Shadow Kill: A Strikeback Novel

by Chris Ryan

  At Tagrin they pulled up in front of the shabby ticket office and paid 10,000 Leones for two seats on the next available ferry, plus another 5,000 for a space on the ferry for the Range Rover. Roughly three dollars in US currency. A few bedraggled souls hung around by the jetty, staring out at the dirty grey waters separating Tagrin from the capital. Porter steered the Range Rover up the metal ramp and onto the back of the ferry moored at the side of the jetty. The vessel looked like an old fishing trawler with a couple of extra decks stacked onto the front end of it. The railings were scabbed with rust and the glass was missing from most of the upper deck windows. A smell of vomit and diesel fumes hung in the air, mixing with the rancid stench of the river waters. Porter and Bald climbed out and stretched their legs, staying close to the railings so they could keep a close eye on the Range Rover.

  As Porter gazed out across the jetty he saw a trio of smaller wooden boats with outboards arriving, filled to the brim with people who had managed to escape the bloodshed across the river. Hundreds of panicked civvies clambered off the boats before beginning the journey north towards Lungi airport. Porter couldn’t help but notice that there were only a handful of passengers on the ferry heading in the opposite direction.

  Bald shook his head.

  ‘We must need our fucking heads examined.’

  ‘How’s that, Jock?’ Porter asked.

  ‘Heading into the city.’ Bald tipped his head at the river ‘This old Rupert better be grateful when we get our hands on him. Maybe he’ll give us a cushty job with his PMC once this is over.’

  Porter laughed cynically. ‘Don’t get your hopes up. Soames won’t be doing us any favours. That bastard only cares about himself.’

  ‘Sounds like good career advice to me.’ Bald shrugged. ‘Anyway, I’d rather work for him than that twat Hawkridge any day of the week.’

  ‘No.’ Porter shook his head bitterly. ‘Trust me, you wouldn’t.’

  Bald stared at his mucker. ‘You must really hate his guts.’

  Porter didn’t reply. He hardened his gaze at the few glowing lights in the distance, on the far side of the dark mouth of the river. Then he said, ‘Let’s just focus on finding Soames. All I give a shit about right now is getting him out before the rebels take over the rest of the city.’

  ‘We won’t have much time, then. You know what them chogie squaddies are like. Piss themselves at the first sign of trouble. If the shit hits the fan, them Nigerians will quit the place faster than a Scouse at a job interview.’

  At five o’clock in the morning the ferry sounded its horn as it slid away from the jetty and began its journey south-west towards Kissy. The first streaks of sunlight were visible on the horizon, creeping out of the guts of the earth. As they left behind Tagrin and the crowds of wailing locals, Porter felt a knot of cold fear inside his bowels. This was it, he told himself. There was no going back now. They had to hope they could locate Soames and lift him out of the city in time. Before the Russians got to him first. Before the rebels swept into the airport and cut off their exit route.

  The ferry chugged deeper into the glum, inky abyss.

  Towards Freetown.

  Towards Ronald Soames.

  0547 hours.

  They reached Kissy forty-six minutes later. The ferry shuddered to a halt at the shabby terminal, the ramp came down, and Porter and Bald hopped back inside the Range Rover. Then Porter reversed the wagon back down the ramp onto the road leading out of the terminal. Two minutes later they were breaking free of the loose crowd hanging around the litter-strewn jetty, and rolling south past the dockyards on the ferry road.

  The streets were choked with traffic. People on foot, weighed down by their belongings or dragging carts piled high with food and clothing. Knackered old motors with mattresses and furniture lashed to their rooftops. Everyone seemed to be in a mad hurry to catch the next available ferry to Tagrin. Most of the civvies were dressed in filthy torn rags or faded trousers with patches missing. Porter nosed the Range Rover through the traffic at about five miles per. They passed more mounds of festering rubbish and rivers of shit running into the drains. They passed decaying buildings with weeds growing out of the cracks, and murals splashed down the side.

