by Chris Ryan
The doorman’s eyes narrowed. He stepped back and held the door open for Danny, who walked confidently inside.
The casino smelled of brandy and perfume. The main room was about 30 metres by 20, with eight different card and roulette tables dotted around, and a long bar against the far wall, all brass and optics and low lighting. There were perhaps 50 people here, and there was a low buzz of excited chatter around the tables. In an instant, Danny noticed three cameras directed down towards the card tables. He knew that somewhere, in a back room, gaming surveillance officers were watching those tables carefully for cheats, or anyone who seemed to be having too successful an evening. There was a good chance they’d have facial recognition software running. Anyone who walked out of here with too much of the casino’s money would find themselves tracked down and encouraged back with promises of booze, complimentary gaming chips, even women. The casino would just want them back through their doors, because everyone loses eventually.
And the gaming surveillance officers wouldn’t only be in the back rooms. They’d be milling around the tables themselves, keeping a steady, undercover eye on the punters. But Danny felt confident that none of these surveillance officers would be interested in him, so long as he stayed quietly at the bar, and showed no interest in the tables.
Within seconds, a girl had approached him. She was no more than seventeen, fully dolled-up with tits practically spilling out of a gilttering halterneck top.
‘Not seen you here before.’ she said, her voice husky.
‘Not tonight, love,’ Danny gave a blunt reply. The girl showed no sign of offence, but wandered off into the casino in search of other game.
Danny ordered an orange juice, remembering at the last minute not to look surprised that it was on the house. Standard practice, since the casino far preferred tipsy punters to sober ones. Then he scanned the room, looking for Al-Sikriti. His target had a roulette table to himself – just him, the two girls, and a croupier spinning the ball and expertly divvying up the chips on the baize. Each girl had an arm draped on one of Al-Sikriti’s shoulders. Occasionally, one of them would whisper something in his ear, and nuzzle him as she did so. Al-Sikriti himself was giving it the full playboy routine. He handed one of the girls a little pile of chips and encouraged her as she placed them all on red. The croupier spun the wheel and the girl clapped delightedly as her winnings were doubled. Al-Sikriti took back the larger pile of chips, then placed one of them in the girl’s cleavage. She gave him a kittenish smile, then kissed his cheek.
Danny didn’t allow himself to stare too closely at the target. If Al-Sikriti moved, he’d be on him, but until then he needed to remain inconspicuous. Out of habit, he checked the room for exits: there was the main entrance through which he’d come, and two doors leading to the male and female cloakrooms. Other than that, just a door behind the bar which he assumed would lead to a goods entrance. He scanned the room again. It crossed Danny’s mind that, unhindered as Al-Sikriti was by any kind of close protection that Danny could make out, it would be just a minute’s work to follow him into the gents, force him into a cubicle and beat out of him the intelligence that he needed. But he remembered Maddox’s instruction: this had to be deniable, and they couldn’t leave a mark on the fucker. Danny would just have to be patient.
His eyes took in bored, rich women dripping with gaudy jewellery, losing thousands at the tables just to pass the time. Old, ugly men surrounded by improbably beautiful young women. On the far side of the room, the dapper little man who had let Danny in was eyeing him suspiciously. Danny ignored that and sipped on his orange juice.
And waited.
Thirty minutes passed. Al-Sikriti’s luck had changed. The same girl who’d had so much luck on red lost twice that amount on black. As the Arab’s luck changed, so did his expression. He looked petulant and shooed the girl away from the table. She immediately left Al-Sikriti’s field of view, wandering round the other tables for ten minutes. Danny followed her with his eyes. There was something about her features that reminded him of Clara. Perhaps it was the way a tendril of blonde hair curled loosely round her neck, or the slight upturn of her nose. Whatever it was, it distracted him. He felt a familiar, gnawing anxiety at the idea that she might have found some other bloke by now. He didn’t like that idea. When all this was over, maybe he’d call her. Apologise . . .
When the girl returned to the roulette table, the Arab’s luck had changed once more. He let her sit next to him again, and was rewarded with a suggestive stroke of his immaculately suited arm.
