by Chris Ryan
Baba was not without spirit. But that spirit was now completely broken. She knew that now Dhul Faqar had allowed her to hear his important, confidential business, she would never leave this compound. Which meant she would be killed when her usefulness came to an end.
In the meantime, she heard everything. She heard talk she did not understand of oil and of middlemen. She heard him discussing the wages his militants were to be paid, and planning the taxes that they would extort from ordinary people. With the taste of bile in the back of her throat, she heard him encourage his commanders – none of whom dared look him in the eye – to give young women to their men, as rewards for their loyalty, and as a means of spreading the fear that would keep the people under control.
And today, she heard him revealing the identity of one of his men in a far-off country.
‘His name is Jacob Hakim,’ Dhul Faqar told the fighter who was sitting opposite with his gaze averted. It was one of the men who had flogged Baba, and she noticed how his eyes kept flickering towards her. He was sitting at a low table with his boss, and they were drinking mint tea out of small handleless cups. ‘He lives in London. We are sure that the British security services do not know his identity. He will be of great service to us in the events that are to come. I am telling you this because, when the time comes, he will need to leave the UK and come to live with us here. I will expect you to welcome him as a brother. But for now, you must keep this a secret, do you understand? Only you and I will know that we have spoken of this.’
The fighter nodded. ‘Yes, Dhul Faqar,’ he said, before taking a sip of his mint tea.
Dhul Faqar stood up. The fighter scrambled to his feet, clearly understanding that the interview was at an end. He bowed clumsily, his weapon clunking, then scurried out of the room.
Dhul Faqar had an oddly satisfied look on his face. He picked up the fighter’s half-drunk mint tea and carried it over to Baba, who quickly averted her eyes. He handed it to her. Baba, who was very thirsty, gulped it down while he surveyed her quietly, his head cocked.
She handed the cup back to him as the door opened. Malinka appeared. She had a second man with her. She looked at Baba with suspicion as she handed back the teacup. An unusual thought crossed Baba’s mind. It had never before occurred to her that Dhul Faqar’s wife would be jealous of his sex slave – she seemed happy to be part of the whole sordid business. But maybe there was more to it than that. Maybe she treated Baba so badly because she was jealous of her. Or, maybe it made her feel powerful to be completely in control of Baba? Either way, Baba didn’t like the way Malinka was looking at her as Dhul Faqar took the teacup and turned towards the newcomers.
‘Sit down,’ he said to the man, before nodding curtly at his wife. She inclined her head and left the room, but not before shooting Baba another poisonous glance. Baba dreaded the next time she was alone with that woman.
Baba didn’t recognise this man. He was dressed in black like all the others. His eyebrows met in the middle, and his nose had once been broken. Even from the other side of the room, Baba could smell his pungent body odour. He sat down at the table, in the same place as his predecessor, his head bowed. Dhul Faqar poured him some tea. Baba saw that his hand was shaking as he accepted it.
‘I am pleased with you,’ Dhul Faqar told him.
‘Thank you, Dhul Faqar,’ the man muttered.
‘I wish to share something with you. You must keep it a secret.’
‘Of course.’
‘There is a man in London. He is one of us. His name is Aslan Hossein. We are sure that the British security services do not know his identity. He will be of great service to us in the events that are to come. I am telling you this because, soon, he will need to leave the land of the infidel and come to live with us here. You must welcome him like a brother. But for now, only you and I will know that we have spoken of this. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Dhul Faqar.’ The man’s voice cracked. He sipped nervously from his tea, then put it down – spilling a little – as Dhul Faqar stood up. ‘Thank you, Dhul Faqar,’ he said, bowing slightly, before turning and scurrying out of the room.
Dhul Faqar took the teacup and once more brought it to Baba. He held it to her dry lips as she drank it down, taking great care not to look at him. When she had finished, he leaned in close to her ear. ‘If you repeat anything you hear in this room to anyone,’ he said, ‘I will cut out your guts and spill them on the floor. Do you understand?’
