by Chris Ryan
They walked up to a long, neon-lit bar, the music growing louder the further into the club they went. Tony felt all eyes on them, and his senses weren’t so far gone that he didn’t notice that most of those eyes belonged to young women who made the hooker back at the hotel look like Susan Boyle. When they reached the bar, there were already two drinks waiting for them – fruit cocktails of some kind. Tony took his and raised a glass to the two CP guys, who were now loitering by the entrance, looking like a couple of spare parts. They scowled back at him, but Tony had already turned his attention to the rest of the guests. Like Yellow Seven, he had his back to the bar and was scanning the club, blatantly trying to pick out faces among the heavily made-up women on offer, as the dance music continued to throb through him. He caught the eye of several of them. They gave him smiles that left him in no doubt that they were unlikely to put up any resistance, if he were to approach them.
He turned to his companion, whose pupils were even more dilated now than they had been in the car. Yellow Seven gave him a lascivious grin. ‘May the best man win,’ he shouted over the noise of the music, before heading into the heart of the club towards a table where four chicks wearing not a great deal almost seemed to be waiting for him to join them.
He was a smooth bastard. Tony would give him that. He watched him suavely introducing himself for a moment, then turned his attention to his own prey. There were a couple of girls at a nearby table – one blonde, one brunette, sequinned tops and plenty of make-up, the way Tony liked it – who were casting him a coy look.
Tony took a gulp from his cocktail and cast another sneering glance at the CP guys, who returned it. Then he moved in for the kill.
Eleven
Danny’s hands were numb with cold. The combat burka went some way to keeping the wind off him, but the ground itself sapped all the warmth from his body. He’d endured worse, though – and it wasn’t like they would be dug in for much longer. He hoped.
Three vehicles had passed since they’d been there. He hadn’t seen them, but he’d heard them – just – and seen the faint glow of their headlamps passing. Danny counted them all as suspicious. Who the hell would be driving here, miles from any town, so close to the Iraqi border, when they knew there was a chance of meeting militants of all persuasions?
2337 hours. Danny heard a noise. Very distant, but getting louder very quickly. Seconds later there was a sonic boom as an aircraft, unseen above the cloud cover, burst overhead and then disappeared into the distance. It was definitely some kind of fighter plane. Danny consulted his internal compass. The aircraft had approached from the east. Was it Russian, off to bomb rebel targets in Syria? If so, it was playing a dangerous game. The Turkish military had form when it came to shooting down Russian bombers when they strayed into their airspace.
0000 hours.
Caitlin: ‘Clear.’
Spud: ‘Clear.’
Danny: ‘Clear.’
There was a moment’s complete silence. Then Spud spoke over the radio for the first time since they’d dug in. ‘Fuckers are late,’ he said. ‘How are we supposed to trust them to get us across the Iraqi border when they can’t even show up on time for the first RV . . .’
‘Keep in position,’ Danny replied.
Time passed. At 0030 hours, each member of the unit checked in. 0100 same deal. But still no sign of the Kurds. Danny was acutely aware that the temperature was dropping. It was uncomfortable, but there was a way to go before it started having a negative effect on his body or his decision-making. He still had a creeping anxiety in his gut. Their contacts were an hour late. It was suspicious. Not to mention that they had limited time to get across the border and to the stronghold. He focussed on his surveillance of the RV point. There was no sign of anything. No movement. No traffic passing on the road.
By 0125 hours they were almost an hour and a half late, and Danny was getting properly worried. They were relying on these guys. Without them, the op was a non-starter. And what if there was a sinister reason for the Kurds being delayed? What if someone had got to them? What if they’d forced the details of the RV out of them? That would mean Danny and Spud were severely compromised.
0130 hours. Spud was the first to check in. ‘Clear.’
Danny: ‘Clear.’
Silence.
Danny gave it fifteen seconds. ‘Caitlin, do you copy?’
Nothing.
Danny felt a knot in his stomach. Why the hell was Caitlin not responding?
