Masters of War

by Chris Ryan

  ‘Money talks everywhere,’ said Skinner.

  ‘True enough, my friend,’ said Taff. ‘True enough.’ He smiled. ‘It’s good to see you, Danny.’

  ‘You too,’ Danny replied. They shook hands. It felt weird. Too formal. Taff obviously agreed, because he grabbed Danny in a rough bear hug.

  ‘How’s your dad?’ he asked. He spoke quietly so Skinner couldn’t hear.

  ‘About the same.’

  ‘Kyle?’

  Danny shrugged. ‘They let him out.’

  ‘You should cut him some slack, kiddo. He’ll find his way in the end.’

  Danny didn’t reply.

  They travelled in silence while Danny tried to assimilate everything that had happened. Losing the guys. Meeting Taff. He’d been on edge ever since they’d stepped on to Syrian soil – hardly surprising, given what had happened – but now he felt himself relax slightly. To have his old friend and mentor beside him was encouraging. Taff was like a chunk of rock, solid and indestructible. The kind of guy you always wanted on your side.

  And yes, Danny admitted to himself as he felt the truck start on a winding uphill course across the mountain range that separated Homs from the sea, Kyle’s words back in Hereford had rung true. Having Taff here was a bit like having a father figure beside him. It made him feel a little bit safer.

  The same couldn’t be said for Skinner. Danny felt the hard eyes of Taff’s companion boring into him as he suppressed the nausea caused by the man’s ferocious blow to his head. The guy had a psychotic aura, and even though Danny had only spoken to him on the phone, he’d gleaned everything he needed to know about the man. He’d encountered a few like him back in Hereford: quiet, ruthless, violent men you wouldn’t want to be stuck in a lift with. You didn’t have to like these people, you just had to work with them. In that respect, being in the Regiment was no different to being a plumber or a teacher. You got on with your colleagues and did your job to the best of your ability. Nobody expected two plumbers to be best mates after a day of cleaning shit out of waste pipes. Same went for two soldiers. You left your dirty job and dirty colleagues at work. You had to, otherwise you’d go mad. And so, even though Danny wanted to ask Taff if he knew the full reason for his and Buckingham’s presence in-country, he held back. Somehow he didn’t want to be having that conversation in front of Skinner.

  Forty-five minutes passed without a word. The truck twisted and turned and Danny felt his ears popping as they gained altitude. Occasionally a sliver of moonlight made its way into the back of the truck, lighting up Taff’s face, and also Skinner’s. Both men looked serious. Taut. They were quiet because they were in a state of readiness.

  And they needed to be.

  Danny estimated that they had just started their descent, which would put them about forty klicks from Homs, when they started to slow down. At first, he assumed they must be approaching a hairpin, but the truck did not turn as it slowed. Seconds later it stopped. Shuffling noises in the back as Taff and Skinner arranged their weapons. Danny did the same.

  ‘Are we leading the convoy?’ he asked.

  Taff nodded. ‘The others will be a klick behind. They’ll cover us if we get into a contact. We’ll do the same for them if we need to.’

  ‘Who’s got Buckingham?’

  ‘Hector and De Fries. Good men. You can trust them.’

  Coming from Taff, that was good enough for Danny.

  Voices outside the truck. Arabic. From where he was sitting, Danny was able to distinguish between the soldiers speaking in the cab and those outside. The voices outside were muffled but the tone was unmistakable. They were arguing.

  Taff and Skinner exchanged a look. Taff nodded. Very slowly, Skinner – who was sitting at the rear of the truck – drew a handgun. It was a double-action revolver with a barrel somewhere around ten inches long. Hardly standard issue. Danny recognised it as a Smith & Wesson 500. With its .500 cartridge, it was more suited to hunting game than for military purposes. One shot from that weapon could take out a large animal at a couple of hundred metres. Danny could only imagine what it would do to a human at point-blank range.

  ‘Bit excessive?’ Danny said.

  ‘Dead’s dead,’ Skinner replied, without looking at him. ‘Doesn’t matter how you get there.’

  Taff turned to Danny. ‘Hard and fast, kiddo,’ he said. ‘We give these fellas a chance to see our faces, they’ll shoot first, ask questions later.’

