Black Ops

by Chris Ryan

  The Hilux was out of action. He had no option but to move on foot.

  He scavenged ammo from the ops vest of his dead unit mates, and also Guerrero’s sat phone which was blood-smeared but hopefully still working. Then he left the road.

  The olive groves, planted in straight lines, provided a path that ran directly parallel to the road. Still carrying his rifle, Danny sprinted, breathing deeply to keep his blood aerated, and confident of his fitness. The olive trees were a blur as they passed. The thump of his footsteps and the beating of his heart seemed unnaturally loud. His thoughts were all over the place: the shock of the ambush, the fury at Barak, the horror of watching his team killed. He tried to put all that from his mind. His focus was Adnan Abadi. He hadn’t come all this way, and gone through all this, to lose his one link to Ibrahim Khan.

  The compound came into view three hundred metres up ahead. Its circular exterior wall was white and it glowed faintly in the moonlight. It was also about four metres tall: unscaleable without assistance. Where the road met the wall there was a wooden entrance gate, wide enough for two vehicles side by side, but shut and, Danny had to assume, locked.

  He reached the perimeter wall and stood silently for a minute, listening carefully. There was no sound inside the compound. If the noise of the firefight had panicked its occupants in any way, Danny heard no evidence of it. Maybe the compound was empty. Maybe Abadi had sent all his guys out to deal with the threat, and was here by himself. Whatever the situation, Danny wouldn’t know until he was inside.

  He skirted round the perimeter wall. The olive trees were planted up close to it, some within five metres. He was on the north-eastern edge when he came to a tree that, although it was no closer than the others, had branches that sprawled somewhat further. He repositioned his rifle so it was now slung across his back, then scrambled up the olive tree and along a sturdy branch that took him within three metres of the perimeter wall. He was only a couple of metres off the ground, and it was still a decent jump – up and across – to the top of the wall. Danny didn’t think about it too hard. He hurled himself to the wall and slammed against it, just managing to claw his hands over the top edge. He hauled himself up and, seconds later, jumped down into the compound. He crouched low, taking stock of his surroundings.

  He was behind a low building, perhaps twenty metres in length, made from bare breeze blocks with no visible windows. There was still absolute silence. He moved anticlockwise around the perimeter wall until he reached a position where he had line of sight on the main entrance. There were two guards about twenty-five metres away. They were both on one knee, side by side, about five metres in from the gate. One was in the firing position. The other was speaking urgently into a radio and getting no response. He dropped his radio and raised his weapon. They’d obviously heard the sounds of the ambush and subsequent firefight, but clearly didn’t know what the hell had happened out there, and were expecting the worst.

  Beyond them, parked up along the inside of the perimeter wall, were three trucks. Danny silently pressed himself against the wall of the long, low building and assessed his options. It seemed clear to him that those two guards had heard the firefight and were expecting an attack. It was equally clear to him that in all probability those two guards were the only remaining defence in the compound, otherwise there would surely be others marking the entrance. Taking these two out now was a risk, but an informed one. There was a good chance it would leave him alone in the compound with Adnan Abadi, wherever he might be.

  The guards were as good as dead, even before Danny had them in his line of sight again. He raised his weapon, set it to semi-automatic, and aligned his crosshairs with the skull of the closest guard. He moved his finger from the trigger guard to the trigger itself, inhaled, and held his breath for the moment it took to release the round. The retort of the weapon echoed across the compound as the target slumped heavily to the ground. Danny kept his cool. The second guard didn’t. Panicked by the sudden attack, he was clumsily trying to raise his own weapon while looking around blindly for the shooter. Danny released a second round, aiming this time at the chest since his head was moving. It was just as effective as the first, and the guard crumpled to a heap as the echo of the gunfire dissipated into the Syrian night.

