Murder Team

by Chris Ryan

  ‘If anything happens to him, boss, I swear I’ll . . .’

  ‘Shut up and let me finish. Our friends in the Doughnut have reported a spike in terrorist radio chatter coming out of Eritrea in the past hour.’ The Doughnut was the GCHQ building in Cheltenham. It never failed to surprise Danny how extensive their listening networks were. ‘There’s an Islamist group advertising on certain internet forums that they’ve taken receipt of a wounded British soldier and they’re putting him up for sale to the highest bidder.’

  There was a dark pause. Danny didn’t blame the Regiment for not coming to rescue Spud. They couldn’t authorise an operation without the say-so from on high, and until now, the Firm had been happy to chalk Spud up as lost in action. But now the situation had been turned on its head. If Spud was up for sale, it meant only one thing: some time in the near future, he’d appear on a grainy video dressed in an orange jump suit, with a masked, machete-wielding executioner standing close by. The worst kind of publicity for the West. No wonder they were suddenly more interested in Spud’s safe return.

  It warmed your heart.

  ‘I’m taking it you haven’t found him yet?’

  Danny glanced toward the building where the two corpses lay on the ground. ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘But I’m not far behind.’

  ‘Good. We’re mobilising a unit right now, but it could be several hours before they get to you. In the meantime, you’re our only asset on the ground.’

  ‘What do we know about the group that have taken him?’

  ‘Very little. Our East African people had them down as just a bunch of gangsters. Small-time players. But they’re obviously more than that – this isn’t small-time stuff. Looks like the intelligence services got them wrong. So far as we can tell, they’ve made contact with a Somalian Al-Shabab outfit operating in Eritrea called State of Jihad. They’re on the way to make the exchange. The Eritrean government have got a history of giving these people sanctuary, and if they get our soldier into Somalia, he’s toast. This exchange cannot happen.’

  Danny considered telling Hereford about the scene he’d found here, but decided against it. Too risky over an insecure line. If anyone was listening, they’d be able to work out where he was.

  ‘Do you have a lock on the enemy’s position?’ Danny said.

  ‘That’s a negative.’

  ‘Roger that. I know a guy who might.’ Danny glanced over at Triggs, who had his arms folded and was watching him carefully.

  ‘Stick with this sat phone. We’re monitoring its position so we can keep tabs on its location.’

  ‘What’s your ETA in-country?’

  ‘Approximately twenty-two hundred.’ Another pause. ‘Find him, mucker. And if you can’t get him out of there, think carefully. Sometimes a quick way out is better than what those animals subject their prisoners to.’

  Danny felt himself frowning. The hell with that, he thought. He’d come out here with the intention of taking Spud home. Nothing had changed.

  ‘Over and out,’ he said into the sat phone, and the line went dead. He replaced it on its charging cradle, then strode over to Triggs.

  ‘Well?’ Triggs asked.

  ‘Your friend with the Bangladeshi bullets. What’s his name?’

  Triggs gave a quiet snort. ‘You’re not paying me nearly enough for that kind of information,’ he said.

  Danny grabbed him by the front of his shirt. ‘Spud’s up for sale by some Jihadi cunts. There’s a Regiment unit flying in-country as we speak. We don’t find him, see how they take it when I tell them you didn’t want to help.’

  There were beads of sweat on Triggs’s forehead. Something told Danny it wasn’t just the heat.

  ‘His name’s Gilad Friedman,’ he said. ‘Ex-Sayaret Matkal, Israeli special forces. Of course, he tells the locals he’s Canadian, and they seem to believe him. I guess they wouldn’t believe an Israeli would come to this part of the world out of choice anyway. Truth is he hasn’t had anything to do with the Israelis for years. Nowadays he’ll do any kind of job for anyone who pays him.’

  Danny let go of his shirt. ‘Sounds familiar,’ he said.

  Triggs shrugged. ‘Man’s got to earn a living, boy.’

  ‘Hereford think Spud’s being put up for sale by a group called State of Jihad. You know them?’

  ‘I’ve heard the name. Somalian. Some kind of Al-Shabab faction. They have splinter groups all over Eritrea. They’re cunts, basically.’

