Black Ops

by Chris Ryan

  Barak did as he was told. The rest of the guys returned to the Hilux. Rollett took a long piss up against a nearby wall. Ludlow lifted a jerrycan of diesel from the back and refuelled the vehicle. Nobody spoke. The tension had not yet dissipated, and Danny had a gnawing anxiety that this evening wasn’t going to go quite the way he’d planned. Maybe he should call the whole thing off. Return to Lebanon. Contact Hereford and insist they send him a fresh team. If they could all RV in Cyprus, they could insert into Syria by air . . .

  No. It would take days to arrange that. A week, even. Anything could happen in that time. Adnan Abadi could move from his current location. Ibrahim Khan could strike again. He thought of little Danny Jr, and of Christina Somers. He hadn’t been certain about her loyalties, but had taken Bethany’s word for it that she was clean. Now he was taking Guerrero’s word for it that Barak was trustworthy. He couldn’t shake the uncomfortable sensation that an op supposed to be watertight was springing leaks.

  The quicker he followed up this latest lead, the better.

  Barak had parked alongside the Hilux. The sun was sinking fast and a bright moon was rising. Time check: 19:47 hrs. Just over four hours till the off. ‘I’ll keep stag,’ Danny said.

  Guerrero nodded his agreement. Danny walked across to the far side of the training camp and took up position by a mound of rubble where he could keep watch on the road in. He felt more comfortable by himself, and was certain the others felt the same.

  Darkness fell. Danny quietly cursed the bright moonlight that illuminated the terrain all around, because it would illuminate the team too, once they were on the move. But it was what it was. They would deal with it. He passed into the quiet, watchful trance that always accompanied an extended period of surveillance: highly tuned into his surroundings, but hardly aware of the passing of time. Everything around him was still. There was a sea of stars and the distant croak of cicadas. But no movement. No enemy personnel. No threats.

  Maybe they’d be in and out of Syria without any incident. Or maybe this was the calm before the storm.

  Movement. Guerrero was approaching. Danny checked the time. 22.55hrs.

  ‘Okay,’ Guerrero said. ‘We’re loaded up and ready. It’s time to go.’

  13

  The team retook their usual positions in the Hilux, with Barak sitting between Ludlow and Rollet in the back. Danny had his assault rifle stowed barrel-down in the footwell. The rest of the guys had laid theirs between the two front seats. Danny watched the old Palestinian training camp fade from view in his wing mirror as Guerrero manoeuvred the vehicle back up the rough track towards the main road. The moon was bright enough to drive by. Guerrero had a set of NV goggles on his helmet, but he needed neither those nor the headlights as they carefully crossed the difficult terrain. At Barak’s instruction, they turned left on to the main road, lit the headlights and headed north-east.

  The road was almost deserted. Every couple of minutes a car approached from the opposite direction, but there seemed to be nobody behind them. The countryside, whizzing past in Danny’s peripheral vision, was becoming sparser. Fewer trees, more scrubland. There was the occasional broken-down vehicle by the side of the road and, here and there, the lights of a house or a village off in the distance. But the light pollution was minimal which meant that when, after twenty minutes, a glow appeared in the sky up ahead, Danny knew they were approaching a larger settlement.

  ‘Massak?’ Guerrero said.

  ‘Yes,’ Barak replied. ‘We will come off the road in about one kilometre.’

  Their route, when they came to it, was not an actual road or even a rough track. Barak instructed them to kill the lights and pull off to the right by a squat, solitary tree. The terrain took them uphill for about five hundred metres, then over a steep brow and down towards a stream that meandered in a direction that Danny took to be roughly east. The water level was low, but wide enough to reflect the moon in its surface as the team grew nearer. Once they were on its bank, Danny saw it was about four metres wide, and moving sluggishly. Give it a couple more months and it would evaporate completely in the sun. ‘Follow the water,’ Barak said. ‘It’ll eventually turn to the south, but by the time it does that, we’ll have bypassed Massak. But go slowly and keep the lights off. There are border guards in this area, and sometimes skirmishes.’

