Zero 22, p.8
Zero 22, page 8
part #8 of Danny Black Series
The same couldn’t be said of Bethany. As they entered the Hercules, her show of cool confidence faltered momentarily. He’d seen it before: the tightening of the eyes and the slump in the shoulders of arrogant young rookies, all piss and vinegar, as they entered an aircraft for their first freefall and were hit with the realisation of what they were about to do. When Bethany caught Danny looking at her, she quickly straightened herself up and made a show of looking around the inside of the aircraft.
It was functional. There were benches along either side of the plane, with webbing straps and medical boxes fixed to the interior fuselage. The space was dominated by a pallet with a quad bike strapped to it. The bike itself was a couple of metres long with large, solid tyres that still held remnants of dust and mud from its last use. It was heavily strapped to the pallet, almost as if somebody had attempted to bandage it, and its bodywork was sprayed in desert khaki colours. A robust, dependable piece of kit which, in a few hours, would be dropped into the desert from 30,000 feet. An enormous parachute pack was strapped to the top of the quad bike and the pallet itself was resting on a set of rails that ran along the centre of the Hercules, all the way to the tailgate.
Danny’s gear was stashed by one of the benches. He walked over to it, crouched down and double-checked the kit. First off, the tandem chute. He examined the release rings and cables, the routing of the strapping and the cutaway handles. Bethany watched him intently as he performed these standard checks.
‘So, you never jumped before?’ Danny said.
‘Never.’ She sounded a bit reluctant to admit her lack of experience.
‘You’ll be strapped to me.’
‘What are they for?’ Bethany pointed at a couple of canisters.
‘Oxygen. It’ll be thin where we’re jumping from. We’ll need it for the first few thousand feet. Otherwise hypoxia – oxygen starvation. We don’t want to pass out before we deploy the chute.’
Bethany looked a bit queasy. ‘What if it goes wrong?’ she said.
‘It’s only the last inch that kills you.’
‘Is that supposed to be funny?’
Danny stood up and walked over to her. ‘Which wrist do you wear your watch on?’
‘My left,’ she said. She held up her left wrist to show him.
‘If anything happens,’ Danny said, ‘that’s the arm you want to hold in the air.’
She looked confused. ‘Why?’
‘You want to break your watch?’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Nothing’s going to go wrong,’ Danny said. He went back to the gear and held up the tandem rig. ‘You’re going to wear this,’ he said. ‘I’ll be securely clipped in behind you and I’ll operate the chute. As soon as the quad goes out, we’ll follow. Put your arms across your chest and keep your head up. Don’t worry if we go upside down, it happens sometimes and we’ll soon right ourselves. Do what I tell you and you’ll be fine. I’ve done this thousands of times before.’ He managed a smile. ‘It’s going to be the best ride of your life.’
Bethany looked deeply uncertain. She pointed at the quad bike. ‘I’m guessing we don’t intend to drive that thing up to the front entrance of a swanky hotel in Amman.’
‘Right,’ Danny said. He had instant recall of the instructions in his target pack. ‘There are some old Roman ruins in the desert on the outskirts of the city. We’ll head for that location where we’ll RV with a local fixer at dawn. He’ll have a more suitable vehicle for us and will show us a place to hide the quad bike.’
‘Can we trust him?’
‘Course not. But he won’t get paid until we’re out of country and he’s not doing it for the shits and giggles. Once we have the new vehicle, we’ll head to a safe house in Amman where there’ll be civvies and press passes waiting for us, so we can get into the General’s hotel.’ He could see her assimilating this information. ‘Just do as I tell you,’ he said.
She gave him a contemptuous look. He went back to checking over the kit: wrist-mounted altimeter, twice the size of a normal watch, and a smaller wrist-mounted Garmin GPS unit; personal weapons and ammunition; oxygen masks; two sets of night-vision goggles for when they were on the ground; NV scopes; day packs; an entrenching tool. When he was happy that everything was in order, he turned his attention to the quad bike. He tugged at the strapping to ensure everything was secure. He checked the fuel tank was closed. The keys to the quad were hanging in the ignition. He removed them and placed them in a secure pouch in his camo gear.
