Hellfire Read online

  Also by Chris Ryan

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  Killing for the Company

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  In the Alpha Force Series

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  Hostage

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  Fault Line

  Black Gold

  Untouchable

  In the Code Red Series

  Flash Flood

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  Outbreak

  Vortex

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  In the Agent 21 Series

  Agent 21

  Reloaded

  Codebreaker

  The Wire

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  Under Cover

  Hellfire

  Chris Ryan

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Coronet

  An imprint of Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Chris Ryan 2015

  The right of Chris Ryan to be identified as the Author of the

  Work has been asserted by him in accordance with

  the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any

  means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be

  otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that

  in which it is published and without a similar condition being

  imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance

  to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 444 78331 5

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.hodder.co.uk

  CONTENTS

  Glossary

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Part One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Part Two

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Part Three

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Thirty-two

  Author’s Note

  GLOSSARY

  1 Para

  1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment (Special Forces Support Group)

  AW50

  anti-material sniper rifle

  C-4

  high-yield plastic explosive

  COBRA

  Cabinet Office briefing room

  CP

  close protection

  ETA

  estimated time of arrival

  fan dance

  the fitness and navigation phase of special forces sel

  frag

  fragmentation grenade

  GCHQ

  Government Communications Headquarters

  hazmat suit

  whole-body garment worn as protection against hazardous materials

  head shed

  military command centre

  HK416

  Heckler & Koch assault rifle firing 5.56x45mm NATO rounds

  HK417

  Heckler & Koch battle rifle firing 7.62x51mm NATO rounds

  HQ

  headquarters

  ident

  identification

  L86

  a variant of the SA80 assault rifle, standard issue to British armed forces

  LAW

  light anti-armour weapon

  LZ

  landing zone

  MI6/SIS/the Firm

  Secret Intelligence Service

  MoD

  Ministry of Defence

  NV

  night vision

  PC

  patrol commander

  RIB

  rigid-hulled inflatable boat

  RPG

  rocket-propelled grenade

  RTA

  road traffic accident

  RTU

  returned to unit

  Rupert

  military slang for an officer

  RV

  rendezvous

  SBS

  Special Boat Service

  scaley

  member of the Royal Corps of Signals

  SF

  special forces

  Sig 225

  SIG-Sauer P225 pistol firing 9x19mm rounds

  transponder

  aircraft identification device

  VHF

  very high frequency

  white phos

  white phosphorous grenade

  ‘I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.’

  — Albert Einstein

  PROLOGUE

  The Iraq–Syria border. Sunset.

  It was a featureless patch of desert, but surrounded at a distance by scenes of war.

  Six kilometres to the north there was an Islamic State command and control centre, reduced to rubble by American air strikes. But local command and control really took place in a small Bedouin encampment that the infidel didn’t know about, and which they would never bomb, because it was a civilian target. They were weak about such matters.

  Three kilometres to the west, a laser-guided Brimstone missile had blasted a crater in the sand thirty metres wide. Two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of ordnance had taken out a single Land Rover, unoccupied.

  Ten kilometres to the south, there was a border town that had fallen to the brutal troops of the Islamic State. It had taken the mass execution of three hundred civilians to subdue the malcontents, but now it was overrun with insurgents, completely unopposed by the terrified locals.

  Here, however, the undulating sand and rough, dusty scrub under a clear sky looked just as it had done for hundreds, even thousands, of years. And a lone vehicle containing two men trundled through the twilight. For one of these men, who had a crooked nose, lank, greasy hair and wispy stubble on his chin, this was the most exciting journey of his life.

  The air was hot and dry. He was sweating and dirty. B
ut he didn’t mind. Twenty-four hours ago he had been stuck in the grey drizzle of an early Peckham morning. Now he was watching a blood-red sun set over the dunes. For years he had longed to swap his old life for this.

