Masters of War (40 page)

Danny jumped to his feet. The sudden movement caused the flies to swarm up from around the corpses, but Danny ignored them as he strode towards his gear. He stuffed the money into his pocket, then strapped on his chest rig – Taff had left it fully stocked, as far as he could tell – and fitted the Maglite to his M4. Without another look at the horrific scene he was leaving behind, he left the room and hurried down the stairs.

He stopped before entering the shop on the ground floor. Listening. Looking. There was no sign or sound of anyone. He advanced to the door and out into the street.

He checked his watch. 22.03 hrs. He’d been out for a couple of hours.

The streets were still deserted, but he could hear noises elsewhere. Shouts. A small crowd, by the sound of it. And then one – no, two separate gunshots. Retaliation for the sniper fire that had just downed the two government soldiers? Likely, but it was impossible to be certain.

He moved quickly but cautiously, scanning ahead as he retraced his steps back towards the base. It took him ten minutes to reach the corner nearest to it. To his left – fifty metres away – there was activity. A mob, maybe thirty people, dressed in civvies, advancing on a group of five or six government soldiers. It was seconds away from getting very ugly, but at least their attention was on each other. Danny turned to the right. A minute later he was standing in front of the sliding gate. He couldn’t tell from outside whether it was locked or not, and there was only one way to find out. He pressed his back against the exterior wall, double-checked his rifle, then gently pushed the gate with his right foot.

It slid open. No problem at all.

Danny swung round into the opening and dropped down on one knee in the firing position, checking out the compound through the sight of his rifle. It was empty. Totally empty. No Taff. No Hector. No Skinner. No De Fries even. And, crucially, no vehicles. The place showed every sign of having been abandoned.

Danny wasn’t going to take that for granted. He trained the sight on the windows of the house, then on the door. Nothing, so he advanced carefully towards the entrance. It was very dark inside the building. Danny switched on the Maglite. A calculated risk: the beam would indicate his precise position, but he had to see what was ahead of him.

Or
who
was ahead of him.

The torch sliced a narrow beam across the dark room. The mattresses were empty. So was the wooden gun rack. The ground floor looked deserted. He trained his M4 on the staircase and moved towards it, past the door that led to the fire-damaged part of the house – even though Taff had pointed this out to him, it had gone completely unused. Better to check upstairs first. He realised he could hear his own pulse thumping as he edged up the stairs to the first floor.

The corridor came into view. The doors to the generator room and toilet were wide open. He checked them both. The generator was off, the air-con no longer whirring. The gimpy that had been by the window was no longer there. The toilet was unoccupied, but it still stank. He moved along the corridor to the room he had shared with Buckingham. Also empty.

A knocking sound.

Danny spun round, his M4 aimed back down the corridor. He paused and listened.

There it was again. Very faint, but just audible. Hard to tell which direction it came from, but he sensed it was downstairs. He trod carefully back to the staircase.

The knocking was a fraction louder.

Danny started to move back down the stairs.

He was halfway down when he saw what he had missed before. The door at the bottom, which led into the fire-damaged part of the house, was slightly ajar – just a couple of inches, but it was the first time he had seen it anything other than firmly shut. And as he reached it, he realised that the knocking sound was coming from the room beyond.

Danny was breathing very slowly now. He needed a constant flow of oxygen to keep his wits steady and his aim true, if it came to that. With the butt of the rifle pressed firmly into his shoulder, he kicked the door fully open. The scent of fire damage thumped his nostrils. He directed the narrow beam of the torch into the corners of the room, his trigger finger ready to squeeze at the sight of the slightest threat. The walls and ceiling were blackened with soot. Part of the ceiling in the far-left corner had collapsed, forming a pile of rubble on the ground. No windows. No other exits.

The beam travelled quickly across the right-hand wall. It illuminated a face.

Danny tracked back, ready to fire.