  One mural caught Porter’s attention. It had been painted in bright colours on the side of a bullet-riddled apartment block, and it depicted several African women marching through the streets, holding up placards bearing the faces of young boys and girls. Below the painting was a slogan in bold red lettering: ‘Mothers of the Lost Children’.

  ‘What’s that all about, do you think?’ said Porter.

  ‘No fucking clue,’ Bald replied. ‘Let’s just get to the office and get out of here.’

  After half a mile Porter made a left onto Kissy Road, leading into the west of the city.

  The streets in this part of the city were deserted. Everywhere they looked there were signs of the recent RUF attack. Shop windows had been smashed open, the ground littered with glass and rubbish. Several burnt-out cars lay at the sides of the road, the toxic smell of burnt rubber stinging the early-morning air. There were piles of rubble all over the place, and Porter glimpsed several dead bodies lying slumped at the side of the road, the blood pooling under their bullet-riddled torsos. Bald frowned.

  ‘I thought the rebels had the run of this side of the city?’

  ‘That’s what Shoemaker said.’

  ‘Then where the fuck is everyone?’

  Porter thought for a moment. ‘Probably still asleep, working off their hangovers from last night’s looting session. These guys aren’t trained soldiers. They’re not gonna be up at the crack of dawn unless there’s something in it for them.’

  Bald screwed up his face in soldierly disgust.

  ‘Fucking useless.’

  ‘At least we’ve got a couple of hours until they wake up. Let’s hope we find Soames before then.’

  A hundred metres further down the road Porter caught his first sight of the rebels. Half a dozen of them were robbing an electronics store, three of them lugging TVs and radios out and dumping them on the back of a stolen UN vehicle. They were too busy looting the place to spot Bald and Porter ahead of them in the Range Rover. Three other rebels were leaning against the side of the UN vehicle. They were wearing designer shades and red t-shirts and passing around a bottle of poyo, the local home-made brew.

  As Porter drove past two more rebels emerged from the store, dragging out a skinny girl dressed in a bloodstained skirt and dirty white blouse. She looked to be no older than thirteen or fourteen. The rebels dragged the girl over to the UN vehicle and tried to bundle her inside. She resisted, kicking out and screaming at the top of her voice, begging for help. One of the rebels grabbed his AK-47 and gave her a sharp dig in the ribs with the rifle stock. The girl dropped to the dusty red ground. Then the guy pinned her down, ripped off her skirt and knickers and pulled down his shorts. The other six rebels started whooping and hollering, firing automatic rifle bursts into the air as their mucker forced himself onto the girl. She screamed at the top of her voice, to the amusement of the rebels crowding around her. Bald twisted in his seat and looked back at the crowd.

  ‘Stop the wagon,’ he said.

  Porter shook his head. ‘We can’t get involved.’

  Bald turned around and glared at his mucker. ‘You’re just gonna let those fucking animals rape that girl?’

  ‘There’s nothing we can do. There’s seven of them, and they’re packing rifles. We don’t even have a bloody pea-shooter. If we try and intervene, they’ll turn their weapons on us.’

  Bald stared at his mucker for a long moment. Then he looked away, clenching his fists. ‘This is fucked.’

  Porter tightened his grip on the wheel and drove on. The girl’s screams sounded above the steady growl of the engine.

  After another hundred metres he turned off the main road and made for the back streets leading through the shanty areas. He’d studied the maps of Freetown during the flight out of
Heathrow, and he broadly knew his way around. The roads in the slums were practically deserted. Which made sense. There was less action here for the rebels. Less valuable staff for then to loot. There were hardly any locals outside. Thin, drawn faces peered out of half-opened doors or through grime-coated windows at the Range Rover trundling past. As Shoemaker had predicted, many of the residents were bottled up in their homes, waiting until the killing frenzy was over. A few locals sat down in the streets, portable radios glued to their ears. Porter drove on, the still of the dawn air broken by the distant crack of gunfire and the heavy bass of rap music blaring out from the rebels’ trucks. In the distance he could see columns of smoke drifting into the air from several burning buildings. Black, swirling smudges against the dirty copper sky. Dawn was breaking. It seemed to Porter as if the entire city was on fire.