  Silence again. Danny put himself back in the cover of the low building and waited for half a minute, his senses heightened. Everything was still. He crept quietly round to the end of the building and surveyed the compound at large. Opposite him were two adjoining buildings. Guerrero had identified them as a processing facility. Danny agreed. There was an open door on one of them, high-up windows, and an old tractor parked outside. Maybe that was where the olives were sorted or pressed. To his right, at the end of the long, low building, was a smaller unit. This had windows at eye height, and there was a dim light inside. It struck Danny as a domestic dwelling, and he decided that should be his next stopping point.

  Even though there was no sign of external threats, Danny moved stealthily. The long building cast a moon shadow. He kept in its camouflage as he pressed forward in a northerly direction, his footfall practically silent. He stopped five metres from the entrance to the target building, and listened.

  Nothing.

  Danny was just giving some thought how to best enter the building – by the main entrance, the windows, or perhaps by moving round to locate a back entrance – when suddenly the door burst open. A figure appeared, silhouetted by the light inside. The light was behind the figure, so Danny couldn’t make out his face. Whoever it was, however, had a thin frame and was plainly panicked. Danny could see his shoulders rising and falling with breathlessness. He stood there, peering out, for a few seconds. Then he ran.

  Danny assumed he was heading for the trucks. Certainly he was sprinting in the direction of the exit. It would have been simple for Danny to put him down with his rifle, but it was clear to him this wasn’t a guard. It was the person being guarded. As the target ran, Danny launched himself towards him. They connected with a brutal thump halfway to the exit. Danny heard the wind being painfully knocked from the target’s lungs as he grappled the man to the ground. He roughly rolled him on to his back, sat on his chest to immobilise him, grabbed a clump of his hair, and put one hand over his mouth. He examined his face in the moonlight. It was an elderly man, but he had a strange bumfluff beard like a teenager. He smelled bad enough to make Danny want to hold his breath. It was the little round Gandhi glasses, wonky on his face, that gave Danny a positive ID: this was the man whose photograph he had seen at the embassy in Beirut. This was Adnan Abadi.

  Abadi was trying to writhe and wriggle away, but he was thin and old and it was like restraining a child. Danny dragged him up to his feet. Abadi’s escape attempt had confirmed one thing: there were no more guards. This was a guy who had sent armed men out to defend him. If he was trying to escape alone, his defences were down. He dragged him back to the building he’d burst out of, throwing him so roughly through the open door that he ended up sprawled on the ground again. Then he kicked the door shut behind him and took in his surroundings.

  The front door entered on to a large room. There were carpets on the floor and what Danny presumed to be Islamic scriptures on the wall. It was dim. The light he’d seen through the window came from various candles and the screen of a laptop on an old wooden desk. There were cushions scattered around, a TV against one wall, and a door leading to the rest of the house. The intel from the UK had indicated that Abadi was a former Syrian government minister, but this didn’t look like a government minister’s dwelling. It was much simpler than that.

  ‘You speak English?’ Danny said.

  Abadi pushed himself up into a sitting position and straightened his glasses. He looked glazed – it crossed Danny’s mind that the old boy might even be stoned – and stroked his bumfluff beard. He nodded.

  ‘You know all your guys are dead?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘Good. So you know what’s going to happe
n to you if you don’t do exactly what I tell you. That ambush killed three of my men. I’m not feeling generous. I’m going to ask you some questions. If you don’t give me the answers I want, I’ll kill you and find someone who can. Do you understand?’

  ‘I understand,’ Abadi said. They were the first words he’d spoken. His voice was as thin as his body, and it shook as much too. Danny knew that fear – real fear – was impossible to feign. Adnan Abadi might be stoned, but he was also fucking terrified. He looked up at Danny like he was a monster, and that suited Danny perfectly.

  ‘You know the name Ibrahim Khan?’

  Abadi stared at him.

  ‘I said . . .’

  ‘I know it,’ Abadi whispered. ‘Yes, I know it.’ He stroked the bumfluff again.

  ‘Where is he?’

  Abadi blinked at him. His eyes widened. Then, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, he started to giggle.

