Hard Landing (51 page)

The ship was a medium-sized oil tanker. There was a superstructure at the rear containing the bridge and crew accommodation, but all over the quarter-mile long deck there were hatches and pipes that could easily snap a leg or a hip. It would have been a difficult jump at the best of times. A HAHO drop would give them plenty of time to make the right approach, though, and the chutes were so big that they’d move in slowly. The alternative, HALO – high altitude, low opening – wouldn’t give them time to make a safe approach and Gannon had discounted it, even though it would have reduced the risk of them being spotted in the air.

There was a third option – high altitude, no opening – but the SAS tried to avoid that manoeuvre as far as possible. A twelve-stone trooper with fifty pounds of kit travelling at a hundred and twenty miles an hour made a hell of a mess on impact. Shepherd flashed back to his first HALO jump high over Salisbury Plain in the West Country. He had been one of six on the course, under the wing of a grizzled sergeant who’d been with the Regiment for going on fifteen years. As the sergeant was lining up Shepherd and the others, he’d stuffed a large piece of parachute silk into Shepherd’s pack. When it was Shepherd’s turn to exit the plane, the sergeant had tapped his shoulder. Shepherd had turned, seen what looked like a ripped chute, and the sergeant had pushed him out. It was the longest two minutes of Shepherd’s life, hurtling towards the ground at terminal velocity in full kit, not knowing if he had a faulty chute on his back. It had been a week before he’d seen the funny side.

The red light on the bulkhead flicked off and the amber one went on. The troopers took off the oxygen masks linked to the plane’s supply and replaced them with their own, then shuffled towards the front of the plane. The loader nodded at Gannon and opened the crew exit door. Shepherd stood next to Gannon, breathing slowly but deeply, the adrenaline coursing through his veins, heart pounding, stomach churning as his body geared up for what was to come. Part of him was terrified at the thought of jumping out of a plane six miles above the ocean, but another part relished the fear. He was doing what he’d been trained to do.

The engine noise died down as the pilot pulled back on the throttles of the remaining two engines to idle and the nose of the plane went up. Shepherd almost lost his balance and Gannon reached over to steady him. The Nimrod shuddered as the pilot fought to keep it steady at the close-to-stalling airspeed. Shepherd looked through the open door at the black night sky, peppered with a million stars. Far below was a layer of thick cloud, from fifteen thousandfeet to six thousand, which meant gliding through nine thousand feet of close-to-freezing water vapour. That and the landing would be the most dangerous phases of the operation. It was easy to get disoriented in cloud and there was a risk of collision – dealing with tangled chutes in cloud at night was an interesting proposition that Shepherd was keen to avoid.

The amber light winked off and the green light went on. Gannon grinned at Shepherd, behind his mask, then jumped out of the exit door, thrusting out his arms and legs in a starfish pose. Shepherd took a deep breath and followed him. He gasped as the wind tore at him, pulling, twisting, pummelling. He fought to keep his arms and legs out as he fell through the slipstream. As soon as his descent stabilised he pulled in his arms and legs slightly, adopting the stable position, his back arched so that his centre of gravity shifted towards his stomach.

Gannon was to his right so Shepherd crabbed towards him, feeling the air pressure shift under his body. More of the troopers joined them and Gannon turned slowly, checking numbers until he was satisfied that everyone was in free fall.

They reached twenty-six thousand feet above sea level and the automatic opening devices kicked in. Shepherd felt a tug at his shoulders as his canopy deployed, then his arms snapped in and his legs went down as the chute filled with air and slowed his descent. He reached up for the toggles that controlled his direction and pulled the left one, heading after Gannon, then checked his jet-black canopy. It was fine, totally rectangular, no tangled lines. In the distance, the engines of the Nimrod were a dull roar.

Shepherd tilted his head down and looked at the chest-mounted liquid crystal display screen of his GPS system. It showed his position and, some forty miles to the south, a red dot that represented the tanker.

He looked over his shoulder. Behind him, he could see the rest of the troopers, their canopies unfurled. He did a quick count. So far so good.

The harness was biting into his groin and Shepherd kicked out with his legs, moving the webbing. He took a deep breath of oxygen and let it out slowly.

