Zero 22, p.7
Zero 22, page 7
part #8 of Danny Black Series
SIX
Danny Black was always ready to deploy. He kept a grab-bag in the squadron hangar and his personal weapons were waiting for him in the armoury. It took an hour to prepare himself, by which time the gear needed for his HALO drop into the Jordanian desert had been stowed in the back of the unmarked transit van waiting for him. He didn’t recognise the driver, nor did he want to speak to him. He took his seat in the back and sat silently.
His mind churned. Events were happening quickly. An operation like this, to take out such a sensitive target, would usually be weeks in the planning. It would require a substantial team of guys. This wasn’t the first time that Danny had felt he was taking on the work of more than one man, but he understood why it was necessary. It wasn’t just the covert nature of the op. It was the difficulty of dealing with the other person involved.
Bethany White.
She was the most complicated person Danny had ever met. A mother and a killer. A grieving widow and a psychopath. A high-level MI6 operator and MI6’s worst nightmare. She was poison and honey. Light and dark. In his experience, the security services attracted many psychotic types, highly manipulative and able to kill without a flicker of fellow feeling. But Bethany White was an extreme case. She had manipulated Danny with skill and apparent ease. Danny would be lying if he said he wasn’t attracted to her, but she repelled him too. He’d never hoped or expected to see her again and the thought that they were to come face to face in a couple of hours made him apprehensive. Funny, he thought to himself, how calmly he could deal with whatever threats the life of an SAS soldier threw at him, but the thought of meeting a beautiful, blonde thirty-year-old woman again dumped acid in his gut.
The journey to Brize Norton took two hours. It gave him time to examine the target pack they’d given him back in Hereford. He committed to memory details of the forthcoming HALO drop, maps of the area and plans Hereford had put in place to get them out of the desert into Amman and close to the General. Hereford’s strategy was good, but it relied on a single, scarcely knowable factor: Bethany White’s compliance. Danny suspected it would be unwillingly delivered.
A Globemaster was taking off as they arrived at their destination. The deafening roar of its engines made the unmarked van shake as the driver flashed some ID at a security point that led straight on to the airfield. They slalomed around fuel lorries and military trucks as they crossed to the far side of the airfield, where a long solitary Portakabin was manned by a couple of armed guys in camouflage gear. It was a hot day, unusually hot for the UK, and the airfield shimmered in the heat haze. A couple of hundred metres away, a Hercules was taxiing across the tarmac. Once Danny had alighted, carrying a grey sports bag stuffed with clothes, the van headed up in the direction of the Herc. Danny approached the Portakabin. Blackout linings covered the inside of the windows. The two armed guards were young and pimply. Danny could tell they were nervous. He smiled to put them at ease, but then realised he wasn’t the reason they were on edge.
‘Is it locked?’ he asked them, dumping the sports bag on the ground.
They nodded.
‘Give me the key.’
One of the guys handed it over.
‘Has she been searched?’ Danny asked.
‘Yeah,’ said the guy. ‘Three times. But keep your distance, if I was you. When we was bringing her in, she had a blade in the lining of her top that we missed. Cut my mate’s face something nasty. Took three of us to get it off her.’
Danny nodded. That sounded like her. He felt for his Glock and made sure it was secure in its holster. He walked up the steps to the Portakabin door, unlocked it, then kicked it. The door clattered as it swung open. Danny entered.
There were a couple of tables. Chairs scattered around, some on their sides as if there had been a fight in here. White boards on the wall. The blackout linings on the windows were fixed with layers of brown tape.
And there was Bethany White.
She was huddled in a corner, clutching her knees. There was a table between them, but it didn’t block his view. Her blonde hair was matted and dirty. There were mascara streaks on her cheeks that partially covered the golden freckles underneath. Her eyes were red. She was breathing heavily. And she was staring at him.
The Bethany that Danny knew had always shown the world a smart, confident face. This pale creature, her face bleached both by the overhead light and her own distress, was wretched. Her shoulders shook. Her left eye twitched. There was an unpleasant smell in the Portakabin. Danny was pretty sure it came from her. There was a smear of blood on her cheek and Danny remembered what the guy outside had said about the blade. He looked around the room, searching for anything that might present itself as an incidental weapon. There was nothing, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t located any dangerous items before his arrival.
