Who Dares Wins Read online

  Who Dares Wins

  Chris Ryan

  Two brothers, one mission, and a whole world of trouble…They are Sam and Jacob Redman. Two brothers, SAS through and through. They fight alongside each other; they watch each other's backs. They are ruthlessly professional in the field of war, fiercely loyal wherever they are. But when Jacob is booted from the Regiment for a moment of madness, he disappears. Not even his family knows where he is, or even if he's still alive. All that is about to change. On his return from a brutal mission in Afghanistan, Sam is ordered to conduct another dangerous operation into an inhospitable part of the world. He soon learns, though, that his unit are not being told everything by their government paymasters; and so he is forced to choose between his duty to the men around him and his loyalty to the brother that he loves. Is Jacob part of a plan that threatens world peace? As the body count rises, only Sam can stop these events from reaching their terrifying conclusion.

  Chris Ryan

  Who Dares Wins

  ‘Everyone is like a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.’

  Mark Twain

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  To my agent Barbara Levy, editor Mark Booth, Charlotte Haycock, Charlotte Bush and the rest of the team at Century.

  PROLOGUE

  Iraq . 2003.

  Baghdad had fallen.

  The streets were filled with troops, panic and fear. Sam Redman could taste it. The newswires buzzed with scenes of jubilation, with images of the grotesque statue of a hated dictator being toppled by the newly liberated citizens. But that was only half the story. The cobra’s head might have been cut off, but its body was still flailing dangerously. There was talk of killing squads of former Iraqi Republican Guards tearing through the streets on white trucks, brandishing AK-47s and settling old scores. Earlier they’d come across a dismembered torso lying in an alleyway. The legs, arms and head were missing and the rest was covered in flies. A witness had seen the man, a Western security guard, get pinned down during an ambush. His captors showed no mercy. In full view of the street they forced him to the ground and hacked off his limbs with a machete. The witness told them that the captors had made a mess of it; the blade wasn’t sharp enough and it took two men several minutes to hack through the bone and gristle. When they were down they peeled off his skin and beat his torso with his own limbs. Nearly an hour after they had captured him, the killing squad put a bullet through his forehead. One of the guys had filmed it on a camera; no doubt the footage was being uploaded on some dodgy Arabic website at that very minute. It was a sign of the way the country was headed: to hell in a fucking hand-cart. Only the presence of the Coalition forces held it still. If they were to leave now the city – the whole country – would be held to ransom by the looters, the rioters and the profiteers. By people like the man who sat in front of Sam now, sweat shining on his dark-skinned face and a nauseating stench of halitosis drifting from his gap-toothed mouth.

  ‘Miaat elf doolaar Amreekee,’ he said, before spitting on the floor and then setting his lips into an oily smile.

  Sam turned to his brother. Jacob’s command of Arabic was better than anyone’s in the Regiment. He’d been over the Iraqi border more times than he could count in the past few years and he knew how to play it with these people.

  ‘A thousand American dollars,’ he translated flatly.

  Mac Howden, the third man in their unit, sneered. His left hand wandered up to his right ear, half of which was missing – a scar from a firefight in Borneo. An inch to the left and it would have been a different story. ‘I could do with a thousand Yankee dollars myself. Difference is, this greasy little fucker’ll probably just go straight out and spend it on an RPG. He’ll be taking potshots at Chinooks in two hours.’

  The Iraqi tout had said his name was Sadiq. None of them believed him, but in a situation like this one name was as good as another. Whether he knew that Sam, Jacob and Mac were SAS – or what the SAS even was – was anybody’s guess. Beyond doubt, however, he knew the value of the information he carried. Sadiq’s face remained fixed in that unpleasant smile as the three of them talked. Discuss it among yourselves, his expression said. I’m in no hurry.

  ‘And anyway,’ Mac continued, ‘rule of engagement number one: never trust a fucking raghead. How do we know he’s telling the truth?’

  ‘We don’t,’ Sam growled. He didn’t care about the money – it wasn’t like it was his – but he cared deeply about this guy pulling a fast one on them.

