Strike Back

by Chris Ryan

  A slow smile spread across Sir Angus’s lips. ‘You volunteered for this gig, remember. I don’t want any whinging now.’

  ‘Once you are in the car, Stanton will be in charge,’ said Layla. ‘We’ve had some contact with Hassad, and this is the drill. Stanton is going to drive you due south to a place called Sidon, on the coast. He’ll drop you at the bus stop. From there you’ll get a local bus that will take you the thirty miles or so towards a place called Jezzoine. Next, you’ll get on another bus towards Anjar. It’s a little place, close to where the borders of Lebanon, Syria and Israel all meet. When you get there, you walk across to the bar directly opposite the bus station. Go in, order yourself a coffee, and then sit down. Don’t talk to anyone if you can help it. And don’t draw too much attention to yourself. We’ll give you some Lebanese money. They use pounds, funnily enough, but there are three of theirs to every one of ours, and we’ll make sure you have plenty.’

  ‘I’ll get receipts if you want,’ said Porter.

  ‘Make sure you do,’ snapped Sir Angus. ‘This mission is costing us a fortune already.’

  For a moment, Porter could see the fear and sweat on the older man’s face. It’s my life on the line here, he thought. But it’s Sir Angus’s balls. If this mission goes pear-shaped, and it almost certainly will, then his career is finished. And unlike me, he has a lot to lose. He might act tough, but that’s just a show: underneath, I reckon he is a lot more frightened than I am.

  ‘Wait in the bar for as long as you need to,’ continued Sir Angus. ‘Don’t talk to anyone, but don’t avoid people either. Speak if you are spoken to. We’ll get you some guidebooks, so you can pretend to be a tourist if anyone asks. At a certain point, one of Hassad’s men will come up to you. He’ll be looking for a guy with a couple of fingers missing, but it won’t be Hassad himself, so make sure you keep your left hand on the table so they can get a good look. They’ll use the word “Mahmudiyya”, so that’s how you know it is them.’

  ‘It’s the town in Egypt where Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the Society of Muslim Brothers, was born,’ said Layla. ‘So I guess that’s why they chose it.’

  ‘So long as they use the right password, go with them,’ said Sir Angus. ‘They’ll have transport, and they’ll take you to wherever it is they have taken Katie Dartmouth.’

  ‘What about backup?’ said Porter.

  Sir Angus paused. His fingers were tapping on the tabletop. ‘There isn’t any,’ he said. ‘Hassad was very clear about that in his messages. The only terms on which he is prepared to receive you is that you come by yourself.’

  ‘Someone could be watching out for me,’ said Porter, his tone hardening. ‘At a safe distance –’

  ‘Not possible,’ snapped Sir Angus. ‘Hassad is allowing you to come, but you must be unarmed, and alone. We have virtually no capability in the Lebanon. They’re so hostile to us, we can’t build a network, and the people who want bribes take the Israeli money because they pay better. The only people with agents on the ground are Mossad, and we can’t ask them because they need all their assets for themselves. If we give you any backup, the chances are that Hezbollah will know about it. This is their home turf after all. Hassad has made it very clear that if you are followed in any way, then he’ll execute Katie Dartmouth on the spot, and make sure every TV station in the world has a live feed of the beheading. And when he’s holding her freshly severed head in his hand, he’ll blame the whole thing on our treachery.’ Sir Angus wiped a bead of sweat away from his forehead. ‘We can take crap if we need to, it’s what we’re paid for,’ he said sourly. ‘But even this organisation doesn’t want to have to deal with that.’

  ‘If that’s the case, make sure his instructions are obeyed.’

  Sir Angus hesitated. ‘Of course,’ he said.

  ‘So what do I do when I get there?’ said Porter.

  ‘Your job is to get Katie Dartmouth out, alive, simple as that,’ said Sir Angus. ‘That’s what we’re paying you for, and I expect results.’

