Black Ops

by Chris Ryan

She stood up and stripped, peeling off the dirty clothes she’d worn since yesterday morning. She stepped into the shower cubicle. The seals were covered in mildew and the shower curtain was streaked with dried soap. Bethany didn’t care. She ran the shower as hot as it would go and thoroughly cleansed her body and hair.

  Back in the bedroom, she stood naked in front of the mirror, water dripping from her skin. A man was shouting in one of the nearby rooms. Somewhere in the distance she could hear the low beat of music. She blocked those sounds out and remained standing until her skin was dry. She towelled her hair and brushed it well, then laid out the clothes she had packed in her rucksack. There were two T-shirts, one white, one black. A clean pair of jeans. Attractive underwear. She selected a matching black set, put it on, then took her make-up bag back to the mirror. She did not, under ordinary circumstances, wear much make-up. At Fort Monckton, the MI6 training centre, they’d explained that more often than not it made a woman more conspicuous. Bethany generally aimed for the opposite effect. But not tonight. Tonight she would have eyelashes thick with mascara, statement eyebrows, full red lips and eyeliner wings. She applied it all carefully, then stood back and appraised the result. It was perfect. She looked hot.

  She chose the black T-shirt. It was a little tighter, and showed off her figure to better effect than the white one. The jeans hugged her thighs and accentuated their shapeliness. The little white pumps completed the outfit perfectly. There was a perfume bottle in her make-up bag. She didn’t apply any of the contents but she did hold it up to the light. It was slightly cloudy, which was as it should be. She stowed the bottle back in the make-up bag.

  She looked around the room. It wouldn’t do. The half-eaten packets of food on the desk looked a mess. She collected them up and put them out of sight in the bottom of the wardrobe.

  The handgun was still on the bedside table, next to the mobile phone she’d promised Danny Black she would keep switched off. Bethany considered them for a moment. The handgun was bulky. Impossible to carry it covertly in the clothes she was wearing. The wardrobe wasn’t a secure enough hiding place. She took the weapon into the shower room and lifted the top of the toilet cistern. It was only half full of water, and there was space to rest the gun on the internal mechanism. She did this, then replaced the cistern lid.

  Back in the bedroom she turned her attention to her rucksack. Apart from her British passport in the name of Tomlinson it was empty, or at least it appeared to be. She lifted the flap at the bottom to reveal the second mobile phone. She switched it on and placed her other phone in the rucksack before folding up her dirty clothes and stuffing them in. She opened up a zip on the outside of the rucksack and withdrew a thick wodge of Lebanese pounds, bound with an elastic band. She peeled off several notes, pocketed them, and returned the currency to the rucksack, which she stowed with the food in the bottom of the wardrobe.

  Bethany surveyed the room, then smoothed the bedclothes. It was hardly comfortable accommodation, but she wanted it to be as inviting as possible. She took the key from its wooden fob and put it in her back pocket, along with her Lebanese mobile. She turned the TV on, then stood at the door and listened. She could hear nobody in the corridor, so she unlocked the door, stepped outside and locked the door again behind her.

  She walked swiftly along the corridor to the stairs, hyperaware of the noises in the rooms she passed. She moved unseen down to the ground floor. From the stairwell she could see out into the reception area. The reflection of the reception guy was visible in the front window. It meant she couldn’t simply walk out unseen. So she removed her mobile phone and dialled a number. The phone emitted a ringtone. A fraction of a second later, the hotel phone rang. She saw the guy’s reflection as he moved into the adjoining room to answer it, and heard his voice on her mobile. That was her cue to exit the building. She strode through the reception and out the door. Only when she was in the street did she kill the phone call.

  It was good to be outside. She’d been cooped up in that little room for what, thirty-six hours? Bethany had deep reserves of patience, but even she was beginning to feel the strain of her enforced solitude. She walked with great confidence through this rough area, ignoring the looks she got from men and women alike. She knew where she was going, and she walked quickly to get there.

