Zero 22, p.23
Zero 22, page 23
part #8 of Danny Black Series
He checked his surroundings. Other than Bethany and the General, Danny and his target were the only people in the street. He approached him from behind and, before the target even knew what was happening, wrapped his right arm around his neck and covered his mouth with his left.
The secret was to asphyxiate him sufficiently that he passed out, but not so much that he would suffer any long-term consequences. It meant waiting for the precise moment that his body went limp, then releasing. He struggled, of course. A flailing of the arms. A writhing of the body. But he was entirely helpless against Danny’s strength and skill and he soon passed out and dropped the car keys on to the ground. Danny allowed the body to relax into his grip. He held the guy under both arms and dragged him away from the car to a nearby doorway. Danny sat the guy down so that he slumped into it. Just a drunk, sleeping it off. At least, that’s what any passer-by would see.
He picked up the car keys and turned to signal to Bethany and the General that they should approach, but they were already halfway up the street. They’d dropped the pretence of being a couple and were no longer holding hands, but striding purposefully in Danny’s direction. Danny opened up the vehicle – it was a yellow Nissan, maybe ten years old – and took the wheel. The interior stank of stale tobacco. The windscreen was grimy with dust. That suited them well. He turned the engine over and checked the fuel gauge. It was three quarters full. Enough, he hoped, if they had a straight run.
Bethany took the passenger seat. The General sat in the back. It was a smaller car than the Passat and the General looked correspondingly larger in the rear-view mirror. Danny retrieved the GPS unit from his shoulder bag, switched it on and set it to direct them to the drop zone. He handed it to Bethany behind him. ‘Guide me,’ he said. He placed his Sig in the door and then pulled out into the road. He glanced at the drunk guy still out in the doorway but put him from his mind. It would be a while before he raised the alarm, and longer before anybody acted on it.
‘Left at the end of the road,’ Bethany said. He accelerated. It felt good to be in an anonymous car. Untracked. Unmarked. He knew not to let his guard down, but the worst of the job was probably behind him.
They drove in silence, punctuated only by Bethany’s directions as she read them off the GPS. It took them through back streets of Amman that Danny would never have navigated without help. He was glad of Bethany’s calm co-piloting. It meant he could concentrate on his driving and his situational awareness. Not that it proved necessary. There were no trails. No SUV with hidden gunmen pulling up alongside and taking shots. It was an ordinary, uneventful journey up and down the hilly urban terrain of Amman. And so Danny allowed a corner of his mind to wander, to consider everything the General had said. If he was right, and was telling the truth, it meant Danny now found himself at the centre of a global conspiracy that led all the way to the Oval Office and the Kremlin. A foolish American president plotting an atrocity on his own people in order to justify a power grab, and all this orchestrated and masterminded by the Russians. Danny was no politician. He was just a soldier who did as he was ordered, most of the time. But this sickened him. It also made him wary. Knowledge like this was dangerous. Powerful men would kill to keep it secret. He glanced at the General, who was looking thoughtfully out of the window at the passing street scenes. The conspirators wanted him dead because of who he was and not because of what he knew. Just imagine the energy they would put into assassinating him if they realised he was on to them.
The same went for Danny, of course. To the Oval Office and the Kremlin, an SAS grunt was a thousand times more expendable than a five-star general. They’d kill him without thinking. And as for Bethany. He glanced at her beautiful face as he drove. She was incredibly calm, given everything that had happened. But for her to have this knowledge would make MI6 even more determined that she should be silenced permanently, for fear that she would use it as leverage. Had Bethany worked that out? She knew how the security services thought and operated. If she shared any of Danny’s intuition, however, she was hiding it well. Not for the first time, he felt a certain grudging respect for her. He would still do what he was told, when the time was right. But his enthusiasm for that particular part of the job was waning fast.
It took an hour for the urban sprawl of the city to subside. They found themselves on a straight motorway, clusters of buildings here and there on either side, moderately busy traffic in either direction. Danny settled into the slow lane: sedate, unremarkable driving. ‘We follow this for about forty miles,’ Bethany said. ‘Then we have to go off-road. You think the car’s up to it?’
‘It’s going to have to be,’ Danny said. ‘We’ll make it.’
As he spoke, he was checking the vehicle behind him in the rear-view mirror. He couldn’t discern its make or colour because its headlamps were bright, but he could see that it was starting to overtake.
Rapidly.
It drew up alongside the Nissan. Its passenger window was open. The man in the passenger seat looked too big for the car. He had a buzz-cut mohawk. Turgenenv. His scarred scalp was sweating and he was looking directly at Danny with that gloating grin.
And then, quite suddenly, Turgenev’s vehicle veered into Danny’s.
It was just a nudge, but the other vehicle was larger and the momentum was such that Danny momentarily lost control. The Nissan screeched to the side of the road, the steering wheel spinning through his hands. ‘What the fuck . . .’ he hissed, as he gripped the wheel again and drove into the skid just in time to regain control of the vehicle and bring it back into the lane. ‘Did you see him?’ the General shouted. ‘It was the asshole who wasted my guys!’
