Justice Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  SPECIAL FORCES CADETS

  Chapter 1: Bait

  Chapter 2: Treejumping

  Chapter 3: Grub

  Chapter 4: Roland

  Chapter 5: Sitting Ducks

  Chapter 6: Blackshirts

  Chapter 7: The Clearing

  Chapter 8: Murderer

  Chapter 9: Silverback

  Chapter 10: The Stronghold

  Chapter 11: The Pit

  Chapter 12: Caged

  Chapter 13: Ziploc

  Chapter 14: Fire

  Chapter 15: Genius

  Chapter 16: Piercings

  Chapter 17: 1, 2, 3

  Chapter 18: PLB

  Chapter 19: Coward

  Chapter 20: Double Tap

  Epilogue

  Chris Ryan

  Copyright

  SPECIAL FORCES CADETS

  Siege

  Missing

  Justice

  Look out for

  Ruthless

  Hijack

  Assassin

  1

  Bait

  The jungle hissed and steamed. Great clouds of water vapour hung above the treetops, which stretched far into the horizon where they met the dirty pink dawn sky.

  The Special Forces Cadets viewed the scene from the open tailgate of their Hercules C-130 aircraft.

  The Herc flew low. Four hundred feet, the loadmaster had told them. The five teenagers stood in a line, the greasy stench of the aircraft fuel catching the back of their throats. Max Johnson was closest to the tailgate, frowning with concentration. Then came Lukas Channing, his black skin beaded with sweat. Abby Asher was next, the elaborate cartilage piercings that dotted each ear reflecting the red light that glowed by the tailgate. Fourth was Sami Hakim, Syrian and slight of frame, his face anxious yet steely. And finally Lili Lei: calm, serious and with the sharpest, most agile brain of them all.

  They all wore heavily padded overalls and Kevlar helmets. Clipped to their chests, in pouches, were two coils of rope: one short, one long. Their rucksacks were strapped to the front of their legs. They each wore two harnesses: an abseiling harness and, over that, a parachute rig. On their backs they carried parachute deployment bags. Each bag was connected by a cord to a rail running the length of the Hercules. This was a static line assembly. When they jumped, the cord would immediately deploy the chutes and they would float down to the rainforest below.

  Max felt sweat trickle into his eyes. He blinked hard and tried to calm his nerves. They had practised static line jumps in training, but this would be the first time they’d used them on an operation. And as Hector – their controller, head trainer and dour father figure combined – had repeatedly told them, parachute jumps didn’t get more difficult than this. Max could almost hear him explaining why …

  ‘It’s the trees,’ Hector said.

  The cadets were in their second day of briefings. The magnitude of their next operation had stunned them into silence. They had been told that they would be in mortal danger from the start.

  ‘Normally we try to parachute onto open ground. But in the Malayan emergency of 1951, the SAS had to insert straight into dense jungle. They developed a technique called treejumping. You land in the treetops, where your parachute rig is likely to get caught in the branches, leaving you suspended in mid-air. You’ll each have a let-down line to enable you to rappel to the ground. We’ll give you full training in the process later today.’

  ‘Aren’t there any jungle rivers we can aim for instead?’ Lili asked.

  ‘Sure,’ Angel replied. ‘But the water’s too fast-flowing. Hit that with your parachute attached, you’ll likely drown. Better to take your chances with the trees.’

  ‘Aren’t tree branches kind of … spiky?’ Abby asked in her pronounced Northern Irish accent.

  ‘Yep,’ said Hector.

  ‘What if we get skewered by a branch?’

  ‘It’ll hurt. Quite a lot, actually.’

  ‘Right,’ Abby replied. ‘Glad we’ve got that sorted.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Hector. He glowered at Abby. ‘Any more questions?’

  ‘Ah, no,’ said Abby. ‘I’ll just leave you to think up a few more opportunities for us to mutilate ourselves in the line of duty.’

