Masters of War

by Chris Ryan

  He tried to analyse his options. They really wanted this money. Perhaps he should just stop and throw it at them.

  No. They’d still move in for the kill.

  Time check: 01.17 hrs. Thirteen minutes till RV. He reckoned it was about three klicks to the crossroads. He realised he still hadn’t disconnected the sat phone, so he grabbed it from the dashboard and yelled into it: ‘Spud! Update me!’

  No answer. ‘Shit!’

  But his only option was to keep going.

  Incoming fire.

  A round flew over his right shoulder, missing him by inches and slamming into the windscreen. The glass splintered but did not break. He couldn’t see a thing. Even as his foot was pressed on the accelerator, he whacked the body of his Sig against the glass. It shattered and fell inwards, cutting open the back of his left hand. Blood and glass were suddenly everywhere. He ignored it and fired another round behind him. It went astray.

  ‘Fuck!’ They’d closed the gap. Twenty-five metres max. The threat of Danny’s loose rounds was no longer slowing them down.

  With the force of the wind in his face, it was difficult to see up ahead, but was the gradient increasing? Could he see the brow of a hill silhouetted against the inky night sky?

  He could. What was more, he could make out the lights of a vehicle moving along that brow from west to east. That meant the crossroads was somewhere up there. The RV point was close. No more than a klick and a half.

  ‘Spud!’ he roared into the sat phone. ‘Where the fuck are you?’

  Still no reply, but as he raced on he caught sight of the road a couple of hundred metres to his left. A vehicle was speeding along it, roughly adjacent to Danny’s own position. Was it them? He had to hope so.

  He moved the steering wheel a few degrees counterclockwise, aligning his bearing to where the road met the brow of the hill. A sharp pain stung through his cut hand. The blood loss was heavy, but he had to ignore it. He could see De Fries leaning out of the passenger window rifle in hand, preparing to fire. He swerved to the left, and just in time. The rounds destroyed his right-hand wing mirror, and for a moment he lost control of the vehicle. But he brought himself back on to his bearing with another shot over his shoulder.

  Time check: 01.27 hrs. Three minutes till RV. Distance to the brow of the hill: 500 metres. Danny saw the other vehicle disappear over the top. That figured: Spud would never halt on a ridge where he could be seen for several kilometres all around. He estimated that he was thirty seconds from the RV point. Could he defend it for two minutes while they waited for the pick-up?

  He didn’t get the chance to find out. There was a horrific explosion as a round from behind slammed into his rear left-hand tyre. The car spun out of control, turning two full circles at speed before coming to a sudden, jolting halt. In the confusion, Danny could hear the screeching of the other car’s brakes. He knew he only had seconds before they opened up on him. Seconds in which to dive from the car, which was about to be showered with rounds. Grabbing his M4, Danny hurled himself out of the driver’s door, landing with a thump on the hard ground. And just in time, because at that moment a furious barrage of rounds slammed into the trashed Peugeot – the only object now between Danny and the two mercenaries intent on killing him.

  He was 100 metres from the top of the hill. Between the Peugeot and Hector’s car was another twenty. Another burst of rounds slammed into the abandoned vehicle, and then everything fell silent.

  Hector’s voice rang across the desert.

  ‘Throw us the money, kid. Maybe we’ll let you go.’

  Danny didn’t answer. He knew that Hector had no intention of letting him walk free. If he moved, or replied, all he’d do was give away his exact position.

  ‘That was quite a mess you made of Taff,’ Hector taunted. ‘Never had you down as the type. Kiddo.’

  Danny fought the urge to defend himself. They’re just goading you. Ignore it.

  ‘You’re fucked, kid. You know that. Make it easy on yourself, eh?’

  A noise reached Danny’s ears. Mechanical. He looked back towards the brow of the hill. There was a faint glow beyond it. He looked at his watch. 01.30 hrs.

  Hector had clearly noticed it too. He didn’t sound very worried. ‘What you going to do, kid? Walk across open ground to your friends? I don’t think so. Don’t be a twat. We’ll have you before you’ve gone five metres. It’s over. Face it.’

  But Danny wasn’t going to face it. He reckoned he had one play left.

  He felt for his night-sight and looked back towards the ridge of the hill. It took him only a couple of seconds to zoom in on Spud. He was lying on his front, and also had a scope held to his eye. As soon as he saw that Danny had clocked him, he held up five fingers of one hand.

