Hellfire

by Chris Ryan

  ‘I should take a weapon.’

  ‘In your dreams,’ Danny said. He looked over at Anderson. ‘Is that our chopper waiting outside?’

  Anderson nodded.

  ‘Let’s get it turning and burning,’ Danny said. ‘We need to move.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  Estimated flight time from the military base to the drop-off point on the Qatari coast: forty-five minutes. It was now 00.30. That put them on the ground at 01.15 hrs and gave them an hour and a quarter before their 02.30 RV time. As the chopper rose into the air, Danny saw the lights of a Royal Navy frigate docked in the port and, in the opposite direction, the yellow glow of a nearby town. The helicopter banked and headed towards the sea. It continued east in order to clear the northern tip of Qatar.

  ‘Okay,’ Danny said once they were airborne, ‘what do we need to know about this Ahmed character?’

  Danny had the impression that Buckingham was still sulking from his humiliation back in the SF hangar. He looked deeply uncomfortable in his baggy tracksuit top, and he wore a nervous frown. But he cleared his throat, clearly trying to sound authoritative.

  ‘He’s much like every super-wealthy Middle Eastern businessman,’ he said.

  ‘Well, that’s very helpful,’ Tony cut in, ‘because we spend a lot of time hanging out with people like that.’

  ‘Let me finish,’ Buckingham said. He thought for a moment. ‘I’d say he’s very determined, used to giving orders and used to getting what he wants. But when I spoke to him about the Caliph, he was also very scared.’ His frown grew deeper. ‘Something bad must have happened for him to change his mind about informing on this character.’

  ‘If someone had murdered my parents,’ Caitlin said, ‘he’d be picking his guts up off the floor.’

  ‘Do you trust him?’ Danny asked.

  ‘I trust that he knows more about the Caliph than he was letting on to me. Or at the very least, that his driver did.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Tony. ‘We hang him up by his bollocks and get him to talk.’

  ‘You’ll do nothing of the sort,’ Buckingham said, in a schoolmasterly way. ‘He’s a valuable asset who—’

  ‘Great,’ Tony growled. ‘So we just check our weapons at the door and have a nice chinwag over a cup of tea?’

  ‘Leave him to me,’ Danny said.

  The unit fell into silence.

  When the loadmaster announced that they were five minutes out, Danny, Tony and Caitlin unzipped their tracksuit tops and gave their handguns the once-over. Danny was aware of Buckingham eyeing the weapons nervously. But he said nothing as the chopper started losing height. ‘When we land,’ Danny told Buckingham, ‘we’ll secure the LZ before you get out.’

  ‘I’m perfectly capable of—’

  ‘Button it, Buckingham. When the loadie tells you to disembark, do what he says and hit the ground.’

  Buckingham didn’t have chance to respond. The chopper wobbled with a sudden turbulence. Seconds later the view from the windows was obscured by a sudden brown-out as a cloud of sand surrounded it.

  ‘Go!’ the loadie instructed, opening the side door.

  Danny exited first, followed by Tony and Caitlin. With his handgun engaged, his chest tight with tension, he cleared the landing site by about twenty metres so that he emerged from the brown-out, then hit the ground face down. Behind him he was aware of the other two taking up positions five metres to his left and right, and also of the strange circular glow the rotors made as particles of sand sparked against them. He looked forward. They were on a deserted beach. Tufts of cactus-like greenery sprouted from the sand, and there were patches of rock here and there. A low moon hung in the sky, and it illuminated a long sand dune about a hundred metres away. No immediate sign of any potential threats, but Danny remained alert.

  The chopper rose in the air. Danny glanced back. The brown-out was subsiding, and Buckingham was visible in what remained of the cloud, standing ten metres behind with his hands covering his eyes.

  ‘Get down!’ Danny hissed at him.

  Buckingham didn’t move. Within a second, Tony had got to his feet. He ran back to where the spook was still rubbing his eyes, and thumped him heavily to the ground.

  The chopper disappeared quickly out to sea. The noise of its engines were gone within thirty seconds, leaving only the sound of the waves lapping gently on the beach.

