Frederick Forsyth - The Kill List

He produced another photo, bigger, a blowup, of the face of Opal in the Marka compound, gazing up at the sky, straight into the Hawk’s camera lens. He wore the red baseball cap.

“With luck, he will hear the shooting and dive for cover, and, hopefully, he will think to pull on the red cap you see here. He will not fight us. Under no circumstances shoot him. That leaves six in all and they will fight.”

The Pathfinders stared at the black Ethiopian face and memorized it.

“What about the other group, boss?” asked the shaven Curly, the motor vehicles man.

“Right. The drone watched our target and his team billeted in this house here, on the south side of the village square. Across the square is the group they came to meet. These are pirates from the north. They are all of the Sacad clan and fight like hell. They have brought with them a hostage in the person of a young Swedish merchant marine cadet. This one.”

The Tracker produced his last photo. He had got it from Adrian Herbert of the SIS, who had obtained it from Mrs. Bulstrode. It was taken from his merchant marine ID card application form, delivered by his father Harry Andersson. It showed a handsome blond boy in a company uniform, staring innocently at the camera.

“What’s he doing there?” asked David.

“He is the bait that lured the target to this spot. He wants to buy the kid and has brought with him a million dollars for the purchase. They may have made the swap already, in which case the boy will be in the target’s house and the million dollars across the square. Or the swap may be scheduled for the morning before departure. Whatever, keep all eyes peeled for a blond head and do not shoot.”

“What does the target want with a Swedish cadet?” It was Barry, the giant. The Tracker framed his answer carefully. No need to lie, just observe the rule of need to know.

“The Sacads from the north who captured him at sea some weeks ago have been told the target intends to hack his head off on camera. A treat for us in the West.”

The room went very quiet.

“And these pirates, they’ll fight as well?” David, the captain, again.

“Absolutely. But I figure when they are woken by shooting, they will be bleary from the aftereffects of a gut full of khat . We know it makes them dopey or ultra-violent.

“If we can put a long stream of bullets through their windows, they will presume not that some free fallers have arrived from the West but that they are under attack from their business partners, trying to get the boy for free or their money back. I would like them to charge across the open square.”

“How many, boss? The pirates?”

“We counted eight climbing out of these two technicals just before sundown.”

“So fourteen hostiles in all?”

“Yes, and I’d like half of them dead before they are vertical. And no prisoners.”

The six Brits gathered around the photos and maps. There was a murmured conference. The Tracker heard phrases like “shaped charge” and “frag.” He knew enough to know the first referred to a device to blow off a stout door lock and the second to a high-fragmentation grenade. Fingers tapped various points on the blown-up photo of the village by last daylight. After ten minutes, they broke up, and the young captain came over with a grin.

“It’s a go,” he said. “Let’s kit up.”

The Tracker realized they had been agreeing to proceed with an operation that had been requested by the President of the United States and authorized by their own Prime Minister.

“Great,” was all he could think to say. They left the operations room and went outside, where the air was still balmy. While they had been studying the mission, the three PDs had been busy. Bathed in the light from the open door of the hangar were seven piles of kit in a line. This was the line (in reverse) in which they would march into the belly of the Hercules and the order in which they would hurl themselves into the night at 25,000 feet.

Assisted by the PDs, they began to climb into their equipment. The senior PD, a veteran sergeant known only as Jonah, paid special attention to the Tracker.

The Tracker, who had arrived in the tropical-weight uniform of a U.S. Marine colonel, into which he had changed in the Grumman, was instructed to pull on the spare desert cammo jumpsuit that the other six already wore. Then came the weight, burden by burden.

Jonah hoisted the thirty kilos of parachute onto his back and buckled the array of broad canvas straps that keep it in place. When he had the straps in place, he tightened them until the Tracker felt he was being crushed. Two of them went around each side of the groin.

“Just keep the nuts free of these, sir,” Jonah murmured. A faller with his family furniture inside these straps will find life very unfunny when the chute jerks open.

“I surely will,” he said, feeling down below to make sure nothing was trapped behind the straps.

Next came the Bergen haversack, hung on the chest. This was forty kilos and pulled him into a forward stoop. The straps of this were also tightened to chest-crushing levels. But from his U.S. Marine parachuting school, he knew there was a point to all this.

With the Bergen on the front, the faller would have to be diving chest first. When the chute finally streamed, it would be out the back and away above him. A faller on his back could go straight through his opening chute, which would literally wrap around him like a shroud as he died on the ground below.

The Bergen’s weight was mainly made up of food, water and ammunition — the latter being extra clips for his carbine and for grenades. But also in there was his personal sidearm and night vision goggles. It was out of the question to wear these while diving; they would be ripped away by the slipstream.

Jonah attached his oxygen canister and the array of hoses that would bring the life-giving gas to the mask on his face.

Finally, he was given his helmet and tight-fitting visor that would protect his eyes from being blasted out by the 150 mph airstream he would experience in the dive. Then they took off the Bergens until jump time.

The seven men had been transformed into extraterrestrials from the special effects department. They did not walk; they waddled, slowly and carefully. On a nod from the captain, David, they made their way across the concrete pan to the gaping rear of the Hercules, which waited, doors open and ramp down.

The captain had decreed the order of jumps. First out would be Barry, the giant, simply because he was the most experienced among them. Then would come the Tracker, and right behind him the captain. Of the remaining four, the last man out would be one of the corporals, Curly, also a veteran, because he would have no one to watch his back.

One by one, the seven jumpers, helped by the three PDs, stumbled up the ramp and into the hull of the C-130. Twenty to midnight.

They sat in a line of red canvas seats along one side of the hull while the PDs continued to run through the various tests. Jonah took personal care of the captain and the Tracker.

He noticed it was now much darker inside the aircraft, with only reflected lights from the arcs above the hangar doors, and he knew when the ramp came up, they would be seated in utter blackness. He also noted crates of the unit’s other equipment lashed down for the journey back home to England and two shadowy figures up near the wall between the cargo and the flight deck. These were the two parachute packers who traveled with the unit wherever they went, packing and repacking the chutes. The Tracker hoped that the fellow who had packed what he now wore on his back knew exactly what he was doing. There is an old adage among free fallers: Never quarrel with your packer.