He saw a seated figure, tied to a high-backed chair. Several revolutions of duct tape masked the lower part of the head. Eyes wide in terror. Hair matted to the forehead with sweat.

Buckingham.

He was rocking backwards, banging the chair against the wall. A desperate moaning came from his throat, muffled by the tape. Dazzled by Danny’s torch, he couldn’t know who had just walked in. The rocking became more desperate. The banging louder. The moaning more frenzied.

There was something on the floor surrounding Buckingham’s chair. Danny lowered the beam to light it up. He saw four blocks, about the same size as ordinary building bricks. Instantly he recognised the bright orange of Semtex plastic explosive. A wire led from one block to the other, the four of them forming a semicircle round the legs of the chair. Wired into one of the blocks was a small battery pack connected to a digital timer the size of cigarette packet. A detonator.

Taff’s words flashed through Danny’s mind.
Don’t bother with Buckingham. He won’t be around to join you
.

Instinct took over. Danny let the rifle fall and hang from his body as he strode the five metres between himself and Buckingham. The moans of terror grew more high-pitched – Buckingham sounded like a pig squealing before slaughter – but Danny ignored them as he lifted him, chair and all, out from among the explosives. Buckingham was heavier than his small frame suggested, and Danny’s muscles were burning by the time he had hauled the man and the chair out into the compound.

They were five metres from the house when the explosion came.

Danny heard it first: a seismic crack that stung his ears. Then the shock wave hit, throwing him forwards a good two metres. Buckingham flew from his arms, landing with a dull thud and then a crack that Danny hoped was the sound of a chair leg breaking, not a bone. Looking back, he saw the left side of the building collapse in on itself, sending up a great cloud of dust. He crawled over to where Buckingham was lying on his side. His eyes were scrunched shut and he was trying to scream. Danny pulled out his knife and with two swift slashes cut through the ropes that bound him to the chair. Then, without any thought for the pain it might cause him, he pulled away the duct tape coiled round Buckingham’s head. Clumps of his hair came off with the tape, and when his lips were finally exposed, his shrieks were shrill and womanish. Only when he realised it was Danny who had rescued him from the building did the screaming subside. But if Buckingham felt relief at seeing his SAS chaperone, Danny didn’t intend to let it last for long. He grabbed him by the front of his shirt and yanked him to his feet.

‘
Talk!
’ he roared over the noise of the flames crackling behind him.

‘I . . . I don’t know what you mean . . .’

‘You and Taff have been planning something. You’d better tell me what it is, Buckingham, otherwise you’re not walking out of here.’

‘You wouldn’t dare!’ Buckingham shouted.

Wouldn’t he? With the anger surging through him now, Danny wasn’t so sure. He swung Buckingham round so that he was facing the burning building and Danny was behind him. He wrapped his left arm around the man’s neck, tightly enough for the air supply to be slightly restricted. He could feel the heat of the fire against his forearm, but the rest of him, including his face, was shielded by Buckingham’s body.

Ten metres between them and the flames. Danny pushed him towards the blaze, halving that distance.

‘What have you been planning?’ he hissed in Buckingham’s ear.

‘Nothing,’ Buckingham croaked. ‘His men just tried to kill me . . . you saw . . . For God’s sake, man, it’s too hot . . .’

Danny pushed him another metre nearer the flames.

‘You know what I think?’ he said, sweat dripping from his body and his forearm scalding. ‘I think Taff’s double-crossed you in some way. He’s made a fool of you just like he’s made a fool of me.
Now tell me what you were planning
.
’

When Buckingham didn’t respond, he pushed him forward another metre.

Every man has a breaking point. Buckingham reached his sooner than most might have done. As the intense heat began to sear his face, the words tumbled from his mouth as though they were buckets of water trying to douse the pain. ‘
Sorgen!
’ he shrieked. ‘
They’re on their way to kill him!
’

Danny spun both himself and Buckingham round 180 degrees so that they were no longer facing the fire. With a tremendous effort that momentarily threw Danny off balance, Buckingham broke free and ran. Once he was ten metres from Danny, he fell to the ground and clutched at his face, screaming curses. Danny ignored them. ‘Why?’ he hissed.

