by Chris Ryan
But no sign of their target. Danny felt a twinge of doubt at his analysis of the compound. Where was he?
‘Dhul Faqar?’ Danny whispered in a friendly, sing-song voice. ‘Dhul Faqar?’
A distant burst of fifty-cal fire. Rain on the roof. And the soft sound of weeping from the corner of the room. Danny’s weapon instantly tracked towards it.
In the far, right-hand corner of the room was a floor-to-ceiling post. Sitting at the bottom of the post, chained to it by a thick metal collar, was a young woman, little more than a girl, her head bowed, her shoulders shaking as she cried.
Danny kept his weapon trained on her as he approached. He saw that she was naked under a gossamer-thin, see-through robe. Her breasts and stomach were badly bruised. There were streaks of blood down her inner thighs. She was starved and thin, her ribs easily visible.
As Danny stood over her, she looked up, slowly, as though terrified to see what horror was in front of her. Her lips were split, her eyes bruised. The skin, however, shone angrily, as though it had been scrubbed too hard. Danny could tell that she’d been beautiful once. But no longer. He remembered Hammond’s briefing back on the plane. Dhul Faqar’s a real piece of work, by the sound of it . . . Intelligence suggests that he lets his men rape whichever captured women take their fancy, so long as they leave the choicest specimens for him. You can expect some pretty brutalised sex slaves in the stronghold. Don’t start getting chivalrous. Nothing’s more important than getting Dhul Faqar alive.
That might be so. But Danny knew one thing for sure. If there were women here who had been abused by Dhul Faqar, they would want nothing more than to be free of him. Which meant that right now, this poor, molested, maltreated girl was his best ally.
It was too much to hope that she would speak English. Danny whispered, ‘Dhul Faqar’, then made a slicing gesture at his throat to indicate what might be in store for him. The shadow of fear on the girl’s face grew darker, but she couldn’t help looking towards the far end of the room, where the closed blue door was. Danny pointed to the door and gave an enquiring look. The girl nodded. Danny put one finger to his lips to make a shushing gesture. Outside, there was a distant burst of gunfire. The girl started violently. Her nerves were obviously shot.
Danny looked back over his shoulder to the main entrance. Caitlin and Spud were there, Caitlin looking in, Spud facing out. Danny pointed sharply at the closed door. Caitlin nodded. Together, they approached it.
A metre from the door, Danny stopped, Caitlin just behind him and to the right. The door didn’t look strong. It wouldn’t withstand a sturdy boot.
Danny held up three fingers.
Two fingers.
One.
His weapon still pointing straight ahead, Danny booted the door open. It clattered on its hinges in unison with a distant burst of gunfire.
The adjoining room was completely different. Stone floor. Brick walls. A bare light bulb hanging from a cable in the ceiling. Another door on the far side, inward-opening again and fractionally ajar, a little rainwater dribbling inside. And another solitary woman, crouched in the corner, hugging her knees.
But no Dhul Faqar. Shit.
Danny immediately trained his weapon on the woman. She was older than the girl chained to the post, and not so scantily dressed. In fact, she was wearing Western clothes. Jeans. Black shoes. A dark jacket with white stitching. Her face was not beaten and bloodied like the younger girl’s. But it was equally terrified. Her lower lip seemed to tremble as she looked directly up at Danny. Danny saw that she was very beautiful. Dark hair. Almond eyes. Intelligence suggests that he lets his men rape whichever captured women take their fancy, so long as they leave the choicest specimens for him . . .
‘Dhul Faqar?’ Danny breathed. And as before, he made the slicing gesture at his throat.
The woman’s eyes widened. She looked hopeful and pointed towards the slightly open door.
Danny spoke quietly into his radio. ‘Spud, we’re heading outside. South end of block one. Meet us there.’
‘Roger that.’
As he had with the younger girl, Danny put one finger to his lips to tell this woman to keep quiet. Then he advanced on the door.
‘Wait,’ Caitlin breathed.
Danny stopped.
‘Why is she dressed in Western clothes?’ Caitlin said.
