Payback (39 page)

Immediately
the searing, hugely powerful lights snapped on.

The
Alliance members, mostly now sitting to watch the display, were temporarily blinded by three one-million candlepower Dragon searchlights. This was then followed up with a barrage of concussion grenades and hovering magnesium flares, dangling on their small parachutes. Simultaneously the four watch-towers collapsed as the electronically detonated plastic explosives blew away their bases. Unnoticed, small groups of men in anti-blast gas-masks and body armour had raced forward, and as some of the more alert mercenaries and bodyguards began firing blindly at the lights, the muted sound of the Regiment’s lowered velocity Heckler & Koch MP5 AZ self-loading carbines could just be heard, silencing them.

One
SAS man had got himself mid-way between some of Barton’s mercenary guards and a group of the Alliance bodyguards fifty yards away. Lying low, he fired a burst first at one, and then turning 180 degrees, at the second group. Each thought the other men were firing at them, and he crawled away, bullets whistling over his head, having started an intense fire-fight between two friendly groups, using up their ammunition and effectively removing them from the theatre for the first vital minutes.

Dino
was the first to realise that this was no firework display, and signalled to his men to gather round and get him out of there. The Warlord’s men had also already grouped, and a loud explosion told the major that one of their booby-trapped RPGs had just blown up on use. Dino’s plan was simple. Reach his private jet and get the hell away. But even had he been able to get past the SAS line, it would still have proved fruitless. All the aircraft had long been immobilised.

The
major’s calm but firm voice boomed out from the PA they had installed. ‘Hear this. You are to abandon your arms and walk forward towards the light. Hands behind your heads. Slowly. We are British special forces supporting an official Belizean police operation. You are to do as I say. I repeat. Abandon your arms and walk forwards towards the light. Now. Your hands behind your head. Do it. Now!’ He then repeated the message twice in his excellent Spanish.

‘
Screw you!’ Dino yelled using Barton’s feeble PA on the terrace, and fired a burst from his machine-pistol at the lights. With that he looked around and, seeing Tom, grabbed him, the gun at his head. ‘Barton disappears. His
family
disappears,’ he snarled at him, his hands frisking him for weapons. ‘Then all this. It ain’t hard to figure what’s happened here. A set-up. Well, I tell you this. If your CIA or whatever friends out there don’t let me get to my plane, then I’m going to put a clip right up that smart ass of yours.’ He looked down at the radio he had found in Tom’s pocket. ‘So, pretty boy. Call up your heroes out there on this thing. Tell them to call off this turkey shoot long enough for me to fly the hell out. Do it!’ Pulling Tom’s hair back, he shot a burst of automatic fire around his feet, clipping his right ankle, drawing blood, and then shoved the blisteringly hot barrel hard into his ass, carefully keeping Tom’s body between him and the wall of light.

‘
Message!’ Tom blurted. ‘Bates. I’ve been taken. Being threatened. Advise. He wants free passage to his plane.’

‘
We see you clearly, Bates. Tell him we’re considering. I’ll get back.’

‘
They’re thinking about it,’ Tom yelled at Dino.

Another
burst of fire, this time deliberately hitting his foot. Tom screamed in pain, staggering, but Dino held him up. ‘Not good enough. There’s nothing to think about. They do it, or you die. Tell them again. Last time!’

‘
Bates. He’s going to kill me! I’m shot in the foot. Advise!’

‘
Stay calm and still, Bates. Which foot?’

‘
Left.’

‘
OK. In ten seconds, I’ll say “go”. When I do, throw yourself to your left. Hard. Do you understand?’

‘
Oh shit!’

‘
Do you
understand
?’

Tom
closed his eyes. He knew what they were going to try, and he did not like it one bit. ‘OK,’ he heard himself say, and started counting. One—and, two—and, three —and...

The
SAS’s preferred sniper rifle is the 7.62 Accuracy International PM, but its safe distance for pin-point success is only some 500 metres. Tom Bates and the Mexican were 800 metres away, calling for the formidable American-made Barrett Light 50. Its twenty-two pounds means that the bi-pod stand is vital for this degree of accuracy, and the SAS marksman already had Dino in his 10X telescopic sights. The recoil pad was sitting snugly in his right shoulder, ready to absorb the sharp kick. The Barrett, a favourite with the US Marines, has an eleven-round magazine, firing massive half-inch calibre rounds four times the weight of a standard rifle bullet.

‘
GO!’ The order was heard in the man’s headset simultaneously with Tom, who flung himself to the side.

