by Chris Ryan
‘Nice hat,’ Danny said.
Buckingham’s eyes rolled upwards to the hat’s brim. He removed it and, at a prompt from Danny, handed it over. Danny crumpled it up.
For a moment, Buckingham looked angry. Here was a man whose emotions showed plainly on his face. ‘Wrong get-up?’ he asked.
‘You could say that.’
‘I’m in your hands, of course. Only ever been to Syria on embassy business. Spot of Britishness goes a long way when you’re dealing with the ambassador in Damascus . . .’ He looked down at his suitcase. ‘I’ve only got the one bag,’ he said. For the briefest of moments he seemed to expect Danny to carry it, but when the SAS man didn’t move he picked up the case himself. Danny pointed towards the check-in desk where the other three were waiting. As Buckingham walked in that direction, Danny dropped the scrunched-up hat on the concourse floor and followed him.
‘Packed your cozzie?’ Spud said as they approached. There was a slightly malicious glint in his eye, and Buckingham flushed from the neck upwards.
‘Leave it,’ Danny said. Spud grinned at his colleagues, but let it drop for now.
Buckingham’s British passport was housed in an immaculate leather case which he handed to the RAF soldier at the check-in desk before answering the routine questions. The Regiment guys flashed their military IDs – name, photograph, blood group, religion – before being waved through to the departure lounge. Jack Ward fetched them all a cup of tasteless coffee from a machine and they settled down to wait for the moment when an RAF guy would come up to them and quietly lead them to their flight. Danny could tell that Spud had one on him. He couldn’t take his eyes off Buckingham’s linen jacket, and Danny could almost hear the gears in his head grinding as he worked out his next sarky comment.
‘So Hugo, old boy,’ Spud said finally, affecting a posh accent. ‘Looking forward to a spot of sightseeing?’
Danny was about to step in, to stick up for Buckingham, who was, after all, going to be their companion for the next few days. But the MI6 man held up one hand to stop him, then turned to address Spud directly.
‘Syria,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘Population twenty-five million. Estimated number of internally displaced people, one point five million. Estimated number of civil-war-related deaths since the beginning of the conflict, somewhere between thirty and fifty thousand, including approximately three thousand children. Current estimate of detainees and political prisoners killed under torture, about six hundred. If you imagine, Glover, that I don’t understand that we’re about to travel to one of the most dangerous parts of the world right now, let me assure you that I do. I don’t have your advantages and I don’t have your skills. Frankly, I’m bloody terrified, and I’ll thank you not to make it any worse.’
Silence.
‘I don’t know why you do this job,’ Buckingham continued. ‘See the world? Taste for adventure? That’s what soldiers usually say, isn’t it? Maybe you just like killing people, I don’t know. But I’d like to imagine that somewhere deep down you have a bit of loyalty to your country, and you think it’s worth fighting for. I do. I entered the foreign service because I wanted to serve my country. That’s what this is all about. If it means putting myself in harm’s way, so be it. I don’t like it, but I’ll do it because, surprising though it may seem, I’m the best man for this job. I’m an Arabist and a diplomat, not a soldier. I know perfectly well that I can’t do it without your help, I’m grateful to you for helping me and helping your country. But if it’s all the same to you, I could do without the inverse snobbery and sarcastic comments. This isn’t the school playground, and I have a feeling the next few days are going to be hard enough as it is.’
There was another moment of silence as Buckingham looked at each of the Regiment men in turn. Spud’s face was unreadable. He put his coffee cup on the floor, wiped the palm of his hand on his jeans, then offered it to Buckingham. The two men shook hands.‘Thank you,’ said Buckingham.
Danny could sense the men looking at the civilian with respect. In their world, standing up for yourself counted for something.
It was just as Buckingham took back his hand that the same uniformed RAF man who had checked them in approached the group. ‘Time to board, gentlemen,’ he said.
