Global Strike

by Chris Ryan

  ‘You’ve done well, Terence,’ he added. ‘Under the circumstances. These two are a welcome gift.’

  Cooper bowed slightly. ‘Thank you, Mr President.’

  ‘But it’s unfortunate that you’ve decided to end our arrangement. We had big plans for you.’

  ‘End the arrangement?’ Cooper repeated.

  ‘You just admitted to me that your cover has been blown. There’s no way you can return to your position in America.’

  ‘I can still be of service. I’ve spent my whole career at Vauxhall. I know all their dirty secrets.’

  ‘Your friend has told us plenty of them already. He’s proving very cooperative, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘But I told you about the dossier,’ Cooper said. Panic started to creep into his voice. ‘Without me, you would never have found out about that stolen nuke.’

  The last words ran through Porter like a knife. He glanced at Bald. The same question bit away at both of them.

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ Bald snarled, looking from Cooper to Gabulov.

  Cooper pressed his lips shut. Gabulov saw the confused looks on the operators’ faces and smiled.

  ‘Didn’t Terence tell you about the dossier?’

  ‘The sex tape?’ Porter said. ‘Terry Cooper told us you were gonna use it . . . to blackmail the US president.’

  Gabulov chuckled heartily. ‘Do you really think I’d go to all this trouble over some footage of that old fool screwing a whore? We’re not even sure such a tape exists. My people tell me it’s just rumours.’

  Porter and Bald looked towards Cooper, both of them wearing the same angry expression. Cooper’s face had turned pale, his feet shifting with anxiety. He had the look of a man who’d gambled heavily on black and had lost everything. ‘If it’s not a tape,’ said Porter, ‘what’s this all about?’

  ‘A mention of a portable nuclear bomb,’ Gabulov replied. ‘Stolen by one of my sworn enemies.’

  The words hit Porter in the stomach like a one-two punch. A sick feeling coiled up inside him and spread through his guts. This whole time we had it wrong, he realised. Porter understood something else now too. Why so many Russians had been involved in the attack on the safe house.

  They weren’t after a sex tape.

  They were after something much bigger than that.

  ‘That’s what you’ve been after all this time?’ Bald said. ‘Some report of a missing nuke?’

  Gabulov’s expression darkened. ‘Not missing. Taken from me, by those in my country who wish to undermine my authority.’

  Porter said, ‘But if this stuff about a nuke was in the dossier, why didn’t Street say anything about it?’

  ‘Tell them, Terence.’

  Cooper swallowed nervously. ‘My old friend didn’t know what he’d stumbled upon. When he came to see me, Charles was all over the stuff about a sex tape. I would have sent him on his way, but then I spotted the claim about the nuke.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  Cooper spoke as if reading from an autocue. ‘A Russian criminal had acquired a portable nuke and hidden it at his dacha in the countryside.’

  ‘That’s it?’ Bald asked. ‘That’s the whole story?’

  ‘More or less. There were some other claims in there, but Charles said I should dismiss them. Including the report about the bomb.’

  ‘But why would he leave that stuff in the report, if he didn’t think it was true?’

  ‘To pad it out, I suspect. Charles is notoriously lazy. Always has been, going back to our days in the service. He didn’t take the claim seriously, that’s for sure.’

  ‘But you did,’ said Porter.

  Cooper gave a slight nod. ‘Yes.’

  ‘My people have been looking for that nuke for months,’ Gabulov cut in. ‘Ever since the traitorous fucks in my country stole the weapon from one of our storage facilities. Terence was our British contact. He had orders to keep his ear close to the ground, see if his colleagues at MI6 knew anything about it. We didn’t want our enemies finding out that one of our nuclear packages had gone missing. For obvious reasons.’

  Bald made a face at Cooper, like someone had pissed in his soup. ‘That’s why you told Six a pack of lies about a sex tape. To stop them finding out what you were really after.’

  ‘That was part of it, yes.’ Cooper’s voice was husky with fear. ‘But I needed help to find Charles. I had to give Dom a reason to send someone over. So I told them the stuff about a sex tape.’

