Hellfire Read online

  There was an awkward silence as the four of them stood by the barbecue watching a frowning Tony flip burgers. ‘So, Danny,’ Tony said after a few seconds. All his previous friendliness had disappeared and there was a dangerous edge to his voice. ‘Word is you’ve not been getting much pussy lately, since that Clara bird dropped you. What is it, whisky dick or something?’

  Danny just gave him a steady look but didn’t reply. Thirty seconds later, Frances appeared again. She wasn’t alone. A brunette woman, almost as tall as Danny, late twenties early thirties, stood a couple of metres behind her. Grey eyes, clear skin, no make-up – not that she needed it. She was a stunner.

  ‘Someone to see you,’ Frances said icily. Tony’s frown had disappeared.

  ‘Welcome to the party, love,’ Tony said. ‘What can we do for you?’

  The woman looked around. ‘I wouldn’t say no to one of those beers,’ she said. Her accent was heavily Australian.

  Tony blinked stupidly at her. ‘Look love, if you’re selling something, we’ve . . .’

  ‘She’s your fourth man, you idiot,’ Frances muttered.

  It was too much for Spud. He snorted with laughter, and a flash of anger crossed Tony’s face. ‘Button it, office boy,’ he snapped.

  The laughter fell from Spud’s eyes. Without hesitation, he muscled up to Tony and gave him an insulting jab in the chest with his forefinger. Instantly, Danny was there, pulling his mate away. Spud’s face was red with anger and embarrassment, and he looked like he was about to give Tony a piece of his mind. But he suddenly doubled over coughing again. As he inhaled with a terrible wheeze, Tony turned to the woman. ‘What did you say your name was, love?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said the woman. ‘And if you call me love again, I’ll put your fucking face in the coals.’

  ‘Lovely barbecue,’ Ripley murmured.

  ‘This is Caitlin Wallace,’ Danny announced. ‘Ex Aussie army and Nigerian expert.’

  ‘And I’m about as pleased to be here,’ Caitlin interrupted, ‘as you are to have a chick on the team. So spare me the dick-swinging and give me a tinnie.’

  Tony’s frown dissolved and a broad grin spread across his face. ‘Get the woman a drink!’ he announced.

  Frances shot him daggers, and once again went off to fetch a beer.

  ‘I thought the Ruperts were being a bit shifty about this one,’ Tony announced. ‘Never thought they were going to spring a bird on us, though. Still, it’s just a babysitting job. No need to get your hands dirty, eh love?’

  Spud had approached them, and even Ripley, the devoted family man, had edged closer to where Caitlin was standing. Only Danny stood a few metres apart.

  ‘What is this?’ Caitlin demanded. ‘Bees round a fucking honeypot?’

  ‘Welcome to Hereford, darling,’ Tony said blandly, glancing towards the house to check his missus wasn’t in earshot. ‘Gets lonely when you’re stuck with a bunch of hairy, sweaty blokes on the range. So, what’s your background?’

  ‘Military intelligence,’ Caitlin said.

  ‘Care to elaborate?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Course you don’t. Military intelligence are shiftier than the Ruperts, in my opinion. Don’t see why you should be any different to the others.’ He looked her up and down, clearly appraising her. Danny felt like he could read Tony’s mind. What was her level of training? Was she up to the SF standards they’d expect of a team member? But he didn’t ask these questions out loud. He just stretched out his hand. ‘I’m Tony Wiseman, good to meet you.’

  Caitlin didn’t shake his hand, but held up one palm in greeting.

  ‘Over here we have Alex Ripley. Don’t be put off by his face, the ugly ones are always the best fighters. Fella with the cough is Spud, he won’t be joining us but if you ever need a stash of paperclips, he’s your man. And it seems you already know Danny Black.’ Tony’s grin grew broader. ‘You’ll probably hear a few rumours about old Danny. Single man, last I heard. Maybe we’ll have a holiday romance on our hands. Bit of a short fuse, mind. Flies off the handle now and then. Not the best combo for a man with a 9-milly in his back pocket, but there we have it.’

  Danny felt his face darken, but Caitlin was clearly intrigued. She turned her back on Tony and took a few paces towards him, holding out her hand.

  ‘Is that true?’ she asked as Danny shook it.

  ‘Which bit?’

  ‘The bit about the short fuse.’

