by Chris Ryan
‘If anyone stops you, try to talk your way past them,’ said Danny.
‘And if we can’t?’
‘I’ll deal with it. We’ll stay out of sight in the back. Once we’ve given Asu the tip-off, we’ll get straight out of Homs and head for the Lebanese border. Do you have somewhere you can take your son if we find him?’
Basheba nodded. That was good enough for him.
‘Let’s go,’ he said. And then, because Clara looked so frightened, he gave her a word of encouragement. ‘You’re doing well,’ he said.
She nodded gratefully at him as he slammed the door.
In the back of the truck, Danny raised the tailgate, then lay on his front, M4 cocked and locked and pointing towards the rear of the vehicle. He found, alongside him, a sturdy crowbar. Could be useful. No need to tell Buckingham to keep his head down. He looked like he was trying to disappear into the corner. The two women in the front had more courage than him in their little fingers, he realised as the vehicle moved off again.
His stomach was turning over. The confrontation with Taff had upended his life for a second time in as many days. It seemed like every anchor he’d ever known was being cut away. Like he wasn’t even the same person any more. He knew, however, that if he didn’t keep focused, it would all be meaningless anyway. He’d never see home again. So he forced himself to stay alert, keep his ears sharp and his brain active. Asu was a loathsome bastard, but even if he wasn’t lording it over an army of child soldiers who would be wiped out if his safe house was hit, Danny’s duty was clear. The British government wanted him alive. That was all he needed to know.
The pick-up slowed down. It meant they were approaching a more built-up area. Danny looked up, above the side of the vehicle, and saw the occasional building looming overhead. A small mosque with its colourful minaret lit up in the darkness. The shell of a former department store, its windows smashed. He thought he could hear a helicopter nearby, but it wasn’t directly above him so he couldn’t see it, and a minute later the sound disappeared.
They’d been travelling for maybe twenty minutes when they came to a sudden, screeching halt. The .50-cal, lying lengthways, crashed to the back of the pick-up. Danny felt his body tense up. The engine was still turning over, but above its low rumble he could hear a male voice beside the cab. He was speaking Arabic and his tone was unfriendly. Basheba gave the odd short reply. Thirty seconds passed, then the man stopped speaking. Danny heard footsteps and saw the top of his head moving along the side of the pick-up. He wore a hat with the standard camo of the Syrian army.
How many men? He’d only heard one but there could be more. A gunshot would immediately alert any other soldiers to his presence. A silent kill, on the other hand, could give him a few extra precious seconds. He grabbed the crowbar and shuffled along to crouch behind the tailgate. Buckingham was breathing heavily. Bastard was going to give them away if he wasn’t careful.
Movement on the other side of the tailgate. It opened.
The Syrian soldier only had a split second to be surprised at the sight of two men in the rear of the vehicle. He was carrying an AK-47 and immediately started to raise it. But Danny was too fast. The crowbar made a dull, wet thump as it connected with the soldier’s skull, then the guy hit the ground.
Behind them, a street devoid of traffic but with two oil-drum fires burning, one on either side, about twenty-five and thirty metres away respectively. Piles of debris along both sides, and deserted, bomb-shelled buildings, a jungle of concrete and steel reinforcing rods. There were silhouettes around the fires, but Danny couldn’t tell how many. They didn’t appear to be an immediate threat. His rifle engaged, he looked round the side of the pick-up.
The road ahead was blocked by a fallen telephone pole.
He gestured to Buckingham to follow him, then moved round to the cab and opened the passenger door.
‘Basheba,’ he said, ‘how far to the safe house?’
‘It is close. Maybe 500 metres.’
‘Get out of the truck. We’ll do it on foot. You lead.’
‘Her feet are bad,’ Clara said. ‘I’ll have to help her.’
Danny nodded. ‘You next, Buckingham. I’ll take the rear. Stay close to each other. If you hear gunshot, hit the ground. If I get hit, take my firearms and make your own way.’ They stared at him as the implications of that scenario hit home. ‘Move!’ he hissed.
