Hunter Killer

by Chris Ryan

  He had a direct line of sight to the fire. It was burning low now, and there seemed to be fewer silhouettes around it. He lowered the sight, and checked the time: 00.45. They wouldn’t get a positive ID on anyone till daylight. Until then, they needed to rest up.

  ‘I’ll take the first stag,’ he suggested to Spud.

  Spud grunted his agreement. Seconds later he was fast asleep. Danny lay motionless in the pit, his ears on high alert, his brain turning over. If everything had gone according to plan, Abu Ra’id would be resting up just a couple of hundred metres from their position. Danny couldn’t wait to get a bullet in him and extract. It would be tough locating a place to lie up in this featureless terrain while they waited to be collected, but he figured they’d find a wadi nearby where they could hide, make a call for a pick-up and sit it out for however long it took for them to be airlifted out of here.

  He realised he’d been thinking about Clara. Funny, he thought, how you think about home the most when you’re furthest from it. With Abu Ra’id, the last man on his hit-list, dead, and the threat to London eliminated, maybe he could get back with her again when he returned.

  Would she take him back? He knew, in his gut, that she would.

  He comforted himself with that thought as he waited for morning to come.

  05.03hrs

  Danny felt a sharp nudge in his ribs. He knew from the musty warmth under the camo that the sun was rising. His eyes flickered open.

  Spud was eyeing the training camp through the spotting scope. He was lying very still.

  ‘What is it?’ Danny breathed.

  Very gently, Spud passed the scope over to Danny. ‘Eleven o’clock,’ he breathed. ‘About seven metres north of where the fire was.’

  Danny put one eye to the optic and pointed it in the direction Spud had indicated. He saw three blurry figures. He carefully focused the scope and they eased into sharp focus.

  Two of them were facing him, cross-legged on the ground, while the third stood in front of them, his back to the OP. He had his right arm raised, his finger pointing to the sky. And although Danny didn’t recognise the faces on the two cross-legged men, he felt a strange, prickling sensation down his back as he held his breath and focused in on the third. He was tall, with a plain robe and a white headdress. He looked as though he was preaching.

  He stayed standing for a minute. Two minutes. Three.

  Then the cross-legged men stood up. They shook hands with the third man, before wandering away towards a nearby tent.

  At which point the third man turned.

  For a heartstopping moment, Danny thought the man was looking directly towards them. But then it became clear that in fact he was gazing up at the beauty of the desert sky at dawn. He smiled.

  Danny recognised him, of course. The black beard that reached down to his chest. The neat, perfectly proportioned, handsome features.

  ‘Abu Ra’id,’ he breathed.

  ‘Damn right,’ Spud replied. ‘Abu fucking Ra’id.’

  Eighteen

  The hit on Abu Ra’id couldn’t happen during the day. They needed to enter the camp covertly, carry out the hit covertly, and leave covertly. That required the cover of night. That didn’t mean Danny or Spud liked the idea of waiting. If Hamza had told anyone else of their destination, they could expect company. Either that, or someone might arrive from Ha’dah to tip Abu Ra’id off. Danny silently cursed himself for not listening to Spud. Not knowing who might arrive to blow their cover made every minute feel like an hour. A sick, anxious feeling gnawed at Danny’s gut.

  ‘Wish we could just snipe the fucker from here,’ Spud said. But that wasn’t an option. They didn’t have the right hardware to take such a shot, it would only give away their position and anyway, their orders were very precise: make the kill at close quarters so you can be sure the bastard’s dead. But there was no question about it: they had to make the hit the following night. The longer they delayed, the higher their chance of being compromised.

  Their target remained outside until an hour after sunrise. Various people from around the camp approached him. The militants seemed to be taking their turns in receiving an audience from the cleric. They were like clones: bandoliers of ammo, black and white shemaghs covering their heads. ‘Might as well have a sign round their necks saying “terrorist cunts”,’ Spud said. Danny welcomed his sarcastic asides. Spud was his old self, which meant that Danny’s fuck-up of the previous night was forgiven, if not forgotten.

