First Casualty (The Gabriel Wolfe Thrillers Book 4)

by Andy Maslen

  Gabriel’s target was almost completely unmarked by bullet holes, except for four tight groups: three to the head, and four each to the heart and the left and right pelvic joints. Don’s was peppered with bullet holes in the right places but each round had hit in a different spot and clearly several had gone wide of the target. He pulled a face.

  “Bloody desk jockey, that’s what they’ve turned me into.”

  Sam had punched out the face of her attacker with a neat oval of fifteen shots.

  “Let’s switch to the hollow-points,” she said.

  Gabriel hand-loaded the hollow-point rounds into the Glock’s magazine. While he was reloading, Sam walked down to the end of the range and set up two humanoid targets: one male, one female, both dressed in jeans and T-shirts, and equipped with dummy Kalashnikovs.

  “I’ll let you two compete for the marksmanship badge,” Don said, when Sam returned to the shooting side of the bench. “That last performance confirmed what I’ve long suspected. My shooting-war days are behind me.”

  Gabriel looked up and cocked an eyebrow. “Nice targets.”

  “You don’t have a problem shooting at women, I hope,” Sam said. “Look, she’s carrying an AK-47. She’s about to blow your brains out.”

  “Or mine, Boss.”

  Gabriel startled as Smudge’s voice echoed inside the insulation of his ear defenders. He whirled around but mercifully Smudge’s presence was confined to the auditory realm this time. No mangled face grinning at him from the far end of the range.

  Sweat broke out on his face and he wiped it away with his forearm. His pulse jerked upwards and a burst of adrenaline raced around his bloodstream, setting up a mad desire to run from the room. Breathing evenly, Gabriel fought the panic attack down, focusing on a mantra for calm he’d learned at the feet of Zhao Xi, the friend of his parents who’d virtually raised him when his behaviour at school had caused one too many expulsions.

  “I’m ready,” he managed to choke out.

  “Off you go, then. I think I’ll sit this one out, too.”

  Gabriel brought the Glock up to a double-handed shooter’s stance, holding the barrel level with his right eye. Then, in a continuous flexing movement of his trigger finger, he discharged all seventeen 9 mm Parabellum rounds in a matter of a few seconds.

  Once the smoke had cleared, Sam pointed to the target. “I think she’s dead.”

  The dummy’s head was obliterated, only the lower jaw remained. The area around the heart was shredded – there was a hole big enough to reach through without scratching yourself on the sharp edges of plastic around the exit wounds. And both thighs had sustained catastrophic damage. Had she been real, and had the head and heart shots missed their targets, the wounds to the legs would have killed her, either from shock or blood loss, or both.

  “You, Gabriel, are a stone killer,” Sam said, with a grin that turned the corners of her lips up. “Let’s see what you make of my little babies. Load the DU rounds into the SIG, would you?”

  The depleted uranium rounds were the same dimensions as the rest of the ammunition they’d been handling. But whereas the regular ammunition had round-nosed, copper-jacketed tips, the 9 mm-diameter DU projectiles were pointed, and clipped into three interlocking wedges of yellow plastic: sabots. Their job was to guide the bullet along the barrel without it yawing. The rounds were heavy, too, freakishly so, given their tiny size. Gabriel carefully slid ten into the SIG’s box magazine before pushing it home into the butt with a reassuringly solid click.

  Sam disappeared off down to the end of the range and left through a side door. She emerged a few moments later dragging a rectangle of dull, khaki-painted steel on a trolley. It was three feet tall by a foot wide. A single white cross had been painted about two thirds of the way up. Gabriel waited for her to regain the safety of the shooters’ bench.

  “I’m not planning on taking on anything bigger than a hyena, you know.”

  “Try it. Indulge a girl for heaven’s sake.”

  “What am I shooting at?”

  “That’s half-inch thick, military-spec, steel armour.”

  Remembering what Sam had said at the start of the session, Gabriel aimed at the top edge of the steel panel. He gripped the SIG firmly in his right hand, cradling his curled fingers in his left.

