by Andy McNab
Things were suddenly getting technical, thought Ethan, and he doubled his effort to listen in and take note of every detail.
Gabe continued: ‘If we can get to the server, we can get to Mr X’s customer list. And with that kind of information in our hands we could radically improve the security of this country and its people.’
Despite Gabe’s sudden patriotic turn, Ethan could see what he was getting at. Information like that which he had described would be priceless.
Natalya said, ‘So we kill two birds with one stone: the intel on this contact list will take you closer to Mr X, and we save the lives of the boys fighting in cages, yes?’
‘Your job is to get the intel,’ said Gabe. ‘As for rescuing anyone, that’s already taken care of. Once you’ve completed your job, UKSF are to be sent in. They have already been briefed accordingly.’
‘UKSF?’ asked Ethan.
‘United Kingdom Special Forces,’ said Luke. ‘General term to cover the SAS and SBS.’
‘Hang on, Gabe,’ said Johnny. ‘There’s something I don’t really understand. How did you get in there to pick the boy up first? How come you guys got to him before the police, particularly as it was them who got the phone call from the poor sod who found that boy in the photograph? That doesn’t make any sense. What is it you’re not telling us?’
Ethan saw Gabe glance at Sam.
‘Told you they’d want to know everything,’ said Sam. ‘That’s why I picked them. Don’t miss a thing. You’re going to have to tell them. They should know, anyway.’
Gabe looked back at the team. ‘He was working for one of my other teams, undercover, living as a homeless kid, doing a grey op to try and gather intel on a drugs ring, trace suppliers. It had nothing at all to do with the cage-fighting operation at all. It was just luck that we stumbled on this.’
‘Not exactly lucky for him though, was it?’ said Johnny.
Ethan was astonished by Gabe’s revelation, and judging by the silence that followed Johnny’s comment, it was obvious that the rest of the team felt the same way. But what really hit home for Ethan was that whoever the boy was, he’d been doing the same kind of work they had all been trained for. His cover story was probably different – something worlds apart from skydiving – but it was the same world; he been sent in to do a job for Gabe, something no one else was qualified or suitable for. And it had gone wrong. Horribly, catastrophically wrong. And now he was dead.
Gabe spoke. ‘One moment he was there; the next moment he’d gone,’ he said, his voice quieter. ‘We lost all trace of him. He just vanished. Then, some months later, details of a lad matching his description being found on a beach flashed up on our system.’
Ethan saw Kat look up at Gabe. ‘How could you let this happen? To go undercover he must’ve trusted you, Gabe. What happened? Why didn’t you look after him better?’
‘We did, to the best of our abilities,’ said Gabe.
Kat bit back with, ‘Well, it doesn’t exactly make me feel safe. You going to allow the same thing to happen to us? Are we as expendable?’
‘I never said he was expendable.’
‘What else are we to think? He’s dead, Gabe, for God’s sake!’
Sam raised a hand. Kat fell quiet, though Ethan could see she was finding it hard to hold back.
‘Right,’ said Sam. ‘Listen up and listen good. Everything you’ve heard is top-secret. The reason you’re being called in on this is because I think you’re Gabe’s best chance of nailing the bastard responsible. And that means not just stopping more lads disappearing and getting kicked to death, but putting a serious hole in the illegal arms trade. So let’s tell you a bit more about the mysterious Mr X.’
Gabe said, ‘The reason we call him Mr X is because that’s what he calls himself. His real name is unknown. He seems to like the air of mystery it gives him. It’s also a little theatrical.’
‘And Mr X likes a bit of theatre,’ added Sam. ‘His trademark is the black cane he carries, topped with a silver ball. He’s in his fifties, about my height, and as English as Earl Grey tea. But that’s really about all we know as regards looks. What photographs we do have of him are blurred at best. He’s kept himself hidden from prying eyes for years, is an expert at it.’