  Four fingers.

  Danny hunkered down, his breath heavy, sweat pouring from his dirty face.

  Three fingers.

  ‘OK, kid. You had your chance. Say your fucking prayers.’

  Two fingers.

  One finger.

  Rounds thundered against the Peugeot once more. But at exactly the same time newcomers joined the party. Two Apache helicopters, separated by a distance of no more than thirty metres, rose swiftly right above the hill. For a couple of seconds they seemed to hover at a height of about twenty metres.

  And then, very fast, they advanced.

  Within seconds, the thunder of the attack helicopters’ rotors felt like it was going right through Danny. One was directly above him, at perhaps thirty-five metres, nose down, ready to strike.

  The noise of its front-mounted Minigun was like the grinding of an immense chainsaw as it dispensed its 7.62mm rounds in the precise direction of Hector and De Fries.

  Five seconds of fire.

  Ten seconds.

  Fifteen.

  It stopped.

  And then there was an explosion.

  Danny didn’t need to look towards Hector and De Fries’s car to realise that its fuel tank had ignited. The sound of the explosion and the subsequent rain of debris told him everything. He covered his head for ten seconds, waiting for the shower to subside. Then he pushed himself to his feet again.

  The Apaches had gained height. Seventy-five metres, maybe more. But now, above the brow of a hill, a third aircraft rose. Danny instantly recognised the silhouette of a Black Hawk as it hovered, dark against the horizon. Only as it flew in his direction did he find himself looking back into the remains of the Peugeot. The interior was lit up by the flames of Hector and De Fries’s burning vehicle twenty metres away, and he saw the bag of money sitting there on the passenger seat. A small part of him thought about taking it. It crossed his mind that Taff would have expected him to do just that.

  And so he left it. His days of following Taff’s advice were gone.

  As the Black Hawk touched down twenty-five metres south of his position, Danny strapped his M4 over his shoulder and nursed his bleeding hand as he ran towards it. The downdraught kicked dust up into the air. As it hit the blades it caused a halo of glowing sparks above the chopper. Danny kept his head down and ran to the side entrance.

  A soldier was shouting at him to climb inside, holding out one hand to help him in. But Danny didn’t need any help. He climbed inside the dark but spotless interior of the Black Hawk and immediately his eyes picked out those faces he recognised. There was no sign of the Mukhabarat officer Spud had taken in the car. No doubt, having outlived his usefulness, he was dead on the side of the hill. Greg was on his back, receiving medical treatment. Spud crouched anxiously by him, but looked over to Danny and gave him an understated nod before turning back to his mate. Buckingham was crouching in one corner, his terrified eyes glowing pale in the darkness, his floppy hair a straggly mess over his bruised face.

  And there was Clara. As the Black Hawk took to the air, she stood up and moved towards Danny, before embracing him wordlessly.

  He accepted the embrace, then disentangled himself and looked out of the chopper’s side door. I
n the air above them, about fifty metres away, he could see one of the Apache chaperones keeping watch. And below, in the distance, the sprawling lights of Damascus. On the eastern edge of the city, tracer fire arced above the buildings, a glowing reminder that Buckingham and Carrington’s ill-judged intervention had changed nothing in this war-torn country. The Syrians would keep on killing themselves. There was very little anyone on the outside could do about it.

  Danny turned his back on the view. It wasn’t his problem any more. He was going home.

  EPILOGUE

  London. Ten days later.

  Hugo Buckingham winced as he stood up from his desk. His skin was still sore from the beating he had endured at the hands of the Damascus Mukhabarat, but he wore the scars with a kind of pride. Here, newly installed in the MI6 building with a fancy new job title and an even fancier new salary, he was surrounded by analysts and administrative staff who’d heard whispers of his bravery in Syria and looked at him with a certain respect.

  He walked over to the door. Someone had just knocked and he knew who it would be. He fixed his face into a smile before opening up.

  ‘Danny, old sport! Bloody good to see you!’ He held out his hand. The SAS man didn’t take it, but Buckingham shrugged off the insult. ‘Come on in, come on in, have a seat.’ He walked over to the window. His fifth-floor office looked straight over the entrance to the building and across the Thames. ‘Bloody good view, eh? Must say it’s good to see the London skyline after our little fracas in the Middle East . . .’

