by Chris Ryan
The headline caught his eye: Missing Plane: 9/11 Style Attack Feared.
He scanned the text underneath: a British Airways flight from Lagos had dropped off the radar somewhere to the north-west of Nigeria. He found his mind drifting to Danny and his team. He knew this was nothing to do with them – they were on a bog-standard bodyguarding gig – but the headline still made him feel uneasy. Something bad was going down . . .
He purposefully turned to the sports pages to stop himself reading the story further, and to keep his mind on the job in hand. A picture of Mourinho looking petulant didn’t appeal. Spud glanced over at the cab driver.
Al-Meghrani looked like he was in his own little world. His hands were on his knees under the table, and he was staring into the middle distance, seemingly unaware of anything around him. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days, and Spud noticed a few flecks of grey in his beard. There were dark rings around his eyes and his hair was dishevelled.
Spud turned back to the football reports. When the counter guy walked over he ordered a full English with tea. The drink arrived a minute later, and on the same tray was a plate of food for al-Meghrani. The counter guy set it rather unceremoniously on the table in front of him, then stomped back to his place behind the tea urn.
Spud glanced at the cab driver again. He was examining his plate of food – it looked like he’d gone for the vegetarian breakfast – as if he was checking each item was there. As Spud took a sip of his tea, al-Meghrani drew his hands from under the table for the first time. He was still wearing the same black gloves that he’d had on yesterday.
Al-Meghrani started pulling the fingertips of his right-hand glove, loosening each one carefully as he prepared to remove the whole glove. Just as he’d loosened the final finger, his head turned. He caught Spud looking at him.
Spud cursed inwardly and quickly flickered his gaze back to the newspaper in front of him. But he could feel the heat of the cab driver’s glare, and in his peripheral vision could sense that he was pulling the loose glove firmly back on to his hand. At that moment, Spud’s food arrived. As the counter guy dumped it in front of him, Spud managed to get another look over at al-Meghrani’s table. He was wolfing his food down with his gloves still on. By the time the counter guy walked away, Spud’s target had only eaten a few mouthfuls, but he was already pushing his plate away and casting a long, suspicious, sidelong glance at Spud. He scraped his chair back, dropped a ten-pound note on the table and hurried out of the cafe, his food barely eaten.
Spud’s mind was racing. Something had freaked al-Meghrani out. What was it? Had he recognised Spud from yesterday? Or had he suddenly got shy about removing his gloves when he saw that Spud was watching him do it?
And anyway, Spud thought: who eats breakfast in a warm cafe with their gloves on?
And if the guy had nothing to hide, why would he suddenly leg it?
He grabbed his helmet and scraped back his own chair. He felt the eyes of the few other punters – and the counter guy – on him as he emulated al-Meghrani in leaving a tenner on the table before hurrying out of the cafe. On the pavement, he focused on the white VW. The cabbie had already climbed in and was revving the engine. No passenger. With a screech of his tyres he pulled out into the road. A Transit van had to hit its brakes to avoid colliding with the VW, which accelerated down the road.
Spud winced suddenly: a sharp pain down his abdomen. It took a few seconds to subside, by which time the VW had disappeared. He considered running over to his motorbike, trailing the bastard, who obviously had something to hide, no matter what Eleanor the spook thought. But he decided against it. Al-Meghrani was alert. He’d be keeping his eyes open, and there were few things harder than a single person trailing a target who suspected he was being followed.
No. Spud decided he’d have to think a bit smarter.
He took a few deep breaths to steady himself.
Then he walked along the pavement and into the cab office.
There were two drivers and a controller in here. They’d obviously seen al-Meghrani speed off, and were talking about him. ‘Fucking weirdo,’ one of the guys muttered in a Brummie accent.
‘He’s a good driver, innit?’ the controller said. He looked up at Spud. ‘Yes, mate?’
Spud put one hand to his chest. ‘Do us a favour mate,’ he said. ‘Let me use your toilet, I’m bursting.’ He nodded towards the closed wooden door behind the controller’s little desk.
‘Not for customers, mate,’ the controller said.
