Black Ops

by Chris Ryan

  The approach to the colonel’s house on the outskirts of Brynmawr was a single-lane road that zig-zagged through the countryside as it approached the target location. Busby was obliged to have the lights on full beam just to see through the torrential rain. The thundering of the water on the roof of the car was a distraction that forced him to concentrate on the road even harder. He hit the brakes quite suddenly as the headlights reflected off the brake-light glass and number plate of a Range Rover on the side of the road. There was something about it that didn’t look right. It was parked at an angle, the front of the vehicle almost nudging into the ditch at the side of the road. It had been parked carelessly or in a hurry. And it was only when he came to a complete halt that his headlights picked up the body lying in the middle of the road.

  ‘Fuck,’ Billy Forman muttered.

  The team automatically slipped into a wordless routine. Each guy opened his door. Billy, Kieran and Cleghorn engaged their weapons and panned the area, while Busby – instantly saturated by the rain – ran up to the body. It was lying on its front. Busby rolled it over on to its back. The man’s face was fixed into a grin of horror. The skin was waxy and ice-cold. Busby quickly scanned down the body and clocked a vertical cut through his clothing and into his abdomen. The wound was a sickening mess of rainwater, blood and innards. Lower down the body he saw that the legs appeared to be crushed beneath the knee. He could read clearly what had happened: a vehicle had driven over the body in its hurry to get to the house. He noticed a holster around his chest. It was empty. Someone had taken its contents. He sprinted back to the SUV and shouted at his mates to get back in. They were all soaked. Knowing the water would quickly condense against the windscreen, he blasted it with hot air and then killed the headlights so they had a better chance of approaching unseen. He hit the accelerator and the vehicle bumped as it drove over the corpse, crushing it for a second time.

  The rain gave them one advantage: it camouflaged the noise of the engine as the SUV approached the house. But visibility was still poor and it wasn’t until another flash of sheet lightning lit up the way that they saw the outline of a set of iron gates twenty metres up ahead. The gates were open and in the moment that the lightning flashed, Busby saw the dark shape of another crumpled figure on the floor. He knew, instinctively, that there was no point checking this one for signs of life.

  He killed the engine. The unit swiftly exited the vehicle, climbing back out into the solid rain. Busby jabbed one finger at himself and Billy Forman. They advanced, weapons raised, to either side of the gates while Kieran and Cleghorn covered them from the SUV. Once they’d reached the gates, they waited while the others advanced past them. Cleghorn ran the twenty metres to the front entrance of the building. Kieran headed to an oversized stone holder with ornate feet and crouched on one knee in the firing position, covering the entrance. Cleghorn raised one hand to indicate that Busby and Forman could advance.

  Busby couldn’t have been wetter if he’d jumped in a lake. He and Forman advanced relentlessly to the front door. It was ajar, and a dim light spilled from it.

  The two blades entered together, quickly and silently. They checked to left and right of the doorway. Clear. They were in a long entrance hall. It was dark. No sign of personnel but, ten metres along and to the right, an open door into a room which was the only source of light. The light flickered somewhat: Busby could tell there was a fire in there.

  They advanced in absolute silence. When they reached the room, each guy took up position on either side of the door. There was music playing – some classical shit – and looking in, Busby could see an overweight male figure sitting on a chair in front of the fire. He was tied there. His head was leaning back and there was something unrecognisable on the floor.

  Kieran and Cleghorn were approaching along the corridor. Busby waved a finger at them to indicate they should check the house. They moved silently further along the hallway. Busby was a hardened soldier, but even he had an icy sensation in his blood as he and Forman entered the room, checking the corners for threats, and approached the figure in the chair.

  ‘Jesus,’ he whispered, and put one hand over his mouth and nose. Forman said nothing.