With
a muzzle velocity of almost 2,000 miles an hour, the single bullet ripped a hole the size of a plate in Dino’s chest, throwing him back a yard. His machine-pistol fell by Tom’s bloody feet. Grabbing it, he saw one of the Mexican’s bodyguards taking in what had happened and turning his gun slowly towards him. Firing instinctively, Tom sprayed bullets at the man’s legs, and got in an unintended head shot, killing him.

Something
new was now happening. Still disoriented, their heads and ears aching, the remaining Alliance men tried to come to terms with the strange, new sensation. A thunderous roaring noise grew louder and louder. Fierce winds were throwing papers, glasses and then even chairs around, like a small hurricane. Tom, still on the ground, partly covered his eyes, wondering what more could happen.

And
then suddenly, from the swirling mists of the flares, grenades and reeking cordite, she descended from the black night sky. An experience at once awesome, and somehow mystical. The Harrier had its four nozzles down, hovering like a huge, magnificent angry hornet, the after-glow of its single Rolls-Royce Pegasus turbofan engine picked out, partly silhouetted against the searing white Dragon lights.

All
resistance was immediately rendered pointless. Any vague plan of a flight to safety was dashed by the dramatic appearance of the fighter jet, her air-to-surface rocket pods sitting menacingly on the outside of her wings. This, in SAS parlance, was the sickener.

After
two minutes of this, the major radioed the Harrier to withdraw so he could make himself heard again.

The
pilot acknowledged, speaking into the UHF radio mictel plugged in under the chin strap of his bone-dome flying helmet. With his green pig skin-gloved hand, he pushed on the throttle to his left, nozzles partly aft, and accelerated. Almost immediately he re-rotated the nozzles down to a pre-set fifty degrees and the 48-foot plane rose rapidly on a combination of wing lift and engine thrust, vibrating like a pig, before disappearing into the night. Its mission accomplished.

This
time, when the major ordered them forward, they came like lambs. Any thought of air escape or armed resistance was now futile.

Tom
meantime had somehow got to his feet, and was limping painfully back to the ranch to find Lydia. A couple of SAS men caught up, helping carry him. ‘Barton. Where’s Barton?’ they demanded.

Of
course. This thing was not yet over. They still had to arrest the key man. ‘I locked him in the wine cellar. Help me, and I’ll show you.’

They
carried him down the stairs and readied themselves to burst in to the cellar. One nodded with great deliberateness to the other, and as the first man stood by the open door, the second ran in, fanning an arc with his H&K, as his partner followed through, covering another arc.

Once
inside, however, even they froze momentarily at the carnage confronting them. Tom, following behind, cried out, ‘Lydie!’

She
looked up slowly, nursing Maddie’s head in her arms like some grotesque, bloody baby. ‘Sssh!’ she chided. ‘She’s sleeping. Don’t wake her. She’s fine. Just sleeping...’

Maddie
’s glazed open eyes, however, told a different story.

*

Allan Calder poured Mitchell a couple of fingers of single malt. His man had just come over from the ops centre to make a preliminary verbal report. ‘This place is supposed to be dry up here. So...medicinal.’

‘
Not far off the truth. I need something after that lot.’ Mitchell added some still water and took a deep draught, feeling it gently burn his throat and slide down deep inside him.

‘
If I’ve forgotten to say it, well done. Both Oeiras and Belize went pretty well copy book.’

It
was true. He had been able to have the SAS and SBS officers sign control of the two operations back to the local police exactly on schedule. The Portuguese lab had been incinerated, with no damage to life or property, the boffins having already taken all the bacterial samples they needed. In San Ignacio, in addition to James Barton, Madeleine and the Mexican leader, Dino, five guards had been killed, three of them from friendly fire. ‘You know how these things are,’ Mitchell replied. ‘It may have gone well, but that was down to the special forces. Not me.’

‘That Harrier
must have brought back memories of 1417 Flight Squadron over there. Good of the US Marine Corps to supply it for us.’

‘Yes. That killed off all resistance. But this thing’s not over Allan
. The Scud. The attack Barton paid for. We still have to wait and watch for that.’

Calder
pushed a sheet of paper over to him. ‘A Scud, sea-launched off Cyprus, struck Tel Aviv an hour ago. It hit a large parking lot, and there were no deaths. Some injuries from glass, but nothing worse.’

Mitchell
skim-read the report. ‘But the biological warhead? The bio-ethnic cleansing?’

Calder
smiled. ‘Blacher was a lapsed, but a good Jew. The Israeli scientists have found nothing lethal in the fall-out to the attack. Just some kind of advanced fertiliser. We have to assume he got to switch the containers before they were married with the weaponisation agents to make the warhead. That was his area of expertise, remember. He must have made the switch before hanging himself. A real hero, as soon as he realised what he had got involved in.’