Danny ran through their options. If they left their positions now, they risked missing the RV. He was sure these Kurds wouldn’t want to hang around. But there was a good chance they weren’t going to show anyway, and what if Caitlin was in trouble?
‘Situation normal, all fucked up.’ Spud’s voice on the radio sounded tense. ‘Something’s happening. We need to abort, get back to the LZ, phone in for a pick-up—’
‘Quiet,’ Danny interrupted him. He’d seen something. A flash of light coming from the road to the south. It was only momentary, but that made sense. The ground was undulating. If it was the headlamps of a vehicle, they’d only see it when they were pointing upwards.
The decision was made for them. They couldn’t risk showing themselves yet. They had company.
Danny engaged the NV goggles fitted to the top of his helmet. Ten seconds passed. Another flash of light. Danny found himself clutching his weapon with a little more purpose. He squinted as a vehicle came into view, trundling heavily off-road over the undulating ground towards the RV point. Danny tried to work out what kind of vehicle it was, but the headlamps were too bright for him to see. He looked to one side as it continued to approach. Twenty seconds later it reached the RV point. The headlamps faded. A moment’s silence. Then the headlamps gave three short flashes.
‘That’s the signal,’ Spud breathed.
‘It’s one of the signals,’ Danny said. ‘But I don’t like that they’re so late.’ And he thought to himself: what if someone’s got to Caitlin, and through Caitlin got to us? ‘We’ll give it two minutes,’ he said, ‘check they haven’t brought any friends with them.’
‘Mucker, this is—’
‘I know.’
They lay in complete silence. Nobody exited the vehicle, and there was no movement from anywhere else. Not that it put Danny any less on edge. In a situation like this, there was always a point where you had to make the call to break cover. It was natural to be shitting yourself when that moment happened. As his eyes recovered from the glare of the vehicle’s headlamps, he found that he was able to discern it in more detail. It was a pickup truck of some description, and there was nothing subtle about it – Danny could see the outline of some kind of heavy weaponry mounted to the back. A fifty-cal, maybe. Enough to mow down a couple of guys on foot in a matter of seconds.
‘You got eyes on?’
‘Roger that.’
‘You clocked the hardware on the back of the pickup?’
‘Hard to miss it. I’m covering the vehicle with the 66. Any shit from these guys, I’ll blow the living fuck out of it.’
Danny paused. Time to make the call.
‘I’ll approach,’ he breathed into his radio. ‘Don’t show yourself until I give you the sign.’
‘Roger that.’
Danny rose from the ground, still hooded and wrapped in his combat burka. It took every ounce of self-restraint not to sprint towards them. He wanted to get back to Caitlin’s position, check she was OK. In truth, however, his first duty to Caitlin was to stay alive. He couldn’t help her if he’d been mown down by a fifty-cal. He had to play a bit smarter than that.
He had the butt of his weapon pressed hard into his shoulder. As he stepped carefully forward, he kept the vehicle’s windscreen firmly in his sights. He could make out the silhouettes of two figures in the front and passenger seats. His field of view wobbled a little as he picked his way across the rocky desert earth, but he kept the cross hairs firmly on the windscreen until he was twenty metres out.
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Then he stopped.
He stood, statue still, with his weapon engaged and the wind blowing his combat burka. The newcomers would soon realise that they had to make the next move.
The passenger door opened. A figure emerged, and slammed the door shut. The noise echoed across the open ground, carried on the wind. Danny realigned his sights on to the face of the figure. Only he couldn’t see a face. The militant’s whole head was wrapped in a black and white shemagh, with just a tiny slit for his eyes. He had an AK-47 hanging across his front by a neck sling. Camouflage jacket. Jeans. There was no way of identifying him as a Kurd. He moved to the front of the vehicle.
‘Stop there,’ Danny called in Kurdish.
The figure halted.
‘Three,’ Danny shouted out.
It was the prearranged call-and-response code Hammond and Alice Cracknell had given them. Danny was to call out a number. The Kurd had to respond with a number that added up to ten. Any other response meant that he’d failed the test.
There was no reply. The militant stood very still.