  Danny shrugged. ‘Depends who’s lighting it,’ he said.

  ‘And what about the recently single bit?’

  Before he could reply, Danny’s mobile rang.

  He answered it quickly. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Black, where are you?’ Danny immediately recognised Ray Hammond, ops officer back at base. His voice cracked sharply. Danny could instantly tell something was going down.

  ‘Tony’s place. What is it?’

  ‘Are the others with you? Ripley? Wallace?’

  ‘Yeah. What’s the matter, boss?’

  Tony looked sharply at him. He could obviously tell from Danny’s voice that something was happening. He looked puzzled not to have had the call himself. ‘What’s going on, Black?’ he demanded.

  Danny zoned him out and concentrated on Hammond’s voice. ‘Get back here. All of you. Your op’s been brought forward twenty-four hours. The shit’s hit the fan. Whitehall are going ape.’

  ‘Why? What’s happened.’

  ‘Don’t fucking ignore me,’ Tony cut in.

  ‘Your man in Nigeria has just dropped off the radar. We think he’s been kidnapped. You need to get your arses out there, now.’

  Danny didn’t hear the line go dead. He’d already killed his phone. ‘Barbie’s over,’ he said. ‘They want us back at base.’

  TWO

  They moved quickly.

  From Tony’s house, they drove individually to base, ripping up the back streets of Hereford. The MoD policeman at the entrance to RAF Credenhill waved them through urgently, and an unmarked white Transit was already on the forecourt outside the main HQ building, its doors open. The vehicle’s engine was already turning over.

  The ops officer Hammond stood waiting for them by the Transit. He was a grumpy-looking bastard at the best of times, but right now he looked like a bulldog licking the piss off a thistle. ‘Get your gear together!’ he shouted before Danny and his unit had even left their vehicles. ‘COBRA have authorised the use of a C17. It’s in transit to Brize Norton now.’

  None of the unit replied directly, but Danny knew what that meant. The C17 Globemaster was one of the RAF’s largest assets, capable of carrying outsize military cargo. The message from Whitehall was clear: we’ll give you whatever you want to sort this situation out, so you need to do whatever it takes.

  Danny ran towards the Regiment building, Ripley by his side. Their bunks were next to each other, and each guy had their grab bag packed and their passports ready. They wordlessly slung them over their shoulders, then headed for the armoury.

  Tony and Caitlin were already there waiting for them, clutching their own grab bags. Word of their arrival – and imminent departure – had evidently already reached the armourer. He was a squat man with broad shoulders and a grey beard, and he was laying out the unit’s personal weapons on the broad wooden counter: HK416s for the guys, suppressed, each weapon’s sights zeroed in for their particular user, Surefire torches and laser sights fitted to the rack. For Caitlin, a suppressed HK417. ‘You know how to use one of those things?’ Tony asked Caitlin. ‘Those 7.62s have quite a kick.’

  ‘Funny that,’ Caitlin grinned as she slipped her assault rifle into a long black canvas weapon sleeve. ‘So do I.’ She looked at the armourer, who was dishing out side arms – Sig 225s, complete with holsters. ‘Ammo?’ she said.

  The armourer looked uncomfortable talking to the woman on the team. His eyes flitted to Tony and his frown became even more pronounced. Danny remembered the gossip about Tony’s sources of income. It kind of
figured that the armourer wouldn’t want much to do with him. So he directed a questioning glance at Danny.

  ‘Five hundred rounds per man, armour-piercing,’ Danny told him.

  Danny ignored the bickering. ‘Fifty rounds a piece for the sidearms,’ he continued. ‘Two Claymores each, four frags, two white phos.’

  ‘Sniper rifle,’ Ripley cut in.

  Danny nodded. ‘AW50,’ he told the armourer. ‘And four LAWs.’

  It took no more than a minute for the armourer to get the gear together. The unit used the time to follow Caitlin’s lead and wrap their assault rifles in black weapons sleeves for easy transport. When they had done, the counter was piled with boxes of ammo – 5.56s and 7.62s for the assault rifles, 9mm for the sidearms and .50 cals for the sniper rifle. Separate boxes for the grenades, four canvas bags containing the Claymores, and flight cases containing the AW50 and the LAWs. Danny signed for the equipment and the unit carried it out of the armoury and hurried back towards where the Transit van was waiting.