Spud gave him a painful look. ‘I’m going to fucking piss myself, mate,’ he said. ‘Do us a favour.’
The controller’s radio burst into life. The voice of one of his drivers blared incoherently through the loudspeaker. He gave Spud an exasperated looked, then waved one hand towards the wooden door. ‘Go on, go on,’ he said.
Spud gave him an embarrassed nod, then hurried past him, opened the door and went through.
He’d calculated that there had to be another room back here. The guy out front was running a business, and that meant files and paperwork on all the guys working for him. He was right. At the end of the short corridor there was a door marked with the word ‘Toilet’ – Spud could smell it from here. But to his right was another door, slightly ajar, which led into a small room, three metres by three. A grey metal filing cabinet in one corner. Two chairs. A table with a rotary index card holder. A dusty water dispenser with an empty water barrel.
Spud strode over to the filing cabinet and tried each of the three drawers. All locked. He cursed silently, then turned to the table. The rotary index card holder was open at a card that had a name and address scrawled all over it: Alan Lack, 13 Danes Drive, Dudley. Spud put down his motorbike helmet and quickly flicked through the cards – they were alphabetical – until he reached the ‘M’s. There was a ‘Masters’ and a ‘Monk’, but no ‘Meghrani’. He flicked quickly back to the As, and there he was: al-Meghrani, Kalifa. Spud yanked the index card out of the holder and stuffed it into his pocket.
‘What the bloody hell you doing?’
He spun round. The cab controller was standing in the doorway, his face angry. Spud allowed an open smile to spread across his face. ‘Mate!’ he said. ‘I got lost! You wouldn’t want me driving one of your cabs, eh?’
The controller eyed him very suspiciously, then looked pointedly at the helmet on the table. Spud grabbed the helmet, then jutted out his chin and threw back his shoulders. He knew he looked imposing when he wanted to. The controller appeared to lose a little of his confidence. He stepped back from the doorway and glanced towards the front office with an expression that said only one thing: Get out.
Spud pushed past him, through the front office – where the lingering cab drivers stared hard at him – and out into the street. He waited for a break in the traffic, then ran across the road back to where his bike was waiting for him. Only then did he pull out the index card and examine it more closely. The cab driver’s address was 27a, Jackson Road. He plugged it into his phone and a map of its location appeared. Distance: 3.7 miles.
He could be there in ten minutes. If this was an official operation, he wouldn’t hesitate. But as he stood by his bike, staring at the scrawled handwriting on the index card, something made him hesitate. He was operating on his own. If he was caught breaking into the cab driver’s house, or interviewing the shifty bastard, Hereford would throw the book at him. He was a weight round their neck that they’d love to get rid of.
Maybe he should call Eleanor, but would what he say? That he thought al-Meghrani was a bad guy because he ate breakfast with his gloves on? He knew how that conversation would go.
Spud wasn’t the kind of guy who normally doubted himself. But he doubted himself now. It wasn’t a feeling he liked.
Regiment ops officer Major Ray Hammond hurried into the Hereford ops room. His day had just got a hell of a lot busier. What was it with Danny Black? Whenever an op included him, things seemed to escalate.
There wer
e already five guys in there, each of them talking urgently into telephones as they made speedy arrangements to get Black and his unit from a frigate in the eastern Atlantic over to the Arabian Peninsular. One of the guys put down his phone, strode up to the ops officer and handed him a piece of paper. Hammond quickly scanned it.
‘This is their quickest route?’ he said.
‘Yes sir.’
‘No military transports?’
‘Not that we can get covertly into the Middle East.’
‘OK. Get them on the line.’
Thirty seconds later, Hammond was wearing a headset and boom mike. An image direct from the frigate appeared on a screen in front of him. He recognised Danny Black’s features. Black looked like shit. His face was drawn and dirty. Rings under his eyes. Several days’ stubble. Tired? Bad luck. Get over it.
‘The Australians are going to put you on the ground in Ghana. We’re avoiding the Nigerians for obvious reasons. From Ghana you’re on a commercial flight to Bahrain. There’s a one-hour stopover in Dubai. That puts you on the ground in Bahrain at approximately 23.30 hrs. You’ll be transported to the UK military base there. We’re diverting an eight-man SBS support team into Bahrain from southern Iraq. They should hit the ground at about the same time as you. We don’t how this meeting with your tout is going to pan out, but they’ll be there if you need them.’