  Horsh Beirut was one of the few open spaces in this city dominated by buildings and traffic, a miniature forest surrounded by tarmac and tower blocks. Bethany had spent many a slow afternoon there, shading herself under the trees from the fierce summer sun on her frequent trips to make contact with Ibrahim. It was to Horsh Beirut that she now walked. It would be closed to the public at this time of night, of course, but she didn’t need to get in. It was the perimeter of the park that interested her. It took half an hour to reach it and another ten minutes to walk round to its northern edge. A concrete and wire fence surrounded the park, keeping people out at night, but here there was a tree with a thick trunk growing through the pavement just outside the perimeter. It was a little after midnight when she reached it, and there was a surprising amount of traffic and passing pedestrians. She loitered by the tree for a couple of minutes, waiting to be certain she was unseen, before sidling into the area between the trunk and the railings. Here, at head height, there was a deep, hollowed-out knot in the tree. Bethany reached inside. After a few seconds, her fingers touched plastic. She pulled out a ziplock bag, wrapped tightly in gaffer tape. It was slightly damp and covered in dirt. But it was there where she had left it, at least two years ago.

  Clutching the package, Bethany crossed the road and ducked into a deserted side street. Here she picked away at the gaffer tape round the package and tore into the ziplock bag. It contained three passports: one British, one French, one Armenian, all in different names. She discarded the packaging and flicked through the passports to check they were intact. The expiry dates were nine months, twelve months and fifteen months hence, and the photographs were unmistakably her, although the picture on the British passport showed her with brown hair. She slid the documents into her back pocket, relieved to have them in her possession.

  Because like any agent worth the name, Bethany White always had an exit plan.

  But not yet. The time wasn’t right.

  And anyway, the night was young.

  She headed west, to a little place she knew.

  Five minutes to midnight. Danny and Guerrero had just checked on Barak and the Syrians. Amazingly, the kid was asleep, his head on the bony lap of the goatherd. The old man had refused even to look at Danny or Guerrero. Barak was obviously scared, but making an effort not to seem so.

  ‘He’ll keep them there,’ Guerrero said as they walked along the wadi. ‘He’s in too thick with us guys now to let anybody else get their hands on them.’

  The night was still. The moon had risen and the stars seemed much brighter than the previous evening. They took their places in the Hilux, their weapons close to hand. Guerrero turned the engine over, flipped on his NV, and the Hilux crunched its way out of the wadi.

  They drove slowly and in absolute silence, guided only by the GPS unit. It was work that they’d all trained for, but still: Barak’s absence was noticeable. Without his knowledge of the terrain, they were driving blind in more ways than one. Danny constantly scanned the darkness, checking for lights or movement. He saw nothing and nobody. Somehow that only made the acrid taste of anxiety at the back of his throat more intense. The area was suspiciously deserted. Did that mean somebody was on to them? Were they being covertly tracked? Was their own black op being trumped by a black op of somebody else’s design?

  It was impossible to tell. All Danny could do was maintain his heightened state of awareness and be ready for an attack, if and when it came.

  They continued to drive slowly through the night.

  Beirut had surprised Bethany when she first started coming here. In her mind it was always synonymous with war, and it had indeed suffered its share of violence. But it was very far from bein
g the shell-shocked city under constant bombardment that she remembered from the news as a child. It was metropolitan and even, in places, subversive, if you knew where to go.

  Her destination was a nightclub called La Lanterne. The French name attracted a cosmopolitan crowd, and Bethany had never known it to be anything other than heaving, no matter what day it was. Tonight there was a queue along the pavement, and two broad-shouldered Lebanese bouncers operating a strict one-in, one-out policy. It took Bethany half an hour to gain entrance, during which time she smiled politely at the two persistent American guys in the queue who didn’t seem in the least dismayed when she failed to respond to their advances.

  The music inside the club was relentless and deafening. The lighting was neon and ultraviolet. Bethany squeezed through sweaty crowds of scantily clad clubbers towards the long bar at the far end of the club. She had to shout to make herself heard, and she paid for her vodka and tonic in cash, of course. Then she stood facing the dance floor, with her elbows on the bar, and watched.

  The dance floor was a gyrating mass of bodies, pressed close. There were men dancing with women, men with men, and women with women. She chose this club for that very reason: when it came to sexual preferences, anything was acceptable, and everybody knew why they were here.