‘He’s done a lot more than that,’ Danny growled. Turgenev’s vehicle was twenty metres in front, but its brake lights were on and the gap was closing. Danny couldn’t work it out. They’d switched cars. How could anybody still be on to them?
And then, just as Turgenev was alongside them again, he realised what was happening, and he cursed his own stupidity. ‘They’re going to hit us again!’ Bethany shouted. All her calmness had deserted her and there was real panic in her voice. Danny maintained his speed, staying level with the other car, holding his nerve. If he was going to avoid a collision, he had to time it just right.
Just right.
He accelerated. Turgenev’s car did the same in order to keep level. He accelerated some more. Same deal. The cars behind them were hanging back, clearly aware that something dangerous was going on. That suited Danny just fine. He needed the space. He accelerated a third time. Waited for Turgenev’s driver to catch up. And then he waited for it to swerve. He could see that Bethany’s knuckles were white as she gripped the GPS unit.
Hold it.
Hold it.
The vehicle closed in. Danny waited until the two cars were separated by barely a metre. Then he hit the brakes. The Nissan slowed. Turgenev’s vehicle shot ahead and swerved into Danny’s lane. But the resistance it was expecting from the Nissan wasn’t there. It overshot the lane and careered into the hard-baked terrain at the side of the road. Danny knew the driver had lost control when he saw the wheels on one side of the vehicle rise from the ground as the Nissan sped past them. In his rear-view, he saw the car roll. It landed on its roof and slid ten metres across the ground away from the road. Then it spun and its momentum righted it again, but pointing in the wrong direction. Smoke was belching from its engine. Danny reckoned the vehicle was out of action.
‘How did they know where we were?’ Bethany demanded. ‘What the hell’s happening?’
Danny didn’t answer. He was looking for a place to stop by the side of the road where there would be some cover. There was something he had to do, and he only had a few minutes to do it before his pursuers caught up with him again. He saw a suitable location soon enough: an abandoned petrol station, run down and boarded up, no sign of any pumps. He manoeuvred off the road and brought the vehicle to a halt behind the main building, where weeds and debris littered the ground, the kind of place most sensible people would avoid. He killed the engine. Killed the lights. Grabbed his Sig and jumped out of the car. Opened the rear passenger door and pointed the Sig at the General. ‘Get out,’ he said.
‘What the hell—’
‘Get out, now!’
The General hesitated for a second then did as he was told. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re—’
‘Take your clothes off.’
‘You’re insane.’
‘Do it now.’ Bethany had also exited the Nissan and was staring at Danny, a questioning look in her eyes.
Danny ignored her. ‘Now!’ he repeated.
The General started with his sports jacket. As he wormed his body out of it, Danny took the jacket and felt inside the pockets. There was an asthma inhaler and a wallet. He removed the canister from the inhaler and checked the plastic casing. Nothing. He looked through the wallet. Several credit cards, some American dollars. Nothing else. He dropped the jacket on to the ground and indicated with a wave of his Sig that the General should remove his pink shirt. He scowled at Danny as he unfastened the buttons and handed it over. The shirt was crumpled and sweaty. It smelled bad. It was not the crisp, clean article of clothing he had been wearing when he entered the hotel bar six hours earlier. Danny checked the breast pocket and the hem. Nothing. He dumped the shirt with the sports jacket. ‘Trousers,’ he said.
Wordlessly, the General kicked off his brown brogues. They were still shiny. He removed his trousers and handed them over. Danny checked them: pockets, lining, hem, belt buckle. Nothing. The trousers joined the rest of the General’s clothes pile. O’Brien was standing in his socks and underpants – the same ones that Bethany had stuffed in his mouth – and his humiliation was plain to see in his face. Danny was about to tell him to strip completely when he remembered the brown brogues. He pocketed the Sig then bent down to pick them up. They smelled of boot polish and foot odour and were warm and moist inside. Danny removed the inner sole from the right shoe. Nothing. The inner sole from the left.
There it was.
The tracking device was no bigger than a mobile phone sim card, but thicker. It was stuck into a recess in the sole of the shoe. Danny picked it off with his nail and held it up. ‘It wasn’t the car they were tracking,’ he said. ‘It was you.’
‘How the hell did they plant that thing on me?’ the General said.
‘I don’t know. Doesn’t matter now. Get dressed.’
Bethany walked towards Danny. The General was scrambling to get his clothes back on, seemingly embarrassed to be seen by her. But she showed no sign of interest in the older man. She was interested in the tracking device. ‘Destroy it,’ she said. ‘Or just leave it here on the ground. They won’t be able to track us then.’
‘Yeah,’ Danny said. She was right. No tracking device, no trails. He dropped it on the ground and prepared to grind it with his heel.
But then he stopped.
He looked back along the road. He could just see the headlamps of Turgenev’s car blazing into the darkness a couple of hundred metres away. He squinted. There was no doubt about it. A figure was standing in front of the burning car. Even at this distance, Danny could tell that he was taller and broader than the average man. ‘Turgenev,’ he muttered.
‘The guy with the mohawk?’ the General said.
