Hard Landing

by Stephen Leather

  'No problems,' said Shepherd.

  'Just sit back and enjoy the ride,' said Gannon.

  Carpenter hated ships. He hated the cramped rooms, the constant motion, the never-ending distant throb of massive engines. Bonnie had been nagging him for years to take her on a luxury cruise, but he'd steadfastly refused. There was a certain irony in the fact that the safest place for him had turned out to be a tanker prowling around the Atlantic.

  His place there had been arranged by Carlos Rodriguez, a Colombian with whom Carpenter had dealt for more than a decade. The Rodriguez cartel had links to the Colombian government and was one of the country's biggest and most successful cocaine and heroin dealers. The tanker had been Rodriguez's idea, a floating warehouse that went into port twice a year for maintenance, and only when it was empty. It was a quarter of a mile long with facilities for two dozen men. Drugs were flown out from South America and dropped into the sea where they were picked up by small speedboats sent out from the tanker, then taken aboard and kept in compartments at the bottom of the hold. In the event of a raid, the compartments could be emptied, sending the drugs to the bottom of the ocean, far out of reach.

  The tanker had once been owned by a Greek shipping magnate but now sailed under a Panamanian flag. Buyers, only people known to Rodriguez, paid offshore and collected from the tanker in their own boats. Rodriguez shipped drugs worth more than a quarter of a billion dollars a year through it. It was a perfect system. Usually there were only two dozen men on the vessel, a crew of ten and fourteen armed guards, and Rodriguez had vetted them all personally. It was equipped with state-of-the-art radar and sonar so that a surprise attack by the DEA or Customs was virtually impossible. But Rodriguez had more than enough law-enforcement officials on his payroll to ensure that no one took him by surprise. He was untouchable, and as long as Carpenter remained on the tanker, so was he. He was arranging for a new passport to be sent out from the UK, based on a whole new identity. The paperwork would be faultless, reflecting the premium price he was paying. Once he had it he would go to Brazil for extensive facial surgery. When his new identity was in place, he'd set about removing the old one from the Police National Computer in the UK. It would cost an arm and a leg, but it would be money well spent. Without his prints on file, he'd be able to disappear for ever.

  He'd have to stay in South America - Europe would never be safe for him and the United States would be out of bounds. But there were plenty of countries in South America where a man with money could live in privacy. Bonnie and the children could join him eventually. He would buy them new identities, and Bonnie had been suggesting she had a facelift anyway. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it was far better than twenty years behind bars.

  Carpenter appreciated the irony that his present living space was similar to his cell at HM Prison Shelton. His cabin wasn't much bigger and he had no choice in his companions. There was little natural light unless he went up on deck, and the bulkhead doors were like the cell door that had clanged shut on him at night. The food was better- Rodriguez had hired a top Argentinian chef - and he could use the well-equipped gym whenever he wanted. There were more TV channels than he had had in Shelton, too: the tanker had a state-of-the-art satellite system and a library containing thousands of DVDs. There was plenty of alcohol, too. But it was still a ship, and Carpenter hated ships.

  He was sitting in the mess, a large room with a pool table, a big-screen television and several large sofas. Five Colombians were playing poker at a card table, laughing loudly and drinking a bottle of Chivas Regal. They were playing with stacks of hundred-dollar bills and their Kalashnikovs were close at hand. The Colombians were for protection; the crew were Ukrainian.

  One of the crew came in and barked at the Colombians in fluent Spanish. He was in his fifties, his face flecked with broken blood vessels, his nose almost blue from years of hard drinking. He spoke passable English but had said barely ten words to Carpenter since he'd arrived on board. Like the rest of the crew, he seemed to resent Carpenter's presence. The only man who'd been friendly had been the captain, a guy in his thirties who wore a pristine white uniform and a peaked cap. He saw Carpenter as a chance to practise his English, but Carpenter had soon got bored with the man's interminable conversations about twentieth-century novelists and avoided him when he could.

  The Colombians got up, grabbing their weapons as they headed up to the bridge.

