Ultimate Weapon

by Chris Ryan

  ‘He’s taken her,’ said Wilmington.

  ‘I can bloody see that,’ snapped Nick. ‘Where?’

  Wilmington backed away. ‘Where?’ repeated Nick.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Wilmington.

  The stutter was back in his voice, Jed noted. He’s afraid. And so he should be …

  Nick was advancing on the man, his face red with anger. ‘I’m tired of your bloody games,’ he growled.

  ‘I told you she was here,’ said Wilmington, struggling to get the words out. ‘She was here. You’ve seen it with your own eyes …’

  He gestured towards the bank of screens on the wall. Several of them showed what was happening on the perimeter of the laboratory right now.

  Jed was already studying them. Something had caught his eye in the far right-hand corner. A grainy, slow-moving shape. ‘Look,’ he said, pointing at the image.

  Nick stared at the screen. He could see the vehicle moving slowly down the main road that led up to the building. One vehicle, with a second following straight behind.

  A tank.

  ‘Bugger it,’ he muttered. ‘It’s coming straight at us.’

  THIRTY-ONE

  Nick and Jed rushed out of the security room, taking Wilmington with them, but leaving the other scientist behind: it made no difference who he spoke to, since the Iraqis already knew they were there. As they ran through the broken hallway, they could already hear the rumble of the tanks as they advanced on the building. Only one thought was on Jed’s mind: move as fast as you can.

  ‘You stay right there,’ he muttered to Wilmington, then climbed up on to the tank, following Nick down into the cockpit. A rapid burst of gunfire raked through the night sky. Jed realised they’d been spotted, and the gunners in the tanks were trying to take them down before they even got into the vehicle. ‘This is fucking madness,’ he said. ‘They’ve seen us already.’

  Nick turned round. ‘You go home to your mum if you want to, I’m staying right here.’

  He already had his hands on the controls of the main gun. The T-55 was nothing like a modern British or American tank. There were no sophisticated, electronic controls. You couldn’t use laser-targeting, and there wasn’t a computer to take care of the tank while you concentrated on the fighting. None of that video-game warfare, thought Jed grimly. You had to take down your enemy the old-fashioned way. By pointing your gun straight at him, and hoping you were a better shot than he was.

  ‘He’s in range,’ Nick shouted.

  The main artillery gun was swivelling fast into position. A shell was already loaded, but whether it was armour-piercing, and what kind of protection their opponent had, Jed had no idea. We’re flying sodding blind, he thought. Looking through the sights, he lined up the shot straight into the guts of the first tank. It was six hundred yards away now, well within range. ‘Take the turret,’ said Nick. ‘That’s the weakest point in the T-55.’

  Nick had grabbed hold of the gears, kicked the engine into life, and the tank was starting to roll forwards. Every T-55 had a distinctive semicircular turret that covered the top of the tank, and housed its main gun. Jed started lowering the artillery cannon, trying to line it up close to the turret.

  Furiously, he was trying to remember his anti-tank training. You had to bring the shell in at exactly the right angle, and at the right velocity, to stand any chance of piercing the tank’s armour. On a T-55, that meant bringing the shell right into the turret, at an angle of less than forty-five degrees, so the shell could slice open the top of the machine like a tin can, and blow up whatever was inside. Get it wrong, and your shell would bounce harmlessly off the tank’s thick metal skin. Christ, thought Jed as he swivelled the gun into place, trying to make the calculations in his head. Men train for years as tank gunners. Neither of us have any sodding idea what we’re doing.

  The pair of tanks were advancing down the road with menacing resilience. Jed could see the burnished, sandy-coloured metal of the armour emerging through the dark night air, the long artillery gun pointing straight at them. Any minute now, he thought grimly, they are going to start firing at us.

  ‘We can take them,’ Nick muttered.

  ‘You’re bloody crazy,’ Jed snapped. ‘We should get the hell out of here while we still can.’

  ‘Fire,’ Nick shouted. ‘Bloody fire, you tosser.’

