Strike Back (14 page)

‘What type of kit are Hezbollah using these days?’ said Porter.

‘All kinds of stuff,’ said Sam. ‘They are pretty well financed, and of course you can buy just about any weapon you want in Beirut. It’s the B&Q of global terrorism out there. For assault rifles, it’s mainly going to be AK-47s and M16s you’re up against. For handguns, it could be just about anything. Berettas, Walthers, Brownings, take your pick. They use the good stuff mostly. None of that Bulgarian knock-off crap that blows up in your own face.’

Porter studied the desk. He hadn’t picked up a gun since he’d left the army more than a decade ago. Hadn’t even thought about it. Scanning the weaponry, he picked out a Beretta 92 pistol, a firearm he could recall training with back in the Regiment. The 92 was a short-recoil-operated, locked-breech weapon. It carried fifteen rounds, and its lightweight, aluminium frame weighed just slightly under 100 grams making it easy to hold, and even easier to slip inside a jacket or a pocket. It took a moment to reacquaint himself with the feel of the weapon, but once he curled his
fingers around its cold, metal barrel, it was like welcoming back an old friend.

He took two strides forward. A white line was smeared across the floor, and the target was twenty metres away. Raising the gun with his right hand, Porter steadied himself, then lined up the target in the Beretta’s sights. He squeezed the trigger once, then twice, enjoying the powerful recoil as the gun kicked backed into him. A gun in your hand was like a suit and a tie: it made you feel like a man. It gave you power, and control, and certainty: and those were all the things you missed when you lived out on the streets.

‘An eye,’ said Sam approvingly. ‘It never leaves you.’

He was walking back from the target, noting where the bullets had struck. Neither was a bullseye, but both were close enough to it to at least disable an opponent, if not kill him outright. When you were in a firefight, that was all that counted, Porter told himself. If you wanted to kill the bastard, you could always do that with a double tap to the head afterwards.

‘Try it again,’ said Sam. ‘Legs a bit further apart, and keep your shoulders slightly squarer.’

Porter adjusted his position. He moved his left leg slightly, giving himself better balance, and relaxed his shoulder muscles. The pistol felt comfortable in his right hand, almost as if it was an extension of his own body. One squeeze on the trigger, then another. The noise of the explosion echoed around the room. Squinting, Porter could see where the bullets had struck: one just a fraction of an inch to the left of the target, and the second a bullseye.

Pretty good, he told himself. At least on a firing range. Combat will be very different.

‘Here, try this,’ said Sam.

He tossed an AK-47 to Porter. Grabbing a hold, Porter slipped it into his arms, the polished wooden stock of the gun and its elegantly shaped cartridge both instantly familiar.
The missing fingers on his left hand were no problem. He could grip the gun between his two remaining fingers and his thumb, while his right hand was on the trigger. Slamming down hard, he loosened off a round of fire. The AK-47 was never a high-accuracy weapon: Mikhail Kalashnikov had designed it after being wounded in the Battle of Bryansk to support close-range infantry engagements. The bullets tore out of the muzzle of the machine, chewing up the paper target and leaving a pile of smoking ordnance on the floor.

‘I can still shoot,’ said Porter, turning to look at Sam.

‘So long as you can keep your head.’

The remark struck Porter with all the deadly force of the bullets he had just fired from his assault rifle. ‘What the fuck do you mean by that?’ he growled.

Sam glanced at him, his eyes clouded with suspicion. ‘Nothing …’

‘You think I bottled it, don’t you?’

He was still holding the AK-47 in his fists. Now that he had turned round, it was pointing straight at the instructor’s chest. Sam was staring at it, and from the look on his face, he was unsure whether or not Porter might fire it.

‘Last time you heard live firing, it went tits up,’ snapped Sam. ‘That’s what I heard.’

‘It’s a bloody lie, I tell you,’ shouted Porter. His finger was twitching on the AK-47, and his head was throbbing with anger. ‘A bloody lie …’

‘But that’s what the record says,’ said Sam. ‘And you can’t go back and change the record. Not you. Not any man.’

