Zero 22 Read online

  Zero 22

  Chris Ryan

  www.hodder.co.uk

  Also by Chris Ryan

  Non-fiction

  The One That Got Away

  Chris Ryan’s SAS Fitness Book

  Chris Ryan’s Ultimate Survival Guide

  Fight to Win

  Safe

  Fiction

  Stand By, Stand By

  Zero Option

  The Kremlin Device

  Tenth Man Down

  Hit List

  The Watchman

  Land of Fire

  Greed

  The Increment

  Blackout

  Ultimate Weapon

  Strike Back

  Firefight

  Who Dares Wins

  The Kill Zone

  Killing for the Company

  Osama

  In the Danny Black Series

  Masters of War

  Hunter Killer

  Hellfire

  Bad Soldier

  Warlord

  Head Hunters

  Black Ops

  In the Strikeback Series

  Deathlist

  Shadow Kill

  Global Strike

  Red Strike

  Circle of Death

  Chris Ryan Extreme

  Hard Target

  Night Strike

  Most Wanted

  Silent Kill

  First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Coronet

  An Imprint of Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Chris Ryan 2020

  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.

  Cover image: Lewis Csizmazia

  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

  Hardback ISBN 9781473667952

  eBook ISBN 9781473667945

  Trade Paperback ISBN 9781473667969

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.hodder.co.uk

  CONTENTS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  ONE

  23.45 hrs, Eastern European Time

  The convoy headed west.

  It comprised four vehicles. Three sand-coloured Jackals, each containing three guys and mounted with two general-purpose machine guns. The Gimpys had an effective range of two thousand metres in sustained-fire mode. Regular infantry would need two men to operate each weapon. Not the SAS. Each gun was constantly manned by a single Regiment guy wearing night-vision goggles, surveying the desert terrain and ready for whatever threats they might encounter. The fourth vehicle was a Bushmaster. Camouflage paint. Sturdy, rear-mounted spare tyres. A safe, sealed, air-conditioned unit. Five guys. Remote weapon station with a manned 40mm grenade launcher. Heavily armoured. It led the convoy as it trundled through the night along a rough, unmade road.

  The Iraqi border was seventy-five klicks to the east. Thirty klicks north: Turkey. This bleak, blasted patch of desert was officially Syrian territory, and there was always the risk that the convoy would encounter Syrian government forces. Unofficially? Emboldened by the American withdrawal and the backing of the Russians, the Turks were making frequent sorties across the border. The militants of Islamic State still infested the region. The Kurds, fierce fighters with good reason to fight, viewed this land as part of their tribal territory of Kurdistan and were still in situ, despite their supposed friends the Yanks fucking off and leaving them to the non-existent mercy of the Turks. The Russians had Spetsnaz special forces on the ground and some remaining Delta Force were here.

  Try to untangle that little web of enmity and alliances. Try to distinguish your friends from your enemies in this messed-up part of north-eastern Syria.

  Danny Black didn’t care to. He was happy to follow orders and so were the rest of his troop. They were heavily armed and confident in their ability and firepower. They knew they could handle anything they came across.

  B Squadron SAS had been in-country for a month now. At first, Danny had been glad of the distraction after the rigours of his previous op: a mission to hunt down a lone-wolf killer called Ibrahim Khan that had not gone at all the way anyone had expected. Now Danny was throwing himself into B Squadron’s current objective: regular sorties mounted from a base in Iraq, over the border into Syria to take out known IS targets. It had been a blood-soaked month. A month of night raids on isolated villages. Of 9mm rounds discharged ruthlessly into the skulls of IS scumbags. Danny had no problem with that. None of the guys did. Each IS militant they put in the ground made the world a better place. But it had also been a month of screaming wives and suddenly orphaned children. It would get to even the most cold-hearted Regiment death squad eventually.

  Their latest orders, delivered to Danny that morning over the encrypted radio, felt like a momentary relief. Even Bullethead had said so. Implacable, relentless Bullethead, who had more kills to his name than anybody Danny knew. He was so called because of the pointed shape and shine of his bald head, which beaded with sweat in the heat whenever he wasn’t wearing a helmet. He had the lowest voice Danny had ever heard. When he spoke, it was like the engine of a motorbike turning over. ‘Change is as good as a rest,’ he had growled, as Danny told them they had new instructions.

  ‘There’s a secure prison facility three hundred klicks south-west,’ Danny said. ‘Up until a couple of months ago it housed IS prisoners and was guarded by Kurds.’

  ‘So, when we say prison facility, we mean torture facility, right?’ Bullethead said. ‘Otherwise the Kurds would have just killed the fuckers.’

  ‘I guess,’ said Danny. ‘Anyway, the Kurds came under attack and had to abandon the site. The IS prisoners escaped. Chances are we’ve shot a few of them in the last few weeks. The facility’s been deserted since the breakout, but a Kurdish unit have just returned. They’ve got some documentation that might help identify further targets. And reading between the lines, they’re shitting themselves. They want an escort out of Syria in return for the intel. That’s us. Operation call sign, Zero 22.’