  For some reason, Abadi’s laughter infuriated Danny more than anything else. A surge of anger burst through him. He strode up to the old man, grabbed him with one big hand by his neck, ripped him up from the floor, and pressed him hard up a section of wall where an Islamic scripture was hanging. The scripture fell loosely over Abadi’s head and Danny had to rip it away again to look the old man in the eye. Abadi’s stench caught the back of Danny’s throat. ‘What’s the big fucking joke?’ he growled. ‘Where is he?’

  Abadi’s face was flushing. The giggling had stopped. ‘You came all the way here to find Ibrahim Khan?’ he gasped. ‘You will never find him. Ibrahim Khan is dead. He has been dead for six months.’

  Danny stared at him. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Ibrahim Khan. He was a traitor. His body was torn apart and he was burned to ash.’ Abadi’s eyes had the wild-eyed glint of a fanatic. ‘He was a traitor, and he paid a traitor’s price.’

  Danny felt lightheaded. He threw Abadi to the floor again. The old man couldn’t be telling the truth. It was an impossibility. Bullock, Armitage and Moorhouse had all been killed in the past three months. Ibrahim Khan’s DNA had been identified in Florida. Abadi was mistaken, or lying. Danny would have to turn the screw a little tighter to find out what was really going on.

  He approached again, but something made him pause. Abadi’s glasses had steamed up and he was grinning insanely at him. There was something triumphant in his face. Danny had conducted enough field interrogations to have developed an instinct about these things, and something told him that, at the very least, Adnan Abadi thought he was telling the truth.

  ‘They butchered him,’ Abadi whispered, as if taunting Danny. ‘They put him in a cage and they filled his blood with adrenaline so he was unable to pass out. They removed his ears first, so he could no longer hear the false words of the infidel. Then they took his fingers, so he was unable to fight back. They removed his genitals, to unman him, and then his eyes, because they wished him to see what was happening while they punished him. And finally they burned him alive, to return his body to the dust where it belonged.’

  Abadi’s words rang in Danny’s head. He remembered the pictures of the three SAS men’s bodies. Bullock, his ears sliced off. Armitage, his fingers removed. Moorhouse, his genitals separated from his body and lying on the carpet by the bed where he lay. Abadi was claiming that Ibrahim Khan had suffered the same brutal tortures. And he believed he was telling the truth . . .

  But if Ibrahim Khan had died six months ago, who was responsible for these killings? Who had the skill, the strength and the stomach to overpower three ex-Regiment soldiers, and carve them up in such a sickening fashion? Who had managed to misdirect MI6 and Danny himself so spectacularly?

  Adnan Abadi grinned at him, plainly enjoying his confusion. Danny could find no words. A crowd of questions ricocheted in his mind as he tried to make sense of the information Abadi had just imparted.

  But he couldn’t.

  The bedclothes were on the floor. Bethany and Sophie were still entwined on the sheet. Sophie’s kisses were as intense as they’d been all night. She showed no sign of flagging.

  Bethany suddenly knelt up on the mattress.

  ‘What is it?’ Sophie said. She looked worried.

  Bethany put a hushing finger to her lips. Then she crawled, naked, to the end of her bed, where she picked up her own bra and knickers. She handed them to Sophie. ‘Put them on,’ she whispered in her ear. Sophie looked confused. ‘It’s my thing,’ she said. ‘I want you to dress up as me.’

  Sophie bit her lower lip, smiled, and took the underwear. She wriggled into the knickers and put on the bra.

  ‘Nice,’ Bethany said. She threw her the black T-shirt.

  ‘It smells of you,’ Sophie said as she put it on. ‘I like that.’

  Bethany picked up her jeans from the floor and gave them to Sophie. She pulled them on. ‘Do you want me to do them up,’ she said, ‘or leave them undone?’

  Bethany walked round to the side of the bed and knelt on the floor next to her. ‘It’s up to you,’ she said. She leaned in to kiss her. Their lips touched and then their tongues. Bethany stroked her hand up Sophie’s thigh, over her breasts, and came to rest on the soft skin of her neck. Sophie shivered with pleasure and made no complaint when Bethany did the same with her other hand.

