Hunter Killer (43 page)

He disappeared again. The video stopped.

Danny frowned. He realised that ever since they’d left the training camp, he’d been silently hoping that he’d been wrong. That it had all just been a dreadful mistake they’d been lucky enough to survive. But this message – for his wife, Danny assumed – was confirmation. The smoking gun. The faces of the Hammerstone quartet swam in Danny’s mind. Victoria, with her Muslim husband and the mysterious six-month gap in her CV. Chamberlain, with his right-wing sympathies and links to the royal family. Maddox, attached to the CIA whose motives and activities were a mystery to everyone but themselves.

And Buckingham. Treacherous, sleazy Buckingham, who would do anything to advance himself . . .

‘What you doing with my computer?’ Brian’s voice from the doorway. Aggressive.

Danny pulled the data stick away from the USB port and closed down the laptop. ‘You ready?’

Brian looked like he was spoiling for an argument, but a dangerous look from Danny subdued him. He nodded, then pointed at Danny and Spud’s weapons. ‘You leave them here?’

‘Go and wait by the plane. I’ll meet you there.’

Brian reluctantly left the hut. Danny removed his waistcoat and piled his weapons by the door. He kept his money, his and Spud’s passports, and his medical pack. At the last minute, though, he grabbed back his pistol. He’d have to ditch it before getting off the plane in Eritrea – there were no diplomatic bags now, and they couldn’t simply cross borders armed to the teeth. But he’d feel a little less naked for a little longer if he had at least one firearm. He walked out to the airfield. Brian was climbing into his plane, so Danny jogged towards it.

Danny didn’t trust their pilot even remotely. Nobody trustworthy would be running an operation like this. But right now, Brian was all he had.

20.00hrs GMT

It had been a quiet shift at the hospital. Good thing too. Clara was in no state to think clearly. But now that it was time to go home, she found that she didn’t want to. She spent longer than usual changing out of her hospital gear into her ordinary clothes, which were still damp from her sprint along the Edgware Road that morning. When her colleagues called goodnight to her as she left the wards, she barely heard them. And as she approached the exit to the hospital, she drew a deep breath to steady her nerves, before stepping out once more into the drizzle.

It was cold now, as well as wet. Her damp clothes seemed to draw any warmth from her bones. But her pulse was racing nonetheless. She had already decided that she was going to take a taxi home, but there didn’t seem to be any as she stood on the edge of the pavement. As the minutes passed, she just grew colder.

‘Thought you’d never turn up,’ said a voice immediately behind her.

She started and spun round. Shock turned to distaste as she recognised Kyle’s face.

‘What do
you
want?’ She turned again and made a show of craning out her neck to look for a cab. ‘I’m not giving you any more money. I know you wasted it.’

‘Don’t need your money, love,’ Kyle replied in a maddeningly insulting tone of voice. ‘Got a message for you, that’s all.’

‘Somehow I don’t think so.’

‘Stuck-up bitch, aren’t you?’

She ignored him. She caught sight of the orange ‘For Hire’ light of a black cab about 50 metres up the road and raised one hand to flag it down.

‘It’s from my brother.’

She blinked, then lowered her hand. ‘What?’

‘Gone deaf as well?’

‘Why can’t Danny give me his own messages.’

‘Because he’s a twat. Trust me, love, I’ve known him a lot longer than you.’

‘I’ve told you once not to . . .’

‘Do you want to know what he said, or not?’

She inhaled deeply to calm herself. ‘Go on,’ she said, her voice level.

‘You’re supposed to come with me. You’re in trouble.’

She blinked again. ‘What do you mean? What sort of trouble?’

‘What am I, Derren fucking Brown? I don’t know. He wants me to keep an eye on you, anyway.’

‘
You
keep an eye on
me
?’ Clara frowned. She looked directly at Kyle. ‘Have you been following me?’ she asked. ‘Loitering outside my house?’

