Ryan, Chris - Zero 22

‘Mate,’ said Danny, ‘you’ve got a fifty-fifty chance of getting out of here alive. My advice is to do what I fucking say.’ He gave his weapon the once over, checking that the safety lever was disengaged, and headed out of the room. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

SIXTEEN

Danny held the Sig with two hands. His left supported its weight. His right kept it in position. As his body moved, the firearm moved with it. It was part of him.

At the entrance to the General’s suite, he stood with his back to the wall by the door frame. He listened. There was a residual ringing in his ears from the fire alarm. It got in the way of his thoughts and he had to concentrate hard to drown it out. Were there footsteps outside? Voices? He didn’t think so. Silently, swiftly, he stepped out into the corridor. Looked both ways, the Sig leading. There was nobody in sight. He checked back over his shoulder at Bethany and the General. For a man who minutes previously had been naked and humiliated on a bed, seconds away from having his throat slit, he looked alert. There was no hint of the relaxed womaniser from the bar. He was a little dishevelled, but sharp around the eyes. You didn’t get to his position in the military without a high level of operational awareness. Danny made a minute adjustment in his mind: he was not protecting an incompetent, but someone who could be relied on to manage a hostile situation. And as for Bethany? She had a steely aura. Danny knew what she was capable of. ‘Follow,’ he told them.

They moved at a jog, heading down the corridor back towards the stairwell. Where the corridor turned a corner, he stopped again and listened. The ringing in his ears had subsided and he could discern no other sound. He turned. The way ahead was deserted. Two bedroom doors were ajar, one on either side. At the end of the corridor, twenty-five metres distant, was the door leading to the stairwell. The trio advanced again, still jogging, Danny’s weapon still raised. He stopped before they reached the first open bedroom door.

Checked for threats.

Clear.

They advanced to the second open door.

Checked for threats.

The sandy-haired Russian man with the polo neck and leather jacket never stood a chance. Danny recognised him immediately as the Russian stood there in the bedroom doorway, his weapon ready. He held it like a pro: like Danny, two handed. A Russian PL-15 pistol, suppressed. But unlike Danny, this guy, whoever he was, hadn’t spent untold hours in the Killing House at Hereford, testing his reflexes against targets that appeared suddenly and from nowhere, until it became second nature to drill bullets into them with perfect accuracy. Danny didn’t hesitate. It only took one round and it slammed straight into the man’s forehead before he could discharge a bullet of his own. He fell heavily to the ground, his forehead a mess of entry wound. Danny maintained his firing position, hyper aware of the possibility of another threat from inside the room. But there was silence. ‘Take his weapon,’ Danny said.

There was jostling in his peripheral vision. Bethany got there first. The sandy-haired guy was slumped over his gun. She rolled him on to his back with her right foot, bent over and unwound his dead fingers from the pistol. Danny maintained the firing position while she did this. ‘I’m a goddamn five-star general,’ O’Brien said, his voice testy. ‘What are you doing giving her a weapon ahead of me?’

Danny didn’t bother to answer. He turned back towards the door at the end of the corridor and continued to advance. The General was right behind him. Bethany was behind the General, regularly looking back to check for threats from behind.

They reached the door. Opened it to access the stairwell. Danny could hear people now on the lower floors. They moved down the stairs, Danny covering the space in front of and below them, Bethany above and behind. The sound of voices grew louder as they descended. Danny knew that as soon as any hotel guests saw him, they’d be thrown into panic, but he wasn’t about to lower his weapon. Not with the possibility of Wagner Group operatives round every corner.

They descended from the third floor to the ground floor before they saw anyone. A group of hotel guests in traditional Arabic dress were congregating around the elevator doors at the bottom of the stairs. Five men, three women. It was one of the women who noticed them first, she screamed and grabbed one of the men and suddenly there was a panicked hubbub and Bethany was shouting at them to get on the ground. Danny blocked that activity from his senses. He knew the people at the lift were not an immediate, active threat.

The immediate, active threat was straight ahead of him.

The Russian guy with the Tom Selleck moustache was approaching from the entrance to the bar. Distance: ten metres. Unlike the sandy-haired guy, he had no visible weapon, though he may have had a concealed carry. Danny had a decision and not much time to make it. Should he fire? The retort of the weapon would be audible across the ground floor of the hotel. It would potentially alert any further Wagner Group operatives to a firefight, not to mention the American soldiers in the building. Quieter to put him down manually. But slower.

Decision made. He upped his pace and bore down on the target. Within two paces he could see that his guy was reaching for a weapon. His right hand plunged beneath his jacket, feeling for whatever was concealed there. But Danny knew it would take him a minimum of two seconds to aim and fire. By that time, it would be too late. He braced himself as he ran towards the target and made contact just as the body of his firearm peeped out from under his jacket. There was a brutal thump as he collided with the Russian. As their bodies impacted, Danny wrapped his left arm around the man’s neck. He squeezed hard and jerked his forearm upwards and back. There was a stressed clicking sound as his neck broke. His body went limp and Danny eased him to the ground. The woman by the lift screamed again. Like the others she was now face down on the ground, but the noise she was making was a problem. Bethany was standing over her, weapon engaged. She gave Danny a ‘shall I?’ look and for a moment Danny considered it. Her weapon was suppressed, and the woman could be silenced without immediate consequences. But he shook his head. The Wagner Group was one thing. Innocent hotel guests? That was another. Not to mention that the more bodies they left behind them, the tougher it would be for them to get the hell out of Amman. ‘ Move! ’ he barked at Bethany and the General. ‘ Now! ’

They didn’t have time to take even a single step. Three figures emerged from the bar area. Camouflage gear. Weapons. American soldiers. They took one look at Danny, Bethany, their firearms and the prone Russian, and they reached for their guns.

Two things happened. Danny and Bethany got there first, raising their weapons before the soldiers were able to engage, and held them at gunpoint. And the General roared a command: ‘Hold your fire! That’s an order!’

The soldiers hesitated, giving each other sidelong glances. They clearly weren’t sure if the order was intended for them or for Danny and Bethany. One guy in particular, with a pockmarked face and a monobrow, looked especially twitchy. Danny kept his focus on him as the General strode up to the men. ‘They’re with me,’ the General said. ‘You need to get us out of the hotel immediately. You have my authorisation to engage anybody you see with a weapon. Go.’

Fair play to the soldiers: they didn’t fuck around. They immediately surrounded the General and started hustling him into the bar area. Danny and Bethany were not their concern and they paid them no attention. They followed behind. Danny kept his weapon engaged, scanning the bar as they moved swiftly through it. Guests were returning now that the fire alarm was silenced. Mostly they were talking animatedly to each other. When they saw the armed soldiers hurrying the General across the room, and Danny and Bethany following with their weapons in plain view, they tugged at each other’s arms and pointed. Awareness quickly spread. A path cleared as other guests hurried away from the armed personnel. Danny distantly heard the woman by the lift screaming again, but he zoned it out and concentrated on the people around him. He was searching for threats, suspicious activity, sudden movements, anything that triggered his finely tuned sense of hostile action.