By now the loadies were all aboard, performing their own final checks and readying the Herc for flight. The engines started up. The aircraft thrummed and the tailgate closed, blocking out the daylight. Lights along the fuselage illuminated the interior, but only dimly. Danny and Bethany strapped themselves into the benches, sitting opposite each other, as the Herc began to move.
It taxied for ten minutes, stopped for a few seconds and then accelerated. Moments later they were airborne.
Danny watched Bethany carefully as the Herc gained altitude. Her eyes were closed and she was resting her head against the fuselage. She had looked almost inhuman a couple of hours ago. Now, despite her anxiety about the drop and her anger about being manoeuvred into this situation, she looked entirely calm. Danny wished he knew what was going on in her head. Which version of Bethany existed behind that impenetrable exterior?He thought about what he had been tasked to do to her once she had served her purpose, as the Hercules banked steeply, straightened up and set its course for the Jordanian border.
Alice had worked late, as usual. She had left the MI6 building just after ten and taken a train from Vauxhall to Mitcham where she lived alone in a tiny one-bedroom maisonette. She’d called her mum who told her, as she did every single day, that Alice was working too hard. Then she’d eaten some cold pasta bake from the fridge, drank a cup of herbal tea, removed her make-up and fallen into bed.
Alice’s phone was on silent, but it still vibrated noisily on her bedside table as a call came through. She groped for it in the darkness, almost dropped it, then answered it sleepily. ‘Hello?’
‘Alice, my dear!’
‘Who is this?’ Her bedside clock read 11.55.
‘It’s me, my dear. Mark. Mark Cawley.’
His voice was slightly slurred. He’d been drinking. Alice quickly calculated that it must be just after 2 a.m. in Moscow. ‘It’s late, Mark,’ she said.
‘Never too late to hear your delightful voice. When are you going to visit me in Moscow? I know a cracking—’
‘Why are you calling, Mark?’ She was fully awake now and keeping her voice level and patient. This was by no means the first time an officer in the field had contacted her in a state of inebriation. Drunkenness, for many of them, seemed almost unavoidable. The best way to persuade a target or informant to release information was to ply them with alcohol. It worked both ways, of course. You could hardly pour your guest vodka all night, while drinking nothing but sparkling water yourself. A spy needed many attributes: bravery, inquisitiveness, tradecraft. But as much as anything else, they needed a sturdy liver and the ability to hold their drink. ‘It’s not really to hear my delightful voice, is it? Do you have information for me? Mark? Mark, are you there?’
There was no reply, but she could just make out the sound of splashing water. She realised he was urinating and screwed up her nose in distaste. Holding the phone between her ear and shoulder, she took the notepad and pencil that she always kept by her bed and waited for him to finish. ‘Where was I?’ he said finally.
‘In the bathroom?’
‘Ah, yes, excuse me, my dear. Nature calls!’
‘Do you have information for me, Mark?’
‘I certainly do.’
‘Is it safe for you to talk?’
‘I checked into a hotel room for that precise purpose. I’ve been with my informant, Roman.’
A pause.
‘And?’ Alice said, trying to keep her voice calm.
‘Dreadful place he lives in. One of those Soviet monstrosities on the edge of Moscow. Concrete as far as the eye can see. No wonder the poor fellow wanted to get blasted. He’s been out of work for a year. Wife and three kids to support. Hardly room to swing the proverbial cat. Walls like cardboard.’
‘Did he know anything about Poliakov?’
‘They’re old mates, my dear. Went to school together. Of course, that was back in the eighties, before glasnost and peri . . . peri . . .’ He tried a few times to say the word perestroika, then gave up. ‘He became a teacher while Poliakov went into government work. But they stayed in touch and their children are friends.’ Cawley belched fruitily. ‘S’cuse me,’ he said.
‘So has he heard anything?’
‘Eh?’
‘Your informant. Has he heard anything about Poliakov?’
‘Bloody clever kids,’ said Cawley. ‘We should tap them up for GCHQ. Course, the Russkies will get there first.’
‘Mark!’