  Danny nodded and raised his rifle.

  Footsteps. They were walking along the length of the truck, from the cab to the rear. Danny listened hard, trying to work out how many pairs of feet. Three, he reckoned. Taff obviously agreed: he’d held up three fingers himself.

  A tapping on the wall of the cab. Seven quiet knocks.

  ‘That means there’s seven in all,’ Taff said. ‘Four more if we down these three.’

  ‘Not much of a roadblock,’ Danny said as he raised his rifle.

  ‘Not much of a road,’ Taff replied.

  ‘What about the others?’

  ‘They know to hang back. It’ll be over by the time they get here,’ Taff said, just as the canvas was pulled open.

  It was like shooting fish in a barrel. The roadblock guards were dead the moment they decided to look in the back of the truck instead of just waving it through. There was a metallic clunking sound as someone rattled the tailgate. Then the latch clicked and the tailgate dropped down.

  Skinner was the first to fire – a single .500 round straight into the face of the unfortunate Syrian soldier who had opened the back of the truck. It was almost as though a flashbang had exploded at the rear of the vehicle. There was a deafening noise and what looked almost like a burst of flame from the area around Skinner’s firing hand, which was thrown upwards slightly by the ferocity of the recoil. The flame momentarily lit up the target’s head, and for a split second Danny saw the devastating result of the impact: the high-calibre round had hit the target square in the face and the head had practically disintegrated, as though the skull was made of porcelain. He heard the thump of corpse hitting ground before his eyes picked out the outline of two figures standing a metre from the back of the truck. They weren’t standing for long. Taff and Danny fired single rounds at precisely the same time, each hitting one of the targets squarely in the chest, though the retort of their weapons was puny after the thunder of Skinner’s S&W. The three Syrians were dead less than five seconds after they’d opened the truck.

  There was no time to waste. With four more targets outside, they had to move fast to maintain their shock and awe. Skinner fired two rounds in quick succession into the night to discourage anyone from approaching, then Danny and Taff ran to the back of the truck and jumped out.

  The roadblock was pitifully inadequate. Three metal barriers, each of them about a metre long, stood side by side across the road, which was itself no more than ten metres wide. The truck had stopped five metres in front of them and at the same distance on the other side, parked up against a steep bank, was a dilapidated military Land Rover. One soldier was sitting behind the wheel. Two others were standing by the bonnet in the process of dropping their cigarettes and readying their weapons. The fourth was running, taking shelter behind the Land Rover.

  Danny found himself working with Taff like a seamless unit. While Danny downed the two guys in front of the vehicle – they were only ten metres away – with a single swiping burst, Taff aimed his rifle at the windscreen, shattering the glass with a drilling of rounds and nailing the astonished driver. Which left just the escaping soldier. Skinner fired another shot from his Model 500. The round ricocheted with stunning force off the back corner of the Land Rover, making it shudder and a shower of sparks fly off the vehicle. There was a moment of silence, but then all three men heard the unmistakable sound of their terrified target scrambling up the bank beside the road. Danny took a step forwards, making to capture him. But suddenly he felt a heavy palm pushing him in the chest. It was Skinner and his eyes were
wild.

  ‘He’s mine,’ Skinner said. Handgun at the ready, he stalked towards the bank. Danny started to follow, but Taff grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back.

  ‘He needs backup,’ Danny hissed. ‘The target’s armed.’

  Taff shook his head. ‘Leave him, kiddo,’ he said with a calmness that surprised Danny, given the situation. ‘Skinner knows what he’s doing. He won’t thank you for getting involved.’

  If it had been anybody else, Danny would have ignored them. It was one of the first things you learned in the Regiment: never try to do anything by yourself if you don’t have to. But Danny had learned more from Taff than from any Regiment training officer. He held back.