  By 07.00hrs the desert sun was already very hot. As Danny watched carefully through the spotting scope, he saw Abu Ra’id disappearing into one of the tents, presumably to protect himself from the fierce glare of the rising sun. Danny made a mental note of which tent it was: the sixth of ten rows, six columns along from the right. He reported that location to Spud, then kept the scope trained precisely on it, in case Abu Ra’id emerged and repositioned himself.

  He didn’t, but as the morning wore on there was a great deal of other activity around the camp. Each tent seemed to house three or four men. They queued up at the fire – which was smoking heavily – to be given some food, before congregating on the flat ground at the northern end of the camp. Even from their OP, which was a good 400 metres away from this training area, Danny could hear the barking of instructors, followed by the retorts of weapon fire. There were wooden structures here – scrambling ropes and precarious-looking climbing frames. Take away the dry desert heat and the fact that these were jihadi insurgents in the making, and it could have been a British army training exercise on Salisbury Plain. Four of the technicals circled the camp with their .50 cals mounted on the back, but it was clear nobody really expected any intruders. Why would they? Who would be crazy enough to hunt them out in this bleak, unforgiving pocket of desert? It seemed significant to Danny that the machine guns were aimed upwards. These militants clearly expected any threat to come from the sky, not the surrounding area. Not for the first time, he remembered Hammond’s warnings about Yemeni drones.

  Midday. The heat had massively increased. Danny found himself lying in a clammy puddle of his own sweat. He and Spud drank sparingly from their bottles, but they were losing water far more quickly than they were drinking it. Danny ignored his parched throat and the sore itchiness as his skin chafed against his sweat-soaked clothes, and kept his full attention on Abu Ra’id’s tent. Even when Spud took over on the scope, Danny watched with his naked eye, to the accompanying retorts of gunfire that echoed over the dry desert terrain. The pounding midday sun made him feel slightly dizzy, but he still kept eyes-on. Abu Ra’id didn’t emerge. Several other men entered the tent at intervals throughout the day, but they always walked out alone. Abu Ra’id himself stayed put.

  ‘You think the fucker’s still in there?’ Spud said.

  ‘Sure, unless he’s dug a rabbit hole,’ Danny said with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

  ‘What if he’s not alone in the tent when we go in?’ It was an issue. The tents were about six metres by eight in size – comfortable enough for four or five guys.

  ‘Then we take out everyone who is.’ Simple as that.

  Nothing changed until the late afternoon, when the heat of the sun started gradually to diminish, even though the warlike sounds of the camp did not. At 16.58hrs there was a flapping at the entrance to Abu Ra’id’s tent, and the familiar figure of the cleric stepped outside. Immediately, two men ran up to him and accompanied him to the fire in the centre of the camp, which had stayed smouldering despite the heat, the air above it a smoky, wobbly haze. They sat cross-legged together by the fire, and didn’t move as the sun sank slowly behind Danny and Spud’s OP, filling the Yemeni sky with astonishing streaks of pink and orange.

  Danny and Spud barely noticed the beauty of the sky. All their attention was on the target. As night fell, the retorts of gunfire eased off. The jihadi students returned from the open plain of the desert to the camp. Most of them retired to their tents. A handful – maybe fifteen, it was difficult to count i
n the poor light, even through the spotting scope – sat round the fire with Abu Ra’id. The cleric was on his feet now, one hand raised. He seemed to be preaching again. He pointed to the sky, then used his hands to indicate an explosion. Obviously a warning against evil Westerners and their weapons of destruction. ‘They’d better not listen to him talking for too long,’ Spud said. ‘They might end up with the urge to cut their own throats. Fucker has that effect on people.’ He paused. ‘Come to think of it, maybe they should just chat away. Make our job easier.’ The flames were visible again now, and Danny found himself wishing he could share their warmth. The temperature had dropped dramatically in their little OP. His sweat-moistened clothes were clammy. ‘Roll on midnight,’ Spud said, his parched voice cracking slightly.

