by Chris Ryan
‘Get in the car, please,’ the embassy guy said in a not-too-friendly tone of voice. Tony gave him a pleasant smile and got into the back of the Merc. The embassy guy sat next to him. As they pulled away across the tarmac, Tony saw the three police officers heading back to the aircraft. He figured that the day of the old guy with the broken nose was about to get a whole lot worse. Served him right for getting involved.
The embassy guy was looking at him like he was a piece of shit on the sole of his shoe. He was wrinkling his nose. It was obvious that Tony stank. ‘I don’t know what the bloody hell you think you’ve been playing at,’ the guy said. ‘If you’d been anyone else, you’d be on your way to an Emirate holding cell by now.’
Tony stared out of his window. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Maybe not.’
‘You should be grateful to the embassy for getting you out of this,’ the man snapped. ‘The phone lines between here and London have been red-hot. We’re extremely busy, and we’re not here to—’
‘Do me a favour mate, and shut the fuck up. I’ve had a long twenty-four hours.’
Tony could sense the waves of outrage emanating from the embassy man, but he did at least keep quiet for the next couple of minutes, while the car was waved through an external passport control post on account of its diplomatic status. Soon enough, they were speeding along a raised section of highway, heading towards the heart of the Dubai metropolis. It occurred to Tony that the last time he had been in the region had been on a mission with Danny Black that had taken them into Doha, the capital of Oman. The two cities looked very similar – ostentatious displays of great wealth. Tony reckoned he could enjoy himself here, given the right company and a few grand in his back pocket.
But the thought of Danny Black put any idea of enjoyment from his mind. He felt a physical surge of intense dislike in his gut. He looked at his hands and saw they were shaking.
‘You’ll need to clean yourself up,’ the embassy man said suddenly.
Tony snapped out of his thoughts and turned to him. ‘What?’
‘I said you’ll need to clean up, man. You look and smell like a tramp. I’ll be surprised if they let you into the hotel in that state.’
‘Fancy one, is it?’
‘We have a room set aside for you, and a change of clothes. But for heaven’s sake have a wash first. The residents of Dubai are very particular about outward appearance. You’re representing Her Majesty’s government and I will not have you letting the side down.’ He seemed almost to shudder at the thought. ‘And besides, you’re going to be in the company of royalty. It’s not too much to ask that you look the part, is it?’ And then, almost under his breath: ‘Even if he is a damn liability to the rest of us.’
The ghost of a smile crossed Tony’s lips as the black Mercedes turned on to a raised causeway heading out into the glittering sea, towards a tall skyscraper of a hotel, its mirrored windows glittering brightly in the sun.
Nine
Joe felt warm for the first time in days.
The soldiers who had found him on the railway track had been rough and unpleasant. One of them had called him a wog. Another had laughed when, as they led him from the track, he had fallen over and twisted his ankle. They had dragged him into the back of a military truck where he had crouched, huddled, his muscles aching with the cold and his skin sore from the abrasive grit in which he’d hidden himself. And yet, despite all this, he couldn’t help but feel elated. He had made it into the UK. The first – and most difficult – stage of his objective was complete.
The remainder of that night and this morning was now a blur. Joe had been so exhausted he could barely keep track of what was happening. There had been a succession of abrupt officials who had asked him more questions than he could now even remember. They had taken him to a room where he was able to shower and put on clean clothes – a pair of jeans and a red hooded sweater. They had taken his photograph and recorded his fingerprints. They had given him lukewarm, sweet, milky tea in a plastic cup, which he had guzzled down as if it were the finest drink known to man.
Now, he was sitting in a stark, brightly lit room. It had windows on three sides that looked out into a busy open-plan office. Joe was reminded of the police stations in the American cop shows he used to watch back home in Syria when he was much younger, in the days when watching TV was an option. Those days seemed a long time ago now.