  Carpenter went up to the bridge. He asked the captain if he could join him. The bridge was the captain'sdomain and only the crew or invited guests were allowed in. The captain nodded. He was looking aft through a large pair of binoculars. Two other crew members were with him, monitoring the radar and sonar systems, and the five Colombians stood at the windows, their Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders, talking to each other in Spanish.

  'What's the excitement?' asked Carpenter.

  'Plane, coming from the north,' said the captain. 'It was up at thirty thousand feet but it started descending and now it's heading back this way under the cloud cover.'

  'What sort of plane?'

  'We don't know, but it's moving fast so it's not a small plane. Maybe a jet.'

  'Is it a problem?'

  'It's too big to be a seaplane and even the Americans wouldn't blow us out of the water, but it might be a spotter plane. Surveillance.'

  'DEA?'

  'Or Customs. Who knows?'

  'What will you do?'

  'Watch it. We'll only dump the gear if we see a boat approaching.'

  'How much is on board?'

  The captain grinned. 'A lot.'

  Carpenter stood up. 'If you even get a whiff of a ship heading this way, I want off this tub,' he said.

  'Don't worry. No one has ever tried boarding us at sea,' said the captain. 'We are in international waters so we are free to defend ourselves,' he chuckled, 'and we are well equipped to do that.'

  Carpenter knew he wasn't joking. The Colombians were all crack shots. He'd seen them throw oil drums into the sea and fire at them for target practice. And he'd been told that there was a major arms cache below decks with enough firepower to fend off anything short of a full military attack, including Stinger surface-to-air missiles. 'Can you see it?'

  'Not yet.' The captain turned and spoke in rapid Ukrainian to one of his crew, who answered him.

  'It's down to four thousand feet and descending,' said the captain.

  'Engine trouble?' asked Carpenter.

  'They're not broadcasting on the emergency frequency, and it looks as if they're under power,' said the captain. 'Don't worry, Mr Carpenter. One plane isn't going to do us any harm. And if it looks as though it is, we'll shoot it down.'

  The cloud was disorienting. Shepherd couldn't see more than ten feet in front of him. The parts of his face that were exposed were ice cold and the surface of the black thermal suit was soaked. His body was dry, though, and surprisingly warm.

  There was no sense of movement. He felt as if he was suspended in fog. And other than the occasional static through his earpiece, it was eerily silent. He looked up but could barely make out the black canopy above his head. It was a GQ-360 nine-cell flat ramair canopy that was designed to be virtually silent as it moved through the air. He checked his watch: forty-four minutes since he'd jumped out of the Nimrod. He checked his altimeter: eight thousand feet. They should reach the ship in sixteen minutes. Give or take one minute, and they'd miss it by a quarter of a mile.

  He wiggled his toes inside his boots, then worked his fingers in his gloves, keeping the circulation going. The last thing he needed was cramp as he came in for landing.

  'Comms check,' said Gannon, in his earpiece. 'Alpha One.'

  'Alpha Two,' said Shepherd.

  One by one the remaining eight troopers sounded off.

  Shepherd looked down past his feet. He saw wisps of cloud, and then suddenly he was through it, hanging in the darkness. Above him, there was cloud, and far below, the blackness that was the sea. In the distance he could see
Gannon's canopy, a dark shape in the night sky. He checked his LCD display. Their forward speed had slowed while they'd been in the cloud, but that had all been calculated for. Hopefully. According to the computerised display, the target was eleven miles away.

  The captain swept his binoculars right, then stopped. 'I see it,' he said. 'It is a jet. Four engines. It's big, too.'

  'Any markings?' asked Carpenter.

  'Can't see any. And I can't make out the number.'

  'Not Army or Customs?'

  'It looks like a Nimrod, but it's flying close to stall speed,' said the captain.

  'I thought Nimrods were for high-altitude surveillance,' said Carpenter.

  'They are. Six miles and above.'

  One of the Colombians said something in Spanish and the other four laughed. Another took out a cigar, but before he could light it the captain spoke to him. The Colombian glowered and put away the cigar.

  'So what the hell's it playing at?' asked Carpenter.

  'Could be lost,' said the captain. 'Navigation system might have failed and they've dropped down below the cloud to get their bearings.' He muttered to one of the crewmen, who reached for a radio microphone. 'We'll try to make radio contact with them,' said the captain.