  Jacob sniffed and his eyes narrowed slightly. Sam knew his brother well enough to realise he was about to do something. But with Jacob, you could never quite tell what. His brother took a step towards the straight-backed chair where Sadiq was sitting. They’d put him there, in the middle of this gloomy basement on the outskirts of Baghdad, so that he would feel intimidated while the three of them loomed over him. He didn’t appear to be intimidated at all, however. As a beam of the morning sun shone on to his face through the air vent at the top of the outside wall – the only source of light available to them – he looked quite at ease. As if he had the upper hand.

  That look of smug satisfaction did not change as Jacob approached; but it soon fizzled away as Sam’s brother wrapped his big hand around Sadiq’s neck. The tout looked angry first, then frightened as Jacob pulled a handgun from his belt and crushed it against the Iraqi’s skull. There was a moment of silence, broken only by the faint gasping sound as Sadiq struggled to breathe, before Jacob spoke.

  ‘I know you speak better English than you’re letting on,’ he hissed.

  Jacob’s fingers twitched as he squeezed Sadiq’s bulging neck a little harder. A croaking sound came from the Iraqi’s throat.

  ‘Please,’ he croaked. ‘You hurt me…’

  At first it looked as if Jacob hadn’t heard. He just kept his fingers firmly in place. Then, with a sudden explosion of force, he thrust his arm forward. Sadiq’s chair toppled backwards. As he fell he hit his head against the stone floor, crying out with pain. Like a rodent that has been suddenly disturbed, he scurried on all fours towards the back wall, then pushed himself up to his feet.

  Jacob had been watching him dispassionately. Now that Sadiq was standing again he advanced. He put the butt of the handgun flat against the tout’s forehead and looked directly into his frightened eyes.

  ‘I’m going to speak very slowly and very clearly so that there’s no risk that you don’t understand what I’m saying.’ Jacob’s voice was calm and insistent. Sadiq nodded to indicate his agreement.

  ‘Good,’ Jacob whispered. ‘Now it’s very simple. You’re going to show us where he’s hiding. We’ll give you something to leave outside his house as a signal. After that we never want to see you again.’

  Sadiq nodded even more enthusiastically.

  ‘But if we find that you’re lying to us,’ Jacob continued, as though talking to a child, ‘we’ll come looking for you. And you know what will happen then, don’t you?’ He tapped the end of his gun against Sadiq’s head to reinforce his threat. He was a sweaty, shady little prick. Jacob would slot the fucker given half a chance, and from the look in Sadiq’s eyes the Iraqi understood. He started to breathe heavily. ‘What about my money?’ he asked in awkward, stilted English.

  ‘You’ll get your money,’ Jacob replied. ‘You’d better just make sure we get what we want, otherwise it could end up being an expensive day for you.’ He rapped the end of the gun against the Iraqi’s sweaty forehead.

  ‘Please,’ Sadiq whimpered, jolting as though he had just received an electric shock. ‘Please. I do as you ask…’ His knees buckled.

  Jacob nodded slowly, then lowered his gun. As he turned, the light from the air vent caught his face. He winked quickly at Sam, who did his bes
t to stop himself from smiling. If everything went according to plan, this had the makings of a very good day.

  ‘Let’s get ready,’ Jacob announced. ‘We’ll get on to the Farm, request air support. Strike at midday when our friend is sheltering from the heat.’

  Sam looked at his watch. 10.00 hrs. Two hours to go.

  ‘Where’s the house?’ Mac demanded of Sadiq.

  The tout sniffed, apparently relieved to be talking to someone other than Jacob.

  ‘Al-Mansour district,’ he said.

  Sam consulted his mental map of Baghdad. ‘It’s the other side of town,’ he noted. ‘We’d better get moving.’

  *

  ‘Slow down!’

  Sadiq drove them in his beaten-up old Toyota and he was driving them too quickly. Jacob sat up front with Sam and Mac in the back. He poked his handgun into the tout’s ribs. ‘I said, slow down.’

  The tout hit the brakes.

  ‘Just take it easy,’ Jacob instructed. ‘We don’t want to be pulled over.’ Sadiq didn’t reply. He just kept looking in his mirrors, both at the other cars in the broad, tree-lined road and at the grim-faced SAS men sitting in the back.