  It was like watching a cat toying with a mouse. Even down to the squeaking. The terrified Syrian soldier was whimpering as he tried to escape – he’d managed to climb about fifteen metres up the bank, which put him twenty-five from Danny’s position – but it must have been obvious to him that it was hopeless. Hence the piteous noises. In his panic, the soldier didn’t even think of defending himself with his weapon, so Skinner was able to take his time hunting him down. He stood at the bottom of the bank. The soldier was on all fours, now perhaps twelve metres from Skinner, making far less progress than his flailing limbs might have suggested. Skinner watched him for perhaps five seconds, before striding easily up the bank and standing over his petrified quarry.

  A moment of stillness. Skinner aimed his enormous handgun, not at the soldier’s head or chest, but at the area around his groin.

  Another flash of orange light. Another deafening retort, which morphed horribly into the soldier’s agonised scream.

  The second truck – the one containing Buckingham – screeched up to the roadblock. Two more armed men, both dressed in Syrian army camouflage gear, burst out of the back, weapons at the ready. But there was nobody for them to engage. Taff held up one hand and, like obedient dogs, they immediately stood down.

  The shot soldier was still screaming. Skinner was still looking down at him, his head inclined to one side. Danny could just make out a sneer of absolute contempt on his face. Having counted the number of shots Skinner had taken, he knew that the five-round barrel still contained a single bullet. But Skinner was prolonging the man’s agony, and Danny had not the least doubt he was deriving some kind of sadistic pleasure from it.

  He broke away from Taff. Skinner might be a sicko, but the soldier’s screams were loud, a beacon to anyone who might be in the area. He had to be silenced. Danny ran towards, and up, the bank. He was only a couple of metres from him when Skinner, still engrossed in the results of his handiwork, realised he was there. ‘Get the fuck out of it,’ he said, turning to face Danny with his S&W.

  Danny ignored him. He raised his M4 and discharged a single round into the soldier’s head. The screaming stopped.

  Then Danny confronted the shaven-headed mercenary. The guy’s face was unreadable, but there was a sudden tension in the air that Danny could almost taste. He heard Taff, his voice low and urgent, shout, ‘Hector!’ and was then aware that one of Buckingham’s guards was running up towards them.

  He was short and squat but broad-shouldered, and had a mop of blond hair. He didn’t acknowledge Danny, but inserted himself between the two men. ‘Leave it, mate,’ he said. ‘We need some distance behind us before some fucker finds these stiffs.’

  For a moment Skinner didn’t respond. But then, with a final narrowing of his eyes in Danny’s direction, he turned and slowly descended the bank.

  Hector gave Danny a withering look. ‘Word to the wise, mucker,’ he said as he made his own M16 safe. ‘If you want to piss one of us off, don’t make it Skinner.’

  ‘I’ll try to remember that,’ Danny said, doing his utmost to sound even-tempered.

  ‘Best you do, sunshine,’ Hector said. ‘Best you do.’

  The remainder of their journey was uneventful, but uncomfortable.

  They moved the bloody corpses off the road. Taff pointed to some gorse bushes on the bank twenty metres back and they stashed them there, out of sight. They wouldn’t stay hidden for long – at the very least, wild animals and birds would start feeding on the flesh before long, and as soon as the sun warmed the corpses, the stench would be noticeable from thirty or more metres, depending on the heat and the direction of the wind. But by that time the convoy would be long gone. Buckingham watched them go about their gruesome work with a nauseous look on his face, though Danny noticed that he resolutely forced himself to witness what they were doing.

  It was only once the road was clear, and all signs of the roadblock were gone, that Danny gave himself a few seconds to take in some more of his surroundings. The road, he estimated, was about a thousand feet above sea level. It overlooked a city which, Danny knew from his mental geography of the place, was Homs. As the crow flew, it was about twenty kilometres away, but the road itself wound down the hillside in a series of hairpin bends, so by car it was at least twice that distance, maybe three times. Homs glowed in the night, but it was not the intense, illuminated sprawl most cities resembled from the air. Vast areas of it – easily three-quarters – were in darkness. Clearly there were extensive power outages.

  There were, however, other illuminations.

  To the north of the city, Danny could see the orange glow of a fire. It looked tiny from up here, but that was a trick of the distance. Danny estimated that it covered at least an area of fifty metres by fifty. A lot of houses were burning down tonight. His eyes were drawn to five helicopters. Separated by height – although they were all a good 500 metres lower in altitude than Danny’s position – they circled the city with their spotlights cutting through the night, lighting up even its darkest corners.

