Deep Black

by Andy McNab

  ‘You got Rob killed, didn’t you?’

  Sweat poured off my face as I gave him another kick in the kidneys, then I got the AK butt back into the shoulder and dug the muzzle deep into his cheek.

  I took first pressure.

  ‘No, no, no . . .’ he pleaded with me, his eyes made even more manic by the flames. ‘I sent the shots, but there’s no way they were connected with the attack. There wasn’t time to rig anything up. No time!’

  I could smell his fear and deceit: it was coming off him in waves. ‘I wanted to go with you, remember?’ He sobbed. ‘Please, Nick, please . . .’

  I leaned into the weapon more; the muzzle dug deeper into his cheek. He fought for breath so hard through his split and swollen lips that he sprayed my face with blood and snot.

  What the fuck was I doing? It was like an out-of-body experience. Someone else was controlling me, telling me to kill him.

  ‘Nick, please . . . my family . . .’

  I leaned more heavily into the weapon, felt the heat of the fire starting to burn my face. My finger held first pressure.

  Then I stood up.

  Jerry saw the safety click back up to safe, and rolled on to his side, his knees drawn up against his chest. He held the cuff of his jacket against his face as I went over to the pistol.

  I picked up an oil-soaked rag and threw it towards him. ‘Clean yourself up, for fuck’s sake.’

  He stuck it to his face and rocked backwards and forwards.

  ‘You’ve been caught out, Jerry, accept it. You’re in the shit.’

  He tried to talk through the tears, the rag and the pain. I couldn’t make out what he was saying so I knelt down beside him. ‘Take that fucking thing away from your mouth. Who’ve you been talking to?’

  He lifted the rag. I got a weak, snot-filled ‘I don’t know.’

  This was going to be a long night.

  But Jerry wanted to help. ‘I don’t know his name, man. I don’t.’

  ‘Did you use a number or a code or any of that shit?’

  He shook his head slowly. Blood dripped down his face and on to his jacket. ‘Just had to go see him in DC.’

  ‘Where did you meet him?’

  ‘An old building some place. I can’t remember the street. The office was Hot something, Hot Black, something like that.’

  It didn’t have to mean anything.

  For all I knew, lots of guys used the Hot Black business cover.

  ‘What did he look like?’

  What he said was mostly lost in the rag, but I heard enough to know the universe was caving in.

  ‘He keeps calling me son. I’m not his fucking son. I’m no son of that asshole . . .’

  ‘You’re right, Jerry,’ I said. ‘He is an arsehole. Arsehole is George’s middle name.’

  89

  ‘You know him?’

  This was about me finding out what he knew, not the other way round. ‘What’s George got you doing?’

  ‘He said you’d take care of me, help me find him. Once we did, I had to press a button on the side of the battery pack, then carry on with the shoot. I had to make sure the session lasted at least two hours. If we had to go early, I had to leave the camera.’

  I started walking back towards the VW.

  Jerry shuffled along behind me, trying to keep up so I could hear him over the engine.

  ‘I know what he’s got me doing, man. I’m not fucking stupid. It’s some kind of tracking device, right? I press the button, they know where he is. They find him, they kill him. As soon as we got to the Palestine and then the Sunny Side Up I had to call him and press the button. That’s all I know, man, that’s all. I swear.’

  He sat in the beam of the headlights, dabbing the rag at his face, as if that was going to help.

  ‘What did you tell George about Rob and Benzil at the al-Hamra?’

  ‘He wanted to be on top of things. I had to tell him everything that was happening, every day. So when I called him about the military grabbing our asses, and then about Rob and Benzil, he wanted pictures. You gotta believe me, Nick, I only got the Beemer because that’s where you guys were at. Can’t have been anything to do with the hit . . .’

  He let the rag fall from his face and his swollen, bloodshot eyes searched mine for help, forgiveness, anything.

  ‘Why did you do it, Jerry?’

  I reached into the cab and picked up the blue disc.

  Blood dripped off his chin, making a small puddle in the mud. ‘He said it would be one job, and all my problems would be over . . .’ He coughed up some stuff from the back of his throat and spat it out.

