‘Geordie always followed the money,’ said Shortt.
‘Twenty thousand dollars a month,’ said the Major. ‘One month’s paid leave for every three served, plus board and lodging over there, so pretty much everything you earn goes into the bank. It’s the new Klondike. We’ve got guys dropping out of the Regiment early so they can sign on in Iraq. Hard to blame them – they get four times the salary plus the chance to use their skills rather than spending all their time training.’
‘I’ve been offered three jobs out there,’ said Armstrong. ‘It’s getting harder to turn them down. They’re desperate for good people. Anyone mind if I smoke?’
‘I thought you’d given up,’ said Shortt.
‘I did,’ said Armstrong. He rolled up his shirtsleeve to reveal a white square on his shoulder. ‘I’m even using the nicotine patches but they make me want to smoke even more.’
‘Smoke away,’ said O’Brien, ‘but not over my food.’
Armstrong offered the pack around but there were no takers. He lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the ceiling.
The Major waved at the television. ‘The money has to be good out there because of the risks. There’ve been ninety-seven kidnappings so far this year, twenty-six of them Westerners. Of the twenty-six, twenty-four have been killed. They’ve followed a similar pattern. Kidnapped. No news for a few days, then a video released with the abductors’ demands – which are usually totally unrealistic – with a deadline. A second, sometimes a third video, as the deadline gets closer, then nothing for as long as a month, after which we get a video of the hostage being killed. Cards on the table, gentlemen. Geordie’s chances do not look good. One of the Westerners who was released was a sixty-eight-year-old nun, the other was married to a Muslim woman and had five Muslim children.’
‘Which means what?’ said Shortt.
‘Which means that it’s up to us to swing the odds in his favour,’ said the Major. ‘Okay, more cards on the table. Officially there’s nothing I can do. Unofficially every former member of the Regiment currently active in Iraq is being contacted and brought on side. I’ve spoken to army contacts out there, but the British Army is based mainly in Basra and Geordie was kidnapped in the Sunni Triangle and that’s American-controlled. Since Geordie is a civilian contractor, my bosses won’t countenance my using Regimental resources to get him out of the shit. That’s why I’ve called you here. I’m not going to sit on my arse while the Foreign Office huffs and puffs, and I need to know that you all feel the same.’
‘Bloody right,’ said Shortt.
Shepherd and Armstrong muttered agreement. O’Brien had just taken a big bite of a sandwich but he gave the Major a thumbs-up.
‘And I also need you to be aware that if we decide to help Geordie, we’re not going to be following the Queensberry Rules or the Geneva Convention,’ said the Major. ‘We’ll be crossing the line.’
‘What – again?’ Shortt punched Shepherd’s shoulder. ‘Seems to me that we did that when we got Spider out of bother a while back.’
Shepherd smiled ruefully. Shortt was right. They had broken the law before. Shepherd owed all the men round the table, big-time. He owed them and he owed Mitchell, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do for them. ‘I’m in,’ he said, ‘whatever it takes.’
‘He’d do it for us, no question,’ said O’Brien.
‘I feel like the four bloody musketeers here,’ said Armstrong. ‘All for one and one for all.’
‘There’s five of us,’ said Shortt. ‘And I’m in.’
‘Okay,’ said the Major. ‘The basics are what you saw on the video. Geordie has fourteen days – thirteen and a half, if we’re going to split hairs. He’s being held in Iraq by a group who will, unless we intervene, hack off his head. If past experience is anything to go by, our government will do next to nothing, and pleas for mercy will be ignored. Other than a name on a banner, we don’t know who’s holding him or where he is. We’re three and a half thousand miles away from his location—’
‘Piece of piss, then,’ said Shortt.
The Major ignored the interruption. ‘The only thing we have to go on at the moment is that news broadcast. I’m going to have the video analysed, see if there’s anything on it that might provide a clue as to who his captors are and where they’re keeping him. That’s a long shot, frankly. There’s a banner up behind Geordie that says it’s the Holy Martyrs of Islam – not a name I’ve ever heard of. Any of you know it?’
