by Chris Ryan
Three of the migrants fell to their knees. The remaining two still looked eager to jump, but their mates started yanking at their clothes. Seconds later they’d hit the deck too, but were still only kneeling. Danny got close, then forced a couple of them on to the ground with his foot. The remaining three followed suit.
He looked around the boat. Tony and Caitlin were by the wheelhouse, pointing their weapons up at two figures inside, controlling the boat. Spud was eight metres from Danny, on the edge of the open section at the centre of the boat. He also had his weapon engaged, pointing down into the hull.
‘Someone’s getting their fucking money’s worth,’ he called to Danny.
Danny checked the immediate vicinity to identify any particular threats. Now every migrant was cringing, terrified, on the floor. He stepped across the mass of bodies, towards Spud’s position. As he drew within a metre of the open section, and the beam of his torch joined Spud’s, he could see why his mate had such a disgusted look on his face. The hull of the boat was even more crowded than the deck. Danny estimated that there were another hundred people down here, and as he looked closer he could see that they were all . . .
‘Kids,’ Spud muttered.
The children’s faces looked up, terrified, blinking against the torchlight. None of them spoke. They were pressed so closely together, it was impossible to see any of them below the shoulder. But what clothes Danny could make out were nothing but dirty old rags. A horrible stench of sweat and shit rose from the hull. Danny had to force himself not to gag. He caught sight of one kid with a nasty cut on the side of his face, which had obviously turned septic. For a moment, the image of his own child flashed in front of his eyes. He hardened himself against that thought. If he showed any sign of weakness, there would be men on this ship who would take advantage. And the brutal truth was that, even heavily armed, their four-man unit would struggle against so many people if they decided to riot.
‘If we see anyone on their feet,’ he shouted above the noise of the waves and the rain hitting the deck, ‘we shoot.’ He didn’t know how many of them would understand English, but they’d sure as hell understand the intent behind his words.
He looked up to see that Tony had entered the wheelhouse and was in the process of forcibly ejecting the two men inside, who tumbled down the steps and landed in a heap on top of two other migrants. From the corner of his eye, he could see the two Marine RIBs circling. But the greater part of his attention was now on the Enterprise. It was very close now – thirty metres max – and facing into the wind to stabilise itself. It dwarfed the migrant boat entirely.
Tony’s voice came across Danny’s earpiece. ‘Black, Spud, cover the migrants. Anyone kicks up a fuss, give them something to think about. Me and Caitlin will get the boat alongside the Enterprise.’
‘Roger that,’ Danny replied. He turned to Spud. ‘Stay here and cover the foredeck. I’ll head aft.’
Spud nodded. He seemed to drag his gaze away from the kids in the hold as he moved his attention to the migrants on deck. He turned his body threateningly with the turn of his weapon and covered the teeming mass of desperate men and women.
Danny could hear the occasional sob as, rain dripping down his face, he moved aft along the deck. He cut them from his mind and focussed on what was important. Tony was in the wheelhouse and had already started to manoeuvre the boat alongside the Enterprise. Caitlin stood imperiously on the steps to the wheelhouse, covering the starboard side of the boat. As Danny continued aft, he found himself trying to pick out faces among the crouching migrants, the images from the photos they’d been studying clear in his mind. So far, he couldn’t identify Santa or Rudolph. And nobody was acting particularly suspiciously. If the two IS suspects were on board, they were keeping a low profile, just as Tony had predicted.
Within two minutes, the Ocean Star was alongside the Enterprise, facing into the wind just as the larger ship was. The naval crew on the Enterprise threw ropes down on the smaller boat. Tony and Caitlin moved to the port side of the boat, grabbed the ropes and started tying them firmly to the railings. Danny sensed the migrants getting restless, so he barked out a further warning to be silent, and panned the barrel of his weapon threateningly over them. On the edge of his vision, he was aware of some safety netting being lowered from the Enterprise. Tony and Caitlin clipped it to the railings so it covered a five-metre-wide section, ready to catch anyone who should fall as the migrants cross-decked. The naval crew unfurled a rope ladder with wooden slats. Tony tugged hard on it to check it was secure. He nodded with satisfaction. They were ready to get the migrants on to the ship.