  His fingers were still tapping nervously on the table. ‘This is the plan of action,’ he continued. ‘First, find out exactly what it is the buggers want. They say they want our boys out of Iraq, but that’s probably a front. There’ll be something else they will settle for. The PM has authorised us to offer them what he called “a fresh roadmap to peace in the Middle East”, whatever the hell that might mean. Frankly I think the only person who believes it is worth anyone pissing away time on peace talks is our beloved leader, but you never know, they might fall for it. Talk to them about that first. But if you aren’t getting anywhere, and I suspect you won’t, then I’m authorising you to offer them money. We’ll do what the French do, which is buy her release. Offer them ten million dollars for starters, but hint that we’d be prepared to go higher if it would help. Tell them they can negotiate directly with me via email. Or, if they prefer, they can talk to Jacques Papiasse. He’s a private banker in Luxembourg who the French use to pay ransoms for their hostages, and Hezbollah know him and trust him. He’s agreed to act for us, for the usual outrageous fee I might add, and if they want to, they can negotiate with him directly.’

  ‘Like I said earlier, it sounds like I’ll need a plan B,’ said Porter. ‘Because I can’t see them going for any of that bollocks. They’ve had more peace plans than I’ve bottles of vodka, and if they wanted money, they would have asked for it by now.’

  ‘Then this is where you go next,’ said Sir Angus. ‘There’s a man in Guantànamo Bay, a Hezbollah leader called Fouad Karem. He’s been there for a year. We’ve spoken to Washington, and they’ve agreed that they’ll let us swap him for Katie. Offer them that, and if they bite, then we can sort out the details of the exchange.’

  ‘And what happens when it’s Saturday morning?’ said Porter. ‘Three days’ time, and Katie’s execution is just hours away. None of these suggestions are working. They won’t negotiate, and they won’t delay, and they don’t give a toss about either of us. What the hell do I do then?’

  Sir Angus leant forward, straight into Porter’s face. ‘I’ve sent a lot of men into the field since I started working for this outfit, and I’ve always given them one piece of advice,’ he said. ‘Don’t play the bloody hero. It isn’t worth it. You’ll probably end up dead, and get us all in the shit. But you know what, Mr Porter. This time round I might just suspend that. If it comes to Saturday morning, and nothing else is working, then play the hero. It’s a last resort, remember that, but if everything else fails, use your Regiment training to try and take the buggers out and get the girl out of there.’

  ‘And if I die trying?’

  ‘Then at least you’ll have been well paid.’

  ‘Someone tried to kill me,’ said Porter, as Sir Angus got up to leave.

  ‘Just wait until you get out to the bloody Lebanon, man,’ said Sir Angus. ‘Everyone will want to kill you out there.’

  ‘I’m not joking,’ snapped Porter. ‘A guy tried to run me over.’

  ‘We’re investigating,’ said Layla.

  ‘And what have you found out?’

  Layla hesitated. There was a flicker of indecision in her expression, and for a moment Porter suspected she was holding something back from him.

  ‘So far, not much,’ she said, tossing a lock of hair away from her face.

  ‘There’s a mole,’ said Porter. ‘Someone in this organisation knows what I’m doing and wants to stop it.’

  ‘A Hezbollah spy within the Firm?’ said Sir Angus. ‘Don’t be bloody ridiculous, man.’

  Porter got up. ‘I’m telling you, it’s true,’ he growled.

  Sir Angus turned and started walking from the room. ‘You just concentrate on doing your job,’ he said. ‘There are no spies in this organisation.’

  TWELVE

  Porter adjusted the sound on the TV set. Sky News was sticking to its round-the-clock coverage of the Katie Dartmouth story, and so were CNN and BBC News. He flicked through the other channels: there w
as a celebrity show on ITV, a detective programme on BBC, and a rerun of Friends on Channel 4, but it was so long now since Porter had had a TV set he no longer had much idea what was on, or what he liked to watch.

  He propped his head back on the pillow, and went back to Sky. There wasn’t much new for them to say. It was Wednesday evening now, and Katie had been captured late on Sunday night. There was some fresh footage that had been released of her captivity. All you could see was a woman tied to a stake. Her arms and legs were both bound, and there were three hooded and armed men standing behind her. As the camera zoomed in closer, you could see the cuts and bruises on her cheeks. A gag was stuffed crudely into her mouth, but her eyes were exposed. And as the camera tracked towards them, you could see the despair that had overwhelmed her.