  ‘What problems? What’s he got on you?’

  Jerry had calmed a little. ‘I fucked up.’ He started dabbing again. ‘I went to one of the training camps in Afghanistan with guys I’d met from Lackawanna. I got arrested when I landed back in Detroit.’ He sounded almost angry. ‘I’m no fucking terrorist. I was just chasing a story. They fucking knew that, but they still sent me to the Bay.’

  ‘You were at Guantanamo?’

  ‘Two fucking months, man, held in solitary. Speaking to no one, nobody speaking to me. In the dark. Renee was totally out of her freaking mind – she didn’t know where I was. Then one day this guy George turns up and plays the good cop, says he can get me out of there in a heartbeat – but I have to do something for him some time. Like having a favour in the bank. Well, he finally called it in. I told him I didn’t wanna go, but I had to. He said if I didn’t go find Nuhanovic, he’d kill Chloë.’

  He crumpled, his face in his hands, sobbing into the rag, his shoulders heaving.

  I pulled out the blue disc and put it on the van bumper. The technology had come on apace since the Paveway days. This wasn’t just a tracking device. It was much more than that: it was a location device for time-critical targets. Once they’re marked, they’re hit. No need for man-in-the-loop technology. Now they had the Predator UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle], a remote-controlled aircraft about the size of a single-engined Cessna. They’d been around when I was here last, cruising at anything up to twenty-five thousand feet, but only used for what they were designed for, battlefield surveillance. They had real-time feed from infrared, thermal and normal cameras mounted in the nose; commanders could view the battlefield as easily as if they’d switched on the TV to watch a live traffic report on the Beltway.

  Then, in around 2000, some boffin had had the bright idea of strapping an LTD to its nose alongside its surveillance package, and giving it a couple of hundred-pound Hellfire missiles to play with. So these days the operator just sat and watched a screen in the comfort of an operations room, until one of the sensors in the nose located the target – a tank, perhaps, or a carload of terrorists. All the operator had to do was splash it with the LTD then zap off the Hellfires, which would strike with an accuracy of plus or minus two metres. The only hard bit was identifying the target, especially if it was a single person. That had to be why George needed us here. It was back to the old man-in-loop technology again. Jerry would kick off the target indicator, which would start to transmit. The Predator would pick up the signal; the operator would home in the LTD and kick off the Hellfires.

  I turned to Jerry and leaned against the front of the van. ‘You’ve fucked up big-time. That’s not just a tracking device. You’re at the arsehole end of the detect, decide, destroy gang now.’ I held up the blue disc in the light. ‘This thing brings in missiles. George wants Nuhanovic dead . . . you and me are just collateral damage.

  ‘We’re in the shit, Jerry. He won’t care that the camera’s fucked. To him, the mission is everything. Believe me, I know the man.’

  I clenched the device hard in my fist. The White House could have wanted Nuhanovic dead for any of about a dozen reasons that I could think of, from plunging Coke sales to Islam getting a bit more friendly with itself. But right now that didn’t matter. What did was the bit about collateral damage.

  Jerry pulled the rag away from his mouth. ‘What we goi
ng to do, Nick? Call George? Maybe tell him what’s happening?’

  Jerry still hadn’t quite got the hang of this. I paused. ‘What was Salkic talking about back there, outside the cave? He say anything about Nuhanovic?’

  He looked up, his face still creased with pain. ‘No, just weird stuff, really. He wanted to thank me for killing the son of an aggressor whore. He said Nuhanovic would be happy – they were animals and not good for business, they messed up business . . . something like that . . .’

  ‘What the fuck did he mean by that?’

  ‘Dunno . . . he was pretty spaced out . . .’

  I looked down at Jerry as he tried to clear enough blood from his nose to breathe. Why hadn’t Salkic just said Goatee was the son of an aggressor whore, and leave it at that? ‘You sure he said “business”?’

  He didn’t bother looking up. ‘Yep, for sure.’

  ‘Shit.’ I took a couple of very deep breaths and threw the locator to the ground. ‘You’re not the only one round here who’s fucked up . . .’

