by Chris Ryan
Then he remembered the fire. It had been burning brightly, but now the flames had died down. Danny cursed. He should have checked before to see what Dhul Faqar had been so keen to burn.
There was a pile of crisp, black embers on the coals, which Danny realised had been a sheaf of papers. One piece of paper, however, had fallen to the front of the fire and was only half burned. Danny removed it, then examined it carefully.
‘Spud,’ he breathed. ‘Look at this.’
Spud joined him. He was carrying a med pack, ready to minister to Caitlin. He looked at the paper.
It was a printout from a UK weather website. A forecast. Temperature. Cloud cover. And, circled in black pen, and translated into Arabic lettering beneath, wind speed.
Danny double-checked the location for the forecast.
Sandringham, Norfolk.
He glanced back at the map of London on the table. His mind was working quickly, picking out various moments from the past few hours and days. He remembered talking to Malinka, just before Caitlin had killed her, asking her about the strike on London: Westminster, she had said. Christmas Day.
But as Dhul Faqar had suspected Malinka of being an American agent, he would never have let her have that information in the first place, unless it was inaccurate.
And why had he been so eager to burn this slip of paper, while leaving untouched the map of London with Westminster Abbey so clearly marked?
‘That’s where the Christmas Day strike is,’ Danny said quietly. ‘He’s targeting the royals. It’s where they spend Christmas.’ He paused. ‘Maybe that’s why Tony was dispatched to pick up Yellow Seven. Maybe Five heard some whispers and wanted him back in the country.’
A pause. Spud was eyeing him uncertainly. ‘I’m hearing a lot of maybes, Danny.’
Danny jabbed the weather report with his forefinger. It left a smear of blood on the paper. ‘Wind speed and wind direction, translated into Arabic. What would we use that information for, you and me?’
‘Taking sniper shots,’ Spud said immediately.
Danny gave him a look that said: got it in one.
‘You don’t know any of that for sure, mucker,’ Spud said carefully.
‘Yes I do,’ Danny said. Because something else had just clicked in his mind. Something Dhul Faqar had said when they were being held at gunpoint. Our friend Mujahid . . . He will be very happy to be distracted from his Christmas Day plans to travel west and put an end to your child’s life. ‘He told us his guy Mujahid would travel west. You’d only say that if you were somewhere east. Sandringham’s in Norfolk.’
‘I dunno, mate. What about the IS guys on the migrant boats?’
‘Patsys,’ Danny said. ‘Put right into our path to feed us false information. That’s how Dhul Faqar operates. He sacrificed one of his people to flush out Malinka. He sacrificed Santa and Rudolph to make us think the strike was going to be in London. But it’s not. Think about it. You see it on TV every year – the royals going to church on Christmas morning. And with every military resource focussed on London, it’ll be the easiest hit in the world.’ He stared at Spud. ‘The British royal family, massacred by IS. I can’t think of anything those bastards would like better.’
Spud looked unconvinced. ‘Hereford are waiting for our communication,’ he said. ‘Phone all this through. Tell them what you think. Then they can make the call.’ He turned his back on Danny and returned to their gear, clearly about to get their satphone from one of the packs.
‘No,’ Danny said.
Spud stopped. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Don’t make the call,’ Danny said. ‘Not until we’ve worked out what we’re going to say.’
‘I told you, we just—’
‘They’ve got my daughter, Spud. And Clara too. I’ve got no leads. No way of finding them.’
‘Mate, we—’
‘Except one,’ Danny said.
A pause.
‘What?’ Spud asked.
‘This guy Mujahid. He knows where they are. And we know where he’s going to be on Christmas morning. If we let the Regiment know, their first priority will be to shoot him on sight. I can’t let that happen.’
Spud’s eyes widened slightly as it dawned on him what Danny was suggesting. ‘You want to keep it from them? Mate, they find out, they’ll chuck us in prison and throw away the fucking key.’
Danny stayed silent.
‘Just tell them everything you know. Tell them this Mujahid guy has to be taken alive.’
