The second impact destroyed the tyres in the main landing gear, each one bursting like a gunshot. The surface of the track began to break and churn as the Airbus’s brakes and thrust-reverser fought to slow it down. But with its mass unbalanced by the loss of one engine, the plane skidded and the nose veered off the road.
The forward landing gear crumpled and snapped clean off, forcing the nose into the ground. Kinetic force instantly transferred down the length of the fuselage and the Airbus shuddered into a hard yaw motion, flicking the port wing back and up while the ruined starboard wing dug into the ground and tore open.
For a moment, the jet rocked off to the right and then collapsed back into the deep gouge it had made in the dark earth. Washes of unspent aviation fuel sprayed across the hull and the ground, turning it to toxic mud. Inside the ruined engine, the hungry fires took on new life.
*
‘Get them out!’ Ari shouted at Marc, and the Englishman gave a distant nod, freeing himself from his straps. The younger man’s face was a mask of blood and he seemed dazed, but he was alive and he could move, and for Ari Silber the most urgent thing right now was to make sure his people were safe. ‘Go!’
‘Okay.’ Marc staggered towards the cabin door. ‘You . . . coming?’
‘Right behind you,’ he lied. ‘Remember to talk to Vada.’ He choked on his wife’s name.
He listened to the thuds and bangs as Marc vanished down the length of the jet. He could see from the panel that one of the rear exits had already been deployed.
‘Lucy,’ he said to the air, tasting copper in his mouth. ‘You two, you’ll work it out.’
Now he was alone, Ari dared to look down at the puddle of sticky crimson pooling in the footwell beneath his seat. The hot, throbbing pain in his thigh was breathtaking.
His life was leaking out; his own aircraft had killed him, and that seemed funny. Ari managed a laugh amid the tears streaming down his face.
He could see the piece of metal, the shard of turbine blade that had knifed through the canopy and lodged in him. The femoral artery was down there, he recalled from field medical training.
A man takes that hit, his instructor had said, call the rabbi, not the medic.
It was a very, very bad hit. He could smell it, the blood along with the fuel-stink and the smoke. Was he going to burn before he bled out? Which would be the quickest?
He pictured Vada, Ezra and Leah, and under his breath Ari whispered the words of the Shema and the Verses of Unity. He wanted to tell them how sorry he was.
But the fire was coming.
EIGHTEEN
The sun had only been above the horizon for an hour, but the streets of Djibouti were active. It was a market day, and trains of women in headdresses and brightly coloured clothing thronged back and forth. Many carried bundles, bound to sell or trade, most of them heading towards the harbour to meet up with boats coming in from Yemen, neighbouring Somalia or ports further afield along the Red Sea corridor.
Observing from the upper floor of a crumbling two-storey colonial building, Saito scanned the pedestrians for any sign of the final arrival. It was a testament to her ability to blend in that he did not notice her until she was walking up to the door directly beneath him.
The woman who called herself Grace looked up, peeling back a length of bright orange cloth to reveal her face. She smiled as if she had scored a point from him, and inclined her head.
‘She’s here,’ he called, and from below he heard Cord reply in the affirmative.
Saito closed the blinds and walked back to the inner balcony as Grace strode in below. The building had once been a hotel of some kind, with a cafe on the ground floor, but that had been gutted and boarded up. The open lower level made it an ideal staging area for operations in the Horn of Africa, and Saito had used it before. The locals knew well enough to ignore any foreign visitors who passed through, and bribes to the police kept it out of the public interest.
Grace shed the rest of her garb as she walked, revealing desert-shade tactical gear beneath it. A pistol hung from her hip in a low-visibility holster, and Saito saw that she also carried a combat dagger in a forearm sheath.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she began, in a flat, unreadable accent. ‘Traffic.’