  The unit remained prostrate for five minutes. Danny carefully scanned the surrounding area for movement. There was none. ‘Make for the dunes,’ he said finally.

  They stood up. Danny replaced his weapon under his tracksuit and started to jog towards the dunes, aware of the others following him a few metres behind. The moon cast shadows on the sand, and Danny knew they’d be visible to anybody watching. His civvy trainers slipped in the sand as he upped his pace, wanting to get to the cover of the dune as quickly as possible.

  They reached it in about thirty seconds. It wasn’t high – maybe ten metres. Danny left the others at the bottom, then scrambled up to the ridge. With his naked eye, he could see open, sandy terrain for another 250 metres or so, then the road, broad and straight, heading north–south. No cover. And no sign of any vehicles. He checked the time. 01.25 hrs. Sixty-five minutes till RV.

  Danny raised one hand. The others joined him at the top of the ridge. They all lay on their front, quietly observing the deserted road.

  There was no movement on the road until 02.07 hrs, when they saw the headlamps of a vehicle approaching from the south. It stopped directly to their twelve o’clock. The driver killed the headlamps and stayed behind the wheel.

  ‘Aren’t we going to—’ Buckingham tried to say.

  ‘Shut up and don’t move,’ Danny interrupted him.

  They stayed in position for another twenty-three minutes. At 02.30 exactly, the driver of the car switched on his headlamps for fifteen seconds, then killed them again.

  ‘Keep me covered,’ Danny said.

  Movement as Tony and Caitlin removed their weapons from their bags. Then, knowing they had his back, Danny pushed himself to his feet and walked over the brow of the ridge, carrying his own bag over his shoulder.

  He walked purposefully, covering the 250 metres in two minutes. As he approached the car he saw that the window was wound down. The guy behind the wheel was looking towards him. ‘Are you lost?’ he asked when Danny was five metres away. ‘Do you need help?’

  ‘Can you tell me where the nearest bus stop is?’ Danny replied.

  ‘Okay, buddy,’ said the driver, ‘you’re clear. Bring the others in.’

  Danny turned back towards the ridge and raised one hand. Moments later, Tony, Caitlin and Buckingham were jogging towards him. ‘Get in the back,’ he told them as they approached a couple of minutes later. ‘I’ll take the passenger seat.’

  The unit climbed into the car. Danny sat in the passenger seat with his sports bag on his lap. He turned to their driver. ‘Go,’ he said.

  23.35 hrs GMT.

  Spud had done everything he could to get arseholed. He’d lost count of the number of pints he’d downed in this rough Birmingham pub. But the deep drunkenness he craved hadn’t arrived.

  Perhaps it was the TV that had kept him semi-sober. His eyes had been fixed to it all day. The news wires had been buzzing with the story of flight BA33489, which had disappeared in West African airspace. Spud had to admit it was weird. There was no doubt in his mind that somebody knew more about it than they were letting on. Aircraft didn’t just disappear like that. There were too many safeguards in place. He thought about Danny. He was in that part of the world. Did he have anything to do with it? Spud shook his head. That was the beer talking. Danny and the others were just bodyguarding some diplomat . . .

  But then, around mid-afternoon, a new story started to break. Unconfirmed rumours that the British High Commissioner in Nigeria had been kidnapped, possibly by Boko Haram militants. Spud stared agog as a breathless reporter, standing outside the Foreign Office, announced that
the government were neither confirming nor denying the rumours: a sure sign that someone, somewhere was shitting bricks. Spud found himself edging off his seat, wanting to do something, go somewhere. To be part of whatever the hell was going down in West Africa. But reality hit home as he realised he was in a shit-hole pub on the outskirts of Birmingham. And his ops officer’s voice rang in his head. We’re doing our fucking best for you, but there’s a limit to how much dead weight we can carry.

  The ops officer was right. What the hell did Spud think he could do? He should just accept that he was washed-up.

  The frustration was almost too much to bear. He’d gone back to drinking to try and drown it out. But the booze wouldn’t slow the cogs in his mind, and he found himself staring at the index card with al-Meghrani’s address on it. He pulled out his phone and punched the postcode into Google Maps, which told him the address was twenty-five minutes away from his current position.