  ‘You think this Friedman guy would work with Eritrean gangsters who’d got into bed with them?’

  ‘He’d work for anybody, if the price was right.’

  ‘Can you contact him?’

  Triggs’s face twitched slightly. ‘If I had to.’

  ‘Would he trust you?’

  Triggs gave him a grim smile. ‘Of course.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘You know what they say about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.’ Triggs looked around. ‘There’s only two Western players in this neck of the woods: me and him. He’s my rival, and that makes him my enemy, right? So I keep him close. We’re drinking buddies. I can drink a lot more than him. But he can shoot a lot better than me. You want to be careful of Gilad Friedman, boy. He’s the best there is.’

  Danny’s mind was turning over fast. He didn’t trust Triggs, but every second lost was a second closer to a bad end for Spud. And Danny didn’t have the luxury of choice. He used this grizzled old ex-Regiment man as an asset, or he stood here in the desert and did nothing.

  Decision made. He nodded at Triggs. ‘Call him,’ he said. ‘Say whatever you need to say. We’ve got to hook up with him.’

  ‘He’ll never agree to it, boy. Not in the middle of a job.’

  Danny fixed him with his most threatening stare. ‘Be persuasive,’ he said. ‘I want an RV with this fucker, and I want it tonight.’

  5

  Spud tried to stay alert, but the morphine in his blood meant he wasn’t master of his own mind or body. He drifted in and out of consciousness. The changing terrain through the window of the the Land Rover was like a series of snapshots. First, the bleak, dusty desert around the makeshift hospital from where he’d been snatched. Then, a busy, bustling African village at dusk. Nose-to-tail traffic down the main market street lined by food stalls, women in brightly coloured robes and headdresses, gangly young men shouting to each other and a troop of drummers hammering out an insistent rhythm on their djembes, which seemed to echo in Spud’s head. Camels and donkeys, so thin you could see their ribs, chained up outside rough concrete buildings. Then a highway, with the sun setting to Spud’s left, which told him they were heading north.

  And now, as he emerged from another period of unconsciousness, he felt the Land Rover rattling over a poor road and saw, by the light of the vehicle’s headlamps, that they were approaching the brow of a hill.

  The vehicle came to a halt. The driver looked over his shoulder at Spud.

  ‘Still alive?’ he said. He sounded neither aggressive nor kind. Just matter-of-fact. Spud thought he could discern an American accent.

  It was almost a reflex action that made Spud glance at the driver’s seatbelt. In a situation like this, it could be an effective weapon: wrap it round the driver’s neck and tighten the noose. But that was a no-go. This driver had plugged the seatbelt in before sitting in the seat, so that his back covered the bulk of the strap. The driver noticed the direction of Spud’s gaze and gave him an amused look. ‘I doubt you’d have the strength, anyway,’ he said.

  Spud suddenly winced. The morphine was wearing off and the pain in his abdomen was more acute. He tried to speak again – this time with more success. ‘I . . . I don’t know who you think I am,’ he barely whispered, ‘but you’ve got the wrong guy.’

  His abductor smiled. ‘I respect you,’ he said. ‘Sticking to your story like that.’ He looked toward the brow of the hill. ‘We’re parting company in a few minutes. Those sons of bitches I’m leaving
you with, they’ve got some medieval ways of getting the truth out of a guy. Up to you, of course, but you’ll be better off forgetting all that resistance to interrogation BS. Just tell them what they want to know, and they might leave you alone. For a while, anyway. You’re a precious commodity. Market’s high at the moment, all the publicity those IS beheading videos are getting. You’ll fetch a good price.’

  Spud stared at him. ‘Blow me,’ he whispered. In the quiet of his mind, he said: The accent’s almost American, but he’s not American. Maybe Israeli?

  His abductor smiled again. ‘State of your dick? I’m not gonna lie, you’re going to have to pay for that kind of service. And that’s not how I earn my money.’ He turned back toward the steering wheel and moved the vehicle toward the brow of the hill.

