Hunter Killer (44 page)

Danny felt his jaw setting. He nodded, even though Spud had closed his eyes again and couldn’t see him do it. Then he turned to look over his shoulder at Brian.

‘
Get us on the ground!
’ he roared.

Brian gave him a slow, confused look.

‘
NOW!
’ Danny shouted, and he waved the gun in Brian’s direction again.

Instantly, the Cessna’s engines changed pitch and they started losing height more quickly. Danny felt Spud’s pulse. It was horribly weak. But he was at least breathing as the Cessna continued to lose height. ‘Stay with me!’ he shouted at Spud, but his mate was clearly past hearing. So instead he shouted at the pilot again: ‘
Get us on the fucking ground!
’

Five minutes later, the wheels touched down. Danny knew they were hitting the runway too fast, but Brian was a decent pilot and although the landing was bumpy he kept control of the aircraft as it rapidly lost speed. Spud was entirely unconscious as they taxied off the runway. From a corner of his eye, Danny saw a passenger aircraft coming in to land behind them – a sharp reminder that from now on, staying off the grid would be a lot harder. The aircraft came to a halt a good 150 metres from the main terminal building. It was a low, concrete building, not much bigger than the squadron hangar back at Hereford. Unlike Hereford, it was surrounded by squat palm trees, their leaves motionless in the still night air.

‘Where’s the medic?’ Danny shouted. ‘
Where’s the fucking medic?
’

He didn’t have to wait for an answer. At that moment, he saw something that, for the first time in days, gave him a surge of hope. A van was speeding across the tarmac towards them. On one side it had the familiar markings of the Red Cross.

Danny didn’t hesitate. He jumped down from the Cessna as the van pulled up alongside them. Two guys jumped out, one black, one white. The white guy looked Danny up and down, clearly surprised by the state of his blood-stained clothes.

‘Where’s the patient?’ he asked.

‘In the plane. He has a bullet wound. A .762. I think it’s entered his left lung. I’ve inserted one cannula to stop the lung collapsing, a second to bleed it when the cavity filled with blood. He’s in a bad way.’

‘How did it happen?’

‘Bandits in Ethiopia,’ Danny lied easily. The medic didn’t question him.

‘Does he have any ID?’

Danny shook his head. He didn’t want to give them Spud’s name or passport. The last thing he could do to prolong his mate’s life was preserve his anonymity. ‘Can you get him out of the airport?’ He pressed a thousand dollars into the medic’s hands, and the medic nodded. Then he and his colleague opened up the back of the van and pulled out a stretcher bed. Two minutes later, Danny had helped them manoeuvre the unconscious Spud out of the plane and on to the bed. The medics were already fitting a saline drip to his arm and an oxygen mask to his face. They hurriedly loaded the stretcher bed into the back of the van. The black guy climbed in with Spud. The last Danny saw of his mate, it was impossible to tell at a glance whether he was living or dead.

‘Coming?’ the white medic asked Danny.

Danny stared at the van. Then at the medic.

‘Look after him,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back for him, when I can.’

The medic didn’t question Danny’s decision. There clearly wasn’t time. He hurried to the ambulance, jumped behind the wheel and screeched off.

Danny took several deep breaths, trying to calm his nerves. Had he made the right call? Would Spud stand a chance with these Red Cross doctors? Was it possible that word of this anonymous injured man arriving on an Eritrean airfield would make it back to the security services? Danny didn’t know the answer to any of these questions. All he knew was that the decision was made, and that now he had to concentrate on getting back to the UK, and doing exactly what Spud had asked him to do: finding the fuckers that had put them in this situation.

He turned to Brian. ‘What now?’ Danny demanded, the tension clearly audible in his voice.

‘Now,’ said Brian, ‘we wait.’

