by Chris Ryan
'About three nautical miles,' said Matt. 'Maybe another twenty minutes' sailing.'
The radar screen showed their position as a small green dot. Ahead there was another dot, marking the position of the target. It was moving, but they were moving faster. To keep on its track, Damien just had to steer the boat into its slipstream.
Matt looked into the sky, watching the last of the moon slip behind the clouds. The darker it gets, the better, he decided. They can't see us, but we can see them.
Damien steered the boat in silence, keeping his eyes fixed on the radar. Their training was completed, and each of them had practised their moves a hundred times over. Each man knew exactly what he had to do and when. If everything went according to plan, they would be back on the boat in an hour, and safely tucked up in their hotel bedrooms in three hours.
But when did it ever work out the way the plan said it should?
Damien killed the engines on the boat. It was one forty-five. The level of noise suddenly reduced, a stillness descended upon them.
Matt could hear the waves lapping against the vessel — it seemed to be getting rougher as the wind started to pick up again. 'Get the dinghy ready,' he said. 'The target is a mile due west of here.'
Reid and Cooksley lowered the dinghy into the water, steadying it as it started to sway. Matt checked his Bushmaster rifle, made sure his pistol was securely fastened to the belt of his wetsuit, and that his night-vision goggles were strapped into place. 'All systems go?' he said, looking around.
Reid, Cooksley and Ivan nodded. Their faces were all blackened up, and they were wearing black wetsuits with lightweight body armour strapped around their chest. Through the pale light, only their eyes could be seen clearly.
'Your explosives in place?' Matt asked Ivan.
'Ready,' said Ivan.
Matt turned towards Damien. 'OK, we're off,' he said. 'When we've cleared their boat, we'll radio you. You need to get your foot on the accelerator of this thing as fast as possible and bring it across to join us. OK?'
Damien nodded. 'Let's just fucking do it.'
Matt jumped down into the dinghy and sat next to Reid at the back. Ivan and Cooksley were ahead of them. The outboard was already fired up and its engines sliced through the water. 'Due west,' said Matt, leaning back as the dinghy powered away from the boat. 'At least we haven't got that bastard Bulmer shouting at us.'
He could see only darkness ahead. The dinghy was bouncing across the surface of the water, crashing through the waves that assaulted its hull. Matt held the Garmin navigator firmly, checking their progress against the co-ordinates of the target. He still couldn't see it, even through the night-vision goggles, but at the rate they were travelling he reckoned they would be there in nine minutes.
'Two degrees left,' he muttered.
Matt could feel the dinghy changing direction. He checked their position again. The target was straight ahead of them now. The al-Qaeda boat was moving at a steady pace of eight or nine knots, but the dinghy was going much faster, rapidly closing the distance between them. They were now just one nautical mile from the target.
'Goggles on,' he shouted across the boat.
He pulled his Rigel down over his eyes, checking the rest of them had done the same. The frames felt heavy around his face, cutting into his skin. But Matt had fought in goggles before, and knew that the pain was irrelevant. In pitch blackness, the ability to see was the greatest weapon of all.
If you can see your enemy before he can see you then he's already a dead man.
Matt looked up. Cooksley and Ivan were marked out as green blobs. He scanned across the ocean. Right now, there was nothing except for a small flock of birds drifting through the sky to the east. 'One degree right,' he told Reid.
Where are you?
The target appeared as a tiny pale-green dot, floating on the edge of the horizon. Matt's eyes locked on to it, watching as it grew steadily larger.
'You see it?' he whispered to Reid.
'Clear as daylight,' said Reid. 'That's our boy.'
Matt checked the Garmin. The instructions from Bulmer were that the noise of their engine would travel no more than a thousand metres at sea — sound travels poorly across water because of the noise of the waves and because the curve of the earth deflects it away from the surface. But Matt wasn't planning on taking any chances.