  Which was why, as the rest of B Squadron continued their dark work across the area, Danny now found himself sitting in the Bushmaster, the constant groan of the engine grinding in his ears. The vehicle had two places up front and two vertical rows of four seats in the back, facing each other. It was cramped and hardly luxurious, but it was a hell of a sight better than the tin ovens that were the Jackals. As the senior guy, Danny reckoned he’d earned his place here. When they grew closer to the target, however, he’d transfer to one of the Jackals. If anything went wrong, he wanted to be in the best position to call the shots, not stuck inside this armoured beast.

  Bullethead sat opposite him, staring into the middle distance, his body moving with the vehicle. Next to him was Dougie, an acerbic Glaswegian which a shock of ginger hair. They were all in their early thirties. Tough men in the prime of life and peak of fitness. They were dressed similarly. Crye Precision camouflage gear with knee pads sewn into the trousers. Armoured flaps to cover their groin area, currently clipped up. Plate hangars with magazines for their personal weapons stashed round the front and side. Personal radios at shoulder height with a stubby antenna pointing upwards and coax cables coiling round their bodies. Boom mikes and earpieces. Helmets, cut away around the ears, with night-vision goggles fitted to the top, ready to pull down when necessary. GPS units on their wrists. Their personal weapons – suppressed C8 rifles and Glock 17s – were sprayed in olive camouflage colours. Dougie had a black bandana over his mouth and nose. In other circumstances, it would be there to conceal his identity. Out here, it was a filter from the dust that stuck to everything. Lots of the guys wore them. Danny didn’t bother. He’d operated in this part of the world so often that clean air was now a novelty to him.

  Dougie’s head was resting against the wall of the Bushmaster and his eyes were closed. Other members of the troop were driving and manning the weapons stations. It was probably a good shout to get some shut-eye while you could.

  Danny couldn’t. He wasn’t wired like that. On the face of it, this was a straightforward op. It would be a stupid move for anybody to take on this heavily armed convoy. But it was in Danny’s nature to repeat the o
perational details in his head, over and over. The prison facility was a three-pronged building with a high perimeter fence. The vehicular entrance to the fence would be open, but the convoy would not cross the perimeter until the Kurds on site had given a pre-arranged sign that it was safe to approach: three flashes from a torch, repeated at one-minute intervals. Once the troop had the all clear, one of the Jackals would enter the facility grounds and pick up the Kurds. They were expecting three men. The Jackal would take them back to the convoy. Then the troop would escort them through the night, back across the Iraqi border to the safety of the British military base. It was up to the head shed what happened to them after that.

  Danny’s earpiece burst into life. It was Ollie Macalister, who was driving the Bushmaster. Danny could see the back of his head, and that of Chinese Mike, who had that name because he preferred Asian women. He was sitting up front in the passenger seat. Beyond them, through the toughened windscreen of the armoured vehicle, a milky half-moon hung in the sky. From time to time, Danny could see the silhouetted outline of a distant mountain range. Other than that, nothing. They were driving without headlamps so they couldn’t be seen from a distance. Ollie had his night vision engaged.

  ‘Okay, lads,’ said Ollie over the radio, ‘we’re on the edge of government-held territory. We’re going to head off road now. Follow my lead. ETA to target, ninety minutes.’

  Danny felt the Bushmaster swerve off road. The terrain instantly became bumpier and Dougie, who had appeared to doze through Ollie’s radio transmission, opened his eyes. There was no sign of sleepiness. Instant alertness. The guys in the back all began to raise their hands to their helmets to engage their NV. Immediately the interior of the Bushmaster turned a hazy green colour and small details appeared that had been invisible before. A first-aid kit strapped to one of the doors. A holster on Dougie’s lower leg containing a tiny snubnose pistol. Extra-curricular, but that was okay. In the badlands of Syria, each man took whatever he felt he needed.

  ‘It’s ma kid’s birthday today,’ Dougie said in his deep Glaswegian accent. It was a surprising admission. Normally, on ops, the guys kept personal stuff like that to themselves. Neither Danny nor Bullethead said anything. If Dougie wanted to open up, he’d do it of his own accord. ‘The missus wants tae give her a fuckin’ iPhone. Eleven years of age, man, and we give her a fuckin’ Batphone to every paedo on the net.’ Dougie had a particular obsession with paedophiles. If he ever found himself behind bars – and that wasn’t unlikely for a guy of Dougie’s temperament – the sex-case criminals would be in for a rough time.

  ‘She’ll be fine, buddy,’ Danny said. ‘It’ll be Candy Crush and Ariana Grande all the way.’