  The route to Soames’s office was long and winding and fraught. It took Porter forty-five minutes to arrow the Range Rover through the back streets before they hit Spur Road. Practically twice the time it took to cover the same distance in London. The deeper they ventured into Freetown, the more signs of devastation they encountered along the way. Dozens of bodies hacked to bits by machetes lay face-down in the streets. The bigger houses and businesses had been stripped bare, right down to the fittings. Twice Bald and Porter nearly ran into gangs of rebel fighters tearing through the streets, hanging out of the back of battered old Jeeps as they cheered and laughed. On both occasions Porter weaved in and out of the side streets, narrowly avoiding them. Once they hit Spur Road they hooked left at the British High Commission and made their way down a heavily-potholed street lined with gated houses and abandoned hotels. After two hundred metres, they pulled up outside a grand old colonial block with a wrought-iron gate and a brass plaque next to it that said INDIA HOUSE.

  ‘Looks like the old boy has done well for himself,’ said Bald as he cast an approving eye over the driveway. ‘I can definitely see myself working for him in the future.’

  Porter shot a look at his mucker. ‘You’re talking about the bastard who wrecked my career.’

  ‘Maybe you should bury the hatchet with him. He might give you a job and all. You never know.’ He grinned.

  Porter had stopped listening. He was frowning at the driveway. ‘What’s wrong with this picture?’

  Bald scratched his jaw. Then he saw it too. ‘The gate. It’s wide open.’

  ‘In the middle of a rebel coup? When they’re looting every property in sight?’

  ‘Maybe Soames isn’t here,’ Bald suggested. ‘Maybe he checked out as soon as the rebels moved into the city.’

  Maybe, Porter thought to himself. Or maybe the Russians got here first.

  He pointed the Range Rover through the gates and rolled down the entranceway. There was a large garden at the front of the house fronted with palm trees and bushes leading towards a wide two-storey mansion twenty-five metres away, with a whitewashed portico at the entrance. It looked less like the HQ of a PMC, and more like the house of a slave plantation owner.

  There were no other cars outside the mansion. Which was the second thing that struck Porter as odd. If Soames is still here, then where the fuck is his vehicle? He pulled up outside the front door, cut the engine, and climbed out of the Range Rover. Then he glanced down and noticed the third thing.

  ‘Jock. Look. Over here.’

  Bald chased his line of sight. ‘Shit.’

  Spent brass was lying around the portico, glinting in the bleary morning light. Porter counted at least a dozen jackets around his feet. Some of them were close to the front door. The rest had been discharged further down the driveway, amid a scatter of broken glass. Porter noticed a pair of bullet holes pockmarking the wall next to the main gate. He glanced around the mansion, a noose tightening around his guts.

  We think the Russians have sent in a team to take advantage of the chaos on the ground, March had said at the mission briefing.

  Bald stooped down to inspect some of the spent brass. ‘Looks like you were right. Someone paid Soames a visit. Not a friendly one.’

  ‘The Russians,’ Porter said. ‘We might be too late.’

  ‘Only one way to find out.’

  They approached the front door. Porter tested the handle. Unlocked. He shoved open the door and Bald followed him into the shadowed cool of the hallway. Porter slowed his pace and pricked his ears as he glanced around, listening for any signs of life inside the mansion. But there was nothing except a cold, still silence and the sound of their footsteps echoing on the tiled floor. Porter led the way past several unfurnished rooms and headed for the stairs. He knew from the mission briefing that Soames kept his office on the first floor as an extra security precaution. If the guy was hiding out in his mansion, that’s where he would be.

  He moved quietly up the stairs, hit the first floor landing, and made for the office door to the left. Brass lettering etched across the glass told him this was the office of Ronald M. Soames, Director of Janus International Ltd. The door was ajar. But the wood panelling was splintered down the middle and when Porter reached for the doorknob it rattled loosely in his grip. As if someone had kicked the door open. Someone who had been targeting Soames. He inched forward and gently pushed the door back on its hinges. Then he stepped through the opening and entered Soames’s office ahead of Bald.