His stomach was heaving. The dinghy was rocking wildly with every wave, and it seemed rougher now than on any of their training exercises. He could see that Cooksley had already thrown up — some of it was now running down the side of Reid's wetsuit. The vomit was mixing with the water splashing over the side of the boat and swilling around Matt's feet. Ivan was making retching sounds, leaning over the side of the vessel. From the state of his own stomach, Matt thought he was about to join him.
They were drawing closer now, the engine growling at a steady pace. The noise of the ship and the hissing of the wind drowned out the sound of their dinghy. They didn't need any electronics to guide them towards the target. They could see it looming towards them, illuminated in vivid green on the screens of their goggles.
Matt scanned the surface of the vessel. From this distance it looked like a rough cargo ship, about eighty feet long, the sort you could see in any docks. There were a couple of winches at the back for loading and unloading, and a bridge at the front. Not much on deck. He could see the outlines of the stern, and the heat from the engine beneath it. He searched for signs of a lookout but could see nothing. It was now one-thirty in the morning, local time. There should certainly be one man on the bridge, maybe two, but it didn't look as if they had posted a lookout on the stern.
This might turn out easier than expected.
Matt's stomach heaved once more and he put his face low over the water, trying to keep as quiet as possible as he vomited burger and chips into the sea. He looked up and saw vomit smeared across Reid's face: the man was concentrating so hard on the target he had forgotten to wipe it away.
'Steady her,' he muttered to Reid.
They were approaching the tail-end of the wake, five hundred metres from the boat. 'There's someone there,' muttered Ivan from the front of the boat.
Matt looked up towards the target. There was the faint trace of a green object towards the stern. He steadied his head, letting the goggles get a lock on to the object — a round, green blob with things that looked like arms. No question — it was a lookout. The man was pacing up and down, and, as they got closer, Matt could see that he was smoking.
Stupid. He should know that night-vision goggles work on heat. You might as well wave a placard above your head saying COME AND SHOOT ME.
'Wait till we're down to fifty feet,' Matt muttered. 'Cooksley. .'
The plan was that they'd fire simultaneously. Matt picked up the Bushmaster rifle and held it tightly in his right hand. 'Move her up,' he muttered.
Now they were positioned right in the centre of the wake: the turbulence of the water would smother the noise as effectively as the silencer on a pistol. The prow of the dinghy jumped up as the engine roared forwards, the thick white water of the wake breaking over the top. Matt could feel the waves bouncing off the surface of his wetsuit but clinging to his hair and face. The glass of his goggles was constantly soaked, and he had to keep wiping them. They were within three hundred metres. 'Forwards,' he muttered to Reid.
He looked again to the surface of the ship. The green blob was pacing back and forth, the cigarette still dangling from its lips. Ahead, Cooksley was holding his rod, gripping it firmly between his fists. Ivan was at his side, both hands gripping the sides of the dinghy, his body swaying as the vessel rolled through the waves and the swell.
Two hundred metres. They're so close I can practically smell them.
Matt knelt forwards, struggling to find the perfect balance as the boat rocked through the wake. He took his goggles off, letting them hang freely around his neck. His forearms rested on the sides of the dinghy, and he raised the rifle to his
shoulder, putting his eye to the kite-sight. Two yards ahead he could see Cooksley doing the same. He trained the sights on to the green blob, aiming precisely two inches above the cigarette. That, he calculated, should lodge the bullet directly into the man's brain.
He looked towards Cooksley. 'Now,' he muttered. If they both shot at the same time there was a greater chance of hitting the target, and no extra risk of alerting the rest of the crew.
Matt squeezed the trigger. The rifle kicked back against his shoulder as the bullet flashed through the night sky. A wave hit the dinghy, and Matt struggled to stay upright. He kept his eyes locked on to the stern of the target. The blob was down — but whether he was dead or just wounded Matt had no way of knowing.
Piss off to meet Allah, you bastard.
Matt could hear the roar of the propellers as they drew closer: two massive blades of steel, cutting through the water. Another hundred metres to go. The smell of diesel and oil caught on the wind, filling Matt's lungs.
