by Chris Ryan
‘His name is Biniam. It means “lucky son”. But he is not so lucky. Both his parents are dead. He will be too, in just a minute, if you don’t tell me your name.’
Spud locked gazes with his tormentor. The voice in his head told him to stay expressionless, but he knew, in the seconds that followed, that it was the one thing he couldn’t do. His tormentor smiled more broadly as the hate smouldered in Spud’s eyes. Then he glanced at his two goons.
‘Cut him,’ he said.
For a brief second Spud thought the a blade was coming his way. He was wrong. One of the two guys holding the kid pulled out a vicious-looking dagger. Without a moment’s hesitation, he sliced it down the kid’s cheek. The child inhaled sharply through his nose with the shock of it. Then he tried – unsuccessfully – to scream as a thin trickle of blood dripped down his cheek and on to his chest. He writhed even more ferociously, but his two guards held him fast.
‘The next time you tell me a lie,’ the militant said, ‘we cut the other cheek. After that, it’s the throat.’
‘I’ve already told you the truth,’ Spud whispered. ‘I can’t tell you anything else. My name is . . .’
‘Cut him,’ the militant repeated.
There was no hesitation. The knife man whipped his blade easily down the kid’s opposite cheek. The boy obviously wanted to collapse, but the men held him up. His muffled squealing became more frenzied and panicked as a second trail of blood oozed down the other side of his face. A thin strip of red ran along the blade edge of the knife. The knife man held it against the boy’s throat. The writhing immediately stopped. A dead silence fell on the hut. Even the dog had stopped chewing its bone.
‘I’m going to ask you one more time,’ said the militant in the bandana. ‘If you lie to me again, my men will cut his throat. Then we’ll bring another boy in. After that, we start on the girls. What is your name?’
Spud jutted his chin at him. Their gazes locked. Spud pulled his away and looked at the child. His face was mess, but it wasn’t the worst thing about his features. Not by a long way. His eyes were brimful of tears. He was a brave kid, and he’d managed to stop them overflowing. But now they did, the salt water trickling horribly into the waterfall of blood on the lower half of his face. His whole body was shaking, and his expression begged Spud to help him.
Spud looked away. He couldn’t allow that expression to sway him.
‘You have five seconds to answer,’ said the militant.
It’s him or me, Spud thought. If I let him live, I’m signing my own death warrant . . .
‘Four seconds.’
They can’t keep me chained here forever. There will be a chance to escape . . .
‘Three.’
The guy with the knife was watching his boss keenly, waiting for the word.
‘Two.’
Spud glanced at the boy again. He’d never seen such fear.
‘One.’
‘Stop,’ said Spud.
Silence in the hut. Even the kid had stopped whimpering.
‘Your name,’ pressed the militant.
Spud locked gazes with him again. ‘Spud Glover, British SAS,’ he breathed. It hurt to speak, but he had more to say. ‘And you’d better keep me tied up, you piece of shit. Because I swear to God, the moment I get my hands on you, I’ll rip your fucking eyes out.’
A broad smile spread across the militant’s face. He seemed to find Spud’s threat very funny. He turned his back on him, then shouted to nobody in particular, ‘Let them know we have the right man.’ He was making for the door, but when he was only halfway toward the fire pit, he stopped and turned. He flashed Spud a nasty glare, then looked over at the two men who were still holding the boy. He made a flick-knife movement at his own throat.
The knife man understood his command. With a deft whipping of his wrist, he sliced the blade across the kid’s throat.
‘No!’ Spud wheezed. But too late. There was a surge of blood from the boy’s jugular. The two men finally let go their grip, and their victim collapsed to his knees. He couldn’t make any noise now. He grabbed his bleeding neck with two hands, but Spud could already see the whites of his eyes as they rolled up to heaven.
The militants left the hut. The boy’s body twitched on the floor as the dog strained against its leash to reach it.
And for the first time in days, Spud felt his blood burning inside him.