They didn’t have to wait long. Within a couple of minutes, a lone airport official appeared, walking across the tarmac to the plane. Black skin, shaved head, sunken yellow eyes. Hi-vis jacket and handgun at his belt. Brian walked up to meet him, and they stood talking by the wing for perhaps 30 seconds. Some money changed hands and the official smiled. Brian approached Danny. ‘You owe me a hundred dollars,’ he said.

‘I already paid you,’ Danny said.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll take my money back from him, and
he’ll
take
you
through passport control, not round the back way.’

Danny frowned. Fucker had him over a barrel. He handed Brian another $100. That put Danny’s funds down to two grand. Brian grunted gracelessly, then gestured at the airport official to join them.

The official looked Danny up and down. No doubt he appeared strange, with his grubby, blood-stained
dishdash
hiding his camouflage gear and boots. But he didn’t say anything. He just made a little clicking sound in the corner of his mouth, and indicated that Danny should follow him. Danny turned to Brian. A nod from each of them was the only farewell that was required. Moments later, he was trudging across the tarmac with his new companion. When Danny looked over his shoulder, the Cessna was already on the move. Danny’s senses had slipped back into top gear. He scanned the area around them, checking that they weren’t being unduly watched. And as they neared the terminal building, he instinctively looked upwards, searching for CCTV or any other type of surveillance. Nothing. For now.

The official led him round the side of the terminal, through a locked metal door to which he had a key. Danny found himself in a narrow corridor with scuffed walls and strip lighting. Their footsteps echoed as they paced down it towards a second locked door. The official opened it, then stepped back. Danny peered through: the concourse of Massawa International Airport. Far from busy at this time of night. A few bored-looking officials milling around. Check-in desks on the far side: closed. Ticketing booths for Eritrean Airlines and Nasair: closed. A couple of white backpackers sleeping on rows of plastic seats. And perhaps 50 Eritrean nationals, waiting for passengers on the plane Danny had seen landing to come through security. There were a few shops along the edges of the concourse – souvenirs, Bureau de Change, even a clothes shop – but their facades were covered with metal shutters. And there was a grotty cafe, but all the chairs were stowed on top of the tables.

‘Go! You go!’ the airport official said. He tried to push Danny forwards. Danny shook him off impatiently, but then stepped from the corridor on to the concourse. The door shut quickly behind them. He was on his own.

Danny looked up at the departures board. There were no flights leaving until 06.00 – Eritrean to Khartoum, Nasair to Dubai. At 10.15hrs, however, an Eritrean Airlines flight was listed to Frankfurt. Flight time, 5 hours 54 minutes. It meant he could be in Europe around 14.00 local time.

Would Spud still be alive by then? Danny didn’t know. A silent rage boiled up inside him. He felt he wanted to do something. To
hurt
someone.

But he couldn’t. All he could do was wait.

The early morning hours passed in a blur of tiredness. Danny realised he hadn’t slept since he and Spud had been lying in the OP above the training camp, more than 24 hours ago. Eritrean airport officials and travellers blurred in and out of focus. As waves of fatigue crashed over him, he felt himself nodding. Every now and then he’d wake with a start and look round for Spud. But with a guilty, angry pang he remembered Spud wasn’t there. God only knew what was happening to him.

He woke suddenly for a final time at 06.55hrs, when he looked blearily over towards the ticket desks. Both the Eritrean Airlines and the Nasair desk had a uniformed woman attending them.

The ticket to Frankfurt cost 499 Eritrean nafka. It was sold with only the most cursory glance at Danny’s dirty clothes and his passport, though the guy at the Bureau de Change who converted his dollars scrutinised the passport a bit more closely. No computers though, Danny noted with satisfaction. So far, he reckoned he was still under the radar.

In the cafe he bought a cup of thick, powdery coffee and cellophane-wrapped biscuits hard enough to break your teeth on. When the clothes shop opened at 08.00 he bought cheap linen trousers, sandals and a loose-fitting T-shirt. In the other shop he found razors and shaving foam, which he took along with his new clothes to the rancid toilets at one end of the concourse. He changed in a cubicle with shit stains round the toilet rims, dumping his old clothes behind the cistern. Back in front of the sinks he shaved his face and, in a last-minute decision, his head. He drew strange looks from the Eritrean men who came in for a slash as he flicked clumps of hair into the sink. Better, though, to get strange looks here than in Frankfurt.