  The corpse’s eyes were two wounds. The eyeballs were still in their sockets but they were gouged and mangled. Blood had dripped down the cheeks and started to congeal in patches that made him look like a horrific weeping clown. His mouth was open, as though in a silent scream. The unrecognisable mass on the floor comprised the corpse’s guts. Years ago, in Afghanistan, Busby had encountered a local woman with a bad stomach wound. Her intestine had bulged out like an inflated balloon and Busby had stuffed it back inside while he waited for the medics to come. There was no chance of that here. Intestines, stomach, even a flash of liver: the corpse’s offal was more outside than in. The smell was unbearable. Somewhere in the background was a hint of stale alcohol. But the predominant stench was of semi-digested food and half-processed human faeces, warmed by the heat of the fire. It made Busby gag.

  He moved over to the stereo system and killed the music. Now all he could hear was rain and thunder. Forman seemed weirdly transfixed by the sight of the corpse. And when Kieran and Cleghorn entered, their blunt professionalism was marred by their inability to keep their eyes from it.

  ‘The place is empty,’ Cleghorn said. He sounded distracted.

  ‘You sure?’ No reply. ‘Cleghorn, are you sure?’

  ‘A hundred per cent. There’s nobody here. It’s empty.’

  Busby nodded. He looked at Kieran. ‘Get on to Hereford,’ he said. ‘Tell them Colonel Henry Bishop is dead.’ He frowned. He remembered the vehicle by the side of the road on the way in. But there was no second vehicle outside the house. The killer would only have approached such a remote location by car, and the CP team would have had at least one vehicle between them. ‘And tell them Bethany White has left the crime scene. She’s in a car. She has knives and at least one handgun. That’s all we know.’ He gave the corpse another disgusted glance. ‘Photograph him,’ he said, ‘and the other bodies. And then let’s get the fuck out of here.’

  There was no let-up in the rain. The last time Danny made this journey, only days ago, it was through a swirling blizzard. The lack of visibility hadn’t mattered then and it didn’t matter now. He knew these roads intimately. He just wished he could push his vehicle faster.

  But he was getting close now. The narrow road off Heol Beili Glas took a gentle swerve to the left, then sloped uphill. Before he reached the brow, Danny killed the engine. The safe house was situated in a gentle valley, about a football-pitch length beyond the brow of the hill. If he was to approach covertly, it would have to be on foot.

  He checked his weapon, then looked at the CO’s phone. No service. He checked the sky. No sign of the Regiment’s chopper approaching. He wasn’t even certain they would risk flying in these conditions.

  Danny was on his own.

  He exited the vehicle and approached the brow of the hill, back arched, weapon in his right hand. His clothes were soaked in seconds. Rain dripped into his eyes. He wiped it out then got on all fours and crawled, an invisible figure at the brow of the hill. He looked down at the safe house, fifty metres away.

  The ground-floor lights were on. They glowed through the downpour. Danny wished he had some optics but he had to rely on the naked eye to survey the place. He squinted through the rain. There were two vehicles there, parked almost side by side. He could see they were both pointing away from the house, though he couldn’t discern their make or model. He remembered his previous visit. The security guys’ black SUV had been parked out front, but that was the only vehicle. Two cars meant somebody else had arrived. He had a good idea who that might be.

  The night was dark and the rain offered decent cover. Danny moved on to the rough ground by the side of the road and started to jog down the incline towards the house. More detail came into view. The outline of the two cars. The door of the house, slightly ajar with a na
rrow strip of light escaping from the door frame. But the rain, which fell so hard now it stung his face, still blurred his vision. He couldn’t make out everything he wanted.

  Distance to the house: thirty metres. The door opened and a figure appeared. Danny hit the ground – sodden, marshy grass. He peered through the rain, trying to discern who it was, but his vision was too compromised by the elements. Male or female? He wasn’t sure. The figure ran to one of the vehicles, opened the driver’s door and started the engine. Headlights flared. The figure ran back into the house, leaving the door wide open. Whoever it was, they were preparing to leave.

  Danny jumped to his feet again. He sprinted closer to the house, his clothes and boots heavy with rain. The other vehicle, the one whose engine was not turning over, was in his path. Only when he was five metres away did he see something lying alongside it.

  A body, face down in the rain.