‘And that’s because he pays serious cash for the best in the business,’ said Sam. ‘The man has his own private army to protect him and to run his operations. The people he employs are all ex-forces, mercenaries. Serious customers who know what they’re doing and are very, very good at it. Take him, for example.’
He handed out a photograph of a man walking down a nondescript street. Although solidly built and – if you looked closely – with what appeared to be a few scars on his face, he didn’t stand out.
‘Ex-Israeli special forces. Kicked out for gross misconduct. Disappeared soon after. Now he works for our man. He’s a weapons specialist, which ties in well with the arms dealing. He’s also an expert in CQC – close quarter combat – a Krav Maga expert and general all-round nasty bastard. Which makes us think he’s probably got something to do with the cage fighting.’
Luke asked, ‘How long has the cage fighting been going on? Do you know how many others have been killed?’
‘In all honesty,’ said Gabe, ‘we haven’t a clue. We didn’t even know about it until our boy turned up on the beach. Could be months, could be years.’
‘Either way,’ said Sam, ‘we need to bring it down as soon as we can.’
‘We get this Mr X,’ continued Gabe, ‘the effect will be global. Do not underestimate the importance of bringing him down.’
‘If you need any more convincing,’ said Sam, and he picked up the photograph of the lad who’d been washed up on the beach, ‘think on this: he’s no different to any of you. He was selected, just like all of you here, because he had particular skills that made him suitable for jobs few others could do. He’s paid the ultimate price. You owe it to him to find out what happened and help bring down those responsible.’
Once more, Ethan found a question pushing itself to the front of his mind. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘But why us, and what exactly is it you’re asking us to do?’
13
‘This is what’s going to happen,’ said Gabe, and the team all leaned in to listen.
Ethan noticed the atmosphere in the room change. No longer were the team simply being given information. They were now involved; their full attention was now with Gabe and Sam.
‘Of the team, only Ethan and Johnny match the profile of those being snatched.’
‘So no girls have been taken?’ asked Natalya.
‘On the information we’ve so far collected, no, and the boys taken are all young, younger than Luke,’ said Gabe.
Ethan felt a tap on his shoulder and found Johnny with a coin in his hand.
‘Flip for it?’
The coin went skyward, but Sam caught it before it hit the deck.
‘It’s you, Johnny. Ethan’s still too new to all this. You’ve had a lot more training. It’s that simple.’
‘Why not a professional soldier?’ asked Natalya.
‘Because a professional soldier would stand out,’ said Sam, ‘particularly one of the right age. He wouldn’t pass for a homeless kid; too smart, too fit. A trooper from the Regiment would be too old. Anyone else would look awkward, unconvincing. You have to trust my judgement.’
Ethan watched Johnny sit back in his chair, obviously accepting what Sam had said.
‘And this,’ said Gabe, ‘is how it’s going to happen. Johnny will go undercover as a homeless teenager,’ he explained. ‘We know the area our boy was snatched from very well, as he’d been working the streets there for some time. And we’ve identified that a number of others around his age have also disappeared from the same place in the past year. Which is chilling, to say the least.’
‘So my aim is to be snatched deliberately, right?’ said Johnny, sounding a little disbelieving. ‘Which means you want me to agree to be put in a pos
ition where I’m at risk of ending up like your boy in the photograph.’
‘That sounds like suicide,’ said Kat.
Gabe’s face didn’t flicker any degree of emotion. ‘It’s the only way for us to get in. We’ll have proper surveillance. You will be fitted with a tracking device in your teeth: completely undetectable. We’re not going to lose you, I promise.’
At that moment, Kat said, ‘Did you say the same to the boy in the picture?’
Ethan expected Gabe to respond, but instead all he did was send a quick flick of his eyes at Kat then continue with his explanation.
‘Assuming this pays off and you do get snatched, Johnny,’ he said, ‘the rest of the team will follow, pinpoint the location, effect a covert entry, find the server, grab the intel on the arms deals and contacts, extract the undercover operator, then get the hell out.’
‘Why not UKSF?’ asked Ethan. ‘Wouldn’t they be better at the extraction?’