All four men shook their heads.
‘The problem is, whatever name they use is pretty much immaterial,’ the Major went on. ‘They seem to pluck them out of the air and there are indications of movement between the various groups. Generally low-level criminal gangs seize the hostages, then sell them on to the militant outfits. The criminal gangs are more likely to take cash. Once the political groups are involved it’s not about money any more.’
‘I know this is probably a stupid question, but I don’t suppose his company had kidnap insurance, did they?’ asked Shepherd.
‘No, although they’ve offered a reward of half a million dollars for his return. But, as I said, this isn’t about money. It isn’t even about foreign policy. It’s about terror. The guys holding him want to kill him and they want to do it on camera. The fourteen-day deadline is just a way of generating interest. Now, on a more positive note, the guy Geordie works for is on his way here so we’ll have a briefing from him tomorrow. Meanwhile, any thoughts?’
‘Nuke the lot of them,’ said Shortt.
‘Thanks, Jimbo,’ said the Major. ‘Any serious thoughts?’
‘Are the Yanks on the case?’ asked O’Brien.
‘The military?’ asked the Major. ‘As much as they can be, but one kidnapped British contractor isn’t top of their priorities, not with their own death toll heading towards three thousand.’
Shepherd, Armstrong, O’Brien and Shortt sat back and waited for the Major to continue. The fact that he had called them together meant that he had something in mind.
‘If anything is going to happen, it’s going to be down to us,’ he said. ‘There’s no question of British troops being pulled out, and no question of the government getting involved in any form of negotiations.’
‘Because they don’t negotiate with terrorists,’ said Armstrong, bitterly. ‘Unless they’re Irish, of course. Then they invite them to Downing Street for tea. Bloody Paddies.’
‘Hey,’ said O’Brien. ‘Behave. I’m a Paddy, remember.’
The Major raised a warning eyebrow and Armstrong and O’Brien fell silent. ‘From what I’m told, Geordie’s Sass background won’t be revealed,’ the Major continued. ‘The only family he has is a brother and he knows to keep his head down. The company has been briefed to say only that he served with the army. No details of his career with the Paras or Sass. If the group holding him finds out that he’s former special forces they’ll make it a lot harder for him. Officially Sass can’t be seen to be involved, but unofficially they’ll move heaven and earth to find him. But with Geordie in the Sunni Triangle, we’re going to need American help. Unofficial American help.’
The Major looked pointedly at Shepherd, who knew what he was suggesting and nodded slowly. ‘I’m on it,’ he said.
‘Assuming we do find where they’re keeping him,’ said O’Brien, ‘what then?’
‘Let’s take it one step at a time,’ said the Major.
‘Yeah, but is the plan to let the Yanks try to pull him out, or do our guys go in?’
‘I’d hope it’d be a Sass operation but, like I said, they’re not in the area. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First we’ll find out where he is.’
‘It’s al-Qaeda, right?’ said Shortt. ‘Has to be.’
‘It’s not as simple as that, Jimbo,’ said the Major. ‘There is no al-Qaeda any more, not really. These days, it’s more of a brand than an organisation. All the groups I mentioned have a similar ideology to al-Qaeda, but the days of a criminal mastermind with overall co
ntrol are long gone. The guys in these groups were probably trained by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan or Pakistan ten years ago, but now they function as autonomous units. In effect, they’ve become a terror franchise. It’s like Burger King. A franchise in Birmingham doesn’t have to call head office every time it cooks a burger. These guys are just out there to cause chaos. If we had an al-Qaeda source, he probably wouldn’t even know where Geordie was being held.’
‘This is a bloody nightmare,’ said Armstrong. ‘Why don’t we just fly over there?’
‘And do what?’ asked the Major. ‘We wouldn’t be able to move around. Any Westerner’s a target. We’ve no intel sources on the ground. No one’s going to talk to us. We’d spend all our time just staying alive. At least here we can take a broader view, see the wood for the trees.’
‘How about Billy and I head to Baghdad?’ said Shortt. ‘At least we’d be on the spot.’ Armstrong nodded in agreement.
