Black Ops

by Chris Ryan

  He decided to do just that.

  He grabbed the jerrycan of fuel. It was heavy, but he’d need it. He jogged to the exit, checked for threats and, seeing none, left the compound. He skirted clockwise round the perimeter, then headed west into the olive groves. Dawn was breaking, the sky lightening. It had been a long night’s work, but it wasn’t over yet. The jerrycan became increasingly difficult to carry as he ran through the stunted forest of olive trees. His energy was sapping fast but he’d been here before, in training and on ops, and that thought gave him the confidence that he was able to carry on.

  He had run for about three kilometres when he reached a deep irrigation trench running at right angles to his line of travel. Beyond it was about thirty metres of open ground before the olive groves started again. It was a good place to stop: the open ground presented a landing zone for a chopper, and he could hide in the trench. He hauled himself into it and let the jerrycan fall. Every muscle, and both lungs, burned. He gave himself a minute to recover before pulling out his sat phone.

  He knew, as soon as he switched it on, that he had a problem. The battery level indicator was low. He might only have a few seconds to talk. Certainly no more than a minute. He had to prioritise what information he imparted. He dialled his access number into Hereford. A voice answered. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘I’m three klicks west of the target location with three men down. I need an exfil. Get me the boss, now.’

  ‘Wait out . . .’

  The line hissed and crackled.

  Ten seconds passed. Twenty. A voice. Mike Williamson, CO of 22. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Ibrahim Khan is dead. He has been for six months. He didn’t kill Bullock, Armitage and Moorhouse. Bethany White is at the Hotel Faisal in Beirut. Room thirty-five. You need to apprehend her immediately. I think she’s complicit in the murders. Boss, do you copy? Boss?’

  The line was dead.

  Danny swore. He didn’t know how much intel had been transmitted. The sat phone was bricked. He had no other means of making contact with the head shed. All he could do now was wait. The Regiment wouldn’t be sending him a pick-up by day, of that he was sure. They needed the cover of night if they were to breach Syrian airspace. Danny quickly collected several armfuls of fallen olive branches and constructed a lying-up position in the ditch. He needed to keep well out of sight until nightfall.

  By the time the sun was fully above the horizon, Danny was camouflaged under a blanket of branches and foliage. His mind turned to Bethany White. Had he really been so wrong about her? Had she really played him for such a fool? She was beyond question a smart operator. But was she smart enough to outfox three SAS men, and of sufficiently strong stomach to kill them in such brutal ways?

  But something didn’t add up. Ibrahim Khan had been a highly successful double agent. In the end, his cover was blown and he’d paid the price that he must surely have known would be exacted if IS found out the truth about him. He knew the risk he ran, and so did Bethany. Why, then, would she be exacting revenge on the MISFIT personnel? Was it simply because Khan had told her how unpleasant his SAS training team had been to him? That hardly made sense. There must be more to it than that.

  He thought of Sturrock, sitting in Hereford and applying moisturiser to his manicured hands, and how insistent he was that word about the MISFIT fiasco shouldn’t leak, for fear of embarrassing MI6. But was it just fear of embarrassment, or was it something else?

  And then he thought of Ibrahim Khan himself. Subdued. Calm. Grateful for the simple kindness of a couple of chocolate bars. The young man Danny had met all those years ago had put himself out in the field and risked unimaginable danger. When the end came, his bravery and loyalty to the UK had been repaid with unspeakable horror and suffering. The video footage of Khan’s torture and death replayed itself in Danny’s mind as he lay beneath his camouflage, sweating in the heat of the morning sun. He felt an unfamiliar emotion: guilt, for having believed that Ibrahim Khan had been one of the bad guys. The opposite was true. Khan was a hero, and Danny owed it to him to find out what had happened.

