floor, half illuminating the car. Bethany was perched on the bonnet. She was capably holding the weapon in two hands. Al-Farouk was sprawled on the ground on all fours. Danny found himself staring intently at Bethany. She barely moved. Danny sensed that her revulsion at the chauffeur’s killing had dissipated. Now she seemed calm. Danny was weirdly reminded of Ibrahim Khan himself, and the way he sat on his bed all those years ago. Quiet, tranquil, unflustered. It struck him that of all Ibrahim’s potential targets – the three SAS men who’d humiliated him in training, the arsehole of a colonel who ran the MISFIT operation, the translator who furnished him with the linguistic tools he needed to operate deep under cover – his most difficult prospect might be Bethany White, his case officer. She’d acted skilfully this evening. She was a good operator.

  Danny heard a sound off to his left. Bethany clearly heard it too, because like Danny she instantly moved her weapon in that direction. Danny scanned the terrain ahead of him. Just behind the tree line he saw the shape of an animal, about the size of a fox, slink back into the darkness. He exhaled slowly, lowering his weapon. Bethany turned hers back to Al-Farouk, but Danny could tell she was now looking across at him. He almost thought their eyes met, but that was impossible. He was completely in shadow.

  His phone vibrated. He answered immediately. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘We have confirmation. Adnan Abadi is a former Syrian government minister. He had a diplomatic position in the UK when he was younger . . .’

  ‘So he speaks English?’

  ‘Presumably. He was pushed out by the Syrian regime because of suspected sympathies with IS when they were dominant in the area. He’s an influential guy so it was difficult for them to do anything more permanent. We do know his brother was a high-value IS commander, believed killed twelve months ago in a Russian air strike.’

  ‘Is there any evidence that Abadi has direct IS links?’

  ‘Nothing concrete, but the CIA and Mossad have him on their watch list. He’s a player.’

  It was all Danny needed to hear. ‘Get everything you have on him sent through to the British Embassy in Beirut for the personal attention of Bethany White.’

  ‘Roger that.’

  Danny finished the conversation and killed the call. Then he walked back across the open ground towards Bethany. She gave him an enquiring glance. Danny nodded. He turned to look at Al-Farouk. The businessman was a mess. He was crouched on the ground like a frightened child, his arms covering his head. There was an occasional mew of terror. It was a pitiful sight.

  ‘I’m going to finish him,’ Danny said.

  Bethany put one hand on his gun arm. ‘You don’t have to,’ she said. ‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t.’

  ‘We don’t have a choice.’

  ‘Sure we have a choice. It’s easy. One phone call. We get MI6 to pay some money into his account, easily traceable back to them. We let Al-Farouk know if he steps out of line, we’ll leak details back to Islamic State. He’ll know their punishment will be far worse than anything we’d ever come up with.’

  Danny shook his head. ‘It’s not secure enough. He’s seen us both. He can describe us. That’s gold dust to Khan.’

  ‘He’s got kids, Danny.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Danny said. ‘So do you. So do I.’

  ‘Listen, this isn’t the first time I’ve worked alongside one of you people. I call the shots, and I say . . .’

  ‘No, you listen,’ Danny cut in. ‘If Ibrahim Khan decides to come looking for him, how safe do you think his wife and kids will be then?’

  ‘Are you seriously trying to tell me you’re doing it in their best interests?’

  ‘I’m just giving you a different way to think about it, if you want. It doesn’t matter either way, though. We’ve got what we need from him. Now I need to clean up. Turn your back.’

  Bethany looked like she was trying to find another argument, but she couldn’t. Danny approached Al-Farouk. The Lebanese businessman looked up. His face was smeared with a mixture of mud, blood and tears. Danny could see the moon reflected in his eyes. ‘Please,’ Al-Farouk whispered. ‘My little ones . . .’

  There was nothing to be gained from waiting. Danny raised his weapon.

  ‘Not in the head, I beg you,’ Al-Farouk said. He started to cry again. ‘Not in the head . . .’

  Danny saw no reason not to grant the man his dying wish. He lowered his weapon a little so that it was aiming at the chest area. Al-Farouk closed his eyes and whispered the words ‘Allah-u-Akbar’. Danny squeezed the trigger twice in quick succession. The shots echoed loudly around the forest as Al-Farouk slumped to one side on to the ground.

  10

  They left the bodies where they were. Bethany assured Danny that few people ever came to this location. That was why she and Ibrahim Khan had chosen it. It would be days, weeks even, before anybody came across Danny’s victims.

  The vehicle was a different matter. They needed it to get back into central Beirut, but it was crawling with their DNA by now. They couldn’t drive it into the embassy compound, not if they wanted to keep their night’s work under the radar. The Lebanese police would be searching for it as soon as Al-Farouk was reported missing. ‘I know a place,’ Bethany said as she removed Danny’s holster and gave it back to him. She was surprisingly calm, given what she’d just witnessed. If she was angry with Danny for nailing Al-Farouk, she was professional enough not to show it. Danny was grateful for that. It had been a long day, and he wasn’t in the mood for a grilling by the ethics committee.