The going was slow – Basheba limped along and it was clear there was no point hurrying her. Danny couldn’t fret about that. He needed to keep a 360-degree lookout, which meant pointing his M4 forwards, backwards and from side to side every few seconds as they advanced through this ghost town. Basheba led them past fires that were burning but recently abandoned – but somewhere behind him Danny could hear vehicles and the sound of voices shouting. Reinforcements, he assumed, and they’d be mob-handed.
Up ahead was a roadblock. Fifty metres before it they took a right. They skirted round an abandoned tank, covered with Arabic graffiti and lying at right angles across the street, before taking a left twenty metres beyond it and continuing for another 100 metres.
‘How much further?’ Danny asked.
But he didn’t have chance to hear Basheba’s reply.
A MiG shot overhead. Its payload hit the city a couple of seconds later. The earth shook so violently that all four of them fell, and they were still on the ground when a second aircraft flew over, dropping a load of similar ferocity. Danny’s eardrums thundered, but the immense noise didn’t dissipate with the impact of the bombs. Straight ahead, he saw that ordnance had hit fifty metres along the road. The way was barred by a mini mushroom cloud of dust with orange flame at its heart. The cloud was being sucked along the street towards them, and seconds later they were engulfed. It was thick, black and choking. And hot – it smarted Danny’s skin and singed his hair. It blocked out the moonlight and left them in total darkness. Danny could only tell where the others were by their hacking coughs. He thought he heard one of them vomit.
Fifteen seconds passed. The cloud was beginning to thin. Danny’s stinging eyes made out the grey silhouettes of his companions lying, like him, on the ground. ‘Everyone OK?’ he rasped, before spitting out the dust that had entered his mouth when he spoke.
Buckingham was the first to get to his feet. ‘This is madness,’ he croaked. ‘You’re going to get us all killed. We need to get out of here.’
Danny had to admit that he was right. Had they been just a little farther along this road, they’d be dead.
Buckingham was off on one. ‘This is fucking idiocy,’ he ranted. ‘I’m ordering you to get us out of here, Black. You hear that? I’m fucking ordering you.’
But then Basheba was there by Danny’s side, tugging desperately at his arm. Her face was black with the dirt, and tears stained her cheeks. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she said, her voice hoarse and choked. ‘Help me get to my son. I’m begging you.’
‘Leave her!’ Buckingham shouted. ‘We don’t owe her anything.’
It was Clara who shut him up, slapping his face with a force that Danny would never have expected of her. When she turned to Danny, there was a fierceness in her eyes that meant she didn’t even need to speak. It said, are you with us, or with him?
For Danny, the answer was clear. He pointed the rifle at Buckingham, then yanked it in the direction of the impact site. ‘Move,’ he said.
Buckingham looked at him with poison in his eyes. But he stumbled forwards, and the ragged group advanced – coughing, limping, yet strangely determined.
They reached a crater in the road where the bomb had hit. It was two metres deep, ten wide, a crucible of smouldering rubble. They edged round it, still choking from the dust. Fifteen metres beyond the crater, the sound of screaming drifted towards them. The buildings on either side were ramshackle concrete residential blocks, and as they pressed on, faces and figures emerged from the clouds of dust. People had left the flats and were running towards them. Many were limping. All of them
ignored Danny and his companions, even though he was armed, as they fled the area as it came under ever fiercer attack. Flames spewed from the windows of a block on their left, along with plumes of black smoke. They pushed on past, and after another thirty metres the road opened out into a square of about sixty metres by sixty.
‘I know this place,’ Clara said breathlessly. ‘I was here before.’
Danny took in his surroundings. Ordnance had clearly hit in the last few minutes. The green, tree-lined area in the centre of the square was smoking and four or five of the trees that were still standing were burning ferociously. On the far side of the square Danny could make out a mosque, one minaret still intact, the other half-destroyed and also smoking.
‘Someone told me that this was where people who defy the government meet,’ Clara said. ‘Not any more, I guess . . .’