Danny suppressed a flicker of annoyance. What did it matter? It was probably just one of Dhul Faqar’s little perversions. Dress his sex slaves up like Western women. Caitlin strode up to her. ‘What’s your name?’ she demanded in a hushed, urgent voice.
The woman shook her head. She obviously didn’t understand what Caitlin was saying.
‘Leave her,’ Danny hissed. And when Caitlin hesitated: ‘Leave her!’
He continued advancing towards the door. Half a metre out, he hooked his foot round the edge of the door and dragged it open. He faced out once more into the rain-soaked night. He glanced down at the muddy ground, hoping to see footprints, but there was rainwater pooling there.
Spud over the radio. ‘You’re clear to exit.’
Danny surged forward, flicking down his NV as he did so. He emerged at the southern edge of the compound. Open ground for as far he could see. No buildings ahead of him, and no personnel, except Spud who was fifteen metres to his two o’clock, covering the exit in one direction and the main courtyard of the compound in another, the reservoir behind him. Caitlin joined them. Danny jabbed his thumb left. He figured this was the only direction their target could have taken – they’d have seen him if he’d turned right. Spud ran towards them, but held back a couple of metres as Danny took the lead, flanked by his two unit-mates.
They turned the corner that took them to the rear of the building. From here, they could see back towards the perimeter fence checkpoint and the road that led up to the main supply route. Several vehicles were speeding up it, both on the road itself and over the open ground to either side. There was a muzzle flash from beyond the vehicles. Half a second later, the sound of the fifty-cal reached Danny. He realised he was watching the Kurds firing as they retreated and headed back to the RV.
He snapped his attention back to his own position. The ground was very soft, but the water wasn’t pooling here. He realised his boot had sunk half an inch into the ground. Glancing back, he saw that they had left a trail of stubborn footprints behind them.
But there were no footprints up ahead. Which meant—
‘Shit!’ Caitlin hissed behind him, interrupting Danny’s train of thought.
‘What is it?’
‘Did you see her nails?’
‘What are you talking about?’ Danny whispered.
‘The woman we just left. Her nails were perfect. Western clothes. No bruises.’
A cold, sick feeling grew in Danny’s gut as he started to understand what Caitlin was driving at. ‘She wasn’t a sex slave . . .’ he breathed.
‘Nothing like,’ Caitlin replied.
A pause.
‘Guys.’ Spud’s voice was low and tense. ‘We’ve got a problem. Twelve o’clock, ten metres.’
Danny looked ahead. Then he cursed. How had he not seen it before?
Sitting on the ground ten metres in front of him was an item he had used more times than he could count. A few inches high, slightly curved with the convex edge facing them, and a wire leading from it. It was a Claymore mine, and it was close enough to kill them instantly.
‘Back up,’ Danny breathed. He had already taken a reverse step. ‘Back up now—’
‘I don’t think so,’ shouted an unfamiliar voice through the rain. Female. Danny heard a series of familiar clicking sounds. He knew that there were armed personnel behind him.
‘You are considering your options,’ said the female voice in good, clean English, but with a distinct accent. ‘But you have only one, which is to do what I say. If you make a single unexpected move, these men – there are eight of them – will shoot you. They enjoy killing the infidel, and especi
ally infidels who have been killing their comrades, so I would be very careful. You will now put all your weapons on the floor.’
Danny didn’t move.
Silence, then:
‘Do it,’ she said.
He unclipped his rifle and put it on the ground in front of him. Unholstered his Sig, and dropped it.
‘Remove your waistcoats,’ the woman said.
Danny unclipped the straps and let the heavy ops waistcoat fall to the floor.
‘Put your hands on your head, then turn round.’
Danny raised his arms, then turned. He saw that Caitlin and Spud had also obeyed the instructions. They had no choice. Eight armed Islamic State militants were standing in the rain, their Kalashnikovs pointing directly at the unit. And standing among them, her dark hair matted and wet, was the beautiful, almond-eyed woman in Western clothes who they had seen less than a minute ago looking terrified on the stone floor of the last room.