Porter could still feel the anger swirling through his veins as he sat down at the desk. He’d taken a quick shower, and changed out of the gym kit he’d been wearing for his training session with Sam, but he still felt charged up. Maybe it was having a gun back in his hands, he reflected. He didn’t need to put up with all the crap he had to endure while he was living on the street. From now on, he was taking charge. And if I’m dead in a few days, well, those are the breaks.

A plate of chicken and tuna sandwiches were sitting in front of him, and Porter reached out for a couple. It was amazing how hungry he was all the time. Maybe that was something else that came from living on the streets for too long. Your body became so used to scavenging for food that when it was there you couldn’t stop yourself from eating it.

He’d just polished off his third sandwich when Sir Angus Clayton walked swiftly into the room, followed by Layla. She patted Porter on the shoulder, and sat down behind him. Porter didn’t recognise the third man. He was in his early fifties, with a greying beard, and hair that straggled down towards his open-necked cream shirt. There was a slight stoop to his walk, and he was carrying a bundle of papers underneath his arm.

‘You OK?’ said Sir Angus.

From the look on his face, Porter could tell it was a pleasantry, not a question. He doesn’t give a toss how I am,
or what happens to me. ‘Fine, sir,’ he replied, pouring himself a coffee from the jug in front of him.

Sir Angus nodded. ‘You need that coffee,’ he said. ‘There are still no leads on where Katie Dartmouth might have got to, and the way the PM is wobbling, our boys might be packing up their bags in Basra by the weekend. So right now, you’re still our best shot at sorting out this bloody mess.’

‘God help us,’ said Porter.

‘My thoughts exactly,’ said Sir Angus. ‘I reckon you’re a man who never liked school very much, so we’ll try and keep this as short as possible. But we’re going to have to cram as much knowledge as we can into your head in a very short space of time.’

He nodded towards the man with the grey beard. ‘Professor Gilton here is going to fill you in on as much as we know about Hezbollah. Next up, we’ve got one of our top hostage guys coming in for a chat. Then we’ve got the head of Sky News coming down to talk to you about Katie. Over dinner, we’ll be giving you your instructions, then packing you off to bed. You’ll need all the sleep you can get.’ He looked sharply at Porter. ‘That agreed?’

Porter nodded.

Professor Gilton leant forward on the desk. He’d already drunk one coffee and was starting on the next. ‘How much do you know about Hezbollah?’ he asked.

‘Bunch of mad fuckers with towels on their heads,’ said Porter. He grinned, but quickly noticed that nobody else in the room was smiling and straightened up his lips.

‘Yes, well, that’s one interpretation, although the towels are more often around their necks, actually,’ said Gilton.

Porter shot him a quick glance. ‘Hezbollah was formed after the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon,’ he said. ‘It is a Shiite Islamic organisation, and came together as various extremist organisations joined forces to fight the Israelis. It
was largely backed by the Iranians, who sent them large sums of money, and about two hundred armed fighters which formed the backbone of its military strength. But it’s important to remember that they aren’t just militants. They have plenty of support in the Lebanon as the main resistance to the Israeli occupation of that country, and without that support it is unlikely they would have survived as long as they have. If you go into the Lebanon, you have to remember, you are fighting on their territory. Don’t expect any support from the locals.’

The professor took another sip of his coffee. That’s shown him not to treat me like an idiot, thought Porter.

‘Quite right,’ said the Professor. ‘Hezbollah virtually invented modern Islamic terrorism. In 1983, it created the suicide bomber when it used them to blow up the American military barracks in Beirut, killing 241 soldiers in one go. And within a few minutes it blew up an apartment block housing French peacekeepers. All the basic elements of Islamic terrorism are there. Suicide bombers. Coordinated strikes. Targets chosen with precision for maximum impact. There is nothing al-Qaeda is doing today that Hezbollah didn’t do first, and often more effectively as well.’

‘So they’re the best,’ said Porter. ‘I think we already knew that.’