  ‘Where?’ he said.

  ‘It’s an underground car park in the Sabra district. It’s run by a Palestinian guy. He’ll keep it under wraps for as long as we pay him. If the money runs out,
he strips the plates and sells it in Syria or Gaza, but it won’t come to that. I’ll notify MI6 and they’ll get some of our fixers along to clean the vehicle out and make it disappear.’

  ‘Will they know it’s anything to do with MISFIT?’

  ‘Those guys don’t even know what MISFIT is. They just do their job.’

  They drove in silence out of the forest and on to the main road. Danny drove soberly back towards Beirut. The last thing he wanted was to draw the attention of the police. He followed Bethany’s directions into a run-down suburb. Compared to the seafront, it felt like a different city. Bleak concrete blocks. Groups of young men, their heads wrapped in black and white keffiyehs, loitering on street corners. Arabic music blared from open windows. If the harbour was rich Mediterranean, this was poor Middle Eastern. It wasn’t a place for Danny and Bethany’s white skin and expensive car.

  The parking lot was down a narrow, dead-end side street. Danny felt uncomfortable entering it, but Bethany assured him this was the right way, and she seemed to know what she was talking about. There was nothing to indicate what the premises were for: just a heavily padlocked metal double door with an unmarked intercom on the right and a separate pedestrian entrance a little further along. Danny pulled up while Bethany exited the vehicle and spoke into the intercom. A man appeared at the pedestrian entrance. He was squat and overweight, with several days’ stubble and a couple of missing teeth. He seemed to recognise Bethany, though he registered no pleasure at seeing her. He glanced through the driver’s window of the X5, giving Danny a cursory and unimpressed glance, then took a key from his pocket and unlocked the double doors. He swung them open and indicated that Danny should drive in. Danny loosened the Sig in his holster and placed it on the dashboard where their unsavoury-looking host could see it, then drove in.

  The garage was dark and stank of fuel. There were five other vehicles. One of them was jacked up with no wheels or doors. Danny parked up alongside it, took his weapon and exited the car. Bethany was wordlessly handing over a sheaf of bank notes to the man. He counted them suspiciously, then crammed them into his pocket. The transaction was done. He stared at Danny. Not at his face, but at his hands. Danny realised they were blood-spattered. ‘Ask him if there’s somewhere I can clean up,’ he said to Bethany.

  Bethany made the request and the man pointed to a door at the far side of the garage. Behind it was a foul toilet and a small sink where Danny tried, without much success, to scrub the blood off his hands in a trickle of cold water. He returned to Bethany with his hands in his pocket. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said.

  They exited the garage. Back on the main street, people stared aggressively from behind their keffiyehs, especially at Bethany with her blonde hair and crumpled business suit. Danny, however, allowed his holster to show, and that was enough to ward off any unwanted attention. After five minutes they turned on to a larger thoroughfare and managed to flag down a taxi. It was a mustard-yellow Toyota, stinking of incense, with garlands and religious icons draped across the dashboard. The driver kept staring at them in the rear-view mirror as the radio played Arabic music that to Danny’s ear was indistinguishable from the stuff he’d heard on the streets. It took them ten minutes to reach the vicinity of the embassy. Bethany told the driver to stop a couple of streets away, and paid him more than he asked for. They waited for the taxi to drive out of sight before covering the final couple of hundred metres on foot and entering the embassy compound by the side entrance. The guys on duty recognised them, but examined their ID anyway. They were clearly curious as to where Danny and Bethany had been, but knew better than to ask any questions. Danny kept his bloodied hands out of sight.

  It was just before eleven when they reached their apartment. The door was slightly ajar. Danny held out one arm to stop Bethany entering, then drew his weapon. He approached silently. There was a light on inside. He gently kicked the door open, clutching the weapon two-handed. The main room was as they’d left it, with one exception: there was a box file on the coffee table. The door to Bethany’s bedroom was also open. Danny moved stealthily towards it, then violently kicked it open.

  Larry Baker, the ambassador’s assistant who had met them at the airport, was leaning over Bethany’s bedside table, opening the drawer. He spun round when he heard Danny enter, then clutched both hands to his chest. His glasses slipped down his sweaty nose. ‘G-G-Good grief, man,’ he stuttered. ‘Will you please put that bloody thing down?’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Danny didn’t lower his gun.

  Baker flushed. ‘I’m . . . I’m just checking everything’s okay with the room.’

  ‘The ambassador’s assistant does the housekeeping these days, does he?’ Danny said. ‘Times must be hard.’

