Behind the Wire (A Dan Taylor thriller)

by Rachel Amphlett

  ‘Some malware virus had been placed on the system – pretty easy to do with a link in an email to a website that then bounces back an error message.’

  ‘Yeah, seen that before.’

  ‘Right. So, once that malware had been installed, all the hackers had to do was intercept all the emails, review them, and wait until one of the suppliers’ accounts departments contacted the mine development company with its bank details for payment. The hackers then intercepted it, changed the bank details to their own, and waited for the money to arrive.’

  ‘Shit. That easy?’

  ‘Yeah. Most hackers do a test run first though, to see if it’ll work and if they’ll get away with it. This particular theft happened with the whole of the second milestone payment, so we went back and checked the first one.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It was fifty dollars short when the money arrived in the supplier’s bank account.’

  ‘And no-one said anything?’

  Anna shrugged. ‘Someone somewhere made a business decision. The mining industry’s been struggling for the past six years – suppliers are desperate for work. They’re not going to argue over a missing fifty dollars. It’ll simply get added to the bad debtors figure in the annual accounts.’

  Dan blinked. ‘That’s incredible. Why isn’t every hacker in the world doing this?’

  Anna smiled. ‘Who’s to say they’re not? Companies rarely report it to the media. Too embarrassing.’

  ‘So, you arrived here thinking you were simply going to identify the hackers – and then, what? Report them to Interpol or something?’

  ‘Exactly. We build a criminal case and then pass it onto the authorities, including the FBI and Interpol. The insurance company – our client – then has to hope that a prosecution occurs.’

  ‘When did you realise you were in trouble? What was it that tipped you off?’

  ‘We found out that other projects in the region were missing money – like I said, no-one was talking openly about it, but Benji and I made some discreet enquiries and found out that a couple of our competitors were in the country, doing exactly the same thing as us.’

  ‘And that led you to the conclusion that the funds had been stolen to fund a local uprising.’

  Anna nodded. ‘Usually, when money is stolen like this, it’s sent as far away as possible from the scene of the original theft. All these thefts were different – the money was coming back, or being sent to individuals with interests in Western Sahara. The organisation I work for has some ex-military contacts, so I managed to make some phone calls two days ago to see if they had heard anything via their network of colleagues. I got a message yesterday morning that confirmed my suspicions – someone is actively contacting known mercenaries, particularly those from Russia and Eastern Europe, and offering large sums of money to discreetly make their way into Western Sahara.’

  Dan cricked his neck before he pushed his sunglasses up onto his head and rubbed at his eyes.

  ‘Do you want me to drive for a while?’

  Dan checked his mirrors. There were no vehicles following them.

  ‘Yeah, that’d be good.’

  He slowed and brought the SUV to a gentle stop, and they switched sides.

  Dan stretched before he climbed into the passenger seat.

  After a few seconds of each of them adjusting their seats to account for their difference in height, Anna released the handbrake and set off.

  ‘You haven’t told me what you’ve been up to,’ she said, as she tilted the rear view mirror to better suit her line of sight. ‘Still trying to save the world?’

  Dan glanced across and narrowed his eyes at the dimples that had appeared in Anna’s cheeks. ‘I’ll have you know I was doing very important work for the British government,’ he said in mock indignation.

  She laughed, and Dan smiled.

  ‘You said “was,”’ she said.

  ‘Yeah.’ Dan pulled his sunglasses over his eyes. ‘The last job didn’t go too well.’

  Anna’s eyes flickered across to him before she spoke.

  ‘Well, that’s not exactly encouraging news.’

  CHAPTER 18

  Jamil Iqbal lowered the binoculars from his eyes and squinted into the distance.

  From his position, he could easily spot the plume of sand and dust the Englishman’s hired vehicle spat into the air.

  He clambered down from the hood of his battered pick-up truck, walked round to the driver’s door, and passed the binoculars through the open window.

  ‘It’s them,’ he said.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  Jamil grinned, revealing a row of rotten teeth. ‘No-one else would be stupid enough to drive through here,’ he said.

  ‘True.’

  The driver peered through the windscreen at the disappearing dust trail.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ asked Jamil. His fingers tapped impatiently on the door frame. ‘Shall we follow?’

  The driver thought for a moment. ‘No. They’re only going to be able to drive a few more miles before they’ll have to stop.’ He glanced at the cheap watch wrapped around his wrist, and then at the shadows forming under the scrubby bushes to the right of the stationary vehicle. ‘It’ll be dark in a few hours. If they try to keep driving when the sun goes down, it’ll be suicide.’

  ‘So they’ll have to double back?’

  ‘Eventually.’ The driver placed the binoculars in a crevasse in the central console. ‘Get in. Use the radio to call Salim. Let him know he’s going to have visitors soon.’

  Jamil hurried round to the passenger door and wrenched it open, hissing as the hot leather upholstery burned through his thin trousers, and picked up the UHF radio. He turned the dial until it reached a little-used frequency and spoke rapidly into the microphone, his glee at finding the man and woman barely disguised.

  The driver started the engine, rolled up his window, and turned the wheel, pointing the vehicle in an easterly direction.