His new clothes were a little big for him, but he didn’t care. He had been given a plastic chair to sit in as he waited. Although it was hardly the most comfortable seat in the world, he still found himself nodding off as he sat in it. In his drowsy state, the humming lights in the room somehow merged with the memory of the drone that had nearly picked him out as he hid in the train carriage. He relived the crushing claustrophobia of being hidden in the grit and started, suddenly, awake.
A woman had entered the room. She was tall and thin, with what seemed to Joe to be an abnormally long neck. Her lips were pursed, almost disapprovingly, as she pulled up another chair and sat opposite him, clipboard in hand. But when she spoke, it was not unkindly.
‘I understand you speak some English, dear,’ she said.
Joe nodded.
‘I’ll need your full name, please.’
Joe had lost count of the number of people he’d given this information to over the course of the morning. He recited his name again. The scratchy sound of writing filled the room as the woman carefully filled in her form.
‘And what are your reasons for claiming asylum, dear?’ she asked.
‘I’m from Syria,’ Joe said. ‘From Aleppo.’
‘I see,’ said the woman. ‘And are you saying that you can’t stay safely in your home country?’
Joe blinked at her. He didn’t quite know how to respond to such a stupid question.
‘Young man, you are not the only Syrian refugee seeking political asylum in Britain. If you wish your application to be successful, you will need to convince us that it is valid.’
Joe nodded. ‘I cannot safely return to my home country.’
‘And why is that?’
Joe barely knew where to begin. Should he start at that moment, two years ago, when a bomb had hit the apartment block where he lived with his mother and father? Or the day, two weeks after that, when gunmen had burst into his school while Joe was at his usual place at the computer? How they had killed thirteen of his friends? How a bullet had missed Joe by only an inch, and slammed into the computer screen, shattering it? How he had tried to keep his best friend Jamal alive by pumping his heart the way he had read about, but it had only seemed to force the blood more quickly from the wound in his throat in the moments before his death?
Or should he start with what happened next?
‘I was abducted by Islamic State,’ he said.
The woman’s eyes widened. ‘Go on,’ she said.
‘I was living in a small refugee camp on the outskirts of Aleppo with my mother and father. They came at sunset – five of them. They knew who they wanted and nobody dared stop them taking us.’ Joe closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He had recounted this scene in his head every day since it had happened, but somehow saying it out loud was more difficult. ‘They took us to the town of Raqqa. It was a very long drive – it took all night. When we got there the following morning, they made me and my mother watch while they dragged my father from the car. They stripped him naked and hung him from a tree with a hood over his head. They laughed as they did it.’
He was staring into the middle distance, and forcing himself to hold back the tears.
‘They put me and my mother in a cell. Now and then they came in with their guns and made us get on our knees. They put their guns to our heads. Then they would laugh and leave us alone again. They did this for several hours. Then, near the end of the day . . .’ Joe felt a hot ball of nausea in the pit of his stomach. ‘They came into the cell. Four of them. They raped my mother in front of me. Then they killed her.’
He looked straight
at the woman as he said this, and saw the horror in her face. But he didn’t tell her everything. He didn’t tell her that he knew the name of the leader of the four men – Mujahid, who had a scar carved into his throat in the shape of a smile. There were, after all, some things he needed to keep to himself.
‘You poor boy,’ the woman whispered. ‘Why did they do this?’
‘Because of me,’ Joe said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘They wanted me to know what would happen if I didn’t do what they said.’
‘But why you?’
Joe managed a weak smile. ‘Because they had heard that I was clever.’
‘You certainly speak very good English . . .’
‘It was not English they wanted me for. It was because I know about computers . . . electronics . . . coding . . . that kind of thing.’
‘I’m not sure I understand,’ the woman said.
‘Could I have a glass of water?’ Joe asked.
The woman nodded and left the room for a minute. Joe watched her through the window. She crossed the office to a water cooler. While she had her back to him, several people passed the office and glanced in at Joe. Without exception, they looked hostile. Joe didn’t mind. He was used to it.