He understood the reason for sending one of them in undercover as they’d blend in better than a trained soldier, but what was the point of sending them all in as follow-up?
‘Because not only are we able to drop you into very inaccessible places – which we think this might be – but your very existence is, to be frank, above top-secret,’ said Gabe. ‘What you do is known only to a handful of people. We cannot allow knowledge of who you are and what you do to get out. The repercussions could be severe.’
‘And this is what you’re trained for; this is exactly the sort of covert operation where we need to operate more or less invisibly,’ said Sam.
‘So we do all this before the cavalry arrives,’ said Johnny. ‘Just like that?’
‘Yes,’ said Gabe. ‘Just like that. And as soon as we know the intel is out and you’re clear, we send in UKSF. They’ll deal with freeing the boys who’ve been abducted, and will apprehend any x-rays. We did think about not sending the rest of the team in, just having Johnny pulled out with the rest of the abductees. But the risk, we think, is too high. There’s a chance the evidence could be destroyed in the process or the intel not found. Better to manage it ourselves before extreme force is used.’
‘And let’s not forget,’ said Sam, ‘that the point of this op is that you’re all involved in making sure that you, Johnny, don’t end up in that cage. Understood?’
Johnny nodded.
‘Good,’ said Sam. ‘Now, as I’m sure you all know, for an op like this, I’d usually want at least three weeks in the hangar for build-up training. Not just to revise the skills you’ve already got, but to do the specifics, the skills-to-task required to do what’s being asked of you on this job.’
‘Hangar?’ asked Ethan. ‘You mean we’ll be training for this back at FreeFall?’ He didn’t think that was a great idea; surely it would be next to impossible to keep their preparation for the job separate from what FreeFall was actually all about: skydiving as a leisure activity.
Sam said, ‘Hangar’s a generic term, Ethan. It basically means anywhere we go to isolate a team for build-up training. Most times it is a hangar – somewhere large enough for a team to live in and do their training, shut off from the outside world. There’s an area near Hereford the Regiment use for this kind of stuff.’
‘So where are we going?’ asked Kat.
‘It’s a secure location close to where Gabe’s lad was snatched. The camp you’ve been at until now has already been stripped. Everything’s been prepared for your arrival.’
‘Sounds like you assumed we’d just say yes and agree to do the job,’ said Johnny.
‘No,’ said Sam. ‘I expect you to do as you’re told.’
‘So how long have we got?’ asked Luke. ‘Or do we not want to know?’
‘Five days,’ said Sam, ‘and then Johnny will be going out on the street. And you all need to be clear by that point on exactly what you’re doing. Or before you know it, he’ll be dead.’
The team were taken by helicopter from where Gabe had briefed them to the so-called hangar. The hangar was all function, no style. Its location wasn’t on any map.
Sam gave Johnny his cover story so that he could get used to it well enough for it to become second nature when he finally went operational, and he was ordered to refrain from washing and to stay in the same clothes from that point on. As Sam had explained, for Johnny to convince as a boy living on the street he had to look and smell the part; deodorant and a close shave were a dead giveaway. Much to everyone’s relief, Johnny was given his own room.
The next day started very early as Sam first debriefed each of the team in turn on the interrogation training exercise they’d just completed. Luke was already drinking tea at the kitchen table when Ethan returned from his debriefing. ‘How’d it go?’ asked Luke.
‘OK, I guess,’ Ethan said. ‘But I thought I’d totally messed up. I did what Mal told us, but I still reacted.’
‘I heard,’ said Luke. ‘But we all broke down in our own way.’
Ethan was amazed to hear this; he’d thought he was the only one who’d lost the plot. ‘What happened to you?’
‘Well, I didn’t nut one of the interrogators’ – Luke smiled – ‘though I wish I had.’
Ethan laughed.
‘Anyway,’ said Luke, ‘you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, Ethan. The point of the exercise is that we’re broken; it forces us to look at ourselves differently, to understand better our own frailties. The exercise only ends when you finally crack.’