  Minutes later they’d loaded up their gear. Danny, Tony, Ripley and Caitlin had taken seats opposite each other in the back of the Transit. Hammond was up front, next to the Regiment-attached driver from the driving pool, who was wearing jeans and a bomber jacket. Hammond’s phone was glued to his ear. The van screeched its way across the forecourt and away from base. They’d been on site for less than ten minutes.

  Journey time to Brize Norton: one hour thirty. As they screeched away from Hereford, Hammond looked back over his shoulder. ‘Black,’ he said, ‘you’re patrol commander.’

  The atmosphere in the van immediately changed. Tony’s face darkened. He looked like he was going to say something, but decided to keep quiet. Hammond faced forward and Danny felt Tony’s glare on him, unswerving and unyielding, his dark suspicions about the leadership of the patrol clearly confirmed. Tony was a controlling bastard, and wouldn’t be an easy man to have under him. Danny blocked the stare out. Tony didn’t have to like him being PC. He just had to deal with it.

  As they travelled, Hammond occasionally updated them. ‘C17 wheels down in fifteen minutes.’ ‘You’ve got a support platoon from 1 Para en route to Brize, and a couple of scaleys to set up signalling.’ ‘The Foreign Office has set up a line of communication with the military attaché at the embassy. We’ll patch you in when you’re airborne.’ The unit absorbed this information calmly, saying very little as they thundered down the M50. Danny found himself examining the faces of his team-mates. Ripley was a picture of calm, his expression unknowable. A good guy, Ripley. After Spud, one of Danny’s closest Regiment mates. He’d helped Danny out of a hole before now, so Danny trusted him implicitly. He knew his mate would have passport-sized photos of his two kids tucked away somewhere inside his gear. Those kids meant everything to him.

  Caitlin had her eyes closed and the back of her head resting against the side of the Transit van. Was there a hint of nervousness about her, behind the brash exterior? The Ruperts had bigged her up to Danny. He wasn’t sure she could live up to the hype.

  Tony’s eyes flickered towards the female member of their crew. Danny sensed he was looking forward to a bit of close-quarter contact with Caitlin. He was a good-looking bastard, and women fell for his charm just as much as they did Spud’s. It was widely known that Frances was the most cheated-on army wife in Hereford. Danny found himself wishing Spud was there instead of Tony. But Spud’s days of active service were behind him, and Tony was a good soldier. Wouldn’t be where he was otherwise.

  Danny focused his mind on the job. So far they had very little intel, but he knew enough to realise one thing: kidnapped in Nigeria, things weren’t looking good for the British High Commissioner. It could have been almost anyone: pirates in the Niger Delta, diamond smugglers trying to diversify. And if Boko Haram militants could kidnap more than two hundred schoolgirls and keep them under the radar for months, what luck did one ageing white foreign-office official have?

  ‘The High Commissioner’s name is Derek Vance,’ Hammond announced over his shoulder. ‘Personal friend of the PM’s. We’re getting word through that one of his aides was kidnapped as well, a young guy called Hugh Deakin.’

  ‘That’s good to know,’ Tony cut in. ‘Their families can get started on the tombstones.’ He laughed at his joke. Nobody else did.

  The first sign that they were approaching Brize Norton was a C130 passing low overhead. Minutes later, the Transit van was screaming across the airfield. Danny looked through the windscreen. Heavy rain had started to fall, but in the wake of the wipers he could see the huge grey structure of the C17 about thirty metres up ahead. It was surrounded by vehicles, a couple of which had blue flashing lights. Its tailgate was open, and Danny could see a black SUV driving up into the belly of the aircraft. He squinted and looked for signs of the 1 Para platoon. There was none.

  The Transit skidded slightly as it came to a halt. By that time, its doors were already open. The unit started to move their gear out. ‘Need a hand, love?’ Tony asked Caitlin. She ignored him, grabbed her bag, personal weapon and the flight case containing the sniper rifle, and hauled it out into the driving rain. Outside the vehicle, a member of the ground staff was ushering them towards the tailgate with a glowing, handheld beacon, and shouting something unheard over the noise of the jet engines, which were already turning over. He needn’t have bothered: all four members of the unit, along with their ops officer, were running towards the aircraft. ‘Where are the Paras?’ Danny shouted as they ran.