  ‘Shit,’ muttered Porter. In less than twenty-four hours I’m going to be there as well.

  On the news, the Liberal Democrat leader had called today for troops to be brought home from Iraq, and even the Conservatives were calling for a debate. Sky switched to some footage from Prime Minister’s Questions at the House of Commons earlier that day. The PM had looked rattled as he repeated his earlier line that everything humanly possible was being done to secure Katie Dartmouth’s release, but that they could not negotiate directly on the kidnappers’ main demand. ‘All I say to people is this,’ he repeated, the strain showing in his face. ‘There can be no turning back, nor can there be any surrendering to the forces of terror.’ The words, however, were met by a stony silence from his own side of the house, and by barracking from the opposition.

  On the viewers’ poll, Sky was reporting that 72 per cent of people wanted British troops taken out of Iraq if there was a chance that it might save Katie’s life. They switched briefly to the launch of a new government initiative to encourage more teenagers to go to the gym. Their political editor came on the screen to dismiss it as an ‘eye-catching initiative, designed to deflect attention from the kidnapping story’, and within minutes Sky had gone back to the Katie Dartmouth saga. The website showing pictures of Katie’s captivity had already received twenty million visitors from around the world. In Trafalgar Square, the ‘Vigil for Katie’s Release’ had grown overnight, and the police now estimated there were five thousand people camping out overnight in the square, and they had pledged to remain there until the PM started negotiating directly for Katie Dartmouth’s release. The Sky reporter started interviewing one of them, pointing out that the forecast was for sweeping rains and gales across London tonight. ‘We don’t care,’ said a young woman dressed in a blue overcoat. ‘We’re staying here until the war is finished, and Katie Dartmouth is brought back from the Lebanon alive.’

  Then the coverage switched to some breaking news. Sir Elton John had just announced that he was recording a special version of ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight’ with reworked lyrics, designed to appeal for Katie’s release. The song was being recorded tomorrow, and would be available as a download on iTunes by Friday morning. Already there were predictions that it would eclipse the massive sales of his reworked version of ‘Candle in the Wind’ composed for Princess Diana’s funeral.

  Christ, thought Porter to himself. The whole country is going nuts. And I’m the only man with any chance of bringing it back to its senses.

  There was a knock on the door. Porter glanced up. Danni was coming into the room, with her bag of medical kit under her arm. He had already dimmed the lights in his small bedroom, so the room was mainly lit by the glow of the TV screen. He killed the sound, and looked back up towards her, noticing the way the fuzzy light from the tube caught the blonde streaks dyed into her hair, creating a golden glow around her shapely face. ‘My medicine,’ he said with a smile.

  She nodded, kneeling down beside him. ‘Roll up your sleeves,’ she said.

  Porter planted his feet on the floor. He was wearing just a sweatshirt and black jeans, and he pushed up the sleeve on his left arm to expose the bare flesh underneath. Danni had already taken a swab of cotton wool, and was smearing some disinfectant across the skin. Porter closed his eyes as the needle pierced him, wondering if he was about to be put to sleep: he didn’t mind injections too much, but didn’t like to watch them. ‘All done,’ she said, within a fraction of a second.

  ‘There’s another kind of medicine I need,’ said Porter. ‘The kind you find in a bottle.’

  ‘You’re going tomorrow,’ said Danni.

  Porter nodded.

  ‘To where Katie Dartmouth is being held?’

  ‘That’s why I need a drink.’

  Danni flashed a smile. ‘Christ, I’d need a drink too if I was going there,’ she said. She reached in her bag, pulling out a half-bottle of white wine. ‘This do?’

  Porter reached for the bottle. It was one of the Australian whites you buy at Tesco to take home with you when you pick up a ready-meal on the way home from work. It wasn’t what he usually liked to drink, but right now he was desperate for anything. This was the first alcohol he’d seen since he’d set foot in the place thirty-six hours ago, and he wasn’t about to turn it down. ‘Care to join me?’

  Danni shrugged. ‘OK,’ she said.

  Porter unscrewed the cap, pouring the wine into two tumblers he’d grabbed from the washbasin. He took a sip, allowing a moment for the alcohol to hit his bloodstream. It was hard for him to remember the last time he’d gone this long without a drink. Living on the streets, he was almost always too short of cash to put a roof over his head, and often too short to get anything to eat either. But he always found money for a drink.