  Porter shook his head. ‘But why bother kidnapping Street? He didn’t even know about the nuke claim, according to what you just said. He couldn’t tell you a fucking thing.’

  Gabulov smiled. ‘Wrong, my friend. Street knew something very important. Something we had to have. The identities behind everyone he included in the report. Including the criminal with the stolen bomb.’

  A memory flashed back at Porter. Something Tannon had told them in London. About Street masking the identities of the people named in the dossier. To protect his sources.

  Charles was reluctant to give them up, Tannon had said. Extremely.

  ‘That’s why you took him here?’ he said. ‘To find out a name?’

  ‘Not just that. The prisoner has many other secrets we wish to learn. Some of which he has already told us.’

  Cooper spread his hands at Gabulov. ‘That’s why you need me, Mr President. ‘Because of my contacts. Without my help, you wouldn’t know where to find that bomb.’

  ‘I’m grateful for your help. But that’s in the past now.’

  The president tipped his head at Gold Chain, aka Tarasov. The mob lieutenant stepped towards Cooper and slid a hand down to his belt holster, reaching for his Makarov.

  Cooper’s mouth gaped. ‘What . . . what are you doing?’

  ‘Terminating our agreement.’

  ‘Christ, no.’

  ‘Mother Russia is grateful for your service, Terence.’

  ‘You can’t kill me.’

  ‘I’m the president. I can do whatever the fuck I want.’

  Cooper backed away a step from Tarasov as the Russian drew up his gun arm. He looked pleadingly towards Gabulov. Desperation gleamed on the agent’s face.

  ‘Don’t. Jesus, don’t do this. I’m begging—’

  Tarasov grinned as he pressed the muzzle against Cooper’s temple and pulled the trigger. A gunshot thunderclapped inside the room.

  The side of the agent’s head exploded as the 5.45x18mm round ripped through his cranium before punching out the other end. Blood sprayed out of the exit wound in a furious bright-red gush, like popping the cork after shaking a bottle of champagne. Porter felt warm droplets of Cooper’s blood splashing against the side of his face. Cooper fell away like someone had just cut his strings.The president smiled in amusement, as if someone had told him an old joke that he still found funny. Tarasov stood over Cooper, grinning at the lifeless heap on the floor.

  Then Gabulov snapped an order at the HGH twins in Russian. They barrelled inside the room and padded over to Cooper. Stooped down beside him, took an arm each and dragged him out of the room, leaving a glistening trail of blood on the vintage Turkish rug. The president waited for the twins to leave, then said something to Tarasov. The lieutenant holstered his Makarov, fished out the fake passports from his back pocket and handed them over. Gabulov flipped casually through the pages then passed them to one of his heavies. He looked back at Porter and Bald, his black, pitiless eyes searching their faces.

  We’re next, thought Porter. They did Cooper. Now they’re gonna finish the job. We’re about to get slotted, and there’s fuck-all we can do about it.

  ‘Terence said you’re former Special Forces,’ Gabulov said. ‘Is that true?’

  The question threw Porter. It took him a moment to compose himself. ‘We used to be in the Regiment, yeah.’

  ‘Regiment?’

  ‘SAS.’

  ‘Now you work for those pieces of shit at MI6?’

  ‘
On and off. Here and there.’

  ‘You were stupid to come here alone, with no one else to help you.’

  ‘We didn’t have a fucking choice.’

  Gabulov nodded at Tarasov. ‘My lieutenant tells me you came close to stealing our prisoner. Made a mockery of our defences.’

  Porter shrugged. He thought, I’m done talking to this madman. Nothing they could say would make Gabulov change his mind. There was nothing else to do except brace themselves for the pain they were about to suffer.

  ‘If you’re gonna kill us, just get it fucking over with.’

  A smile formed on the president’s thin lips.

  ‘I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to make you both an offer,’ he said, his American accent intensifying. Porter had a passing suspicion that he was doing an impression of Marlon Brando in The Godfather. ‘One you can’t refuse.’

  ‘We’re not cutting a deal with you.’

  ‘You will . . . if you want to save your friend.’

  Porter felt a prick of curiosity. ‘What offer?’