  The man and woman would be stopped eventually, and then they’d have to turn around and find a new route.

  And he and his men would be waiting for them.

  ***

  Abramov replaced the radio in its cradle and shivered from an involuntary chill that wasn’t caused by the gradual drop in air temperature, but by the thought that the safety of his daughter was clouding his judgement.

  For previous contracts, he’d never risked using local enforcements, especially any as ill-trained as those that Galal had recruited on his behalf.

  Secretly, he harboured a suspicion that Salim’s men were somehow related to Galal, and he’d simply allowed blood ties to dictate who was added to the payroll.

  Normally, Abramov would select his men: hand-picked fighters who he’d bet his life on.

  But the client had been very clear in his expectations.

  Nothing was to be traced back to the mother country. The leader could not afford to be tainted by the success or failure of the mission – he could only be seen as a saviour as the occupied territory tore itself apart in a brutal civil war.

  Abramov clenched his fists. There would be no civil war if he couldn’t recruit skilled mercenaries from the local population.

  Abramov had been limited to bringing only six of his men, despite a loud and frustrating meeting with two of the client’s representatives.

  After the meeting, they’d made it clear that would be the only concession and that Abramov was not in a position to negotiate further with them.

  It was then that Abramov set a plan in motion to secure the safety of his daughter.

  Now, his gaze met the eyes of every single member of his six-man team.

  ‘Get ready to leave,’ he said. ‘The minute Salim confirms he has them, we travel to his base. In the meantime, monitor the radios in case the Englishman and the American woman manage to evade capture.’

  CHAPTER 19

  Dan peered over the top of his sunglasses, his gaze wandering between the view
out his driver’s side window, the front windscreen, and the rear view mirror.

  Everywhere he looked, the yellow russet tones of the desert spread before him, cacti and gourd breaking up the desert in sporadic patches for as far as he could see.

  Now and then, a collection of large coloured boulders appeared on the horizon, the vehicle passing through the shade they cast as he steered a safe passage across the rough terrain. His geologist mind turned to thoughts of ancient causeways, glacial shifts that had cast the boulders from mountains thousands of miles away.

  He frowned and pushed his sunglasses back up his nose, peering past the slumbering form of Anna towards the west, where the sun was rapidly making a run for the horizon.

  His eyes flickered over the scenery in front of him as he guided the SUV through a shallow gulley, carved out through time by water before the desert encroached, and then no doubt used as a goat track by passing herdsmen.

  He pulled a bottle of water from the cup holder to his left and took a long drink. He calculated how much they’d used over the course of the day and estimated that it’d take another half day’s driving to reach the border. They had plenty of fluids to keep them going, but they were already dehydrating in the exposed environment, notable since neither of them had stopped to go to the toilet in the past four hours.

  He put the bottle back and checked his mirrors.

  He wondered what Galal was planning. No doubt the man was only a small pawn in a bigger game, but he had local knowledge – and influence.

  And Dan had no idea as to how large the group of mercenaries was.

  He recalled a news article he’d read over the past few months about Western Sahara. The UN had renewed its resolution to keep a watching brief on the territory and choosing to ignore Morocco’s occupation, to the frustration of the country’s Polisario group who represented the local Sahrawi people.

  At the heart of everything was the very real threat from a growing Al Qaeda presence in the northern reaches of the region and corruption within the local army.

  Even if any attempt by a mercenary force to tip the geo-political balance failed, it would open up the country to further Al Qaeda influence.

  An influence that the rest of the world could ill afford.

  Dan reached out and switched the headlights onto a low beam as the light outside began to fade and the last of the sun’s rays spread out across the sky.

  His attention taken by the stunning scene, he turned back to the windscreen and shouted in surprise.

  He stamped on the brake pedal, the back of the SUV sliding sideways at the sudden deceleration.

  Anna jolted forward, straining against her seatbelt at the sudden stop, her head jerking forwards as she was jolted from her sleep.

  As the dust settled around the now stationary vehicle, Anna blinked, and then spun in her seat to face him.

  ‘What happened?’ she demanded, her hair in disarray.

  ‘That,’ said Dan, and pointed towards the front of the vehicle.

  Anna’s eyes followed his hand.

  Only a couple of metres from the limit of the vehicle’s headlights, a sign stood sentinel on a lone post, its message in stark red lettering in both Arabic and English.

  Danger! Mine Field. Do Not Enter.

  Dan felt the tremor begin in his legs and rested his palms on his knees in an effort to disguise his fear.

  It had been several years, but the scars still peppered his chest and back, pale jagged stripes that cut swathes across his sun-tanned skin.

  He swallowed in an attempt to counteract the dryness of his mouth and tried to ignore the prickle of goose bumps on his forearms.

  ‘What do we do?’ said Anna.

  Dan ran his hand across his mouth.

  There was no way in hell he was going to attempt to cross the minefield – it would be suicide.

  Somehow, he had to find another way to cross the border into Morocco.

  He checked his watch.

  It was over eight hours since they’d left the city, and it would be dark soon.

  He shoved the SUV’s transmission into reverse and yanked the steering wheel to a hard right.

