Osama

by Chris Ryan

  Anything for the death these Americans were denying him. Their final act of revenge for the glorious eleventh.

  The door to his cell opened. A figure stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the light behind him. The sound of the door opening always made him jump. He jumped now, then trembled even more violently as the figure stood there in silence. What fresh hell did they have for him now? They had bled him dry. He had no more to give them.

  The figure spoke. ‘Time for your burial at sea, you piece of shit,’ he said.

  Burial at sea? His English was not good, but even when he had worked out what the silhouette had said, he didn’t understand it. Burial at sea?

  But then his eyes widened. There was movement in the doorway. A flash of red caught his eye and he saw it was coming from something the silhouette was holding. He looked down at his naked, bony chest. A tiny red dot of light flickered over his heart.

  He could not smile, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t glad.

  The three bullets, fired in quick, ruthless succession, did not kill him instantly. There was a brief moment, as he fell to his side and blood spewed from his ulcerated mouth, for him to rejoice.

  He was to be welcomed into Paradise.

  His struggle was complete.

  Joe had crossed four borders in seventy-two hours. A cross-Channel ferry train to Marseilles and from there to Alicante. Another boat to Oran, Algeria. Only when he was in Africa, where technology was less advanced and a few banknotes could buy him his way out of any difficulty, did he feel in any way confident showing his passport at an airport. Even so, boarding a flight to Asmara International Airport in Eritrea had been tense.

  Not as tense, though, as landing. If their presence had been logged, they could expect a welcoming party the moment they touched down. Joe knew this, which was why, as they flew over the parched continent, he had said everything to Conor that he wanted to say. That he was proud of him. That he was sorry. That from this moment on there wouldn’t be a single day that he wasn’t there for him. He hadn’t told him all there was to tell – that could wait until he was old enough and well enough to understand. In any case, all that was over. At least it would be soon.

  Conor hadn’t responded. Not in words. He hadn’t spoken since the fire. He had stared out of the aircraft window, as totally silent as he’d been since the fire. But Joe knew, by the squeeze of his son’s hand, that he understood. That it was OK between them. Or as OK as it could ever be without Caitlin.

  Conor was clutching his hand again now, nervously, as they queued in the bleak, sweaty terminal, the only white faces here, both of them bruised and scarred. The instant he’d walked into the building, Joe had checked for security cameras. There were none that he could see, but he kept his head bowed anyway, and pulled his son’s baseball cap a little further over his eyes. They walked towards the immigration queue, ignoring the armed guards.

  The queue was short, but slow. A single booth, with a dark-eyed official scrutinizing every passport thoroughly. There were only ten passengers ahead of them, but it was still fifteen minutes before he and Conor approached the booth. He handed their passports over silently, squeezing Conor’s hand a little harder as he did so.

  The immigration official started on the boy’s passport, examining every page, looking back and forth from the document to its owner. Joe looked straight ahead, past the two guards standing five metres beyond him, AK-47s strapped to their bodies, towards the shop fifteen metres beyond them advertising duty-free goods and ‘Gift Articles’.

  The official spoke. ‘Mr Conor?’ he asked, in a dead, unenthusiastic voice. He looked at Conor, one eyebrow raised. Conor looked back.

  ‘He won’t answer you,’ Joe said quietly.

  The man looked unimpressed. He placed Conor’s passport on the counter in front of him before turning his attention to Joe’s. Opening it, he immediately found the five 100-nakfa notes Joe had slipped inside. He removed them without shame, placed them in a breast pocket of his uniform and continued examining the passport as if nothing had happened.

  After thirty seconds he spoke again, his voice slow and ponderous. ‘Are you coming to Eritrea on business,’ he asked, ‘or pleasure?’

  Joe looked at him, but it was not the official’s face that he saw.

  He saw Caitlin, her eyes pleading in the moments before she had died.

  He saw Eva and the knife twisted further. Poor Eva, who had risked everything for him and expected so little in return. He saw her sitting by him at the bandstand. Lying motionless on the beach. Staring through the fire, half her hair burned away, seconds before the flames had consumed her.