‘Computer mad. Boffins, really. They’re young. They drive my informant to distraction, you know. Always playing computer games on these damned Xbox contraptions. Did you know that they play with their friends online wherever they are in the world, and even record their gaming sessions?’
Alice smiled to herself. Cawley was a decent agent, but he was one of the old school and he was showing his age with his astonishment at the simplest piece of technology. She refrained from telling him that she herself had done the same thing with her friends ten years ago, hoping instead to keep him on track.
‘Poliakov, Mark?’ she said.
‘Sorry, my dear, sorry. So, it turns out that one of my informant’s children, Sergei, has been playing online computer console games with one of Poliakov’s children.’
Alice fell silent, and now it was Cawley’s turn to nudge her. ‘My dear?’
‘How recently?’
‘Yesterday.’
Relief flowed through her. Alice knew Poliakov was a typical FSB hood. A bad guy who had done bad things. She wasn’t fooled by the slimness of his MI6 file, and his disappearance was hardly regrettable. But she didn’t feel the same about his family. Chances were, they didn’t know a thing about his secret activities. They certainly didn’t deserve to be killed just because Poliakov had been exposed, which Alice had presumed had happened. But it sounded as if the family might – might just – still be alive.
‘How certain was your informant?’
‘He was drunk, my dear. Very drunk. Poor fellow could barely string a sentence together. Feel rather sorry for him, for the way he’ll feel in the morning.’ He chuckled. ‘Feel rather sorry for myself, too.’
‘How certain was he, Mark?’
‘Neither certain nor uncertain,’ said Cawley. For the first time during their conversation, Alice had the sensation that although he sounded drunk, his mental faculties were all in order. ‘He rather mentioned it in passing. Mumbled it, really. I didn’t have the impression that he was trying to feed me false information. I didn’t have the impression he was trying to feed me any information. It was just a drunken comment and then we moved on.’
Alice’s mind was moving rapidly. Mark Cawley might be an un-PC old dinosaur, but this was good work. ‘Listen to me carefully, Mark. I need you to go back to your informant’s apartment. Do it first thing in the morning if you can. The kid’s Xbox will be connected to an external hard drive. I need you to get that drive for me. If the kid’s been recording gaming sessions with Poliakov’s son, we need to hear that conversation.’
‘My dear thing,’ said Cawley. ‘I’m a step ahead of you.’
‘What?’
‘I have the drive in front of me as we speak. Roman doesn’t quite have my iron bladder. I popped into the other room and took it while he was splashing his boots.’
Alice smiled again. She was more certain than ever now that Cawley’s drunkenness was in part an act. He’d been having her on. ‘You need to upload the contents of that drive for me,’ she said.
‘As it happens,’ said Cawley, ‘I have my laptop open in front of me. Not for the usual reason single men in hotel rooms have their laptops open, you understand.’
Alice was out of bed now, pulling on her jeans. ‘Upload it to the secure server,’ she said. ‘I’ll be at the office in an hour. And Mark –’
‘Yes, my dear?’
‘Good work. Great work.’
‘Thank you, my dear. I haven’t forgotten about that lunch you promised me, next time I’m in London.’
‘I’m looking forward to it,’ Alice said as she squeezed her feet into her Fila trainers. And she even half meant it.
She hung up, finished getting dressed and ordered an Uber.
EIGHT
01.30 hrs, Eastern European Time.
The Hercules was heading south. They were somewhere over Lebanon, heading down to the Israel–Jordan border. It was time to get ready.
Danny gave the quad bike a final once-over – two loadies were doing the same – then headed over to Bethany. They had to communicate with gestures due to the noise. Danny fitted her tandem harness, helmet and visor. He showed her how to clip her oxygen canister to the side of her body and fit her mask with its elephant-trunk oxygen tube to her face. He also showed her how to strap both their packs to her legs, then encouraged her to sit down while he prepared himself. The tandem chute was bigger than a regular one, and slightly heavier. Its strapping was as thick as seatbelts. He put on the pack, then clipped his suppressed C8 assault rifle to his side, his pistol already securely holstered across his chest. He put his boxy altimeter on to his wrist – it told him they were at 27,000 feet and climbing – then strapped his GPS device next to it. He fitted and checked his own helmet, oxygen canister and mask, then looked over at the main loadie. He was holding up ten fingers, which told Danny they were ten minutes out. At the back of the aircraft, a red light appeared. Two of the other loadies were cracking lumisticks and tying the glowing plastic tubes to the top of the quad bike. Danny moved over to Bethany and got her to stand up. He checked that the day sacks were firmly strapped to her legs, then stood behind her and clipped the tandem harness together. He noticed the familiar smell of her sweat. It smelled good.