Reid turned the dinghy left then right, steering through the narrow channel of water dead in the centre of the wake. On either side of them, banks of white water were starting to rise, reaching six or seven feet into the sky. The water poured down on them, covering Matt's face in spray. 'Keep her steady,' he muttered.
The stern was looming above them now. It rose twenty feet, a solid wall of black steel, its surface pitted with rust. The tips of the prop blades could just be seen slicing through the churning surface of the water. They were twenty metres away. Matt could feel the engine starting to drag them towards it, the dinghy gliding across the surface of the water as if it were being sucked up by a vacuum. 'Turn it around,' he said.
Reid spun the engine into reverse. At this point in the approach, the suction from the ship's engine was enough to drag them forward: they needed the outboard to stop them moving too quickly towards it. If they collided with the propellers it would slice up the boat.
'Got it,' Reid said, looking back at Matt.
The dinghy was moving more steadily towards the stern now — forty, thirty, then twenty feet. Cooksley stood up, Ivan gripping him at the sides, and slung the hook forwards. It clanked against the metal of the stern, bounced, and started falling backwards.
Christ, man, don't drop it.
Cooksley gripped tighter to the pole, slinging it forwards again. This time the hook settled into the stern, the metal catching on metal. Cooksley tugged once. It was secure.
Ivan grabbed a thin aluminium caving ladder, holding it steady as Cooksley used the hook to pull them closer to the ship. Ivan slipped the ladder on to the stern, holding it steady, a ramp between the dinghy and the boat. 'She's ready,' he said.
Matt moved swiftly forwards. His feet bounced off the surface of the dinghy, his hands gripping on to the sides of the ladder. He steadied his balance, then yanked himself forwards.
The first man over the top faces maximum danger. That's my job.
He started hauling himself upwards. Three rungs up, a wave crashed over the side of his body. The force of the water knocked him sideways, his left hand breaking free from the ladder. His left foot was bashed out, leaving all the weight on his right foot, and a bolt of pain ran up to his knee. He could feel himself starting to be washed down towards the propeller. His right hand gripped tighter to the ladder, desperately hanging on. The salt of the water was stinging his eyes. When he managed to get himself squarely back on to the ladder he moved swiftly up five more rungs. Christ, he thought. That was close.
Using his forearms he pulled himself up on to the deck, then crouched down low, ripping the Bushmaster from his back. He held the gun to his eyes, looking out over the deck. For forty feet it was empty metal, with two cranes at the side and a lifeboat. To his right he could see a body lying crumpled on the deck, a pool of blood seeping out of the hole in the head just above the ear, and a cigarette still smouldering at its side. Matt glanced back down to the men behind, giving them the thumbs-up sign. Reid was already on the ladder pulling himself upwards.
Ahead, Matt could see the back bridge. One light was illuminating the deck, and he could hear the tinny sound of radio music being carried on the wind.
Behind him, Reid landed on the deck, then Cooksley, then Ivan. Matt checked the dinghy was secured to the stern with a rope. All four men then lay flat on the cold, wet metal: blacked-up, out of sight of the bridge.
'There's two up there, I reckon,' Matt whispered. 'Move up to twenty feet, then we'll drop them.'
Matt rose slowly and started walking stealthily across the deck, holding his breath, taking care not to make a sound on the metal surface. Right now, surprise was the best weapon. A single sound and they would lose it. Reid walked two paces behind him, ready to give him covering fire if any shooting started.
When they were twenty paces from the bridge, Ivan and Cooksley moved up ahead to attack from the front. Ivan was following standard operating procedures as if he'd been in the Regiment all his life.
No wonder those bastards were so hard to kill when we crossed the water.
Matt paused until they were in position, and watched as Cooksley glanced through the front windows of the bridge. Cooksley waved two fingers in the air, indicating that there were two targets on the bridge. Matt pointed to the ladder that linked the bridge to the main surface of the boat, then with Reid at his side walked up the metal stairs.
Matt stood by the metal door of the bridge and waited until Ivan and Cooksley were in position by the front windows of the bridge.
'Fire!' Matt barked, putting a thumb up.
