Masters of War

by Chris Ryan

  A minute passed.

  ‘Why didn’t he finish my dad off ?’ Danny asked quietly.

  ‘He got disturbed by the hospital staff. Spooked, I guess. And then I turned up. Your dad was in a bad way. I didn’t think he’d make it. As for your mum—’ Taff broke off, a pained look on his face. ‘Perhaps it was just as well he lost his memory. It wasn’t a sight you want to remember.’ For the first time since the conversation had started, he gave Danny a direct look. ‘Your brother wasn’t so lucky. He saw it all. He doesn’t remember the details, but . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Next time you wonder why he went off the rails, remember what he went through. No kid should have to see that.’

  ‘No kid should attack his father.’

  ‘He’s fucked up, Danny. Nobody’s saying he isn’t.’

  ‘Why did you never tell me?’ Danny’s shock was rapidly turning to hot anger.

  ‘It was your dad’s decision. He saw what was happening to Kyle. He didn’t want you to get messed up in the head too.’ Taff sniffed. ‘There’s other reasons, of course.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Special Branch kept names out of it. Just a random sectarian killing.’

  ‘Plus they looked like fucking idiots not having caught the bastard,’ Danny retorted.

  ‘RUC found his scrubs on the hospital perimeter,’ Taff said. ‘Bloodstained.’

  ‘Great,’ Danny snapped. ‘Give them a medal.’

  ‘They did their best, kiddo. Whoever did the hit just vanished.’

  Silence returned. It was broken by a sniper round somewhere in the distance. The Syrian kids in the compound – three of them – spun round in alarm. Danny didn’t even flinch. He was sweating profusely, and not just because of the sun. His mind was a riot of emotions. Part of him was furious with Taff for never having told him any of this. Part of him understood. And part of him – by far the greater part – felt weighed down by a grim determination.

  ‘I’ll find him,’ he told Taff. ‘I don’t care what it takes.’

  Taff reassembled the remaining pieces of the rifle, minus the magazine. He cocked and fired it several times to check all the moving parts were working, then reinserted a full mag, cocked it and engaged the safety switch.

  ‘Tell me when you do,’ he said. ‘I’ll be right there.’ He looked at Danny. ‘I always knew you’d find out one day, kiddo. But it was never the right time to tell you. I’m sorry.’

  He stood up and made to carry the Colt back inside.

  ‘Taff,’ Danny called him back.

  His old friend stopped and turned to look at him.

  ‘What was she like?’ Danny asked. ‘My mum.’

  Taff paused. A strange look crossed his face – the same expression Danny had seen all those years ago when he’d caught Taff gazing at his mother’s photograph. ‘She was the best lass I ever knew,’ Taff said quietly.

  He turned once more and strode indoors, leaving Danny alone with his troubled thoughts.

  SIXTEEN

  They were due to leave at 11.00 hrs. Taff and his team started making preparations a good forty-five minutes before that.

  Hector checked over the Land Rovers. They might be relying on Syrian nationals to drive them, but he obviously didn’t intend to leave the maintenance to anybody else: their vehicles were too important for that. Then he lugged extra jerrycans of fuel into the backs of the Land Rovers and topped up the water levels from a plastic bottle. Skinner and De Fries took care of the weaponry. They loaded up the Colt Commandos and MP5s, along with extra ammo packs. It occurred to Danny that he hadn’t heard De Fries utter a single word since they’d met. Taff had told him that he’d been in the Dutch SF, as if that explained his silence. He had a flat nose and a deeply cleft chin – ugly bastard, but he wasn’t being hired for his looks. Taff himself crouched in the corner of the compound with a map of Homs spread out in front of him, their two Syrian drivers by his side. He was quietly explaining the route they would take and – Danny had no doubt – a couple of alternatives in case things went to shit. Danny would acquaint himself with their routes once they were finalised. Meanwhile he went up to find Buckingham.

  Danny was pleased they were about to move. It gave him something else to think about after his conversation with Taff. He was glad to have the opportunity to focus on what he was here to do. As he crossed the ground-floor room he saw that the Syrian kids who’d previously been sleeping had woken up. They watched him with bleary-eyed suspicion, but none of them spoke as he headed for the stairs. He found Buckingham where he’d left him. He had undone his shirt to reveal a smooth-skinned torso and, to Danny’s surprise, a leather pouch strapped round his waist. He’d unzipped the pouch and was pulling a mobile phone and a lozenge-shaped device from it as Danny entered the room.

