by Andy McNab
Brady chipped in. ‘Yeah right, Colonel, you gonna narrow it down for us?’
No answer. Brady slammed on the brakes and turned to Black. ‘Use a knife if you have to. Cut his dick off and make him eat it.’
Jafari shook his head, nodding emphatically at the ground.
‘In vault.’
Brady drove on, taking to the sidewalk to avoid a massive rift running across an intersection. It had half swallowed a bus.
‘Sure fucked this place up, Al Bashir or no.’
‘Back in ’03 they had a quake killed forty thousand.’
‘Check out the brain on Campo.’
‘You shits did some reading instead of playing Call of Duty you’d be less dumb too.’
‘Anyone noticed there’s no enemy fire?’
‘Now you mention it.’
Colonel Jafari nodded again as the bank rose up above the surrounding buildings, a marble monolith that appeared to be unmarked by either the bombardment or the earthquake.
‘T-90!’
As they rounded a corner they came face to face with the tank.
‘The fuck. .’
Brady was screaming at the convoy over the radio. ‘Back up, back up.’
The Colonel buried his head in his lap.
Black saw the turret rotate towards them. He jumped out of the vehicle and rolled into a heap of putrid garbage. He felt the air shake as the Humvee took a direct hit, flinging it up into the air and down again on its roof. He rolled over the garbage and on to the sidewalk as a suspension arm with a wheel still attached slammed down inches from his face.
His hearing was shot, just a fine buzzing. He felt a hand on his shoulder, rolling him further away from the blast. Campo.
‘How did you—?’
‘Followed your example, chief.’
Montes was beside him, grinning. Half his sleeve gone and a patch of blood on his shoulder.
‘Brady?’
They only had to look and they knew.
‘Like it came straight though his windscreen.’
It was hard to imagine. Brady behaved like he was bullet-proof.
‘Nothing left of the Colonel either.’
The tank jolted forward in the direction of the reversing convoy. Montes and Campo dropped behind the mound of garbage. As it loosed off another shell they ducked until it rumbled out of view.
Black, on his feet again, ran half-crouched to the opposite side of the road, where a van was parked. The others followed. From there they scanned the building. There were no lights, and there was no sign of movement outside. The tall metal doors were shut, the small windows fortified with thick steel bars. It had been built like a fortress. Blackburn turned to the others. ‘Okay. Let’s finish this. Let’s do this bank.’
29
It must have been a close one. Dima thought he could remember the muzzle flash of Hosseini’s pistol. He definitely recalled thinking that using Gazul as a human shield was probably not going to work. And he was right, inasmuch as the bullet entered Gazul’s forehead and passed straight though his skull, brain and more skull and out the other side, clipping the top off Dima’s left ear as it did so. Why, he wondered, as he lay under the headless body, had Hosseini not simply fired a second shot straight into his target? He could only put it down to Hosseini’s horror at having blown the head off the PLR’s Chief of Intelligence, his own ultimate boss.
Anyone might be forgiven for thinking that Dima too was very much dead, squashed under Gazul’s lifeless corpse, his face covered with the other’s brains. It was hitting the marble floor with such force that had knocked him out.
He awoke to bright light blasting his face and Vladimir peering at him, torch in one hand, a piece of bloodied cloth in the other. There was a powerful smell of antiseptic. The world seemed to be lurching and rolling around him.
‘Hold still.’
‘What’s happening?’
‘Just cleaning you up.’
Dima tried to look round. A flash from somewhere lit up Zirak close by, watching the procedure.
‘Where am I? Where are we going?’
Vladimir turned Dima’s head back again.
‘I said hold still. The Chief of Intelligence has very sticky brains, congealed I suppose from lack of use.’
His eyes started to focus. He recognised the khaki interior of the Rakhsh they had hijacked. Suddenly the life surged back into him as he realised where he was.
‘We’re in the fucking APC. We should be in the bank. What the fuck are you all doing?’