  He turned back to Danny, who was standing on the other side of the desk, his face expressionless.

  ‘Carrington told me about Taff. Turn-up for the books, eh?’

  Silence.

  ‘Perhaps for the best. Everyone’s a little embarrassed about his role in the whole Syrian debacle. Drink? No? Don’t mind if I do?’

  He poured himself a nip of Scotch from a trolley by the window, and drank it in one hit.

  ‘I was wondering if you’d seen Clara? Bloody good-looking girl that. Got a bit of guts – I like that in a woman. Thought I might ask her out for a spot of supper, see where it leads. No? Ah well, I’m sure I can track her down.’ He waved one arm to indicate the building in general. ‘Not like I don’t have the resources, eh? Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Sure you won’t have a seat?’

  Danny didn’t move.

  ‘Truth is, old sport, you and I have rather come up smelling of roses. Wasn’t quite the outcome we wanted in Syria, but everyone’s impressed by the way we handled the situation when it all went wrong. Quite a team, you and I, wouldn’t you say?’

  Danny still didn’t speak, but he couldn’t prevent a look of deep contempt crossing his face.

  ‘Thing is, in my new capacity here in the Service, there’s every chance going forward that I’ll need to call on someone resourceful for issues of a . . . a sensitive nature. I know I can rely on you.’

  ‘There’s plenty of men in Hereford, Buckingham,’ Danny said after several seconds’ silence. ‘Ask one of them. You and me won’t be working together again.’

  ‘You think?’ Buckingham replied with a little smile. ‘You might be surprised, old sport. You might be surprised.’

  ‘Is there anything else?’

  ‘I don’t think so. We’ll speak again soon, I’m sure.’

  ‘Not if I have anything to do with it.’

  Buckingham smiled again. ‘Well, there’s the funny thing,’ he said, a certain amount of steel entering his voice. ‘You really don’t.’

  Danny started to leave the room. But when he reached the door he stopped and looked back. Buckingham was pleased to see a flicker of uncertainty cross his face. Then he turned and was gone.

  Buckingham sat down at his desk. There was nothing but a laptop and a telephone on it, but from a drawer to one side he pulled out a small mobile phone. It looked rather beaten up, but that was only to be expected. He’d carried it all round Syria, after all. A miracle they hadn’t taken it off him in Damascus, and a bloody good job too. He opened up the back and removed a 5GB SD card, which he inserted into a slot on the side of his laptop. A window popped up, containing a number of yellow folders. He clicked on the one labelled ‘Video’, then on one of the icons that appeared.

  A moving image filled the screen and a chaotic noise burst from the speakers. Buckingham was instantly transported back to that terrifying afternoon in Asu’s compound. His hand had been shaking as he covertly recorded the events, and the footage juddered. But even at a distance of several metres, and through the dust, he could quite clearly make out Danny Black, kneeling at the side of the child he was about to kill with an overdose of morphine. And the voices – Taff Davies, Black himself, the mother – were quite clear.

  ‘That’s a lethal dose, kiddo. You sure you know what you’re doing?’

  ‘He’s dead anyway.’

  ‘You killed my son! Murderer!’

  What Black had done was illegal. A war crime. That piece of footage in itself was enough to see him behind bars. For a long time.

  Which meant he had enough on Danny Black to ensure the kid came running whenever he called. His own personal Regiment operative, there to do his bidding whenever he wanted. A hundred times better than one of Max Saunders’ untrustworthy private military contractors. Could be useful, he told himself. Very useful. The person who could control such a resource could go far.

  He stood up again. Wincing, he walked back over to the window and looked out over the front of the SIS building. Black was there, trotting down the steps. And somebody was waiting for him. A woman. Bloody pretty. One arm in a crutch. Buckingham squinted, and he felt a certain pang when he realised who it was. And a bigger pang when they kissed.

  ‘Little bastard,’ he muttered to himself.

  They spoke, and then Black looked up in the direction of Buckingham’s window. For a moment, it felt as if he was staring directly at him. But then Buckingham reminded himself that it was impossible. The glass was mirrored. Nobody could see through it. He was hidden.

  He watched Black and Clara walk away, hand in hand. Then he returned to his desk and removed the SD card from his computer. He needed to keep that safe, he told himself. Very safe.

  He didn’t know how soon he was going to need it.