Chris Ryan: Who Dares Wins

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.