  And that meant catching up with Bethany White, the woman who had tried to kill him, and almost succeeded. The woman who was responsible for the death of three SAS men and, if Danny didn’t stop her, had more killings ahead of her. Maybe she had the same opinion of Khan as Danny did. But that sure as hell didn’t put them on the same side. He wondered where she was now. Still lying low in the Hotel Faisal like he’d warned Hereford? Somehow, Danny doubted it. Beirut held no real interest for her and with Danny out of the way, she could be anywhere in the world by now. It would be down to him to find her. He couldn’t do that stuck in a ditch in the backwaters of Syria.

  He steeled himself to wait. The day couldn’t pass quickly enough.

  18

  07.00 hrs

  Bethany had learned at Fort Monckton, the secure MI6 training facility, that the first rule of counter-surveillance was deception. If you suspected somebody was watching you, the skill lay in making them look the other way. It was an elaborate game of smoke and mirrors, and she was good at it.

  When she arrived at Beirut International Airport, she headed straight to the British Airways ticket desk. Even at this early hour there was a queue, and it took twenty minutes before she reached the immaculately uniformed female assistant who gave her an air stewardess’s smile and asked how she could help. Bethany noticed the security camera on the back wall and made no attempt to shield her face from it. She brightly asked about evening flights into Heathrow, fully aware that her lips could be read by the camera, and the assistant’s computer search would be a matter of record. ‘There are seats on the six p.m., Madam, but only business class I’m afraid.’ Bethany thanked the woman, told her she would return when she’d firmed up her plans, and then left. She didn’t know for sure that MI6 would be looking for her – it would surely take several days for them to learn or even suspect that Danny Black was dead – but if they were sniffing around, that should put them off the scent.

  Now she had a choice. She wouldn’t be flying directly to London. If there was a surveillance order on her, they’d be watching the flights in from Beirut. She had to travel elsewhere first. Europe was out, as was the US. MI6 had reciprocal agreements with half of Asia and even a good proportion of Middle Eastern and African nations. But there was one country, of course, where this was by no means true.

  She headed to the Aeroflot desk.

  The queue here was half as long, but the security measures twice as stringent. Two cameras looked down on the desk. But that was okay. While MI6 had access to security camera footage for pretty much every UK-based airline around the world, Russian airlines were a very different matter. Intelligence sharing between Moscow and London was practically non-existent. She could safely land there without alerting MI6 to her whereabouts, and if anybody was looking out for her at the UK border, their eyes wouldn’t be on the Russian flights.

  Bethany used her Armenian passport to buy tickets on the 11.30 flight to Moscow. As Armenia was a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, its passport holders didn’t require a visa to enter the Russian Federation, and since Armenia was a short hop from Lebanon her purchase was unremarkable. While she waited for her flight to be called, she visited a chemist, where she bought herself a pair of cheap Jackie O sunglasses and a box of hair dye, chestnut brown. She stowed the hair dye in her bag, bought a cup of much-needed coffee and a sandwich, then headed to her gate.

  She slept on the plane as it travelled north-east. Thirty thousand feet in the air, this was one of the few places she felt she could relax. Sure, there might be difficulties at the Russian border, but there was no point stressing about that now. If she’d learned one thing, it was this: rest while you can. She covered her eyes with the complimentary blindfold and ignored the air steward’s offer of an in-flight meal. Almost before she knew it, the four-hour flight had passed and the wheels were hitting the tarmac. Local time: 17.10 hrs.

  She
experienced a twinge of anxiety as she queued at passport control. In her experience, Russian immigration officials were even less welcoming than American ones. The square-jawed man who scrupulously examined each page of her Armenian passport was no exception. He appeared disgruntled that he could find no valid reason to delay her. Bethany thanked him with a polite bol’shoy spasibo, then headed calmly out on to the arrivals concourse. There was a free internet station here. She took advantage of it, checking the time of the next flight from Moscow into a regional UK airport – not Heathrow or Gatwick, where security was that bit higher. There was a 23.30 flight into Manchester via Paris, arrival 01.00 local time. It was possible to buy tickets online, so she should be able to get one later at the desk.

