by Chris Ryan
Danny’s stomach felt leaden. Ben Powell had the blank expression of a man about to deliver bad news. Danny strode over to the ops sergeant, who immediately started walking away from the Sea Knight in the direction of the Hercules. Danny fell in beside him. ‘What’s wrong?’ And before Powell could answer, he fired more questions. ‘My dad all right? Something happen to my brother?’
‘Relax, Danny,’ Powell said. ‘As far as I know it’s nothing personal.’
A wave of relief. ‘Then what?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is they want you back in the UK. This morning.’
Regiment guys being plucked out of theatre like this was seldom good news. He quickly made a mental list of anything he might have done wrong. Were the MoD about to screw him over? ‘What the hell’s going on, Ben?’ he demanded.
‘I told you,’ the ops sergeant replied. ‘I don’t know.’ Powell seemed slightly annoyed by his own ignorance. ‘All I know is it must be important.’ He held up an airline boarding card. ‘BA flight to Heathrow. Supposed to leave two hours ago. They’ve delayed it for you, but you need to get cleaned up first – you smell like a dog’s arse. Fucking look like one too, so shake a leg, mate. Somebody clearly doesn’t want to be kept waiting.’
The hours that followed were a blur. Powell led Danny to a small shower room, where his North Face drop bag was waiting for him. He showered off the dirt, using the tub of Swarfega that he always packed for this purpose to strip off the blood smeared over his head, face and hands. Then he got dressed into blue jeans, black Converse, white shirt and leather jacket. As he walked out of the shower room there was not a hint of his profession, or the way he’d spent the past twenty-four hours.
The BA jet was sitting on the tarmac, fully loaded. Nobody asked Danny for any ID as a refuelling vehicle drove him directly to the front, where a mobile stairway was waiting for him. As he boarded, an attractive air hostess with a little upturned nose escorted him to his seat in business class. Danny wondered what bullshit the airport authorities had fed the other passengers to explain the delay of their flight. As he took his seat he felt eyes on him that suggested some of them had twigged from his late arrival and damp hair that they hadn’t been told the whole truth.
The plane was a hell of a sight more comfortable than the Sea Knight. Once they were airborne, the pretty air hostess offered him champagne. She looked almost disappointed when he asked for coffee instead, and he noticed the way her hand brushed against his as she handed it to him. ‘Let me know if you need anything at all,’ she almost purred at him. Danny just nodded. Ordinarily he’d have played the game, but he was too dog-tired even to think about that. He was asleep before the aircraft reached its cruising altitude.
He dozed fitfully. Even though Powell had assured him that everything was OK back home, in some corner of his exhausted mind he couldn’t shake the suspicion that something was wrong. He saw his dad, limp in his wheelchair, a look of fear on the face that had grown fat through lack of exercise. He’d been stuck in that damn thing in a tiny bungalow in Hereford for the past thirty years, stubbornly rearing his children and refusing any help that was offered to him. Danny had never once heard him complain about his lot. Even when Danny’s brother Kyle had started getting into trouble with the police – just as all his teachers had predicted he would – their dad had been philosophical. You can only shit with the arse you’ve got, he always said – one of Taff’s favourite sayings – and Danny privately knew that his disappointment with Kyle’s behaviour was more than balanced by his pride when Danny had passed selection. Even so, the thought of life throwing anything more at his father made Danny nauseous.
The plane touched down at Heathrow at 06.00 hrs GMT. Dawn had broken, but although the sky was clear the air had a bite to it that Danny had not experienced farther south. Even with his eyes shut, he’d have known this was the UK. The desert just smelled different. Waiting on the tarmac for him was an anonymous black Land Cruiser. The driver – he wore jeans, a sports jacket and brown leather driving gloves – opened the rear door for him. Ignoring the bleary-eyed and suspicious looks from the other passengers on the tarmac, Danny climbed into the back. Without a word, the chauffeur drove off the airfield.
‘Where we headed, mucker?’ Danny asked.
‘Acton,’ the driver said.
‘Lucky me. Do I need my military ID?’