Baba nodded as the door opened again. Malinka had returned, this time with a third man – the second of the two who had flogged her. She led him into the room, but as she turned to go Dhul Faqar said, ‘Stay, my love.’ Baba saw a small smile play across her lips. She crossed to the far side of the room and sat down in her usual place next to her laptop computer. Dhul Faqar indicated that the man should sit where the others had, and poured him some tea.
Baba didn’t dare watch what was going on. She sat on the floor and bowed her head. But she was listening intently. What was Dhul Faqar doing? Was he going to repeat the same story to this third man, but with a different name?
Sure enough . . .
‘There is something I must share with you. It will be a secret that must not leave this room. Do you understand?’
No reply. Just a nod.
‘There is a man in the UK. In London. He is important to us. His name is Kailash McCaffrey.’
‘That is a strange name. He does not sound like a Muslim.’
‘And yet he is,’ said Dhul Faqar. ‘He will strike a blow at the very heart of the enemy. When his work is done he will come here to fight alongside us. You must prepare to welcome him like a brother. To teach him our ways and to fight alongside him. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, Dhul Faqar.’
Once again, the interview ended abruptly. The man left the room – Baba got the impression that he couldn’t get out of there quickly enough. Now it was just Dhul Faqar, Baba and Malinka. Malinka sashayed up to her husband. ‘You’re working too hard, my love,’ she said softly. For such a vicious woman, she could certainly sound affectionate when she wanted to. ‘You should relax a little.’ She looked over to where Baba was crouched on the ground. ‘Shall I prepare the girl for you?’
Dhul Faqar let his glance ride over Baba, who quickly lowered her eyes. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m getting bored of that one anyway.’
‘Shall I remove her?’
Baba’s heart iced over with terror. She knew what Malinka meant by the word ‘remove’, and the cold smile with which she said it made Baba shiver.
‘Not yet. I might change my mind.’
Relief crashed over her. She wanted to weep. But she didn’t let it show. She knew that any sign of emotion could be punished. It was better to remain still, crouched on the floor, and hope they forgot about her for a while.
But Baba was unable to stop her mind from working. What had she just witnessed? Why had Dhul Faqar given slightly different information to three of his trusted lieutenants? Were there indeed three different individuals planning atrocities in that country so far away? Or was there some sleight of hand at play? Baba hated Dhul Faqar, but she knew he was a clever man. She thought he was preparing some kind of trap, like the hunters back in her village who would lay several snares at a time, in the hope that one of them would provide a meal . . .
That thought reminded Baba how hungry she was. She had eaten nothing but a few scraps that morning. She told herself to forget about Dhul Faqar’s schemes. She needed to concentrate on herself, on her own safety and well-being. She needed to remain compliant. Uncomplaining. No trouble.
If, that was, she wanted to stay alive.
A grey, damp dawn crept slowly across the Med. And outside a faceless concrete facility on an uninhabited part of the island of Malta, three figures emerged into the half-light, their shoulders hunched, their bodies heavy with tiredness. It had been a long night.
The Wildcat helicopter that had deposited them outside this black c
amp had long since been deployed elsewhere. Danny doubted it had spent more than five minutes on the ground. The area where it had landed was empty. The rain had stopped, but a thick mist had descended, which seemed to cling to the soldiers and to the building.
Penfold appeared from inside the building. ‘Do you want to see it happen?’ he said.
Danny nodded. He turned to Spud and Caitlin. ‘Make contact with the chopper,’ he said. Then he followed Penfold back into the building, down the stairs and into the interrogation room. None of the others were there. Just Danny, Penfold and the prisoner.
Rudolph was strapped, still naked, to the waterboarding chair. He had a rag stuffed in his mouth to muffle his shouts, and was straining worse than ever against the restraints. On a small trolley next to him was a steel case with a hypodermic syringe full of a clear liquid. The prisoner was glancing, terrified, at that syringe. He clearly knew what it was.
Penfold licked his lips. He gently picked up the syringe, held it to the light and squirted a small amount of the liquid out of it. Rudolph suddenly fell silent. Then, just as suddenly, he started his muffled whimpering again.
With a glance at Danny, Penfold approached the prisoner.