  I dragged him to his feet. ‘Come on, in the van. We’re going.’

  90

  Frost glazed the fields and road and sparkled under a clear sky.

  The heater was on full blast, but wasn’t up to spec. It couldn’t even demist the windscreen, let alone keep us warm. The back windows, though, were fine. The sacks and diesel cans were probably snug as fuck.

  Jerry’s breath billowed round his head as he leaned forward, teeth rattling, to wipe the glass with his sleeve.

  I followed suit with my side of the screen. ‘That Kevin Carter photo? The way no one looked past the vulture and the girl to the real story? I reckon I’ve fucked up and not seen the real picture of Nuhanovic.’

  ‘The real Nuhanovic?’

  ‘What if Nasir wasn’t in Baghdad looking after Nuhanovic, but there doing business for him? What if he was doing exactly the same as that arsehole Goatee? The competition.’

  ‘Nuhanovic? Come on . . .’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Even if you’re right about Nasir, it doesn’t mean Nuhanovic is involved.’

  ‘Doesn’t it? Remember what Salkic said? They don’t work for him, they serve him. They do jack shit off their own back, they follow his orders. So just what the fuck was he doing in “Chetnik Mama”?’

  ‘Fuck.’ He slumped back in his seat.

  ‘You got it. So what was I really seeing at the cement factory? Was he saving the girls, or trading them?’

  ‘So . . . Zina . . .’

  I nodded. ‘Got it again. Tell you what, if I’m right I’ll kill the fucker for you.’

  The van lurched into a pot-hole; Jerry groaned and grabbed his abdomen. I didn’t feel too bad about it. The pain would soon disappear. The damage to his face would take a lot longer.

  Jerry pulled the rag away from his nose. ‘Not seeing the whole picture . . .’ He gave a deep sigh. ‘That wasn’t my family you met in DC. I don’t know who the fuck the woman was.’

  ‘So that was all bullshit too?’

  He nodded. ‘I am married to Renee. I have got a daughter. They just weren’t the ones you met.’

  He leaned back, trying to ease the tension in his neck.

  ‘She knows nothing about this. She thinks I’m in Brazil covering the elections . . . What if I fuck up, man?’

  ‘Listen, the only chance of Chloë surviving is if you just do exactly what I tell you and George never finds out that I know. Once we’re back in DC, you stick to the story – whatever that’s going to be.’

  I didn’t add that for the rest of his life he must never tell anyone, not even his wife. Whoever she was.

  For myself, I felt strangely OK about George stitching me up. I’d always known he wasn’t one for loose ends. I’d become one the moment I wanted a bike instead of him. At least I knew where I stood.

  What a set-up. I bet George had enjoyed rigging up the exhibition and the false family as much as any operation he’d ever prepared.

  We carried on down the road and I couldn’t help smiling as he told me about his made-up family. ‘The woman didn’t know how to change a diaper. I had to show her. Even then she wouldn’t do it.’

  Unless they knew George’s previous, most people would find it hard to imagine that a man representing a western democratic government could act this way. But Jerry had seen a bit of shot and shell in his time, as well as the bullshit that surrounded it. He knew better. But it wasn’t helping him. He just stared out at the frost glinting back at us, hands in his armpits, maybe trying to conjure up comforting images of his little girl. I looked across at him. ‘Listen, just do exactly what I say, OK? Nothing’s going to happen to anyone.’

  He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Would he really kill a child, Nick? How’s he get it done? He have some sick fuck on call or what?’

  There was no way he was getting any of that kind of information from me. ‘You don’t need to know, because it won’t happen.’

  ‘Why? Why do it when I’ve fucked you over, man?’

  I kept my eyes on the road. ‘I used to work for George. That’s why Kelly’s dead.’

  I could feel his stare drilling into the side of my head. ‘George killed Kelly? Fuck.’

  I turned. His eyes were glazed, as if he was elsewhere. I knew that look very well: I’d seen it in the mirror often enough.

  ‘She’d been snatched by some fuck-ups. George was holding me back, not telling me where she was because he didn’t want me going into the house and fucking things up for him. He knew they’d probably kill her, but the job, the fucking job came first. By the time I got there and found her, well . . .’