‘You okay, Alpha Two?’ Gannon’s voice crackled in Shepherd’s earpiece.

‘No problems,’ said Shepherd.

‘Just sit back and enjoy the ride,’ said Gannon.

Carpenter hated ships. He hated the cramped rooms, the constant motion, the never-ending distant throb of massive engines. Bonnie had been nagging him for years to take her on a luxury cruise, but he’d steadfastly refused. There was a certain irony in the fact that the safest place for him had turned out to be a tanker prowling around the Atlantic.

His place there had been arranged by Carlos Rodriguez, a Colombian with whom Carpenter had dealt for more than a decade. The Rodriguez cartel had links to the Colombian government and was one of the country’s biggest and most successful cocaine and heroin dealers. The tanker had been Rodriguez’s idea, a floating warehouse that went into port twice a year for maintenance, and only when it was empty. It was a quarter of a mile long with facilities for two dozen men. Drugs were flown out from South America and dropped into the sea where they were picked up by small speedboats sent out from the tanker, then taken aboard and kept in compartments at the bottom of the hold. In the event of a raid, the compartments could be emptied, sending the drugs to the bottom of the ocean, far out of reach.

The tanker had once been owned by a Greek shipping magnate but now sailed under a Panamanian flag. Buyers, only people known to Rodriguez, paid offshore and collected from the tanker in their own boats. Rodriguez shipped drugs worth more than a quarter of a billion dollars a year through it. It was a perfect system. Usually there were only two dozen men on the vessel, a crew of ten and fourteen armed guards, and Rodriguez had vetted them all personally. It was equipped with state-of-the-art radar and sonar so that a surprise attack by the DEA or Customs was virtually impossible. But Rodriguez had more than enough law-enforcement officials on his payroll to ensure that no one took him by surprise. He was untouchable, and as long as Carpenter remained on the tanker, so was he. He was arranging for a new passport to be sent out from the UK, based on a whole new identity. The paperwork would be faultless, reflecting the premium price he was paying. Once he had it he would go to Brazil for extensive facial surgery. When his new identity was in place, he’d set about removing the old one from the Police National Computer in the UK. It would cost an arm and a leg, but it would be money well spent. Without his prints on file, he’d be able to disappear for ever.

He’d have to stay in South America – Europe would never be safe for him and the United States would be out of bounds. But there were plenty of countries in South America where a man with money could live in privacy. Bonnie and the children could join him eventually. He would buy them new identities, and Bonnie had been suggesting she had a facelift anyway. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was far better than twenty years behind bars.

Carpenter appreciated the irony that his present living space was similar to his cell at HM Prison Shelton. His cabin wasn’t much bigger and he had no choice in his companions. There was little natural light unless he went up on deck, and the bulkhead doors were like the cell door that had clanged shut on him at night. The food was better– Rodriguez had hired a top Argentinian chef – and he could use the well-equipped gym whenever he wanted. There were more TV channels than he had had in Shelton, too: the tanker had a state-of-the-art satellite system and a library containing thousands of DVDs. There was plenty of alcohol, too. But it was still a ship, and Carpenter hated ships.

He was sitting in the mess, a large room with a pool table, a big-screen television and several large sofas. Five Colombians were playing poker at a card table, laughing loudly and drinking a bottle of Chivas Regal. They were playing with stacks of hundred-dollar bills and their Kalashnikovs were close at hand. The Colombians were for protection; the crew were Ukrainian.

One of the crew came in and barked at the Colombians in fluent Spanish. He was in his fifties, his face flecked with broken blood vessels, his nose almost blue from years of hard drinking. He spoke passable English but had said barely ten words to Carpenter since he’d arrived on board. Like the rest of the crew, he seemed to resent Carpenter’s presence. The only man who’d been friendly had been the captain, a guy in his thirties who wore a pristine white uniform and a peaked cap. He saw Carpenter as a chance to practise his English, but Carpenter had soon got bored with the man’s interminable conversations about twentieth-century novelists and avoided him when he could.

The Colombians got up, grabbing their weapons as they headed up to the bridge.