  Jed slammed his fist hard on the firing mechanism. You could feel the skin of the T-55 shudder as the shell’s explosives charged up, then exploded with terrifying power up through the main cannon. Jed steeled himself, watching as the shell started to arc in the air. Only a fraction of a second passed before it hit. Jed strained into the viewfinder, getting as close a look as possible. The shell winged the side of the first tank. It burst open, sending a cloud of fire and smoke up into the air. Flames were spilling out across the pavement, but the T-55 was still rolling forwards. Its side was battered, and the right side track was smouldering, but it was still operable. And it was about to retaliate.

  ‘You’re a fucking crap shot,’ muttered Nick. ‘Try again.’

  The T-55 started to automatically load another shell, but even though Jed didn’t know much about Russian tanks, he knew that one of the key weaknesses of the T-55 was the forty-five seconds it took to reload its cannons. As the shell started to winch itself into position, Jed could see the cannon on the first tank swinging towards them. It was levering gently upwards as the tank rolled forward. The machine was only five hundred yards from them. Shit, muttered Jed to himself, as he tried to get his own gun lined up with the moving target. That guy knows what he’s doing. Which is more than can be said for us.

  As he heard the explosion of the shell leaving the cannon, Jed winced. There was no time to follow the arc of the missile, or to plan your reaction. The shell had already travelled through the air, and impacted with the turret of their T-55. The top armour of the tank took the main force of the blow, knocking the cannon clean away, and the explosion ripped off a sheet of metal armour. The cramped, poky interior of the tank was filled with fire and smoke. Jed could feel an intense heat searing the surface of his skin, and the air was thick with black fumes. He could already smell diesel pouring from the machine’s fuel tank. We’ve only got seconds, he thought desperately. Then this bugger is going to blow.

  Through the black smoke, he could no longer see Nick. His right hand shot up, and he clamped it down on the twisted surface of the tank’s armour. It scalded the skin on the palm of his hand, but he had no choice. He had to lever himself out of the tank. His eyes were streaming with tears from the stinging smoke, but he ignored the pain, and with one effort pulled himself upwards. He rolled his body across the burning surface of the tank, knowing that if he moved fast enough, the flames wouldn’t have time to ignite his clothes. With a desperate thud he landed on the ground. ‘Nick, Nick,’ he shouted. ‘Where the hell are you, you old fucker?’

  ‘Watch your language, boy,’ Nick snapped.

  He emerged from the thick clouds of smoke swirling around the tank. His face was black and sweaty, and there was a trickle of blood down the side of his chest where he had taken a flesh wound to the shoulder. ‘That was a fucking stupid idea,’ shouted Jed.

  Nick shrugged. He knelt down and picked up the kitbag he had left next to Wilmington, and slung it across his back. ‘Maybe,’ he muttered sourly. ‘But if you’d taken the trouble to learn how to shoot straight before you signed up for the army, perhaps we wouldn’t be up to our bollocks in shit right now.’ He paused, hauling the shaking professor up off the ground. ‘In the meantime, I suggest you run like hell. The next shell is coming straight for us.’

  Jed started running. It was late and dark, he reminded himself. That always gives a man a chance. His feet were pounding hard against the tarmac surface of the road, and with the kitbag on his back, his breath was short and angry. He skirted around the edge of the tank, towards the side road leading away from the building. It was impossible to see exactly where he was going, or wha
t might be lying ahead of him. The lane twisted past a couple of warehouses, then ran through some empty scrubland, before taking you towards the centre of Tikrit. Just keep running, Jed told himself. Stay on your feet and you still have a chance of staying alive until dawn.

  A huge roar struck through the night air, followed by a flash of brilliant white light. The shell must have struck the ground twenty or thirty yards behind him, Jed reckoned. But still the force of the impact was deadly. The ground started to quiver and shake, and in the next instant a huge pile of mud and smoke was thrown up into the air. The blast shattered your eardrums, and the air was filled with noxious fumes. Jed could feel himself being thrown forward by the wave of hot air radiating from where the shell had impacted. The flames spitting out from the crater ignited the diesel spilling from the T-55, and with a sudden deafening roar the tank exploded, sending a fireball rippling up into the sky. The explosion was followed by a wave of secondary blasts, like a series of bubbles popping, as the shells inside the tank were detonated one by one.