  Guerrero didn’t move out of first gear. The moonlight was bright enough to drive by, but not to see the terrain ahead in any detail. More than once, the tyres came across a rock in the road big enough to throw them off course. If they’d hit those obstacles at speed, they’d have found themselves upside down in the stream. Every five minutes, Guerrero brought the vehicle to a halt and killed the engine. He and Danny would leave the vehicle and listen hard for the sound of vehicles. There was nothing. Just the gentle sound of the water’s sluggish flow down-river, and the occasional creak from their own vehicle as the engine cooled down. When they were moving again, Danny focused to his left. The glow from the lights of Massak was off to his ten o’clock. It felt they were moving past it only slowly. ‘These border towns,’ Guerrero said after they’d been driving for a further fifteen minutes, ‘can be a fucking mess. They’ve taken in more Syrian refugees than they can really deal with, and . . .’

  ‘Hit the brakes!’ Danny hissed.

  Guerrero’s reaction was immediate. The Hilux came to a sudden halt and the engine died. Up ahead and to their two o’clock, on the other side of the stream, the terrain followed an upward gradient. Beyond the brow of that raised ground, Danny had seen moving beams of light. Headlights. Three sets, he estimated. Distance to the brow: maybe a hundred metres. He felt for the rifle stowed in the footwell. Guerrero grabbed his from between the seats. ‘Wait,’ Barak hissed. ‘I do not think they will come this way. The terrain on the far side of that hill is not good for vehicles.’

  They sat in absolute silence, watching the headlights. They were growing brighter, closer, lighting up the midnight air. But Barak was right. At no point did they crest the brow of the hill. A minute later their glare subsided as the vehicles moved, by Danny’s estimation, to the south-east. And then they were gone.

  Nobody spoke for a full two minutes, until they were sure there was no longer any risk of being seen. Only then did Guerrero start the Hilux again and continue his slow, measured path along the stream. They travelled for a further half hour without incident before the stream meandered sharply to the right. The glow from the lights of Massak were behind them now. ‘We can turn back to the road here,’ Barak said. ‘That way.’ He pointed to a gulley between two gentle inclines off to their eleven o’clock. Guerrero altered their trajectory but moved as slowly as ever, keeping the engine noise down and the vehicle’s traction good. Fifteen minutes later, they emerged on to the main road.

  ‘We are about two kilometres from the crossing point,’ Barak said. ‘The road will take us half that distance, then we must go cross-country again.’

  ‘We’ll need to scout the approach for anti-personnel mines,’ Guerrero said. He looked over his shoulder at Ludlow and Rollett. ‘You good with that, boys?’ Ludlow and Rollett nodded. ‘It’s their speciality,’ Guerrero added.

  ‘Is the crossing point visible from the road?’ Danny said.

  ‘No, my friend,’ Barak replied. ‘The terrain is hilly. We can stay out of sight while the ground is swept for mines.’

  Guerrero allowed himself the use of the Hilux’s headlights while they continued down the main road. They encountered no other vehicles. He killed the lights again at a sharp bend to the left, where Barak told them to go off-road again. Guerrero carefully negotiated a couple of hillocks, then stopped. By the light of the moon they could see, fifty metres in the distance, the silhouetted outline of the border fence. It had an unwelcoming air: high, impenetrable, the thick bundles of jagged razor wire looking even from this distance like sentries waiting to maim anybody who approached.

  As soon as they stopped, Ludlow and Rollett left the vehicle and pulled b
ack the tarpaulin at the rear of the Hilux. Rollet removed some minesweeping apparatus – a metal detector with an individual headset. Ludlow grabbed a sturdy pair of wire cutters and a canister of spray paint to mark a safe passage on the ground to the border fence. ‘I’m going to keep watch on the terrain back towards the road,’ Guerrero told Danny. ‘You watch the open ground here. Barak, stay where you are.’

  ‘Yes, my friend.’

  They exited the vehicle. Guerrero disappeared into the hilly terrain. There was something reassuring about the American watching their backs. He instilled confidence. Danny considered removing the keys from the ignition to stop the fixer taking charge of the Hilux. He elected not to: Barak was touchy enough as it was and, besides, it was more secure for the team if any of them could drive the vehicle in an emergency. He took his rifle, positioned himself in the firing position in the moon shadow at the front of the vehicle, and watched Ludlow and Rollett sweep the approach.

