by Chris Ryan
Danny knew she was right. But then he thought about Bullock, Armitage and Moorhouse. He thought about the innocent woman she’d killed in Beirut. He thought about the colonel and, more acutely, his CP team. He thought about Frank and Alec, the bodyguards at the safe house. He thought about Christina, and how lucky she was to be alive.
‘It’s Hereford,’ said the guy in the balaclava. ‘We have the order to take her out.’ He stood a couple of metres to Danny’s right, watching.
‘You’re not going to kill me, Danny!’ Bethany shouted through the rain.
Danny put the gun to her head. ‘You heard the guy!’ he shouted back. ‘I have my orders.’
She smiled. ‘You’re a rare beast, Danny,’ she said. ‘You think first and shoot second. So think on this. There’s video footage of Ibrahim being tortured and killed.’
‘I’ve seen it.’
Bethany noticeably suppressed a look of surprise. ‘Then you know before they killed him, he explained everything to the camera. That the British government leaked intelligence of an IS summit to the Russians, knowing they’d happily perform an air strike on a school full of children. That it was MI6 who leaked Ibrahim’s real identity to IS when he threatened to go public?’
Danny must have let some surprise at this revelation show on his face. ‘You didn’t know that?’ Bethany actually laughed. ‘You only saw the edited highlights? And you were going to kill me anyway? Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you don’t think first.’
‘You got anything else to say?’ Danny demanded. But he didn’t feel as resolute as he sounded. He was remembering Ibrahim Khan, and thinking of everything he’d risked, and feeling nauseous at the idea MI6 might have betrayed him.
Bethany spoke again, but as she did so, she turned so that she was looking not at Danny, but at the SAS guy to his right. Danny realised she was talking not to him, but to the other guy’s helmet cam.
‘There are ten copies of that tape!’ Bethany shouted even louder, and there was a glint of triumph in her eyes. ‘Each tape is in a safety deposit box. Each deposit box is in a different country. I make a phone call once a month. If I fail to make that call, the tapes get released. Everyone – everyone – in the world will know what the British government did. Do you hear that, Sturrock? Everyone will know.’
Silence. Bethany’s shoulders were heaving. Danny kept his weapon raised. Another clap of thunder rolled overhead.
Sturrock stared up at the screen. The audio feed was poor, the voices distorted by the rain and the thunder. But they’d all understood Bethany White’s words. The operator was staring into the middle distance, as if he wished he was anywhere but there, and that he hadn’t heard what he’d heard. The DSF was staring at Sturrock. The MI6 chief’s face was pallid. He had a sick, rictus expression.
‘It’s your call, Sturrock,’ the DSF said.
Sturrock didn’t reply. He just stared.
‘Alan, you have to make the call. Danny Black needs his orders.’
Sturrock whispered something. The DSF couldn’t make it out. ‘What did you say?’
‘The bitch,’ he repeated himself.
‘What are his orders?’ the DSF pressed.
Sturrock’s eyes narrowed. He turned to the operator. ‘Can she hear me?’
‘I can make that happen, sir,’ he said.
‘Then make it happen,’ Sturrock said.
The boy had started to cry again. His wails were just on the edge of Danny’s hearing. The barrel of his handgun was centimetres from Bethany’s forehead. His arm was perfectly still and he was ready to fire. Bethany was staring straight at him. She looked almost serene, and it unnerved Danny.
‘Can you hear me?’ The black-clad SAS man was holding up a chunky radio handset. Sturrock’s voice was reedy and distorted as it came over the speaker.
Bethany turned to look at the soldier’s helmet cam again. ‘We can hear you,’ she said.
For a few seconds, nothing came over the speaker except a scratchy hiss. Then it burst into life again. ‘Black, hold your fire.’
‘I think your orders might be about to change, Danny.’
Danny lowered his weapon.
‘I don’t trust you,’ Sturrock said.
‘That makes two of us, Alan,’ Bethany replied.
‘You’ll be under constant surveillance, do you understand? If any harm comes to Christina Somers or to anyone – anyone at MI6 . . .’
‘Are you afraid I might want to pay you a visit, Alan?’
A pause.
‘If you’re even a blip on our radar, we’ll find you. If we don’t find you, we’ll find your son. He’ll be taken from you. We won’t guarantee his survival. Is that clear?’
‘It sounds like stalemate,’ Bethany said contemptuously. ‘Worthy of my father himself. How very MI6.’
‘Is that clear?’
‘Perfectly clear.’
‘Then get in the car,’ Sturrock said, ‘and drive away now.’
Bethany didn’t move. Not immediately. She kept her gaze on the helmet cam. ‘I hope you think of Ibrahim every night before you go to sleep, and every morning when you wake,’ she said. ‘He was worth more than the rest of us put together. I hope you think about what we did to him.’ She looked at Danny. ‘I know I will,’ she added.
Bethany White turned her back on him, opened the car door and sat behind the wheel. The windows were misted with condensation. As she turned on the ignition of the battered vehicle, she was just a grey blur inside.
But then there was movement in the back seat. A hand wiped the condensation from the rear passenger window, and Danny Jr’s face appeared. His eyes were raw, his expression frightened. Danny nodded at him. The kid nodded back. It was a peculiarly adult gesture, and for a moment it was as if the ghost of Ibrahim Khan was staring out at him.
The blur in the front that was Bethany White seemed to turn, but her face was still obscured, and Danny couldn’t tell if she was looking at him or not.
Then the vehicle moved. It trundled slowly across the sodden field, and returned to the road slowly. It turned back the way it had come, away from the helicopter and back towards the burning safe house. Danny watched its rear lights receding into the rain and the darkness. All around him, the SAS team were silently moving back into the chopper. Only when the lights of Bethany’s car had completely disappeared did he realise that Christina was still standing in the rain, just by the CO’s wreck of a car. The lights from the chopper cast her long shadow across the field.
They stared at each other. Did Christina feel the same about this grubby compromise as Danny did? He couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter anyway. It was what it was. It had been discussed at the highest level.
‘Will I see him again?’ Christina asked. Because of the rain, Danny couldn’t tell if she was crying or not.
He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. He walked up to her. ‘We need to leave.’
She reached out and brushed her fingertips against his cheek. Then she looked at the blood she’d wiped from his skin. Danny’s whole face throbbed and his body temperature was suddenly dropping. He took Christina lightly by the elbow and together they headed back through the rain to the helicopter, which was waiting to take them away.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Also By
Imprint Page
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Advert
&
nbsp;