Cord gave a grunt that could have been his equivalent of a laugh. His companion, the one Saito knew as Vine, threw the woman a nod of greeting. It was less than a week since the three of them had been deployed for the operation in Cyprus, but none of them commented on it. Saito didn’t expect the sort of barrack room chatter common to other mercenary units. The Combine didn’t employ those kinds of people, preferring to work with professionals at the more reticent end of the spectrum. Money paid for silence.
Still, Grace could not resist giving him another of those smiles.
‘You called, I came, Jackie Chan. It was hard to resist the offer of a bonus that big.’
‘She must be good.’ A figure stepped into the room from the rear of the building, tall and imposing even in the careworn robe he wore. Omar Khadir looked the woman up and down, measuring her for purpose. ‘If the Russian thinks we need her.’
‘Glovkonin knows quality,’ said Grace, briefly shifting to a pitch-perfect Muscovite intonation. ‘What can I say? I am impressive.’
Khadir glanced up at Saito, then away.
‘Indeed.’ He walked to the middle of the room, where hard-case crates containing weapons and other gear had been neatly stacked. ‘As we are here, can we begin?’
‘Sure, whatever.’
Grace’s pronunciation became mid-American as she sat heavily on an old chair and drained a bottle of water. Cord made his grunting noise again.
Saito glanced across the group.
‘You will travel to Harare under one-time snap cover identities.’ Off his nod, Cord distributed plastic packets containing passports, money, credit cards and pocket litter. ‘Our contact in Zimbabwe has an aircraft prepared for your use. Crew will be provided.’
‘Copy that,’ said Vine.
‘Khadir maintains operational control on the ground,’ Saito continued. ‘Your team will cross the border into Mozambique, and commence an active search to trace any members of the Rubicon Special Conditions Division who may still be alive. The location of the crash site and details of the surrounding area are in your packets . . . I will follow in two days.’
‘Is there confirmation that anyone survived the crash?’ Cord flicked through the pages, coming across a blurry satellite image of burning wreckage. ‘We don’t want to deploy for nothing.’
‘Confirmation is what you are going to deliver,’ said Saito.
‘Say we find survivors, what then?’ Vine looked towards Khadir. ‘We do them quietly, or does there need to be some theatre? Are we sending a message?’
‘We will proceed as circumstances permit,’ said the Arab.
‘To be clear, locating any Rubicon personnel is a means to an end. The main priority is to find the concealed storage facility they are looking for. Use whatever means that will give you that information.’ Saito paused, allowing the orders to bed in. Torture was a tool he considered to be unreliable and highly distasteful, but he knew his opinions would be of little interest to this audience. ‘Other, non-kinetic assets are searching for the same location through supplementary methods. You will be updated if those avenues prove successful.’
‘And when we find this facility?’ Grace cocked her head again.
Khadir answered for him. ‘We secure the contents and kill whomever is left.’ He glanced at Grace and the other men. ‘I have one additional stipulation. If Ekko Solomon is there, I will be the one to end him.’
His tone made it clear that this was not to be questioned.
‘You got a personal beef?’ Grace was just on the right side of mockery. ‘Oh yeah, I heard about that. His people fucked up your big showstopper back in DC, right? Guess you owe him.’
‘Every effort is to be made to take Solomon alive,’ Saito
insisted, drawing a hard look from Khadir. ‘Personal considerations are irrelevant. Is that understood?’
At length, the Arab gave a sullen nod.
‘Very well.’
‘Gather your equipment,’ said Saito, cutting off any further conversation. ‘A van will be here to pick you up in forty minutes.’
Awkwardly, he made his way back to another of the upper rooms. The heat of the day did not do well with the injuries that had forced him out of the field, sending jagged tics of discomfort up from the bullet splinters lodged in his flesh. Saito dry-swallowed a couple of painkillers and walked back to the shuttered window.
Behind him, the floorboards creaked as someone approached. He didn’t need to turn around to know Khadir had followed him.
‘There are some further details,’ he said. ‘For your attention only.’
‘I assumed as much,’ noted Khadir. ‘The Russian is fond of nesting his plans inside one another. Like those toy dolls.’ He took a breath, controlling his simmering anger. ‘I was promised the kill, Saito.’