Kyle gave her a disgusted look. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ he said. ‘You think I haven’t got better things to do with my time?’

Not really, Clara thought. That silent answer clearly showed in her face. Kyle spat on the pavement, just short of her feet. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I don’t give a shit either way.’

Kyle turned to walk away.

And that was when Clara saw
him
again. He was on her side of the road this time, standing in the shelter of a bus stop about 20 metres beyond where Kyle had his back to her. She just caught a glimpse of him through the oncoming pedestrians. Hood down. Face obscured.

‘Wait,’ she called out. Kyle carried on walking, so she ran after him and grabbed his arm. Her mind was a riot of suspicion and panic. She knew she couldn’t go home now, and yet she didn’t trust Kyle. ‘How do I know you’re telling me the truth? Where’s Danny? Why don’t we call him?’

He gave her a dark look. ‘He’s out of the country.’

She felt a shiver, because she knew what ‘out of the country’ meant to Danny.

A strange expression crossed Kyle’s face. Like he couldn’t decide to say what he was about to say. She looked over his shoulder. The hooded figure was still there, no longer facing them but standing with his head down. ‘He spouted some bullshit about, I don’t know, forgetting things he shouldn’t remember, some crap like that. Fucker was talking bollocks if you ask me.’

But Clara had caught her breath. She grabbed Kyle by the arm again. ‘Is he safe?’

For the briefest moment, the look of arrogance fell from Kyle’s face. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think he is.’

‘We have to warn someone.’

The old Kyle immediately returned. ‘Do what you want,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think he’d thank you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Look, my brother was always a fucking Walt, so if you want my advice, take everything he says with a pinch of salt. But he reckons someone thinks he’s dead, and we can’t say we’ve heard from him.’

She stared at him in horror. And then, from nowhere, a single word came into her mind.
Buckingham.

‘What?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ She looked over his shoulder again. The hooded man was still there. She grabbed Kyle’s arm and started dragging him in the opposite direction. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Changed your mind, have you?’

‘Somewhere safe. Not my place. Not yours. Somewhere we can hide, until Danny gets in touch.’

‘I can find a place,’ Kyle said. ‘But there’s somewhere we need to go first.’ He sounded shifty. Untrustworthy.

‘Where?’ Clara demanded.

‘Hereford,’ said Kyle.

‘Hereford? Why?’

Kyle stopped walking. He had a greedy, avaricious look on his face. She recognised that look from when she’d given him the money a few days previously. ‘Take it or leave it,’ he said, a nasty twist in his voice.

She looked at him. Then she looked back along the pavement. She couldn’t see the hooded figure anywhere. She wanted to keep it that way.

She nodded her reluctant agreement. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Hereford.’

They hurried on through the rain.

Twenty-one

It was a turbulent flight. Hot desert air hit the moist ocean atmosphere at the western coast of Saudi Arabia, causing treacherous pockets where the tiny Cessna 172 would drop 50 feet without warning. Danny had flung himself from enough planes not to be a nervous flyer, but he was aware that they were hardly in the hands of an SF flight crew. All he could do was hope this dodgy geezer who called himself Brian knew what he was doing.

Danny wasn’t properly strapped in. Instead, he was crouched down beside Spud, holding his mate firmly to minimise the effect of the turbulence. Every time the aircraft bumped, the semi-conscious Spud made a retching sound. He was clearly in excruciating pain, and the movement wasn’t helping things. Now and then his eyes opened, and he’d mutter something Danny couldn’t understand. His speech was slurred and getting slower. Not a good sign.

He turned and tapped Brian on the shoulder. The pilot looked back at him. ‘Call through to Massawa,’ he instructed. ‘I need a medical team on the ground as soon as we land. Can you do that?’

‘How much money will you pay?’

‘A thousand dollars. More if my friend lives. I’ll come back and pay them.’

A pause.

‘I thought you didn’t have a thousand dollars.’