  In the event, the camp fell quiet long before that. At 21.58, the figures around the fire suddenly stood up. Danny was watching through the scope, the green haze of Abu Ra’id’s bearded face bang in the centre of his field of view. Everyone dispersed, heading off to tents around the camp. Abu Ra’id returned alone to the one in which he had spent most of the day.

  The only movement now came from the pick-up truck with the mounted .50 cal, which had resumed its circling of the camp. A slow trundle, regular and bluntly predictable. ‘Could be a decoy?’ Spud said. ‘They’ve got better security outside my fucking local.’ He sniffed. ‘Mind you,’ he said, ‘that is Catford.’ A similar thought had crossed Danny’s mind, and for the last half hour he’d been scanning the surrounding terrain, searching for other, more sophisticated threats. He saw none, and told Spud so. ‘They chose this place because they don’t expect anyone to come here. And if someone does, they expect them to be mob-handed. That’s why they’ve got the fifty-cals.’

  Spud grunted. ‘Then let’s get down there,’ he said. ‘Show them how wrong they are.’

  Danny shook his head. ‘We’ll give our brave little soldiers time to settle down after lights-out,’ he said.

  ‘Had a feeling you’d say that.’

  ‘We know where Abu Ra’id is. And I haven’t seen anyone else getting into his tent. I doubt he’s going anywhere tonight.’

  Midnight came and went. There was no movement in the camp except for the circling technical. 01.00hrs. 01.30hrs. Not until 01.45 did they agree to make their advance.

  They couldn’t use a firearm for the hit. Even suppressed, the retort of one of their handguns would echo round the camp just like the gunfire they’d heard earlier in the day. As they crawled out of their cramped, stinking OP, they both checked the knives they had tucked into their ops vests. Sharper than razors. As Danny went through the rest of his gear, he was aware of Spud taking a shit ten metres to his left, before burying the result. He checked the time. 01.53.

  ‘Ready?’ he said as Spud returned to the OP.

  ‘Ready.’

  Both men lowered their NV over their eyes. The world changed. The stars in the night sky burned hot. Danny’s field of view increased to a full 180 degrees thanks to the fly-like side optics in his goggles. You could see better through these things than with the naked eye. The circling truck passed in front of them, from left to right at a distance of 100 metres. They waited, crouching low, until it had turned left to trundle along the far end of the camp. Then they advanced.

  They moved in convoy, Danny in the front, Spud seven or eight metres directly behind him. Danny had his weapon slung across his chest, his hands resting lightly on it. He didn’t want to discharge any rounds, but the potential for contact was high and if he needed to, he would.

  Fifty metres to the first column of tents. Zero movement, except the pick-up which was now moving up the far edge of the camp. Danny increased pace. They needed to be among the tents for cover by the time the truck completed its circuit. His breath sounded loud in his own ears, his footsteps regular and noisier than they actually were.

  Twenty metres to the nearest tent.

  Fifteen.

  Movement.

  Shit.

  Danny held up one hand. Both men came to a halt and slowly, quietly, hit the ground. They were in open ground, ten metres from the perimeter of the camp. The pick-up circling the perimeter was moving along the top end. Two minutes, Danny estimated, before their path was lit up by its headlamps. Fifteen metres up ahead, a man had emerged from the nearest tent. Plain robe, wispy beard, young. He looked directly out in Danny and Spud’s direction, his eyes glinting in the NV like a cat’s in torchlight.

  He squinted.

  Had he seen them?

  No. He turned and walked ten metres in the opposite direction towards the centre of the camp. Then he lit a cigarette and stood there smoking it with his back to them, gazing up at the stars.

  Sixty seconds till the truck lit them up. Enough for this guy to finish his fag and go back to bed? Unlikely. But this figure was directly in their way, 25 metres from their position. There was only a fifty-fifty chance that they could creep up on him unseen and unheard. The second he clocked them, he’d raise the alarm. But to take him out now with a gunshot would spell the end of the op.

  Decision time.

  The guy was still smoking.