‘Black.’ Tony’s voice came over the radio. ‘Get on to the ship with Caitlin. Me and Spud will take care of things down here.’
Danny caught a glance from Spud across the boat. Spud wiped the rain from his face, then nodded at Danny as if to say: ‘It’s OK.’
‘I said, get on to the ship, Black. Now!’
Caitlin was already halfway up the ladder. Danny lowered his weapon and negotiated his path across the mass of drenched bodies on the deck. By the time he reached Tony, Caitlin had disappeared over the side of the Enterprise. Danny didn’t wait for Tony to say anything else. He grabbed a slat on the rope ladder and started to climb. The ladder lurched slightly with the movement of the vessels. No problem for Danny, who’d encountered far worse, but he knew the migrants were going to be very frightened as Tony forced them up. Danny didn’t mind that. Sometimes frightened people were easier to control. But he felt badly for the kids.
As soon as Danny hauled himself over the side of the naval vessel, he immediately saw that the remaining Marines had cordoned off a large area on the aft deck, ready to store the migrants as they embarked. Caitlin was standing at the top of the ladder, holding drenched pictures of the two targets. The ship’s captain was striding towards them, his uniform soaked and his face a thundercloud.
‘I’ve just had a communication from Whitehall,’ he said. ‘All migrants except the two you’re looking for are to be returned to their boat as soon as you’re done, no matter what state they’re in.’
Danny immediately felt himself frowning. ‘There’s kids down there,’ he said tersely. ‘They need medical help.’
The captain drew himself up to his full height. ‘You’ve got your orders,’ he fired Danny’s words back at him, ‘I’ve got mine.’ He looked over the side of the ship. Danny did the same. A thin, frightened young man was halfway up the ladder. He looked like he wanted to cry. ‘I’m not saying I like it,’ the captain added in a more conciliatory voice.
Me neither, Danny thought. And he muttered to himself: ‘Something’s not right.’
The migrant reached the top of the ladder. Danny firmly grabbed his forearm and helped him over the railings. He had dark skin, a hooked nose and the whites of his eyes had a yellow tint to them. He was looking around nervously. Caitlin grabbed him by the chin and examined his face. Clearly deciding that this was not one of the men they were looking for, she nodded at one of the Marines, who led him at gunpoint towards the far side of the cordoned-off holding area.
By now, a second migrant was cagily climbing up the rope. Moments later, having been checked by Caitlin, he was in the holding area too.
It was slow work. Thirty terrified migrants passed through Caitlin’s checkpoint. Forty. None of them even remotely resembled the photographs of their targets. It started to rain even more heavily. Several migrants slipped as they climbed, but somehow didn’t fall. The deck down below was half-empty. Danny was beginning to wonder if they were on a wild goose chase.
‘Santa,’ Caitlin said sharply.
Danny moved quickly and decisively. Without even looking at the face of the young man Caitlin had just identified, he hooked his left arm tightly round the suspect’s neck and forced him hard to the ground, face down. The man tried to struggle, but he was no match for Danny, who pressed one knee hard into the small of the target’s back, knocking the wind expertly from his lungs.
The target went suddenly limp. Danny grabbed a sturdy plastic cable tie from his ops waistcoat and bound the man’s wrists tightly together behind his back. The whole operation had taken less than five seconds. Danny rolled the guy over on to his front to examine his face for the first time. There was no doubt that Caitlin had made the right call. It was the tall guy, the one with the much darker skin who, in the photograph, had been standing by the open-topped technical. Santa had a sour, pained expression, but his attempts to wriggle away from Danny’s firm grasp were pathetic.
Danny called one of the Marines over to him. ‘Hood him, isolate him,’ he said tersely. ‘Keep the fucker quiet.’ The Marine nodded. He was carrying a couple of yellow sponge earplugs, which he shoved into the ear canals of the struggling prisoner, before covering them with a set of sturdy ear defenders. He then pulled a dark hood with a drawstring at the open end from his pack. He pulled it over the target’s head, yanked the drawstring tight and hauled him, staggering, to his feet. The target was now effectively blind, deaf and disorientated – in no position to struggle or run.