9
20.57hrs EAT
There was a bright moon and a full starry sky. A glance at the dashboard told Danny that the temperature had dropped dramatically. The screen on the Land Cruiser’s satnav told that they were about a klick away from their destination. Triggs hit the brakes and killed the engine and the lights. They allowed their eyes to adjust, then Danny examined the terrain outside.
They were at the foot of a low hill. Its ridge extended a couple of kilometres in what Danny judged to be an east-west direction. The poor road on which they were travelling led directly up to the ridge and – about five hundred metres from their position – disappeared over it. There was more growth on the ground than there had been last time they stopped. Patches of dry vegetation, some of it more than a metre high, were dotted here and there, and there was also cover on the ridge line of the hill.
‘Best to drop you here,’ Triggs said gruffly. ‘Gilad’s somewhere beyond the ridge if those GPS coordinates he gave me are correct. You should approach by foot, find somewhere to keep eyes on. I’ve got some equipment in the back we can use.’
They climbed out the car and walked round to the back of the vehicle. Triggs opened up to reveal a solid but battered flight case with two three-figure numerical locks. Most of the space inside was taken up by empty boxes of ammunition, but Triggs rummaged around and found two other objects. The first was a small spotting scope. ‘No NV, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘But there’s a decent amount of moonlight, so it should be of some help.’ The second was a separate leather case that contained two in-ear audio headsets, complete with induction loops, each connected to a tiny control module, and two individual two-way radios disguised as standard mobile phones. ‘I can’t rock up with a radio pack,’ Triggs explained. ‘Gilad will have it off me as quick as you like. But these are low-profile and should keep us communicating within a couple of miles of each other. We’ll be able to hear each other and speak to each other.’
‘What if he tries to frisk you?’
‘Then we’re fucked. But if I offer him the opportunity to do that first, I don’t think he will.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Jesus, boy, it’s a hunch, okay? It’s either that or we all go home.’
He took one of the earpieces and handed it Danny, who inserted the tiny device into his ear. He was immediately aware of a faint hissing as Triggs inserted his own earpiece. Both men took off their shirts and hung the induction loops around their necks, before tucking the control modules into their pockets. When Triggs spoke again, Danny heard his companion’s voice twice: once naturally, once in the earpiece.
‘When I find Friedman, I’ll get him talking. I’ll try to make him reveal where your friend is. But once I’m with him, I’m committed. I can’t just walk away or he’ll know something’s up. You’re on your own then.’
Danny nodded. He held out his hand, and Triggs shook it. Then he hurried back behind the wheel, started up the engine again, knocked the vehicle into gear and sped off up the hill.
Danny hit the ground. While there was a chance of anyone watching Triggs drive up toward the brow of the hill, he needed a low profile. It took two minutes for the vehicle to disappear over the brow of the hill. Danny could still hear the noise of the engine in his earpiece, which told him that Friedman was not waiting just over the brow. Good. He gave it another couple of minutes before getting to his feet and jogging the path Triggs had just taken.
His fitness was excellent, and he wasn’t weighed down with equipment. Four minutes later, as he approached the brow of the hill, he hadn’t even
broken a sweat. He hit the ground again ten metres before the brow, then crawled the remainder of the distance to avoid presenting himself as a target.
The engine noise in his earpiece stopped. Danny positioned himself behind a low, spiky bush as he heard the car door slam.
A voice: Danny recognised it from the sat phone conversation earlier that evening. ‘Two hours on the nose. If I was a suspicious guy, I’d think you’d been watching me all along.’
‘You’re getting paranoid in your old age, Gilad. You’ll be asking to fucking frisk me next.’
A pause. Danny sensed his jaw clenching.
‘I wouldn’t treat an old friend like that,’ Friedman said. His voice sounded strangely hollow.