Basheba pointed to their eleven o’clock, where a low, sprawling, single-storey building was apparently untouched by the current bombardment. ‘The safe house,’ she shouted above the noise. ‘That’s Asu’s safe house!’
Distance: twenty-five metres. A single door at the front, but Danny would have put money on there being further exits at the side or the back. Ten metres from the door lay an uprooted tree, and its sprawling branches would give decent cover if he used it as an OP for the door.
‘Get to the tree!’ he shouted. ‘Move!’ They started to cut across the square, sweating from the heat of the burning trees. From the corner of his eyes Danny was aware of figures retreating from the square. Within thirty seconds the four of them were crouching by the fallen tree. ‘Listen,’ Danny shouted. ‘If they’re still in there, they’re going to be jumpy. Asu will be wondering if the government forces know where he is and if this aerial strike is aimed directly at him—’
‘It probably bloody well is!’ Buckingham hissed.
Danny ignored him. ‘If his men see me armed, they’ll get the wrong idea. Buckingham, Asu trusts you. You need to approach with the women. I’ll cover you from here.’
‘Oh,’ Buckingham sneered. ‘Very fucking brave.’
Danny grabbed him by the throat. ‘I’ll have you in my sights, pal. Any crap, I’ll drop you.’ He turned to Clara. ‘There’s no reason for you to approach. You should stay here.’
She shook her head. ‘Not until Basheba’s found her boy.’
Danny shrugged. ‘It’s your choice.’ He set himself up in the firing position, resting his M4 on the tree trunk and aiming it at the door. ‘Go,’ he instructed.
They made a strange trio, Basheba limping with her arm round Clara’s neck, Buckingham creeping along just behind them, his head darting left and right like a frightened animal. It was Clara who banged on the door: three solid thumps with her fist, and three more when there was no response. Only after a minute or so did the door open. An armed figure appeared. Danny recognised him: one of Asu’s personal guards. He felt a weird kind of relief. They could warn Asu, find the kid and then get out of here.
It was a feeling of relief that didn’t last long.
The attack, when it came, was so swift that Danny instantly recognised the hallmark of special forces. If the burning trees around him had not been crackling so ferociously, he might have heard the chopper arrive from the direction of the mosque. As it was, the enormous black Mi8 only came into earshot when it was almost above him. Seconds later it was hovering six or seven metres above the safe house. Everything happened so quickly. Asu’s bodyguard grabbed the women and pulled them into the safe house. Buckingham hesitated, but then he too was yanked inside. At the same time, four fast ropes fell from the chopper and black-clad commandos slid down them with the swift ease of well-practised soldiers. Russian, like the chopper? They looked too slick to be Syrian. Danny counted them: four, eight, twelve, sixteen. He could only watch. He’d have time to take out two, maybe three of them before the remainder laid down fire in his direction. There was no way he’d survive the onslaught of more than a dozen weapons.
But how did they know so precisely where Asu was? Danny’s face hardened as the thought came to him: Taff.
Of the sixteen commandos, six were now by the front door, while the remainder had taken up positions out of sight, presumably at the rear and sides of the safe house. The helicopter remained hovering over the house, but it spun round so its tail was pointing in Danny’s direction. A guy stood guard on each side of the front door. Two more, Danny realised, were carrying a pneumatic battering ram. They smashed through the door in seconds, dropped the battering ram and entered with the remaining two, all four with their weapons raised.
Danny took a second to examine the two soldiers guarding the door. Plate hangars. Kevlar helmets. If he was going to take them out, it would need shots to the face. Still shielded by the branches of the tree, he lined up the cross hairs with the face of the guy on the left. He fired. A single shot and he was down. At this range of ten metres, the round made a catastrophic mess of the soldier’s face. The thunder of the chopper above the house masked the retort of the rifle, giving Danny an extra half second before the man on the right realised what was happening. By that time it was too late. Another shot. Another kill.
