by Chris Ryan
‘Which would be a win-win situation,’ Carrington said. ‘The rebels are far stronger united than they are divided. And if Hugo can persuade Sorgen of the British government’s good intentions towards him, the endgame would be most favourable.’ Another smile. ‘Your role, gentlemen, is to look after Mr Buckingham on the ground. Make sure he gets to where he needs to be, safely and secretly. I’m sure I don’t need to impress upon you the covert nature of this operation. If you’re located, the British government will deny all knowledge of your presence in the region. The British Embassy in Damascus has been abandoned. In its absence, the Czech Embassy might – might – offer you assistance if it comes to it, but you certainly shouldn’t rely on that. Each one of you has been vetted at the highest level. It seems we can trust you all, and by God we’ll need to.’ He looked at each of the four in turn. ‘The Middle East is changing,’ he said. ‘The Arab Spring has seen the old regimes swept away. We may not have liked them, but at least we knew them. Now we find ourselves in the unenviable position of having to rebuild our networks across the region. Hugo has important work to do, gentlemen. Don’t let him down.’
Carrington stood up and looked over at Cartwright. ‘I believe that’s all you need from me, Johnny?’
The CO nodded.
‘Come along then, Hugo,’ Carrington said, almost as if he were talking to a dog. ‘Let’s leave our friends to their preparations.’ Without another word, he turned on his heel and made for the door. Buckingham lingered. He still appeared embarrassed by his boss’s manner, and for a moment looked as though he was going apologise for it. His eyes caught Danny’s, who nodded at him. As Carrington exited, Buckingham offered Danny his hand. ‘I’m very grateful,’ he said. ‘I do understand that I’m being chaperoned by the very best. I hope I won’t be too much of a hindrance.’
Danny shook his hand. ‘No worries, mate.’
Buckingham nodded respectfully, then plunged his hands into his pockets and followed Carrington at something resembling a trot.
As soon as the door was closed, Spud let out an explosion of breath. ‘Fucking hell, boss,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t they send in someone with a bit more backbone? That Buckingham looked like he’d brown his trousers if you told him boo.’
Cartwright seemed as if he was about to agree, but kept his opinion to himself. ‘You’ll forward mount from the eastern Mediterranean,’ he said. ‘Full briefing when we get to Hereford.’ He checked his watch. ‘There’ll be a van outside. I’ll meet you there. Black, stay behind a minute.’
The other three left the Portakabin.
The CO surveyed Danny for a moment, as if weighing up his options. ‘I’m assigning you unit leader,’ he said.
Danny blinked. This was unusual. The other three were a good five or six years older. More experienced. Ordinarily the role would have fallen to one of them. Cartwright clearly saw the surprise on Danny’s face. ‘I heard about what happened in Libya,’ he said. ‘Sounds like those UN fellas have a lot to thank you for. I think you’re ready for a bit more responsibility.’
‘Yes, boss.’
Cartwright sniffed. ‘Your brother got parole,’ he said. ‘He’s been out about a week.’
Danny felt his jaw clenching. ‘My dad know?’
The CO nodded.
‘Shit!’ Danny thumped one of the plastic chairs and sent it clattering across the floor. Then he turned back to his commanding officer. ‘Boss, I need some time. Someone else can babysit the spook. They don’t need me.’
‘No can do, Black. I’m sorry.’
‘Boss, I—’
‘It’s an order, Black. You insert from Brize Norton at 12.00 hrs tomorrow. There’s time between this afternoon’s briefing and then to sort out any personal affairs.’ He approached Danny and handed him a slip of paper with a Hereford address written on it. ‘Your brother’s staying here,’ he said. ‘Do what you need to do.’
Danny took a deep breath, then nodded and stowed the slip of paper in his pocket. ‘Thank you,’ he murmured. He glanced over towards the door. ‘Boss?’
‘Yeah?’
‘This is a straightforward op. They could have given it to anybody. What’s all this personal-vetting shite about? Why drag me all the way from Malta when Hereford’s full of men who could take my place?’
Cartwright didn’t say anything, but the look that crossed his face spoke plainly: the same question had occurred to him, and he didn’t know the answer either. ‘Just do the job,’ he said tersely, ‘and get the hell out of there as quickly as you can. Got it? Syria’s a dog’s dinner. If it was up to me we’d leave the fuckers to it.’