  ‘We’ll keep as far away from this boundary as we can,’ he said. ‘The sun’s going to go down within the hour. It’ll be too dangerous to drive by then – we could wander into the minefield by accident.’

  Anna turned in her seat to face him. ‘They’ll be following us by now, won’t they?’

  Dan nodded. ‘I expect so. It’s still too dangerous to carry on, though.’ He hit the brakes. ‘Let’s see if anyone’s within sight.’

  He grabbed the binoculars and opened his door, stepping out onto the running board and turning towards the way they had travelled.

  The flat terrain spread out behind them, affording Dan an uninterrupted view.

  Nothing moved.

  He lowered the binoculars, his mind racing, and then turned and raised them once more, in the direction the vehicle pointed.

  He adjusted the focus.

  ‘That might do,’ he murmured.

  ‘What?’

  He passed the binoculars to Anna and pointed to his one o’clock position. ‘That looks like a low rock ledge,’ he said. ‘We might be able to get the vehicle under it. Try to get our heads down for a few hours.’

  ***

  Dan pulled the black material around his shoulders and stared out over the sandy expanse towards the mine field.

  A shiver wracked his body as old memories surfaced, of improvised explosive devices planted within footsteps of main pedestrian thoroughfares, designed to maim and kill with as much destruction as possible.

  He clenched his fist, bunching the material between his fingers as his jaw tightened, the old demons threatening to surface. He tried to concentrate instead on taking his bearings from the stars, thankful that he’d kept up his navigation skills during the time he’d spent on the boat rather than constantly relying on GPS.

  ‘Dan?’

  He jumped, his right hand falling to the Glock at his hip, before he shook his head and forced himself to focus.

  Anna stood over him, concern etched across her features in the pale moonlight.

  ‘The nightmares are back, aren’t they?’

  Dan exhaled. ‘I’m okay.’

  Anna lowered herself until she was sitting beside him. ‘No. You’re not.’

  ‘It’s just the minefield. It brought back memories.’

  ‘I thought it had,’ she said. She reached out and squeezed his shoulder. ‘You haven’t been the same since you saw the sign.’

  She moved closer, until she could wrap her arm around him, and rested her head on his shoulder.

  Dan shifted and rubbed his cheek on her hair. ‘I didn’t think you’d remember about the nightmares.’

  She sniffed. ‘I was scared at first,’ she said, ‘when you came to stay with us. You towered over me. You were – are – so imposing. But, at night...’ She lifted her head so her eyes met his. ‘You cried out, like you were still in so much pain.’

  ‘Shh,’ said Dan. He traced his fingers over her hair until she lowered her gaze and rested against his shoulder once more.

  He knew she meant well, but now wasn’t the time to start psychoanalysing his memories.

  He had to stay focused, protect Anna, and get them both through whatever faced them the following day.

  ‘I’m okay,’ he said. ‘We can do this.’

  CHAPTER 20

  Dan ran his hand over the dusty tyre tread, then straightened and moved to the next wheel, his eyes assessing the wear and tear the vehicle had suffered the previous day.

  He was surprised how well the SUV was handling the terrain and resolved to maintain their steady progress when they set off once more.

  They’d woken at dawn from fitful sleep, the cold morning air seeping through the extra layers he’d purchased. They each devoured a cereal bar while they leaned against the vehicle, sipping from water bottles, and watched the sun b
egin to rise.

  He glanced over his shoulder to a group of shrubs several metres from where he stood, to see Anna emerge, her hair re-tied into a ponytail.

  ‘Everything okay?’ he said as she drew near.

  ‘Yes, thanks.’ She managed a smile. ‘Not quite like camping in Arizona, though.’ She joined him as he finished checking the vehicle and shielded her eyes from the sunlight as she peered back towards the direction of the minefield. ‘What’s the plan?’

  Dan held up his smartphone. ‘Time to check in.’

  Anna stayed by his side as he hit the speed dial. David answered at the second ringtone.

  ‘Dan?’

  ‘Morning.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Near a minefield about a hundred miles east of Laâyoune,’ said Dan. ‘I’m aiming to find a road that will head north out of the country. Can you have someone meet us over the border?’

  ‘Negative, Dan.’ Mel’s voice came on the line. ‘You’ll need to think of something else. There’s a heavy police presence on the highways at the moment. Seems Galal hasn’t given up yet.’

  ‘I thought that might happen. Damn it.’ Dan kicked a stone at his feet, sending it hurtling over the ground. ‘Right, there have to be manned border posts up and down this route near the berm – we just have to find one we can access without going near the mines. Galal might have the police going round in circles, but maybe we stand a better chance with the army.’

  ‘Do you think that’s possible?’ said David.

  ‘I don’t know. I would imagine most of the border posts are manned from the Moroccan side, but there might be a way through.’

  ‘Dan? That’s going to be impossible,’ said Mel. ‘When the Moroccans built the berm, they laid a minefield the whole length of it. The signs you saw are only the start. And, even if you did manage to get through, there are still barbed wire and electric fences – you’d never get near one of the command posts.’

  Dan exhaled. ‘Okay, Plan B. We keep travelling east anyway, and cross into Algeria.’