  ‘What happened to you?’ asked Danni.

  She took a sip of the wine, and sat down just a few feet from him on the end of his bed. As she crossed her legs, Porter noticed the seam of her black tights, running up the side of her shapely legs, and disappearing into the tempting folds of her crisp white skirt. Suddenly, he was aware she was noticing the way he was casting his eyes up her legs, and snapped them away. Stop kidding yourself, he reminded himself. She can’t be more than twenty-four or -five. Young enough to be your daughter. And let’s face it, mate, even the women your own age aren’t interested in you. Don’t even think about the young ones.

  ‘I had some bad breaks, that’s all,’ said Porter.

  Danni shook her head, tossing aside her blonde hair as she did so. ‘That’s rubbish,’ she said. ‘You were Regiment once. The best of the best –’

  ‘How’d you know that?’ said Porter.

  Danni laughed, taking another sip of wine. ‘This is a very small place,’ she said. ‘And nobody gossips like an office full of spies. This lot love to know what everybody else is up to.’

  Maybe that’s why someone tried to kill me, thought Porter. Maybe word leaked out somehow. Maybe it got through to some al-Qaeda or Hezbollah guys in London, and they wanted to take me out before I had a chance to get out to Lebanon.

  ‘You have to be tough to get in, don’t you?’ said Danni. ‘I thought there were special tests?’

  Porter could feel his mind flicking back almost two decades. There were special tests all right. He’d spent weeks of his life tabbing through the Brecon Beacons, with a deadweight on his back, and with the Welsh rain lashing into his face. He’d done the rock climbing, and the abseiling, learnt how to fly a plane and drive a tank, and he’d done enough hours running around the killing house to last a man several lifetimes. He’d watched men die as well: two guys had bought it on the selection courses he’d been on, good lads both of them who just wanted to prove they could hack it, but who must have been cold in their graves for almost twenty years now. And for what? A few years taking orders from some jumped-up public schoolboys, before they toss you back on the scrapheap, and walk straight past you on the street when you ask them to help you out with the price of a beer.

  ‘Because you were in a bad way when you came in here,’ said Danni. ‘I mean, I thought Regiment guys could get good jobs in industry. Or go out to Iraq, and earn two or three grand a week in security.
’

  Not me, thought Porter. I flunked it. And once you’ve done that, there is no way back.

  ‘I had …’ Porter paused, taking a sip of the wine, already wondering if she might have something stronger tucked away in her handbag. What was it I had exactly? he wondered? Why couldn’t I get back into the world again? Maybe if I’d been able to figure out an answer to that I wouldn’t have been searching around at the bottom of so many beer glasses all my life. ‘I was out in the Lebanon. A long time ago. I was going in with my unit to get a hostage out, but I fucked it up.’

  ‘Go on,’ she whispered.

  He looked up at Danni, his expression solid and strong. He held up his left hand. ‘That’s how I lost these,’ he said, nodding towards the missing fingers. ‘But that wasn’t the worst of it. I lost three guys from my unit, good men. It was my fault, you see. My own sodding fault. They’d have lived if I hadn’t …’

  Porter stopped talking, leaving the sentence hanging between them. It felt strange to be talking about it. He’d tried to discuss it with Diana, but that was years ago, soon after he came back, but she was so preoccupied with the baby she’d hadn’t had any time to listen to him, and pretty soon he found it easier just to have another drink and forget about it. Since then, he’d never spoken about it to anyone. He just brooded on it himself, burying the story deeper and deeper within himself, until it was as much a part of him as the blood running through his veins.

  ‘If you hadn’t what …?’

  He shrugged, emptied the wine glass into the back of his throat, and refilled it from the bottle. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It matters to me.’

  ‘I let a kid live, and then he killed my three mates.’

  Danni edged forward on the bed, so that there was only a couple of feet separating them. ‘And you think going back there will fix it for you?’ she said.

  She was looking straight at him, her bright blue eyes alive with curiosity, with a hunger for knowledge that Porter found puzzling. ‘I sure as hell hope so,’ said Porter with a shrug.