Danny pulled out his scope. Lying on all fours, he aimed through a small gap in the bush and panned across the terrain ahead. The brow of the hill led to a dip, probably another five hundred metres across, which then led to the crest of a second hill, maybe twenty metres higher than this one. It was similarly camouflaged with wild bushes. Danny lowered the scope’s crosshairs a few metres and within a few seconds he saw what he was looking for: the dark outline of Triggs’s vehicle, parked up by the side of the road, lights off. Perhaps ten metres to its left, off-road, was a second vehicle about the same size and shape. And about five metres lower down the hill, he could just make out the silhouettes of two people facing each other.
‘We’ve got a full night ahead,’ Triggs said. He sounded very convincing. ‘You’ll be a lot richer at the end of it. You nearly finished here?’
‘Getting there.’ Friedman sounded evasive.
‘Right.’ A pause. ‘So what’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?’
‘Government business.’
There was the sound of a cynical snort from Triggs. ‘Oh yeah?’ he said. ‘Which government?’
‘Mine.’
Danny blinked heavily. Had he heard that right? It sounded like Triggs was just as surprised. ‘What do you mean? You haven’t been on the Mossad payroll for years.’
‘What the hell. Feels okay to be taking a payday from the good guys for once.’
Danny’s mind turned somersaults. Was this guy on the level? Were the Israelis really involved in abducting Spud? It made no sense.
‘What the hell’s he on about?’ Danny breathed, knowing that his voice would be coming clearly through Triggs’s earpiece. ‘Get him talking.’
‘So . . . what have they got you doing?’
Danny winced. Triggs sounded like he’d lost his cool persona. He sounded careful. Wary.
‘It’s complicated.’
‘You want complicated, let me tell you about my love life.’
Friedman gave a hollow laugh. There was few seconds’ pause before he continued. ‘There’s a British SF soldier. Badly injured. The guy looked like being a goner, so the Mossad decided to make use of him. They got me to sell him up to some Eritrean knuckleheads in a shit-hole of a settlement about a klick to the north of here. I planted the idea with them that they can sell the Brit on the open market. The suits in Tel Aviv worked out he’d be too much for the real bad guys to resist. Figured they’d come out of hiding to make the deal, and they could clip the fuckers when they do. Turns out it was a good call. You’ve heard of Abu Bakr al-Iraqi?’
‘The name rings a bell.’
‘It should do. He’s on every Western government’s hit list. There’s a Somalian Al-Shabab faction on its way right now to make the exchange. Tel Aviv thinks Abu Bakr’s part of the convoy.’
‘You weren’t wrong,’ Triggs said quietly. ‘It is complicated. You’re seriously telling me the Israelis are sacrificing a British soldier so they can nail some Islamist kingpin?’
‘You never been fishing? Sometimes you need to catch a small fish to snare a bigger one. Seems a shame at first, but you always end up forgetting about the little guy when you land yourself a monster. And live bait is always the best kind.’
Danny inhaled slowly. Calmly. But his mind was a tumult of confusion. If what he’d just heard was right, for the next few hours he wasn’t just in battle with Eritrean gangsters and State of Jihad. He was in battle with the fucking Israelis too.
He kept the two figures carefully in his field of view. Triggs had turned his back on Friedman and was pacing slowly back towards his car. ‘Well,’ Danny heard him say. ‘Guys like us, we just do what we’re paid to do, right?’
‘Right,’ Friedman said. ‘Of course, the trouble with fishing is when you get some guy walking along the river bank making a whole load of noise. Scares all the fish away. You’re never going to catch anything then.’
Danny felt the skin around his eyes tighten. Something was wrong.
‘So if you want to land a prize-winner, you got to keep the river bank quiet and empty.’
The silhouette of Friedman suddenly raised one arm straight ahead of him.
‘Get down!’ Danny hissed. ‘He’s got a gun!’
Triggs spun round suddenly. But he was too late.
‘No!’ Danny hissed.
He saw a faint muzzle flash before he heard the retort of the weapon – which he experienced twice, first in his earpiece and a fraction of a second later as the noise of Friedman’s firearm reached Danny’s position. He saw the silhouette that was Triggs crumple to the ground. There was no gasping or groaning in his earpiece. No sounds of pain. Just a sudden and heavy silence.