  And he saw the face of a man of Middle Eastern extraction, with a hooked nose, stooped shoulders and black hair streaked with grey, responsible for the death of these two innocent women. The women that, each in a different way, Joe loved. In Joe’s imagination the Middle Eastern man was struck dumb with terror as he, Joe, held a .38 snubnose to his forehead. The weapon that would kill him just as soon as Joe had tracked him down.

  Joe blinked. The customs official was waiting for a reply.

  ‘A bit of both,’ he said.

  GLOSSARY

  AQ: Al-Qaeda

  ARU: armed response unit

  CO: commanding officer

  DEVGRU: United States Special Warfare Development Group (SEAL Team 6)

  DOD: US Department of Defense

  EST: Eastern Standard Time

  HE: high-explosive

  HEI: high-explosive incendiary

  HESCO: flat-packed containers filled with dirt or sand to create a protective barrier

  ICOM: intelligence communication

  IED: improvised explosive device

  JPC: jumpable plate carrier

  klick: kilometre

  L Detachment: a territorial unit attached to 22 SAS, under the command of E Squadron

  LZ: landing zone

  MIT: murder investigation team

  MRAP: mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicle

  MRE: meal, ready to eat

  OC: officer commanding

  PIRA: Provisional IRA

  plate hanger: armoured operations (ops) vest

  PTSD: post-traumatic stress disorder

  REME: Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers

  RTU: order to return to unit

  RV: rendezvous

  SOCO: scene of crime officer

  SOP: standard operating procedure

  SUV: sport utility vehicle

  UAV: unmanned aerial vehicle

  For a first glimpse of the latest Chris Ryan Extreme book, Night Strike, turn the page and jump straight into the action.

  ONE

  Knightsbridge, London, UK. 1738 hours.

  His name was Hauser and he moved down the corridor as fast as his bad right leg allowed. The metal toolbox he carried was heavy and exaggerated his limp. He paused in front of the last door on the right. A yellow sign on the door read ‘WARNING! AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY’. He fished a key chain from his paint-flecked trousers and skimmed through the keys until he found the right one. His hand was trembling. He looked across his right shoulder at the bank of lifts ten metres back down the corridor. Satisfied the coast was clear, he inserted the key in the lock and twisted it. There was a sequence of clicks as the pins inside jangled up and down, and then a satisfying clack as the lock was released.

  Hauser stepped inside the room. It was a four-metre-square jungle of filing cabinets, cardboard boxes and industrial shelves with a tall, dark-panelled window overlooking the street below. Hauser hobbled over to the window. An electric pain shot up his leg with every step, like someone had taped broken glass to his shins. He stopped in front of the window and dumped a roll of black tarpaulin he’d been carrying under his left arm. Then he set the toolbox down next to the tarp and scanned the scene outside. He was on the fourth floor of an office block adjacent to the Lanesborough Hotel at Hyde Park Corner. The current tenants were some kind of marketing agency who, he knew
, were badly behind with their rent. They’d have to relocate soon. Shame. From that height Hauser had quite a view. The pavements were packed with commuters and tourists flocking in and out of Hyde Park Corner Tube station. Further in the distance lay the bleached green ribbon of the park itself.

  Yep. It was quite a view. Especially if you wanted to shoot somebody.

  Hauser was wearing a tearaway paper suit that had been vacuum-packed. The overalls came with a hood. He also wore a pair of surgical gloves. The suit and gloves would both prevent his DNA from contaminating the scene, as well as protecting his body from residue such as gunpowder. Now Hauser knelt down. Slowly, because any sudden movement sent fierce volts of pain up his right leg, he prised open the toolbox. It was rusty and stiff and he had to force the damn thing apart with both hands. Finally the cantilever trays separated. There were three trays on either side of the central compartment. Each one was filled with tools. Hauser ran his fingers over them. There was a rubber-headed hammer, tacks, putty, bolt cutters, a pair of suction pads, a large ring of different-sized hexagonal keys and a spirit level.

