by Chris Ryan
'Can't we do it somewhere closer and get the cash quicker?' said Reid, tapping his cigarette lighter against the table.
Damien shook his head. 'The point is that al-Qaeda are going to be looking for us. Try fencing this stuff in any city on the Med and word will get around. A bunch of white guys trading big quantities of gold and jewels a few days after their boat got hit. They aren't stupid; they'll be on to us like a flash.' He paused, opening a can of Diet Coke. 'The market in stolen jewels in Rotterdam is so big, no one is going to notice.'
'So how do we get it to Rotterdam?' said Ivan.
'We've bought two Land Rovers,' said Damien. 'Cooksley has stripped them down, taken out the engines and the undercarriages. We're going to stash the stuff inside those, then put them on a boat to Rotterdam. There's a cargo ship that leaves in three days – we should be able to get them on that. The trip takes seven days, but it's much safer than putting it on a plane. Customs almost never bother to check an imported second-hand car, but anything of that weight on a plane will automatically make them suspicious.'
'So the gear is out of our sight for a week?' said Reid. 'I'd rather watch my stash.'
'This is the best way,' said Matt. 'We stop here for a week, drink some beer, then get on a plane to Rotterdam the night before the cargo ship arrives. We collect the stuff together, and take it together to Damien's man. We get the cash, split it up there and then, and go our separate ways. Job done.'
Reid nodded. 'Wouldn't it be better if we all went on the boat?' he said. 'I don't want it out of my sight.'
Damien shook his head. 'It's a cargo boat. It'll be perfectly safe,' he said. 'We'll all watch it go on to the ship, and we'll all watch it come off. Anyway, you can't ask for five blokes to come aboard a cargo vessel to watch their stuff. It would just create suspicion.'
Reid looked away. 'It's my gear, I want to look after it myself.' He looked to Matt. 'Maybe we should split the gear up here, and then go our separate ways.'
Matt looked around the table. 'We need to trust each other,' he said, a note of impatience in his voice. 'That's the only way this is going to work.'
The bar was heaving with bodies. It was quarter to twelve at night and the main strip running through Limassol was brightly lit, full of people streaming up and down, standing outside every doorway, all of them drunk. The boys were wearing tight T-shirts, baggy jeans and baseball caps, and the girls were in mini-skirts and high-heels, with studs sticking out of their belly-buttons.
'Get me out on the ocean,' Matt said to himself.
Somewhere I can hear myself think.
The noise of the disco next door and the people at the bar crashed against his eardrums, making it almost impossible to hold a conversation. Matt reckoned they were the oldest men in the bar by at least a decade.
'The point about bridge is you have to plan several moves ahead,' Ivan was saying in his ear. 'That's what distinguishes the great players from the ordinary players. You have to see the whole game before anyone else can see it.'
Across the bar, Matt could see Cooksley and Reid chatting to a pair of girls. No chance, boys, he decided. Way too young. They looked nineteen or twenty, sisters maybe, with brown hair and green eyes, and bodies that were pressing hard against their clothes. Both of them had Bacardi Breezers in their hands and smiles on their faces. I know that sort, thought Matt. Right now, they are cuddly and sexy. At thirty, they'll be fat.
'So how many moves do you plan ahead, Ivan?' said Matt. 'In life, not in cards.'
'Three,' replied Ivan. 'More than that, you can't see what's happening. Less, you're just being stupid.'
In the distance, Matt could see two men approaching Cooksley and Reid. Brothers, boyfriends – it was impossible to tell. They looked pissed up. Their faces were red, and their eyes were woozy, and it was written all over their body language that they were ready to kick it off. One of the girls put her hand on to Reid's back, rubbing it provocatively.
You're trying to start something.
'How many moves do you plan?'
Matt laughed, looking back towards Ivan and taking a swig from his beer bottle. 'Frankly, I think two is my limit,' he answered. 'And that's on a good day.'
The first punch had been thrown quicker than he'd expected. One of the boys had put a fist into Reid's face, knocking him sideways. The boy didn't look like a trained fighter, Matt judged, but he was young and fit – and he had several pints of beer sloshing around inside him, and that always makes a man braver. Reid staggered two paces backwards, about to regain his footing, when his foot caught some spilt beer. He slipped and crashed to the floor, pulling a few bottles and glasses with him. When he lifted his head, Matt saw a deep-looking cut in his ear. Immediately there was blood on the side of his face, and the crowd around them seemed to freeze.
Mistake, thought Matt. That's a man whose punch was legendary even in the Regiment.