  The Hercules banked sharply, then levelled off. The loadmaster held up five fingers to indicate how many minutes until the jump. The growl of the aircraft’s engines seemed to be inside Lukas’s head. His face was set in a scowl of concentration. He didn’t want the others to know how anxious he felt. He was scared. He had been scared ever since they were first briefed on this mission. At one point Woody – who, along with Hector and Angel – was in charge of the cadets’ training and welfare, had taken him to one side to check he was okay.

  ‘Course I am,’ Lukas had said. ‘I’m fine.’

  But the Watchers – that was how Hector, Woody and Angel referred to themselves – had kept an eye on him throughout the briefing. He knew they were looking for signs that he might not be up to the job. That he might be cracking. He had done his best to remain stony-faced. Lukas was fit, skilled and an expert marksman, but he had learned that mental strength was sometimes more important than physical ability. As he stood at the static line apparatus just behind Max, ready to drop into the jungle of the Congo basin, in his mind he could hear the Watchers explaining what the next few days had in store for them …

  ‘Have any of you heard of Joseph Kony?’ Hector asked them.

  The cadets sat in a circle on hard-backed chairs, an interactive whiteboard on the wall and the three Watchers standing by, their arms behind their backs. The cadets shook their heads.

  ‘You’re lucky,’ Angel said. ‘If I had to make a list of my top ten scumbags, he’d rank pretty high.’

  ‘Who is he?’ Lili asked.

  ‘A self-styled religious leader and head of a guerrilla unit called the LRA,’ Hector said. ‘He operated mainly in central Africa, and abducted more than 60,000 children to become child soldiers. He would desensitise them to the horrors of warfare by making them perform the most sickening atrocities on each other and other people. Angel’s right – he was a bad guy.’

  ‘You said “was”,’ Max cut in. ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘No,’ Hector replied. ‘But his army is severely weakened and he’s thought to be in bad health. Joseph Kony isn’t our problem.’

  ‘Then why –’

  ‘Just listen, Max.’ Hector clicked a button on a handheld control and a jowly face appeared on the whiteboard. It bore scars, and one of its eyes was clouded the colour of milk.

  ‘This is Oscar Juwani,’ Hector said. ‘He sees himself as Joseph Kony’s successor. His people are marauding on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Juwani has a history of violent behaviour. Now he wants to build up his own army so that he can take over larger areas of land and challenge the government. His men abduct children and young people from poor villages, steal the villagers’ money and supplies and force the children into lives of soldiering.’

  ‘Bit like us then,’ Abby said.

  Her joke fell flat.

  ‘Not at all like you,’ Angel said severely. ‘The things these kids are forced to do … you wouldn’t want to know about it.’

  ‘Why do I get the feeling,’ Abby muttered, ‘we’re going to find out pretty soon?’

  Abby’s lips were dry and her stomach churned. The loadie had just held up three fingers. She triple-checked the straps and harnesses of her parachute rig, then kept her attention fixed firmly on Lukas’s back. The view across the misty treetops of the rainforest was doing nothing for her nerves. She’d been in some bad situations before – they all had – but this plan seemed unusually high-risk, even for them. Treejump
ing, the most dangerous type of parachuting? Check. And if they made it safely to the ground, they’d still be in danger. Also check. Even Abby, who was always ready with a wisecrack, had been stunned into silence when Hector had told them exactly what he and his superiors had in mind for the cadets …

  ‘Two weeks ago, Oscar Juwani and his thugs kidnapped two British citizens. They were research scientists on a field trip in the Congo rainforest. Juwani demanded a ransom of ten million US dollars. What he got was a four-man SAS unit hunting him down. The unit was unsuccessful. Our intelligence reports suggest that the unit succumbed to a tropical illness which put them off their guard. As a result, Juwani’s gang captured them. Our understanding is that the British hostages have been killed, but the SAS men are alive and being slowly starved to death as a deterrent to any other foreign powers who might be tempted to intefere with Oscar Juwani. That’s where you come in.’

  ‘Some deterrent,’ Sami said under his breath. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He seemed to be holding his breath and his face was still and intent, as it always was when he listened to any story of injustice.