  There were two more objects in the bottom of the main compartment of the toolbox. One was a diamond cutter. The other was a featureless black tube ten inches long and three and a half inches wide. Made of carbon fibre, it weighed just 300 grams, no more than a tennis racquet. Hauser removed the tube. There was a latch on the underside. Hauser flipped this and a pistol grip flipped out, transforming the tube into a short-barrelled rifle.

  Hauser cocked the bolt. The whole operation had taken four seconds. Four seconds to set up a selective-fire rifle effective up to 300 metres.

  Hauser set the rifle down and took the diamond cutter from the toolbox. Moving with speed now, he ran the cutter around the edges of the window until he had cut out a rectangle of glass as big as a forty-inch TV. Then he took out the suction pads and, with one in either hand, pressed them to the sides of the cut-out sheet. The glass came loose easily. Hauser laid this down on the floor with the suction pads still attached. Then he took the black tarp, hammer and tacks and pinned one end of the material to the ceiling, allowing the rest to drape down over the opening. Seen from the street below, the tarp would give the appearance of reflective glass. If anyone looked up at the window, they wouldn’t see shit.

  Going down on one knee, Hauser tucked the stock tight into the Y-spot where his shoulder met his chest. His index finger rested on the trigger, then he applied a little pressure. He went through the drill he had practised thousands of times before.

  Breathe in. Breathe out.

  Keep the target in focus.

  Firm shoulder. Left hand supporting the right.

  The woman in his sights meant nothing to him. She’d simply been the first person he targeted. She was sitting on a bench and eating a sandwich. The optics were so precise that Hauser could identify the brand. Pret a Manger.

  He pulled the trigger.

  She was eating a sandwich one second and clutching her guts the next.

  The subsonic .22 long-rifle rimfire round tore a hole in her stomach big enough to accommodate your middle finger.

  And he went for the stomach with the next seven targets too. Unlike head shots, gut shots didn’t kill people, and Hauser had been specifically told not to kill. Only maim. He kicked out the rounds in quick succession. Two seconds between each. With each shot the muzzle phtt-ed and the barrel jerked.

  The bodies dropped.

  The crowd was confused by the first two shots. The built-in suppressor guaranteed that the shots didn’t sound like the thunderous ca-rack of a bullet. But when the third target fell they all knew something terrifying was happening. Panic spread and everyone ran for cover.

  Twenty-four seconds. That’s how long it had taken Hauser to leave eight civilians sprawled on the pavement soaked in their own blood and pawing at their wounds. The victims were strangely silent. No one else dared approach them. Any sane person would wait for a clear sign that the shooting had stopped.

  Hauser stepped back from the window. He was confident no one had seen him. The suppressor had phased out more than 90 per cent of the sound, making it difficult for anyone to clearly understand that they were gunshots, let alone pinpoint their origin. A breeze kicked up. The tarp fluttered. Hauser quickly folded up the weapon and stashed it in the toolbox. He removed the overalls and stuffed them into the toolbox. The overalls he would dispose of shortly, in a nearby public toilet, courtesy of a lit match and some wetted toilet paper to cover and disable the smoke detector. He left the room.

  Police sirens in the distance. And now screams from the crowd, as if the sirens had given them permission.

  TWO

  Hereford, UK. The next day. 2233 hours.

  He downed it in three long gulps that had the barmaid shaking her head and the three gnarled alcoholics at the other end of the bar nodding welcome to the newest member of their club. Joe Gardner polished off his London Pride and tipped the foamy glass at the barmaid.

  ‘Another,’ he said.

  The barmaid snatched his empty glass and stood it under the pump. Golden beer flowed out of the nozzle and settled into a dark-bronze column. She cut him a thick head and dumped the glass in front of him.

  ‘Cheers, Kate.’ Gardner raised his glass in a toast but she had already turned her back. ‘But you’re forgetting one thing.’

  Kate sighed. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Your phone number.’

  ‘The only thing you’ll get from me is a slap.’ A disgusted expression was plastered over the right side of the girl’s face. Gardner doubted her left side was any more pleasant. ‘That’s your last pint till you settle your tab.’