  They moved forward slowly, Rollett panning the detector over an area a little wider than the Hilux. Every couple of metres, Ludlow sprayed a short white line on either side of the path they had cleared. Danny surveyed the area through the IR sight on his AK-47. Apart from his two unit mates, there was no movement on either side of the border.

  Five minutes passed.

  Ten.

  Danny was on edge. The longer they remained in one place, the higher their chance of being seen and challenged. But he knew this process couldn’t be rushed.

  Rollett and Ludlow were fifteen metres from the border fence when Rollett suddenly stopped and raised one hand. Danny watched them carefully. It was clear that Rollett had seen something. Danny found himself holding his breath as the ex-SBS guy skirted carefully around whatever buried object his detector had found, with Ludlow spraying a white line around its perimeter. It looked to Danny to be roughly circular and about a metre in diameter. He felt a ferrous tang in the back of his throat at the thought of what would have happened if the Hilux had hit that device. He’d seen guys get fucked up by a landmine before. It was a bad way to go.

  Having passed the obstacle, Rollett and Ludlow continued at the same ponderous speed. Danny saw no indication that, having located one mine, they were less cautious. The opposite was true. Knowing the area had been booby-trapped, they seemed twice as vigilant. It was a relief when they finally reached the fence.

  Ludlow went about his business with the wire cutters. Through his IR sight, Danny could see that this part of the fence had already been breached. Rather than rolls of razor wire, it was patched with single strips of cable, easily snipped. Ludlow did just this, and in less than a minute he’d opened up a gateway from Lebanon into Syria.

  Their work wasn’t done. It was possible there were mines on the far side of the border too. Rollett and Ludlow continued their minesweeping. Danny lowered his weapon and ran back towards the road. He found Guerrero lying prostrate on the brow of a small hillock, watching the road and its surroundings. ‘We’re through,’ Danny said.

  ‘They find anything that goes bang?’

  ‘Yeah. They’re sweeping the Syrian side now.’

  Guerrero got to his feet. ‘Funny kind of way,’ he said, ‘locating a mine is a good thing. It means the border patrols are less likely to be in this area.’

  ‘That’s one way to look at it.’

  Guerrero grinned and held up his fist. Danny gave him a fist bump. ‘Any time you’re looking for work, Danny, you know where to come, right?’

  ‘Right.’ Danny smiled.

  They jogged back to the Hilux. Barak was still waiting for them in the back seat. Rollett and Ludlow were ten metres beyond the border, still minesweeping. Guerrero took the wheel. Danny jogged along the path between the white lines. He slowed up as he approached the white circle on the ground where Ludlow had marked the mine. The proximity of the device made his skin prickle, but he stood his ground as Guerrero drove in his direction and, at Danny’s marshalling, round the dangerous patch of ground. Once Guerrero had cleared the landmine, Danny jogged after the vehicle. As he drew close to the border, he saw rolls of razor wire that had been cut away from the fence on either side of the white lines, rusting, sharp and evil. And as the Hilux trundled over the border, he stopped for a moment. One more pace and he’d be back in Syria. It wasn’t a country that held good memories for him.

  But the trail he was following led in this direction. He took the step. Lebanon was behind him now.

  Rollett and Ludlow were returning to the Hilux. ‘We’re clear,’ they called. They replaced their gear in the back of the vehicle and everyone retook their seats.

  ‘Good work, guys,’ Guerrero said as he turned the engine over. ‘Barak, give me the coordinates of the lying-up point?’

  Barak handed him a slip of paper. ‘It is about one hour,’ he said, speaking quietly as if there was a chance of being overheard. ‘Continue east from here. If we head in a straight line, we will not meet any roads.’

  For the first time in the journey, Guerrero turned his attention to the GPS unit on the dashboard. He added the coordinates. The display gave him a bearing of 43 degrees and a distance of 43.8 klicks. There was no map. Guerrero edged the vehicle forward and adjusted its direction so they were heading towards the lying-up point. Then he brought his night-vision goggles down from his helmet.