  ‘We have no way of knowing the location of the SAS hostages,’ Hector said. ‘The Congo rainforest is vast – the second largest in the world after the Amazon. It covers an area of 1.5 million square miles. It’s thick, impenetrable and teeming with life, most of it unfriendly to humans. We can’t possibly know where our SAS guys are. Juwani’s people have got an advantage over us there, so we’re going to have to think a little smarter.’ He looked at each of them in turn. ‘You’re going to have to think a little smarter,’ he said.

  Think a little smarter. Sami had repeated those words to himself more times than he could count over the past few days. They had been his mantra as the cadets travelled by helicopter from their headquarters, Valley House in the Scottish highlands. He had repeated it to himself as they flew from London to Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC. As he learned about Oscar Juwani, and the atrocities he committed against children as young as ten, Sami became more determined to stop his wickedness. Sami had grown up on the war-torn streets of Syria. He had seen children suffer. So, yes, he was prepared to think a little smarter.

  The loadie held up a finger.

  One minute until the drop.

  Unconsciously, Sami felt for the cord attaching his parachute rig to the static line apparatus. He was ready to jump. More than ready. He glanced over his shoulder. Lili stood close behind. Her expression was as sharp as ever. Sami thought back to the briefing – and the way Lili had second-guessed the Watchers’ plan before they could relay it to the cadets.

  ‘So if we can’t find the SAS team,’ Hector said, ‘we only have one real option. We need Juwani’s people to lead them to us.’

  ‘You want to use us as bait,’ Lili said.

  ‘Bait’s not the word I’d use,’ Hector said, sounding a little uncomfortable.

  ‘What word would you use? I speak four languages, Hector. I can’t think of a better word in any of them.’

  Hector had no reply. ‘We know roughly the area in which Juwani’s people are operating. They go from village to village, press-ganging children into joining them. Sometimes they persuade the kids that it would be good for them and they’ll be able to send money back to their families. Sometimes they just abduct them. Your aim is to insert yourself into one of these villages – it’s called Chakunda – and wait for the press gangs to arrive. When they do, let yourself be recruited or abducted. We reckon you will be taken into the rainforest to Juwani’s stronghold, where the SAS team are almost certainly being held. Once you’re there, you will activate a high-powered GPS personal locator beacon, or PLB, hidden inside this watch.’ He held up a stainless-steel watch. ‘These are normally used by explorers and climbers to send an emergency signal if they get into trouble. But this must only be activated when you are in the vicinity of the captured SAS team. As soon we receive the signal, a full SAS squadron led by me, Woody and Angel will mount an immediate rescue mission. We’ll get the SAS hostages – and you – out of there.’

  ‘You make it sound so easy,’ Abby said.

  ‘Then let me clarify,’ Hector said. ‘The jungle can be one of the most hostile environments for humans to operate in. The people whose ranks you are infiltrating are violent, immoral and merciless. This isn’t just your most dangerous operation yet, it could be the riskiest mission the Special Forces Cadets have ever undertaken.’

  Woody and Angel, who had been SFCs in their youth, nodded their agreement.

  ‘The clock is ticking. The longer we delay, the smaller our guys’ chance of survival. So get ready to move. Your operation has started.’

  Thirty seconds until the jump.

  The cadets shuffled towards the tailgate. It was an awkward manoeuvre because of the rucksacks strapped to their legs. The light behind the loadmaster still glowed red. Lili felt sweat trickle down the nape of her neck. The nagging throb of anxiety that had been her constant companion since she’d understood the nature of this mission grew more intense. She had a bad feeling about it. A feeling that some of them, maybe all of them, wouldn’t be coming back.

  That’s stupid, she told herself. She glanced across at her fellow cadets. Sami: so slight and quiet, yet so keen and skilled. Abby: quick of thought and tougher than she looked, which was saying something. Lukas: surly, and obviously more scared than he wanted to let on, but also a reassuring presence. And Max: quiet, kind, intelligent Max. The unspoken leader of their little group. If anyone could pull this off, they could.

  The light turned green. The loadmaster lowered his arm.