‘That’s what this has all been about, you idiot!’ Buckingham shouted back. ‘Sorgen is Asu’s only serious contender in this war. If he comes to power, the French will have Syria sewn up, and we can’t afford that!’ He took a few deep breaths. ‘My job was to clear Sorgen’s assassination with Asu, then make sure that Sorgen and his commanders would all be in one place at one time. Then Taff and his men could go in and eliminate them.’

‘Jesus, Buckingham. I thought Sorgen was your friend.’

Buckingham shot him a poisonous look. ‘I thought Jack was yours.’

With great difficulty, Danny kept his cool.

‘Why did Taff try to kill you?’

‘
I don’t bloody well know!
’ Buckingham shrieked. ‘
Because he’s a lunatic, I suppose. Like all you fucking animals!
’

Danny started to pace up and down, trying to work out his next move. What was Taff up to? Was it really true that his old friend – his
oldest
friend – wasn’t the man he’d thought he was at all?

And if he was about to carry out Buckingham’s instructions to the letter, why had he felt the need to get him – not to mention Danny – out of the way?

Only one person could tell him that.

Taff.

Danny turned back to Buckingham.

‘Get up,’ he growled.

‘Where are we going?’

‘
Get up!
’

‘Not until you tell me where we’re going!’

Danny walked over and pulled Buckingham to his feet, holding him face to face as he spoke. ‘You and me are going to steal a vehicle,’ he said. ‘Then we’re going to locate Taff. And then we’re going to find out exactly what kind of fucked-up scheme you’ve got us involved in. And trust me, you piece of shit: if I find out you’ve told me any more lies, you’re going to wish you’d ended up being part of Taff’s firework display after all. Got it?’

Buckingham stared at him in terror. ‘It’s too dangerous,’ he whispered.

Danny had no time for the man’s pathetic hesitation. He pushed him towards the gate, then followed close behind, his rifle pointing at his back. ‘
Move!
’ he shouted. ‘
Now!
’

TWENTY-TWO

22.30 hrs.

They had started to arrive with the setting of the sun.

Clara had watched them from the entrance to her medical tent, and she hadn’t liked what she’d seen. Each of the seven pick-up trucks that were now parked in no particular order about twenty metres east of the main tent was heavily armed with a machine gun that looked, to Clara’s untrained eye, identical to the one that had been pointing at the sky since she’d arrived here. The men who emerged from the pick-ups looked no less threatening, with their assault rifles on show and heaven only knew what other weaponry. Without exception, each man wore a black scarf wound around his head to hide his features, with just his eyes and nose visible. Some of the pick-ups had brought two people, some three. In each instance, however, there was one man who was clearly of a higher rank than the others. As each vehicle arrived, Sorgen appeared at the entrance to his tent and greeted this man with a solemn embrace, before leading him inside.

‘Sorgen’s commanders,’ Basheba explained as she joined the watchful Clara. ‘It is rare for them all to be together. That is the last of them, I think.’

Now, all Clara could see was the big tent glowing faintly in the darkness from the lights that were on inside, and the dark outlines of the pick-up trucks and their evil-looking weapons against the increasingly inky desert sky.

And another vehicle approaching from the distance.

‘Who is that?’ Basheba breathed by her side. ‘Who else is coming?’

But Clara, of course, couldn’t answer that. She could only watch, and wait.

The vehicle – it was a Land Rover – came to a halt about ten metres beyond the pick-ups of Sorgen’s commanders. Four men emerged. From this distance, Clara couldn’t make out their features, but she could see that they were holding assault rifles at an angle across their chests, and that they walked with a certain wary purpose. Only when they were halfway between the pick-ups and the tent did she see that these were the same men who had been there that very morning.