  Baker was almost purple with embarrassment now. ‘I brought you some documents,’ he spluttered. ‘London sent them through a few minutes ago. They’re in a box file . . .’

  ‘. . . on the coffee table. Yeah, I saw. Any documents from London in Bethany’s underwear drawer?’

  Baker’s expression went from embarrassment to outrage and back again. Danny was almost certain he’d been rooting around in here for some kind of cheap sexual thrill. The ambassador’s assistant made a few spluttering sounds. Danny considered toying with him a little longer, but it was late and he was tired. ‘Get the hell out of here,’ he said.

  Baker clumsily closed the drawer. He muttered to himself as he pushed past Danny and exited the bedroom. Danny followed. ‘It’s okay!’ he called to Bethany, who entered the room.

  ‘Larry?’

  Baker waved airily at the box file on the coffee table. ‘Just delivering some documents, my dear,’ he said, unable to hide how flustered he was. ‘I’ll be off now.’

  He scurried out of sight.

  ‘What was he doing?’

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  Bethany made a sour face, but didn’t seem to be taking it too seriously. She pointed at the box file. ‘Is that the intel on Adnam Abadi? Your friends at Hereford have worked fast.’

  Danny locked the door from the inside. ‘You should get a shower,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some reading to do and some calls

  to make.’

  Bethany looked faintly amused. ‘Have you seen the state of you?’ she said. Danny looked down at his clothes. He hadn’t noticed in the darkness, but it wasn’t just his hands that were bloodstained. There was spatter over the lower part of his

  jeans too. ‘You clean up first,’ Bethany said. ‘Please, you look like a butcher.’

  She wasn’t wrong. Danny went to the bathroom, which was en-suite to Bethany’s bedroom. He stripped, and stared at himself in the mirror. There were scars all over his body, like a map of his past battles. He felt unclean. There was a very particular kind of filth associated with the aftermath of a killing. A combination of sweat, cordite, blood and dirt. It required extremely hot water. He turned the shower on, waited for it to reach its scalding maximum temperature, then stepped inside. His skin smarted, but he endured the heat. He scrubbed his hands particularly hard. Pale pink water sluiced down the plug hole. Only after five minutes did it run clear.

  There was a bath sheet hanging on the towel rail. Danny wrapped it round his waist and walked into the bedroom, expecting it to be empty. It wasn’t. Bethany had undressed and was wearing a white dressing gown, loosely tied at the front. She was standing by the bed and as Danny walked in she gave him an overtly appreciative look, then walked towards him. Her lips were slightly parted, and a tendril of blonde hair tumbled over her forehead. The golden freckles on her nose and cheeks looked especially alluring.

  Danny was surprised. Since walking in on her embrace with Christina the interpreter back at the farmhouse in Brecon, he’d assumed the colonel was right: for Bethany, guys weren’t on the menu. But she had a kid, he supposed. Maybe the menu wasn’t limited to one choice. Maybe it was unusually long. He put one hand on her hips. She smiled, then removed it. ‘Look but don’t touch, Danny,’ sh
e whispered. She stepped to one side and pointed at the cupboard next to the door. ‘There are blankets in there,’ she said. ‘To make the couch comfortable.’ She disappeared into the bathroom.

  Danny stood there for a few seconds, smiling ruefully. He was finding it hard to get the measure of Bethany White. She was scared but brave. Flirtatious but untouchable. She disapproved of Danny nailing Al-Farouk and his driver, but now it was done she seemed completely unconcerned. He shrugged. It was for the best. What would his old mate Spud have said, if he was here now? Don’t dip the quill in the company inkwell, buddy . . . Not that Spud would ever have taken his own advice.

  Danny left the bedroom, found some clean clothes in his suitcase, and dressed. He took a seat. He was as tired as hell. He closed his eyes for a moment, inhaled slowly, then reached for the box file on the coffee table and examined its contents. There wasn’t much. In fact, the intel was so scant it crossed Danny’s mind that somebody at the other end might be holding back on him. Three photographs, black and white and taken with a telephoto lens, of an elderly man with round glasses, wearing a traditional dishdasha, like a Middle Eastern Ghandi. There was a newspaper clipping from the New York Times about an air strike near Aleppo, reporting the probable death of an IS commander called Mohammed Abadi – that would be Adnan’s brother, Danny assumed. Good riddance to bad rubbish. There was a satellite map with an area circled on it – agricultural land – and some lat/long figures scrawled next to it. As briefing documents went, it was distinctly lacking in hard information. If the CIA and Mossad were interested in this guy, their intelligence gathering had been poor. Or maybe this was the limit of what they were prepared to share with MI6.

  Whatever, it was all the information Danny needed. He had a phone call to make. He switched the TV on. It was still tuned to the Arabic music channel he’d used earlier. He turned it up to mask the conversation he was about to have.