Carpenter went up to the bridge. He asked the captain if he could join him. The bridge was the captain’sdomain and only the crew or invited guests were allowed in. The captain nodded. He was looking aft through a large pair of binoculars. Two other crew members were with him, monitoring the radar and sonar systems, and the five Colombians stood at the windows, their Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders, talking to each other in Spanish.

‘What’s the excitement?’ asked Carpenter.

‘Plane, coming from the north,’ said the captain. ‘It was up at thirty thousand feet but it started descending and now it’s heading back this way under the cloud cover.’

‘What sort of plane?’

‘We don’t know, but it’s moving fast so it’s not a small plane. Maybe a jet.’

‘Is it a problem?’

‘It’s too big to be a seaplane and even the Americans wouldn’t blow us out of the water, but it might be a spotter plane. Surveillance.’

‘DEA?’

‘Or Customs. Who knows?’

‘What will you do?’

‘Watch it. We’ll only dump the gear if we see a boat approaching.’

‘How much is on board?’

The captain grinned. ‘A lot.’

Carpenter stood up. ‘If you even get a whiff of a ship heading this way, I want off this tub,’ he said.

‘Don’t worry. No one has ever tried boarding us at sea,’ said the captain. ‘We are in international waters so we are free to defend ourselves,’ he chuckled, ‘and we are well equipped to do that.’

Carpenter knew he wasn’t joking. The Colombians were all crack shots. He’d seen them throw oil drums into the sea and fire at them for target practice. And he’d been told that there was a major arms cache below decks with enough firepower to fend off anything short of a full military attack, including Stinger surface-to-air missiles. ‘Can you see it?’

‘Not yet.’ The captain turned and spoke in rapid Ukrainian to one of his crew, who answered him.

‘It’s down to four thousand feet and descending,’ said the captain.

‘Engine trouble?’ asked Carpenter.

‘They’re not broadcasting on the emergency frequency, and it looks as if they’re under power,’ said the captain. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Carpenter. One plane isn’t going to do us any harm. And if it looks as though it is, we’ll shoot it down.’

The cloud was disorienting. Shepherd couldn’t see more than ten feet in front of him. The parts of his face that were exposed were ice cold and the surface of the black thermal suit was soaked. His body was dry, though, and surprisingly warm.

There was no sense of movement. He felt as if he was suspended in fog. And other than the occasional static through his earpiece, it was eerily silent. He looked up but could barely make out the black canopy above his head. It was a GQ-360 nine-cell flat ramair canopy that was designed to be virtually silent as it moved through the air. He checked his watch: forty-four minutes since he’d jumped out of the Nimrod. He checked his altimeter: eight thousand feet. They should reach the ship in sixteen minutes. Give or take one minute, and they’d miss it by a quarter of a mile.

He wiggled his toes inside his boots, then worked his fingers in his gloves, keeping the circulation going. The last thing he needed was cramp as he came in for landing.

‘Comms check,’ said Gannon, in his earpiece. ‘Alpha One.’

‘Alpha Two,’ said Shepherd.

One by one the remaining eight troopers sounded off.

Shepherd looked down past his feet. He saw wisps of cloud, and then suddenly he was through it, hanging in the darkness. Above him, there was cloud, and far below, the blackness that was the sea. In the distance he could see Gannon’s canopy, a dark shape in the night sky. He checked his LCD display. Their forward speed had slowed while they’d been in the cloud, but that had all been calculated for. Hopefully. According to the computerised display, the target was eleven miles away.

The captain swept his binoculars right, then stopped. ‘I see it,’ he said. ‘It is a jet. Four engines. It’s big, too.’

‘Any markings?’ asked Carpenter.

‘Can’t see any. And I can’t make out the number.’

‘Not Army or Customs?’

‘It looks like a Nimrod, but it’s flying close to stall speed,’ said the captain.

‘I thought Nimrods were for high-altitude surveillance,’ said Carpenter.

‘They are. Six miles and above.’

One of the Colombians said something in Spanish and the other four laughed. Another took out a cigar, but before he could light it the captain spoke to him. The Colombian glowered and put away the cigar.

‘So what the hell’s it playing at?’ asked Carpenter.