‘Aye,’ Danny said. ‘Roger that.’ And with an uneasy feeling creeping through his veins, he and the CO stepped out of the Portakabin. Snow Patrol had fallen silent. The radio was off. The mechanic was leaning against a Mini with a cigarette in his hand, watching them quietly. As they approached the door, he started to whistle.
Danny stopped. He recognised the song. It was the same one that Boydie had been whistling in the OP.
‘What is that?’ he said.
The CO gave him an impatient look. ‘What is this? Name That Fucking Tune? Get a move on, Black.’
Danny nodded. ‘Yes, boss,’ he said.
They joined the others outside, where an unmarked white Transit van was waiting to transport them all to Hereford.
SIX
Hereford. 15.00 hrs.
They call it the Kremlin, because that’s where all the secrets are. This secure network of corridors, deep inside Regimental headquarters, was where the unit’s briefing took place. The briefing room was two doors along from the records room and bang opposite the CO’s office. With a lectern and whiteboard screen at the front, and curved seating for the men, it resembled a modern university lecture hall, with one exception. The walls were so thickly soundproofed that any noise in here was immediately deadened. In that respect it was more like a sound studio, and it served as a constant reminder that whatever was spoken within these four walls was not to be repeated beyond them.
The briefing room was easily big enough for an entire squadron to sit and receive their orders. Right now there were just four men: Danny and his unit. Spud was regaling them with the story of his conquest of an American intelligence officer at Kandahar airbase. ‘Cheeky cow said if I shaved off my beard and cut my hair, I wouldn’t be bad-looking.’ He pretended to sound outraged. ‘So I said that if I shaved off my beard and cut my hair, I wouldn’t be talking to her, I’d be talking to her fit mates.’
‘You’re a smooth-talking fucker, Spud,’ Jack observed.
Spud shrugged. ‘Not my best ever chat-up line, but it worked.’ A confused look crossed his face. ‘Mind you, she was a fucking munter, and they let themselves go in theatre, don’t they? This one had a minge like Terry Waite’s allotment.’
The guys laughed, but Spud was only just warming to his subject. ‘Looked a lot better with her arse in the air!’ he announced, just as the door opened and Major Ray Hammond, the Regiment’s ops officer, walked in. The laughter instantly died away.
Major Hammond always had rings under his eyes and a slightly hangdog expression. It was well known in the Regiment that the more pronounced those rings, the shorter his temper. This afternoon they looked like they’d been painted on with boot polish. He walked up to the lectern, opened his laptop, plugged in a couple of jacks, then browsed through a sheaf of papers without looking up. The unit remained silent while Hammond organised his thoughts, tapped his papers into order on the table and cleared his throat.
‘Patrol call sign Kilo Alpha Six Four,’ the ops officer announced. ‘You insert by sea.’ He looked round the room with his chin slightly jutting out, as if daring any of the men to contradict him.
‘We could get closer to Homs by air,’ Jack Ward suggested.
Hammond shook his head. ‘It would mean a HALO, and we’re not about to stick this Buckingham character on a tandem with one of you lot. He’d shit himself before he even
left the ground.’
‘Fucker needs to grow a pair,’ Spud observed. Even the ops officer smiled. Danny kept quiet. The bloke seemed OK to him, and if he was prepared to put himself in harm’s way to serve his country, then he deserved some respect. And in any case, on the ground their little company needed to be on good terms with each other. What they said in front of the ops officer wasn’t Danny’s business. What they said in front of Danny once the operation had begun was. For the next few days Hugo Buckingham would be one of them.
‘In any case,’ Hammond was saying, ‘the airspace above Syria is too crowded for an airborne insertion. And obviously it’ll be no good simply flying into Damascus on a commercial flight. The spook needs to go in under the radar and it’s like Checkpoint fucking Charlie there at the moment. And you don’t want to be screwing around with border crossings from Lebanon.’ He flicked a couple of switches on the lectern. The lights dimmed. Hammond turned and indicated a map of the region that was projected on to the wall by an OHP connected to his laptop. With one finger he traced Syria’s western border with the Mediterranean. ‘This coastline is porous,’ he said. ‘You should be able to insert without difficulty.’