‘
And the Israelis are happy to keep this quiet?’

‘
They’ll publicly blame the Scud on Hizbollah or Syria, I expect. The last thing any of us want is to give this any publicity. Bio-ethnic cleansing...the threat of that particular nightmare hasn’t gone away. But thanks to Barton, we now know a lot more about it. As a postscript, it won’t surprise you that when the Portuguese went to arrest Rybinski at his Lisbon flat, he’d been assassinated. A single, silenced, low velocity bullet in his head.’

‘
Another George Bull?’

Calder
shrugged his shoulders and frowned at his tired-looking old friend. ‘Get some shut-eye, Perry. The written report can wait a few hours.’

Mitchell
stood up to go. ‘Thanks. I think I will. Goodnight.’

He
was at the door when Calder called over, his glass in the air. ‘To the next time, “Mr Recruiter”. You chose well again.’

Mitchell
thought of what he had done to Tom Bates. The American had come through brilliantly, but at what cost? He was not proud of himself for having forced him through it.

‘
The next time? Maybe. Only maybe...’ he replied wearily, and left.

Epilogue

‘T
his is the
kepala
,’ Banto said proudly.

Lydia
did not know whether to shake his hand, curtsy, or what...‘Pleased to meet you, sir,’ she finally replied.

The
old man was decked in his tribal finery, bird-of-paradise feathers in his head-band, his face and body oiled and painted. His intelligent eyes seemed to see into her soul as he spoke slowly and deliberately to Banto.

Translating,
Banto smiled. ‘He says tomorrow we honour you with a pig feast, and
sing
sing
Big celebration. You get best part of pig. And also the tail.’

She
somehow managed a smile back. There would, she knew, be no way out of this. ‘Tell the
kepala
I am honoured. Thank you.’

Once
more Banto translated and waited for his chief’s reaction. The broad smile said it all, however, and the two men walked away together, leaving her alone by her lodge.

At
her insistence, Banto had been released from charges for his killings. Including her father’s. She argued that he had been abducted from his natural hunter-gatherer habitat, tortured and treated like a laboratory baboon. Dr Penny had supported her, telling the Belize police everything, after he was himself arrested for deportation back to the USA. Following frantic Foreign Office wheeling and dealing there had finally been a tacit agreement that Banto could be quietly returned home. Nobody but nobody wanted a trial hashing over what had happened. This had then thrown up the next problem. Where exactly was his home? Which tribe was he? He certainly did not know in any terms that made sense to Western minds. But finally, an anthropologist in Port Moresby was able to pin-point his language and his description of his local highlands, river and forests. After that it was easy and, having travelled with him back to PNG, they then flew on together to the landing strip used by Chancey. From there he had joyfully marched her straight to his village.

Th
is diversion, planned to take a couple of weeks, was proving a useful break for her as she somehow tried to come to terms with everything that had happened. Tom was recovering back in London, waiting for her, seemingly as keen as ever for them to move in together. Poor Maddie had been buried in the family crypt at the Manor’s church, alongside James. The money—and there were still millions from her father’s legitimate biotechnic business activities—would be split in his will between Lydia and the orphaned twins, now also very much to be her responsibility. As was the Manor and Chester Street.

And
yet...what now of her old life at the agency? Oliver? Her angry, passionate, campaigning work with the Warriors? What of all that—now she had become a millionairess, with grand homes and a handsome, sexy husband there for the taking. And the twins—a ready-made family...Was this
her
? Was it what she really wanted? Or was it her father yet again imposing his life, his values on her from the grave? She had threatened once to give all his money away to her charities. But, now, would she...? The swirling contradictions of twenty-first century life, with all its gee-gaw material trappings crowded in on her, as she walked alone in the beautiful forest. Lost in thought, and drowning in doubt.

‘
What
is
the danger from the outside?’ the
kepala
asked Banto, looking back to see that the woman was now far away from them. ‘What must we do to prepare?’

Banto
looked to the ground. ‘We have nothing to fear. They are weak, cowardly warriors.’

The
two walked on for several minutes in silence:

‘
And what have you learned? What can they teach us, these outsiders?’ his chief finally asked.

‘
I have learned nothing from them. But maybe my spirit has. I must wait for it,’ Banto replied simply. ‘It is far behind, searching for me.’

The
old man nodded, understanding. ‘This—woman.’ There was distaste in his voice. ‘She owes you?’

‘
No,
kepala
. I had Payback.’

Again
the old man nodded, the effect amplified by the tall feathers of his head-dress. Satisfied, he walked proudly away.

They
never spoke of it again.