  Spud forced himself to keep calm. The phrase ‘resistance to interrogation’ wasn’t one any Regiment guy wanted to hear. They’d been drilled in it, of course, and had undergone a brutal 36-hour resistance exercise during their selection where they’d been forced into stress positions, suffered sleep deprivation, white noise and mind tricks from their interrogators. It had been brutal and difficult, but it had just been an exercise. Spud knew that the real thing was a whole lot worse.

  He didn’t know who he was about to be handed over to. He was fucked, though, if he was going to cave in to them a second sooner than he had to. That meant getting his mind into the right place.

  The Land Rover moved over the brow of the hill. By the light of a half-moon, Spud could see that the road ran down into a dip, before leading up again to the brow of a second hill. Distance between the two ridges, about 500 metres, and the second ridge was about 20 metres higher than the first. They trundled across the dip. As they approached the second ridge, the driver killed the headlamps. Then he drove the vehicle across the ridge line. At a distance of another klick, and down the hill, there were lights. A settlement of some sort. Their destination? It seemed likely . . .

  He focused on his abductor. Who was he? What was his agenda? Spud knew from the expert, unflinching way he had nailed the two doctors that he’d killed before. He was a professional. He knew how to administer morphine. He knew about resistance to interrogation. He knew to kill his lights before moving over the brow of a hill. It wouldn’t surprise Spud if he’d had special forces training . . .

  ‘Israel Defence Force? Mossad?’ he whispered from the back of the vehicle.

  The guy glanced at him in the rear-view mirror. ‘You’re quite the detective,’ he said. ‘But I prefer to think of myself as a freelancer these days.’

  Someone like this should be helping Spud, not abducting him. ‘I’ve . . . I’ve worked with you guys. I’m British SAS. You... you should be helping me get out of here . . .’

  Spud’s words had no effect. His abductor had his eyes back on the road, and he didn’t reply.

  It took no more than a minute of two to reach the settlement. Spud could instantly tell this wasn’t a place he’d want to spend much time. The first thing he noticed was the smell, which the air conditioning system pumped into the vehicle. It was the stench of rotting debris, with a suggestion of a nearby latrine. Perhaps a hint of cordite. Nothing good happened in a place that smelled like this. A fire glowed in a pit about ten metres beyond where they’d come to a halt. A thin mongrel dog was tied to wooden post five metres to the right of the fire, a metal choke collar round its throat. It was straining badly, its sharp teeth clearly visible and its hungry eyes glowing in the moonlight. Next to the dog was an armed man. He had very black skin and a shaved head. He wore old desert fatigues, and had a Kalashnikov slung across his chest. Beyond him were a number of low buildings – Spud couldn’t make out their number or position because his head was woozy and the world seemed to spin – but there was a halo of light around them that told Spud they were well occupied. He could just make out, though, hanging on to a nearby building, a black flag emblazoned with a white crescent moon: a fair indication that he was in the presence of African Islamist sympathisers. Among the low buildings, blurry and leaving trails across Spud’s hazy vision, signalling aerials sprouted up into the sky.

  Spud sneered at his abductor. ‘You’re in bed with fuckers like this?’ he breathed.

  ‘Man’s gotta eat. Let’s get you out of the car.’

  Spud struggled, but he had no strength and wasn’t a match for the driver. Moments later he was leaning breathlessly against the side of the Land Rover, rough sand against his bare feet. He saw that more militants had emerged from the direction of the buildings. He counted six, but there were more in the shadows behind them. They were grinning at him – Spud had the impression that it was on account of his pyjamas. They themselves were all dressed so similarly to the guy by the fire pit that Spud could barely tell them apart. One of them, though, stepped forward toward them. He wore a black and white bandana around his forehead, and he had the swagger of a leader.

  ‘How do we know he’s the right man?’ he asked. His English was good, but his accent heavily African.

  ‘He’s the man you asked for,’ the Israeli guy said, casually pulling his khaki cap a little further over his eyes. ‘If you’ve made a mistake, that’s your problem. I want my money now.’

  Bandana man gave a nasty grin. Then, in a sudden movement, he shifted his Kalashnikov from across his chest and pointed it directly at Spud’s abductor, his right-hand forefinger resting on the trigger, the barrel no more than fifteen centimetres from the Israeli’s belly.

  Silence fell. Spud heard nothing but a faint crackling from the fire pit.