  They couldn’t wait. They had to creep past him. And if there was a chance of him seeing them, they’d have to deal with it . . .

  Danny raised a silent arm and pointed at a bearing of 30 degrees clockwise, away from the path that would lead them past the guy with the cigarette to Abu Ra’id’s tent. Slowly, he and Spud pushed themselves to their feet. The figure still had his back to them as they trod silently out of his potential line of view. They reached the tents, skirted round one and started heading down the aisle parallel to Abu Ra’id’s. His was in the sixth row along, which meant they had to pass another four tents. The tents were about six metres wide, the space between them roughtly the same. Danny crept past one of them.

  Two.

  A noise. Danny froze, holding his breath. It came again – a low groan. He exhaled slowly. Just someone moaning in their sleep.

  The pick-up was approaching their part of the perimeter. Danny could hear the low buzz of its engine, and his NV grew brighter in the light-spill. He crouched down on the far side of one of the tents and sensed Spud doing the same thing by the tent behind him. Distance between them: 12 metres.

  Footsteps.

  The lone figure had turned and was walking back towards the perimeter, towards the truck. He passed barely five metres from where Danny was crouching, but his focus was clearly on the truck itself. Like most people, he failed to see what he didn’t expect and walked straight past the heavily armed intruder.

  Voices. Arabic. They spoke for maybe 30 seconds before the truck continued its circuit.

  Then nothing.

  Danny remained very still, listening hard for any movement. There was none.

  Thirty seconds. He slowly pushed himself to his feet again.

  The figure seemed to come from nowhere, turning round the corner of the tent behind which Danny was crouching, suddenly facing him full on. Danny felt a surge of adrenaline as he let go of his rifle and felt for his knife. But he could tell he was going to be too late. The young jihadi’s face was a picture of sudden alarm and he was opening his mouth to shout a sudden warning.

  It never left his lips.

  Spud had appeared behind the target. One firm, broad hand covered his mouth and nose. The other whipped a blade in front of his neck and, with two clean, deft flicks sliced into the flesh on either side of his Adam’s apple. There was barely a sound from Spud’s victim as a sudden fountain of blood erupted from his jugular. Danny stepped quickly forward and grabbed his legs and wrists so they couldn’t make a noise as he flailed during his body’s death throes. He lifted the feet a few inches off the ground and held the squirming man tight as blood flowed, less violently now, from the twin wounds on his neck.

  He took 30 silent seconds to die.

  When his body was still, they laid him quietly on the ground, parallel to the nearest tent. Then they crouc
hed silently again, fully aware that they might have disturbed someone beneath the adjacent canvas. But nobody emerged. Once more everything seemed still. Danny pointed again in the direction of Abu Ra’id’s tent. Estimated distance: 20 metres. Seconds later, they were advancing once more.

  They met no more obstacles as they approached their target. The truck was moving along the far edge of the camp but it was almost 100 metres away and posed no threat now that they were in the thick of things. The threats came from closer at hand. The slumbering jihadis – perhaps four or five of them per tent – were doubtless armed. Disturb them, and things would go noisy. Danny and Spud were better equipped and better trained. But the numbers were not in their favour, and they knew a contact could become a bloodbath. The Regiment men, however, were expert at moving in silence. Slow, firm steps, feeling for loose ground with the tips of their toes before placing a full footstep.

  A minute later, they were outside Abu Ra’id’s tent.

  Speaking wasn’t an option. Not this close to the target. But that was okay. Danny was holding his breath anyway. They moved as one, in sync with each other. The tent itself was about half a metre higher than Danny, six metres in length and three in width. Its entrance was merely a loose piece of canvas, unpegged, unfastened, hanging motionless in the still desert night. Gaining entry would be straightforward. Exactly what would happen when they were in that enclosed space was anybody’s guess. One thing was for sure: here, in the heart of enemy territory, they would have to be swift and silent. They expected their target to be alone in here, but if there were any others, there was going to be a sudden bloodbath. They’d need silently to take out anyone who was still awake first, before killing the rest in their sleep.