He inserted the needle into Rudolph’s straining right upper arm with practised ease. It took a few seconds to inject the liquid, but it had an immediate effect. Rudolph stopped straining. His body juddered involuntarily. His muffled shouts became slightly higher-pitched, more uncontrolled. Penfold laid the empty syringe back on its trolley, then stepped back to watch the lethal injection do its work.
It was not a quick death. Rudolph writhed in apparent agony for a full two minutes before the spasms stopped and the infrequent squeaks of pain finally fell silent. His eyes rolled up into his head.
Danny stepped forward and checked his pulse. Nothing. He let the wrist fall and looked at Penfold. The two men stared at each other, but were silent. Danny turned his back on the bald man and left him with his corpse.
Outside in the early morning there was the thunder of a helicopter rotor. A Sea Cat had touched down on the makeshift landing zone, the downdraught of its rotors making the surrounding mist swirl. Spud and Caitlin were already running towards it. Danny joined them. None of them looked back as the side door of the chopper opened up to reveal a loadie in standard camouflage gear beckoning them inside. They simply jogged up to the chopper and clambered in. Moments later they were back in the air again.
Danny glanced once out of the window. He saw the concrete entrance to the black camp, and the figure of Penfold standing outside, looking up at them. Then the chopper banked and eased up through the cloud line. Danny closed his eyes and pretended to be getting some shut-eye. In reality, he was avoiding the stares from Caitlin and Spud. There was tension in the team. Tony’s departure hadn’t entirely got rid of it.
Tony. Danny wondered where he was now. Hereford had told them to return to Sigonella airbase and await further instructions. It sounded very much to Danny as though their mission was not yet over. He was glad that Tony was no longer part of the team. He knew only too well that sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between your friends and your enemies. But as soon as that applied to your unit-mates, you were fighting a losing battle.
The chopper banked again. They headed north.
Eight
Tony Wiseman was the only passenger in the business class section of the Alitalia 747 who was not dressed in either a suit or a traditional Arab dishdash. He was also the only guy pissed at half past ten in the morning.
He had managed to change out of his stinking, wet gear at Sigonella base, where he had been dropped before dawn that morning. But there had been no time to clean up properly – another military chopper was already waiting to take him to Palermo airport. Obviously the desk jockeys back at Hereford had received the instruction to get Tony’s arse out to Dubai as quickly as possible. Those motherfuckers hadn’t been idle.
But Tony was too angry even to argue with the same Italian squaddie he’d been so rude to earlier that morning, whose unfortunate job it was to take possession of Tony’s weapons – there was no way of smuggling them on to an Alitalia flight – and hassle him on to the transport to Palermo. So although his clothes were clean, his body wasn’t. He stank of salt, cordite and sweat. And now booze. He’d been necking champagne from the breakfast menu ever since the flight to Dubai had taken off. And the more the prissy Italian air hostesses gave him dark looks and wrinkled their noses at his stink, the more he’d been inclined to keep necking it.
He stared out of the window. Thirty thousand feet up, they’d left the Med behind and were cruising over the southern tip of Syria. His mind wasn’t on the shitstorm that he knew to be unfolding on the terrain beneath them. It was firmly on the faces of two men who he couldn’t get out of his mind. Spud Glover, the fat little cunt who’d boned his missus, and who would – definitely – pay for it, even if he’d had a lucky escape that morning. And Danny Black, who had earned himself a place at the top of Tony’s hit list.
‘May I please take your rubbish, sir?’ Tony glanced up to see one of the air hostesses – a pretty thing with an upturned nose and a decent rack, whose English wasn’t bad – looking meaningfully at the three half-bottles of champagne and a half-empty glass on his table.
Tony grabbed the glass protectively, then nodded. ‘And get me another one,’ he said.
The air hostess pursed her lips. ‘I think you’ve maybe had enough, sir,’ she said as she picked up one of the empties.
Tony grabbed her wrist. ‘Get me another one,’ he repeated, his voice low and dangerous, but not without a slur.
The air hostess tensed up. She tried to pull her wrist away, but obviously it was a useless effort. ‘Certainly, sir,’ she said in a strained voice.