He pushed Vladimir away and sat up. A massive thudding pain spread out across the left side of his head. For a few seconds he blacked out, then he collapsed back to where he had been lying. He felt the dressing on the side of his head.
‘You’re going to have a very interestingly shaped left ear,’ smirked Vladimir, closing up the first aid kit. ‘Something that may make a good conversation starter with the ladies.’
The Rakhsh slewed to a stop. Gregorin was at the wheel, Kroll beside him. The whole vehicle rocked madly as the wash from a huge blast hit it. Then they were reversing, gears whining madly.
‘How long have I been out?’
‘Twenty, thirty minutes. You missed a good firefight. Some of Hosseini’s henchmen came back into the bank when they heard his shot, so we had to deal with them. Then a whole lot more surged up from the floor below. All got a bit much.’
You retreated. You’re pathetic.’
Dima tried to lift himself again. Vladimir held him down.
‘Hey You’re alive. We got you out of there. Break the habit of a lifetime and show some gratitude.’
Two massive explosions rocked the vehicle. Kroll leaned forward.
‘Oh yeah, we forgot to mention: Uncle Sam’s in town. That’s the tank having a go at them.’
Dima pushed Vladimir’s hand away and raised himself, more slowly this time. ‘We had a clear fix on the nuke: we were right in the PLR’s lair.’
Kroll craned round. ‘It moved.’
‘What moved?’
‘The nuke.’ Kroll patted the device in his lap. ‘Told you it worked. Looks like we’ll be heading back into the mountains.’
The APC rocked as Gregorin spun the wheel to avoid an obstacle. Flashes of blue and red came through the windscreen.
‘Uh-oh. US Humvees ahead. They’ve just blasted a PLR technical.’ He stamped on the brakes and slammed into reverse, sawing at the wheel. ‘Fuck, they’re moving our way.’
He never completed the manoeuvre. A second later a white flash lit up the inside of the Rakhsh and the front end reared skywards, as if a giant hand had scooped it up and then dropped it on its roof. For a few moments there was silence.
‘Out, out. Now!’
‘Where the fuck’s the door on this?’
‘US approaching on foot. Forty metres. Go go go.’
Flames from the smashed front end spread through the windscreen.
‘Why the fuck do they make these things so hard to get out of?’
‘So you’ll stay at your post and fight like a good soldier of the revolution.’
‘Well they can fuck their revolution.’
Zirak got the side door open. They spilled out on to an expanding pool of fuel from the wrecked APC. As they rolled across it a bullet from the Americans ricocheted off the pavement and it became a lake of fire.
They were saved by a yawning gap in the street, opened up by the earthquake. A whoosh of flame and heat and the APC became an inferno. They watched their transport disintegrate in front of them. A couple of Marines dismounted from the Humvee and circled the burning Rakhsh.
‘We fucked that up good.’
‘Yeah, right. Fried Iranian anyone?’
‘Fuckin’ A, man.’
They ambled off as if they owned the place, got back in the Humvee and drove away.
Dima, tired, hungry, sore, scorched and stinking of gas, found himself in a place beyond rage, beyond swearing. He glanced at his watch, n
ow with a big crack across the face but still functioning. Twenty-four hours had passed since he had taken off with a hundred plus men, two helicopters and two cars. And here he was twenty-four hours later, in a hole in the ground, all but four of his men gone, both choppers lost, no car and no nuke to show for it. As bad days went, this took some beating.
30
The doors were too big to breach. Besides, there weren’t enough of them to go in with a bang, guns blazing. Stealth was the only option.
‘Every chain has its weak link,’ said Blackburn.
‘Every dog has its day.’
‘Black didn’t make Sergeant by being no dog.’
They found the weak link. Someone had added a fire escape to the rear of the building. The lower half of it had been shot away but a vent tube ran up close beside it. Blackburn went first, reached for the lowest rung and caught it just as he let go of the vent. The ladder stopped at a window that was frosted. Blackburn prised it open: a toilet. He put one foot on the top of the cistern and the other on the seat. He peered over the stalls, there were at least five. None seemed occupied. He jumped down and checked each stall: all open. He leaned out of the window and beckoned the other two.