‘Stand up,’ he said.
She stared at him without moving.
‘You heard me, I said—’
‘Yeah, I heard you,’ she rasped. Her voice was hoarse, but that didn’t hide her faint West Country burr.
They locked gazes. Bethany pushed herself to her feet, her back sliding up against the wall. She was wearing what Danny supposed were the clothes she had on when she was brought in. Tatty jeans and an oversized sweatshirt. The sweatshirt was streaked with blood. So were her hands. They were clawed, as though she was ready to scratch someone’s eyes out. ‘I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again,’ she said.
‘Makes two of us. I hear you’ve been getting handy with a razor blade.’
She managed to make an insouciant shrug. ‘He got too close.’ A smile crossed her lips and, despite her feral appearance, Danny saw a hint of her dazzling good looks. ‘I seem to remember you trying to get quite close too, Danny. What is it? Have you gone off me?’ He saw her clawed fingers relax.
‘I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here,’ Danny replied.
‘Did I say that?’ said Bethany. She moved a strand of matted hair from her face. ‘They took my son,’ she said.
‘I know. He’s safe.’
‘You want to know what I’m going to do when I find the people who took him?’
‘You’ll never find them,’ he said.
‘You want to bet?’
‘You’re too smart, Bethany. You know what they’ll do to you if you start going after people again. You won’t give them any option, and Danny won’t have his mother.’
‘He doesn’t have his mother now.’
‘But he will do. If you do what you’re told, he will do. You have my word on that.’
She laughed scornfully. ‘Your word? What’s that worth?’
Danny stared her down. ‘Something,’ he said. ‘Your boy stopped you from killing me, remember? Maybe I owe him one.’
Bethany watched him uncertainly. She clearly didn’t know if she believed him. But Danny was telling the truth. No matter what he thought of Bethany, he liked her kid. He tried not to think too hard about his instruction to make him an orphan. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I don’t have any great love for the spooks. They’ve lied to me more times than I can count, and I don’t like the way they’ve played this. I’ve got a kid too. I get it. I want yours to go back home. No matter what I think of you.’
‘What a pretty speech.’ She slow-clapped sarcastically and gazed around. ‘So do we get to leave this room? Those two boys outside looked like they might soil themselves.’
‘This room is secure,’ said Danny. ‘I can brief you here. We’re heading to Jordan. Tonight.’
She was obviously trying to hide it, but a flicker of interest crossed Bethany’s face. You can take the girl out of MI6, Danny thought to himself. ‘I haven’t agreed to anything yet,’ she said. And then, unable to withhold her curiosity. ‘Why would we go to Jordan?’
‘We have a target. An American five-star general. His name’s Frank O’Brien. He’s been a bad boy.’
‘Show me a soldier who hasn’t been,’ Bethany said.
‘No one else has been bad like this.’ An image of the smoke-filled wasteland outside the Syrian prison flashed in his mind. ‘He’s passing sensitive military information to the Russians. Including information about British troop movements. Thanks to him, my team was massacred. Now he gets paid back.’
‘So the Yanks have got a mole.’ Her dismissive tone of voice angered Danny, but he did his best not to show it. ‘It was only a matter of time. What’s it got to do with me?’
‘The General’s in Jordan for a peace conference. He has a CP team wherever he goes. It’s hard for me to get close. But he also has an eye for the ladies.’
Danny didn’t have to say any more. Bethany gave a cynical smile. ‘Are you suggesting that you and your friends at MI6 suddenly feel a little less queasy about my methods?’
‘We do what we have to do,’ Danny said.
‘Obviously. Which is why you don’t mind stealing a six-year-old boy from his mother.’ She took a step towards him. There was something in her gait. The Bethany Danny had seen when he walked in here had looked broken. Somehow, in the course of their conversation, she had started to put herself back together again. ‘The trouble is, you seem to have forgotten something. I’ve lodged details of MI6’s illegal actions with solicitors all over the world. One word from me and they’ll release that information. So I don’t think I need to do a single thing you say. And if my former employees don’t get my son back to me, they’ll only have themselves to blame.’
