by Chris Ryan
‘Where are your digs?’
‘An area to the north-west that’s so far avoided most of the bombing. Rebel areas on the north, west and south sides, though. Hard to get through. But if you want to approach from the east you have to go round the houses.’ He shrugged. ‘Or what’s left of them.’
‘I thought you said dawn was a quiet time.’
‘A quieter time,’ Taff corrected. ‘No such thing as a quiet time in that dump. This Buckingham fella’s a bit of a drip. Can’t understand why you didn’t drop the fucker when you hit land, and report back that he’d been hit by enemy fire.’
Danny blinked. ‘I’ve got a job to do, Taff,’ he said.
‘Ah, you get paid all the same, kiddo, no matter what happens to the spook.’ He suddenly grinned. ‘I’m fucking with you, Danny. Come on, let’s move. The sooner we get you into the city, the sooner you can both sod off home again. Trust me – Homs isn’t a place you want to stick around for too long.’ Another grin. ‘Bit like Hereford, come to think of it,’ he said.
FIFTEEN
Taff was right. It was strangely quiet for a war zone. Somehow that didn’t make it feel safer. More like everyone was holding their breath, waiting to see what would happen next.
Danny didn’t like being stuck in the back of this vehicle, unable to see what was going on around him, to identify threats and stamp on them before they got the better of them. But he had to admit that Taff’s idea of having disgruntled Syrian soldiers drive them was a good one. Classic Taff. Better to avoid a fight than start one. They entered the city without hindrance. Even though they were travelling through high-risk areas, it sounded calm outside.
It wasn’t calm in Danny’s head, though. Far from it. In the hours that had passed since he and Buckingham had left the culvert, he’d been too busy trying to keep them both alive to reflect hard on their situation. Now the stark reality came crashing home. Three men down, within hours of entering the country. He winced as he thought of the look on Jack’s face before he plugged him, and horrific images passed through his mind of the indignities the others would be suffering – if they were still alive. The Syrian secret police were known to administer beatings that many of their victims didn’t survive. He frowned. It was one of the first rules of the Regiment: you look after your mates. He’d failed to do that. Not a good feeling.
But there was something else bothering him too. The conversation he’d had with Buckingham just before the Syrian soldier had disturbed them in the culvert was a shadow in a corner of his mind. He couldn’t get it out of his head. What was it Buckingham had said? ‘Must have been very hard for your brother, to see your mother shot like that.’ But his mother hadn’t been shot. She’d died in childbirth, shortly after his arrival. At least, that was what he’d always been told.
Or had he?
He tried to think back. Of course, those exact conversations were now gone from his memory. But he knew this: whenever the subject of his mum had come up, his dad had always – always – changed the subject. Danny thought he understood why. He knew his dad remembered nothing of his life before he was wounded in action.
He glanced over at Taff, whose back was against the wall of the truck, his eyes closed. Taff never changed, and as Danny stared at him he felt a familiar feeling of affection. As he stared, a long-forgotten memory rose in his mind. Danny couldn’t have been more than ten, and Taff was making one of his irregular visits to their little house in Hereford. He was deeply tanned and had mentioned he’d just come back from Africa. Dad had taken himself off to the toilet – a half-hour operation at the best of times – and Danny had walked into the sitting room to find Taff holding the framed picture of his mum that always sat on the TV. He’d watched Taff for about thirty seconds before Taff noticed him and returned the picture to its place.
‘Beautiful woman, your mum, kiddo,’ he’d said. ‘Beautiful woman.’ There had been a bitter, self-mocking look in his eyes, and even as a young boy Danny had realised something: that Taff’s feelings for his mum ran deeper than he could ever say. In the years that followed, Danny had tried to question Taff about her on the frequent occasions when they’d been alone together. But, like his dad, Taff had always found a way to change the subject.
A noise shook Danny from his thoughts. Gunfire. A single round. Not too close, but probably within 100 metres of their position. Taff’s eyes sprung open, and Skinner suddenly looked more alert.