  ‘You should have told me you had a phone,’ Danny said.

  ‘No SIM card,’ he said, with no hint of his previous peevishness. ‘Just a few numbers in the momory, in case of emergency, you know.’

  ‘You can still be tracked.’

  Buckingham waved away the objection. ‘Wanted to have a word before we left. I’ll be talking to Asu privately when we get there. No need for you to be in attendance.’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot, Buckingham. He’s not your fucking granddad. I’ve met people like him. He’d stick a knife in you without even thinking about it.’

  ‘I’ll take my chances, old sport. Make yourself scarce when I give you the nod, eh?’

  Danny felt a sudden rush of anger. He’d lost three men and now this twat was playing games. He found himself bearing down on the spook, grabbing him by the neck and thrusting him up against the wall. ‘What the hell’s going on with you, Buckingham?’ he hissed. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

  ‘For God’s sake, let go of me.’

  ‘Not till I know what you’re hiding. Why don’t you want me in on the RV?’

  Buckingham’s face was turning red, and Danny could feel the blood in his neck pumping a little harder. He tightened his grip.

  ‘If I’m to persuade him to open a line of communication with Sorgen,’ Buckingham croaked, ‘I’ll need to be extremely diplomatic. I hardly think a heavily armed SAS man at my shoulder will send quite the right signals, do you?’

  The two men stared at each other, Danny’s eyes narrow, Buckingham’s bulging. They stayed like that for five seconds, before Danny released him in disgust.

  ‘What the hell are you playing at?’ Buckingham hissed.

  ‘Forget it,’ Danny told him. Maybe the guy’s explanation made sense. Maybe.

  ‘I need to give you this,’ Buckingham said. He handed over the lozenge-shaped device. It was no bigger than a thumbnail and resembled a three-volt battery. He noticed Danny’s dangerous look and raised both palms in a gesture that approached – but was not quite – an apology. ‘Should have mentioned it before. They call it an infinity device, apparently. I’m a bit of a duffer when it comes to all this.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Danny replied. ‘You should have mentioned it before.’ He examined the device a little closer. ‘What does it do?’

  ‘Records conversations. Voice activated. Clever thing is, it contains a powered micro-SIM, which means one can call into it from any phone in the world and listen to what it’s recorded. Rather like a portable answering machine.’

  Danny looked at the device, then at Buckingham. For a self-proclaimed duffer, he seemed to know a lot about it. ‘And?’

  ‘Once I’ve finished my conversation with Asu, I’d like you to plant it on his rifle. I’m told he carries it everywhere. Can’t be too careful, and it would be jolly good to know what he’s saying behind our backs.’

  Danny examined the infinity device again. ‘It’s dangerous,’ he said. ‘If he’s any kind of soldier at all he won’t let me in spitting distance of his personal weapon.’

  ‘Then you’ll just have to be inventive, won’t you?’

  ‘I still don’t like it.’
/>
  ‘I didn’t ask you to like it,’ Buckingham said, closing his eyes to indicate that Danny was trying his patience. ‘I asked you to do it. Be a good chap and stop looking for problems, would you?’ He pointedly rubbed his neck where Danny had grabbed it. ‘Shall we go?’

  He pushed past Danny, out into the corridor. Danny touched the device against the strap of his watch. Highly magnetic. A cinch to secrete, but why hadn’t Buckingham mentioned it before? What else was he keeping from him? He took a quick inventory of his gear. M4, Sig, extra rounds, grenades, med pack. Everything was in order. Except, of course, it wasn’t. He was three men down. He was also acutely aware that his and Buckingham’s safety depended on Taff, his men and a bunch of Syrian locals he didn’t know from Adam. He’d trust Taff with his life, but he wouldn’t trust Skinner, Hector or De Fries with the steam off his piss. He shook his head, put the infinity device in his pocket and headed back downstairs.

  The Land Rovers’ engines were running and the Syrian drivers were ready to move off. Taff shouted a word in Arabic and one of the local kids scurried over to open the gate. Squinting through the sunlight, Danny caught sight of the road outside – potholed and rubble-strewn. A couple of kids kicking a ball about stopped to look in through the gate. Danny kept one eye on them as he ushered Buckingham into the back of one of the Land Rovers. Maybe it was a throwback from Afghan, but just because they were kids, it didn’t mean they were harmless. They just continued to stare, though, and seconds later they were moving away.