Danny put one hand in his pocket and removed his mobile phone. He offered it to Bethany. ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘Call your lawyers. Any of them. I think you might find that each of them has met with a nasty accident.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Come on,’ Danny said. ‘You’re not stupid. You really think you could give GCHQ six months and they wouldn’t trace your precious solicitors?’
Bethany didn’t seem to have a response to that. Her shoulders slumped again. But then, in an instant, she regained her poise. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘So let’s say I agree. How do we go about this?’
‘We can’t make a regular border entry,’ Danny said. ‘Your face will ping every facial recognition system in the world – MI6 have seen to it. So we need to make a covert entry. There’s a Hercules waiting for us. Tonight, we fly along the Israel–Jordan border and we do a tandem HALO jump into the Jordanian side. They’ll drop a quad bike in alongside us and we’ll make our way across the desert into Jordan. We’ll have passes waiting for us that will get us in to the General’s hotel, then you flutter your eyelashes at him.’
Bethany took a moment to absorb that. ‘A HALO jump?’ she said.
Danny nodded. ‘I’ll talk you through it.’
‘I’m not one for heights,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to hold me tight.’
Danny gave her a level look. He was only human. He couldn’t help being physically attracted to Bethany White, but he knew how dangerous that was and how ruthlessly she would use it against him. ‘You weren’t thrilled to see me walk into this room,’ he said. ‘I’m not thrilled to be here. I’ve got a job to do and so do you. Any of that other shit, forget it. If you want your kid back, let’s get this done and we never have to see each other again.’
Silence.
‘I need to shower,’ said Bethany. ‘Do you think the boys at the door will let me leave without peeing their pants?’
Danny held up his Glock. ‘Don’t make a mistake,’ he said. ‘I will do it.’
‘And then who’s going to nail your precious general for you?’ Bethany said. ‘Put the gun down, Danny. You’re not going to shoot me and I’m not going to give you any trouble. At least, not until I have my boy back.’ She turned her back on him. ‘Tell the kids I’m coming out,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t want to scare them.’
Danny left the Portakabin. The two guys outside were gripping the weapons slung across their fronts. ‘I’m taking her out,’ Danny said. ‘She needs to get cleaned up.’
‘We have orders,’ said one of them. He held up a pair of handcuffs. ‘As long as she’s on site, she wears these.’
Danny took the cuffs. ‘You got the key?’ he said. The soldier handed it over. Danny clunked the cuffs shut, dropped them on the ground and pocketed the key. ‘She’s with me,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t need those.’
The two soldiers eyed each other uncomfortably. Danny re-entered the Portakabin. ‘No cuffs?’ Bethany said.
‘They wanted to. I said no.’
Bethany shrugged, as if to suggest that she wasn’t fussed. Danny wasn’t fooled. He could sense that she was suddenly more at her ease. Ditching the handcuffs had been the right call.
He knew Brize Norton well, having deployed from here more times than he could count. There was a functional shower and toilet block to the back of the main terminal. Danny led Bethany out of the Portakabin, picked up the sports bag full of clothes and handed it to her. She smiled at the two soldiers keeping guard, but looked gruesome with her dirty, bloodied face framed by her wild, matted hair. They crossed the tarmac in silence. When they reached the shower block, Danny stood outside. He wasn’t really guarding the entrance. He knew that if Bethany wanted to escape the block, she’d find some way to do it. But he was certain that she wouldn’t. Bethany White was many things. A killer. A traitor, even. But everything she’d done had been for family. She wasn’t about to throw all that away. ‘No peeking!’ she shouted over her shoulder as she entered the block.
Danny was sweating heavily. The afternoon sun beat hard on the airfield and he had to shield his eyes to look across at the Hercules. The tailgate was down and gear was being loaded up, though from this distance he couldn’t quite make it out in detail. Otherwise, all he saw were troops moving around in open-top trucks and fuel vehicles circling the perimeter: the regular sights and sounds of a working military airfield.
