Masters of War (49 page)

Another pause. And then a clattering sound. Danny pictured Taff throwing his phone against the dashboard in rage. He carried on listening.

For a moment, nobody spoke. Then Danny heard Hector’s voice.

‘What does he want us to do?’

‘Shut the fuck up and drive.’

The engine, however, slowed down. Then the sound disappeared entirely. Danny realised that the vehicle had come to a halt.

‘What does he want us to do, Taff ?’ Hector’s voice sounded dangerous. ‘If you think me and De Fries are going to follow you without knowing what’s happening, think again. You already fucked up once not killing that Regiment kid.’

‘That “Regiment kid”,’ Taff spat, ‘is a weak-arsed little cunt. If you’re worried about him, you’re in the wrong fucking game.’

‘Just tell us the plan, Taff.’

‘Fine. Saunders made a deal with the Syrians. He gave them Asu’s location. They’ve bombed the shit out of him. He wants us to collect his payment from a contact in Damascus. Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, in cash. He doesn’t want to leave a money trail. Happy?’

‘Not really, mucker. You said it yourself. What are we, fucking FedEx?’

‘Just shut up and drive.’

The recording ended.

‘Charming,’ said Carrington, staring directly into the webcam. ‘Sixteen kilometres south of Damascus there is a crossroads where the M5 highway meets a road heading east–west along the brow of the hill. An Israeli helicopter with an Apache chaperone will be there to airlift you out of Syria at 01.30 hrs, by which time I expect Davies and his team to be dead. We’ll do what we can to get Buckingham and the woman there in time, but don’t hold your breath.’

‘What about Spud and Greg? Have you done anything about them?’

‘I would forget about your friends, Black. They won’t be coming home. The most important thing is that Davies is eliminated. Is that understood?’

Danny gave him a dead look. The bastard clearly had no intention of seeing Clara and Buckingham released.

But Danny had other plans.

‘Understood,’ he said.

They had stripped Clara naked, groping her painfully as they did so. But that was by no means the end of her indignity.

She was in a third bland, concrete room, strapped to something that looked like a hospital bed. On the wall opposite there was a bright yellow hosepipe coiled round a couple of pegs, one end fitted to a tap. She couldn’t imagine what it was for. There was a sheet beneath her. It was vile-smelling and covered in blood. Her arms were tied to her side and her legs had been forced apart and then secured that way, leaving her open and exposed. More groping. One of them had forcibly inserted a dry finger. Its fingernail had scraped her internally and she’d screamed. That had just made the two brutes manhandling her laugh as they left her on her own, a bright light dazzling her eyes from above, the only sounds she could hear the occasional scream from elsewhere in this awful place. She shivered with cold, but tears were burning her eyeballs.

What was to come? It didn’t bear thinking about. She lay in terrified silence, dreading the moment when the door opened again.

TWENTY-SIX

‘Do you know Al Kamada Street?’

Danny was back in the ambassador’s temporary office. ‘Of course,’ the ambassador said. He pulled out a map from his desk and laid it out in front of him. ‘It’s in the Christian quarter, near Bab Touma. I suggest you avoid it.’

‘Why?’

The ambassador shrugged. ‘The government is paranoid about Western spies. They keep a close eye on it.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘But if you want a drink, it’s the place to go.’

Danny looked the ambassador up and down. He decided that this was a man on the take. The guy had plundered his cash without even pretending to be embarrassed about it.

‘I’ve got an offer for you,’ Danny said. ‘Do as I ask and you’ll be several hundred thousand pounds sterling richer by tomorrow morning.’

The ambassador’s eyes narrowed. ‘Go on,’ he said quietly.

‘You have contacts inside the
Mukhabarat
?’ It wasn’t really a question.

The ambassador shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’

‘They have two British captives. If your contact gets them out of there to a safe RV at 01.00 hrs tonight, I’ll pay you 100,000 for each of them. There are also two British SAS soldiers who were captured on the west coast a week ago. If they’re still alive, same deal: 100 K apiece.’

‘Forgive me,’ said the ambassador, ‘but you don’t look like you have that sort of money to spare.’

‘I know a man who does. I’ll have it before the deadline. Do we have a deal?’

The ambassador nodded slowly. ‘We have a deal.’

The door to Clara’s room opened. The short man appeared, flanked by two of his goons.

Nobody spoke. Not even Clara, who wouldn’t have known what to say even if her throat hadn’t been constricted with fear at their sudden arrival. The short man issued an instruction in Arabic – the first time Clara had heard him speak the language – then closed the door behind him and stood in the corner of the room. The two Syrian guards approached Clara’s bed. She felt herself trying to close her bound legs, but the straps held them firmly apart. But, to her momentary relief, the men didn’t seem interested in that side of things. Instead they stood one on each side of her and adjusted the bed so she was lying at an incline of about twenty degrees, her feet higher than her head. That in itself made her feel dizzy. She heard the short man’s footsteps. His face appeared above her, upside down. His nostrils flared slightly, then he stepped away.

Another instruction in Arabic. Clara heard the sound of water. She felt sick all over again. She’d heard of waterboarding, of course. She’d heard that most people lasted only a matter of seconds before crumpling utterly, the horrific sensation of drowning being more than anyone can bear. As the sound of the hose spurting on to the floor grew nearer, she let out an uncontrollable sob. It was the worst thing she could have done. It forced her to inhale deeply, and at that precise moment, the guard carrying the hose lifted it and allowed water to pour over her face.

It was icy cold as it gushed down her throat and nostrils, and although she was lying back, she felt it hit her oesophagus like an internal punch. Her gag reflex instantly kicked in, but fresh water was still flowing over her face, forcing the previous lot back down into her system. It didn’t hurt, but the panic it induced was a hundred times worse than any pain the torturers could have inflicted. She wanted to cry out, but she couldn’t. Her body arched. Her limbs strained against their bonds. Seconds felt like minutes. She would do anything,
anything
, to make it stop.