  His name was James Wilson. He hated it. It was so British. He couldn’t understand why his parents, who had moved to England from Pakistan when they were seventeen – just a year older than James was now – couldn’t have given him a better, Islamic, name. He was always trying to change it. On his unsuccessful YouTube music channel, where he chanted self-penned Jihadist lyrics of which he was very proud, he called himself Dubz-Manuva. And out here, on the fluid border between Iraq and Syria, he was Hassan. He much preferred that name. It sounded more noble, and he had enjoyed tearing up his British passport once he had cleared immigration at Hatay airport in southern Turkey. Out here, nobody would call him a dirty Paki bastard ever again.

  Now he was looking forward to meeting with his comrades, learning how to become an ISIS fighter. He had spent many hours daydreaming about the heroic things he would do. And now those daydreams were becoming a reality.

  ‘Did you have any trouble leaving England?’ asked the lean, fierce militant who was driving him along a deserted highway.

  Hassan’s companion hadn’t told him his name, or even where they were going. Hassan admired his confidence. Admired the way that the gangster-like border guards in military uniform had melted away with one look at his face as they crossed from Turkey into Syria and from Syria into Iraq. Admired the way his assault rifle lay carelessly on the back seat, and the handgun – he didn’t know what sort – rested on the dashboard, a warning to anyone who dared to stop them.

  ‘Piece of piss,’ said Hassan. The militant frowned. He obviously didn’t know that expression. ‘I mean . . . yeah . . . it was well easy. Told my mum I had to be in college early, innit? I reckon my sister was a bit suspicious, but she’s only eleven. Left the house at seven, seven thirty . . . I was on the plane to Turkey by midday . . . Got this girl to tell the teachers I was off sick . . .’

  The militant’s frown grew more pronounced. ‘There will be no women in our schools when the Caliphate has spread,’ he said. ‘They do not need to be there. It is un-Islamic.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Hassan said quietly. ‘Bitches.’

  About twenty metres off the road, next to a patch of low brush, he saw the shell of an old saloon car. It must have been destroyed by some kind of car bomb because jagged sheets of broken chassis were pointing outwards from its core. As they zoomed by, Hassan squinted. Was it a trick of the light, or had he seen the remains of a body slumped over the steering wheel?

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

  ‘You’ll see.’

  It was almost dark when they turned sharply off the highway and on to a poorly kept road. Five minutes later, Hassan could see the outline of a small desert town in the distance. Even in the half-light he could tell there had been fighting here because he could just make out, in silhouette, the slant of a toppled electricity pylon a couple of hundred metres up ahead. ‘Where are we?’ he asked quietly. His companion didn’t answer.

  On the outskirts of the town, the occasional local stood by the side of the road and gave them hard stares. Hassan realised they were a curiosity. Theirs was the only vehicle entering the town.

  They passed a run-down concrete building on their left. A black flag with white Arabic lettering hung across its facade. Next to it was a mosque, outside which was a crowd of men, all bearded. There were no women on show. No children. They approached a lone acacia tree to which a few sheep had been tethered, and came to a halt in the shade of its branches. Theirs was the only vehicle around, with the exception of two old motorbikes leaning up against the side of a low stone building to their right. There were no electric lights. No kids playing in the street. Hassan felt like he had gone back in time.

  ‘Get out.’

  Hassan did as he was told. His jeans and T-shirt were crumpled and sweaty. He felt very out of place compared to his companion, who wore camouflage trousers and a black vest that showed his tough, sinewy muscles. It was strangely silent here. No music. No conversation. The men outside the mosque stared at him. Hassan stared fiercely back.‘This way,’ the militant said. He strode along the road, and Hassan had to trot to keep up.

  ‘They told me there would be other people like me here, innit?’ Hassan said. ‘People from the UK. Are we going to meet them now?’ He was looking forward to some comradeship. He pictured himself in the desert, sitting outside a tent as the sun set, stripping down a rifle and talking with his new jihadi friends.

  No response. The militant crossed the road towards another concrete building, two storeys high, whose windows had been blasted out. He didn’t enter, but walked round to its left-hand side. Hassan followed. He saw there had once been a perimeter fence around the back yard, but only parts of it remained now: a few posts, the occasional fence panel, some curled and jagged lengths of razor wire. His companion turned towards the back door of the building. Hassan followed.

  Then he stopped.