She sneered. ‘We are not all pathetic, like that tied-up bitch in the other room.’ Her eyes flashed unpleasantly and a brief, triumphant smile flickered across her mouth. ‘Lie on the ground,’ she instructed. ‘Hands behind your back.’
Danny hesitated briefly. His mind was turning over, calculating, evaluating options, looking for exit routes. But they all met the same barrier: the unit was sandwiched between a Claymore mine and a group of armed militants. They would kill them in an instant, given the order. He nodded at the others. They lay down in the very muddy ground. Danny felt his clothes absorbing the wet mud.
She barked a harsh instruction in Arabic. Three of the militants advanced. Danny watched their feet. As one of them stood above him, he considered grabbing his ankles, tussling him down, using him as a human shield. But the risks were too high, the chances of success too small. It would just put Spud and Caitlin in even more danger . . .
He had no more time to think about it. The militant standing above him had removed his rifle. He lifted it above his head, barrel pointing up, butt pointing down. Danny knew what was coming, and prepared himself for the intense crack of pain as the IS guy slammed his weapon down on Danny’s skull.
It happened. Danny experienced an intense, blinding flash. Then he blacked out.
When Danny woke, he was still lying on his front. But not in the mud. He was inside, on a hard floor. It was pitch black. Cold. No sound.
He didn’t know how much time had passed. Was it dawn yet? If so, they’d missed their RV with the Kurds. But right now Danny had bigger problems than that. His head throbbed where the militant had hit him. He tried to push himself to his feet, and winced. His ribs were bruised. It was painful to breathe. They’d obviously given him a good kicking while he was out. But they hadn’t tied him up, which was a mistake. He touched his face. It was sticky with blood. There obviously hadn’t been enough time for it to dry; he estimated that he’d been unconscious for less than half an hour.
Once he was on his feet, he started feeling his way around the room. He needed to know how big it was, and where the exit was. But he’d only been groping in the darkness for thirty seconds when the door opened. He winced as light flooded in. A figure stood in the doorway. Tall. Fairly broad shoulders. Probably male. Danny couldn’t make out his face because he was in silhouette and seemed to be wearing some kind of hooded top. Distance, three metres.
Danny surged forward. If he could harness the element of surprise, he could knock this figure out of the way. But his move was expected, and Danny was unsteady on his feet. The door slammed shut before he reached it. His sore body whacked against the inside, and although the door shook in its hinges, there was the sound of a bolt closing on the other side.
The room spun. Danny blacked out again.
A bright light woke him. It stabbed the back of his eyeballs. He was on his back. Looking up, he saw that the light source was a halogen-bright torch, being held about a metre from his face. There were figures looking over him, their faces obscured behind the light. He was too woozy to count them accurately – four, maybe five?
An arm appeared in front of the torch. It was holding a camera. There was a fast sequence of clicking sounds as the camera fired off a burst of shots.
The camera disappeared. The torch lowered, leaving multicoloured dazzle lights on Danny’s retinas. There was a scuffling and a commotion. One of the men had what looked like a baseball bat in his fist. Danny registered it just a moment too late to roll away. The baseball bat hit him squarely in the pit of the stomach. He heaved and retched as the wind shot from his lungs. By the time he’d managed to inhale, the men had left and the door was shut.
He was alone in the dark again.
Time passed.
Danny did what he could to keep track of it, mentally ticking off the minutes in the darkness. But he was in a bad state. He kept drifting in and out of consciousness. So he didn’t really know how long he’d been in there when the door opened again, casting an oblique rectangle of light across the floor of his cell.
There were three of them. They all had baseball bats this time.
Danny could tell that they were avoiding his face. Instead, they pummelled him hard in the guts and the genitals. They ground their heels into his knees, and they laughed harshly while they did it. Each time Danny tried to fight back, or even to move, he felt another numbing blow in his abdomen. They were beating him to a pulp.
Suddenly it stopped. Danny lay on his side, foetus-like in the recovery position, his breath noisy and strained as he tried to get some air into his system.