Matt heard four shots firing in unison, the tracer fire lightening their faces. He watched as the man on the wheel spun round then collapsed, his body colliding with the deck. The sound echoed down the length of the boat. The second man reeled back on his heels, staggering towards the hold. He was clutching his shoulder, his face clenched in agony. Wounded, Matt judged — but not yet fatally.
'Forward!' he shouted. 'Let's get in there.'
Matt sprinted the last few feet, Reid right behind him. He swung open the door and burst on to the bridge, running forwards, his rifle held out before him. Immediately a hail of bullets filled the tiny metal room. Matt could see the wounded man leaning down towards the hold, blood streaming down the side of his neck. His ear had been shot clean from his face. 'Hajaba!' he shouted. 'Hajaba!'
Matt didn't know much Arabic, but he knew that word.
The bastard is telling them to hide.
Cooksley and Ivan's initial burst of fire must have been deflected by the strengthened glass. That was the only way the men could have survived the initial attack. The man now held up a pistol. He tried to steady himself but blood was pouring from his ear, dripping over his eyes and obscuring his vision. One shot rang out as he fired. Matt heard the metal somewhere behind him cracking as the bullet hit it. Another shot. This time it seemed to have winged Reid, as his arm dropped in agony.
Matt levelled his Bushmaster to his eye, steadied his arm and pulled the trigger. The shot was true. The bullet exploded between the man's eyes, sending him reeling backwards, his mouth wide open and blood trickling down the side of his face.
Matt rushed forwards, put his rifle to the head of the first man, and fired a double-tap into his skull. He looked dead, but there was no point taking any chances.
'You OK?'
'Just grazed my arm,' said Reid.
'So the rest are in the hold,' said Matt.
They had no way of knowing for sure how many men were on board. MI5 had reckoned six, meaning there could be three below, but it could be more. A metal stairway led down from the bridge into the hold, but it was pitch black. Matt knelt down, level with the stairs, swivelling his eyes through the space. Even with the goggles, he could see nothing.
'Torch!' he shouted.
Reid collected a torch from his belt and shone it down the stairwell. A bullet broke through the silence, striking the wheel and ricocheting into the window of the bridge. It had flown throug
h the three-yard opening to the stairwell, but it was impossible to tell exactly where in the hold it had come from, or who had fired it. The sheet of glass shattered into fragments, tumbling on to the floor. Matt ducked. If they were in the hold, and this was the only entrance, they were well dug in.
This could be a nasty fight.
Behind him, Ivan and Cooksley had entered the bridge. The boat was rocking from side to side as it steamed forwards with nobody at the wheel. 'See if you can shut this bloody thing down, Ivan,' Matt snapped. He looked towards Cooksley. 'See if there's another way down,' he said.
Cooksley ran down the length of the boat, inspecting the cranes, the lifeboat and the engine hatch. 'Just the engines,' he said, returning to the bridge. 'We can get down to that, but I don't know if it leads anywhere.'
Reid shook his head. 'Unlikely,' he said. 'The engine room is usually sealed off from the rest of the boat. Even if it's not, any man going down there will get fucked.'
'We got some stuff to blow away the bastards in the hold?' said Matt.
'We have Semtex,' said Ivan.
'Reckon you can make a small bomb that's not going to sink the ship?' said Matt.
Another bullet rattled out of the stairwell, followed by three more. All four men instinctively moved out of range. 'Give me two minutes,' answered Ivan.
Matt, Reid and Cooksley approached the edge of the stairwell, pointing their rifles down, loosening off a few rounds of ammunition: if there was anyone down there waiting for them, they needed to clear them out of the way. The sound of gunfire echoed through the hold. Matt could hear the metal bullets hitting metal walls and listened out for the familiar sound of bullet ripping into flesh, the cry of a wounded man. But he could hear nothing. This was useless, he decided. They were just shooting into thin air. The men down there had taken cover and were just waiting for them to come down the stairs.
Then they'll pick us off one by one.
It was almost two o'clock, Matt realised, glancing at his watch.
If we hang about, they'll radio someone for help. We need to get this finished off now.