He saw Friedman walk up to Triggs’s body, and bend over him. And then, over his earpiece, Danny heard him say quietly: ‘Gang bangers in Massawa, my ass.’
10
For a moment, Danny didn’t move.
He listened acutely, fully expecting to hear the crackling, scuffling sound of Friedman uncovering Triggs’s covert comms gear.
The sound didn’t come. Thank Christ for that, Danny thought. Friedman’s silhouette stood up. Danny could make out the line of his broad shoulders, and he seemed to be stroking his beard in thought.
Danny couldn’t allow himself to feel guilty about Triggs. He was dead. Game over. Now Danny’s only course of action was to recalibrate his plans. To make his next move based on the only outcome he wanted, which was to get himself and Spud safely out of the area. He ran over in his head the bare bones of what he knew: that a high-value terrorist target by the name of Abu Bakr was on his way to grab Spud from a nearby settlement. That the Israeli who’d just killed Triggs had set this up so his people could nail the terrorist target in question.
But something didn’t make sense. Friedman had done his job. He’d abducted Spud. He’d set the whole thing up. Why was he still in the vicinity? If Danny had been in his shoes, he’d get the hell the out of there once his part of the operation was done. But Friedman was still in situ. Why?
Was his job not yet finished?
A strategy started to form in Danny’s mind.
He continued watching from a distance. Friedman left Triggs’s body where it was, then hurried up to the ridge line of the second hill. Before he reached it, he hit the ground, just as Danny had done to put himself in position. It was difficult to see him now with any kind of clarity, but Danny could just discern a little movement as the Israeli shuffled up to the ridge. He looked like he’d put in an OP on whatever was beyond. From the conversation he’d had with Triggs, Danny knew what that was: a rough settlement where Spud was being held.
It meant Danny needed to get to him as quickly – and as quietly – as possible.
He tucked away his scope and handgun. On all fours, he crawled away from the bush that was giving him camouflage. Then he rolled himself over the brow of his hill, and crawled several metres down the slope. He got to his feet but still crouched low. He was five metres to the left of the road. He tripled that distance so he was among the more frequent clumps of vegetation dotted around.
Then he ran.
He estimated that, moving carefully, it would take two minutes to get into the pit of the valley between the two ridges, and another three to get up the
slope. He stopped every thirty seconds to take out his scope and check – so far as possible – that he wasn’t being observed. At the pit of the valley he gave himself an extra moment’s rest to get his Browning cocked and locked, before forcing himself up the short, steep climb to Friedman’s position.
He moved silently. A half-run, half-walk that enabled him to place his feet quietly. Distance to his target: 150 metres. He was helped by a gentle night breeze that blew toward him from the ridge where the Israeli had hunkered down. It meant any sound he did make was blown away from him, not toward the target.
He stopped thirty metres out. He could see Friedman now with his naked eye by the light of the moon. He was still on his front, looking over the ridge. Behind him, and about twenty metres to Danny’s two o’clock, were the two vehicles, and Triggs’s dead body lying on the ground next to his black Land Cruiser.
Danny raised his gun, holding it in his right hand and steadying it with his left. He lined his sights up with the back of the Israeli’s head. Then he started pacing deftly forward.
He covered fifteen metres. Stopped. Friedman was motionless. Either he didn’t know he was observed, or he was good at hiding it.
Danny stepped forward again. Another five metres. The gap between the two men had closed to ten metres only.
Danny inhaled slowly. Then he spoke.
‘I’ve got a full clip and I’m aiming at the back of your head,’ he said.
He had to hand it to the Israeli. Most people would have scrambled in panic. You’d have no choice but to nail them. This guy stayed calm. He didn’t even move.
But he did speak.
‘There was me thinking that fucking shit-for-brains Triggs wasn’t capable of . . .’
‘I want to see your hands move slowly on to the back of your head,’ Danny interrupted him. ‘Word of advice: don’t do anything to make me nervous. You just killed a mate of mine, so I’m not in the mood to cut you any slack.’