‘Right,’ Danny said. ‘Because we all know what happens to people who need to stay alive, if they get in the way of a Regiment mission objective.’ And he looked meaningfully over at the Yazidi girl Spud had shot just minutes previously.
‘Jesus,’ Spud breathed. He shook his head. ‘You haven’t got a chance of catching this guy, Danny. If there really is going to be a hit at Sandringham, you’ve got no way of predicting how it’s going to happen, because you don’t know what the royals’ movements are.’
‘Maybe not,’ Danny said quietly. ‘But we know a guy who does.’
For a moment, Spud looked confused. Then his eyes widened. ‘Tony? You’ve got to be fucking joking. He hates you. The cunt wouldn’t give you the steam off his piss.’
‘We’ll see,’ Danny said. ‘But we’ve got to get out of here first.’ He nodded towards Caitlin. ‘If we tell them we got no intel out of Dhul Faqar, Caitlin’s a goner. We know how nervous the Firm is about breaching Iraqi airspace at the moment. They won’t risk it just for a medical evacuation of a single soldier.’
‘It could take us weeks to get to the border,’ Spud said.
‘Well, we’ve got hours, not weeks. We need to dangle a carrot. Make them think it’s worthwhile getting us picked up.’
Spud pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘What have you got in mind, Danny?’
‘Are you with me?’
Spud bowed his head. He obviously didn’t like any of this. But Spud owed Danny. Big time. Now that it was Danny’s turn to call in the favour, he could hardly refuse.
‘What do you want me to do?’ he said.
‘Find us a vehicle we can use. I’m going to make a call. We leave in two minutes, and we’ll be home tomorrow. I guarantee it.’
Spud oozed reluctance. But he didn’t argue. Danny moved over to the packs, selected his and hurried to the exit. Spud hauled Caitlin over his shoulder again and followed.
Outside, everything was still. Danny strode up to the edge of the reservoir. It was fully dark again, and a cloudy moon reflected on the dark water. Danny removed the satphone from his pack, inserted the battery, switched it on, waited a few moments while it powered up, then speed-dialled their contact number.
It was answered within a single ring. A male voice, very clear. ‘Go ahead.’
‘This is Delta Three Tango.’
‘Wait out, Delta Three Tango.’
A crackly pause of twenty seconds. Then a new voice. ‘What do you know?’ Danny recognised the voice immediately – Ray Hammond. He wondered if their ops officer had made it back to the UK.
‘Target acquired and eliminated. We have three names.’
‘Please transmit.’
Danny paused. The success of his plan depended on Hammond not knowing that Clara had been abducted. He couldn’t ask him outright – not if he wanted to track down his daughter on his own. So he kept it obscure. ‘Do you have anything to tell me?’
Now it was Hammond’s turn to pause. ‘What are you talking about?’ He sounded genuinely bewildered. That was enough for Danny. ‘Transmit the names.’
‘Negative,’ Danny said.
Silence. ‘Transmit names,’ Hammond repeated.
‘You want names, you need to send a pick-up to extract us.’
‘You know that’s not possible—’
‘Make it possible. We have wounded personnel. They won’t survive without a medical evacuation.’
‘Negative, Delta Three Tango. Transmit names immed
iately.’
‘Take down the following location,’ Danny said, and recited the GPS reading that he’d intended to be their RV point with the Kurds. ‘We’ll be there in one hour.’
He switched off the satphone and pulled out the battery. He knew he’d just dropped a bombshell on the headshed. He knew they’d make him pay for it back in the UK. They’d talk about RTUs. There’d probably even be court martials. Danny didn’t care. If the Ruperts thought they’d failed to extract any intelligence out of Dhul Faqar, they’d leave them to find their own way out of Iraq. Danny hadn’t been lying when he said Caitlin wouldn’t make it. Nor would his daughter . . .
He sensed Spud behind him. His mate had returned to retrieve his and Caitlin’s packs.
‘You got a vehicle?’
Spud nodded. But suddenly he wasn’t looking at Danny. He was staring into the distance, across the reservoir. He pointed. ‘What the hell’s that?’ he breathed.