Gilton nodded. ‘Afraid so. They started with suicide bombing because they wanted to get the Americans and the French out of the Lebanon, and they just about succeeded. Then they moved on to kidnappings. They’re masters at that as well. In 1985, they kidnapped the CIA bureau chief in Beirut, an army officer called William Buckley. They held him captive for fifteen months, tortured him and then they killed him. His body wasn’t recovered until 1991, when his remains were found in a plastic bag by a roadside in Beirut. Between 1984 and 1992, they kidnapped and held hostage about thirty Westerners, including the Archbishop of
Canterbury’s special envoy Terry Waite, the journalist John McCarthy, and the Ulster writer Brian Keenan. Of course, you know about one of them yourself, Kenneth Bratton. He was one of the very few who was ever successfully broken out. In each and every case, the individual was held for long periods of time, usually in terrible conditions.’

‘And what do they want?’ asked Porter.

‘Power, like all terrorist organisations,’ said Gilton. ‘You’ll get a lot of rhetoric about Islamic revolutions, and fighting the infidel, and all the usual nonsense. That’s just to help them recruit. Hezbollah is primarily a political movement intent upon dominating the Lebanon, and particularly southern Lebanon. They are closely allied to the Iranians, and they believe in a Shiite theocracy, but they believe mostly in themselves.’

Porter straightened up in his chair. He knew he was being examined as well as informed: they were looking to see how fast his mind still worked, and how well he could absorb information. He was still feeling hungry, so he grabbed another tuna sandwich. ‘Then why do they care about our boys in Iraq?’

‘Because the Iranians do,’ said Gilton. ‘The Iranians are desperate to get the British out of Basra as quickly as possible, because that way they can dominate the area. Southern Iraq is Shiite as well, and it’s going to be virtually an Iranian puppet state once we get out of the way.’

‘So they’re doing the dirty work …’

‘Precisely,’ said the professor. ‘The Iranians don’t want to start kidnapping British hostages and threatening to behead them. They don’t have much of an image in the world, but even for them that is a step too far. They get Hezbollah to do it for them, and since they are the main supplier of money and arms to that organisation, they don’t have much choice but to go along. Hezbollah take the girl, demand that British troops get out of Basra, and the Iranians can move
into southern Iraq, which is where most of the oil is incidentally, unopposed. Meanwhile their hands are clean.’

‘So it’s not just some random kidnapping?’

‘Not a bit of it,’ said Gilton. ‘They have a plan, and I have to admit a pretty clever one. It all fits together very well. They know just how vulnerable British public opinion is over Iraq, and they picked Katie Dartmouth because she is young, attractive and popular, and because they knew the story would get round-the-clock coverage. They knew there was a by-election coming up next month as well, and if the government loses that, then the PM is probably toast. Like I said, it’s a plan, and a damned clever one.’

Sir Angus leant back in his chair. ‘So maybe the only flaw in the plan is you, Porter,’ he said. ‘They didn’t reckon on you.’

‘What are their weaknesses?’ asked Porter.

‘They don’t really have any, I’m afraid,’ said Gilton. ‘Hezbollah is a tight-knit organisation. There are none of the splits between the military and political wings you used to get with the IRA, for example. And there’s none of the factionalism you get within al-Qaeda. They have their orders, and they’ll execute them ruthlessly.’

‘But it’s not their war,’ said Porter.

‘Right, that’s our one advantage,’ said Gilton. ‘They’ve taken Katie Dartmouth to help the Iranians. They don’t themselves care very much whether the British are in Iraq or not. Israel is the enemy for them. If you get into conversation with them, you need to hammer home that point. This isn’t really their fight. They’re just working for the Iranians. If you can persuade them to believe that, then maybe you can start to weaken their resolve.’

‘It’s not going to work, is it?’ said Porter. ‘I mean, they don’t care what I think of them.’

The professor remained silent. He probably knows that as well I do, thought Porter, you can’t talk these bastards out of
anything. There was more coffee, and another plate of sandwiches before Gilton shuffled out of the room and Sir Angus brought in David Provost. A thin, intense man, with reading glasses, and blond hair that was combed across his forehead, he glanced briefly at Porter before taking his seat and reaching for a glass of water. He was described as the Firm’s top hostage expert: he’d visited sieges all over the world, and studied the subject for years. There was nothing he didn’t know about kidnappers, and how to deal with them.