He drew a deep breath and organised his thoughts. It was important that he told her enough to gain her sympathy, but not so much that she might guess why he was really here. When she returned with a plastic cup of water, he drank it gratefully, then picked at the edge of the cup with his fingernails as he continued.
‘Islamic State like publicity,’ he said. ‘They . . .’ he searched around for the correct word ‘. . . they thrive on it. They want people in the West to see them beheading their hostages and shooting down their citizens in the street. Because then, the West are forced to bomb them – which is even more good publicity for their cause. Do you see?’
The woman nodded mutely.
‘The best place to get publicity is on the Internet. Facebook, Twitter, the dark net. They are very active on all these networks. They need people who are skilled with computers to help them do all this. That’s why they wanted me.’
He paused while the woman scribbled down some notes. When she looked up again, she was obviously about to speak, but Joe got in there first. ‘Then, of course,’ he said, ‘there’s the communications.’
‘What communications?’
‘They are not as backwards as they like to pretend,’ Joe said. ‘They need to communicate with each other, and with their agents who are active all across the world. They know that people are trying to listen in – to hack their email accounts and do surveillance on their mobile phones. They need people like me to help them keep their communications secure – end-to-end encryption, OTR protocols, preventing external agents inserting malware on their systems. Cover their tracks. That’s what I did for them. Every day they put a gun to my head and told me that if I failed in my duty, I would join my mother and father in the ground. What choice did I have?’
He hung his head and continued to pick at the edge of his cup, which was beginning to split.
‘Why did they let you go?’ the woman asked.
Joe couldn’t help looking astonished at the question. ‘Let me go?’ he said. ‘They didn’t let me go. Why would they do that?’ He sniffed. ‘I escaped.’
The woman was staring at him in astonishment. She scribbled a few more notes. ‘How did you escape?’ she asked finally. But before Joe could answer, she held up one finger. ‘Just a minute,’ she said. ‘Are you telling me that you were party to Islamic State communications into and out of Syria?’
Joe fixed her with a calm stare. Then he nodded.
The woman scraped back her chair and stood up. ‘Excuse me for a moment,’ she said. ‘Please wait here.’
Joe sat still as she left the room for a second time. He noticed that his hands were trembling. He crushed the plastic cup in an attempt to stop it happening. Looking through the window, he saw the woman approach one of her colleagues – an older man in a slightly crumpled suit who was sitting on the edge of a desk reading a piece of paper. He looked over at Joe as she spoke. When she had finished, he seemed to think about what she’d said for a moment. Then he nodded and picked up the phone on the desk behind him.
The woman hurried back to the interview room. She was slightly breathless.
‘Is everything alright?’ Joe asked.
‘Fine,’ the woman said. ‘Absolutely fine. I’d just like you to speak to . . .’ She hesitated. ‘To some of my colleagues, that’s all. I hope they’ll be here as soon as possible. Can I get you another glass of water?’
Joe shook his head. He could sense that, all of a sudden, the woman’s attitude had changed. He wondered if she had just called the police.
‘Right,’ the woman said. ‘Good. Well, if I could just ask you to wait here . . .’ She edged back towards the door, gave him a nervous smile and left the room. For a moment, he thought she was looking back in at him. Then he heard the sound of a key turning.
Joe was locked in. He supposed it was only to be expected. A wave of tiredness crashed over him. He got up from the plastic seat and walked to the corner of the room. There, he huddled down on the ground, cocooned into a little ball. It didn’t matter that the floor was hard. He’d slept in far less comfortable places than this. And it didn’t matter that he was locked in – he’d been in far more frightening jails.
For now, he was safe and warm. It meant that sleep came quickly.