  It was already very hot – air conditioning was a luxury Sadiq evidently couldn’t afford. The heat made Sam’s six-week old beard itch and he noticed the others were scratching at their faces too. The SAS men were all dressed as Arabs in dishdash, traditional robes that were grubby and sweat-stained. Underneath the robes, however, was a different story. The three soldiers were packing ops waistcoats filled with all the tools of their trade: covert radios, Sig 226 9 mm pistols, fragmentation grenades, flashbangs and ammo. At Sam’s feet was a rolled up piece of carpet. Walk down the street with it and nobody would raise an eyebrow, but that was because they didn’t know he had a Diemaco C8 secreted inside, complete with a C79 optical sight, a Heckler & Koch 40 mm grenade launcher and a Surefire torch. He had applied green and black camouflage paint to the weapon and wrapped black plumber’s tape around the pistol grip to stop it slipping in the hot, sweaty conditions he knew he could expect. A bungee cord was fastened to the butt, ready to be slung round each shoulder, forming an X shape across his back.

  The other two were similarly tooled up, Mac carrying his main weapon in a bag on his lap, Jacob having strapped his to the side of his body. A barely visible comms earpiece was fitted snugly inside his ear, but for now the unit’s comms were switched off.

  The Al-Mansour district bore the scars of the invasion: shop fronts had been reduced to rubble, cars were burned out. The US Air Force boys had done a right number on this place. The air was still shit hot and when Sam breathed in his lungs felt like they were on fire. Everywhere stank of cordite. Amid the rubble of an obliterated two-level house, a grey-haired man was on his knees. His white shirt was torn and smudged with black streaks, and on his lap lay a lifeless body of a girl no older than eight or nine, her face pebble-dashed with shrapnel. Despite the chaos, it was clearly an affluent part of the city. The houses were grander, the shops classier. Their target was the Commander of Saddam’s Special Republican Guard. The Yanks were baying for his blood – he was high up on the Personality Identification Playing Cards, the deck issued to the American army to help them identify the leading members of the Ba’ath Party. It was difficult for these people to leave Baghdad and it made a certain kind of sense that he’d be holed up somewhere with a few luxuries. After years of power, these guys wouldn’t want to hide out in some hole where they couldn’t even piss in comfort. More likely that he’d have surrounded himself with a miniature army in a large house. Sadiq claimed this was what he’d done.

  There was a manic air about the district, even now. Despite the heat many of the streets were teeming with people – Iraqi citizens and Coalition troops – which made it difficult to find a place to stop where they wouldn’t be interrupted or overlooked. They eventually stopped in a side street that smelt of rotting vegetables and urine. Sam checked his watch. 11.30. There was a moment of silence as the engine died. Jacob placed his canvas bag on his lap and unzipped it. From inside he carefully removed a battered fizzy drinks can, artfully dented in places. Not Coca-Cola, but some red and white Iraqi equivalent. Sadiq looked at him as if he was mad.

  ‘Take it,’ Jacob instructed. He placed the can in Sadiq’s reluctantly outstretched hand. The tout weighed it up, clearly surprised that it was heavier than he expected.

  ‘It contains a tracking device,’ Jacob explained. ‘Chances are the house is being watched. If we follow you, they might clock us. All you need to do is put this can outside the gates of the house then get the fuck out of there. Walk, Sadiq. Don’t run. If they see you running someone will get suspicious. And remember – we know how to find you and your family. Pull a fucking fast one and we’ll be knocking on your door.’

  Sadiq looked fearfully at the drinks can and then back at Jacob. It was clear he was having second thoughts. The expression on his face changed, however, when Jacob pulled out a stash of American dollars. The tout grabbed them quickly, stuffed them into his pocket then licked his dry lips. ‘Okay,’ he said, sounding like he was psyching himself up. ‘I will do it now.’ He looked at each of the SAS men in turn, as though waiting for a friendly goodbye. All he received, however, were stern, unresponsive looks. His face twitched and, still clutching the drinks can, he opened the car door and stepped outside.