A face drew close to his. Just inches away. Danny could smell the stink on his breath and the sweat on his clothes. He was panting slightly, as though the process of beating Danny up had taken it out of him.
Then he spoke. A thick Arabic accent. Almost impenetrable. But not quite.
‘Danny Black,’ he said.
For a moment, Danny felt like his lungs weren’t working.
The man laughed. ‘Danny Black,’ he repeated.
Danny shook his head. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he muttered. His voice was dry and hoarse. It was hard to get the words out.
The man stood up. He and his mates left.
Danny’s skin had turned clammy. His mind rocked with panic. Nobody outside the security services knew he was here. How could they? This was a black op. Completely deniable.
Then he remembered: the photograph they had taken of him, before the beatings had started up. But how could they have identified him so quickly?
Get a grip, he told himself. You can’t think when you’re panicking.
He closed his eyes. Tried to ignore his aching body.
Think, Danny. Fucking think—
Suddenly, he took a sharp intake of breath again as a deeper, more sinister fear crept through his body.
These bastards knew his name. And a serving Regiment man’s name is a cause for secrecy. Not for his own safety, but for the safety of those closest to him.
Dhul Faqar had men in the UK. That was why Danny was here. And now that his captors knew his identity, they had the ultimate hold over him.
Danny bowed his head, cold dread seeping through his veins. All of a sudden he wasn’t thinking about himself. The pain he was in. The danger. He wasn’t even thinking about his unit.
He was thinking about a young woman in a tiny flat thousands of miles away, and the baby daughter she was looking after.
Seventeen
Hereford. Dawn.
It had been a bad night.
Rose had woken three times, and it had taken an hour to settle her on each occasion. And when the baby had let her sleep, Clara’s dreams were disturbed. They always were, when Danny was away.
She had got up just after five, and crept silently from the bedroom to avoid waking Rose. Made herself a cup of tea, then cradled it in the hallway as she stared at the soft toy Danny had bought, curled round the handle of the pram. She moved to the front room and sat on the sofa, staring at the window that looked out on
to the road, absent-mindedly flicking through her phone. Her fingernails, she noticed as the grey dawn became gradually lighter, were sore and chewed.
She sat there for an hour. Her tea grew cold. She knew she should try to sleep again, to give herself a better chance of making it through the day without crying. But she couldn’t. She kept thinking of Danny’s friend who had turned up unexpectedly the previous day. His words had chilled her. His warning to stay here, and not venture up to London. She’d called her mum and dad to check that they had no plans to visit the capital. And she’d worried about the sort of world she was bringing her little girl up in.
You’re safe, she told herself. Rose is safe. And so is Danny. What had his friend said? Don’t worry about him, love. He can take care of himself. And Clara knew that was true.
It was only when she heard Rose crying in the bedroom that she snapped out of her reverie, spilling some of the cold tea over her hands. She swore, placed the teacup on the floor next to her phone and hurried back to the bedroom. Her baby was lying in her Moses basket. She’d managed to unwrap her swaddling cloth and was all tangled up. Her angry little face softened, though, when she saw her mum standing over her. And Clara’s heart melted, as it did ten times a day, when her baby flashed her a tiny, crooked smile.
She lifted Rose out of her Moses basket and held her up against her shoulder, cooing and rocking her very gently. Rose gurgled happily for a moment, but it soon morphed into a cry again. She was hungry. She needed feeding. Clara carried her back into the front room and settled down on the sofa again, with the baby at her breast. She closed her eyes as Rose fed.
It was the sound of footsteps that roused her. Somebody was walking up to the front door. Clara frowned and glanced down at her phone. It was only just gone 6.30 a.m. Who could be calling this early?
The doorbell rang. Clara gently disengaged Rose from her breast and carried her to the front door, gently tapping the baby’s back as she went. She was about to open it, but something stopped her. The security chain was hanging loosely. Clara slotted it into position. Then she unlocked the door and opened it the couple of inches that the chain allowed.