  Jed threw himself to the ground. As the tank went up in smoke, shrapnel was spitting through the air: tiny shards of razor-sharp metal were flying everywhere, each one with the power to slice your arm off.

  ‘Fuck it,’ screamed Nick.

  Jed looked round. Nick was lying on the ground, ten yards to his right, with Wilmington next to him. Blood was seeping from Nick’s left leg. He had rolled to his side, clutching his lower calf, his mouth locked in a grimace as he tried to control the pain. Jed was about to move, but he could already hear the roar of another shell exploding from the cannon of the advancing tank. Within a fraction of a second, it had struck the ground, digging up the mud, sending a cloud of dust and fire screaming up into the sky. Jed lay as close to the ground as he could as another hailstorm of metal and concrete swirled around him: he had learnt enough about surviving an attack by shelling to know that it was the shrapnel that shredded you. He could feel a couple of pieces of broken concrete striking him in the back as he lay there. It was worse than being thumped by Mike Tyson, but he ignored the pain, holding himself perfectly still. Survive, he told himself through gritted teeth. That’s the only thing that counts.

  Within seconds, the hailstorm had subsided. Jed glanced anxiously at Nick. He was still lying on his side. Jed picked up his kitbag and started to run towards him. He could hear the rumble of the tanks approaching the main building, but for the moment he guessed the shelling had stopped. The tank commanders probably reckoned they were still inside the T-55 and weren’t going to waste any more valuable ammunition on a couple of corpses. They would just be moving in close to make certain they were dead.

  ‘Get me a rag,’ he shouted to Wilmington as he helped Nick to his feet.

  Wilmington looked confused. ‘Where … ?’

  ‘From your sodding shirt,’ Jed shouted. He grabbed hold of Wilmington’s shoulder and, with one swift movement, ripped the arm straight off his shirt. Turning back to Nick, he squeezed tight just above the shrapnel wound. A shard of metal had cut its way into his calf, lodging itself deep in the flesh. Jed had seen a few wounds in his time, and this was a nasty one: if they couldn’t find a doctor to cut that shrapnel out, Nick was in trouble. When he was satisfied the bleeding was staunched, he wrapped the torn shirt tight into the leg, pulled hard, then slipped it into a knot. He could feel Nick shuddering as the pain ripped through him, but his lips remained silent. Say what you like about the old guy, thought Jed, he knew how to roll with a punch.

  ‘You OK?’ he said.

  Nick glanced back towards where the tanks were advancing on the shattered, broken T-55. They were within twenty yards of it now. It would take them a few minutes to inspect the carnage, and to realise there weren’t any corpses inside. ‘Let’s move,’ he snapped. ‘We haven’t much time.’

  ‘You run on that leg, you bloody lose it, mate,’ said Jed.

  Nick looked at him, a glint of steel shimmering in his eye. ‘There isn’t any kind of punishment I can’t take if I need to,’ he growled. ‘Now, let’s get the hell out of here.’

  The track led towards the heart of the city: they had to get as far away from the lab as possible, then they needed to check in with the Firm, then find a vehicle. The road wound through the scrubland, then dipped into a built-up maze of small shops, apartment buildings and workshops. Jed kept running, keeping his eyes tight on the road for police or soldiers. Nothing. It was almost four in the morning now, and the streets were empty. His breath was short, and his back was still stinging from where the shrapnel had hit him, but he was starting to feel confident they had outrun the tanks. Maybe the commanders assumed they were already dead. Maybe they didn’t care: they just wanted to get back for a kip at their barracks. Either way, they’re not giving chase.

  He paused, bending over to try and regain his breath. Wilmington and Nick were following him close behind. To his left, there was a square filled with cafés and shops, all of them closed at this time of night. To his right, a small alleyway that twisted between two factory buildings. Somewhere in the distance, Jed could hear the sound of trucks. Dawn was approaching. Soon it would be light. They had to find somewhere to hide before then.

  ‘Here,’ he hissed.