  None of them spoke until he was out of sight. Then Mac let out a burst of breath, half-amused, half-relieved. ‘Fucking hell, J.,’ he said. ‘I thought he was going to piss himself there and then.’

  ‘You said it yourself,’ Jacob replied, leaning over to look at them in the back with a twinkle in his grey eyes. ‘Never trust a raghead. Especially a raghead tout. Much better to put the shits up him before he starts deciding to play silly buggers.’

  Sam allowed himself a smile. It was classic Jacob – the tout was now so scared of his brother that he’d do anything he was told. ‘Not much chance of that,’ he murmured as he pulled his Iridium mobile sat phone from his ops waistcoat and dialled a number. ‘HQ,’ he stated, ‘this is Yankee Delta Three. Our man’s heading towards the target. Over.’

  A brief, crackly pause and then a voice. ‘Yankee Delta Three, we have the signal. Await further instruction.’

  ‘Roger that.’ And then to the others, ‘They’ve got him.’

  Back at the base, Sam knew, Sadiq the tout would be a green blip moving its way along a map displayed on a GPS receiver. They sat in silence, waiting for confirmation that the tracking device had stopped. It seemed to be taking a long time, but maybe that was just the heat. Sam’s mouth and lips were burning dry. He pictured Sadiq, half-walking, half-running, his face still covered with that inexhaustible supply of sweat. The smell of the Iraqi’s bad breath lingered in the car.

  And then, from nowhere, the sat phone crackled into life again. ‘Yankee Delta Three, we have a location.’

  Sam nodded at Jacob who pulled out a battered GPS screen of his own, fiddled momentarily with it, then handed the device round. It showed a map of the area and a small dot which indicated where the fizzy-drink can had come to rest. From where the car was parked they had to head east, turn left then third right. The can would be outside the house they were to hit. They memorised the position. No one said a word. They didn’t need to. The unit was operating almost on autopilot.

  Sam spoke into the sat phone again. ‘This is Yankee Delta Three. We’re going for a stroll.’

  ‘Enjoy the countryside, Sam,’ the voice came back. ‘Air support turning and burning, ready on your order.’ Reassuring words. It meant that back at base, an American-flown Black Hawk was already in a holding pattern, preparing to fly to their location the second they received word that hostages had been secured. A minute to get here, a minute to extract. Those choppers were every soldier’s favourite asset.

  They climbed out of the car, each of them switching on their comms as they did so. ‘I’ll go first,’ Jacob announced. ‘I’ll stake
out the front. Sam, take the rear. Mac, the street. RV back here in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Roger that.’

  They left at thirty-second intervals – Jacob first, then Mac and finally Sam, his dishdash flapping around his legs and his carpet-wrapped Diemaco C8 held nonchalantly under his arm – to avoid attracting unwanted attention. Sam followed his mental map and in less than a minute he was turning into a broad, tree-lined street. The houses here were grand, some with ornate columns on either side of the door that wouldn’t have been out of place in Mayfair. But there were other things you wouldn’t see in London: as Sam walked down the street he noticed bullet marks along one of the walls. AK rounds, he thought to himself. Maybe a scar of the invasion; or maybe they had been there before. In Baghdad, everyone had a gun. There were plenty of people in the street, but they all walked in a hushed, hurried manner, avoiding each other’s eyes.

  Sam had walked about thirty metres when he saw the drinks can carelessly discarded in the street. Nobody paid it any attention – it was just one of any number of bits of litter. He glanced up at the house outside which it was lying. It was a big place, more like a compound, with a large whitewashed wall surrounding it and a vaulted gate with iron spikes at the top and a heavy padlock. As he sauntered past, Sam collated all the information he could about the place. There was a large courtyard at the front. The main door looked like it was made of heavy, thick wood – difficult to force down with the limited weaponry at their command. The roof was flat, with plain little turrets at each corner. As he glanced up Sam couldn’t see anybody on it, but he had no doubt that if Sadiq was right and this place really did house the man the unit was after, they would be there. There were two low, shuttered windows on the ground floor, but none further up. His eyes flickered around looking for Jacob. He saw him fifteen metres away, leaning against a tree. They acted as if they didn’t know each other.