‘No one’s going to Iraq,’ said the Major. ‘At least, not yet. We’re only eight hours away. We’ve got just under two weeks, so we don’t have to rush into anything, okay?’
Shortt didn’t look convinced.
‘I want you and Billy trailing the video,’ said the Major. ‘We need to know how it reached the TV stations. The first to get it was al-Jazeera in Qatar. They usually get the kidnap videos first and pass them on to others around the world. If we can follow that video back to the source, we’ll know where Geordie is. Plus, there might be more video with more usable intel on it. I’ll get the pictures we already have analysed, see if there’s anything there to help us. Spider will look into getting American intel on what’s going on in Iraq, and as I said, Geordie’s boss arrives tomorrow so we’ll have a briefing from him.’ The Major stood up. ‘It’ll be okay,’ he said. ‘We’ll bring Geordie home, whatever it takes.’
Geordie Mitchell put down the paperback book he’d been staring at for the past hour. He hadn’t got beyond the first page of The Da Vinci Code. It was creased and there were greasy fingerprints on the cover, and Mitchell couldn’t help wondering who had read it before and if he had lived to finish it.
The room was fifteen paces long and nine wide. There were no windows and only one door. The inside of the door was featureless except for a peephole at head height. There was no lock, and no handle. Other than a threadbare blanket and a blue plastic bucket, there was nothing. When they fed him it was on paper plates and he had to eat with his hands. Water came in paper beakers. He’d been over every inch of the floor and walls and there was nothing he could use as a weapon – except his hands, of course, and his feet, elbows, knees. Mitchell knew a couple of dozen ways to kill with his bare hands, but despatching one of his captors wouldn’t get him out of the basement. He had seen at least six men, and had no way of knowing how many more were upstairs. He could grab one and threaten to kill him unless they let him go, but he doubted they’d be intimidated by threats of violence.
Besides, the chance of catching them unawares was virtually nil. Most of the time he was alone in the basement. When they came to feed him, they shouted through the door that he was to stand against the back wall with his hands out to the side. They wouldn’t open the door until he had complied. One man would come in, usually the one called Kamil, with food or water or to empty the bucket. Kamil was the only one who had spoken to him, and he had always been polite and friendly. While Kamil was in the room a second man, wearing a ski mask, would stand at the door cradling an AK-47, his finger inside the trigger guard. It was an intimidating weapon, but Mitchell found it reassuring. It wasn’t the sort you’d fire in the confines of a basement: there was a high risk of ricochet, the noise would be deafening and it would be hard to manoeuvre, all of which suggested that the men weren’t as professional as he’d first thought.
Mitchell paced round the room on autopilot as he considered his options. During his time on the SAS selection course, he’d gone through Resistance to Interrogation training with the Joint Services Interrogation Unit and passed with flying colours. But it had done nothing to prepare him for what he was going through now.
The training was based on building resistance to physical and mental torture. It came after the Escape and Evasion section of the gruelling SAS selection course – three days of being pursued across the Brecon Beacons by British Army units trying to prove they were every bit as hard as the men who wanted to join the élite special-forces unit. Eventually everyone was caught and handed over to the hard men of the JSIU. The interrogation was open-ended. Mitchell had been grilled for two full days and three nights before he was told that he’d passed and was qualified to wear the SAS badge and beret. It had been sixty hours of hell.
He’d been beasted by four burly paratroopers before he got to the JSIU, so he was already battered and bruised. He’d been stripped naked and doused with icy water. They’d played white noise through huge speakers for hours. They’d shouted at him in languages he didn’t understand. They’d blindfolded him and made him stand spreadeagled against a wall with most of his weight on his arms. He’d been screamed at, punched and had his face submerged in a barrel of water until he’d come close to passing out. He’d been tied naked to a chair and interrogated for hours. Under the rules of the test, he had been able to give only his name, rank and number. Divulging any other information meant instant rejection. The interrogators had tried everything. Screaming at him. Cajoling him. Telling him jokes. Asking him if he wanted food or to sleep. They’d even produced a bottle of beer and told him there was nothing in the rules about accepting a drink. He’d refused it and they’d put a cloth bag over his head and dragged him across a field telling him they were going to bury him alive. They hadn’t, of course. That was one of the flaws in the test. No matter how convincing the JSIU men were, those they interrogated knew it was an act, that they wouldn’t do any permanent damage, and that at some point it would all be over. In the real world bones and teeth were broken – and worse. On the selection course you’d get a little bruised. All you had to do was keep your mouth shut until it was over.