‘Sniper fire,’ Taff said, seeing Danny’s quizzical look. ‘Grows worse as the day gets on.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Hard to say. Government forces sometimes, picking off anybody they think looks suspicious. It could just be a regular Homs citizen, if that’s what you want to call them. Not many of them left, but there are some people who actually like the civil war as it gives them a chance to go looting. Or it could be one of the organised rebel factions. Some of them are OK, some of them are total cunts.’
‘What about this Asu guy, the one you’ve been supplying the training package to?’
Taff snorted. ‘He’s the worst of them, kiddo. Thinks he’s Che Gue-fucking-vara. If I wasn’t being paid to help the fucker, I’d be more than happy to give him one behind the ear.’ He glanced at Buckingham, who just stared straight ahead as though he hadn’t heard any of the conversation.
‘Why, what’s wrong with him?’
‘Thinks he’s the cat’s fucking pyjamas. You’ll see this afternoon. He’s expecting us at his current HQ.’
‘What about his brother Sorgen? You know him?’
‘Only by reputation. I do know that Asu would start shitting rocks if he knew you were planning to make contact. Fucking hate each other. No brotherly love lost there. Something you’d know about, I suppose, kiddo.’
‘I don’t hate Kyle.’
‘Course not,’ Taff said blandly.
Before Danny could reply, the vehicle came to a halt. There was a knocking on the cab. ‘We’re here,’ said Taff. ‘Let’s get out.’
Skinner – who hadn’t spoken since they left the barn – opened the back of the truck and jumped out without a word. Taff went next, then Danny, then Buckingham.
They found themselves in a rectangular compound, about thirty metres by twenty, surrounded by a solid stone wall five metres high and topped with barbed wire. As Danny looked around, he was aware of Skinner, Hector and De Fries disappearing into the adjoining house. The gate through which the two trucks had driven was a thick sheet of metal attached to runners on the wall to one side. A Syrian kid – he looked about seventeen – was hurriedly sliding the gate shut. It clanged to, and he used a thick chain and a sturdy padlock to fasten it. Taff nodded in the kid’s direction. ‘Local,’ he said. ‘We throw them a few scraps to cook our meals, do our washing. It’s peanuts, but more than they’d get anywhere else.’
The trucks had parked in the centre of the compound. Next to them were two Land Rovers. Along the right-hand wall were three battered old saloon cars. Another Syrian kid was sitting in the driver’s seat of one of them, pumping the accelerator. ‘We turn them over twice a day,’ Taff said, ‘to make sure they’re running properly. If the bombardment hits this part of town, they’re our ticket out of here. They’re not up to much, but you can only shit with the arse you’ve got. Talking of which . . .’
Buckingham was approaching. He looked at them suspiciously, as if he thought they’d been talking about him.
‘Come on, pretty boy,’ Taff said. ‘I’ll show you round.’
Facing the compound was a two-storey house built of grey concrete. Although Taff had said they’d managed to avoid the worst of the bombardment, the building was not entirely unscathed. A deep crack ran up the front, and the left side was caked in thick soot.
‘Fire?’ Danny asked.
‘Before we got here. That’s why it was deserted.’
‘What if the people who own it come back?’ Buckingham asked.
‘Trust me. Whoever used to live here, they’ve left for
good. Took everything. They’ll have buggered off to Turkey or Lebanon by now, like half of Homs. Or they’ll be stuck in one of those IDP camps up near the coast. Come on.’ He led them through the main door into a large, open-plan room that seemed to take up half of the ground floor. In one corner of the room was an old CRT television, with a portable aerial hanging from the wall behind it. Al-Jazeera news was on, but the sound was down. The concrete floor was covered with enormous carpets that had no doubt once been brightly coloured but were now dull and dusty. The fire had not damaged this room, but everything in it seemed ingrained with an overpowering stench of smoke.
Along one wall was a wooden rack about two metres wide. Hanging from it was a selection of weapons. Five AKs, two Colt Commandos, even a couple of MP5s. On the floor beneath this armoury were three thin mattresses, all occupied by sleeping Syrians – Taff’s cheap labour, Danny assumed. Against the far wall were two windows, both of them boarded up with thick planks of wood bolted to the concrete on either side. Consequently there was very little light in here, but Danny did notice that in each window there was a gap of about an inch between two of the planks – wide enough to accommodate the barrels of any of the weapons on the wall. Murder holes.