  And then there was the tracer fire.

  Danny counted three bursts in twenty seconds. Four-to-one tracer, he reckoned, covering a distance of about 500 metres. He assumed the firing was from a heavy machine gun, directed by the tracer into a small pocket of the down without electricity. From this distance he couldn’t hear the noise of the weapon, and the tracer looked curiously like fireworks. He had no doubt, though, that down on the ground the effect was brutal.

  Buckingham joined him. He was silent for a moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse. ‘Looks bloody grim down there,’ he said weakly.

  ‘Your choice, pal,’ Danny replied.

  ‘Was it necessary to kill all those people?’

  Danny looked over to where Taff and Skinner were standing by the Land Rover that had carried them here. ‘Buckingham stays with me,’ he called out.

  Skinner snorted dismissively. ‘In your fucking dreams,’ he said.

  Danny ignored him. ‘I mean it, Taff. He’s my problem, not yours.’

  ‘Thanks very much,’ Buckingham murmured.

  Taff spoke quietly to Skinner, who shook his head like he was dealing with a bunch of children, before stomping away. He jerked a thumb in the direction of the Land Rover and Danny nodded. ‘Get in,’ he told Buckingham. ‘We need to move.’

  They set off again, with Buckingham sitting next to Danny. Taff was silent. He didn’t seem to have any problem with Skinner’s behaviour and Danny found himself wondering if he’d overreacted. He was on edge and it had, after all, been a long couple of days. Skinner again sat at the rear of the truck, where he rolled and smoked a succession of cigarettes. Each time he inhaled, the glow from his roll-up lit his face. Each time, Danny saw the man’s eyes on him, cold and unfriendly.

  After another forty-five minutes, Danny felt the vehicle heading off the road. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked Taff sharply.

  ‘We’ll wait till dawn to enter the city,’ Taff replied. ‘It’s a quieter time. Night-time bombardments have finished, and snipers are still sleeping because there’s not so many targets in the street. We should be able to move around without too much trouble.’

  Danny nodded. The strategy made sense. When the truck came to a halt, Danny joined Taff and Skinner in checking the
ir location. Their drivers had parked in an abandoned stone barn about fifty metres north of the road. The vehicles were well hidden, and they appeared not to have left any tracks in the hard-baked ground. It was a good place to stop.

  ‘Get some kip, kiddo,’ Taff said. ‘You too,’ he added, nodding at Buckingham. ‘You both look like you could use it. We’ll keep stag.’

  Buckingham looked uncertainly at Danny. He clearly didn’t trust these men, but Danny knew that his old friend was right: they couldn’t function properly without sleep. Minutes later Danny was on his back in the truck, his weapon by his side and his bergen a makeshift pillow. Buckingham curled up nearby. Both men were asleep in seconds.

  When Danny awoke, it was with a start. His limbs were heavy with fatigue and it took a few seconds for him to remember where he was. He could tell that the grey dawn of his second day in Syria had arrived. There was nobody else in the back of the truck, so he pulled aside the canvas to see what was happening outside.

  The others had congregated in two groups. The four Syrian drivers were crouched on the ground in the five metres between the two trucks, while Taff, Buckingham, Skinner, Hector and the man they’d referred to as De Fries stood by the entrance to the barn. They were deep in a murmured conversation. Danny couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Buckingham seemed unusually animated. The conversation continued for a good minute, until Skinner happened to look over his shoulder and noticed that Danny was watching them. He nudged Taff, who glanced quickly in Danny’s direction. A smile spread across Taff’s face as he walked towards his old mate. ‘Good sleep, kiddo?’ he asked.

  Danny looked past him. The others had split up. Skinner was rolling a fag. Buckingham looked awkward as usual.

  ‘What were you talking about?’ Danny asked.

  ‘Our route into the city.’

  ‘Buckingham have a lot to contribute?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Taff. ‘We’ve arranged an RV with your mate Asu at 12.00 hrs. We’ll go to our digs first. You two boys can wash that mud off your faces.’