It took 65 minutes for Al-Sikriti to grow bored of the tables. He clicked his fingers in the air and a member of the casino staff appeared from nowhere. Al-Sikriti said something to him, and he signalled to the dapper man at the entrance. The two girls made their way to the ladies. Clearly, they were preparing to leave.
Danny left his half-drunk orange juice on the bar and headed to the exit. Out on the street, the temperature had dropped another couple of degrees and there was a mist in the air that shrouded the yellow street lamps. Al-Sikriti’s limo was parked up outside, hazard lights on, facing to Danny’s left. The dapper man who had let Danny in trotted out behind him and opened the rear passenger door, ready for his important client.
Danny crossed the street. He looked back to the limo. The driver’s window, which was on the road side, slid down. Sitting behind the wheel was Spud. He winked once at Danny, then raised the window again.
Movement at the entrance to the casino. Al-Sikriti and the two women were emerging.
‘Where’s the chauffeur?’ Danny said into his radio.
‘Last time I looked?’ Spud said. ‘Unconscious in the gutter. Won’t wake up for a while. Meet you at the end of the street?’
‘Roger that.’
Danny picked up his pace, then crossed the road again. On the edge of his vision he was aware of Al-Sikriti and the girls, 30 metres away now, climbing into the car. He hurried along the street. Twenty seconds later, the limo passed him, its windows all blacked out, its engine humming softly. It pulled up to a halt alongside Danny. A black cab was directly behind it. The driver beeped in frustration at this delay, then quickly overtook. Danny approached the nearside passenger door. He heard a click as Spud switched off the central locking. He took his black balaclava from the pocket of his suit and swiftly pulled it over his head.
Then he opened the door.
Inside, the party was in full swing. The two girls, sitting together opposite Al-Sikriti, were necking, their tongues thrust down each other’s throat as they put on a show for the sleazy businessman. Al-Sikriti himself was reclining on his seat, a glass of champagne in his hand, his shirt unbuttoned to reveal his hairy chest, his belt unfastened and his fly undone.
Danny bundled into the car and took a seat next to Al-Sikriti. The girls stopped kissing. Al-Sikriti sat up straight, spilling his champagne as he did so. All three of them looked outraged at this sudden intrusion.
Then Danny pulled his weapon.
One of the girls screamed. Danny pointed the Glock in their direction.
‘Goodnight, girls,’ he growled. He jabbed the weapon towards the door. The two women didn’t need telling twice – they practically scrambled over each other to get out of the car, their high heels twisting on the ground. Once they were outside and hurrying back down the street, Danny leaned over and pulled the door shut. Then he knocked twice on the screen dividing the driver’s area from the back of the limo. He heard the sound of the central locking closing again. The limo started moving. At the same time, the tinted screen slid down to reveal Spud, balaclava’d, behind the wheel.
Al-Sikriti was sweating. His fist was clenched round his champagne glass, and he looked as though he might crush it.
‘How much do you want?’ he said, his voice thin with nervousness. ‘You tell me how much you want, I give it to you. I have money here.’ His free hand edged towards his jacket.
‘If at any point I can’t see both your hands,’ Danny said, ‘I’ll kill yo
u right here.’
Al-Sikriti froze.
Spud continued to drive. Danny didn’t say a word. Al-Sikriti’s terrified imagination would be doing half his work for him. He and Spud kept their silence, for several minutes, all the way round Marble Arch and along the park towards Bayswater.
Al-Sikriti broke it, in a stuttering voice broken by fear. ‘You . . . you like girls?’ he said. ‘You like those girls? I get you as many as you want. They do anything. Anything . . .’
Danny shook his head. Al-Sikriti fell silent again.
Danny took his phone from his pocket. He set it to record. Then he looked over his shoulder. ‘Pass it,’ he told Spud.
With one hand on the wheel, Spud stretched over to the passenger seat and passed the black torch they’d picked up from Fletcher’s office. Danny stowed his weapon and instead brandished the torch. He leaned forward and held the torch about five inches from Al-Sikriti’s face. Then he pressed a button on the top.
Suddenly a grating electrical sound filled the car. Al-Sikriti’s face lit up with a harsh white light, and Danny saw in the windows the reflection of a violent, three-inch-long electric spark. He let it buzz for a few seconds, then removed his finger from the button.