  Dougie made a non-committal grunt and Danny found himself thinking about his own daughter, Rose, who he hardly ever saw. He’d met her mother Clara in Syria all those years ago, but Clara didn’t like Rose having a killer for a father. Danny preferred not to dwell on it, so he was pleased when Ollie brought the Bushmaster to a halt, announced that they were thirty klicks from target and called for a changeover. Bullethead took the wheel while Danny climbed on top and manned the grenade launcher. It was good to be out of the vehicle and in the open, even though it was much hotter and his eyes immediately started to sting from the dust kicked up by the convoy. They were back on a road now. The desert glowed green around him. Rough scrub here and there. Boulders dotted around. The occasional distant glint of an animal’s eyes.

  But no people. No threats. The surrounding terrain was quiet and effectively empty. It somehow made Danny twice as alert. He scanned the area carefully up ahead, left and right. When he turned a full 360 he saw the three Jackals following, and his troop mates manning the double-mounted Gimpys, also searching for threats.

  Nothing.

  After forty-five minutes, something appeared up ahead. A low building, probably three klicks distant, but visible because of the largely flat terrain. Danny was about to alert the others when Bullethead’s voice came over the comms. ‘Eyes on the target. Repeat, eyes on the target. Go static.’

  The convoy came to a halt. Danny continued to scan the surrounding area. There appeared to be no infrastructure in the vicinity of the prison. This road in, and the occasional drainage ditch on either side. Otherwise, this was a solitary facility. And abandoned, as he expected. There were no vehicles nearby, or any sign of life. He flicked a switch on his radio pack, changing to the satellite channel that would put him in touch with the ops base back in Iraq. ‘Alpha, this is Zero 22. Over.’

  A brief pause. Then: ‘Zero 22, this is Alpha. Go ahead. Over.’

  ‘We’re three klicks east of the target and we have eyes on. Have you heard from the Kurds? Over.’

  ‘Roger that. They made contact at 22.00 hours and confirmed the approach procedures. You’re clear to advance on target at will. Over.’

  ‘Understood. Out.’

  Danny switched the radio back to the troop’s personal comms frequency. ‘We have the all-clear from base. We’ll advance to a klick from target then recce on foot.’

  The convoy moved off, trundling slowly over the hard-baked desert earth.

  Ten minutes later they came to a halt again. Danny and Dougie dismounted from the Bushmaster and silently jogged towards the target. They stopped five hundred metres out. Danny noticed a deep drainage ditch heading off at right angles to the road. He wondered if this area was prone to flooding in the winter months. The prison complex was clearer now. It was a surprisingly modern building, low and sleek. The guys back at base had described it to Danny as a symmetrical three-pronged construction, each prong leading from a circular central space. They were approaching from the east, heading to the area between two of the prongs. Danny retrieved a telescopic night sight from his ops waistcoat as he and Dougie hit the ground to put in surveillance. He identified the perimeter fence, topped with rolls of razor wire, and three security towers evenly spaced about it. There was a gap in the fence where a gate had been opened, and a small guard house next to it. The perimeter didn’t look massively secure to Danny, but one glance at the surrounding terrain explained why that would be the case: escape from here on foot and in this unforgiving landscape, you’d likely be dead in a couple of days anyway.

  ‘Any sign of the safe-approach signal?’ Bullethead asked over comms.

  ‘Not yet,’ Danny said. ‘Hold your positions.’ He raised his night sight again and scanned the prison buildings. Still nothing. No vehicles. No personnel. No movement.

  ‘Where the fuck are they?’ Dougie said.

  Danny continued to watch. He was looking out for three flashes from a torch in quick succession. None came.

  A minute passed.

  Two.

  Nothing.

  Danny switched his radio frequency. ‘Alpha, this is Zero 22. Over.’

  ‘Go ahead, Zero 22. Over.’

  ‘We’re on target. There’s no sign of the Kurds. No safe-approach signal. Can you make contact with them? Over.’

  ‘Roger that. Wait out. Over.’

  Two minutes passed. Then: ‘Zero 22, this is Alpha. We’ve lost contact with the Kurds. Looks like a comms outage. Over.’

  Danny swore. Losing radio contact was an occupational hazard. But why was there no safe-approach signal?

  ‘Zero 22, are you in a position to make an approach and recce the target?’

  Danny narrowed his eyes. He didn’t like it. But the only option was a full retreat, and he didn’t like that either. ‘Roger that,’ he said. ‘Wait out.’

  He switched frequency to speak to the rest of the troop. ‘The Kurds have lost contact with base. They want us to make a recce. Advance with care.’

  Danny and Dougie stayed on the ground, keeping eyes on the target while the convoy approached. Once the three Jackals and the Bushmaster had caught them up, Danny and Dougie rejoined them. ‘Place looks deserted,’ Dougie said. ‘Maybe the Kurds got cold feet and fucked off.’

  Yeah, Danny thought. Maybe.

  ‘This is the plan,’ he said. ‘Jackal One, make an approach. Jackals Two and Three remain static to provide covering fire. The Bushmaster will hold back in a protective position. I’ll take the top gun in Jackal Two.