Back on the concourse, his gate was being called. He presented his ticket and passport to the flight attendent. She checked them, and made a handwritten note of the passport number. But then, with a smile, she ushered him through.

Danny boarded the brightly coloured Airbus as the morning sun was rising in the African sky. The aircraft was only half full, so he had a row of seats to himself. And by 10.20hrs he was airborne again, high above the parched landscape of East Africa and heading north. He didn’t look back out of the window. He didn’t have the heart. He felt a deep guilt at leaving Spud behind, even though he knew he’d done his best for him.

For now, he decided to sleep again. To refresh himself for the next stage of his journey.

09.00hrs GMT

‘What are we doing here?’ Clara asked.

They had taken the first train to Hereford. Now they stood outside Danny’s flat. Clara looked up and down the street, all around. She had been doing that all night, as they nursed paper coffee cups at Euston. The police presence at the station was high. Clara found that a comfort. At no point had she seen the hooded figure and she was beginning to wonder, as she always seemed to when morning came, if seeing him again had just been some kind of coincidence.

‘I’m going to break in,’ Kyle said. His hands were shaking. Delirium tremens, she diagnosed at a glance. Kyle was craving a fix of something.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a key.’ She hurried up to the front door and let them in, ignoring the voice in her head that asked her why on earth she was still carrying Danny’s house key after he’d finished with her.

It was dark in the flat. All the curtains were closed, and there was an unpleasant mustiness. Once inside, Kyle shot down the corridor towards Danny’s bedroom. ‘What are you doing?’ she called. He didn’t answer. When she followed him into the room, she found that he had opened the wardrobe and was on his knees, pulling up the floorboards inside. ‘Kyle, what the hell are you . . .’

She fell silent. Kyle had three wads of bank notes in his fist and a look of unrestrained greed on his face. He started stuffing the money into his pockets. When he was sure he had it all, he followed Clara back along the corridor to the front door, which was still ajar. She opened it wider.

And gasped.

He was there. On the other side of the street. Despite the hood, she could make out a little more of his face this time. Dark eyes. A hooked nose. And was that a stud in his lower lip?

She slammed the door shut. ‘I’m being followed,’ she whispered.

Kyle frowned. ‘What do you mean? You’re as bad as him.’ His hands involuntarily went to the pockets where his money was.

‘There’s a gate in the back garden. It leads to an alleyway.
Run!
’

She pushed past him and hurried back to the bedroom where French doors led to the garden. They were locked. No sign of the key. She grabbed a pillow from the bed, held it by one hand against the glass pane in the door, then kicked it as hard as she could. The glass splintered. Two more kicks and it was in shards around her feet. ‘Come
on
!’ she hissed at Kyle, who was hanging back, staring stupidly at her.

They picked their way through the jagged remains of the window pane. Clara winced as a shard scraped against her scalp, but she kept on moving, dragging Kyle along behind her. Danny’s garden was untended and overgrown. The back gate was open. They hurried through it, out into the alleyway behind the row of houses.

Left or right? She knew that both directions ended out in the street. Left emerged further away from Danny’s front door. If her stalker suspected that she was escaping round the back, he’d expect her to take that route. So she turned right.

Kyle was wheezing and out of breath after just a few metres. Clara pulled him along. He was red-faced and coughing as they emerged on to the street. She looked carefully around.

No sign of the stalker. She turned to Kyle.

‘Where can we go?’ she demanded. ‘Not your place. Somewhere nobody can find us till Danny gets back. Do you know somewhere?’

A shifty look crossed his face. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I know somewhere. You won’t like it.’

‘I don’t have to
like
it,’ Clara snapped. ‘Is it far?’