Matkovic was next, Blackburn guiding his feet, then Montes. Campo’s foot caught the handle of the cistern. They froze as it flushed, the sound bursting the silence like a shell. None of them moved. There were footsteps outside. Blackburn pointed at his gun and shook his head: no shooting. Quick to right his mistake, Campo ran to the door and stood behind it, knife in hand. An officer — judging by his uniform — stood facing them, his eyes widening. He felt for his holster, about to shoot when Campo reached round, covered his face with one hand and sank his knife into his chest. There was a muffled protest and the body slumped to the floor.
Black was through the door and into the corridor.
‘Let’s find this vault.’
The lift doors were jammed half open. The car had stalled, leaving a two-foot gap.
‘Must be stairs nearby.’
They opened the stairwell door, heard voices coming up from the floor below.
Black pulled them into a huddle.
‘We go the quick way. If we rappel down, those guys on the floor below won’t know we came past them.’
There was a short silence while they digested this. They didn’t look keen.
‘Do I look like I’m joking?’
Black went first, slipping into the aperture between the floor of the car and the bottom step of the doorway. They were three floors up but there was no way of knowing how many basement levels there were. As he rappelled down he counted five floors in all. It was pitch dark at the bottom. The lowest doors were jammed shut. He listened hard for any sound from the other side. Nothing. He signalled the others down with his torch. All four of them worked their fingers into the gap between the two doors and eased them open wide enough to slip through.
The doors opened into an antechamber and beyond that was the vault.
Black trained his torch on the huge foot-thick polished metal door. It was wide open.
‘Looks like our lucky day.’
They stepped in. It was the size of at least two containers. Safety deposit boxes lined one wall. Several were missing, some were on the floor. A few were wide open.
Black moved further in.
Campo started peering into the drawers.
‘I always wanted to rob a bank, y’know, real professional, inside man, tunnel from under.’
Black raised his hand. ‘Shut up, Campo.’
He trained his torch over the opposite wall.
‘Hey, look: maps,’ said Montes. ‘This is Al Bashir’s command bunker, ain’t it? These guys always end up in bunkers, just like Hitler.’
Campo peered at one.
‘Uh-oh, planning his world domination, more like.’ He moved closer. ‘Hmm. Let me see, what’s it to be? Looks like he’s narrowed it down to. . Paris.’
‘Or New York. Tough call. Me, I’d go for the one where they speak English.’
‘He doesn’t speak English, jerkwad.’
Black stepped forward. Circled on the Paris map in a thick black marker was Place de la Bourse, the Stock Exchange. And on the other, Times Square. He raised a hand for silence then waved them back so he could conduct a more methodical search. There were signs of recent occupation: a plate, on it the remains of some nan bread, a tomato and the leaves of a vegetable he didn’t recognise. The air was stale with tobacco smoke and an ashtray had fallen off a small folding table. Butts spread out across the floor.
‘They left in a hurry all right.’
Campo pointed at a case in the far corner.
‘Check that out.’
It was an aluminium container. ‘What’s that stuff on the side, them numbers? Farsi?’
‘That’s Russian.’
‘Well no surprise there, these dudes got lots of Russian shit.’
‘Yeah, but check that symbol. Nothing Russian about that.’
They all stared at the label: a yellow triangle with three cake slice shapes in black arranged round a central dot.
‘Shit. .’
‘Jeez, it could be primed.’
Black moved towards it. ‘If it is, there’s nothing we can do.’
‘We should call it in.’
‘I’m gonna lift the lid.’
As the others drew back, Blackburn stepped forward and reached down. There were two catches on the lid, both unclipped. He raised it and looked in. Within a thick lining, there were three compartments. Two were empty.
One wasn’t.
A single green light flashed frantically. Each of them turned away from the device, instinctively. The power had come back on. A dull yellow light glowed from a cavity in the ceiling.