Tony let go of her. He watched her walk down the aisle towards the front of the plane, and confer with another member of the cabin crew – a mincing young guy with shiny skin and a Brylcreemed quiff. He frowned as he looked back at Tony, and for a moment the SAS man hoped he would come over and try to give him a hard time. ‘Fuck it,’ he muttered under his breath when it became obvious the boy didn’t have the balls to do it. A fight with that perfumed faggot wouldn’t last more than a couple of seconds anyway. The air hostess returned with another half-bottle, which she put on Tony’s table without speaking.
‘Wasn’t too difficult, was it, darling?’ he called out after her – obviously a bit too loudly, judging by the irritated glance he received from the Middle Eastern guy sitting in the adjacent seat, while Tony watched her arse wiggle back down the aisle. ‘Got a problem, Abdul?’ Tony demanded. The man’s cheek twitched once. He glanced disapprovingly at Tony’s drink, but then went back to reading the sheaf of papers in his hand.
Tony refreshed his glass, then stared out of the window again. He saw the burning chimneys of the oilfields below. His mind turned again to Danny Black, and once more his pulse quickened. No matter how much Black stuck to his story that it was the headshed who had reassigned Tony, Tony knew it wouldn’t have happened without a bit of nudging. He felt another surge of anger. Tony Wiseman, off to babysit Yellow Seven, would be the laughing stock of Hereford. Every last member of the Regiment would be sniggering behind his back. And all thanks to Danny fucking Black. That boy was a bad soldier – a shit soldier – and now he was a fucking nark. He had it coming to him. No doubt. One day, when he was least expecting it . . . an accident on the range . . . a fragmentation grenade gone wrong . . . There were a thousand ways to hurt a man surrounded by ammo and explosives. It wouldn’t take much.
He thought of Caitlin and his face soured a little more. She was a dumb bitch, but a good lay. Tony wasn’t blind though. He’d seen the way she looked at Danny Black when she thought he, Tony, wasn’t watching. Tony had already considered the possibility that she was shagging him just to make Black feel envious. It certainly wasn’t a relationship based on enduring love and mutual respect. But the thought of her and Black on
an op together made him even madder. Tony wasn’t the type to let another man take his squeeze.
He took a long pull on his drink, then decided he needed a piss. He clambered out of his seat and walked unsteadily down the aisle to the bathroom. Once inside, he pissed thunderously into the tiny chemical toilet. He looked at himself in the mirror. He had a smudge of dirt on his face, and a streak of salt. He didn’t bother to wipe them off.
As he left the bathroom, a man in Arabic dress was waiting outside. Tony gave him a death stare as he pushed past him. Back along the aisle, five seats from his own, the same air hostess was leaning towards another passenger. Tony caught the disapproving sidelong glance she gave him. It almost made him want to spit with laughter. He slapped one hand against her arse. ‘Lighten up, love,’ he said.
The air hostess spun round. She looked very angry. It just made Tony want to laugh. ‘Please don’t touch me, sir,’ she said.
Tony sneered. He went for her arse again, but suddenly the guy she’d been dealing with was on his feet. He was older, in his sixties, with a neatly cut suit and a receding hairline. ‘There’s no need for—’ he started to say in a pronounced Italian accent.
He didn’t finish his sentence. Tony saw red. He didn’t even bother to use his fists. He simply headbutted the guy squarely in the centre of his face. There was a cracking sound as the Italian man’s nose went. He crumpled back down into his seat, clutching his nose to stem the sudden flow of blood. The air hostess gasped, but there was an acute silence from the other passengers – it was clear none of them wanted to get involved. Tony spat at the feet of the old Italian man, then wiped a smear of blood from his forehead. Staggering slightly from the booze, he started making his way back to his own seat. But he stopped before he reached it. Four air stewards were approaching, two from either end of the aisle. Tony found himself wanting to laugh again at these ponced-up pretty boys with their clean-cut collars and perfect haircuts. Did they really think that they would be able to restrain Tony? Didn’t they know who the hell he was?