Buckingham was the first to stand. He removed his linen jacket, crumpled it up and threw it back down on his seat. ‘Present from my mum,’ he said with a grimace. ‘Always hated the bloody thing. Don’t know why I wear it really. Shall we go? I’m not much good with planes and waiting around makes me jolly nervous.’
EIGHT
Homs, Syria.
It was the children who made it so difficult, Clara Macleod decided. Children she would remember as long as she lived.
She was a qualified doctor. A few months of working with Médecins Sans Frontières had knocked any squeamishness out of her that still remained after five years of medical school. She had witnessed field amputations without anaesthetic. She’d held the hand of an elderly grandmother while she bled copiously to death. When she had come across a man with a split stomach, she had gently reinserted his bulging, sponge-like intestines and come away thinking he might even live. But it didn’t matter how hardened you were to the sights and sounds of the Third World, or the grotesque horrors of a war zone, you never got used to the suffering of children.
Like the child in front of her now.
Clara didn’t know the little girl’s name. She couldn’t speak. Death was so close. Clara could do nothing but make sure that the end of the child’s life was as comfortable as possible.
She brushed her blonde hair off her forehead and looked around her. Nobody would ever guess that this was once a hospital. A makeshift, cobbled-together field hospital, but a hospital all the same. Now it was a bomb site. The exterior walls had crumpled into rubble. Supporting columns just about held up the ceiling, but these too were badly damaged. The breeze-blocks from which they were constructed were cracked and bare and, like everything else that remained of this building, they were streaked with soot. Inside, the open shelves that once carried scant medical supplies – now plundered – were hanging from the cracked walls at an angle. Every so often there was an ominous groan from above and the ceiling was distinctly bowed. The cautious part of Clara told her she should get out before the columns themselves collapsed. But this little girl couldn’t be moved, and she didn’t have the heart to leave her.
The fire damage made the whole place stink. Steel reinforcing rods jutted out of the floor, rusting and dangerous. And because the walls were no longer standing, Clara could see outside. There was blood on the road. Somebody had tried to wash it away with a hose and it had pooled in the shallow craters caused by the recent bombardment. Great puddles of pale pink liquid. The few shell-shocked locals who had remained in the area stepped around them without so much as a glance. Maybe they were used to sights like this. More likely, with the death of their loved ones and the destruction of their homes, they had other things on their minds.
The little girl groaned and Clara snapped her attention back to her. She was lying on the hard floor – there was no other place to put her – with Clara’s MSF jacket as a makeshift pillow. She had a bandage round her head – not sterilised, barely even clean. It was the best Clara could find, but the wound on the child’s head required more than a thin strip of gauze. It was already saturated with blood. Sodden. Clara squeezed the girl’s hand. Whoever had been caring for her previously had inserted a cannula into the skin, but Clara hadn’t been able to find any saline bags among the rubble to attach to it. The pouch of medical supplies that she had slung over her shoulder contained a couple of morphine shots, but there was no point administering them. The child was unconscious and unable to feel pain, and Clara knew she might need those shots later. In the absence of anything else, perhaps she could offer a little comfort.
About fifteen metres away, in one corner of this demolished room, Clara’s boyfriend Bradley was hunched over four more figures. Th
ey were not moving. Bradley was a lanky Australian with a goatee beard and a ponytail. He looked more like a surfer bum than a doctor – the kind of guy Clara’s parents would never have approved of. Not that they approved of much in her life. In her more self-aware moments she admitted to herself that this was the driving force behind much that she did. She was, as her father had once called her, a stubborn little madam. Before she left for Syria he had pressed a cheap, gold-plated wedding band on her. He’d read somewhere that female Western journalists always wore one when they were reporting from the Middle East. It was a way of attracting less attention. She’d given her dad a withering look and told him that the world wasn’t really full of his stereotypes. Besides, rings harboured germs. Medics never wore them when they were working.
She and Bradley had watched the bombardment of this part of Homs from the Médecins Sans Frontières camp to the east of the city. As the aircraft dropped their ordnance indiscriminately over the area where they were now, Clara had wondered out loud if it really was a rebel stronghold, as the government forces carrying out the raid would undoubtedly claim, or just an ordinary part of an ordinary town populated by ordinary people.