‘Not necessary.’ Thirty metres up ahead, an orange barrier rose automatically and the Land Cruiser passed through it. Moments later it had slipped into the early-morning traffic on the M4.
‘You with the Firm?’ Danny asked.
No reply, which was as good as a yes.
They travelled in silence. Now and then Danny felt the driver’s eyes on him in the rear-view mirror. He didn’t blame the guy. No doubt he was as much an enigma as the driver was to him. After twenty minutes they found themselves on the Uxbridge Road. Danny looked at his watch – 06.37 hrs – as they turned left. Five minutes later they entered the Park Royal industrial estate, where the Land Cruiser approached a large brick unit, about the size of an aircraft hangar and surrounded by a three-metre-high metal fence. A warehouse of some kind. Danny spotted a notice on the fence that said: ‘Ronson Logistics – A Better Service To You’. The driver stopped at a wide, sturdy gate set into the fence, wound down the window and punched a number into a keypad to the right. The gate opened and the Land Cruiser slipped in. It came to a halt by a door in the side of the warehouse. Danny jumped out, looking around warily.
‘What is this place?’ he demanded.
The driver didn’t answer. He simply jutted his chin towards the side door. Danny suppressed a moment of frustration that made him want to grab the guy and drag some more concrete information out of him. Instead he nodded briefly and entered the building.
He found himself in a bleak little office. A desk, a chair, a lamp and nothing else. No occupants, but in the far wall was another door. He opened it, walked through and found himself in the main part of the warehouse. It was a vast space, about fifty metres long, thirty wide and fifteen high. A radio was playing at the far end – Danny thought he recognised a Snow Patrol song that some of the lads back in Bastion had listened to. There was a cold, concrete floor, and strip lighting hung from the ceiling. The warehouse was filled with vehicles. They were parked in five neat lines, like in a car showroom. Unlike a car showroom, however, these vehicles looked anything but new. Danny counted thirteen black cabs. One of them had an advertisement for Mamma Mia: The Musical plastered across its side. A few others had the odd dent in their bodywork. There were VWs, Minis, a couple of Transits, even a battered old Royal Mail van whose rear doors were open and the interior filled with grey mail sacks. Notable by their absence in what Danny immediately took to be a vehicle pool for the Security Services was anything remotely flash. No Porsches, no Range Rovers, nothing convertible. These vehicles were supposed to be invisible – there was, after all, nothing so commonplace as a black cab on the streets of London. One of them had its bonnet up and a mechanic – the only other person present that Danny could see – peered round from one side on hearing footsteps. He didn’t look surprised to see Danny standing there. He just pointed towards the far side of the warehouse where there was an anonymous Portakabin. A box within a box. Danny strode up to it, knocked firmly on the door and then stepped inside.
There were six men inside. Three of them were standing drinking coffee from polystyrene cups. The others stood a few metres apart, clearly in conference. Danny recognised one of them as Johnny Cartwright, the CO of 22. Cartwright was the first to notice Danny. He beckoned him to come and join them. As Danny grew nearer, he realised he recognised each of the three guys drinking coffee. He’d seen them around Hereford HQ but didn’t know them by name. The two men Cartwright was speaking with, Danny didn’t know at all.
Cartwright made a curt string of introductions, starting with the Regiment boys. ‘Jack Ward.’ A lean, wiry guy with a pronounced mole on hi
s left cheek. ‘Greg Murray.’ Shaved head, piercing blue eyes. ‘Spud Glover.’ A head shorter than Danny, but with squat, broad shoulders so solid they looked like they’d stop a green-tipped round at point-blank range, and a round face and balding head that, weirdly, reminded him of Phil Collins. Danny shook each soldier’s hand before the CO directed him towards the two suits. ‘Oliver Carrington.’ The older of the two, Carrington had steel-grey hair and wore old-fashioned black-rimmed glasses. The lenses were very thick and the eyes behind them seemed wary as he shook hands with Danny.
‘I appreciate you joining us at such short notice,’ he said.
‘I was at a loose end anyway, pal,’ replied Danny.