Danny spoke into the radio. ‘Santa acquired, repeat, Santa acquired. Keep ’em coming.’
‘Roger that,’ Tony said, with the satisfied sound of a soldier whose op was going according to plan.
It took fifteen minutes to clear the rest of the deck. By now there were at least a hundred migrants in the holding area, but they were still one target down. ‘We’re going to start emptying the hull,’ Tony said over the radio. ‘It’s mostly kids down there. If we spot Rudolph, we’ll send him over first.’
‘Best idea you’ve had all day,’ Danny said under his breath. Over the side of the ship, he could see that Spud had lowered a ladder into the hull. He was standing by it, while a couple of kids scrambled up. Spud helped them over the top, then pointed them in the direction of Tony, who was standing by the larger ladder that scaled the side of the Enterprise.
‘They’re just children,’ Caitlin muttered. ‘They shouldn’t be doing this.’
Danny agreed. He spoke into his radio. ‘Let’s just isolate the kids on the Ocean Star,’ he said. ‘We don’t need to make them climb up here.’
‘Negative,’ came Tony’s voice. ‘Everybody leaves the boat. That’s an order.’ He looked up as he spoke. Across the difference in height, and through the rain and the darkness, Danny caught Tony’s scowl. It was full of contempt. And glancing at Caitlin, he saw an aggrieved look on her face as she stared down at her boyfriend.
The migrant kids were pitifully terrified as they scrambled, soaked, thin and dirty, over the railings of the Enterprise. Caitlin’s face was unreadable as she gently helped them on to the ship and sent them to stand, shivering, in the isolation area. They were in a shit state. Shivering, emaciated, badly clothed. Half of them didn’t even have shoes, and Danny could see that many of them were limping. As one of the limping kids passed him, Danny grabbed hold of him and checked out his feet. They hardly looked human – swollen in some places, practically rotting away in others. If they weren’t already infected, they would be very soon. Without medicine, the kid would likely be dead in a few weeks. The child looked up at Danny, obviously very frightened. Danny winked at him and tried to look encouraging as he pointed the kid in the direction of the isolation zone.
As Danny counted more of the kids on to the ship – twenty, twenty-five – his loathing for whoever had crammed them like sardines into that small boat intensified. But then he told himself to stay detached. He was here to do a job, not to right wrongs . . .
‘We’ve got an adult down here.’ Spud was speaking quietly, and there was an edge of tension to his voice.
Caitlin was carefully manoeuvring the twenty-sixth kid over. Danny looked down towards the Ocean Star. Spud was helping a hooded figure up from the hull. He had allowed his weapon to fall across his chest, obviously aware that Tony had his rifle engaged and was aiming it towards them, just in case the hooded migrant should get any stupid ideas.
Everything happened so quickly.
It was immediately obvious to Danny that Tony was about to fire. In a split second, he recognised the positioning of his body . . . the way he set his frame against the recoil of his weapon . . . the tiny adjustment he made to his aim as he prepared to release a round . . .
Danny’s eyes flickered towards Spud and the hooded target. The target had his head bowed and was just staggering off the hull ladder on to the deck of Ocean Star. There was no sign of a weapon, or any threatening behaviour.
Spud was a metre behind him, and fractionally to his left.
And Danny knew, instinctively, that Tony was aiming not at the hooded migrant, but at Spud.
‘HIT THE FLOOR! HIT THE FLOOR!’ Danny barked over his radio.
Spud’s reaction was immediate. He dived heavily towards the wooden deck of the boat at the same instant that a shot rang out. Danny saw a muzzle flash from Tony’s rifle, then a second spark as the round ricocheted off a railing at the stern. It took a full second for the hooded migrant – whose reactions were not so keen as Spud’s – to hit the ground. By which time, Danny was shouting into his mouthpiece. ‘HOLD YOUR FIRE! HOLD YOUR FIRE! WHAT THE HELL’S GOING ON?’