Ethan sat up at this. ‘You mean we had to fail to pass? That’s brutal!’
‘It’s not, actually,’ said Luke. ‘Should any of us be in that situation for real we’ll know not just what to expect, but why we cracked during the exercise. That way, there’s less chance of us giving up should the worst ever happen.’
Luke stood up to stretch then turned back to Ethan and said, ‘Just so you know, you lasted longer than any of us. Something to be proud of, that.’
As soon as the rest of the team had completed their debriefing, Sam moved on to the job in hand.
They gathered round a kind of street map. Except on this one Ethan saw no street names and it had been cut into four sections, like quarters of a very badly baked pie, and colour-coded clockwise green, yellow, red and blue. Every road junction had a number.
‘This,’ said Sam, as Ethan tried to understand what he was looking at, or what use it could be, ‘is the area of streets and alleys Johnny will be working.’
‘But where are the street names?’ asked Ethan. ‘How are we supposed to know where any of us are if we’re out following him?’
‘Street names are a pain in the arse,’ said Sam. ‘Colours and numbers are clearer and easier to learn and understand.’
Ethan knew he didn’t look convinced.
‘It’s simple, really,’ said Sam. ‘You all need to know this map off by heart. If you have road names to remember, it would take you for ever to get it right. And, when I call through and tell you to go from say Red One to Yellow Three, you’ll all know what I’m talking about.’
He went on, ‘We’ll be using dead letter drops, or DLBs.’ He then pointed at four of the numbered junctions, one in each coloured quarter of the map, and handed out photographs, all showing a bin next to a bench at four different locations. ‘Johnny, if you’ve left something at a DLB, you’ll make a mark on one of these bins, OK?’
‘So we won’t be using live drops?’ asked Luke.
Sam shook his head. ‘We want to avoid the risk of actually meeting in person and compromising the op.’
Sam handed out a further four photographs. ‘These are the actual DLBs,’ he said. Each photograph showed a location Johnny could access with little trouble, one of which was a hole in a tree down an alley.
Luke asked, ‘Is that a DLB or where Johnny will be dossing down?’
Johnny didn’t laugh quite as enthusiastically as the rest of the team.
‘As Johnny’s going to be wearing a tracking device,’ said Sam, ‘we’re n
ot going to have you lot following him night and day. Doesn’t matter how good you think you are at tracking someone without getting pinged, if you’re seen regularly in an area, it could arouse suspicion. We don’t know who we’re dealing with here. They could be monitoring the area more than we know and we can’t risk it.’
‘So what will we be doing?’ asked Natalya.
‘Natalya, I need you to put Johnny through some serious training for a start,’ said Sam. ‘Time for you to pass on some of your Krav Maga expertise. I’ve brought out dummy weapons for you. He’s got plenty of CQC experience, but I want his skills honed for obvious reasons.’
‘Just in case of what?’ asked Johnny, even though they all knew the answer.
‘Worst-case scenario; we always prepare for it,’ said Sam. ‘If you get snatched and we lose you for a while, you could end up wherever these kids have been taken without any backup, at least until we trace you again. We don’t want you there with no way of protecting yourself.’
‘With my training you will be OK,’ said Natalya. ‘You will be well-prepared!’
Ethan saw in that calm face of hers a fire suddenly flare in her eyes. She looked so slight, yet after what he’d seen back at the farmhouse during that first exercise he knew she could quite literally punch above her weight.
‘And the rest of us?’ asked Luke. ‘I’m assuming we’re not here simply to make the tea.’
‘Assuming Johnny gets snatched and we trace him to the cage-fighting operation, Kat is going to be the one to sort the intel and not only download everything Gabe’s after from the server, but screw the system with whatever virus we can get hold of. She’s always the one to trust if there’s anything to do with computers.’
Ethan said to Kat, ‘So you’re a computer geek as well as a world-class skydiver? I never knew that!’