‘No way to know,’ Bradley had said. ‘Anyway, we’ve got enough patients here to keep our hands full.’
Bradley was right: their resources were limited and they already had more patients than they could adequately care for. But still, he’d gone down in her estimation a little when he’d said that. At sunrise, Clara had announced that she was going to take a vehicle and some medical supplies into the city. Bradley had tried to talk her out of it. When it had become clear that Clara was in no mood to be persuaded otherwise, he had agreed to accompany her, more out of guilt than enthusiasm, she could tell. The tension between them had disappeared when they had seen the extent of the damage. Now he was checking the pulse of these tiny bodies, verifying that they were indeed beyond anyone’s help, before covering them with dirty blankets.
A yellow pick-up truck pulled over in the road ten metres from where a little girl was lying dead, its worn rubber tyres splashing in one of the rosy puddles. Two Syrian men climbed out. They couldn’t have been more than twenty, but they had the worn features of much older men. One of them lowered the tailgate of the pick-up, then followed his companion into the devastated hospital. Neither of them paid Clara any attention. Their destination was the far corner of the room, where four bodies were lined up on the floor, covered in soot-stained blankets. The corpses were sufficiently small and light for the men to carry one each in their arms. Clara turned her head from the sight of a small hand, clenched tight by rigor mortis, hanging from under one of the blankets as its impromptu undertaker carried it to the pick-up and laid it in the back. Two trips each and the men had loaded the bodies. Only now did one of them look over at Clara, his expression questioning. Clara shook her head. The man shrugged, climbed into the pick-up with his companion and drove away. Clara’s patient groaned again. Clara squeezed her hand a little tighter.
And then the firing started. It was the rat-tat-tat of automatic weapons. Clara didn’t know how close, but near enough for it to send a physical shock through her body. She looked round. Out in the street, the few locals had quickly scampered away. Another burst of fire. Closer. She could hear shouting. It couldn’t be more than thirty metres away.
Bradley hurried over to her. ‘We need to get out of here,’ he said. His voice had an edge of panic. ‘The shooting’s coming from the opposite direction to the car.’ He was right. They’d had to leave their vehicle some hundred metres south of here because a bomb crater in the road had blocked their way. The gunfire sounded like it came from the north.
Clara didn’t move.
‘Come on,’ Bradley said. He leaned over, grabbed her right arm and started to pull her up. She shook him away and looked back at the girl.
‘I’m not leaving her,’ she said quietly. The hand in which she held the girl’s was trembling. She squeezed a little harder to stop this outward sign of the terror that was rising in her gut.
‘For God’s sake, Clara.’ Bradley looked anxiously over his shoulder. ‘They’re running riot out there. Let’s just get in the car and go.’ He pointed down at the child. ‘You know she’s not going to make it, right? You can tell she’s only got a few minutes left?’
Something snapped inside Clara. ‘Fine,’ she hissed. ‘You go. I’ll see you back at the camp. I’m a doctor. I’m staying with her.’
‘You’re so bloody . . .’ For a moment Bradley looked as if she had shamed him into staying with her. But then there was a third burst of automatic fire. Bradley winced, then staggered backwards as his courage deserted him. Clara was only watching him through the corner of her eye. She refused to give him his full attention as he turned and fled.
His footsteps faded as he raced up the road. Then there was a sudden, terrible silence.
It didn’t last long.
Gunfire to the north and the south. In less than ten seconds, armed men appeared in front of the abandoned field hospital from either end of the street. Fifteen perhaps? Unlike the locals who had deserted the place minutes earlier, these gunmen were in uniform – standard military camouflage. Clara knew nothing about guns, but the weapons they were carrying looked ugly. So did the expressions on their faces. Two men looked over at the bombed-out hospital, leered and then started to amble unpleasantly in Clara’s direction.