  I felt a jolt in the centre of my chest. The image of her dead body I described to Jerry was as vivid as a photograph.

  Jerry wasn’t looking good. ‘Oh, fuck . . .’

  I rubbed my hair and cupped my hand over my nose. ‘I took her body back to the States, and Josh and I buried her alongside the rest of her family. It was standing room only in the church.’ I rubbed my hands on my soaked jeans, trying to get rid of the smell. I needed to get back into the real world. ‘I don’t know if she would have been proud or embarrassed.’

  I wished I could have fished in my wallet and pulled out a photograph like any other proud parent, but the simple fact was that I didn’t have one. Not one she would have been proud of anyway. Just the one from her passport: her face had been covered in zits that day and I’d had to drag her to the photo booth. There were others from her house, of course, but they were in storage. One of these days I’d get round to sorting all that stuff out.

  ‘Fuck it, it’s all history now.’ I pushed the gearshift into third as we headed uphill. ‘I don’t want anyone else to have those nightmares. No one deserves them. Except George – but that’ll never happen.’

  We both just stared at the road as it was hoovered up by the headlights.

  ‘Listen, I’m sorry for fucking up your face. I saw the location device, the phone number, the camera thing at the al-Hamra and my head just kind of exploded.’

  He had bigger things to worry about. ‘I deserved it. You know, Renee told me once that Buddha said we all have two dogs inside us, one good, one bad, constantly fighting each other. Which one wins depends on which one’s fed.’

  ‘You don’t have to come, you know. Everybody gets scared when they’ve got things to lose. You’ve still got your family, all that gear – I’ve got fuck-all. I’ll take you back to the barn and go on my own.’

  ‘Nah . . .’ He gave me as much of a grin as he could manage. ‘It’s just like old times . . .’

  I checked the dial. Another three and a bit Ks and we should be hitting our first landmark. The frost was setting in with a vengeance: what had been a light dusting on the tarmac was now more or less solid ice. I just kept it in third and hoped for the best.

  I thought about Renee’s dogs, and I knew this was one whole can of chunky Pal I didn’t want to open again.

  91

  Salkic
had said the forestry block was just over two Ks long, and the next marker to look out for was a firebreak.

  I glanced at Jerry, who was so close to the heating vents he nearly blocked off the supply. ‘We’re going to hit it soon, a group of “bomb-blasted” trees on the right.’ I’d liked Salkic’s description.

  I slowed down and he wiped his side window with his wet sleeve, but there wasn’t just a group of devastated trees, there were scores of them; some splintered trunks were five or six feet high, some no more than stumps. Salkic had been wrong – they hadn’t all been blown up: most looked as if they’d been flattened by tanks.

  We both spotted the break at the same time. I stopped just short of it so we could use the headlights to check things out. There was a rush of even colder air as Jerry opened the door. He was so frozen he hobbled rather than walked over to the treeline, and I knew just how he felt.

  He waved me on, jumping up and down to try to get some warmth into his aching limbs. I put the gearshift into first and chugged towards him. The narrow opening in the trees certainly wasn’t a firebreak; it was just wide enough for a vehicle.

  Jerry got himself back into his seat and we edged forwards. It was like driving into a cave. The trees were just a couple of feet either side of us and the canopy above shut out the stars.

  Jerry leaned over the dash and did his best to look through the windscreen.

  After a hundred metres or so the track opened up a little, and the van juddered as I put it into second. There was no frost in here: it was too enclosed. The ground was soft, and I hoped it wasn’t going to turn muddy. The VW was a long way from being a member of the 4x4 club.

  Jerry gave the screen another big wipe. ‘What’s this fucking guy live in? A tepee or a tree-house or something?’

  I checked the instruments again. We’d driven about eighteen hundred metres from the road. Ahead of us, at about the two K mark, was a junction left. After bouncing through another couple of pot-holes, the headlights picked it out.

  I turned and looked at Jerry’s silhouette. ‘Fuck knows what’s going to happen now. We’ve just got to play it by ear.’