  Even though they couldn’t see outside, it was clear that the streets they were travelling were in very poor repair. The drivers took it slowly, veering occasionally to avoid particularly large obstacles and sometimes having to take a detour. Danny assumed these were roads they had expected to be clear but which had turned out to be blocked. He didn’t like being in the dark and he sat like a coiled spring, gripping his M4, his senses alert to the sounds outside and the unseen, unknown atmospherics on the streets of Homs. He could tell that Taff and Skinner, both squeezed into the front with the driver, were on high alert as well, weapons ready, heads cocked as they listened carefully. They were ten minutes out when Buckingham started to babble nervously. ‘Where are we? How much longer? Don’t they know which way they’re supposed to be going?’

  Skinner turned round and gave him a nasty look.

  ‘Asu’s compound is in the south of the city,’ said Taff, changing the subject. ‘He keeps himself separate from his commanders and tends to avoid the parts of the city that are openly held by the rebels, since they get bombed to shit every night. It means moving around fairly often – every week or so – before word of his location leaks out to the authorities. The current gaff isn’t the greatest, tactically speaking, but I don’t think word of where he is has spread yet. Though there’s always a chance of being hit by government forces wherever you are in this dog turd of a town.’

  ‘What he’s saying,’ Skinner added, ‘is keep your fucking wits about you and don’t be a twat.’

  They trundled on.

  It took a little more than an hour, by Danny’s reckoning, before they came to a halt. Buckingham started to get up, but Skinner pushed him back with a single thrust of one hand. For once, Danny agreed with Taff’s sour-faced comrade.

  Five seconds passed.

  There was the noise of the door on Buckingham’s side being opened. Danny peered across him, squinting as light flooded in. Whoever had opened the door, and now stood silhouetted there, couldn’t have been five feet tall. Then Danny saw that it was a child. No ordinary child, though: this kid had a bandolier strapped round his shoulders and was carrying a Kalashnikov with unstudied ease. If Taff or Skinner were surprised, they didn’t show it. The tension in the Land Rover palpably eased as they climbed out in silence.

  They had travelled from one house and compound to another. This compound was a little larger than the last – the walls were a good four metres high, and the rough ground they enclosed measured about thirty metres by thirty. The three-storey house had been white, but the paint was now grimy and black, peeling in places to reveal the building’s breeze-block skeleton. Its windows were simple openings with metal bars.

  In the centre of the compound a fire burned in a rusty iron drum, and children were sitting around it. When the gates of the compound had closed behind him, Danny took a closer look at the kids. There were four of them, all boys, all dressed in jeans, T-shirts and trainers, and all of them wearing khaki ammo vests. Their eyes had dark rings below them and their meagre shoulders were slumped like old men’s. Each boy had an AK-47 lying next to him. Resting on one of the weapons was a half-eaten bag of boiled sweets. Treasure, in a place and at a time like this.

  One of the kids stood out from the others. The left sleeve of his dirty green Adidas T-shirt was torn and poking out from beneath the strap of his ammo vest was the stump of a clumsily amputated arm. It was harshly scarred, as though it had been inexpertly cauterised. It seemed to have a life of its own, rolling in its socket even when the rest of the boy’s body was still, but if the kid was experiencing any pain, it didn’t show on his face.

  Another oil drum had been split in half lengthways. The two halves were lying up against the left-hand wall of the compound and were full of ash – clearly a makeshift barbecue for preparing hot food in the absence of electricity. Set back a couple of feet from each of the three walls was a table. To one side of each of these tables a murder hole was punched into the wall at the level of the tabletop. A sniper lay on each table, the barrel of his rifle a foot or so from the hole, carefully scanning the outside through the sight. One of these guys, the gunman covering the left-hand wall, was, Danny could see, too close to the murder hole. A couple of inches away at most. He needed to move back a bit, to give him more cover in the event of incoming. Taff saw this too, and walked briskly over to him and put him right. He winked at the gunman in the same way he used to wink at Danny when he was kid.