One of the loadies joined them. He pointed at the quad bike on its pallet and shouted above the noise of the engines, ‘Automatic deployment at three thousand five hundred feet!’
Danny gave a thumbs up to indicate he understood. With the help of another loadie, they waddled awkwardly but carefully to the back of the plane. They stood to one side of the rails that carried the quad bike. Danny grabbed a piece of strapping on the side of the fuselage and gripped it tightly as the tailgate started to open.
There was a distinct change in the atmosphere. Cold air hit the exposed parts of Danny’s face. Although he knew that the next few hours were dangerous, that he was freefalling into hostile territory with a woman he couldn’t trust, to carry out an operation that everyone involved with would deny should it go wrong, he couldn’t help but feel a thrill. If you didn’t get a buzz from a HALO jump, the SAS wasn’t for you.
The tailgate was fully open. There was no sign of the moon, but Danny could see the stars and, far away and far below, arteries of light on the ground. The head loadie held up three fingers to indicate three minutes out. Danny waited for the red light to turn green while the other guys prepped the quad bike’s pallet. He could sense that Bethany’s nervousness was increasing. Her limbs were rigid and she was breathing fast. The oxygen mask amplified the sound of Danny’s own breathing, which was slow and composed. It was impossible to ask Bethany if she was okay, so he squeezed her arm reassuringly. She flinched and withdrew it.
Two minutes out. They edged a little closer to the tailgate, Danny still gripping the strapping.
One minute out.
Green light.
Everything happened in a moment. The quad bike on its pallet shot along the rails and out into the sky, a tiny stabilising drogue chute stretching out behind it, flapping wildly. Danny threw himself and Bethany after it, arching his outstretched arms and legs back to ensure that they fell stably. They slid over the familiar curve of the Herc’s slipstream. The deafening roar of the aircraft’s engines instantly disappeared, replaced with the fierce, icy rush of wind in their ears as they accelerated towards the earth, their clothes and gear flapping madly. He needn’t have worried Bethany about the risk of turning over. His body was arched rigidly and they were falling face down to the earth, her legs tucked inside his. He quickly felt for his own drogue chute, which was folded into a side pouch of his rig. He grabbed it, threw it out and immediately felt its steadying influence as they continued their acceleration towards terminal velocity.
There was light everywhere. Danny could see the moon now, crescent and hanging low. Infinite stars clouded the sky. From this great height he could see villages and towns on the ground, glowing yellow masses with arterial routes spreading in all directions. The curvature of the earth glowed faintly even in the darkness. He concentrated on the glowing lumisticks tied to the quad bike. There they were, red and blue, below them. It was not easy to judge distances in the air, but he estimated that they were separated by a constant fifty feet of altitude. He altered his body position so that they were falling a little closer to the vertical, but not so close that they would get tangled in the quad bike’s parachute when the automatic deployment device activated.
He checked the glowing altimeter on his wrist. The number on the display was decreasing rapidly.
25,000.
20,000.
They had certainly reached their maximum rate of descent, well in excess of 120 miles per hour. The rush of air was louder, the lift of air resistance at its peak. Here, closer to the earth, Danny’s field of view was smaller and diminishing. Fewer settlements. Fewer towns. He had a much greater sense now that they were freefalling into a large, uninhabited expanse. The thick darkness of the desert at night. He saw spots of light here and there. Bedouin encampments, maybe, or vehicles traversing the bare terrain. Civilian or military? Impossible to know. Either way, they were to be avoided. Directly below them, however, he saw nothing. The drop zone had been well chosen.