  Movement at the doorway to the house. Danny scrambled down next to the body, where the vehicle blocked him from view. Carefully, knowing the sound of his movements was camouflaged by the sound of the rain, he turned the body on its back. It was almost as if nature wanted to provide him with a flashlight, because at that moment the sky lit up and Danny recognised Frank, the good-natured CP guy. His throat was cut, his eyes rain-filled and glassy. There was no point checking his pulse.

  An immense crack of thunder split the air. Danny carefully peered round the corner of the car. He was just in time to make out two figures – an adult and a child. It was a split-second vision, but he had a sense of the adult hurrying the child towards the car before they slipped out of view.

  His face was set, his jaw clenched, his fist clutching the handgun. Still crouching, he moved round the back end of the car. He was no more than five metres from the other vehicle, and the figures. The adult – Danny could see now it was a woman – had her back to him. She was leaning into the rear passenger seat, as though strapping the child into the back. She was unsuitably dressed for the rain – just jeans and a long-sleeved top – but Danny could instantly tell it wasn’t Bethany.

  It was the hair that did it. Bethany was blonde. This woman had dark hair. It was Christina.

  Had she overcome Bethany? Was his target still somewhere in the house? He had to know. He stood up and silently strode over to where Christina was just straightening up.

  He knew, as he put one hand on her shoulder, that he’d made a terrible mistake. The kid, tearful, was in the back seat, but on the far side. Whatever Christina had been doing, she wasn’t strapping him in.

  And as she spun round, it suddenly made sense. The hair was dark, but the face was Bethany White’s. And she was spinning round not to reveal herself, but to provide her body with extra momentum. She’d grabbed something from the back seat – a heavy car jack – and was swinging it round into the side of Danny’s face.

  His reflexes were good, but not fast enough to recover from his initial mistake. Before he could block the movement, the car jack had connected with his cheekbone. Stunned and suddenly unable to focus, he staggered back. He felt her kick his hand. The pistol discharged harmlessly and the round went flying into the darkness. Then the car jack connected with his other cheek, even more forcefully.

  The next thing he knew he was on the ground, lying on his side. His ears were ringing, and sharp pain drilled through his head as though his skull had been cracked. He fought through the pain and pushed himself on to one elbow, looking up. His vision was blurred, half from the blow, half from the rain, but he could tell she was standing over him, just out of his reach, one arm outstretched with the handgun, the car jack still in the other. She shouted at him above the rain: ‘You should have died a long way from here, Danny Black.’

  Everything started to spin. Danny tried to respond, but the words wouldn’t come.

  ‘You were out to kill him!’ she screamed. There was a flash of lightning and Danny had a sudden sharp image of her face and her wild eyes. ‘You’re as bad as the others. He talked about you, you know? He thought you were a good guy, but you were out to kill him!’

  His vision was clearing. She raised the gun, which had been pointing at his chest, to his face. Danny knew he had a fraction of a second to respond. He lurched forward in a shaky attempt to tackle her legs, but the blows to his head had disorientated him and slowed him down. He fell short as she easily stepped back a pace. ‘This is for Ibrahim!’ she shouted, and Danny knew that this was it . . .

  But then he sensed movement from the corner of his eye, and he heard a voice. A child’s voice. ‘Stop it, Mummy!’

  The gun stayed pointed at Danny’s head, but the gunshot didn’t come.

  Then the little boy, Danny Jr, was there. He was standing between Danny and Bethany looking up at his mother, distraught and shouting: ‘Stop it, Mummy. Stop it!’

  ‘Get in the car!’ Bethany shouted. ‘Get back in the car!’

  ‘I won’t come with you,’ the little boy shouted, his voice shaking with tears. ‘Not if you hurt him. Don’t hurt him, Mummy. He’s my friend.’ And he threw himself at his mother, knocking her gun arm away.

  Danny realised he had one more chance. He lurched forwards, but his faculties were still not complete, his attempt to grab her unfocused. Bethany’s counter-attack, however, did not come from the weapon. She pushed the child to one side and smashed the car jack into Danny’s face for a third time, screaming with the effort. The impact was even harder than before. Danny heard the kid wailing, then collapsed face down in a puddle.

