Ryan, Chris - Zero 22

He carried the suitcase in one hand and the FedEx package in the other, gripping both of them tightly as if somebody might rip them from him. Crowds bustled past the family, swerving round them and making no attempt to avoid staring at Hamoud’s gruesome facial scar, as they stood gazing up at the departure screens. The 15.25 flight to Orlando was there, sandwiched between flights to Los Angeles LAX and New York JFK. ‘We need to go to the check-in area,’ said Rabia. ‘Come on, children. Stay close.’

There was a line to check in. Maybe twenty or thirty people. It took half an hour to reach the desk, but it felt longer than that. Anxiety burned in Hamoud’s chest. Surely they would be turned away. Or worse. The lady at the check-in desk looked kind, but would she call for security when she realised Hamoud and his family were trying to board a flight under false pretences? Hamoud was understandably nervous of men in uniform. Each time he saw one of the airport security guys, with their peaked caps and their weapons on display, he suppressed a shiver. He had to stop his mind flashing back to the prison camp. He had to look at his wife and children, to remind himself that everything was much better now.

There was a tremor in his hand as he gave the lady the documents. She didn’t seem to notice. ‘Where are we travelling to today, sir?’ she asked.

‘Orlando,’ Hamoud said. He had to repeat himself because the word stuck in his throat first time round. ‘ Orlando. ’

She was silent as she checked the documentation. Hamoud scratched his palms hard. His children were either side of him, looking up at the desk, wide-eyed. He realised they were nervous too. Nervous that this was all a mistake, and their trip wasn’t really going to happen. The woman kept looking up from the documents to glance at Hamoud, and he knew she was looking at the scar on his face. Then she smiled at the children, and it was as if the whole family exhaled at the same time. Hamoud lifted the suitcase on to the conveyor belt to be weighed. Rabia took the boarding passes and gave the children a grin and a thumbs up, and they were clearly so excited Hamoud thought they might hyperventilate. And as they walked away from the desk, asking their mum a thousand questions about where the airplane was and how long it would take to get there and if they would be allowed on all the rides or just some of them, Hamoud felt a little lighter. As they walked towards security, he listened to the children’s chatter and Rabia’s patient responses, and it all felt real.

Then something made him stop. The security area was very busy. There were more lines at the luggage and body scanners. Airport staff were shouting instructions over the crowd. Belts and shoes off. Tablets and laptops out. A man in a suit stood at the far end of the scanners. He appeared official, but he wasn’t shouting like the other members of staff. He was looking across the security area directly – or so it seemed – at Hamoud and his family. Hamoud caught his eye and inclined his head. Then a large African woman in a colourful headdress stepped in the way and Hamoud couldn’t see him any more. When the woman moved on, the man in the suit had gone. Hamoud searched for him, but there was no sign.

Rabia touched his arm tenderly. She gave him that enquiring expression that he knew meant ‘are you okay?’ He smiled and nodded. He was okay. Everything was fine. He took his son’s little hand and together they walked to the body scanner.

Finding a car would be easy. Finding the right car? That was a different matter altogether.

Danny ditched the Passat in a dark, quiet alley. On either side were the back entrances to restaurants, cafes and shops. Bins overflowing with rubbish. ‘What about our suitcases?’ Bethany said.

It was true. Danny was still in his suit, Bethany in her jacket and skirt. But this wasn’t the time or place to change, and they could hardly move quickly and carry their cases at the same time. ‘We’ll leave them,’ he said, even though leaving such evidence of their presence breached just about every standard operating procedure Danny could think of for a covert op like this. Question of priorities. If they were being tracked, they had to move fast.

‘What do we do?’ the General said. ‘Rent something?’

Danny gave him an incredulous look. ‘You’ve been a General too long,’ he said.

‘Then—’

‘We steal something. But not just anything. The driver needs to be in it so that we can get the keys. And it needs to be something run down.’

‘Crap,’ the General said. ‘If we’re going to take a vehicle, we’ll take something modern and reliable that we can count on to get us the extraction point.’

Danny shook his head. ‘The better the car, the richer the owner. The richer the owner, the more likely the police are to take him seriously.’ He opened up the boot of the Passat and located his night sight, which he stowed in his shoulder bag along with the Sig. He turned to Bethany and the General.

‘Hold hands,’ he said. ‘Look like a couple. It’ll stop people interfering with you. Follow me at a distance of about twenty metres. I need to be able to see you every time I look back. Stop if I stop.’ He pointed at some litter in the gutter and some Arabic graffiti scrawled on a nearby wall. ‘Looks like we’re entering a rough area. Keep your heads down, don’t make eye contact with anybody, don’t get into any arguments. We don’t want anyone to remember us.’

If Bethany and the General felt patronised by his comments, they didn’t show it. But the General did look uncomfortable, and Danny guessed he wasn’t relishing the idea of holding hands with the woman who’d been seconds away from slaughtering him like a pig earlier that evening. It was Bethany who made the first move, grabbing his hand in hers. It occurred to Danny that as foreigners they would attract attention despite presenting as a couple, and that maybe he should leave them here, in this deserted street, while he found them a new vehicle. Not an option. The operation had been turned on its head. The General’s safety was his responsibility now. And he wanted to keep Bethany White close at hand. He cleared his mind and focused on his strategy for the next couple of hours. They had to get out of this Amman suburb and return to the drop zone in the desert – the sooner they got out of country, the better.

‘Let’s move,’ he said.

They walked to the end of the side street and took a left into a much busier road. It was narrow and cobbled and on a steep hill. Danny was right about this being a rough area. There was nothing overt, but the signs were all there. Groups of young Jordanian men in Western clothes, congregating outside grotty bars. Music seeping from third-floor windows, flung wide open against the heat of the night. Shops closed up with sturdy metal grates. The stench of drains.

There was traffic, too. A constant line of cars crawling up the hill in the darkness. Danny’s sense of direction told him that this route was still heading south-west–north-east. He suppressed a moment of anxiety at the need to get back on to the main north-westerly route out of town. It was important that they lost the Wagner Group trail, otherwise they’d be leading them directly to the RV point.

Exhaust fumes were thick in the air. Appropriating one of these vehicles on the main road through this suburb was out of the question. There were too many people around to see it happen. He considered looking for a taxi and getting the driver to take them to a deserted area before overcoming him and stealing his car. Bad move. Vehicles for hire could routinely have tracking devices fitted. They wouldn’t know until they saw the Jordanian authorities bearing down on them. No, he needed a private car, nothing fancy, just like he’d told the General.