  ‘Here comes the bait, Oscar Juwani,’ Lili muttered as Max hurled himself from the aircraft. Did Lukas hesitate before he followed? No, he was out. Then Abby and Sami in quick succession. Lili shuffled to the edge of the tailgate and felt the loadmaster’s hand on her shoulder. Was she pushed or did she jump? She didn’t quite know. But suddenly she was in the air, the wind rushing in her ears. The parachute opened above her and she floated gently towards the treetops.

  2

  Treejumping

  By the time Max’s parachute opened, the roar of the Herc’s engines had faded.

  Over the past several weeks, the cadets had undergone extensive parachute training. An instructor had come up from No. 1 Parachute Training School in Brize Norton. He had taken them to an old barn a couple of miles from Valley House which had been kitted out for the express purpose of teaching the cadets how to jump out of an aircraft. They had begun by learning the parachute landing fall, or PLF. The instructor had laid crash mats on the ground and explained that, in order to carry out a parachute descent without injury and so be ready for combat on insertion, it was crucial that they mastered the PLF. The cadets had spent many hours jumping onto the mats and perfecting the art of landing: feet together, then their calves hitting the ground, then their thighs, then their back, and rolling over, tightly and securely, onto their opposite side, their chin on their chest.

  Once they’d bossed the PLF, the instructor had suspended the cadets from a rig in the ceiling to teach them their emergency drills: how to respond instantly to a malfunction, how to deploy their emergency chute and how to tug on the suspension lines to turn the parachute. Once they were conversant with the drills, the cadets had been taken to a nearby airfield and into an aircraft to perform some side-door exits. They had carried out seven daytime drops and one by night. Max found he had a talent for it. He received no words of encouragement from Hector, of course, who watched the proceedings with a critical scowl. But Woody had taken him to one side after the night drop. ‘Your dad was a fine parachutist,’ he had said. ‘Looks like you inherited his talent.’

  Max had given him a grateful look. That quiet word of encouragement meant a great deal to him. Max’s father had founded the SFCs, and in a weird kind of way Max felt closer to his father, learning the same skills as he had learned. It was the only real link Max felt they shared.

  Learning t
he techniques involved in treejumping, however, had been a more last-minute operation. Hours before their deployment, the cadets had found themselves hanging from a jumping tower, learning how to extract and fit lanyards to their harnesses and how to abseil down to the ground. Max had those techniques fixed firmly in his mind as he floated towards the jungle canopy, but he was painfully aware that his treejumping skills had been learned in theory rather than in practice.

  At first, the canopy was a blanket of green. Now he could see the irregular shapes of individual trees. His instinct was to head for a gap between two trees, but that could be fatal: he needed his parachute rig to get tangled in the branches. So he selected a tree and pulled his suspension lines to drift towards it. Out of the corner of his eye he could just see Lukas ahead and to his left, then he pulled his attention back to his landing zone. He hunched up into a fetal position, covering his head and face with his arms, protecting his vital organs and making himself as small as possible. He prayed that his heavily padded jump suit would protect him from the impact because he was going to hit the treeline in three …

  Two …

  One …

  He plunged into the jungle. Sharp branches poked at him, making him wince. His ears were filled with the rustling sound of his body falling through the foliage. He realised it was suddenly much darker: what light the canopy let through came only in narrow beams, shooting laser-like down to the forest floor.

  There was a shocking jolt as his parachute rig became tangled in the branches. The parachute rig harness dug deeply into his body. He gasped. He was hanging in mid-air, swinging gently like a pendulum, at least the height of a house from the ground. His heart was thumping, his breathing heavy. At first, these were the only sounds he could hear. But as the seconds passed, his awareness spread like ripples on a pond. He could hear monkeys shrieking and scampering through the trees. Birds whose call he had never before heard chirruped deafeningly all around. Something slithered on a branch above him, chilling Max’s blood. The forest was a riot of sounds. His own heartbeat and breathing were the ones that didn’t belong there. That frightening thought was like a punch in the stomach.