‘Roger that.’ Black’s voice sounded scratchy and distant.
‘From the Bahrain base you’ll insert into northern Qatar. You’re going in under the radar. We don’t want the Qataris aware of your presence.’
‘How do we get into Doha?’
‘We’re still working that out. We’ll have it sorted by the time you’re on the ground.’ Hammond paused. ‘We’ve been hearing whispers about Ripley. Anything we can tell the family?’
‘Enemy fire,’ Black said.
‘That’s not true, is it?’
‘They don’t want to know the truth.’ Black looked over his shoulder. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. Without waiting for another word from his ops officer, the Regiment man disappeared from the screen.
Hammond stood up. ‘I want a list of all our assets in Qatar within the hour,’ he announced to the room in general. He turned to leave – he needed to update his boss – but right then another soldier entered. He looked a bit perplexed, and was holding a mobile phone.
‘What is it?’ Hammond demanded.
‘Er . . . Spud Glover,’ the soldier said.
Hammond blinked. ‘What the fuck? I thought he was wiping the Firm’s arse for them.’
‘He says it’s urgent, sir. Demanding to speak to you.’
Hammond sighed, then grabbed the phone and spoke as he walked out of the ops room. ‘What is it, Spud?’
He was expecting one of Glover’s sarky remarks. What he got was a moment’s silence.
‘Glover, are you there?’
‘Yes, boss.’ He sounded uncharacteristically unsure of himself.
‘What the hell is it? I’m busy.’
‘I . . . I’m following down a lead, boss. This bloke in Birmingham, acting strangely. Firm don’t seem that interested. Requesting permission to ask him a few questions.’
Hammond stopped walking and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Spud, what the hell are you talking about?’
‘It’s just, there’s this bloke . . .’
‘Where’s your MI6 liaison?’
‘We parted company, boss. Didn’t see eye to eye.’
‘Spud, we’re doing our fucking best for you, but there’s a limit to how much dead weight we can carry. Get your arse back to London and do what you’re fucking told for once. That’s an order.’
Without waiting for a reply, Hammond killed the line and handed the phone back to the owner, who had followed him up the corridor. ‘If he calls again, I’m busy,’ said Hammond. Which was true. He had two units to mobilise covertly into the Middle East, and waves of barely concealed panic emanating from Whitehall. Black and his team had a big job to do. They were exhausted, and a man down.
He just hoped they were up to it.
PART THREE
The Caliph
TWENTY-TWO
10.00 hrs
Danny, Tony and Caitlin had ditched their military kit. As they ran across the flight deck and ducked into the chopper, they carried no personal weapons, no ammo, no webbing, no blades. They had showered and changed into civvies provided by the Australians. If they’d been taking a BA flight across Africa, the Firm might have pulled some strings and they could have taken their gear with them. But the plane transporting them from Ghana into Dubai was operated by Emirates, which meant they needed to look entirely ordinary. Danny felt naked without his kit, but there was no other option.
The chopper lifted up from the flight deck the moment they were inside and the side door was shut. Flight time to Kotoka International Airport in the Ghanaian capital of Accra: thirty-five minutes. The ocean had settled, and the sun reflected dazzlingly off its surface. As Danny stared through the window of the chopper, watching the frigate disappear until it was a dot in the distance, and the shadow of the aircraft rippling over the water below, the events of the previous night felt strangely distant. In the middle of an op, there’s no time for looking back. You can only look forward.
He glanced at his team-mates. Buckingham was asleep. Caitlin had taken her place next to Tony, and had her head resting on his shoulder. Tony himself was staring into the middle distance, expressionless. Danny couldn’t stop thinking about the last conversation they’d had on deck. He tried to put to the back of his mind his distaste for Tony’s refusal to warn his wife. He didn’t have to like Tony. He just had to work with him. But he couldn’t help thinking of Frances, and remembering the words of the Porton Down guy in Chikunda. Forget 9/11. Explosions are yesterday’s news.