  He took a breath.

  Let it out.

  Squeezed the trigger.

  And swore.

  “Fuck. Me!”

  The recoil from the pistol almost knocked him off his feet. The bang as the high-capacity cartridge discharged its uprated load of propellant was deafening, even with the defenders on. And the intense smell of the burnt smokeless powder made his nose sting.

  The three of them looked down the range at the steel plate.

  Halfway down exactly, eight inches below the centre of the white cross, was a perfectly circular hole, 9 mm in diameter. The backboard, comprising six inches of solid timber sandwiching ballistic foam, was burning merrily. With a rush of compressed air, automatic fire extinguishers jetted snowstorms of CO2 over the flames. A roar of fans added to the noise as massive extractor fans sucked the radioactive by-products of the impact out of the range and into the bowels of the building.

  “Fuck me!” Gabriel said. “Again.”

  “Good, aren’t they?” Sam replied.

  Don was chuckling quietly, mm-hmming through his nose.

  “How the hell do they do so much damage?” Gabriel asked, his ears ringing from the noise. “Are they HE or something?

  Sam shook her head. “Not high explosive, no. It’s actually pretty basic physics. Kinetic energy. Your ordinary pistol round works on the same principle. The energy it carries to the target is transferred into the target when it arrives. If the energy carried by a standard nine-mil ball round is an AA battery, a DU round is like a nuclear power station.”

  “And they’re legal?”

  She grinned. “At the moment they are, just, within the rules of war. But you must know that the rules are aimed, forgive the pun, at regular forces. We have certain . . . dispensations. In any case, all the permanent members of the UN Security Council have their own variants. Or wish they did.”

  “Can I take some of those with me?”

  “That is rather the point. I’d suggest you take the SIG – we’ve modified it to cope with the increased barrel pressure and ballistic load – for the DU rounds and the Glock for regular work. Should you need them at all, I mean. You might be one of those up-close-and-personal types. Whites of their eyes and so on and so forth.”

  “I think we can safely say Gabriel is a ‘do whatever it takes’ type of a chap,” Don said.

  “I never say no to extra firepower,” Gabriel said. “Especially in tank-buster format.”

  After that, they looked over the non-firearms. Gabriel selected a butterfly knife, illegal virtually everywhere, but excellent for wet work where concealment was necessary. He’d be bringing his own ceramic tactical knife.

  “We’ve got you an encrypted satellite phone as well,” Sam said. “Good anywhere on God’s green Earth. Speak freely and anyone attempting to listen in will just get an earful of static.”

  “What about those?” Gabriel asked, pointing at the steel cylinders.

  “EPGs. Electromagnetic pulse generators. Each ready-fused and operable either by delayed timer or a signal from your phone.”

  “What do they do, exactly?”

  Sam picked up one of the devices. “Not much to look at, I know, but press here,” Sam indicated a faint depression in the surface with the pad of her thumb, “and five seconds later it emits an intense thirty-millisecond burst of electromagnetic radiation in the microwave part of the spectrum that will scrub the code from every piece of silicon within a fifty-foot radius. Completely silent, odourless and harmless to human beings.” She paused. “And animals.” Sam indicated a couple of smaller devices, equally devoid of decoration on their dull grey plastic casings. “Couple of GPS trackers. Military-grade, none
of that gap-year rubbish anxious middle-class mummies stick in their teenaged sons’ rucksacks.”

  Gabriel prodded the EPG then turned back to face Sam.

  “I made a list of stuff I thought I’d need. Can I leave it with you?”

  “Of course. Hand it over.”

  Gabriel took out his wallet and extracted the folded paper. He handed it to Sam who unfolded it and skimmed down the list.

  “Nothing too outrageous there,” she said. “We’ll fit out a day-sack that should give you survival capability for up to a month.”

  “Thanks. Oh, and one last thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  He looked left and right, then murmured, “When do I get the real toys?”

  Sam’s face became still, expressionless. “Go on.”

  Gabriel glanced at Don, then stared deep into Sam’s eyes.