Tony lowered his weapon. He stared towards Spud and the migrant, then glanced up towards Danny. ‘Thought that cunt was pulling a weapon,’ he said calmly, as if he’d done nothing more serious than spill someone’s pint. He strode over towards the two prostrate figures. Danny saw Spud jump to his feet. He could tell Spud was shouting something at Tony, but as it wasn’t over the radio he couldn’t hear what. As Tony approached, Spud bore down on him and yanked the heel of his hands against Tony’s chest. Tony’s body language was immediately offensive.
And they had both taken their eye off the hooded man.
He had jumped to his feet, and was running to the stern of the ship. Danny didn’t know if he intended to hurl himself overboard, and he didn’t intend to wait to find out. He followed the figure swiftly with his rifle. When the man was five metres from the stern railings, he released a round that exploded on to the deck a metre in front of him. The target hit the ground again, but Danny had already turned his attention to Spud and Tony. The noise of Danny’s round had stopped them fronting up to each other. Tony had moved past Spud and was heading, weapon engaged, towards their target. He reached him in five seconds while Spud remained stationary, clutching his own weapon – and not, Danny surmised, because he was worried about the migrant.
Tony yanked the migrant up by his forearm, then pulled the hood back from over his head. ‘It’s Rudolph,’ he said curtly. ‘Blotchy-faced cunt. Sending him up now.’
Danny was aware of Tony dragging the target towards the ladder. But his mind was whirling. Rudolph hadn’t been pulling a weapon. He hadn’t even looked like he was pulling a weapon. And Tony – grizzled, experienced, untrustworthy Tony – wouldn’t have made a mistake like that. And even if he had made that mistake, it was impossible that he would have missed his target from that range. If Tony had wanted to put a bullet in Rudolph, he’d have done it.
But if Danny hadn’t warned Spud to hit the deck, what then?
There was no doubt in Danny’s mind. Tony Wiseman had just tried to nail Spud. A tragic accident, but friendly fire, easily explained away in the heat of battle.
Except there hadn’t been a battle. Just a disgruntled SAS trooper taking a potshot at a member of his team.
Spud looked up. He caught Danny’s eye. It was clear from his expression that he knew exactly what had just happened.
Three
Rudolph looked like he didn’t know whether to run or jump. Neither was an option. He was halfway up the rope ladder, with Tony at its foot pointing his weapon up towards him. For thirty seconds he didn’t move, but eventually he seemed to decide that the sight of Caitlin holding out one arm at the top of the ladder was the lesser of two evils. He ascended through the driving rain. As soon as he was in reach, Danny and Caitlin hauled him over the side of the ship. D
anny bundled him roughly to the ground, rolled him over on to his back and yanked his right arm up into an armlock. Caitlin got to her knees, grabbed a clump of his hair, lifted his head back and stared at his frightened face.
‘It’s him,’ she said.
Thirty seconds later, the second target was plasticuffed, deafened, hooded and being led roughly across the deck by two Marines. Danny and Caitlin got to their feet. They were drenched, and slightly out of breath.
‘What the hell happened down there?’ Caitlin demanded.
Danny was prevented from replying by the captain, who was striding officiously towards them. ‘Get on the radio to HQ,’ Danny told him. ‘Tell them we’ve acquired both targets.’
‘They’re on the line now,’ the captain said. ‘They’re still insisting that all migrants get returned to the boat as soon as your targets have been located.’
Danny looked over towards the frightened, huddled mass of people in the isolation zone. And especially the children. ‘Get your ship’s medics over to them,’ he said. ‘Provide what help they can.’
The captain shook his head. ‘I’m not going to ignore a direct order,’ he said.
As he spoke, Danny’s earpiece crackled. Tony’s voice: ‘Approximately ten kids still in the hull. We’re going to empty them out and keep them on the deck here. Then I’m going to search the hull, check we haven’t missed anything. Spud can babysit. Poor fella looks a bit shaken up.’
Danny looked over the side. As babysitters went, Spud looked the least maternal Danny had ever seen. He was standing aft, rain pelting on to him, the butt of his weapon pressed hard into his shoulder. He was covering the open area above the hull. But the beam of his torch was flickering around Tony. Spud was defending himself. No doubt.
Danny turned back to the captain. ‘We can’t send them back down for at least another fifteen minutes,’ he said. ‘Surely your medics can patch a few of those kids up. Depends how you want to sleep tonight.’