Danny looked. He immediately saw what Spud was pointing at. Several black shadows, flying low over the water, only visible because they blocked out the stars, and because their downdraught formed white horses on the water, illuminated by the clear half moon.
For a sickening moment, he looked at the satphone in his hands. Had someone been listening in to his conversation? Had the encryption been so easily hacked? Impossible, he told himself. He’d only finished talking a few seconds ago. Nobody could mobilise that quickly . . .
Then he heard the banging sound from the incarceration unit, and he understood.
‘Americans,’ he hissed. ‘Malinka must have not clocked in with her handlers. They know something’s gone wrong. They’re here to extract her. They’re not going to let us leave, knowing what we know.’ He turned to Spud. ‘Run!’ he hissed.
Spud hoisted the two packs over his shoulders and sprinted. Danny followed him, across the open ground and past the incarceration unit. They could hear the chopper now, the low thrum of its engine and the regular beating of the rotor blades. The Hilux that Spud had selected was parked at an angle on the far side of the incarceration unit. There were several bullet holes in the side, but it was turning over. The left-hand rear passenger door was open, and Danny glimpsed Caitlin lying there, unconscious. The rear window had been shattered, probably by gunfire. Danny and Spud hauled their packs into the back.
Spud sprinted to the driver’s seat, Danny to the passenger side, slamming Caitlin’s door as he passed. Seconds later, they were moving. No headlamps, so they didn’t draw attention to themselves. Spud floored it, the engine screaming as he made his way up the gears, the poorly suspended chassis juddering and bumping over the rough ground. Danny leaned out of the side window, his weapon engaged. Looking back towards the buildings, he could see the threatening form of one of the choppers hovering over the open ground by the side of the reservoir while two others held back over the water, their downdraught kicking up clouds of spray. Figures were fast-roping out of the belly of the chopper that had made landfall.
‘American SF!’ Danny shouted. ‘Faster!’
The vehicle juddered badly as Spud spun it off the rough ground and on to the narrow road that led to the perimeter fence, past the two checkpoints and up to the main supply route. From the corner of his eye he could see, in silhouette, the corpses still hanging from the cherry pickers along the perimeter fence. Up ahead, the vehicles belonging to the middlemen were still positioned in the road, and nobody had bothered moving the corpses of the men the unit had eliminated on the way in. Ten metres from the perimeter fence checkpoint, a flock of birds rose suddenly from the corpses on which they had obviously been scavenging. Spud didn’t slow down. As they hit the checkpoint, there was a bump and a crunch as the wheels of the Hilux steamrollered over one of the bodies in the road. Spud yanked the steering wheel left and swerved sharply out of the way of the middlemen’s vehicles, before directing the Hilux back on to the road.
Up ahead, there were the lights of headlamps on the main supply route. It wasn’t busy, but they would only be safe once they reached it and could merge into the traffic heading north. He kept the speed up as Danny looked back towards the compound again. The chopper was still hovering. It had been there for about a minute. The troops would have found Malinka’s body by now. They’d be expecting to find Danny. What would they do when they discovered he was missing? Danny didn’t know the answer to that question. All he knew was that they couldn’t hang around to find out.
Fifteen seconds later, they reached the checkpoint nearest the main supply route. Spud burst through it. Distance to the road: 500 metres. The speedometer was tipping 120 kph. It would take fifteen seconds to cover it. Looking back, Danny saw the chopper rising. The flight crew had switched on a searchlight.
‘I got it,’ Spud breathed, before Danny could point it out.
The searchlight was panning across the compound, obviously looking for something.
Obviously looking for them . . .
Two hundred metres. The chopper was rising higher. Danny’s gut went cold. The higher it was, the greater its field of view, and the better its chance of seeing them.
A hundred metres.
Fifty.
There was a groaning sound from the back. Caitlin stirred, but then closed her eyes again.