  Get your arse back to London and do what you’re fucking told for once. That’s an order.

  He’d put his phone away and got back to his drinking and TV-watching. Now the news channel was reporting from London, where the preparations for Sunday’s marathon were under way. But he didn’t get to watch the end of the report. The barman switched the channel, and the footie appeared. Spud ordered another pint.

  Despite all the booze, Spud was just slightly shaky on his feet as the barman called time. As he staggered past the blinking fruit machines with his helmet under his arm, he almost wished one of the Friday-night drinkers would be stupid enough to pick a fight with him.

  The cold night air hit him as he stepped outside. His bike was the only vehicle parked up in front of the pub, and he stared at it for a moment, knowing that he shouldn’t really risk riding it.

  ‘Fuck it,’ he muttered. He turned, walked down the side of the pub and took a piss by the bins. Then he returned to his bike and turned the engine over.

  The roads were fairly clear at this time of night. It didn’t matter that he was swerving slightly, he told himself, or that every time he came to a red light he braked just a little bit too late. Each time a car beeped him, he waved a dismissive hand at them.

  He’d been driving like this for a full ten minutes when he realised he was following precisely the route he’d brought up on his phone a few hours previously. The route to al-Meghrani’s house seemed to be imprinted on his brain, and after another ten minutes of dangerous driving, he found himself turning into Jackson Road.

  The street was even shabbier than Spud expected it to be. Music thumped from a house at the far end. An upturned supermarket trolley lay in the middle of the road. There were dog turds on the pavement where Spud parked up. He didn’t like leaving his bike there, because he could see at least three beaten-up old cars with their wheels missing. He walked up and down the road, looking for al-Meghrani’s white VW. No sign of it. Several of the houses had broken windowpanes. A few of them even looked occupied – squatters, Spud reckoned. He approached number 23. It was an ordinary terraced house divided into two maisonettes – 23a and 23b – each with their own front door. There was no sign of any lights on either the ground or the first floor. A small paved yard facing directly on to the pavement, with three wheelie bins stuffed full of rubbish.

  Was al-Meghrani home? The absence of his vehicle didn’t mean anything. He could have parked it in another street. In any case, what did Spud expect to find by breaking in to his house? And what if someone called the police? He’d be down the job centre before you could say RTU.

  Spud suppressed a wave of nausea. Maybe he was drunker than he thought. Maybe he should get the hell out of here. Put his head down somewhere. Sleep it off.

  He turned to walk away.

  Then he stopped.

  A little voice in his head was telling him to follow his instinct.

  He looked around. The street was deserted. And really, who would notice another break-in in a dump like this?

  Spud walked past the wheelie bins, aware that he was still slightly staggering. He approached the ground-floor window to the right of the front doors. It was a sash, with glazing bars dividing each half into six rectangles. No curtains. The interior latch was clearly visible behind the middle lower rectangle of the top pane. No sign of any window locks.

  Spud looked around again to check he wasn’t being observed. There was nobody watching. He laid his bike helmet on the ground, raised his right elbow and casually jabbed the windowpane. The glass shattered immediately, but only made the smallest tinkling sound. Spud put his hand through the hole, undid the latch and raised the lower sash. Seconds later he was inside. He closed the window behind him and looked around.

  The room in which he found himself was very sparse. An old sofa. An occasional table. A set of dumbbells was propped up against one wall, and there was an unlit gas fire in the fireplace. Nothing else to see, but plenty to smell: the musty, unwashed stench of a single man’s house. Spud found himself flexing his fists. If al-Meghrani was home, Spud would want to put him down quickly and efficiently before he recognised the face of his intruder. He walked across the room to the closed door on the other side.

  He listened carefully.

  Silence.

  He opened it.

  A corridor. Narrow. Dark. The front door to the left. Spud could just make out pizza delivery slips on the floor. Still didn’t mean he was out. He could have just been walking over them.