Under the windows were more mattresses, and more sleeping Syrians in dirty jeans and sleeveless vests. The carpet nearest them was littered with cigarette packets and empty Pepsi bottles. The young men were clearly dog-tired – they didn’t even stir as Taff, Danny and Buckingham passed through. It crossed Danny’s mind that Taff was getting his money’s worth out of these locals.
Along the left-hand wall was a door, also boarded up. Taff pointed at it. ‘Best to keep out of there. That half of the building’s structurally unsound because of the fire.’ Beyond the door was an open staircase, and they followed Taff up it.
They came to a corridor with five doors off it. The first led to a bathroom, of sorts. The door was open, and as they passed Danny saw – and smelled – that it wasn’t somewhere you would want to spend much time. Taff led them through the second door, into a long room some eight metres by five. In the far wall was a big window, two metres wide and a bit taller. There was no glass in the pane, but there were iron bars on the inside and thick wire mesh on the outside. At the bottom right, two of the iron bars had been cut and bent up and the mesh folded back. Pointing through this gap was the barrel of a GPMG, its body propped up by a bipod on the floor. Next to the gimpy were two ancient air-con units; their fans made a grating, grinding noise as they turned. They were powered by an old generator in the centre of the room, from which power cables spread out like spider legs, several leading out of the room to other parts of the house. The generator added a low hum to the noise of the air-con, and a fug of burning fuel. Bizarrely, to the right of the door was a chintzy old armchair, upholstered in a threadbare fabric with a red and beige floral pattern. Hector was slouched in the armchair, his M16 propped up next to him, eating cold Heinz baked beans from the tin. He barely acknowledged the others as they entered the room.
‘It’s not much,’ Taff said dryly, ‘but it’s home.’
The windows of the adjoining room were boarded up like the ones downstairs. Morning light blazed through the murder hole, slicing across the darkness of the room. By this light, Danny could make out a couple of stained, thin mattresses below the window and, hanging at an angle on the wall, a photograph of what was presumably some local religious figure with a pink garland round his neck. ‘You can bunk down here,’ Taff told them. ‘Make yourself at home.’
‘I need to see the rest of the gaff,’ Danny said. ‘Work out the layout, in case we come under attack.’
Taff smiled. ‘Cautious as ever,’ he said. ‘Help yourself. I’ll be outside.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s 09.00 hrs,’ he said. ‘Asu’s expecting us at midday. We leave in two hours.’
He left them to it.
Buckingham was silent. Danny could practically feel the waves of anxiety pumping off the guy. He walked farther into the room and pulled the mattresses away from the wall. ‘What are you doing?’ asked Buckingham.
‘A few planks of wood won’t be much protection against mortar fire,’ Danny said. ‘Stay in here. Get some kip if you want. Just don’t go near the window.’
‘But it’s quiet outside.’
‘Fine,’ Danny said. ‘Go near the window. I’ll post the bits of you back home.’
‘I don’t much like your tone, old sport.’
‘Just get some sleep. Don’t move without checking with me.’
Danny left the room and walked back down the corridor towards the stairs, passing the room with the generator and the gimpy on the right. Hector was no longer sitting in the floral armchair, but was standing by one of the air-con units, his trousers flapping slightly in the breeze from its fan. Skinner had joined him. He had his back to Danny, who could make out more tattooed skin at the nape of his neck. Hector was handing him something, but froze when, looking over Skinner’s shoulder, he saw Danny in the doorway. Slowly, Skinner turned to look at Danny, who saw what was in his hands: a wad of notes, perhaps half an inch thick. Dirty, crumpled, used notes. US dollars, by the look of them. Skinner made no attempt to hide the money. Instead he casually shoved the notes into the back pocket of his camouflage trousers. He shot Danny a hostile look. Hector did the same. There were a few seconds of tense stand-off, then Danny shrugged. ‘Catch you later, lads,’ he said, before turning his back on them and making for the stairs. What was it Saunders had said to him? ‘There’s always the chance to earn a little extra while you’re out there.’ Looked like Hector and Skinner had some little sideline going. Fine. That was their business. Besides, he had other things on his mind.