  She sipped her drink slowly, declining several advances from men of different nationalities with a curt shake of her head. Instead, she picked out various women on the dance floor and tried to make eye contact. A tall, dark-skinned woman with a purple streak in her hair caught her gaze and smiled coquettishly. Bethany didn’t return the smile, and looked elsewhere. A white woman, wearing little more than a bikini on the top half of her body and with a full sleeve of tattoos on her left arm, made a gesture that Bethany should join her. But she had a lip ring and a stud in her nose, and was a little too short. Two younger women, barely older than eighteen, had been kissing nearby. Now they were hand in hand, and one of them made a ‘come here’ gesture to Bethany, who turned away and sipped her drink.

  It was only then she noticed the woman standing next to her.

  She was about Bethany’s height and build, and like Bethany she had blonde hair, though hers was perhaps a little longer. She was white, in her mid-twenties, and dressed to party, with a little black choker around her neck and a strappy top that revealed more than it hid. She gave Bethany a smile that pretended to be shy, but which was plainly the very opposite. And when she made a ‘would you like a drink?’ gesture, she received a smile in return that gave the same message.

  It was impossible to talk. The music was too loud. Bethany and her new companion downed their drinks quickly. Then Bethany allowed herself to be led on to the dance floor, deep into the thronging heart of the crowd. Writhing bodies tangled all around her. The bass of the music vibrated her core. Her new companion pressed herself up against her.

  They danced.

  Thirty minutes passed uneventfully as the solitary Hilux trundled across the uninhabited Syrian terrain. The GPS showed they were fifty klicks from their target.

  An hour. Thirty klicks.

  Ninety minutes. Fifteen klicks.

  ‘Stop the car,’ Danny said.

  Guerrero hit the brakes and killed the engine. ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘Does it seem weird to you? We haven’t seen anybody since we left.’

  ‘I told you, Barak knows his shit. He gave us a good route. We’re behind schedule. We need to keep going.’ He started up the Hilux again and continued to follow the trajectory marked by the GPS.

  Time check: 01.30 hrs. They were eight klicks from the target and the terrain had changed. Even in the darkness, Danny could tell the area had become greener and more fertile. The ground was softer, the low, dry scrub juicier and abundant. Guerrero had to manoeuvre the vehicle around vegetation that appeared in their path. The terrain became less undulating and gently sloping. And when the GPS indicated they were five klicks from the target, Guerrero stopped again. ‘There’s a road up ahead,’ he said. Danny exited the vehicle and used the night sight on his weapon to scan the surroundings. Guerrero was right. The road was about three hundred metres away, perfectly straight and, by Danny’s judgement, followed a north–south trajectory. The unit was approaching it from the west. Danny visualised the satellite map he’d examined on Guerrero’s laptop back in Beirut. There was just a single road heading from the south into Abadi’s compound. This was it. He estimated it would be only another kilometre before they hit the olive groves surrounding the compound. There wasn’t time to cover the ground on foot and they couldn’t drive through the groves. The road was their only option.

  Time check: 01.50 hrs.

  ‘Let’s get on to it,’ Danny said. ‘I want to hit him quickly, give us chance to get back to the wadi. We can’t wait any longer. We’ll drive to within a klick of the compound, then we’ll advance on foot.’

  Guerrero nodded his agreement. They trundled across the rough terrain, on to the road, and headed north.

  It wasn’t a well-made-up road. The ground only felt slightly different under the tyres: just as bumpy, but noisier and a little more gravelly. There were no other road users and, as Danny had predicted, they were soon surrounded by olive groves. The terrain sloped gently up on either side and the gnarled old trees were planted in regular lines.

  Distance to target: four klicks. There were now occasional outbuildings among the olive groves to the side of the road: squat stone sheds, which Danny assumed were there for machinery, or to give farm workers a place to shelter in the summer. Each time they passed one, he felt an anxious prickle of the skin. Those outbuildings were perfect cover for anybody watching the road. He told himself that Adnan Abadi’s people had no reason to be watching for them, and his confidence was bolstered by each building they passed without incident.

  Distance to target: three klicks.

