Hunter Killer (28 page)

‘All I know,’ Al-Sikriti said, ‘is that he took a boat to France last night. An airplane was waiting for him there, to take him to Sana’a. Al-Shabaab have a camp north of there, in the Sana’a governate, where he will seek sanctuary . . .’

‘How far north?’

‘I don’t know. I swear, they keep it a secret.’ And as Danny approached him again with the taser, he squealed: ‘
That is all I know . . .’

His final statement had the ring of truth. Danny believed him. He looked over his shoulder at Spud. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

Spud indicated right, turned off the main drag and then turned into a dark side street where he pulled up. Danny put the taser down and picked up his phone. He stopped recording, then scrubbed back a little and replayed the recording.

‘
. . . take him to San’a. Al-Shabaab have a camp north of . . .
’

Danny scrubbed further back.

‘
I shat myself.
’

‘
Dirty fucker . . .
’

Danny pressed ‘pause’. ‘Make a fuss about this, that tape goes straight to every business partner of yours we can find. Got it?’

Al-Sikiriti nodded, the fear on his face giving way to unchecked hatred.

‘No, I don’t think you do.’ Danny pulled his gun and put it to Al-Sikriti’s head. ‘Trust me, friend. If that cunt Abu Ra’id gets even a whisper that you’ve spoken to us, I’ll start with your wife and then with your kids. I’ll give you a couple of weeks to get used to them being dead, then I’ll do you. You won’t see me, you won’t even know I’m there till you get a bullet in your brain. Understood?’

Another terrified nod.

Danny had nothing more to say. Spud switched off the central locking and the two men debussed, pulling off their balaclavas as they stepped out of the car. Danny gave Spud the taser. Spud stuffed it into his bag as they walked swiftly away from the limo back towards the main road.

‘Not sure that’s quite how he expected his evening to pan out,’ Spud said.

‘Why did he leave it so late?’

Spud looked at his watch, confused. ‘It’s not even midnight,’ he said.

‘Not Al-Sikriti. Abu Ra’id. Why did he only skip the country this morning?’

Spud shrugged. ‘Because he’s a fucking idiot?’

‘If he’s such an idiot, why can nobody catch him?’ He looked at the phone that was still in his hand. ‘They need to hear this,’ he said. ‘Let’s get back to the safe house and make contact.’

Spud nodded. The two SAS men melted away into the night.

Fourteen

They’d been told to RV at Hammerstone House at 06.00 the following morning, but Danny and Spud were early. They stood in the biting frost of dawn, watching the headlamps of a convoy of four vehicles trundle slowly up the long driveway. The cars crunched on to the gravel in front of the house. They came to a halt, but the headlamps still blazed brightly. The faceless silhouettes of four chauffeurs stepped out and opened the rear doors, releasing four more figures from the back seats. Even though he couldn’t make out their faces immediately, Danny identified each one by the shape of their silhouettes and their gait. Victoria, shorter than the others and briskly shuffling. Chamberlain, tall and broad of shoulder. Harrison Maddox, lean and with a relaxed yet purposeful stride. And Buckingham, who waited for the others to step forward into the lamplight before revealing himself and keeping to the back of their little quartet. Everyone’s breath steamed. As they drew near and their faces became visible, Danny saw that each one was etched with tiredness and concern.

Buckingham had a key to the house. Nobody spoke as he let them in. They traipsed through the darkness into the same room where they’d had their first meeting. Buckingham turned on the lights. Everyone except Danny and Spud squinted as their eyes recovered from the sudden shock. None of the spooks removed their greatcoats, or even pulled their hands from their pockets. But Danny sensed that, with perhaps the exception of Chamberlain, they were eyeing the two SAS men with a certain wariness that he hadn’t noticed before. Which figured, he supposed. They knew what Danny and Spud had been up to since their last meeting. And, of course, they had heard the recording of his little chat with Al-Sikriti.

Victoria cleared her throat. ‘I think I speak for us all,’ she said, ‘when I congratulate you both on your work.’ The others gave no indication that they agreed with the sentiment, but stared stonily at them. ‘We’re quite convinced that Abu Ra’id has left the country for fear that he might be next on our list. A dangerous threat to the security of this country has been removed. We fully expect a cessation of the atrocities. Or at the very least a pause.’