  The team headed further into Syrian territory. Danny tried to clear his head, but somehow couldn’t. He thought of the colonel, drunk and blustering in his austere mansion, surrounded by armed guards but weirdly alone. He thought of Christina and Danny Jr, holed up out of the way, hoping they were anonymous enough and safe enough to stay beyond Ibrahim Khan’s reach. And he thought of Bethany, lying low in a bleak Beirut hotel room, waiting for Danny to return with intel on the man who wanted to kill her. Was she really as well hidden as he’d hoped?

  He felt a moment of crushing uncertainty. In one part of his mind, he knew he was following the right – the only – lead. In another part of his mind, he couldn’t shake the feeling that here, in the vastness of the Syrian countryside, he was looking for a needle in a haystack. Khan was just one man, and the world was big. What if right now he was two thousand miles away, hiding out on the bleak moors of the Brecon Beacons? What if he was hunting his quarry on the streets of Beirut?

  ‘You’re looking pensive, friend,’ Guerrero said. ‘Want to tell us all what you’re thinking?’

  Danny didn’t. ‘Just drive,’ he said.

  It was 23.00 in the UK, and the colonel was drunk. He always was at this time of day, and indeed at any time of day. Each morning he woke in fear: the cold, debilitating fear that can only be felt by a person who knows his life is under threat.

  At first a couple of mouthfuls of Scotch with breakfast was enough to help him rationalise his fear. Ibrahim Khan wouldn’t really be interested in him. The little bastard had just been settling scores with a few SAS men who’d given him some stick. Those Hereford fellows were little more than legalised hooligans anyway. And, the colonel persuaded himself, Khan wasn’t that skilful an operator. Just some jumped-up little towelhead who thought he was good with a gun.

  Gradually, though, those two mouthfuls of whisky weren’t enough. They wore off quickly and the doubts kept creeping in. Why would the security services put three armed guards on his doorstep, unless they genuinely thought his life was at risk? Those chaps were under-resourced enough as it was. It took a half bottle to beat that thought into submission, and to keep him sane through the long, slow afternoons.

  But night-time was the worst. The house was old. It creaked. And once the sun had set, in the colonel’s head every creak was a footstep, coming nearer. He spent every evening in his drawing room, cocooned by Glenfiddich, Bach, and the knowledge that an armed guard was permanently stationed at the door. At ten o’clock he would stagger up to bed and lock himself into his bedroom. His guards assured him they had the landing covered all night, but he suspected they slept for at least some of it. As the effects o
f the whisky wore off, and the fear mounted in his thorax, he would sit at the window, one finger parting the yellowing net curtains, and stare out across the countryside.

  He was there now. His room was dim, lit only by a bedside lamp with a low-wattage bulb. He could see more of his reflection in the window than he could of the outside. His red, jowly face and haunted eyes. It was hardly a face he recognised. He’d been a soldier once, lean and eager to hunt. But now the soldiering in his blood had been replaced by booze.

  The colonel was staring at that strangely unfamiliar reflection, more than at his extensive grounds, when he thought he saw movement in his peripheral vision. A cold electric shock of fear zapped through him. He pulled his finger back from the net curtains and let them shut. He tried to breathe in and found that, for a moment, his lungs were refusing the intake of air. He could hear the crunch of hurried footsteps on the gravel below his window. He staggered over to his bed and, for some reason he couldn’t quite fathom, fumbled at the beside light and switched it off.

  Darkness. Silence. He didn’t know if it made him feel better or worse. There was a faint cracking sound from the ceiling. That was just the natural movement of the house, he told himself. There was only the loft above him. Then his eyes were drawn to the loft hatch in the ceiling, and what started out as a comforting thought became chilling. He was paralysed with fear, unable to move from the edge of his bed, his skin clammy and his stomach sick. He thought he could hear movement in the corridor outside. Footsteps, getting louder. For some reason he thought of Bethany White, and that damn arrogant SAS man who had visited for the precise purpose of putting the shits up him. The colonel could hear his voice now. MI6 offered you a safe house? You should take it. Make the call now. Get out of here. Tonight.

  Damn, right now he wished he had.

  The footsteps stopped outside his room. Silence again. The colonel’s hands were shaking. He clenched his fists to try to steady them, but then the room started to spin. Booze or terror, he didn’t know.