Danny didn’t hesitate. He just pulled the Sig and pressed it to the back of Brian’s head. ‘Just make the call.’

Brian did as he was told, jabbering away over the radio in Arabic as Danny kept the gun on him. Lights along the edge of the land distinguished the coastline from the sea. Once they were over water, he made out the lights of several ships. The southern stretches of the Red Sea. He wondered if any of the ships were Royal Navy. An uncomfortable thought crossed his mind: that if they were,
they
could be the enemy now.

The eastern coast of Eritrea passed below them, less clearly lit than that of Saudi. And after that, vast stretches of blackness as they passed over the desert lands of that country. There were no bursts of sound from Brian’s radio. The airspace of East Africa was not policed and regulated. Fly an anonymous plane over the UK and a Tornado squadron would be on your tail in minutes. But it was easy to fly in and out of these countries, on whatever business, without anybody noticing.

As they flew, Danny replayed Abu Ra’id’s video in his head. The cleric’s words sickened him, but not so much as the thought that a member of the security services was in some way involved in the London bombings. The faces of their four handlers swam in front of his eyes again. Who was the guilty one? How would they ever find out?

They had been airborne for 90 minutes when Spud said something Danny understood.

‘It’s . . . it’s the Yanks.’

Danny looked over at Brian. He was wearing ear-protecting cans in the cockpit, so they could talk securely.

Danny thought about what Spud had said. It was possible, sure. Likely even. It was common knowledge that the CIA would do almost anything to protect their interests. But Danny couldn’t shake the memory of Buckingham in the car after their first meeting at Hammerstone, sticking the knife further into each of his colleagues with every sentence. Laying a false trail with every word.

He said nothing of this. He realised he needed the e-mail address and password Abu Ra’id used to contact his handler. He recalled the cleric’s words on the tape.
Only my contact and I have the address and the password, but you will find them in the name of God. You know where to look.

Riddles. Impossible to solve. Danny had to get his hands on Abu Ra’id’s missus – the White Witch, or whatever the fuck they called her. Not easy, given that he was currently in a tiny Cessna between two continents, nursing a wounded man who could be hours away from death.

No, Danny thought. Not easy.

But not impossible. He just had to get back into the country first.

Danny looked out of the window to see a tiny sprawl of lights perhaps 20 miles in the distance.

‘Massawa!’ Brian called from the cockpit. ‘We land in ten minutes.’

The plane banked sharply. ‘Go easy!’ Danny shouted. But as he did, Spud made a harsh choking sound. His face, already pale, turned several shades whiter. He started gasping for breath again, just as he had done moments after he’d been shot.

Something had happened. Danny stared at his friend for a moment.
What was wrong?

Internal bleeding, he decided. The round inside him must have moved. The lung cavity was filling with blood. Spud was going to suffocate if Danny didn’t do something. They couldn’t wait ten minutes. Spud just didn’t have it in him. Danny needed to bleed him.

He quickly grabbed his med pack and pulled out the second cannula. He ripped the tear in Spud’s clothes open wider. The skin round the first cannula had deteriorated. Danny could see networks of blue and red capillaries spreading out from the hole. Spud’s gasping became worse. His body started shaking violently. Danny couldn’t put it off any more.

He pressed the sharp end of the wide-bore cannula deep into the rib cage, an inch or two to the left of the first. Spud didn’t even seem to notice what he’d done. Holding the plastic tubing firm, he removed the metal needle. As soon as it came out, a jet of blood spurted from the cannula. Ordinarily a bad sign, but not in this instance. The effect was immediate as the blood-letting reduced the pressure on the bad lung. Spud drew a long intake of breath. His eyes flickered open for a moment. His lips started moving. Danny realised he was trying to speak. He sealed the new cannula with the adjustable valve at the open end to stop the blood flow, then he shuffled up to Spud’s head so he could hear him better.

Spud’s words were slower and more indistinct than ever. ‘Find . . . the fucker . . . who did this to me . . .’ he breathed.