‘So job done?’ Spud demanded.

Each of the four spooks gave them a startlingly similar look: a thin, humourless smile.

‘Not yet,’ Victoria said. She cleared her throat again. She nodded in Maddox’s direction, and the CIA man returned the gesture. ‘We need to make sure that the threat is eradicated. Permanently.’ She looked from Spud to Danny, then back again.

Danny wasn’t stupid. He knew what was coming.

‘Hugo, you’ve been liaising with our Yemen analysts. Would you like to tell us what you know about the Sa’ada Governate?’

Buckingham stepped forwards. Even his handsome features were marred by tiredness. He refused to catch Danny’s eye, and spoke instead to the company at large. He was unable to hide from his voice the smugness of a man who was aware that he knew what he was talking about.

‘It’s bandit country,’ he said.

‘I think we’ll need a little more to go on than that,’ Victoria said primly.

Buckingham inclined his head. ‘The intelligence we’ve . . .
you’ve
. . . gleaned from Al-Sikriti certainly makes sense,’ he said. ‘Yemen is by far the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsular, and a fertile training ground for Islamist militants – Al-Qaeda, historically, but in recent months Al-Shabaab groups have crossed over from Somalia, and their training camps have been appearing in remote areas to the north of the country – especially in the Sa’ada Governate. It’s a rigorously Islamic region, mostly of the Zaydi Shi’ite persuasion. Al-Qaeda and Al-Shabaab are Sunni, or course, but they’re attracted to this area because of its lawlessness. It’s quite out of the control of the Yemeni central government – almost like a breakaway state in many ways.’ Buckingham cleared his throat, then gathered his thoughts for a moment before continuing. ‘The Yemeni government makes all the right noises about stamping down on these camps, and have in the past liaised with the United States military as well as the Saudis to launch missile attacks on them. But they’re in a jolly difficult situation. These Islamist groups are well funded. They don’t just appeal to the religious sensibilities of their recruits, they
pay
them, which is something the Yemeni government simply can’t compete with. The government knows that if it removes this source of income from the very poorest parts of the population, it risks having an uprising on its hands.’

‘Typical Middle Eastern politics,’ Chamberlain butted in.

‘In fact,’ Buckingham said, ‘Yemen has more in common with Afghanistan than with its Arabic neighbours. Equally tribal, and the local elders often have more influence over their armed civilians than the government itself. The bottom line is that these training camps can turn up almost anywhere, often without the knowledge of the central government.’

‘We have people on the ground in Yemen, of course’ – Victoria took up the briefing – ‘as do our friends in Langley.’ She looked over at Maddox, who didn’t respond. ‘They’re putting the feelers out as we speak, trying to establish exactly where this training camp might be.’

‘Problem solved,’ Spud said with a shrug. He looked at Harrison Maddox. ‘You Yanks will have some drones in the area. Doesn’t sound like anything a couple of Hellfires won’t sort out.’

That thin-lipped look again from the spooks. A moment of silence. Danny could tell that they had a different strategy in mind.

‘Bloody important,’ Chamberlain said, ‘that Abu Ra’id gets what’s coming to him. Hard to be sure you’ve got the right fellow when you make an indiscriminate strike from the air. Could have nuked Abottabad at the drop of a hat, but who’d have been able to confirm we’d got Bin Laden?’ He chortled slightly, as though the idea of nuking an entire Pakistani city was an amusing one.

‘What I think Piers is trying to say,’ Harrison Maddox continued in his slow American drawl, ‘is that we need men on the ground to identify Abu Ra’id and eliminate him. It’s then up to the Yemeni administration whether they want to take out the whole training camp or not.’

Danny looked at each of the Hammerstone quartet in turn. They were staring implacably at him and Spud. He walked over to the window and looked out. The headlamps of the four cars were no longer burning, but the sky was a fraction lighter now. A steel grey.

‘You’ll need sixteen men,’ he said. ‘Minimum. And that’s assuming your intelligence guys can find out the exact location of the camp.’ He turned. ‘But I’m guessing that you haven’t dragged us here if you were thinking of a major operation like that.’