‘And you will have it. But on Glovkonin’s terms, not yours.’ He paused. It offended Saito to be the conduit for the Russian’s deceits, but he had little choice but to do as he was told. He lowered his voice. ‘Glovkonin feels that the woman, Grace, is a liability. She is loyal only to herself.’
‘Unlike us,’ Khadir said quietly. ‘I, loyal to my rage. You, loyal to your duty. Both of us trapped by our own natures.’ He smiled thinly, and looked down at his hands. ‘But unlike you, I can be freed from my burden. When Solomon dies that debt will be paid in full.’
‘He may be dead already,’ countered Saito, tamping down his irritation. ‘Our reports on the crash are incomplete, but it is clear the aircraft was incinerated.’
‘I choose to hope he survived,’ said Khadir. ‘Fate owes me the opportunity to be the instrument of his murder.’ He eyed Saito. ‘What happens to you when Rubicon is no more? Ah. Nothing, of course. You will remain locked in your path, obeying Glovkonin’s orders no matter how objectionable you find them.’
‘As you say,’ Saito replied, ‘I am loyal to my duty.’
‘What does he have over you?’ Khadir said softly. ‘It must be compelling.’
‘You will never know.’
At length, Khadir saw that Saito would not rise to his bait, so he let the point lie.
‘If the Russian wants the woman dealt with, then why bring her out here and promise her money? There are easier ways.’ He mimed a throat-slitting action.
‘She has proven useful,’ Saito admitted. ‘But someone whose allegiance is easily bought must be kept in sight at all times. When – if – you find Solomon’s people, he wishes you to dispatch her then.’
‘I see the reasoning.’ Khadir nodded to himself. ‘Leave her with them. Make it appear as if they were allies. That will serve the Combine’s ends.’
‘In the end, everything does.’
Saito experienced a moment of bleak clarity, a sense that he was trapped in a tunnel with walls closing in on him, forced to move deeper and deeper into the dark. Locked in his path.
*
The nameless hamlet was little more than a cluster of tin-roofed shacks arranged in a rough grid around the eastern road, but it was the first thing approaching safe harbour any of them had seen all night, and silently they decided to take their chances there.
Under cover of darkness, they crossed into Cabo Delgado Province aboard a truck bartered for one of their assault rifles and a few magazines of ammunition. The fires from the crash lit up the sky, and burned around the tip of the low hill where the Airbus had finally come to rest after running out of roadway. Even now, the distant glow was still visible far behind them.
They stank of sweat, smoke and aviation fuel, crammed together inside a dilapidated barn on the edge of the dusty township. What they had among them was what had been carried out of the crashed jet on their backs. A few guns, some equipment, the contents of a couple of survival kits. Nothing else remained.
With each blow the Combine had scored against them, more and more had been stripped away. Now they counted one of their own in those losses.
Ari Silber had saved their lives. The veteran pilot had put the Airbus down in one piece, well enough that Marc, Lucy and the others were out of the wreck and free before they realised he wasn’t coming after them.
The downed jet was already in flames as Marc tried to climb back up the emergency slide, but then the fire came over the top of the fuselage in thick orange talons and he knew it was too late for his friend.
He heard one of the FAM MiG-21s make a low pass to confirm the crash and then thunder away to the south. Marc stood there, rooted to the spot as the inferno consumed the crash site, until Malte came and pulled him away from the searing heat, and into the night.
People would come, Solomon told them, and it would not do to be here when they arrived.
Lucy took point and they formed into a ragged line, Solomon following her with Assim a few steps behind, Mark and Malte taking up the rear. Everyone had a weapon, for what it was worth, but Assim was only too happy to give up his when they made the trade down on the road.
No one spoke. There was nothing any one of them could say, nothing that wouldn’t have seemed trite or pointless. A brave man was dead, and they were stranded here, in a wilderness that was unknown to all but one of them.