  The office looked as if the occupants had left in a hurry. Everything was still switched on. A Psion laptop noisily hummed away on a desk in the middle of the room. There was an ancient-looking HF radio set on a side table, along with a fax machine and a stack of printed pages. There was no sign of Soames inside. Porter took another step into the room and heard something crunch underfoot. He looked down. Shards of glass were scattered across the tiles. There was a dark stain on the carpet next to a shattered glass bottle with a Grey Goose label.

  Then Porter lifted his eyes and stopped cold.

  Sprawled on the floor next to the desk was the bloated, purpled form of a dead man.

  EIGHT

  0649 hours.

  Porter didn’t move for a beat. Neither did Bald. The two Blades just stood in the middle of the office, staring in silence at the dead guy on the floor. Porter dropped down beside the body for a closer look. The dead man wasn’t Soames. That much was obvious from his appearance. This guy was younger than the ex-Regiment CO. Much younger. His face had puffed up in death, distorting his features. His hands looked like a couple of rubber gloves that had been filled with water, and there was a dark patch on his trousers from where the guy had shat and pissed himself in the last seconds of his life. A strip of plastic cable-tie was fastened tight around the guy’s throat, Porter noticed. There were bloody claw marks around the flesh on his neck. Presumably from where the victim had tried to prise the cable-tie free. A tattoo was visible on his neck above the cable, depicting the head of a wolf with its jaws open in a snarl.

  ‘The body’s stiff,’ Porter said. ‘He must’ve been dead for a while. Long enough for rigor mortis to set in. Maybe a day or two.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  Porter padded the guy down. Found a brown leather wallet in his breast pocket and flipped it open. There was two hundred dollars in US bills, a few bills in the local currency, and a plastic warrant card the size of a credit card with a passport-style photograph of the dead guy and a bunch of words in a foreign language Porter couldn’t read. Some kind of Cyrillic script. He showed the card to Bald.

  ‘Looks Eastern European,’ he said. ‘Russian, maybe.’

  Porter thought back to what March had told him at the briefing. About the Russians looking to get rid of Soames. ‘We think the Russians have sent in a team to expedite matters,’ she had said.

  Maybe the Russians have already lifted Soames, Porter thought.

  Or maybe Soames knew they were coming for him.

  The pounding in his head came back. The effects of the booze starting to wear off. He spied a drinks cabinet in one corner, stocked with enough spirits to keep an off-lic
ence in business. It was mostly posh gins and brandy, but Porter wasn’t fussy. He just needed something to take the edge off the pain he was feeling. Right now I’d drink a pint of battery fluid if someone offered it to me. He made a mental note to help himself to a bottle or two before they checked out of the office.

  ‘We need to call it in,’ said Bald.

  Porter nodded absently and reached for the sat phone stashed inside his bag. Just then he heard a noise. A soft, muffled whimpering, coming from somewhere close by. He scanned the office again. His eyes were drawn to the balcony doors at the far end of the office. The doors were closed, with the frayed dark curtains pulled across the length of the frame, blocking out the sunlight. Porter nodded at Bald. Both operators thinking the same thing. Someone else is inside this room.

  Porter set down the sat phone and slowly manoeuvred around the stinking corpse towards the balcony door. The sniffing sound grew louder now. There’s definitely someone on the other side of that door, thought Porter. Maybe it’s Soames. Maybe the old bastard has been hiding here the whole time.

  He reached for the brass handle and yanked the balcony door open. The figure on the other side gave a tiny childlike yelp. Porter thrust out onto the balcony and found a scrawny black kid crouched against the railings. The kid was no more than eleven or twelve. He was dressed in a pair of stained shorts and an Arsenal shirt that was at least two sizes two big and hung like a tent from his skeletal frame. The kid looked panicked. His arms were raised high above his head in a pose of surrender. His hands were trembling. He looked up at Porter, his eyes wide with terror.

  ‘Please, mister,’ the kid said. ‘I want no trouble. Don’t hurt me. Please.’