  He turned right, past a scummy bathroom, empty. He could see that there were two more rooms in the house: a kitchen at the end of the corridor, its door open, crockery overflowing in the sink. And what Spud had to assume was a bedroom, its door closed.

  He silently approached the closed door and listened hard. Nothing.

  He opened the door.

  The smell was worse in here but it was obvious, at a glance, that the bedroom was unoccupied. The blankets on the double bed were stripped back and crumpled. There were clothes on the floor and a chest of drawers had all three drawers half-open. Spud checked behind the door as he entered, but he knew there was nobody there. This was the room of someone who had left in a hurry. He pulled out his phone and switched on the torch app. By its small, bright light, Spud made out more details: al-Meghrani’s cab-driver’s ID lying on top of a chest of drawers, an empty Burger King cola cup and fries wrapper. A bulky old CRT telly on a stand in the corner, and an electric fan next to it. Wire coat hangers on the floor. And at the foot of the bed, a pile of papers.

  Spud sat on the edge of the bed, picked up the papers and started flicking through them.

  There were gas bills and council tax demands, all of them overdue. A receipt for a pay-as-you-go phone. Nothing of any great interest, until he got further down the pile. Here there was a green paper wallet which bore the words: ‘Your Prints Are Enclosed’. It contained photographs.

  Spud examined them. The first was a picture of al-Meghrani. He was standing against a plain wall, naked from the waist up. He was quite ripped, which explained the dumbbells. Spud’s eyes focused in on his hands. He wasn’t wearing his gloves, but was clutching his fists by his side. In the second photo, however, he was holding them up, almost as though he was showing them off. Spud frowned. The photo wasn’t great, but he could see that there was something wrong with those hands. It was like they were covered in some kind of rash. Or a scar.

  He looked at the next photograph, and suddenly felt his heart rate increase.

  This photograph was a close-up of al-Meghrani’s hands. Palms upwards, fingers spread. The skin was covered in a network of cobweb-like scarring. Beneath the skin there were little black dots, like grains of ground pepper.

  ‘Motherfucker,’ Spud whispered to himself.

  He knew what he was looking at. Shrapnel scarring. He’d seen it before, on the hands of a mate of his who’d had a bad experience with a dodgy old Russian fragmentation grenade. These were the telltale markings of someone who’d been playing around with poorly made gunpowder explosives.


  The fourth and final picture showed the same hands palms down. The scarring was not so bad on this side, but it was still there. There was no doubt in Spud’s mind: these were the hands of a man who had handled low-grade explosives, albeit inexpertly. No wonder he wanted to keep them covered.

  Any beer-induced wooziness had disappeared. Spud’s thinking was clear-cut, and he no longer doubted himself. He tucked the pictures back into their wallet and continued to shuffle through the papers. More bills. A begging letter from a charity that donated goats to families in Darfur.

  And at the very bottom, two email printouts.

  They were flight confirmations. The first: London Gatwick to Athens, Greece. Flight time: 23.58 hrs the following day, departing South Terminal on easyJet. The second: Athens to Ankara, Turkey.

  He checked the name on the ticketing details. ‘Mr K. al-Meghrani’.

  Spud inhaled slowly. For a moment he was back in the MI6 building with Eleanor. He’s never owned a passport, Spud. He’s never even left the UK.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ he breathed. Passports could be faked. MI6 intelligence could be wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  Spud folded up the flight confirmations and put them, along with the photographs, into his jacket pocket. Then he stood up and left the room. He exited the flat by the front door. A couple of teenagers were loitering on the other side of the road. They gave him a suspicious look. Maybe they knew al-Meghrani and they thought it was strange seeing Spud leave his house at this time of night. Maybe they’d clocked the broken window and were considering ransacking the place. It didn’t matter to Spud either way. He knew from the state of the place that al-Meghrani wouldn’t be back any time soon.

  He hurried to his bike, got behind the wheel and evaluated his options.

  Option one: call Eleanor, tell her what he’d discovered. Forget it. She’d already ticked al-Meghrani off her list. She’d probably look at the photographs, sigh heavily and tell Spud his suspect had eczema.