‘Jesus, fuck.’
‘Back up lamp. Power must have come back. Maybe the lift’s working.’
Montes laughed nervously. ‘Anyone else thought that was the big one?’
‘I’m calling this in.’ Black adjusted his mike. ‘Misfit actual this is Misfit 1–3 sitrep, over.’
‘Misfit actual. Send,’ came the response.
‘Actual 1–3 Haymaker actual is inoperative. We have located vault. HVT negative, repeat negative. Have located what appears to be portable WMD, repeat WMD. Stable. One device in container, evidence of two, repeat two, gone.’
‘Hey, up there!’ They all looked at the corner where Campo was pointing. A split-screen monitor showed four views. One appeared to be the lobby.
Two figures, carrying what looked like American M4s, were on their way out, one pulling a wheeled case.
‘Fuck! That’s our HVT! That’s Bashir!’
There was nothing from the radio. Blackburn repeated his message.
‘We have visual of HVT. Al Bashir vacating building. Now!’
Eventually there was a reply. ‘. . breaking up. Mobilising assets now.’
‘They can’t hear me properly: we’re too far down.’
The light went out and they were plunged back into darkness.
31
Camp Firefly, Outskirts of Tehran
They’d barely been there six hours, but to the fleeing Iranians it must have looked like the US Army owned the place. Civilian families, a weary, straggling column of them, escaping the quake and the PLR, were now being waved away by the ring of soldiers guarding the encampment.
Cole and Blackburn watched, their faces set in resignation. Also under the camo net, at a distance from the main base, was Gunnery Sergeant Mike ‘Gunny’ Wilson, the EOD, who was probing the device with a Geiger counter. He had already run it over Black, Campo and Matkovic, plus the tank crew that had extracted them from the bank, and pronounced them safe. Now he was meticulously examining Black’s find, in a kind of professional slow motion, as if he had all the time in the world. None of them wanted to think about the fact that Al Bashir was on the run, almost certainly with two of these things. They sat, patience and nerves stretched, waiting
for Gunny to make his pronouncement.
Taking their time was all part of the EOD mystique: these were the men who had cheated death time after time, calmly disabling devices with added booby traps designed to catch them out. They were among the most respected men in the field, and among the most frequent casualties. ‘Least when it’s our time to go, we go. When you’re that close and it blows, we’re gone baby gone,’ Blackburn had once heard one say. But Blackburn wasn’t paying full attention to Gunny’s investigation. He couldn’t stop thinking about what he had seen on the monitor, the man with Al Bashir. Clean shaven, high cheekbones. Just like Harker’s executioner.
He wanted to tell Cole but he knew he would be suspicious and start questioning him: ‘Still got that on your mind, huh? Eating into you is it? You watching from a safe distance as that sword. .?’ Blackburn got up and paced about, replaying over and over what he had seen on the vault security monitor.
The images in his mind were as clear as if he had the tapes. Four views. Two were blank. One showed the main customer floor with the bronze doors of the entrance. The other showed a second smaller exit, which was the one that Al Bashir and one other man had passed through. The second one was carrying two cases. Campo had spotted it first.
‘Holy fuck — you see what I’m seeing?’
They all stopped and stared at the screen. Blackburn glanced back at the one remaining nuclear device.
‘Bashir’s sidekick’s got the other two. .’
Campo shrugged.
‘Let’s not jump to conclusions.’
Matkovic snorted.
‘No: let’s not get too worried that America’s Most Wanted just left the building with two WMDs.’
Black raised a gloved hand.
‘Just shut up and watch, okay. There’s fuck all else we can do.’
His voice trailed off as he stared at the monitor. The two men exited the building. The camera angle showed a small area of the street. Al Bashir hesitated. The second man looked round, tall, clean shaven, high cheekbones, local dress. To Blackburn it looked as if he was staring straight at him, right through the security camera, taunting him.
Campo shrugged. ‘They waiting for a cab or what?’
Matkovic turned to Black. ‘Who’s the other guy?’