Carrington smiled blandly. Danny had the impression of a man well used to hiding his emotions.
‘And Hugo Buckingham,’ Cartwright continued. Danny nodded at this younger man. He was slender, almost girlishly so – the dead spit of Hugh Grant. His floppy brown hair was a bit scruffy, but he had a friendly face.
‘Very good to meet you,’ Buckingham said. His voice was posh but not unpleasant. Danny nodded noncommittally at him, before throwing his CO a questioning glance.
‘Six,’ Cartwright said, as if that explained everything. Which, in a way, it did.
Carrington cleared his throat and then took charge of the meeting. ‘May I suggest we get started, gentlemen? Find a seat where you can.’
‘Yeah, I heard you were pushed for space up at MI6,’ Spud said. Good point. Danny wondered what he was about to hear that made this spook so keen to banish unwanted ears. But that strand of conversation was over. A cautious respect existed between the men of 22 and the MI6 personnel whose dirty work they were so often brought in to do. The guys sat down on plastic stackable chairs and listened.
‘You’ll be aware of the current situation in Syria,’ Carrington said. None of the Regiment men gave any indication that this was so, but it almost went without saying. When you know there’s a chance of your superiors ordering an insertion into any of the world’s hot spots at any given moment, you tend to keep one eye on the news. Even in the forward operating bases of Helmand, word had reached the men of the bloodshed and violence the Syrian government was inflicting on its own people.
‘The anti-government rebels are fragmented,’ Carrington went on. ‘Different groups, different agendas. Some of them have a genuine political focus, some are simply opportunists taking advantage of the civilian unrest. The usual story. The PM has made it perfectly clear that the UK would welcome an orderly transfer of power. He’s even gone so far as to offer senior members of the Syrian administration safe passage out of the country should they decide to stand down.’
‘Give them a seat next to me,’ Spud said. ‘I don’t have much use for kid-killers.’
‘Quite,’ Carrington murmured. ‘In any case, it may or may not surprise you to learn that we have opened up lines of communication with certain rebel factions. All completely under the radar, of course. Our intelligence networks have identified the faction most likely to come to power in the event of a regime change. Clearly, the British government would like to be on good terms with whoever succeeds the current Syrian regime.’
Carrington held up an A4 photograph. It was taken with a long-distance lens and showed an elderly Middle Eastern-looking man wearing a red and white keffiyeh. Danny was put in mind of pictures of Yasser Arafat he’d seen on TV when he was growing up. ‘This is Baltasar Farhad,’ Carrington explained. ‘He is the patriarch of a rebel family most likely to have a leading role in any future Syrian administration. Or perhaps I should say, he was. Two weeks ago Farhad was assassinated in a suicide attack. You probably heard the news at the time.’
Danny hadn’t. He squinted at the picture. In the background, a little blurred, he saw the arch of a Métro station. ‘Paris?’
Carrington nodded. ‘Farhad was in exile. The French had given him asylum. He himself had always been sympathetic to French interests in Syria. That made him a very valuable asset to the French. They were vexed, to say the least, when he met his maker.’
‘Who did it?’ Jack Ward asked.
‘The intelligence points towards a young Algerian man wanted on terrorism charges.’
‘Kids today,’ Spud muttered. ‘They blow up so quickly.’
Carrington ignored that. ‘To be frank,’ he said, ‘who did it isn’t our biggest problem. Our concern now is to deal with the aftermath. Farhad was more than just a figurehead. Even in his absence, he was the glue that stopped his own family from falling apart. He has two sons. Chalk and cheese: one by the name of Sorgen, the other called Asu. Sorgen is a chip off the old block. Like his father, he is mostly sympathetic to French interests. Asu, on the other hand, has spent a good deal of time in London. Our intelligence tells us that he has a penchant for British women – we’ve located four separate prostitutes who claim to have been regular clients of his during his time in the UK. He even had a season ticket for . . . Tottenham Hotspur, was it, Hugo?’
Buckingham nodded.
‘Footy and hookers,’ Greg Murray said. ‘Makes you proud to be British, don’t it?’