  The ops officer didn’t answer. He was already barking the same question into his phone.

  As Danny ran up the tailgate, the familiar stench of aviation gas hit his nostrils. Like all military transport aircraft, the inside of the C17 was entirely devoid of comforts. The pipework and internal frame were all visible on the roof of the fuselage. At the far end of the fuselage were two portable blue toilet cubicles, which could be easily removed when loading cargo. Each seat had a dirty orange lifejacket strapped to the back, and the middle column of seats had been removed. A couple of loadies were securing the SUV to some shackles on the floor to keep it secure and immobile in flight. Danny noted that it was a Range Rover – probably supplied by the Foreign Office – artfully dented in places so that it didn’t look too flash and therefore noticeable, but armoured nonetheless, with toughened glass, reinforced panels and sturdy all-terrain tyres. Despite all that, it would hopefully look unremarkable on the ground. He moved up to the front of the fuselage where two signallers – these were the scaleys Hammond had mentioned – were busily patching their way into the aircraft’s radio system. They nodded a brief greeting at the members of the unit, then continued about their business.

  Hammond still had his phone to his ear. ‘We’ve got a problem!’ he shouted. ‘The platoon’s had an RTA en route. They won’t get here for another two hours.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ Danny breathed. He closed his eyes momentarily. Time to make a call. Did they wait for their support unit and lose precious time on the ground, or did they risk heading in-country without the security of well-prepared, well-armed backup?

  It didn’t take more than a moment to make the decision. For a hostage situation, time was of the essence. Every minute they delayed was an extra minute in which the High Commissioner and his aide could be wasted. ‘We can’t wait,’ he announced. ‘Let’s get wheels up.’

  The ops officer nodded, but suddenly Tony was in Danny’s face. ‘What about that hostage rescue I did in Sierra Leone last year?’ he shouted. ‘If we hadn’t had Para support, I’d be toast. They put in a cordon, supplied mortar support . . .’

  ‘Yeah, well this isn’t Sierra Leone,’ Danny snapped back. He looked over Tony’s shoulder at the ops officer. ‘Wheels up,’ he repeated.

  Tony shook his head. ‘This op’s going to be a gangfuck,’ he muttered. He glanced over towards Caitlin to check she was out of earshot. ‘And what about the bird?’ he said. ‘She’s just going to hold us back.’


  Danny didn’t say so out loud, but he quietly agreed with Tony about that. But Hammond shook his head. ‘She’s trained with Aussie military CT units and tactical assault groups. She’s high up in Australian Special Operations Command.’

  ‘Yeah, well I hope it’s not her fucking time of the month,’ Tony scowled.

  ‘Just get on with your job, Wiseman,’ Hammond said, and turned his back on them. But suddenly he turned again and gestured to Danny to join him. They moved several metres from the others.

  ‘What is it, boss?’ Danny asked.

  Hammond looked like he was choosing his words carefully. ‘I made a big call putting you in charge instead of Tony,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to lie to you. You’ve got a habit of going against the head shed’s wishes, and they don’t like it. They’re watching you. Think of this as a chance to make things good. Don’t fuck it up.’

  Without another word, Hammond turned and disappeared back down the tailgate. Danny glanced towards Tony, who was standing five metres away, looking interested. He wandered over. ‘Yeah, Black,’ he said maliciously, ‘don’t fuck it up. What with you and Wonder Woman over there, I’m glad it’s not me that’s been kidnapped.’

  There was a slight change in the engine’s pitch as the tailgate closed up. Danny and the unit strapped themselves into the front row of hard seats along the port side of the aircraft. On the ground in front of them was a co-ax cable that the scaleys had hardwired into the aircraft comms. The cable was connected to a black box, into which four sets of headphones, each with a small boom mike, were plugged. They put the headphones on, and Danny winced momentarily as a whine of feedback pierced his eardrums. It died away, and a voice came over the cans: the refined tones of an SF flight crew captain. They always sounded the same – as calm and collected as if they were flying easyJet to Marbella. ‘Afternoon gentlemen, this is Captain Ferguson, we’ll have you airborne in about two minutes. Flight time Brize to Lagos a little shy of six hours. I’m patching you through to Hereford HQ immediately. It’s a secure line, so you can speak plainly.’