Danny suddenly realised he could hear his own heart beating. He adjusted the trajectory of his weapon so the sights were firmly planted on the militant’s forehead.
Five seconds passed.
Ten. Danny realised the militant was counting on his fingers. He obviously knew the consequences of making a mistake. Slowly, he raised his hands. On one hand he had five fingers showing. On the other, two.
Seven.
Danny allowed himself to breathe again.
‘Do you speak English?’ he called.
‘Of course.’ The man’s voice was muffled by the shemagh covering his mouth. ‘That’s why they sent me.’
‘Let’s lose the headgear.’ The militant inclined his head, clearly not understanding. ‘The shemagh,’ Danny called. ‘Take it off. I want to see your face.’
There was a moment’s hesitation. But then the militant did as he was told, slowly unwrapping the black and white shemagh. It took about fifteen seconds to unfurl, revealing a sharp chin and a hooked angular nose. And then the eyes.
Or rather, the eye.
The left eye was closed up. A vertical scar crossed the lids, with very clear horizontal stitching marks. Even in the darkness, Danny could tell that the area around it was swollen and puffy. He had the distinct impression that this was a recent wound. The militant’s hair was black and close-cropped. He stood with his chin jutting out proudly, as though daring Danny to make a comment about the state of his face. He was in his mid-twenties.
‘Get your friend out of the car,’ Danny said.
The man turned wordlessly and nodded towards the windscreen. A second figure emerged – no shemagh, but a carbon copy of the first in terms of weaponry. With two distinct differences: the face was intact, and she was female. Her brown hair was pinned tightly to her scalp. Almond eyes. Dark skin. Spots. She was very young. Fourteen, max. She wore a baggy pair of sand-coloured trousers and a khaki jacket a little too big for her. She looked towards Danny with the same jutting arrogance.
‘What the fuck?’ Danny muttered. ‘What time were you supposed to be here?’ he demanded more loudly.
The man sniffed. ‘Midnight,’ he said lazily.
‘Why are you so late?’
The man sneered. ‘Not easy to move around,’ he said. ‘Heavy presence of Daesh. We had to wait for a roadblock to finish.’
‘We should have just killed them,’ the girl spat.
‘My sister,’ said the man. ‘She hasn’t killed any Daesh yet. This is her first mission.’
Jesus, Danny thought. Are we a fucking kindergarten now?
At least their use of the word ‘Daesh’ sounded plausible. It was a term the Islamists hated. But it could still be a ruse.
Danny slowly lowered his weapon. There was a fine line, he decided, between defending himself from a sudden attack by these two, and offending them to such an extent that they refused to help. Some sixth sense told him he was erring on the wrong side of that line at the moment. But he knew Spud had his back. One word from Danny and there would be fireworks.
He approached. Five metres out, he stopped. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Rojan,’ said the man.
‘And you?’ Danny asked the girl.
‘You speak to me, man,’ Rojan said, ‘not her.’
Danny shook his head. ‘I need a name, buddy.’
A pause.
‘I am called Naza,’ said the girl. She had a dry, throaty voice.
‘You are alone?’ Rojan said.
Danny didn’t reply. He simply raised one hand. For a moment, it was clear that Rojan and Naza didn’t know why. But after a few seconds, they looked over their shoulders and saw Spud emerging from the darkness. He looked askance at Danny. He clearly wanted to know what their strategy was with regard to Caitlin.
‘You have something for us, man?’ Rojan said, his gaze flickering between Danny and the approaching Spud.
Danny nodded.
‘Where is it?’
‘Nearby. What happened to your eye?’
Rojan frowned. ‘Daesh happened to it,’ he said. He turned to Naza. ‘Show him.’
With obvious reluctance, Naza removed a chunky smartphone from her camouflage jacket. She swiped the screen, then held it up for Danny to see. There was video footage. It was blurred and shaky, with no sound. Danny could make out a crowd of people. The crowd had parted in the middle. A line of vans drove through the centre. Attached to the back of each van was a cage. In each cage was a man, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, cuffed to the bars. Outside each cage, hanging on to the back of the van with their rifles pointing into the air, was an IS militant. Black clothes. Black balaclava. Black flag with the IS symbol. The mob seemed to be cheering, and as the convoy passed through them, the camera focussed in on one of the caged men. It was Rojan. His eye was freshly wounded, a weeping, bleeding socket of red. Gore dripped down his cheek.