  And at first, when Bethany started to strangle her, Sophie almost seemed to like it. She made a little whimpering sound, and goose bumps appeared on her skin.

  Bethany pulled her mouth away from Sophie’s, both hands round her neck. Sophie’s eyes were wide. It was clear to Bethany that she was beginning to doubt that this was what she wanted. ‘Stop it,’ she whispered.

  But Bethany didn’t stop. She tightened her grip.

  Sophie’s arms started to flail. She grabbed hold of Bethany who, still naked, hauled her body on to her one-night-stand’s. With Bethany’s weight on her abdomen, there was nothing Sophie could do. Her legs kicked uselessly. She tried to scream, but she didn’t have the breath to do it, and her voice was feeble and dry. Her face was turning red, her neck thickening slightly under Bethany’s grip. Her eyes, which reflected dim, flickering light from the TV, were bulging.

  And now the flailing of her limbs was less frenetic and her eyes were rolling in their sockets. Bethany did not loosen her grip. Even after Sophie’s eyes rolled upwards and her body fell still and her breathing stopped, she kept her hands firmly round her neck, keeping them there for a full two minutes after all signs of life had gone.

  Gingerly, she released her grip, as if half-expecting the dead woman to spring back into life again. She stood up and walked, naked, to the wardrobe. She found her make-up bag in her rucksack and took it into the shower room, where she removed the make-up from her face, returning the dirty cotton-wool pads to the bag. She walked back into the room and collected Sophie’s clothes from the floor. They were too skimpy to wear around Beirut without attracting attention, so she folded them up and packed them away in the rucksack, before putting on her old clothes that she’d been wearing before going to the nightclub.

  She switched the main lights on. The woman’s body already looked cold and waxy. Then she turned her attention to the perfume bottle on the table. She carried it over to the corpse, then unstoppered it and carefully removed the pipette applicator. A drop of liquid fell from the pipette on to Sophie’s chin, where it fizzed and left an angry red mark. Taking great care not to get any of the liquid on her own skin, she trickled it from the bottle over the woman’s face. The result was instant. The skin bubbled and blistered. The liquid merged with pink body fluids and dripped down the side of the disfiguring face on to the bedclothes. The woman’s eyebrows and eyelashes burned away into nothing. An acrid, chlorinated stench filled the room and for a moment Bethany was worried that it might leach out into the corridor. But the smell faded quickly as the fizzing chemical subsided, its work done.

  The woman’s face was no longer recognisable. The skin had peeled away to reveal a mush of tissue underneath. The eyes looked as if they h
ad been gouged. The lips that Bethany had been kissing just minutes ago were strips of congealed blood melting into Sophie’s teeth. But the hair looked like Bethany’s, and the clothes were hers. Anybody coming across this sight and expecting to see Bethany would certainly assume it was her. And when they found the passport in the name of Tomlinson, which Bethany was now slipping into the back pocket of the corpse’s trousers, and reported that back to MI6, there would be no room for doubt. At least for a little while.

  She carefully stoppered the empty perfume bottle and put it back in her make-up bag. She returned the half-eaten packets of food to the table, then stowed everything else in her rucksack. By the time she was done, there was nothing in the room but the food and the body.

  Bethany listened at the door. There was silence outside. She unlocked the door, slipped into the corridor and locked it again. Rucksack on her shoulder, she headed back along the corridor and down the stairwell for a final time. She didn’t need to do her trick with the phone because the reception area was empty. She exited the hotel unseen.

  Dawn had arrived, grey and cold. The streets were almost deserted. Bethany directed herself to a very narrow side road entirely devoid of pedestrians. Here she found a drain grille and posted one of her two phones into it. She didn’t need it any more. Danny Black certainly wouldn’t be phoning, if everything had gone to plan. And if it hadn’t, she’d bought herself some time.