Once he’d joined the Regiment, Mitchell had been on more courses with the JSIU. They’d taught him what was likely to happen if he was captured by an enemy who wasn’t bound by the rules of the Geneva Convention. And they’d taught him the skills that would ensure the best chance of survival. But nothing the interrogation experts had taught him had prepared him for what he had been through since he had been brought to the basement.
His initial capture had been by the book: an AK-47 aimed at his chest, a hood pulled roughly over his head, something hard slammed against his temple, and waking up in the back of a van with his hands and feet bound. He’d been kept tied and hooded for the first forty-eight hours, he figured, though it had been hard to keep track of time. He’d been given water to drink through a straw but no food, and no one had said anything to him. He’d been moved from the van to a place that smelled of diesel oil where he’d slept on a dusty concrete floor, then put into the boot of a car and taken to another location where he’d slept on a damp carpet. There, a dog had woken him by licking his hands. Then he was put into a rattling van, with what felt like crates piled round him, and driven for hours to a third location: a room with windows that had been covered with sheets of plywood. He’d been tied to a wooden chair and they had taken his watch, wallet, shoes and belt. The hood had been removed and he had been given cold boiled rice with a piece of barbecued fish.
He’d asked who they were and what they wanted, but their only response was to slap him with gloved hands. After he’d eaten they had left the hood off but sealed his mouth with duct tape. His captors wore ski masks and said nothing to him. He stayed tied to the chair for a day and half a night, then the hood was put back on and he was hit from behind. He’d feigned unconsciousness but they’d hit him again and he’d passed out for real.
When he woke up he was in the basement and everything had changed. He hadn’t been bound or gagged. He’d been given food, plenty of wate
r and the paperback book. One of the rules of surviving a hostage situation was to befriend your captors so that they related to you as a human being, not just as a captive, but instead one of the men introduced himself to Mitchell. He said his name was Kamil and apologised for what had happened. He spoke reasonably good English and had a smile that Mitchell was sure would win him more than his fair share of female admirers. Nothing would happen to him, Kamil had promised. A number of hostages had been taken at different locations around the country, but they would all be released within a few weeks. He said he would make Mitchell’s stay as pleasant as possible under the circumstances. If Mitchell had any requests for reading matter, Kamil would do what he could to provide it. He was sorry about the poor quality of the food, he said, but assured Mitchell that his captors would eat the same provisions. Mitchell had asked for a beer and Kamil had laughed, then patted his shoulder. They were like two old friends chatting, but for the man in the doorway cradling an AK-47.
Mitchell didn’t believe Kamil’s assurances. Few hostages were released in Iraq. Most ended up dead. Kamil never raised his voice, never threatened Mitchell, never questioned him. Mitchell knew why. They didn’t need anything from him: he was a pawn in whatever game they were playing.
Kamil was the only one of his captors to reveal his face. The others wore ski masks when they were in the room. Mitchell reckoned there were six in addition to Kamil, perhaps seven. There had been five and Kamil in the basement when they had made the video. It had been on the morning of his second day there. They had fed him first: a paper plate of rice with some sort of lamb stew and a paper cup filled with chunks of pickled mango. Then Kamil had brought in a Panasonic video-camera on a tripod and placed it close to the wall on the right of the door. He’d pinned a sheet, on which was printed Arabic script, to the wall on the left. Then he had given Mitchell an orange jumpsuit and asked him to put it on. It had been a request and Mitchell had complied. He was sure that they intended to kill him at some point but there was nothing to be gained from confrontation. He would have to choose his moment to make a stand. Of one thing he was sure: when they came to kill him he would fight back.
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