‘As the actress said to the bishop,’ Spud muttered. Hammond tapped a key on the laptop and the image changed. A man’s face appeared. Dark skin, black beard tinged with grey, a hooked nose. ‘This is your fixer,’ the ops officer said. ‘Called Muhammad, surprise surprise. The Firm have had him on the payroll for the past six months. He’ll supply you with two vehicles and enough fuel to get you in and around Homs and back again. The road from the coast to the city is about a hundred klicks. Our intelligence tells us that there are two army checkpoints along the way, but they tend not to be manned during the hours of darkness.’ Hammond sniffed. ‘Government troops manning them are probably too busy killing and looting. Anyway, if you don’t run into any difficulties, you should reach the city in a couple of hours.’
‘And if we do run into difficulties?’ Greg asked.
The ops officer gave him a flat-eyed stare. ‘Deal with them,’ he said. ‘Once you’ve entered the city, you’ll need to make contact with the private sector guys. Black, you have an RV with Max Saunders, the MD of International Solutions, tomorrow at 10.00 hrs in London.’
‘What for?’
‘He’s insisting on meeting the patrol leader. Shake your hand, look you in the eye, the usual bullshit.’ A frown crossed the ops officer’s face. ‘Saunders is ex-Regiment. Slippery piece of shit, so mind your Ps and Qs. Just smile sweetly and don’t give him cause to worry. Once you’ve had the meet, a car will take you to Brize Norton for 14.00 hrs. The rest of you will be bussed there from HQ at the same time, and you’ll RV with Buckingham at the airport. You fly at 16.00 hrs. ETA Larnaca, Cyprus, 20.30 hrs local time. You’ll be met by a Sergeant Wilkinson, who’ll take you down to the port. There’ll be a detachment of 42 Commando waiting with a Rigid Raider to transport you to submarine HMS Vanguard. You’ll surface approximately two miles offshore and your Marines will escort you by RIB to your insertion point: latitude 34.705. Any questions?’
‘How long are we expected to be on the ground?’ asked Jack.
‘Five days, max. If you need rations beyond that, the PMCs will sort you out. We’ve no reason to believe the Syrian authorities know you’re coming, but be aware that the Russians have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo in Syria. They’re backing the current administration, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if they have men on the ground.’
‘Spetznaz?’ Danny asked.
‘Probably. What we do know is it’s a fucking mosh pit out there and a few more dead bodies won’t even come up on the statistics. The Firm want this Buckingham fella back in one piece. Make sure they’re not disappointed.’ Hammond turned to Danny. ‘The boss told me you’ve got something to sort out.’ Was it Danny’s imagination, or had the rings under his eyes just grown a little darker?
Danny nodded.
‘Then get a move on. I want you back here to go through the mapping and predicted weather conditions at 21.00 hrs. Understood?’
‘Understood.’
The slip of paper Danny’s CO had handed to him gave the address of a B&B on Whitecross Road in the west of Hereford. Grandly, it called itself the Greenacres Hotel, but it wasn’t the kind of place anybody would want to stay for long. Yellowed net curtains obscured all the windows of the mid-terrace house. The paintwork was peeling. A sign on the door announced that there were vacancies. Danny suspected there always were.
He rang the doorbell. No answer. He clenched his fist and hammered on the door, making it rattle in its frame. Thirty seconds later he heard the sound of a man cursing from inside. The door opened. An overweight guy in a gravy-spotted vest appeared. He squinted suspiciously at Danny.
‘Evening, pal,’ Danny said. ‘You got a Kyle Black staying?’
The landlord appeared to consider this for a moment, then grunted, turned and, wheezing, led Danny into the hallway. ‘I’ll call him.’
‘Don’t worry, mate. He’s expecting me. What room was it again?’
No hint of suspicion in the landlord’s eyes now. ‘Room 3. Upstairs.’
Danny heard Room 3 before he saw it. The TV was on and the opening music of Strictly Come Dancing seeped out on to the landing. The room itself was the second on the right, opposite a communal bathroom, with the door ajar, that needed cleaning. Danny didn’t bother to knock. He simply walked right in.