Another silence.

‘It’s out of the question,’ said Buckingham finally. ‘The footprint of this operation needs to be small. Instructions from on high.’

Danny walked up to him. ‘Oh yeah? Just
who
on high?’

Buckingham sniffed. He maintained steady eye contact with Danny. ‘Important people,’ he said.

Suddenly Chamberlain was there, standing between them. He gave Buckingham a warning look, then turned to Danny. ‘You’ll report to Heathrow at 08.00,’ he said, easily falling back into the role of a rupert issuing orders. ‘Both of you. There’ll be Regiment representatives there to brief you further.’

‘Just like that?’ Spud murmured.

Chamberlain gave a bland smile. ‘Happy landings, gentlemen. We’ve every faith in you.’ He looked over at the others. ‘England’s finest, eh? Couldn’t be in safer hands.’

If they were encouraged, the Hammerstone quartet didn’t show it as they exited the chilly room. Outside the house, Danny and Spud watched them wordlessly climb into the back of their chauffeur-driven vehicles, then file slowly down the driveway before turning out of sight.

‘Small footprint?’ Spud said. ‘Important people? You believe all that shit?’

Danny shook his head. ‘No,’ he said.

‘Maybe this is just what E squadron’s like.’

Maybe. But it wasn’t the first time he didn’t know the whole story. Wouldn’t be the last either. Occupational hazard. They had their orders, and unless they wanted to find themselves up in front of a military tribunal, they had to follow them.

‘Let’s go,’ Danny said, and together they climbed back into the Discovery and drove away.

08.00hrs

There were parts of Heathrow to which the public had access. There were parts for which only members of the aviation services were authorised. And there were parts that few people ever got to see. This Portakabin, a restricted area in the shadow of Terminal Two, was one of them. A white Transit van was parked up alongside it, next to which was Danny and Spud’s Discovery. A member of D squadron – Danny recognised the face but couldn’t put a name to it – stood at the entrance, his assault rifle slung across his body. He gave Danny and Spud a nod of greeting, but remained rooted to the spot. It wouldn’t do for any unauthorised personnel to enter this Portakabin, not least because its contents made a mockery of the security procedures thousands of holidaymakers were undergoing at that very moment.

Danny and Spud were there. So too was their ops officer Ray Hammond. He watched unsmilingly as the two Regiment men dealt with the hardware laid out on a table in front of them.

There were two rifles: HK416s. Danny and Spud stripped one of them down each, until each weapon was no more than a tight bundle of grey metal, wrapped in grey rags to stop the moving parts rubbing against each other. The guys each had a sturdy North Face holdall, about three foot in length. They each stowed their bundle and returned their attention to the rest of the gear. Their Regiment-issue Sig P266s were laid out – these too they wrapped up and stowed. Ammuntion for both weapons: 5.56s for the rifles, 9mm for the handguns, neatly packed in small cardboard boxes. Lengths of bungee cord to strap the rifles to their bodies. Fragmentation grenades, two each. Flashbangs, same number. A single Claymore mine – Spud took it in his holdall. Sand-coloured hessian backed with strands of wire so that it could be shaped into whatever form they needed for desert camouflage, but now folded into a neat square.  A trenching tool. A pack of silvery thermal sheeting – the only thing that could hide an OP from thermal imaging devices.

‘What’s with that?’ Danny asked.

‘We’ve had trouble with the Yemeni government in the past,’ Hammond said. ‘They have their own spy planes. Wouldn’t put it past them to shop your location to the bad guys if they see you. Chances are you’ll have to put in an OP. Use that if you want to stay totally hidden.’

Danny continued to work his way through the gear. There was worn paper mapping of the area they were heading for. Radio packs. A GPS handset, a Leica NV spotting scope, and two sets of night-vision goggles. Empty ops waistcoats, ready to be filled once they were on the ground. A sat phone each, of course, and a compass. A fistful of MRE packs. A thin wad of American dollars – $2,000 each. Ridiculously, this was the only thing Hammond made them sign for. Like the kind of people they were likely to encounter would want to issue receipts.