The girls were backing away now. It had started as a bit of fun, making their boyfriends jealous, but now the situation was escalating into something violent and ugly. The fun had shut down.
You girls can start it but you can't finish it.
Reid rose to his feet, the boy taunting him with a drunken grin. Matt watched as Reid pulled his fist back, the shoulder muscles powering up. He threw a left straight into the boy's face. Then, as a right crashed into his nose, the boy's knees buckled beneath him.
The second boy had smashed a beer bottle and was now advancing with it towards Reid and Cooksley, waving the jagged glass edge.
'Police,' shouted one of the men behind the bar. 'Someone call the police.'
This has gone far enough.
Matt signalled to Ivan and Damien, and the three men moved swiftly across the floor, pushing aside the crowd of people gathered to witness the action. One boy was out cold on the floor, Reid was circling the other, waiting for his moment to strike. Two of their mates had walked up and were starting to confront Cooksley, and the two girls stood behind them, their expressions terrified. Cooksley was trying to calm them down. 'That's enough, lads,' he said. 'Let's not all spend the night in a Cypriot police cell.'
In the distance, Matt could hear the wailing of a police siren. He marched into the centre of the crowd, shoving one of the boys aside, and grabbing Reid by the shoulders. From past experience he knew that once Reid had too much juice inside him he could turn into a dangerous animal. Reid was resisting, but with the help of Damien and Ivan, Matt was strong enough to wrestle him towards the door, blood dripping on to his shirt.
'You fucking tossers,' shouted one of the boys from the bar in a scouse accent. Reid turned around and attempted to lunge back into the crowd. Matt struggled to hold him – the man had the shoulders of an ox – and signalled to Ivan and Damien to give him a hand.
Reid snarled as they hauled him off towards the door. 'A bloody Irishman and a bloody bender!' he roared. 'Get your stinking hands off me and let me finish this fight!'
'You're a fucking idiot,' Matt shouted back, steering him out into the street. 'Just leave it. You get yourself arrested, the whole job goes to bloody pieces.'
After the trouble in the bar, Matt wasn't about to let the gang out of his sight. The next morning they were sitting around the hotel, none of them drinking anything harder than orange juice or coke. Reid had a plaster stuck over his ear and a bruise on his face, but otherwise was in good enough nick. 'You don't look any uglier than usual,' Matt remarked, after he patched him up. Reid had apologised to Ivan and Damien and although they had laughed it off Matt suspected it still rankled. Insults, he knew from long experience, are seldom forgotten quickly.
It's going to be hard work to keep this team together.
Ivan was trying to teach them the basics of bridge. He and Cooksley made up one team, Matt and Damien the other. They had played a few rounds already, and Matt could see that Ivan was wondering whether Cooksley and Reid weren't more suited to snap. He was clearly struggling to hold back from making any condescending remarks.
The game was not so different from soldiering, Matt decided, laying down an ace of trumps and collecting the trick from the table. You save your big gun for when you really need it.
'OK,' said Damien. 'After I get this money I can see I'm going to piss it away playing cards.'
'I'll have it off you in no time once we're playing for money,' said Ivan, glancing upwards. 'I'm already working out how to spend four – my two and your two.'
Matt glanced at both men, aware of the tension in both sets of eyes, then gave himself a break by collecting a new round of drinks from the bar. Two Cokes, two orange juices and a large bottle of still mineral water. 'Great looking stag party we make,' he said, putting the tray down on the table. 'I feel sorry for the bride if this is the most fun we know how to have.'
He glanced at his cards. One ace, a couple of queens, and a pile of fives or sixes. Rubbish, he decided. A beep from his mobile broke his concentration. Matt fished the phone from his pocket. A text message. He pressed the button, glanced at the words displayed on the tiny screen, then looked up at the men seated around the table.
'Time to go.'
'Finish the round?' said Ivan.
'Who do you think you are?' Matt said, standing up. 'Sir Francis fucking Drake?'
TEN
The boat ploughed steadily through the night water. Damien stood on the bridge, his hands steady on the wheel. It was one o'clock in the morning and a bank of clouds had drifted across the night sky, dimming the light of the moon. As the darkness descended upon them, their faces were illuminated only by the green glow of the radar screen.
Towards the back of the boat Matt could hear a pair of gulls squawking and the insistent monotonous hum of the engines. But the men had all quietened down – and so had the wind.
There is always a moment of stillness before a mission begins.
'How far?' Cooksley asked, standing next to Matt on the bridge.
'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.