He found Taff sitting with his back to the house, his legs crossed, stripping down one of his Colt Commandos. Danny had never been in a war zone with Taff. With his craggy, weather-worn face, he looked more at home here than Danny had ever seen him. Part of the furniture. As Danny sat down beside him on the dirty ground, Taff nodded briefly before turning back to his weapon. The sun was already hot, and made Danny’s skin smart. He removed his Sig from his chest rig and went through the motions of releasing the magazine and stripping down the handgun. But his thoughts weren’t really on the weapon. There were questions in his head that he didn’t quite know how to ask.
‘What’s eating you, kiddo?’ Taff said without looking up from the Colt.
Nothing, Danny almost replied. No point hiding anything from Taff, though. He could always tell when something was wrong.
‘I lost the guys,’ he said. ‘They were my responsibility and I lost them. Guess I’ll just have to live with it.’
Taff lowered his weapon and looked across the compound. ‘Did I ever tell you about Belfast?’ he asked.
Danny shook his head.
‘That sounds about right. I don’t tell many people.’ He picked up the assault rifle again and resumed working on it. ‘We had this tout, gave us the address of a Provo safe house. I headed up a unit to raid the fuckers. We had a Rupert in the car, supposed to stay there. Decided not to. Fuck knows why. M60 shot him dead from a bedroom window as he was running down the street. Perhaps I could have stopped it happening. Perhaps not.’
There was a pause. ‘Do you still think about him?’ Danny asked.
Taff shrugged. ‘Sure. But he was SAS. He knew what he was doing.’ He sniffed. ‘I’m sorry he bought it. I watched them plant him, and I shook his family’s hands, said all the things you’re supposed to say. But I don’t feel responsible.’ He gave Danny a piercing look. ‘Nor should you. You’re a good kid, Danny, but you think about things too much. What was the name of the lad who died?’
‘Jack.’
‘Well, if Jack was here now and it was you who’d been killed, do you reckon he’d be sitting having a DMC with me?’
Danny shook his head. Somehow Taff always knew the right thing to say. Danny leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. ‘There’s something else,�
� he said.
‘Fire away, kiddo.’ Taff sounded amused, like he was indulging a favourite nephew.
‘When we were dug in,’ Danny said, ‘in that culvert, Buckingham let something slip. Something about my mum. I reckon he’d seen some file or something. I don’t know.’
Taff didn’t look up. He removed the magazine from his personal weapon. ‘What about her?’ Suddenly he didn’t sound quite so light-hearted. Tense, almost. Danny opened his eyes and looked at him. Taff failed to meet his gaze.
‘Something about her being shot.’
Taff’s face remained calm, but Danny, who knew it so well, detected a slight tightening around the eyes. Taff remained silent for a full thirty seconds. ‘Not going to lie to you, kiddo,’ he said eventually. ‘You better be sure you want to know the answers, before you start asking the questions.’
‘Jesus, Taff . . .’
A clunk from the Colt as Taff clicked the butt stock from the main body. Taff showed no outward sign of emotion as he spoke, his voice almost monotone.
‘Your ma was Northern Irish. Her family didn’t have time for sectarianism, but your dad was British Army. Parachute Regiment, to make matters worse. They always knew they were a target. Had to be careful.’
‘But what—?’
Taff held up one hand to silence Danny. He appeared to be gathering his thoughts before speaking again. ‘It happened the day you were born. You were just a couple of hours old. An IRA gunman got into the hospital dressed as a porter. Shot your mum. Tried to kill your dad.’ He shrugged, as if that was all he had to say.
Danny felt his guts tighten. ‘Who was it?’ he asked.
‘If I knew that,’ Taff said, ‘he’d be dead. I tried to find out. Started going through the Regiment’s list of known Provo operatives. Chased them down, made them squeal. No one knew anything. Done three of them before the Regiment stopped me. Awarded me with an RTU for trying to find out who did it. Suppose I don’t blame them.’
Taff stared into the distance. Danny sat in shocked silence, trying to absorb this information, this rewriting of the story of his life.