  Carpenter stared into the darkness. He was getting a bad feeling about the plane.

  'Alpha One, I have visual on the target.' Gannon's voice crackled in Shepherd's earpiece.

  Shepherd peered into the darkness. He could see Gannon's black canopy in the distance, swooping down like a giant bat. But he couldn't see the tanker. He looked down at his LCD display. The red dot was less than a mile away. He checked his altimeter. Two thousand feet. That should be more than enough height to reach the target. He looked back to Gannon, then beyond. Lights. Red, green and white. As he stared at them he could make out the shape of the tanker. It was sailing towards them at an angle. The superstructure was at the rear.

  'Alpha Two, I have visual,' said Shepherd, into his mike.

  Then Shepherd saw movement in the air, several miles beyond the tanker. It was the Nimrod, flying low. If Gannon's plan worked, everyone on the ship would now be staring aft and the troopers should be able to land without being seen.

  'Alpha Three has visual.'

  Gannon's chute swung to the right, lining up with the tanker. Shepherd waited ten seconds, then did the same. He concentrated on keeping his breathing slow and even. It was easy to hyperventilate under stress.

  'Alpha Four has visual.'

  Shepherd flexed his fingers on the toggles that controlled the direction of the chute. The key to landing without getting hurt was all down to the toggles. Getting the direction just right, slowing the descent, emptying air from the chute so that it deflated. Done right, it should be as easy as stepping off a chair. Done wrong, he'd slam into the deck or, worse, miss it.

  'Alpha Five has visual.'

  The troopers were stacking up behind Gannon, drifting down towards the tanker. Shepherd wondered how many had done a similar jump before. The SAS regularly trained at HALO and HAHO, but during his days in the Regiment they'd never jumped on to a ship.

  'Alpha Six has visual.'

  By the time the last trooper had the tanker in his sights, Gannon was only two hundred metres from the prow. Shepherd used small tugs on the toggles to keep his descent even. Suddenly he was no longer flying over waves but over metal plates, glistening wet, pipes and manholes, welds and rivets. Ahead he saw Gannon's chute flare, then heard a thump as Gannon hit the deck and rolled, the chute flapping like a huge, dying bird. Gannon had hit midway down the length of the tanker, more than a hundred metres from the superstructure.

  Shepherd pulled hard on both toggles and let his knees give as his boots hit the deck. He let go of the toggle in his right hand and hauled on the one in the left, deflating the canopy. He heard a dull thud behind him. Alpha Three. He grabbed armfuls of black silk, rolled it up tight and unclipped his harness. Gannon ran over, bent low. They shoved their chutes under a pipe and unclipped their oxygen masks. 'Nice job, Spider,' said Gannon, clapping him on the back.

  Shepherd took off his mask and unclipped the oxygen cylinder. 'Hell of a ride,' he said.

  'You should knock the cop job on the head and come back to the Regiment.' Gannon's face hardened and Shepherd realised the major had remembered why Shepherd had left the SAS in the first place. Sue.

  Shepherd waved away any apology that the major was about to make. 'Let's get to it,' he said.

  Another bump. Alpha Four. Shepherd looked up. The six remaining troopers were lined up in formation, coming in to land.

  Shepherd unhooked his MP5 from the webbing. Gannon had made it clear at the briefing that no one was to be hurt unless absolutely necessary. The mission was to apprehend Carpenter and take control of the vessel. The tanker was then to be sailed into US waters. The Americans would take it and the drugs, the British would apply for Carpenter to be extradited to London. Everybody would win. Except Carpenter and Carlos Rodriguez.

  Gannon waited until all of the troopers had landed, stowed their chutes and oxygen tanks, and checked their weapons. Then he motioned for them to head towards the superstructure. He and Shepherd led the way. Four of the troopers moved across to the port side, and the second brick took starboard. They moved slowly, keeping low.

  It took them several minutes to reach the base of the three-storey superstructure. Three hatches led from the deck into it, one each on the port and starboard sides, and one in the centre, facing towards the bow. Four men headed for the port, four went starboard, and Gannon and Shepherd took the centre. They opened the hatches and slipped inside, Heckler & Kochs at the ready.