  “You know, the magnetic watch for undoing dress zips. The flamethrower fountain pen. The amphibious Aston Martin.”

  Sam folded her arms across her chest. She narrowed her eyes. But Gabriel could see a twinkle there, too.

  “Would you like to estimate how many agents and assorted hangers-on I’ve had through that door who’ve cracked basically the same tired James Bond joke in the last ten years?”

  “Is it more than three?”

  Sam poked Gabriel in the chest. “Yes. It is. ‘Have you done something with your hair, Q?’ ‘Will it fire round corners?’ ‘Where’s the ejector seat?’”

  “Sorry. Couldn’t resist it. I can see how it might get a little lame after a decade in charge of this place. But just so we’re clear,” he paused for a beat, “I’m not getting a jet pack, then?”

  “Out!” Sam shouted, pointing at the door, before cracking a wide smile. “Don, I order you to bring me a sensible one next time.”

  “I do the best with the material available, Sam, you know that,” Don said. “Come on, Old Sport, before she skewers us both with a rocket-propelled harpoon.”

  Sam’s mouth opened wide. “Out, now! Both of you. Bloody overgrown schoolboys!”

  10

  Additional Support

  SITTING side by side with his old, and now current, boss, in the Maserati, the start button unthumbed, Gabriel asked the question he’d been saving up for the right moment.

  “Can I take someone with me? To Mozambique.”

  “Wouldn’t be a redhead with a penchant for high-powered rifles and pickled herrings, would it?”

  Gabriel smiled at Don’s ability to divine what he was thinking without having to come out and say it.

  “You knew I was going to ask, didn’t you?”

  “Not exactly. But I like to know my people. Especially their relationships.” He paused and pinched the skin between his eyebrows, squeezing his eyes shut. “Makes a chap vulnerable, you know.”

  “Makes them human, as well, though, doesn’t it?”

  “That it does, Old Sport, that it does.”

  Something about his voice made Gabriel twist in his seat to look at Don. The older man was staring out through the windscreen towards the exit barrier of the car park and the forbidding green-painted steel gate beyond. His face was pulled down as if the effort of speaking in those flat tones had exhausted him.

  “Is everything all right, Don?”

  Don rubbed his hand across his face. “Tip top, Gabriel.” He turned and offered a smile but it lacked energy, more like an expression put there by will than genuine good humour. “Just that the PM’s got a bee in her bonnet about this bloody Agambe chap and she’s leaning on me to take him out sooner rather than later.”

  Even without the skills Master Zhao had taught him back in his teenaged years in Hong Kong, Gabriel would have been able to read Don’s face. No. Nothing is right. He frowned. No sense in pursuing it now. The more immediate concern was getting approval for Britta’s accompanying him to Africa.

  “If you know about me and Britta, you’ll know we make an excellent team. Always did. I need someone I can trust out there.”

  “Why not somebody else from The Department? I have Africa specialists, Portuguese speakers, jungle-warfare veterans. This isn’t some boyfriend-girlfriend thing, is it?”

  “What? No! Do you really think . . .”

  Don sighed. “No, of course not. Sorry, Old Sport. Just got a lot on my mind at the moment. Bloody backbenchers asking awkward questions, journalists sniffing around. Look, I apologise for that remark. It wasn’t fair. Or right. But there are operational problems. For one, Britta is attached to MI5. And from what I hear on the bush telegraph, that attachment might be about to become permanent.”

  Gabriel’s pulse ticked up a notch. “Really? They’re inviting her to join?”

  “If she wants it. No doubt the good lady will fill you in next time you see her. But we can’t have operatives of an official British security agency – even Swedish ones – charging about foreign democracies killing elected politicians. Doesn’t go down well on the world stage. Then there’s the ostensible reason for your trip. Strictly speaking, recovering the remains of war dead is army business, only they don’t have the budget for this type of work at the moment. But it’s certainly not MI5’s. Hard to see how they could assign her to a mission on foreign soil – where’s the counter-terrorism angle?”

  “Abel N’Tolo was a terrorist. Of sorts.”