‘What is this? Movie time?’ Spud had reached them.
The video footage finished. Naza lowered the phone. ‘This was two weeks ago. My brother escaped. I’m going to kill the people who did this to them.’
‘You reckon?’ Danny said, just as Spud drew him to one side.
‘These two are a fucking joke,’ he said. ‘He’s only got one eye, and what the hell’s he doing bringing a fucking kid along? What kind of wanker does that?’
‘All they have to do is get us to the border,’ Danny said.
‘I wouldn’t trust these two not to wet the fucking bed,’ Spud muttered as Danny tuned back in to the Kurds.
‘We need to get back to the road,’ Danny said. ‘We have one more person to pick up. She’s waiting near here with your weapons.’ No point telling them of their concerns just yet – it might frighten them off.
‘She?’ Naza said sharply.
‘Yeah,’ Danny said. ‘She. I reckon you’ll get on like a house on fire.’ Naza’s expression told him she didn’t understand what he’d said. ‘Never mind,’ he told her. ‘Let’s go.’
He and Spud took a moment to remove their combat burkas and pack them back into their bergens, while Rojan and Naza returned to the vehicle. Danny recognised it now as an old Toyota Hilux pickup. Front seats, rear seats and an open section at the back where the weaponry was mounted – a fifty-cal machine gun, as Danny had expected, fitted to a sturdy tripod and with the barrel pointing to the front of the pickup. The vehicle was white, but very dirty, with large off-road tyres caked in mud and sand, spatters stretching up the side and large patches of rust everywhere. A greasy stink of diesel hung around it. It had seen better days, no doubt, but if this was the vehicle in which they were going to try to get over the border into Iraq, they had to make the most of it.
Naza had the keys and made her way to the driver’s door, but Danny blocked her way. She looked like she was going to argue, but thought better of it. Danny took the wheel. He drove slowly, keeping engine noise to a minimum, across the
rough ground and then back along the track that led to Caitlin’s vicinity. He stopped after four minutes and checked his GPS. The pin he’d dropped to mark Caitlin’s position was 500 metres to their west. He killed the engine. ‘We’ll leave the vehicle here,’ he said.
Naza shook her head. ‘It is too valuable. If someone takes it—’
‘Your brother can stay here. Man the machine gun.’
‘We will both stay here,’ Naza said.
Danny shook his head. There was no way he was leaving them together. If they got cold feet about the operation, the unit wouldn’t see them for dust. ‘You’re coming with us.’ She opened her mouth to object, but Danny interrupted her. ‘If you want your weapons, little girl, you’re coming with us.’
There was a limit to how many times he could use that threat, but for now there was no further argument. All four of them alighted. Danny made one more attempt to raise Caitlin on the radio. Nothing doing. Rojan climbed into the back of the pickup and manoeuvred the machine gun so that it was pointing towards the rear of the vehicle, back in the direction from which they’d come. ‘I am a very good shot,’ he boasted.
‘Yeah, I bet you are, cowboy,’ Danny muttered. He scoped the ground towards Caitlin’s location. There was no movement. He turned to the others. ‘Order of march, me, Naza, Spud. Make no noise – you understand, Naza? No noise. Let’s go.’
They moved in single file, halfway between a jog and a run, five metres between each of them. It took a little over a minute to negotiate the rocky ground and get to the small cliff over the cave where they’d left Caitlin. Ten metres from the cliff, Danny raised one hand. Looking over his shoulder, he was pleased to see that Naza had stopped. Danny approached the edge of the cliff carefully, got down on one knee with his weapon ready, and looked over.
Distance to the ground, six metres. No sound. No evidence of a threat. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t one. The cave mouth, directly below him, was out of sight.