  ‘We’ve been questioning the prisoner for many hours. He’s already given up what we needed to know. I know the name of the traitor who stole the package from me. Now I want you to get it back.’

  Bald did a double-take. ‘The nuke?’

  Gabulov nodded. ‘You’re going to go to that dacha, find that bomb and return it to me. Then I’m going to make my enemies pay.’

  FORTY-THREE

  The room went dead silent.

  Out in the hallway, Porter heard low voices, the slither of Cooper’s dead mass being dragged across the polished floor as the twins hauled him outside. Rat Face had left the room to help them. Gold Chain lingered by the door, arms folded across his front, like a bouncer prowling the entrance to an exclusive club. Gabulov stood between Heavy One and Two, watching the two former SAS men.

  Waiting for their response.

  Bald spoke up at last. ‘Why would we help you?’

  ‘Simple. If you refuse, I’ll hand you over to Tarasov.’ The president nodded at Gold Chain. ‘No one is as skilled at torturing people as him. Or as loyal to me. Tarasov once ripped off a man’s testicles with his bare hands. He’s killed women, children. Hundreds. A few hours in his company, you’ll be begging him to put you out of your misery.’

  ‘How do we know you won’t just slot us anyway?’

  ‘You can trust me. I always keep my word.’

  Porter shot a thirsty glance in the direction of the private bar. Above the fridge with the bottles of Veuve Clicquot his drinker’s eye spied a rack of luxury spirits. Remy Martin cognac, Grey Goose vodka. Laphroaig thirty-year-old single malt.

  The voice returned.

  You need a drink right now, it whispered. A fucking big one.

  ‘Why us?’ Bald asked.

  ‘Tarasov tells me you two were at the safe house. In America.’

  ‘Aye. That was us.’

  ‘You put up a hard fight back there. Took down some of my best foot soldiers. Then you came here and almost succeeded in stealing the prisoner. That took balls.’

  ‘You’re the president. You’ve got a whole fucking army on speed dial. You don’t need us to get the nuke back for you.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to my own men,’ Gabulov said. ‘Not for this mission.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because the traitor is my brother. Alexei.’

  Something like a knife twisted through Porter’s guts. He remembered reading somewhere that the president had a younger brother. A mobster who had risen up through the ranks in the Russian prison system, while the president had been doing the same in the KGB. Nobody knew much about him.

  ‘Why would your brother steal a stolen nuke?’ he asked.

  ‘Alexei is part of a group of hardliners. Fanatics who see themselves as the last defenders of the Christian world. They’re determined to fight a new crusade. A global war to wipe out Islam completely. No survivors.’

  ‘Ambitious,’ Bald said. ‘But fucking mad.’

  Gabulov nodded. ‘I tolerated the hardliners at first. It was safer to have them inside the tent pissing out. But lately they’ve been getting out of control. Working against me, funding my enemies. Spreading lies.’

  ‘What do the hardliners want with a nuke?’

  ‘Revenge,’ said the president.’

  ‘Against who?’

  ‘The Chechens. The hardliners want to make them suffer. Payback for the recent bombings. They want all-out war.’

  A chill slithered snakelike down Porter’s back as he recalled the footage he’d seen on the news back home. The suicide bombing at St Petersburg. Thirty-nine dead. The latest in a spate of terrorist attacks, the newsreader had said.

  He remembered something else too. The hardliners on the streets of Moscow. Swastika tattoos and shaven heads.

  Protesting against the Chechens.

  He said, ‘That’s their plan? They’re gonna drop a nuclear bomb on Chechnya?’

  ‘Not there,’ Gabulov replied. ‘We think they’re targeting Moscow.’

  ‘Why would they detonate a nuke in their own back yard?’

  ‘There’s a slum to the north of Moscow, on the outskirts of the city. A shanty town. We think that’s the target. Thousands of migrant workers live there. Chechens, Tajiks, Uzbeks.’

  Bald frowned. ‘That’s madness. They’ll turn every Muslim from here to Baghdad against Russia, if they get away with that.’

  ‘Exactly. We’d all have targets on our backs.’

  Porter shook his head. ‘If you knew what these nutjobs were planning, why didn’t you stop them?’