  It was dark outside, and cold. Bethany waited five minutes at a taxi rank, then directed a cab to the nearby airport Novotel. She paid for one night in advance, cash, using her Armenian identity. As soon as she was in her room, she stripped, showered and washed her hair. Then she opened up her packet of hair dye and massaged it into her scalp. As she waited for the dye to do its work, she stood naked in front of the bathroom mirror. For a moment, she was transported back in time. She was in a hotel room like this, anonymous but comfortable enough. She was naked, fresh from the shower, and the door had just opened. Ibrahim had entered, also wearing nothing. He stood behind her, enclosed her body in his arms and kissed her neck.

  Bethany loved him most when he was naked. His body was fit and strong, of course, his brown skin soft. But he seemed so appealingly vulnerable. The body of a man, the aura of a child.

  ‘I want to come home,’ he’d whispered to her. ‘I don’t want to do this any more. I want to be with you, and to know my son.’

  These were the words Bethany had longed to hear. She almost didn’t dare respond, in case she said the wrong thing and he changed his mind.

  ‘Will you tell them?’ Ibrahim said.

  Bethany nodded.

  ‘And will you tell them about us? And about our son?’

  ‘No. Not yet. They won’t like it. Better to wait until they’ve sorted out a new identity for you, and a financial package. They can be petty.’

  ‘You know best,’ Ibrahim said with a smile. ‘You always know best.’ He squeezed her and she felt goose bumps all over her body.

  As she stood in the Moscow Novotel with her hair turning dark, the goose bumps returned at the memory. That was the last time she’d seen him, at least in person. It was four weeks later that a young woman bumped into her as she exited Vauxhall underground station and pressed a USB stick into her hand before disappearing into the crowd. Bethany clenched her eyes at the thought of the images that USB stick had contained. The frightened message from Ibrahim explaining how he’d been compromised. The tearful apology that he’d been forced to tell his IS tormentors all about her. And the sickening vision of the horrors inflicted on him before his death.

  She opened her eyes again. Those recollections had turned her complexion pale as death. Her eyes were like flint. For some reason, she thought of Danny Black, bare-chested in their quarters at the embassy in Beirut. She remembered the scars on his skin – so different from the perfect body of her Ibrahim – and his pathetic air of sexual expectation. It angered her and she drew several deep breaths to quell that anger, because she had enough stored up, deep inside her, for a whole lifetime.

  And she couldn’t be distracted. Because what was her love for Ibrahim worth if, now he was dead, she failed to avenge him? For his sake, for her sake, and for the sake of their child.

  She washed the dye out of her hair and pulled out the tangles with a flimsy hotel comb. Then she returned to the bedroom, opened up her British passport, and compared her reflection in a mirror to the dark-haired version of herself in the document. The resemblance was precise. She nodded with satisfaction, dressed, and headed back to the airport to buy a ticket to Manchester.

  Night fell over the olive grove. The temperature dropped. Danny waited for full darkness before cautiously moving out from his lying-up point. His muscles ached, his belly was empty and his throat was raw with thirst. But the day had at least passed without incident. Some time in the early afternoon he’d heard fast air passing somewhere in the vicinity, but there was no indication of any nearby threats. The discomfort he could deal with.

  It was a clear night. A bright moon and a full, startling canopy. He crouched down in the ditch and listened hard. The exfiltration team only knew his rough location: three klicks west of the compound. When the time came, however, they’d need a little help to pinpoint him. For now, he had to listen hard for the sound of a circling chopper.

  Time dragged. It was 23.02 hrs when he heard it – the distant but familiar sound of rotor blades on the edge of his hearing. He got to work immediately. The exfil team would doubtless be breaching Syrian airspace without permission, and they wouldn’t want to fuck around. He grabbed the jerrycan of fuel he’d confiscated from the compound and emptied most of its contents over the pile of olive branches, reserving a little to pour a two-metre trail the length of the ditch. He discarded the empty tin, then removed the waterproof matches from his ops vest. He lit one and ignited the trail. The fuel and olive branches immediately ignited and a thick, greasy pall of smoke rose into the air. Danny climbed out of the ditch, stood on the flat, open ground, and waited.