  ‘Give us a break,’ Gardner grunted, rooting around in his jeans pocket for imaginary change.

  Then a voice to his left said, ‘This one’s on me.’

  At the edge of his vision Gardner glimpsed a red-knuckled hand slipping the barmaid a pair of crisp twenty-quid notes. She eyed the queen’s head suspiciously before accepting it.

  ‘Thanks. This’ll about cover it.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ the voice said. ‘After all, we’ve got to look after our own.’

  The voice was hoarse and the man’s breath wafted across Gardner’s face and violated his nostrils. It was the smoky, medicinal smell of cheap whisky.

  ‘Didn’t I see you on the telly once?’

  Gardner didn’t turn around.

  ‘Yeah,’ the voice went on. ‘You’re that bloke from the Regiment. The one who was at Parliament Square. You were the big hero of the day.’

  The voice swigged his whisky. Ice clinked against the glass.

  ‘You look like a bag of bollocks, mate,’ said the voice. ‘What the fuck happened?’

  Gardner took a sip of his pint. Said nothing.

  ‘No, wait. I can guess what happened. I mean, fucking look at you. You’re a joke. You’re a right fucking cunt.’

  Gardner stood his beer on the bar. Kate was nowhere to be seen. Then he slowly turned to face his new best friend.

  ‘That’s right. A complete and utter cunt.’

  He looked as ugly as he sounded. Red cheeks hung like sandbags beneath a pair of drill-hole eyes set in a head topped off with a buzzcut. He was a couple of hundred pounds or thereabouts, half of it muscle and the rest fat that had been muscle in a previous life. The glass in front of him was half-full of whisky and ice. The glazed expression in his eyes told Gardner the drink had not been the guy’s first of the night, or even his tenth.

  ‘I’m not looking for trouble,’ Gardner said quietly.

  ‘But you found it anyway. You know, there’s nothing more tragic than a washed-up old Blade.’ The man pulled a face at the prismatic bottom of the tumbler. ‘Know what? Someone should just put you out of your fucking misery now.’

  Gardner attempted to focus on the guy and saw two of him. Sixteen pints of Pride and a few shots off the top shelf will do that to a man. Rain lightly drum-tapped on the pub windows. The guy
leaned in close to Gardner and whispered into his left ear.

  ‘Me, I’m from 3 Para. Real fucking soldier. Real fucking man.’ He winked at the barmaid. ‘Ain’t that right, Kate?’ She smiled back flirtatiously. Then the guy turned back to Gardner. ‘Now do me a favour and fuck off.’

  A shit-eating grin was his parting gift.

  Gardner swiftly drank up. Made for the door.

  Outside in the deserted car park the rain was lashing down in slanted ice sheets. Gardner zipped up his nylon windcheater to insulate himself against the cold and wet. The Rose in June pub was set on the outskirts of Hereford and the low rent was probably the only reason it hadn’t shut down. Gardner made his way down the backstreets, snaking towards the Regiment’s headquarters. He navigated round the housing estate that used to be the site of the old Regiment camp on Stirling Lane. Now it was all council-owned. The rain picked up, spattering the empty street that edged the estate. Gardner couldn’t see more than two or three metres in front of him. A ruthless wind whipped through the street and pricked his skin. Gardner closed his eyes. He heard voices, subdued beneath the bass line of the rain.

  When he opened his eyes a fist was colliding with his face.

  THREE

  2301 hours.

  The fist struck Gardner hard and sudden, like a jet engine backfiring. He fell backwards, banging his head against the kerb. A sharp pain speared the base of his skull and it took a moment to wrench himself together. You’re lying on your back. Your cheek is on fire from a fucking punch. And Para is towering over you.

  Para’s hands were at his side and curled into kettlebells. He hocked up phlegm and spat at Gardner. The gob arced through the rain like a discus and landed with a plop on his neck.

  ‘Get up, prick.’ Para’s voice was barely audible above the hammering rain.

  Gardner wiped away the spittle with the back of his hand.

  ‘I said, get the fuck up.’