‘This is a taser,’ Danny said, as Al-Sikriti gulped for breath. ‘Fucking high voltage. Cause cardiac arrest, now and then. Brain damage too, if I go at it really hard.’ He leaned in towards the Arab. ‘But the worst thing about them is that they really . . . fucking . . . hurt . . .’
Al-Sikriti shook his head. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Please, I’ll give you whatever . . .’ He spoke good, precise English, but tinged with a Middle Eastern accent.
‘Abu Ra’id,’ Danny said. ‘Where is he?’
The question immediately silenced Al-Sikriti. His expression changed. There was suddenly less panic in his face, but more fear – a deep-seated fear, Danny sensed. He wasn’t going to talk without persuasion.
He did it suddenly, jabbing the torch hard against Al-Sikriti’s left arm, and switching on the taser as he did so. Al-Sikrit’s body went into spasm. He screamed, and the sound merged horribly with the loud electric buzz of the taser, muffled slightly by his clothes, the spark invisible now that the torch was pressed against a body.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
Off.
Al-Sikriti was gasping. There were tears on his cheeks, though his eyes were clenched shut. Danny gave him a moment to recuperate. He needed to be thrifty in his use of the taser. Al-Sikriti was no good to anybody unconscious. Ten seconds passed. Danny’s victim opened his eyes. Danny held up the taser and zapped it in front of the Arab’s face. Al-Sikriti started as if the machine had been touching his skin. Two seconds later, a foul smell filled the air.
‘Did you shit yourself?’ Danny asked.
Al-Sikriti nodded.
‘Say it,’ Danny instructed. ‘Say, I shat myself.’
‘I shat myself.’
‘Dirty fucker,’ Danny said, as insultingly as he could. Then he thrust the taser against his victim’s arm again.
Al-Sikriti’s second meeting with the taser, administered as Spud drove them through Notting Hill, lasted a little longer than the first, and his scream was a little hoarser. By the time Danny removed the device, his limbs were still jerking, like echoes of the main spasm. Danny leaned over to him, ignoring the disgusting smell from his trousers. ‘If you don’t tell me what I want to know,’ he said, his voice muffled through the balaclava, ‘I’ll zap your cock.’ He thrust the taser towards his victim’s open fly, and Al-Sikriti quickly covered his groin with his hands.
‘Move your hands,’ Danny instructed. Al-Sikriti did as he was told. ‘Abu Ra’id was staying in your flat. Now he’s gone. Where is he?’
Al-Sikriti’s eyes widened. He shook his head. ‘I swear, sir. I do not know . . .’
Immediately, Danny thrust the taser into Al-Sikriti’s groin and gave it a two-second burst. Not too long, because he knew the bastard was prone to piss himself, and he wasn’t sure how the moisture would affect the electrical contacts. But he didn’t need any longer, because as the grating electrical sound died away, Al-Sikriti was saying something. A single word, repeated in a harsh, reluctant whisper. At first Danny couldn’t understand it. It sounded obscure. Arabic, perhaps. But gradually, as Al-Sikriti repeated it, the sound crystallised.
‘Yemen,’ he said. ‘Yemen . . . Yemen . . .’
‘Yemen’s a big place. You’ll need to do better than that.’ He zapped the taser in the air to underline his point.
‘All I know,’ Al-Sikriti said, ‘is that he took a boat to France last night. An airplane was waiting for him there, to take him to Sana’a. Al-Shabaab have a camp north of there, in the Sana’a governate, where he will seek sanctuary . . .’
‘How far north?’
‘I don’t know. I swear, they keep it a secret.’ And as Danny approached him again with the taser, he squealed: ‘That is all I know . . .’
His final statement had the ring of truth. Danny believed him. He looked over his shoulder at Spud. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
Spud indicated right, turned off the main drag and then turned into a dark side street where he pulled up. Danny put the taser down and picked up his phone. He stopped recording, then scrubbed back a little and replayed the recording.
‘. . . take him to San’a. Al-Shabaab have a camp north of . . .’
Danny scrubbed further back.
‘I shat myself.’
‘Dirty fucker . . .’