The truck was low on fuel when they found the hamlet, and they had only dead reckoning to guess they were heading in the right direction. They needed a map, they needed petrol and they needed rest.
When Malte slipped the truck into cover behind the shack, the five of them moved inside and found places to bed down. The Finn took the first watch, and Lucy the second. When Marc awoke for his turn before dawn, he thought he heard her swallow a faint sob.
‘I’ll take it from here,’ he whispered, finding her in the back of the truck. ‘Get some shut-eye.’
‘Don’t know if I want to.’
Lucy leaned into him and Marc put his arm around her, drawing her close. In their shared moment of loss, the simple act of human connection comforted them both.
She looked up at him and gave a rueful nod.
‘Someone is going to have to tell his wife.’
‘Vada.’ Marc still felt heavy-headed from the blow he’d suffered in the cockpit. In his dazed state, he hadn’t understood what Ari had been saying to him, but now he did. ‘I think he knew, Lucy. He knew he was done.’
‘Ari hauled us out of trouble more times than I could count,’ she said softly. ‘We couldn’t do the same for him.’
‘He was one of the good ones.’
Marc stumbled over the words and stopped. That was the truth, and there was nothing else to add to it. They had both buried enough friends to know that sometimes, no more needed to be said.
For a long while they held each other in silence, neither one wanting to break the embrace and let the moment end. This felt like safety, like certainty, even if that was an illusion.
Then at length, Lucy took a ragged breath and pulled away from him. She handed Marc the FN SCAR rifle she had strapped across her back, formally turning over guard duty.
‘Sun’ll be up soon,’ she said, shifting back to business. ‘Haven’t seen any people yet, but I heard someone moving around about an hour ago, off to the west.’
Marc took the gun and checked it over.
‘Could be a problem?’
‘Never can tell.’
She moved to the back of the truck, but someone else was already there.
‘These people will not trouble us if we do not interfere with their lives.’ Solomon stood in the shadows, staring out towards the predawn glow on the horizon. He was wearing Malte’s dusty combat jacket over his cotton shirt and his ruined Savile Row slacks. ‘We must move on as soon as possible, for their sake as well as ours.’
‘Couldn’t sleep?’ said Marc.
Solomon shook his head. He looked to Lucy.
‘Would you join me for a walk, if you are not too tired?’
‘Sure.’ She stifled a yawn as she pulled out her denim shirt, concealing the Walther P99 pistol in the back of her belt. ‘Where are we going?’
‘We need a few items,’ said Solomon, as the two of them walked off towards the centre of the township.
*
Marc spotted a few local children as the sun came up, a cluster of skinny young boys with a tattered football who played some half-hearted goal practice as an excuse to scope out the truck. When they saw Marc in the back with the rifle, they decided to keep their distance, and so far no one else had come looking.
The others had not returned by the time Malte came out to take over, and despite his misgivings, Marc reluctantly returned to the abandoned barn.
Inside, the air was thick and unmoving and it smelled of animals. Assim, who had been running on adrenaline and caffeine for pretty much most of the last week, had finally lost his match with exhaustion. The Saudi hacker lay sprawled in an uncomfortable pose, all arms and legs like a scrawny, dozing cat. He snored gently, lost to the world, and Marc was unexpectedly jealous.
He instinctively knew what he would see if he closed his eyes. Fire and dust. Darkness and smoke.
He drank some water and made himself useful checking over the gear that had come with them after the crash landing. Marc’s laptop was hooked up to a solar trickle charger wedged in between two wooden planks, and he saw that Assim had manage to jury-rig a satellite comms unit from two backup modules.
He unfolded a field antenna dish that looked like a collapsible pocket umbrella, and hooked it up, aiming it into the sky through a hole in the sheet metal roof. Within a few minutes, Marc was able to remotely access the internet via an orbiting telecommunications cluster, and he armoured his virtual self with layers of masking proxies that would hide his real-world location from any snoopers.
Marc Dane had been in this place before. Cut off from support, considered a criminal on the run.
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