  “Yes, but he was a Mozambican terrorist.” Don paused. “I’m sure you want to take some time with Britta, Lord knows I would in your position. Why not make it a holiday? Go away together. I can’t sanction her involvement in this bit of business and I’m sure her bosses down the road feel the same way.”

  “A holiday?”

  “Why not? Maybe take milady Falskog somewhere hot. Just a thought. Now, shall we get going? You can drop me back at Whitehall. I have meetings, then a dinner. Bunch of extremely senior civil servants who think I run a military training programme. All Barbara’s idea to maintain cover. I tell you, there’ll be more knights round that table than King Arthur ever mustered round his.”

  Gabriel started the car. He drove out of the underground car park, waited for the barrier to be raised, then eased towards the armoured steel gates. These opened as he arrived, controlled, presumably, by some hawk-eyed security guard at the other end of the wire from the cameras mounted left and right. As Gabriel drove through, a handful of feral pigeons launched into the air where they whirled in the gathering wind like the thoughts in his head

  “One more thing,” Gabriel said. “Equipment reliability under African conditions. I’m thinking it might be good to build in redundancy. Maybe you could ask Sam to supply two of everything. And per her suggestion, better stick a couple of assault rifles in the suitcase too.”

  Don nodded. “Excellent idea. Can’t have you out in the field with malfunctioning kit, can we?”

  The sky had darkened to the colour of lead, and Gabriel drove in silence back over Vauxhall bridge towards Whitehall, letting the rhythm of the windscreen wipers calm his thoughts.

  11

  Quid Pro Quo

  IT was raining properly now, fat drops that didn’t so much fall from the sky as hurl themselves downwards as if in a hurry to make landfall. Gabriel didn’t feel like driving back to Salisbury, and drove to a hotel he liked instead. The Raven was a small place, discreetly set back from the pedestrian and vehicular traffic on a narrow lane just north of Smithfield meat market. About as far from a corporate place as it was possible to imagine, the hotel liked to keep its rooms full by catering to its regulars and those tourists and visitors clued-up enough to avoid the chains in favour of somewhere a little less plasticky.

  Checked in and lying on his bed, Gabriel picked up the house phone and hit zero.

  “Yes, Mr Wolfe?”

  “I’m going to need a few things for the morning, Daniel. Do you think you could have someone organise it for me?”

  “Of course, sir. A change of clothes, perhaps? Toiletries? From your usual places?”

  “Ye
s, please.”

  “Very good, sir. And shall we charge to your account as usual?”

  “Please.”

  Gabriel pulled a leather wing chair round to face the darkening sky through the panelled window and, taking a good slug of the gin and tonic he’d brought up from the honour bar, settled in to take stock. He closed his eyes.

  Mission: retrieve Smudge’s remains from Mozambican forest. Military support, logistics, local transport, guides. Will I need scientific support? Forensic anthropologist? Price of admission: eliminate Zimbabwean defence minister who’s chanelling funds to Islamist terror group and planning destabilising coup. Support from The Department including materiel. Presumably intelligence as well. Check with Don. Need to skirt round MI5 and Department regs to get Britta onboard. But how?

  He opened his eyes and raised the glass to his lips, enjoying the aromatic smell of the herbs and plant extracts in the gin as it coursed down his throat. How indeed? Maybe Britta could help him come up with a plan. Maybe she was free for dinner. He got out his phone and tapped her picture.

  “Hej! How are you?”

  “Good. Are you free tonight?”

  “Yes. Are you going to buy me dinner?”

  “I am. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  “Ooh, secret stuff!”

  Gabriel smiled. “What do you fancy?”

  “Chinese first, Wolfe second.”

  “I think that can be arranged. Chinatown?”

  “Cool.”

  “There’s a basement cocktail bar at the junction of Newport Place and Lisle Street. The door’s black, no name, just a brass bell push. There’s a steel plate set into the pavement with a nine cut into it. When can you get there?”

  “I’ve got a surveillance report to write up and a debrief with my boss. Say, eight-thirty?”