He climbed over the tree trunk and sprinted the ten metres to the safe house. The door was ajar. Weapon engaged, he pushed it open with his right foot and stepped inside. An entrance hall, twenty metres long. It seemed to extend the entire length of this single-storey building. There was a door at the far end, guarded by a black-clad soldier who raised his weapon the moment Danny appeared. It was the last thing he ever did. Another round from Danny’s M4 and he lay dead on the floor.
There were four doors leading off the corridor, two on either side, and different sounds throbbed in the air: the chopper, the barking of voices in a language Danny instantly recognised as Russian, one gunshot, a second. More shouting, then screams. Danny kicked his way into the first room on the left. There were two soldiers in there, both with their backs to him. Against the far wall were between ten and fifteen of Asu’s child soldiers. Some of them were armed but none were sufficiently brave to raise their weapons against these two black-clad commandos.
The Russian SF soldiers, however, were raising theirs.
It was obvious to Danny what was about to happen. These child soldiers, some of them no older than ten, were about to be massacred.
He wouldn’t let that happen.
He shot the two soldiers from behind, pumping a single round into each man’s back at point-blank range. Their weapons clattered on the ground as they fell, and the children stared at the scene of sudden violence with a weird lack of emotion, as if they were used to such sights. None of them moved until Danny shouted ‘Go!’ and pointed at the door. As he stepped back into the corridor he was aware of the kids rushing towards the door, but he had to refocus his attention. There was movement at the far end of the house. Danny watched as two figures emerged from the second door on the right, about ten metres from his position. His finger was resting on the trigger of his M4, but he held his fire as he saw the scene unfold.
Clara and Buckingham had their hands on their heads and looked terrified. Danny expected one of Asu’s men to be with them, but his stomach turned as he saw that they were being held at gunpoint not by the Syrian rebels, but by three Spetznaz soldiers.
One of whom had clocked him and was about to fire.
Danny couldn’t risk a shot. The five figures at the far end of the corridor were all moving, and he was as likely to take out one of his companions as one of the enemy. He hit the ground just in time. A burst of rounds splintered into the wall just above him. There were screams from the child soldiers, but no casualties yet as they made their way out of the main door. One of the SF soldiers dropped to one knee in the firing position, clearly preparing to take Danny out. Staying still was his worst mistake. Danny already had his weapon trained on the target. The Russian went down before he could take a shot.
All the kids were out of the house. They were on their own now: there
was nothing more Danny could do for them. All his concentration was on Buckingham and Clara. Of the two remaining soldiers, one was hustling them out of the rear door at the end of the corridor, the other was turning to fire on Danny. Danny took another shot, but this time his accuracy failed him. The round thudded into the back wall of the house, just inches from Clara. He rolled away, through the door of the first room – and just in time, because a burst of rounds thundered along the corridor. Had he still been in the line of fire, he’d have been mincemeat.
He jumped to his feet, desperately trying to work out his next play. These Russian commandos were here to eliminate the occupants of the safe house – that much was clear. That Clara and Buckingham were still alive could mean only one thing: somebody had decided that this stray British pair needed interrogating. And it wouldn’t happen here. The chopper was still hovering above. They had the means of extracting their hostages with ease.
Danny took a deep breath and peered round the door frame.
The corridor was empty. Clara, Buckingham and their Spetznaz guard were gone.
The door at the end was swinging open.
Danny advanced. As he passed the remaining doors – two on the right, one on the left – he kicked them in to see what secrets they contained. Dead bodies. Ten, maybe more, in each room. They were exclusively male, so far as he could see, and Danny assumed that these were Asu’s commanders and entourage, though their bodies were so freshly butchered by Spetznaz rounds that it was difficult to tell for sure. He looked for Basheba, and Asu himself. It was difficult to be sure, but he didn’t think they were among the dead.
He continued towards the back door. Ten metres. Five.
Something was happening outside. The noise of the Mi8 had grown louder. Closer. The door started swinging to and fro on its hinges. Each time it opened, Danny felt a rush of air against his face. When he was a metre from the door, he could feel the vibrations from the chopper’s engines judder through him. It was landing. The Spetznaz team were leaving, and any hostages would be going with them . . .