They suddenly saw land. Danny saw the grid-like outskirts of an African town. Accra. Even from the sky he could tell it was sprawling, dense and over-populated. Nose-to-tail traffic. Busy streets. Lines of palm trees and a dusty, sun-soaked haze covering everything. There would be slums on the outskirts and tired government buildings on the interior. Danny had never been here before, but he’d seen enough large African towns to feel like he knew it well enough.
Moments later, they were losing height. Danny saw the dull, grey tarmac of Kotoka International, with the bleak, utilitarian terminal building a couple of hundred metres away. They touched down on to a busy landing zone and spilled out of the chopper. A member of the ground staff was waiting for them in an old electric buggy. He ferried the team to the terminal building, where a uniformed immigration official made a brief study of their passports before waving them through.
The terminal concourse was crowded, with the usual collection of tawdry gift shops and tired-looking cafes. A member of the British consulate was waiting for them by the Emirates ticketing desk. Young guy, fresh-faced. Danny supposed that Ghana was pretty low on the ladder of diplomatic postings. He, Tony and Caitlin held back while Buckingham approached him and, in the course of a two-minute conversation, received a handful of tickets for their journey. The consular official glanced inquisitively over towards the military trio. He received nothing but grim faces in response, before nodding at Buckingham and disappearing into the crowd of the terminal. Buckingham handed out the travel documents – business class into Dubai, economy from Dubai into Bahrain. Departure time, 11.35.
At the check-in desk, a bored-looking airline employee looked Danny up and down. He clearly didn’t get a lot of white guys at his counter. ‘What is your reason for travel?’ he asked in faltering English.
‘Business,’ Danny said.
‘What business?’
The lie came automatically to Danny’s lips. ‘I work for an oil company. Mineral Explorations.’
The guy nodded slowly, as if he knew a great deal about this company and its business. Without another word, he printed out Danny’s boarding card and handed it back.
/> By the time they were all checked in, their flight was being called. They walked to the gate, very obvious among the Africans and Arabs who made up the rest of the passengers. Buckingham fell in alongside Danny. He’d been mostly silent since they left the frigate. Danny could feel the anxiety emanating from him. Good. A few nerves might stop him fucking up. But they didn’t stop that tone of superiority in his voice. ‘Ahmed’s a tricky character,’ he said. ‘You need to know how to handle him. I’ll brief you further on the flight.’
‘You’ll keep your fucking mouth shut on the flight,’ Danny murmured. ‘We’re under the radar. You don’t say anything that an oil company employee wouldn’t say. Got that?’
Buckingham gave him an evil look. ‘You’d do well not to speak to me like that, old sport,’ he said.
‘You’d do well not to speak to me at all.’
They continued for a few paces in silence.
‘I saw you looking at her,’ Buckingham said. ‘Probably for the best that she’s getting shacked up with Tony, eh? Your record’s hardly exemplary. I heard Clara ditched you. Not really a surprise, old sport. Girl like that needs a man who won’t drag her down.’
Danny forced himself to look ahead and ignore the lava in his veins.
‘I could bury you with a single word,’ Buckingham said quietly. ‘I could have your head on a plate.’
A poor choice of words, Danny thought, all things considered. He continued his walk towards the gate. This time the spook lagged a few paces behind.
A rickety old bus took them to the 737 that was waiting on the tarmac. On the aircraft they turned left, and at 11.35 exactly, they were thundering down the runway.
Tiredness overcame Danny. As he waited for sleep to take him, he watched the ground recede. There were no clouds, so within two minutes he had a vista over the African continent. It spread out beneath him, vast, unending. An uncomfortable thought wormed its way into Danny’s brain. Somewhere down there – not in Africa maybe, nor even in the Middle East where they were heading – someone, perhaps just one person, was preparing for a spectacular. Forget about needles in haystacks. They could be looking for just a single person on the planet. In less than forty-eight hours, tens of thousands of potential bio-terror targets would congregate on London, and their only lead was a dodgy Qatari businessman mate of Buckingham’s.