The tailgate of the Hercules was closing. Danny Black stood in the belly of the aircraft, watching the wet Mediterranean night disappear. His mind was burning with the details of the operation they were embarking upon. He had memorised locations and terrain. Satellite mapping had shown them the area around Dhul Faqar’s compound. It was located on the banks of a large reservoir fifty miles outside the city of Mosul. A main supply route cut north–south to its eastern side. Mountainous region to the north. But there was only so much a satellite image could tell you. They needed to get eyes on the stronghold before they could make a plan to assault it. All Danny knew was this: it would be a hell of a sight easier with a full squadron and a handful of Black Hawks. But they weren’t an option. Not if they were going in under the radar.
As well as map work, Danny had learned identification codewords, and had a few words of Sorani Kurdish at his disposal. He knew there would be a mutual lack of trust between his team and their contacts on the ground. A few words of a foreigner’s language was a good way of breaking the ice.
The aircraft started to throb and hum as its engines started up. Hammond joined him. ‘You realise,’ he said quietly, ‘that you won’t be the only SF team on the ground in northern Iraq.’
‘I guess that figures,’ Danny replied.
‘You can expect Russians, Americans. And I don’t have to tell you what’s riding on this back home?’ Hammond said.
Danny looked over his shoulder. Spud and Caitlin were still at the briefing table, poring over Alice Cracknell’s maps.
‘It’ll be a gangfuck in London if you don’t get to this Dhul Faqar character.’
‘We’re under-strength without Tony,’ Danny said. ‘You know that.’
Hammond nodded. ‘I’ve seen what you can do, Black. Other people might think you’re a liability. Make an effort to prove me right and them wrong, eh?’
It was the closest Hammond had ever come to giving him a compliment. Danny appreciated it. Kind of.
‘We’ll have to hit these oil middlemen before they arrive at Dhul Faqar’s compound. We don’t have the numbers to do it any other way. If we get delayed crossing the border, the op’s screwed.’
Hammond gave him a look that said: you know what that will mean. ‘Is Spud OK?’ he asked.
Danny knew what he was driving at.
‘Spud’s fine. It would help if Caitlin knew how to HALO.’
‘You can take her in tandem. She’ll be fine.’
‘She’s a
good operator,’ Danny said. ‘I just hope these Kurdish guys don’t take a liking to her.’
‘She might be your best asset. The Kurdish peshmerga have a lot of women fighting on the front line. Talking of which . . .’
‘What?’
‘You know Duncan Barker, right?’
Barker was a Regiment-mate of Danny’s back at Hereford. He nodded.
‘I’ve asked him to go speak to your missus. Tell her your op’s been extended, not to expect you home for a few days.’
Danny gave him a sharp look.
‘I want your mind to be on the job,’ Hammond said by way of explanation. ‘Not on any problems you might be having back home.’
‘Who told you I’m having problems?’
‘Nobody.’ Hammond hesitated. ‘I’ve got kids too, Black. I know it can change the way you think about the work, when they come along.’
But before Danny could ask Hammond what he meant, the aircraft moved forward. The loadmaster called to them to take their seats. Danny and Hammond headed back up to the front of the plane and strapped themselves in. Two minutes later, they were surging down the runway. Then they were airborne.
Danny didn’t bother waiting for the loadie’s go-ahead. As soon as he felt the aircraft straightening up, he unclipped his belt and headed over to where their hardware was stashed. They had weapons to check over and HALO gear to don. They needed to be briefed on up-to-date weather conditions at the insertion point. And they needed a final run-through of their security codes and mission objectives.
The three-hour flight time to the Turkish border would pass quickly. Danny got to work.
Duncan Barker considered himself a good mate of Danny Black’s. That didn’t stop him cursing his mate as he drove his motorbike through the Hereford rain towards Danny’s flat. RAF Credenhill was all but empty. Three-quarters of the Regiment were abroad. Those that remained in the UK on standby had been called into camp and given their marching orders down to London. Barker himself was heading to the Smoke that evening. Something big was going down. Why, then, was it so important that Barker should be knocking on the door of Danny’s flat to give his bird a message? What was wrong with the fucking telephone?