‘Yeah,’ Danny replied. ‘The guy with the mohawk.’
He thought of the Zero 22 operation. Of Bullethead and Chinese Mike. Of Dougie and his daughter. He remembered the ambush and the air strike and the burned and butchered bodies littering the blast site. The carnage that Turgenev had orchestrated. He thought of their fight, and of Turgenev’s promise to kill Danny with his bare hands. He thought of the two SAS patches he had on his jacket, and of Turgenev holding the heads of decapitated SAS men.
Danny Black was a Regiment man. It was in his blood. And from his very first day in Hereford, one rule had been instilled in him: there are consequences to killing SAS men.
Two hundred metres, he thought. I could deal with him now.
It wasn’t an option. Turgenev was likely to be armed and would see him coming. Not to mention that the police would likely be on the scene at any moment, as well as any Wagner Group backup.
If Danny wanted to deal with that mohawk-headed fucker, he’d have to think a bit smarter.
He checked his watch. 22.59 hrs. The stealth chopper would be at the pick-up point at 04.00. That gave him five hours. He consulted the geography of the area in his head. Their current location. The drop zone forty miles to the north-west of Amman. The location of the ruins where they’d hidden the smuggler’s lorry. If he was to go back there, it would involve a ten-mile detour to the south. He had enough time, just.
He bent down again and picked up the tracking device.
‘Get dressed,’ he told the General. ‘And get back into the car.’
NINETEEN
It was a short hop from Cincinnati to Orlando. The children had squealed at take-off and landing, and had been almost unreasonably excited when the kind air stewardess had handed them a complimentary Coke from the drinks trolley. Rabia did not ordinarily allow them to drink soda, but today she did so with an indulgent smile. It was almost enough to make Hamoud forget about the unpleasant stares he and his family had received from some of the passengers on this Delta flight. There was something about airplanes in America that made those stares more aggressive. It was probably a 9/11 thing, Hamoud supposed. At least, and as far as he was aware, none of the other passengers had demanded that his family leave the plane before take-off. He had heard of that happening.
When they arrived in Orlando, the children’s excitement was irrepressible. Even Malick, who was normally so quiet. Almost every poster at the airport showed an image of the Cinderella Castle, or thrill-seeking kids on a rollercoaster, or Mickey Mouse. Malick and Melissa pointed at every single one. Hamoud and Rabia gently ushered them along the corridors of the airport towards the exit, through the crowds and out into the departure area.
A man was waiting for them here. He wore smart clothes – a blazer and dark trousers – and he held up a blackboard with the name ‘Hamoud Al Asmar’ clearly written in white chalk.
Hamoud stopped. The man’s face was familiar. He tried to place it, but it eluded him.
‘Hamoud, are you alright?’ His wife and children had gone on ahead for several metres before realising that Hamoud was not with them. They had turned back and rejoined him. ‘Hamoud, what is the matter?’
Hamoud smiled. ‘Nothing, my love,’ he said, and he tousled his son’s hair as the little boy stared up at him. ‘Look, there’s our transfer.’
Rabia preened herself. They would never take a car service in the ordinary course of events. ‘It’s like being the President of the United States,’ she told her children rather grandly. ‘Come along!’
They made themselves known to the driver, who was very polite. He offered to take their bag for them but Hamoud declined. He wasn’t used to such service and it made him uncomfortable. The driver led them out into the hammer-blow heat of a Florida summer. Hamoud felt a bead of sweat dripping precisely along the vertical scar on his face. They headed into the parking lot where the driver’s minivan was parked. ‘Make yourself comfortable folks,’ he said as he slid the door open for them. There were two rows of seats in the back of the minivan. The children took the back row to themselves – another thrill for them – while Hamoud and his wife took the front row. It was pleasantly cool in the air-conditioned van, and a country music station played softly as they exited the parking lot and headed away from the airport.
But Hamoud couldn’t relax. He could see the driver’s face in the rear-view mirror and was even more certain now that he recognised him. He thought hard. The harder he thought, the more the man’s identity slipped from him. Relax, he told himself. Try to forget about it. If you’re not thinking so hard, maybe it will come.
‘We’re nearly there, children,’ he said. The kids squealed with joy and Rabia laughed fondly to hear it.
And it was as she laughed that it came to him. He hadn’t been able to place the face because he’d only seen it for a split second earlier that day, watching Hamoud from a distance as he and his family passed through security at Cincinnati. He felt a twist of anxiety in his gut. What could this mean? Were they being followed? Did this man mean them harm? He didn’t seem harmful. He was driving calmly at fifty miles per hour, eyes forward, paying no interest to Hamoud and his family.
It was paranoia, he told himself. Nothing more. It couldn’t be the same person. Why would an Orlando transfer driver be loitering in the security area of Cincinnati airport? He wouldn’t. Hamoud was mistaken. It was as simple as that. He was being foolish. He wasn’t well in his mind. He had to remember that, for his own good and for the good of his family.
He held his wife’s hand and tenderly squeezed it. They were going to enjoy their holiday, and his confused thoughts were not going to get in the way.