Ten minutes later, Bethany re-emerged. She looked amazing. Her clean skin glowed, her long blonde hair was damp and shiny. There was no vestige of the crazy-looking woman Danny had found in the Portakabin. She was wearing the camouflage gear Danny had supplied her with. It too was damp where her hair touched it. ‘A perfect fit,’ she said, indicating the clothes. ‘It’s almost as if you knew my size.’
Danny ignored her flirtatious comment. He pointed towards the Hercules. ‘That’s our ride,’ he said. ‘You ever done a HALO drop before?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I’ll explain everything once we’re in the air.’
‘This is all pretty fast, Danny. It’s not like the Hereford I know. Don’t they want a week of briefings and a full squadron in case somebody stubs their toe?’
‘No time for that,’ Danny said. ‘And sometimes you need a scalpel, not a hammer.’
‘Very poetic. Shall we go?’
Bethany strode forwards. If she was feeling any anxiety, she didn’t show it. He reminded himself that she had fooled him once before. Nothing, with Bethany, was quite what it seemed, and Danny didn’t intend to make the same mistake twice.
He caught up with her and they walked side by side back to the Portakabin. The two soldiers were still there, sweating in the heat. Danny pulled out his phone and made a call. Seconds later, the white van pulled away from the Hercules and headed across the tarmac towards them.
SEVEN
Danny knew from past experience that Bethany White was as skilled an actress as she was an assassin. She was apparently a completely different person now she’d emerged from the shower. There was no sign of the broken, distressed mother crouching in the corner of a locked Portakabin. She walked with confidence, shoulders pinned back, head held high. Nobody would even begin to guess what she had learned in the last hour, nor what she had agreed to do. It made Danny even more wary. He knew plenty of killers. He knew female soldiers more ruthless than even the most ferocious Regiment guys. But he’d never met a person who could slip into a role quite so easily. It was impossible to tell what such a person was thinking, or what they intended to do. Bethany White was probably more dangerous than anyone he’d ever met.
The unmarked white van deposited them at the bottom of the Hercules’s tailgate. Five loadmasters stood together, drinking coffee from plastic cups. Two older men stood slightly apart. Each had aviator shades hanging from the top pocket of their fatigues. They were clearly the pilot and co-pilot. Danny walked up to them and shook their hands. Formalities over. ‘What’s our flight path?’ he asked.
‘We’re heading across the Med and over Cyprus. The Israelis have given us permission to enter their airspace, but my instructions are to keep the Jordanians in the dark. So we’re going to head south along the Israel–Jordan border and make the drop when we’re directly west of Amman. That’ll put you down somewhere between the West Bank and the Jordanian village of As-Salt.’
‘What’s the status in the West Bank? Any fighting?’
‘None reported, but it’s volatile, as I’m sure you know. If we can nudge over to the Jordanian side of the border, we will.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s 19.00,’ he said. ‘Wheels up in thirty minutes. We’ll look to make the drop some time after 01.30 local, if that suits you?’
Danny nodded his agreement, shook the pilot’s hand again and walked over to the loadmasters. One of them, a bald guy with a crusty cold sore on his lower lip, stepped forward. He was clearly the main loadie.
‘Is the quad bike strapped up?’ Danny said.
‘Trussed up like a Christmas turkey,’ the loadie replied. ‘Ready to go.’
‘The rest of my gear?’
The loadie nodded in the direction of the tailgate. Danny thanked him and gave the remaining loadies a thumbs-up. In advance of a HALO jump, these were the guys you needed on your side. He was under no illusion, though, that they were more interested in Bethany, with her damp blonde hair and the pout that Danny knew was entirely affected, than him. He ushered her up the tailgate into the belly of the Hercules.
Danny remembered how, as a kid, the smell of his dog’s damp fur had a calming effect on him. Nowadays, the smell of a military aircraft fulfilled the same role. It wasn’t a pleasant smell. It was greasy and thick. The stench of aviation fuel caught at the back of your throat. But it was a smell that told Danny he was in an environment where he knew what he was doing. He’d thrown himself out of these aircraft more times than he could count. This was his turf.