Kyle was lying on the bed, propped up by pillows, drinking whisky from a toothbrush glass. There was a half-empty bottle of Famous Grouse on his bedside table and his eyes were glazed as he stared at the television. Danny stood by the closed door for a full ten seconds before his brother turned his head. He had the uncanny sensation of looking at an older version of himself. Kyle wore an unkempt beard that was going prematurely grey. His reddish-blond hair was longer than Danny’s, but thinning at the crown. His face was more lined than a twenty-eight-year-old’s ought to be.
Kyle sneered. ‘I’m a bit upset you didn’t fast-rope through the window. That’s what you twats like doing, right?’
Danny ignored the slurred insult. He walked round to the other side of the bed, intending to take the whisky and empty it down the sink in the bathroom. At the last minute, Kyle realised what he was trying to do. A look of panic crossed his drunken face. He clumsily tried to grab the bottle, but knocked it over. The whisky glugged out on to the carpet.
‘Fucking hell!’ Kyle said. He set the bottle upright, but it was empty now.
‘You smell like a tramp,’ Danny told him.
Kyle shrugged and took a swig from the glass. There was something about the arrogant nonchalance in his expression that filled Danny with a sudden rage. He leaned over and grabbed Kyle by his sweat-stained T-shirt, which ripped slightly as he pulled his brother towards him. ‘I have to leave the country,’ he growled. ‘If I hear that you’ve so much as laid a finger on Dad when I come back, I swear to God you’ll be needing a wheelchair too, and I’ll be the one doing time.’
Kyle made no attempt to fight. His body was floppy as Danny threw him back on to the bed. Danny had said all he’d come to say. He made for the door.
‘I already went to the house,’ Kyle mumbled just as Danny’s hand touched the handle.
Danny turned. Kyle’s face had lost none of its drunken arrogance. ‘Surprised, little bro? Surprised that I talked to the old cunt without your permission?’ He snorted dismissively. ‘Don’t worry, we kissed and made up. The prod . . . progid . . .’ He tried three times to say the word ‘prodigal’, then gave up. ‘You want to know what he told me?’ he said suddenly, hoisting himself to his feet. He staggered unsteadily towards Danny.
‘You’re arseholed, Kyle. Why don’t you just keep your pie-hole shut?’
‘He told me sometimes he thought you were more like Taff’s son than his.’
Something snapped. Danny shoved his brother against the wall behind the bed. Their eyes
met, but even though Danny had the better of him, Kyle clearly knew he wouldn’t do him any real damage. ‘Stay away from him,’ Danny rasped. As he said it, he felt his fist clenching the scruff of Kyle’s shirt tighter, constricting his neck. Kyle’s eyes bulged slightly, and for a moment he looked a little less sure of himself.
Get a grip, Danny told himself. He forced his anger to dissolve, relaxed his arms and let go of Kyle, who started to cough. There was a banging on the door, and a wheezy voice demanded to know what the hell was going on. Danny stormed out of the room, pushed past the landlord, then hurried down the stairs and out into the street, slamming the front door behind him.
He was out of breath, adrenalin throbbing, his head full of a hundred things he wanted to shout at his brother. He slammed a heavy fist against a postbox, then stalked fifty metres back down the road to where he had parked his BMW motorbike. The tyres screeched angrily as he burned off towards the centre of Hereford.
He had to be back at base. There was kit to sort out. Preparations to be made. But after driving for five minutes he stopped pretending to himself that he was heading to RAF Credenhill. And five minutes after that, he pulled up outside the tiny brick bungalow that he and Kyle had called home all their life. It stood in the heart of a housing estate in the Redhill area of Hereford that looked more run-down every time Danny saw it. It was surrounded by a wooden fence whose uprights were so rotten that it was only half standing. The tiny garden was overgrown. His father didn’t have the money, or enough pride in his surroundings, to pay anyone to sort it out for him, and there was no way he could do it himself. In the road outside, a group of six kids – four guys, two girls, all about eighteen – were sitting on the kerb sharing a spliff. Faces pierced, arms inked up, tinny R&B blaring from a smartphone. They looked at Danny with wary expressions. He might not have been around for six months, but his reputation still stood up around here. At a jerk of his thumb, the kids silently stood up and slunk away.