  The captain took his binoculars away from his eyes and spoke to the communications officer in Ukrainian. He replied tersely.

  'No communication,' the captain translated for Carpenter's benefit but the officer's shaking head had already told him that much.

  In the distance, the plane was climbing again, showing that it wasn't having engine problems.

  'Whatever the problem was, they seem to have sorted it,' said the captain.

  'And there's no ship heading our way?'

  'Nothing within fifty miles,' said the captain.

  'And they weren't talking to anyone?'

  'No radio communications,' said the captain. 'The direction they were heading, they might not even have seen us.'

  Carpenter nodded thoughtfully. He still had a bad feeling about the plane. He left the bridge and headed down to the mess. It was deserted, but through the open doorway he could see half a dozen Colombian heavies sitting at a table. Roast meat was piled high on a platter and they were helping themselves to rice. Three more Colombians came up from the cabins. They had handguns in shoulder holsters and were all wearing skin-tight T-shirts with designer jeans. They headed into the canteen. They, too, regarded him as a nuisance.

  As Carpenter turned for the stairs to the cabins, he heard footsteps. Several people, moving quickly. He frowned. There were five guards on the bridge, nine in the canteen. That was the full complement. The crew who weren't on the bridge were in the engine room.

  Carpenter dropped behind a sofa, his heart pounding. He knew instinctively that the men running up the stairs were connected with the mysterious plane. And that they meant trouble.

  Major Gannon had obtained structural plans of the tanker from its original builders, a huge industrial conglomerate in South Korea. They'd rehearsed the storming of the superstructure a dozen times in the Stirling Lines barracks in Hereford with troopers from the counter-revolutionary warfare wing playing the part of the Colombian foot-soldiers. Gannon had never managed to seize the objective without taking fewer than two casualties. But the counterrevolutionary warfare wing troopers were the best-trained soldiers in the world bar none, and the Colombians on the tanker were just thugs with big guns.

  Shepherd had been at the briefing and at the rehearsals. Twice he'd taken a fictional bullet in the chest. Not that it worried him: t
hat was the purpose of rehearsals, to iron out all the kinks so that no one got hurt during the real thing. Now he followed Gannon up the narrow stairway that led from the deck to the crew's quarters. Troopers were already moving through the cabins. All were empty. Four troopers headed down towards the engine room.

  The rest moved up the stairs to the mess and canteen level, with Gannon and Shepherd.

  They rushed through the mess area, sweeping their weapons from side to side, and heard laughter from the canteen. The lead trooper burst through the open doorway, telling the men to get down on the floor. One of the Colombians got to his feet, grabbing for his Kalashnikov. Two more troopers piled into the canteen. One let off a three-round silenced burst and the Colombian slammed into the wall. The rest raised their hands as their colleague slid to the floor in a pool of blood. The troopers pushed them to the ground and started to bind their hands and legs with plastic ties.

  Shepherd did a quick head count. One dead, eight captured. No home team casualties. So far so good.

  Gannon waited until all the Colombians had been bound and gagged, then motioned for three of the troopers to move up the stairs to the bridge. The fourth stood guard over the Colombians. There were two stairways, at either end of the mess room. The three troopers went up the right-hand side, Gannon and Shepherd the left.

  As Shepherd reached the bridge he heard the muffled explosions of a three-shot burst and saw a Colombian slump to the floor over his Kalashnikov. The captain was standing with his hands held high. Another Colombian had his weapon up and was about to fire. Gannon let loose a burst and the Colombian spun round, blood spurting from his neck.

  There was more gunfire from Shepherd's left and a third Colombian slammed against the window and fell to the floor, blood pouring from his chest. The last two dropped their weapons and raised their hands.

  Shepherd looked round the bridge. There was no sign of Carpenter.

  Gannon went over to the captain and jabbed him with the barrel of his MP5. 'The Brit, where is he?'

  'Downstairs.'

  'Where downstairs?'

  'I don't know,' said the captain. 'He left just before you got here. Who are you?'