  He must have passed out, but for how long he didn’t know. When he came to, it was with half a mouthful of rainwater and the stench of exhaust fumes in his nose. His head had never hurt like this. Maybe something was broken. Certainly he was concussed. It was still raining hard and his body temperature had dropped. He wanted to puke, and moving his limbs seemed impossible. Somehow, though, he managed to push himself up on to one elbow and make some sense of his surroundings.

  The exhaust fumes came from Bethany White’s vehicle. It was ten metres distant and moving. Danny staggered to his feet as the vehicle accelerated away. He could just make out that there were two passengers: Bethany and the kid. And they were already too far away for him to chase on foot.

  His brain was a mess. He knew that, but for the kid’s intervention, he’d be dead. He looked through the rain up to the brow of the hill where his car was parked. Maybe he should run there, get the vehicle and make chase. Then he looked at the house. The door was still open. A sick feeling presented itself in Danny’s stomach. Bethany had come here to get her son, sure. But she was here for another reason, too. She’d been eliminating all personnel indoctrinated into the MISFIT operation, and killing them in the same way Ibrahim Khan had been killed. He knew with cold certainty that Colonel Henry Bishop was now dead at home, without any eyes. And the final thing they’d done to Khan was to burn him. Alive.

  He stared for a moment at the open door as that thought penetrated his reeling mind. Then he staggered urgently towards the house.

  Danny burst in through the front door. His vision was still blurred, but the first thing he saw was another dead body – the second CP guy, sprawled on the floor of the hallway, his blood smeared up the wall, a remnant of the struggle he’d clearly put up. And now he was out of the rain, he heard screaming. Desperate, tearful screaming from the kitchen. He staggered in that direction and practically threw himself through the door. He had to steady himself with one hand on the door frame as he took in the sight that awaited him.

  It was Christina who was screaming. The sight of Danny, bruised, bleeding and sodden, did nothing to calm her. She was tied to a kitchen chair. In her struggle to get away, the chair had toppled on to its side. As she screamed, she wriggled and writhed in an attempt to manoeuvre herself out of the kitchen, but really she was going nowhere. The old gas oven had been pulled out from the wall. Danny couldn’t see the gas pipe behind it but he knew, from the faint smell of gas in the air, that it had been cut.
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br />   And he knew, looking at the other end of the kitchen, that he only had seconds.

  A slim telephone directory had been placed in the toaster at the far end of the kitchen. As Danny looked at it, the mechanism popped up, but there was already a tendril of smoke rising from the burning paper. The telephone directory had ignited. The gas would blow at any second.

  Danny thrust himself into the room. Christina’s screaming was like a bell ringing in his agonised head. He bent over and lifted both her and the chair together. Spinning round, he saw the telephone directory burst into flame and he knew that any moment now the kitchen would be engulfed. He half ran, half jumped back towards the door, and he had barely crossed the threshold when the explosion happened.

  The noise was not great: an extreme popping sound. The force, however, was immense. Danny was thrown into the hallway. Christina and the chair fell from his arms and landed, clattering, on the dead CP guy. Danny fell too, heavily and clumsily, but managed to push himself up again despite his unsteadiness. Already there was intense heat coming from the burning kitchen. He knew that with an ignited gas source a second explosion was imminent. There was no time to release Christina from her chair. He picked her up again and ran to the exit, bursting out into the rain just as that second explosion came. It was noisier this time and Danny could tell from the heat behind him that the flames had reached the hallway. He carried on running without looking back, only stopping when he was a good thirty metres from the house. Christina had stopped screaming now, but her panicked sobbing was uncontrollable as he put her down and turned to check out the house.

  It was already an inferno. The rain did nothing to stop the flames licking from the ground-floor windows and the front door.

  ‘Oh my God. Oh my God . . .’ Christina was repeating the words to herself incessantly under her breath. Her dark hair was rain-plastered to her face, and she was shivering intensely. Danny looked to the road. He could see lights disappearing in the distance and he knew it was Bethany’s vehicle, probably a mile away already. His urge was to run to the CO’s car and make chase, but Christina was in shock. Exposure to these conditions could kill her.