Spud didn’t slow down until they were twenty metres from the main supply route. Nor did he switch on the headlamps. Danny gripped his seat hard. An articulated lorry was trundling along the main road at a stately 60 kph. For a horrific moment, he thought they were going to collide. There was a loud klaxon sound – the lorry driver was clearly thinking the same thing. But Spud’s skills were good. At the last moment, he hit the brake. The Hilux decelerated just in time for them to swing on to the road, less than two metres behind the lorry. Spud quickly switched on the headlamps and allowed the Hilux to fall back. Suddenly, they were just another vehicle on the road.
Danny looked back towards the compound. The chopper had killed its lights. It obviously hadn’t found what it was looking for, and seemed to be banking back towards the reservoir. He allowed himself a moment of relief as the Hilux headed north.
‘I told them to pick us up at the RV point we identified with the Kurds,’ Danny said.
Spud nodded. ‘It could take a long time for them to get a pick-up to us, mucker. You know that, right? They were jumpy as fuck about breaching Iraqi airspace when we inserted.’
‘They’ve got stealth choppers. And they think we’ve got the key to stopping a major hit on the capital. Something tells me they’ll work it out pretty quick.’
He looked straight ahead. The tarmac of the main supply route flew past as Spud headed towards the RV point.
Danny was right.
It took them just shy of an hour to make their way up the rough track into the mountains that the Kurds had shown them, to the RV location. When they stopped, Danny double-checked that their GPS coordinates matched those he’d given over the satphone. They did. Now they just had to wait. They drove the Hilux off the track, hiding it behind a rounded, weathered boulder that was twice the size of the vehicle. There was a freshwater stream about thirty paces to the west. Danny and Spud carefully carried the unconscious Caitlin to it. Danny removed her top and did his best to wash the wound. It was in a very bad state. The flesh was mushy and bloodied, and it oozed with the telltale white pus of infection. Her body temperature was high, her breathing shallow. They tried to make her comfortable and safe by lying her back in the vehicle. But she needed serious medicine, and fast.
Danny and Spud took up covert defensive positions: Danny in the shadow of the same boulder that hid Caitlin and the Hilux, Spud on the other side of the track, belly-down amid some thick gorse bush. Danny was bone tired, and sore from the beatings he had endured at the compound. Covered in blood and sweat and dirt. Maybe a couple of broken ribs. It certainly hurt to breathe.
He put the pain from his mind. The call he’d made on the satphone hadn’t lasted longer than thirty seconds, but he’d b
een obliged to transmit the coordinates of their RV location. It was unlikely that the Americans had intercepted that call, but if they had, he and Spud needed to be prepared for company.
But their only company, as two hours passed and then three, was the occasional scratching of unseen wild animals in the vicinity and, just before midnight, the ominous thunder of a fighter jet somewhere off to the south.
The noise they were waiting for – hoping for – arrived twenty minutes after that. It seemed to come from nowhere. One minute there was silence, the next there was a subdued hum, close yet somehow distant, like the ghost of a chopper. The ghost itself appeared in the sky moments after that. It was not the first time Danny had seen the sleek, angular contours of a stealth Black Hawk. The very existence of this aircraft was routinely denied by the MoD, but the sight of it, with its downward-pointing rotors designed to reduce noise and radar splash, was like a balm to Danny. He didn’t move, however, or make any attempt to show himself, as the bird touched down. Spud lay low, too. It was only when the side door opened and a figure in camouflage fatigues appeared, whose top clearly displayed a 1Para flash, that Spud emerged from his gorse bush and ran, with full pack and rifle, towards the soldier.
Danny started to extract Caitlin from the Hilux, and within twenty seconds he had help – Spud and two others were there. Together they carried Caitlin and all their remaining gear from the vehicle towards the strangely quiet chopper. A medic was waiting for them inside, saline drip at the ready. He instantly took over Caitlin’s care, while the loadie – a severe-looking man with a shock of ginger hair – closed up the door and gave the all-clear to the pilot. As the Black Hawk rose effortlessly from the ground, the loadie turned to Danny holding a headset and boom mike. ‘Hereford HQ,’ he said.
Danny felt Spud’s eyes on him as he accepted and donned the headset. ‘Go ahead,’ he said.