Suddenly water was no longer falling on her face. She continued to gag, aware now of the horrific, gurgling, guttural sound that came from her throat as she tried to force the water up out of her lungs while her body screamed at her to breathe in. Moments later she felt a brutal blow to her abdomen, which forced the water up through her nostrils. Finally she was able to suck in some precious oxygen.

And then he was there once more, looking down at her. ‘What is your real name, and who are you working for?’

Clara’s voice shook as she spoke. ‘I promise you . . .
please?
. . . I’m telling you the truth . . .’

A flicker of annoyance passed over the man’s face. He soon mastered it and smiled his oily smile.

‘It seems to me,’ he said quietly, ‘that we’ll have to do it again.’

Clara’s screaming only stopped when the water started to flow over her face once more.

19.45 hrs.

Danny watched from a first-floor window, waiting for the blue Citroën that had been circling the embassy all day to complete its drive-past. The ambassador had instructed his men to replenish Danny’s ammunition, and had supplied him with a sat phone into which the number of the ambassador’s equivalent handset was programmed. As he watched, his mind turned over. He thought of Taff and the mockery he’d made of his life. Maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe Carrington was feeding him a stream of bullshit to force him to do the Firm’s dirty work. That was clearly the way he did things. He thought back to the conversation about his mother’s death he’d had with Taff back in Homs. There’d been no hint that Taff was lying to him then. Danny would only know the truth if he looked his mentor in the eye and asked the question.

And if he didn’t like the answer? What then?

He thought of Buckingham and Clara. Of Greg and Spud. All of them suffering at the hands of the Syrian authorities. He’d learned enough about this country over the past week to realise that meant brutal treatment. Were they still alive? Was a hundred grand apiece enough to make some corrupt member of the secret police risk his own skin to get them to Danny’s 01.00 RV? Could he trust the Czech ambassador not to double-cross him? Could he trust
anyone
? He didn’t know the answer to these questions. All he could do was see where the evening took him. And hope that he was still alive to see the following sunrise.

The blue Citroën passed. He had four minutes and thirty seconds to get out of here.

One minute and thirty seconds later he was walking out of the embassy, his clothes covered by one of the ambassador’s grey raincoats. And two minutes after that, he was in the Peugeot, negotiating the streets of night-time Damascus.

20.50 hrs.

One fifty-seven Al Kamada Street was a downmarket hotel – a three-storey prefab building with a glass frontage. It had a name, but the Arabic letters meant nothing to Danny. He pulled over about twenty metres from the entrance, and took a moment to recce it from the safety of his vehicle. He counted the windows of twelve rooms, four on each level, looking down on to the street. Opposite the hotel was a bar. This also had a glass frontage, tinted. A neon sign flickered the words ‘Zodiac Lounge’ in English above the entrance. Would Taff be sitting in there? Doubtful. He’d want to keep a low profile.

Danny turned back to the hotel. Was Taff there, waiting to collect Saunders’ cash? Danny would put money on it. He’d have arrived in very good time for the midnight RV and Danny felt certain he’d have a room overlooking the street. Even now he’d be at the window. Watching carefully. Assessing any threats. Waiting. And were Hector and De Fries with him? Or were they off looking for other amusements?

Danny looked at his watch. 21.00 hrs. Three hours. He assessed his options. Enter the hotel now and try to locate him? No way. If Taff sensed anything untoward happening before the appointed time, he’d react. If he had Hector and De Fries with him, they’d overpower Danny. Staying in the car wasn’t an option – an occupied vehicle parking in the vicinity for three hours would scream a warning. Maybe he could walk into the hotel and pump the receptionist for info, but he quickly rejected that idea. Even if the receptionist spoke English, Taff would have already turned on the charm and offered them a few dollars to let him know if anyone came asking about him. So Danny turned his attention to the Zodiac Lounge. The tinted-glass window was an effective camouflage. Could he use that as an OP? He decided to try.

He left his M4 locked in the boot of the car. Turning up the collar of the raincoat, he walked along the street on the same side as the hotel, out of the line of sight of anybody watching from the windows. When he was alongside the entrance, he turned his back on it and crossed the street with the buzzing, flickering neon of the sign illuminating his face. Seconds later he was inside.

The place was dimly lit and surprisingly chintzy. Strange to think you could travel half a klick from here and see mortared football stadiums and craters in the streets. There was a low throb of dance music in the air, and maybe twenty-five customers were sitting at tables dotted around the floor. Along the back wall, fifteen metres from the entrance, was a gleaming metal-topped bar with an array of optics behind it, though Danny immediately noticed that several of the bottles were empty. Two women sat on bar stools – Middle Eastern, but decked out like Western women, all tits and arse. They watched Danny as he entered, another prospective client.

There was a table by the front window. Danny sat down and made a pretence of studying the laminated cocktail menu in front of him. In truth, his eyes were searching the windows of the hotel opposite. The flickering neon light reflected off the hotel’s windows. It made it difficult to examine them, but Danny did so, starting at the top left of the building and moving slowly to the right before starting on the floor below. The windows were all closed, and it was impossible to see into any of them, especially with the neon dazzling his eyes.

Only when his eyes landed on the second window from the left on the first floor did he notice something odd. This window was open. Just a little – a gap of a few inches at the bottom – but definitely open. What did that tell him? It was a hot night, so why were all the others shut? Maybe they were just not occupied. Or maybe . . .

Suddenly aware of somebody standing over him, Danny started. As a reflex, his hand reached for his Sig. But then he stopped. It was a barmaid, standing by his table with a pad and looking rather bored.

‘Speak English?’ Danny asked.

She nodded.