A ghastly rattle came from the little girl’s chest. Her lungs were filling with fluid. She didn’t have long.
Clara fumbled inside her jacket. She pulled out the ring her dad had given her and squeezed it on to the fourth finger of her left hand. Then she reached for her MSF ID card. With a fierce expression that she hoped would hide the terror pulsing through her, she held it up to the approaching gunmen when they were just a couple of metres away. One of them – he had a beard which, despite his youth, was flecked with grey – grabbed it contemptuously and tossed it into the debris.
Now they were standing over Clara. One of them bent down to pull her to her feet. She tried to wriggle free of him, as she had done with Bradley, but this bastard wasn’t going to let her go so easily. He dragged her away from her patient. Clara could only watch, sickened, as the bearded soldier booted the little girl hard in the side of her bleeding head. The child’s body jerked alarmingly, and then it fell still.
Clara wanted to scream, but the shock of what she had just witnessed silenced her. The two government soldiers started shouting at her in Arabic. She couldn’t understand a word. The man holding her pushed her towards the street. She stumbled. He grabbed hold of her and pushed her again. Seconds later she was outside and had fallen to her knees in one of the puddles of diluted blood. She looked to her right. Farther down the street, perhaps fifty metres away, she saw a figure lying face down on the ground. Bradley’s ponytail was sticking girlishly up into the air. He was surrounded by a pool of his own blood.
Bile rose in the back of Clara’s throat. She bent forward to retch, but even as she did this, she felt a hand grab her and pull her to her feet. Most of the gunmen had dispersed. She was surrounded by three of them, the bearded man and two others. They were government forces all right, but she could tell at a glance they had no interest in law and order. In a country where the military had been given carte blanche, and where looting was encouraged by the administration, these three had the arrogant look of men who knew they could do what they wanted, to whom they wanted, with no comeback at all.
‘Please,’ Clara said. ‘I just want to help people . . .’ She silently cursed her lack of Arabic. How could she explain that she was simply a doctor? ‘Je ne veux qu’aider des malades . . .’ she said. Maybe if she showed them the medical supplies she had in her pouch. She opened it and was about to pull out a dressing, when she felt the butt of a rifle rub between her legs.
She felt a flash of anger and swiped the rifle away. Instantly, the gunman gave her reason to regret it. He swiped the barrel brutally against t
he side of her face, a stunning blow that disorientated her and knocked her once more to the ground. The bearded soldier gave a harsh, barking laugh. Then Clara heard a clicking sound and although she knew little about weapons, she knew what that meant.
What happened next was a reflex action. The survival instinct.
Clara reached into her medical pouch. The first thing her fingers touched was a sterilised hypodermic needle, about four inches long, sealed in a white vacuum pack. She pulled it out, holding the blunt end of the needle like a knife. With her free hand she pushed away the barrel of the rifle that was pointing directly at her, and with the other stabbed the vacuum pack into the side of the gunman’s knee. The needle slid through the packaging and pierced the gunman’s trousers, before slipping easily into the tendon behind his patella. The man screamed. At the same time he fired his weapon. The rounds discharged erratically. Several of them thundered into the ribcage of one of the other soldiers, throwing him back on to the ground. Clara pushed herself to her feet, and ran.
She didn’t expect to make it out of there alive. Especially when, out of nowhere, she heard a helicopter overhead. A quick glance over her shoulder, however, told her what was going on. One soldier was dead. A second was doubled over in agony, the needle protruding from his kneecap. The third – the bearded soldier who seconds previously had found the whole situation such a joke but who had now taken in the disaster around him – was anxiously looking up at the helicopter. Suddenly he turned and fled in the opposite direction. Evidently he wanted no association with what had just happened.
Clara continued to run, past walls covered with anti-government graffiti and metal security shutters that remained intact even though the buildings they protected had massive holes blasted into their facades. Her only chance was to get to their vehicle. It was 100 metres away. She looked only straight ahead as she ran. Her eyes were misty with tears and she didn’t realise what she was looking at until she had covered half that distance.