  The Israeli moved very suddenly. His hands were a blur as he grabbed the barrel of the Kalashnikov, twisted it ninety degrees horizontally, took the body of the gun with his other hand and yanked it upward. There was a vicious cracking sound as the metal connected sharply with the underside of the militant’s chin. The Israeli kneed him hard in the groin. He doubled over with a noisy exhalation of breath. The Israeli cracked his left elbow against the militant’s cheek. By the time he hit the ground, the Israeli had his Browning Hi-power aimed directly at his head.

  ‘OK, boss man,’ he said. ‘Tell your goons to hand over the cash.’

  The militant was gasping for breath, but he managed to bark an instruction in an African dialect. Two of his men disappeared. They returned twenty seconds later with a plastic carrier bag, half full. Cash, Spud presumed.

  The Israeli smiled at the militant carrying the bag. ‘Put it in the back of the vehicle,’ he said. ‘Now.’

  With a scowl, the militant slung the bag on to the rear passenger seat.

  ‘Pleasure doing business, gentleman,’ the Israeli announced. ‘The Brit’s all yours. Try to fire on me as I leave, I’ll come back and kill him for you. I think you’ll find he’s a lot less valuable when he’s dead. You might want to bear that in mind when you’re torturing the poor guy.’

  Two militants came and pulled Spud away from the vehicle, while the Israeli got behind the wheel. The engine turned over and the wheels screeched as he slammed the vehicle into reverse, turned sharply and headed at speed back toward the brow of the hill.

  The boss picked himself up from the ground. His face was sweating and his eyes smoked with anger and humiliation. Spud instinctively knew he was going to get the brunt of it. The boss shouted another instruction. Spud’s two guards dragged him past the fire pit and toward the buildings.

  As he drew closer, Spud could see they were approaching a circular building, ten to fifteen metres in diameter, with conical roofs made of branches and rush matting. He was dragged through a rickety green wooden door. There was a fire smoking inside, exactly in the middle. A simple hole in the apex of the conical roof acted as an effective chimney, and the fire itself gave enough light that Spud could see across the hut. The floor was dry earth, but the hut itself was empty. Spud’s eyes immediately picked out two metal rings hanging from the far wall at a height of about two metres.

  ‘In,’ one of his guards instructed. ‘Get in
!’

  He pushed Spud toward the fire. Spud stumbled and fell to his knees as a shock of agony ran from his chest through his whole body. Seconds later he was being pulled to his feet again, then dragged across the hut to the far wall where the metal rings were.

  He knew what was coming, so the jangling sound of metal chains was no surprise. And he knew there was no point resisting. He didn’t have the strength to fight these two, and what energy he had he needed to conserve for the trials to come. One of the guards clipped heavy manacles – from which the chains were hanging – round his wrists. Spud lost his breath from the pain as the militants each raised one of his manacled hands above his head, then padlocked the free end of the chains to the metal rings in the wall, before locking the manacles themselves with a small key on a loop of string.

  Spud took deep, calming breaths. Looking across the fireplace, he saw a third figure standing in the doorway. The glow from the fireplace lit up the face of the militant boss in the black and white bandana. He stared balefully at his captive, the whites of his eyes an unpleasant yellow colour, his brow creased and heavy. In one hand he was holding the dog on the lead that Spud had seen tied up by the fire outside. It was straining badly, a horrible choking sound coming from its throat. In his other hand, the militant had a bag.

  The two guards fell back as their boss approached, the dog still pulling madly on its leash. Bandana man led it to a third metal ring that Spud now saw was fixed lower down on the wall, about three metres along from where he was chained. He fixed the free end of the lead to this ring, then kicked the dog in the guts. It whimpered, but only for a second, before it started straining on the leash again, pulling in Spud’s direction, half choking, half snarling at him.

  The boss clicked his fingers. One of the two guards jumped forward and handed him the key that he’d used to lock Spud’s manacles. The boss put the loop of string over his head, then walked up to Spud. Face to face. Just inches apart. He stank of weeks-old body odour. But there was another smell too. Something deep and rank and old that made Spud want to gag. He assumed it came from whatever was in the boss’s bag, but he didn’t know what it could be.