  It took the chopper less than a minute to arrive, drawn like a moth to the signalling fire. Danny stood on the flat ground of the makeshift landing zone, marshalling the chopper – a Merlin – to the ground. As soon as its landing gear touched down, a side door opened and a loadie in camouflage gear and headset ushered Danny in with an urgent gesture. Head bowed, one hand protecting his eyes from the swirling dust, Danny sprinted to the aircraft and climbed inside. The familiar stench of grease and sweat common to all military aircraft hit his senses. It was oddly comforting. The Merlin rose from the ground before the door shut, turning 180 degrees as it gained height. It had been on the ground for no more than fifteen seconds and was now accelerating west, nose dipped, lights extinguished, engines thundering. Danny glanced through the open door at the terrain below. The chopper was flying low. The expanse of olive groves was illuminated by the moon, but from this angle he had no line of sight in the direction of the compound itself. He wondered if anybody had found the scene of devastation he was deserting and he thought about Guerrero, Ludlow and Rollett and their mauled corpses. He felt a bitter taste in the back of his throat. They knew the risks they were running, but still . . . to lose men on an operation was the worst. That was three more deaths he could chalk up to Bethany White when – if – he came face to face with her again.

  The loadie was giving him a disgusted look and Danny remembered he still had Rollett’s gore plastered to his face. ‘Where are we headed?’ he roared over the noise of the engines.

  ‘Cyprus,’ the loadie shouted back. It made sense. The tiny Mediterranean island was 150 miles off the Lebanese coast and hosted a major British army base.

  ‘ETA?’ Danny asked.

  ‘Ninety minutes, all being well.’ The loadie seemed tense. Danny didn’t blame him. Syrian airspace was not a safe place to be.

  ‘I need a secure line to Hereford. Can you sort that for me?’

  ‘Not while we’re airborne. You’ll have to wait till Cyprus.’

  End of conversation. Danny suppressed a wave of frustration. There was no point succumbing to it. He put his back up against the webbing on the side of the helicopter and let the chopper carry him west.

  Buying the ticket presented no problem. Her passport was fine and she paid for her economy seat in cash. She cleared passport control without any difficulty, the Russian officials seeming far more relaxed about letting people out of the country than welcoming them in. It was when she reached the departure gate that alarm bells started to sound in her head.

  There were perhaps a hundred people waiting for the flight, but it was quiet at the gate. The occasional tannoy announcements in Russian s
eemed particularly resonant. Bethany stood apart from the others, standing close to the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked their aircraft and several others. She could see her own reflection in the glass – dark-haired and tired – and she could also see three officials, standing about ten metres behind her. They were talking quietly to each other, and one of them kept pointing in Bethany’s direction. Or was he pointing at the plane? She couldn’t quite tell.

  She inhaled slowly to quell her nerves, then glanced left and right. Apart from the people at this gate, the area was deserted. If she moved away now, she would be conspicuous. And where would she go? It was impossible to leave the airport now she was through passport control.

  Stay calm, she told herself. Nobody knows where you are. Nobody knows who you are. She turned away from the glass and went to sit next to a woman whose daughter was asleep on her lap. They smiled at each other. ‘She looks exhausted,’ Bethany said. Casual conversation would make her look less suspicious.

  ‘We should have taken the earlier flight,’ the woman said. ‘It’ll take her days to . . .’

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ An English voice over the gate tannoy. ‘I’m sorry to announce that we have a technical difficulty with our aircraft tonight. Technicians are on their way to try to resolve it, but in the meantime we’ll be unable to board. Tea and coffee will be made available while we wait.’