  Together the three of them started to walk down the alley. There were some bins overflowing with rubbish, and an open sewer from one of the factories taking industrial waste out towards the river. The alley reeked of garbage and chemicals, and Jed could suddenly feel the exhaustion washing over him. He tossed his kitbag on the ground, and sat down. At his side Nick and Wilmington did the same. For a minute, none of them spoke. They were just trying to get their strength back. Sweat was dripping down their faces. From Nick’s bandage, some blood was starting to seep out of the edges. ‘What the fuck do we do now?’ said Jed eventually.

  ‘Phone home,’ said Nick, his tone firm and decisive. ‘They got us into this shit, they can get us out of it as well. They must have a line on where we can find Sarah.’

  Jed paused for a moment. He looked up towards the sky. Some heavy black clouds were rolling overhead, obscuring the moon and stars. There was a light breeze in the air, and he could feel the cold biting into his skin: in the winter, Iraq had a harsh climate, with temperatures dropping below zero every night. He’d taken some light burns to the skin on his arms as the tank exploded, and it tingled as the air touched it. Like sunburn, he thought grimly, except a hundred times worse. Like everything in this hellhole of a country.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s check in, and tell them everything’s fucked.’

  Nick fished the satphone from Jed’s kitbag, and tossed it across to him. Checking first that it had located a signal, Jed punched in the number. There was delay of almost a minute, as the phone connected with the satellite, then searched for the right connection. ‘Laura, is that you?’ he said as soon as the phone was answered.

  ‘Christ, Jed, where are you?’ said Laura.

  He could feel the tension in her voice, even at a distance of three thousand miles. ‘Margate,’ he said. ‘Thought we’d catch some sea air.’ He paused, waiting to see if she would react, but she remained rock silent. ‘We’re in sodding Iraq,’ he continued. ‘Where do you think we are?’

  ‘You’ve found Sarah?’

  Even though he knew she couldn’t see him, Jed found himself shaking his head. ‘She’s vanished,’ he said bitterly. ‘We’ve just blown up the research lab in Tikrit. We found some video footage of her working there, but they took her away yesterday.’

  ‘Who’s “they”?’

  ‘A guy called Salek.’

  ‘He’s on our files,’ said Laura. ‘He’s one of the main go-betweens for Saddam’s attempts to buy WMD around the world. Missile launchers, plutonium, nerve gases, the works. If there’s a market for it, and it’s nasty enough, then Salek has been trying to buy it for his bosses.’

  ‘Well, now he’s got Sarah.’ Jed paused. ‘So where the hell would he take her?’

 
He listened intently to the line, but for a moment he could just hear the crackle and fizz of the satellite signal fading in and out. The Firm must have some leads on where he might take her, he told himself. They must …

  ‘We don’t know, Jed,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You must bloody know,’ said Jed, he tone turning harsh.

  ‘We don’t.’

  ‘I thought this country was crawling with your agents.’

  A dry laugh could be heard down the line. ‘If only

  …’ Then she snapped to attention. ‘You’ll just have to keep looking.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Jed, his tone exasperated. ‘But where?’

  ‘You’re soldiers, use force if you have to,’ Laura snapped. ‘She has to be found. If Sarah delivers the secret of cold fusion, there’s still a chance Saddam could use it to negotiate a ceasefire, to buy his own passage out of Iraq. We can’t allow that to happen.’

  ‘And I’m telling you, we need some help,’ Jed snapped back.

  Another pause.

  ‘Well, if you think you and Nick can’t handle it …’ said Laura coldly.

  ‘Qaladiza,’ said Wilmington.

  Jed turned round, looking first at Nick, then at the professor. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘He’s taken her to Qaladiza,’ Wilmington repeated.

  ‘Where the hell’s that?’

  ‘It’s in Kurdistan,’ said Wilmington. ‘Salek comes from Kurdistan. It’s his home town. I’m ashamed to say it, but he is one of my own people.’

  Nick was looking closely at Wilmington. ‘Are you sure?’

  Wilmington nodded. ‘The Iraqi told me. Salek said it was too dangerous in Iraq, he was taking her to Qaladiza. It’s the last place in this country he reckons he can hide her safely. And if Saddam does fall in the next few days, then Salek will take her across the border into Iran, and sell the cold-fusion technology to them.’