  ‘It’s not that easy. The hardliners have a lot of support in the army. Some of the generals, they’re unhappy with my response to the bombings. They don’t understand why we’re not carpet-bombing the shit out of Grozny. Going against them is risky. Besides, we thought it was just a lot of talk. A general aim. Nothing specific.’

  ‘Until Cooper told you about the document mentioning the Russian criminal with the nuke.’

  ‘I knew he was up to something,’ the president admitted. ‘But Alexei has overstepped the mark this time. That fucking dog is going to suffer for his treachery.’

  His eyes glowed, his hands trembling with rage as he spoke. Porter was left in no doubt as to the hatred that Gabulov felt towards his own brother.

  ‘So put a bullet in his head and take the nuke back,’ Bald said. ‘Problem solved. What’s the big deal?’

  ‘I can’t stop Alexei. Not officially. If the hardliners found out I’d ordered the death of my own flesh and blood, it would trigger an all-out war among the rival factions.’

  ‘That’s why you need us to grab the nuke?’

  ‘Yes. Whoever stops Alexei has to come from outside my ranks. Completely deniable. It’s the only way to prevent a civil war.’

  Porter said, ‘How did your brother get his hands on the nuke in the first place? It’s not as if he could just order the fucker off Amazon.’

  ‘He had help. A co-conspirator. Someone high up in the army. One of the generals, possibly. Someone who was in a position to steal the bomb without drawing attention.’

  ‘They just smuggled it off the base?’

  Gabulov said, ‘The package was designed to be transported on foot. It could have been concealed in a truck, or in the back of a car.’

  ‘How small are we talking?’’

  ‘Small enough to be carried in a backpack. Only one man needed to operate. We built them in the sixties. For use by Spetsnaz soldiers, behind enemy lines. We were going to use them to blow up strategic installations, in the event of a war with the Americans.’

  The knife deepened in Porter’s guts as he listened. He’d heard of similar weapons during his time in the Regiment. The Americans had rolled out backpack nukes at the height of the Cold War. Mk-54s, stashed inside H-912 military rucksacks. Special Atomic Demolition Munitions, otherwise known as SADMs. The closest thing the Allied governments co
uld get to a suitcase bomb. Mechanical timer, one-kiloton yield. A two-man team would parachute in over enemy territory with the weapon, stash it at a dam or a bridge, arm the timer and then leg it out of the blast radius before it detonated.

  Madness.

  ‘Don’t you need the codes to work them things?’ asked Bald.

  ‘They’re stored in the same crates as the devices,’ Gabulov explained. ‘Whoever smuggled out the bomb also managed to get their hands on the codes. My brother has the complete package.’

  Porter said, ‘Those backpack nukes are like the world’s biggest demolition charges. If that fucker goes off, it’ll kill thousands.’

  ‘Our best estimate is five thousand dead in the shanty town. Another fifteen thousand injured in the surrounding neighbourhoods. Most of the city would have to be evacuated.’

  ‘Your brother’s out of his fucking mind.’

  ‘Maybe. But he has the tools and the will to succeed. Now you’re going to stop him for me, or you’re going to suffer a slow and painful death. Both of you.’

  Porter glanced down at the bloodstains on the vintage rug and set his teeth on edge. This guy is capable of anything, he thought. Either we do as he says, or we’re gonna end up like Cooper.

  Or worse.

  ‘If we do this,’ he said, ‘we want something in return.’

  That prompted a mean chuckle from the president. ‘You’re in no position to negotiate with me.’

  ‘Yeah, we fucking are. You need us. We’re the only ones who can stop your brother without it coming back to haunt you. Either you give us something, or you can find some other cunt to do your dirty work.’

  Gabulov’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘The prisoner. We get you the package, you give us Street.’

  ‘That old spy? That’s your demand?’

  ‘Have we got a deal or not?’

  The president pressed his fingers to his lips as he paused to consider.

  ‘Deal,’ he said at last.

  ‘We want him alive,’ Porter added.

  ‘Don’t worry. We’ll return the prisoner without harming another hair on his head, as you English say.’