  Two klicks.

  Fifteen hundred metres.

  ‘STOP!’ Danny roared suddenly.

  Because of the darkness, he only saw the bump in the road when it was five metres in front of the Hilux, and by then it was too late. Instinctively, he grabbed the steering wheel and yanked it to the right. Guerrero shouted something as the vehicle swerved, but his shout was immediately drowned out by an explosion.

  Danny knew they were fucked. The ferocity of the detonation was like nothing he’d heard or experienced before: a sickening, ear-splitting crack that jarred the bones in his body and sent a white-hot flash across his brain and vision. Or maybe that was the flare of the IED that he’d seen in the road at the very last minute, and which they’d just hit.

  The Hilux overturned. Danny thought the end was seconds away. He couldn’t see anything – nor could he do anything to prevent the inevitable. It was just a matter of self-preservation. Knowing his head was protected by the kevlar helmet, he crossed his arms over his abdomen to protect his vital organs and waited for the roof of the Hilux to hit the ground. It connected with a thump that sent another horrific jolt through his body, and filled his hearing with the sinister, angry sound of buckling metal. He felt his helmet connecting with the crushed roof of the Hilux and for a moment thought they’d come to rest in that upside-down position. But the force of the blast had been immense and the vehicle continued to roll, its chassis, from the sound of it, being crushed like tinfoil before it came to rest in an upright position again.

  Tactical thoughts punched his mind. They were fifteen hundred metres from the compound. Out of sight, but within earshot. Abadi’s people would have heard the explosion. But those thoughts were suddenly displaced by the screaming. It came from Guerrero. He was evidently in agony. The dust inside the Hilux cleared and Danny saw something he’d never forget. The driver’s side of the Hilux had taken the brunt of the blast. The door was no longer attached to the chassis, and the front of the bonnet on the driver’s side was torn and demolished. The windscreen had shattered – in the explosion he hadn’t even heard the sound of it disintegrating – and the steering col
umn was ripped away. But it was Guerrero, not the Hilux, who was in the worst state. Both legs were missing below the knee. His upper right leg was smouldering. There was a nauseating stench of burning flesh and hair. And the blood. Jesus, the blood . . .

  Guerrero was screaming inhumanely. His NV goggles were still lowered. Danny lifted them and saw an expression of insane fear and panic. He looked over his shoulder. Ludlow was dead. No question. He’d been on the same side of the car as Guerrero and had taken the full force of the blast. The skin on his face was burned away. Danny could see patches of skull and a scorched network of damaged blood vessels. A shard of jagged metal was protruding from the side of his head.

  Danny’s reaction was instinctive. He ripped his med pack from his ops vest and withdrew a tourniquet. ‘Give me yours too!’ he shouted at Rollett, who was right behind him. If Guerrero had any chance of survival, these were it. He quickly wrapped his tourniquet just above the knee of Guerrero’s left leg, which seemed to be bleeding the worst. He tightened the tensioning stick as hard as he could. Guerrero screamed even louder. That was a good sign. It meant he could feel the pain and he was breathing. Already Danny’s hands were covered in his blood, but he kept tightening the tourniquet until the bleed slowed to a gentle ooze.

  Rollett was holding out the second tourniquet. Danny grabbed it and started to apply it to the other leg, twisting hard, ignoring Guerrero’s screams.

  ‘Movement!’ Rollett barked. ‘Three o’clock!’

  ‘Put them down!’ Danny had to shout to be heard over the screaming. There was gunshot from outside. Four rounds. One of them hit the side of the vehicle. ‘PUT THEM DOWN!’

  Rollett was already on the case. He was facing sideways across the rear seats, his AK-47 raised. He released a round through the side window, which was astonishingly still intact. The glass exploded outwards and Rollett immediately followed it up with several short, targeted bursts. Danny had to trust to his companion’s skill if he was going to tend to Guerrero. He kept twisting the second tourniquet, harder and harder, until he couldn’t ratchet any more. His ears were ringing with Guerrero’s panicked screams and the deafening noise of Rollett’s AK-47. His lungs were full of smoke and the acrid stench of burned flesh and hair.