  The compound was surrounded by taller buildings – grim-looking blocks of flats, seven or eight storeys high, dotted with satellite dishes and with laundry hanging from some of the windows. Strange to think of people washing their clothes in the middle of a war zone, Danny decided, but he was less concerned about the neighbours’ hygienic arrangements than about the obvious fact that the compound was overlooked. He narrowed his eyes and looked up and down one of the blocks. It didn’t take him long to pick out three windows – one open, two broken – each with a few telltale inches of a sniper’s rifle barrel protruding. The sort of thing you wouldn’t even see if you weren’t looking for it. Asu’s men, he assumed, keeping watch over the rebel leader’s current location. Hardly reassuring, though: enemy snipers could install themselves in any of the other windows. Tactically speaking, it was . . .

  ‘A fucking dog’s dinner. You don’t need to tell me that, kiddo.’ Once more Taff had read Danny’s thoughts accurately. ‘Asu’s a stubborn son of a bitch. Saunders had to agree to pay the guys double time when they saw this place. They hadn’t even made the murder holes when we got here. De Fries had to knock them through with a pickaxe. Asu’s not a total idiot, though. He changes his base every ten days or so and keeps his highest-ranking commanders at separate locations around the city. Moves them around every week. That way the government can’t keep a handle on where they all are at any one time, and they can’t all be taken out in a single hit. The rebels can survive the loss of one commander, but not all of them.’

  Danny pointed at the kids sitting round the fire. ‘What about them? Tell me this Asu creep doesn’t stick them on the front line.’

  Taff shrugged. ‘If they want to fight, let them. It’s only a matter of time anyway.’

  ‘They’re child soldiers, Taff. Most people find that a bit dodgy.’

  ‘Most people find war a bit dodgy, kiddo. This one’s worse than most. Those kids have lost their parents, their homes. They’d be starving on the streets or rotting in an IDP camp if they weren’t here. Or dead
already.’

  ‘And Asu gets a nice cheap fighting force into the bargain.’

  ‘Grow up, Danny,’ Taff told him bluntly. ‘You know how the world works. At least you should by now.’

  ‘You give them weapons training?’

  ‘Of course. You think I’d let them walk around with AKs if they didn’t know how to make them safe? We do it out in the desert, along with the adult rebels. Fucking nightmare teaching them to suppress the recoil. Seem to remember it took you a while to deal with it, back in the day.’ Taff glanced up at the flats again. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s get your man inside. Asu will be waiting. Fucker starts throwing his toys out of his pram if you give him the chance.’

  Buckingham was loitering a little nervously by the Land Rovers. Danny marched over to him, took him by the arm and led him into the house. It was a dark, gloomy warren of rooms. Joined by Taff, Danny and Buckingham checked them out. The gaff had clearly been looted at some point in the recent past. There were no furnishings or items of comfort. There were holes in the wall where light fittings had once been, and someone had even removed sections of floorboard here and there, probably to use for firewood. There were more boy soldiers holed up in here, all dressed similarly, like an army of clones. Most of them were asleep on the bare floor. Those few who were awake stared at the newcomers with the same dull curiosity Danny had seen in the eyes of the kids outside.

  There were adults too, mostly men but also some women. Danny clocked the men’s aggressive stares. Some of them sat and smoked. Others played games of dice or cards. One man was smoothing a nick out of his knife with a flat stone. The guy next to him was threading a greasy rag through the detached barrel of a rifle. A couple of radios were playing quietly in different rooms. One was tuned to scratchy Syrian pop. From the other came the insistent voice of a man speaking Arabic. Danny wondered if it was a rebel propaganda channel. It had that sound.

  The women sat talking in groups of three or four. One sat with a child soldier at her feet, stroking his hair as the kid stroked his Kalashnikov. She was a distinctive-looking woman – long, black hair with a lock of snowy white at her forehead. She seemed curiously young and old at the same time, and as she returned Danny’s stare, he sensed bitterness: here was a woman let down by life, and who didn’t expect anything to change. ‘Asu’s daughter-in-law, Basheba,’ Taff said quietly. ‘Her husband – Asu’s son – ended up in a Damascus jail. Presumed dead. That’s her son sitting at her feet. You saw the kid outside minus an arm?’ Danny nodded. ‘Older brother. Asu only just tolerates her, and I’ve seen him give the kids a kicking too. They’re shit-scared of him. Like I say, lovely fella. Pleasure to do business with.’