Danny pressed ‘pause’. ‘Make a fuss about this, that tape goes straight to every business partner of yours we can find. Got it?’
Al-Sikiriti nodded, the fear on his face giving way to unchecked hatred.
‘No, I don’t think you do.’ Danny pulled his gun and put it to Al-Sikriti’s head. ‘Trust me, friend. If that cunt Abu Ra’id gets even a whisper that you’ve spoken to us, I’ll start with your wife and then with your kids. I’ll give you a couple of weeks to get used to them being dead, then I’ll do you. You won’t see me, you won’t even know I’m there till you get a bullet in your brain. Understood?’
Another terrified nod.
Danny had nothing more to say. Spud switched off the central locking and the two men debussed, pulling off their balaclavas as they stepped out of the car. Danny gave Spud the taser. Spud stuffed it into his bag as they walked swiftly away from the limo back towards the main road.
‘Not sure that’s quite how he expected his evening to pan out,’ Spud said.
‘Why did he leave it so late?’
Spud looked at his watch, confused. ‘It’s not even midnight,’ he said.
‘Not Al-Sikriti. Abu Ra’id. Why did he only skip the country this morning?’
Spud shrugged. ‘Because he’s a fucking idiot?’
‘If he’s such an idiot, why can nobody catch him?’ He looked at the phone that was still in his hand. ‘They need to hear this,’ he said. ‘Let’s get back to the safe house and make contact.’
Spud nodded. The two SAS men melted away into the night.
Fourteen
They’d been told to RV at Hammerstone House at 06.00 the following morning, but Danny and Spud were early. They stood in the biting frost of dawn, watching the headlamps of a convoy of four vehicles trundle slowly up the long driveway. The cars crunched on to the gravel in front of the house. They came to a halt, but the headlamps still blazed brightly. The faceless silhouettes of four chauffeurs stepped out and opened the rear doors, releasing four more figures from the back seats. Even though he couldn’t make out their faces immediately, Danny identified each one by the shape of their silhouettes and their gait. Victoria, shorter than the others and briskly shuffling. Chamberlain, tall and broad of shoulder. Harrison Maddox, lean and with a relaxed yet purposeful stride. And Buckingham, who waited for the others to step forward into the lamplight before revealing himself and keeping to the back of their little quartet
. Everyone’s breath steamed. As they drew near and their faces became visible, Danny saw that each one was etched with tiredness and concern.
Buckingham had a key to the house. Nobody spoke as he let them in. They traipsed through the darkness into the same room where they’d had their first meeting. Buckingham turned on the lights. Everyone except Danny and Spud squinted as their eyes recovered from the sudden shock. None of the spooks removed their greatcoats, or even pulled their hands from their pockets. But Danny sensed that, with perhaps the exception of Chamberlain, they were eyeing the two SAS men with a certain wariness that he hadn’t noticed before. Which figured, he supposed. They knew what Danny and Spud had been up to since their last meeting. And, of course, they had heard the recording of his little chat with Al-Sikriti.
Victoria cleared her throat. ‘I think I speak for us all,’ she said, ‘when I congratulate you both on your work.’ The others gave no indication that they agreed with the sentiment, but stared stonily at them. ‘We’re quite convinced that Abu Ra’id has left the country for fear that he might be next on our list. A dangerous threat to the security of this country has been removed. We fully expect a cessation of the atrocities. Or at the very least a pause.’
‘So job done?’ Spud demanded.
Each of the four spooks gave them a startlingly similar look: a thin, humourless smile.
‘Not yet,’ Victoria said. She cleared her throat again. She nodded in Maddox’s direction, and the CIA man returned the gesture. ‘We need to make sure that the threat is eradicated. Permanently.’ She looked from Spud to Danny, then back again.
Danny wasn’t stupid. He knew what was coming.
‘Hugo, you’ve been liaising with our Yemen analysts. Would you like to tell us what you know about the Sa’ada Governate?’
Buckingham stepped forwards. Even his handsome features were marred by tiredness. He refused to catch Danny’s eye, and spoke instead to the company at large. He was unable to hide from his voice the smugness of a man who was aware that he knew what he was talking about.