  He blinked heavily, as though he thought his eyes might be deceiving him. But they weren’t. Just fifteen metres away, resting against the back wall of the building, about four metres high and a couple of metres wide, was a wooden cross. A crucifix.

  And on the crucifix was a man.

  His feet were bound to the upright post with wire, and a large nail protruded from each wrist, holding the arms to the crossbeam. The face was blindfolded, and a sheet of white card covered his torso, with blood-red Arabic writing on it. The man was clearly dead. Hassan could tell because a large black bird had perched on his arm and was pecking away at the flesh, but the man didn’t even twitch.

  The militant turned and saw Hassan staring at this gruesome sight. ‘A traitor,’ he said simply. ‘Accused of selling secrets to the West. We executed him three days ago.’ He looked Hassan up and down. ‘Some advice,’ he said. ‘You’re about to meet someone. Do what he says. Otherwise . . .’ He looked meaningfully back at the crucified man. ‘Now get inside.’

  The interior was a wreck. The floor was littered with broken plaster and brick. Cables hung from the ceilings. There was a faint smell of burning. The militant strode through it all, but Hassan hesitated. ‘Is it . . . is it safe in here?’ he asked.

  The militant turned. ‘You came out here to fight,’ he said. ‘And you expect it to be safe?’ He continued to wade through the rubble until he reached a flight of steps leading downwards. Hassan felt his cheeks burning with embarrassment as he followed. He would make sure he didn’t say anything like that again.

  The stone steps led into a dark basement. It was much colder down here. He found himself in a room about ten metres by ten, with a door at the far side. It was lit by a small, smoky oil lamp in one corner. There was no rubble on the floor down here, but there were two people. One of them was tall and thin, with white skin and dark stubble. The other was sitting on a low stool. His head was wrapped in a red and white shamagh, so that it was impossible to see his face. Just his eyes, gazing out.

  This man had clearly been expecting them. When he spoke to the militant who had brought him here, his voice was muffled by the cloth. They spoke in Arabic. Hassan noticed that the militant’s demeanour had changed. He was respectful, almost frightened. Hassan didn’t know why. The masked man didn’t even seem to be carrying a gun. Hassan found his eyes drifting towards the other guy. Looking at his white skin, he wondered if he was British, and smiled at him. The smile wasn’t returned.

  The figure at the stool stood up. He slowly walked across the room towards Hassan, who became aware of a different smell: a pungent perfume. When the figure was half a metre away, he stopped and looked Hassan up and down. ‘This is him?’ His English was very clear, but with an accent. Middle Eastern. Hassan tried to place it more exactly, but couldn’t.

  The militant bowed his head.

  ‘He doesn’t look like much. If you’ve brought me a coward,
I’ll have you both killed.’

  Hassan felt himself sweating. ‘I’m not a coward,’ he said.

  Silence. The man’s dead, dark eyes stared at Hassan from behind his shamagh. Hassan found himself sweating even more. He realised he should have kept his mouth shut.

  Very quietly, the man spoke to the white-skinned guy.

  ‘Show him, Jahar,’ he said.

  Jahar nodded. He walked to the door on the opposite side of the room, put a key in the lock and opened it. Then he gestured at Hassan to look inside.

  Hassan crossed the room and looked.

  This second room was even darker – Hassan couldn’t tell how big it was. It stank of excrement. Kneeling about three metres from the door, with his head bowed, was a man. He was white, with shaved hair and several days of stubble. He wore bright orange robes. He blinked in terror towards the light, but said nothing.

  Hassan was aware – from the perfumed smell – of the mysterious figure behind him. He spun round to find him standing very close.

  ‘So you want to fight?’ the figure whispered.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You want to bring the law of Sharia first to Arabia, then to Africa, then to the world? One glorious caliphate to the glory of Allah?’

  Hassan didn’t even know what the man was talking about. He just nodded.

  ‘Every caliphate requires a Caliph,’ said the man. ‘And that is what you will call me. But if you speak of me to anybody, you and the family you have left behind can expect the same fate as the crucified man you met on your way in. Do you understand?’