‘Yes, well, football isn’t really my cup of tea. Whatever the reason, though, Asu is something of an Anglophile. He and Sorgen loathe each other. Always have done. Their father was the only person who could keep them from each other’s throats. Out of respect for him, they avoided open hostilities. Now that Farhad has gone, they clearly see no reason to keep up the pretence. The family has split into two distinct factions. This is, of course, good news for the Syrian administration, as it means that their most significant rebel threat has been weakened. However, our analysts remain convinced that one or other of these brothers will lead the new administration when the time comes. It goes without saying that the British government would prefer to see Asu in that role, rather than Sorgen.’
There was a moment of silence while Carrington allowed that information to sink in.
‘The government has made it quite clear that, while it supports the notion of regime change in Syria, it is pursuing a non-interventionist policy. After Iraq and Afghanistan, there just isn’t the stomach for it. However, if one of these two factions is to come to power in Syria, we want to make sure it’s Asu’s side of the family, not Sorgen’s. There was a time when we’d have been happy to put a Regiment unit on the ground in order to coordinate a training package for the rebels. Having assured the international community that we are taking a non-combative role in Syria, you can see, I’m sure, how it would be diplomatically awkward for us to do so now.’
Danny thought back to Libya. His paymasters hadn’t been so squeamish about ‘non-combative’ roles out there. He put that thought from his mind. He’d long since stopped trying to work out the politics. He was there to do a job of work, not to think about the consequences.
‘Nevertheless,’ Carrington said, ‘we’re keen to extend the hand of friendship to Asu. You’re all aware of International Solutions Ltd?’
Damn right they were all aware of it. International Solutions were private military contractors. They had half the Regiment on their books – guys who’d got sick of risking their necks for Queen and Country and wanted to exercise their skills for a proper paycheck. There wasn’t a hot spot in the world without someone spying a chance to make some money, and that meant private close-protection work was easy to come by. International Solutions supplied the muscle for a good proportion of those kinds of jobs. Word on the streets of Hereford was that they did a whole lot more besides. Stick a few private military contractors in a war zone and you’ve got yourself a fighting force that isn’t bound by the Geneva Convention. Amazing how many problems disappear when you throw away the rules of engagement.
‘International Solutions successfully tendered for a government contract – strictly on the QT, you understand – to deploy a small team of private military contractors to help train Asu’s men. A hand of friendship from the British government, but at one step removed – if anybody f
ollows the money trail, they will be under the impression that Asu himself is employing the PMCs. There are, however, certain elements among the upper echelons of government who are nervous about using the private sector in this way.’ He gave another of his meaningless smiles. ‘Which is where Hugo comes in. He comes to us fresh from a stint in Saudi Arabia. One of our more distinguished Arabists. He’s to make contact with our contractors and ensure that they’re doing the job we’re paying them for. Unofficially, of course. However, we also have a second, perhaps more important, mission for Hugo.’ Carrington turned to the younger man. ‘Perhaps you’d care to explain, Hugo.’
Buckingham looked a little surprised at being put on the spot. Danny watched his cheeks flush as he tried – and failed – to master it. Buckingham stood up, combed the fingers of his right hand through his abundant hair and cleared his throat – to little effect, as his voice was still somewhat croaky when he spoke. ‘I had the good fortune to attend the Sorbonne as a student and—’
‘The sore what?’ Spud interrupted.
An embarrassed pause. ‘It’s a French university. In Paris,’ Buckingham said. ‘I studied Arabic and Political Theory there. So did Sorgen, Asu’s brother. We became friends. I think I can persuade him to build bridges with his brother.’
‘What, just like that?’ Greg sounded deeply sceptical.
‘We are approaching the festival of Eid al-Fitr,’ Buckingham said, as if that explained everything. He was met by a line of blank faces that clearly told him that it didn’t. ‘It’s a very important Muslim holiday. It marks the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting. It’s a time of unity, when families come together to feast and pray. Sorgen is a devout man. I think I can convince him that this is a good time for him to open up communications with Asu.’