Ryan, Chris - Zero 22

It was just a nudge, but the other vehicle was larger and the momentum was such that Danny momentarily lost control. The Nissan screeched to the side of the road, the steering wheel spinning through his hands. ‘What the fuck . . .’ he hissed, as he gripped the wheel again and drove into the skid just in time to regain control of the vehicle and bring it back into the lane. ‘Did you see him?’ the General shouted. ‘It was the asshole who wasted my guys!’

‘He’s done a lot more than that,’ Danny growled. Turgenev’s vehicle was twenty metres in front, but its brake lights were on and the gap was closing. Danny couldn’t work it out. They’d switched cars. How could anybody still be on to them?

And then, just as Turgenev was alongside them again, he realised what was happening, and he cursed his own stupidity. ‘They’re going to hit us again!’ Bethany shouted. All her calmness had deserted her and there was real panic in her voice. Danny maintained his speed, staying level with the other car, holding his nerve. If he was going to avoid a collision, he had to time it just right.

Just right.

He accelerated. Turgenev’s car did the same in order to keep level. He accelerated some more. Same deal. The cars behind them were hanging back, clearly aware that something dangerous was going on. That suited Danny just fine. He needed the space. He accelerated a third time. Waited for Turgenev’s driver to catch up. And then he waited for it to swerve. He could see that Bethany’s knuckles were white as she gripped the GPS unit.

Hold it.

Hold it.

The vehicle closed in. Danny waited until the two cars were separated by barely a metre. Then he hit the brakes. The Nissan slowed. Turgenev’s vehicle shot ahead and swerved into Danny’s lane. But the resistance it was expecting from the Nissan wasn’t there. It overshot the lane and careered into the hard-baked terrain at the side of the road. Danny knew the driver had lost control when he saw the wheels on one side of the vehicle rise from the ground as the Nissan sped past them. In his rear-view, he saw the car roll. It landed on its roof and slid ten metres across the ground away from the road. Then it spun and its momentum righted it again, but pointing in the wrong direction. Smoke was belching from its engine. Danny reckoned the vehicle was out of action.

‘How did they know where we were?’ Bethany demanded. ‘What the hell’s happening?’

Danny didn’t answer. He was looking for a place to stop by the side of the road where there would be some cover. There was something he had to do, and he only had a few minutes to do it before his pursuers caught up with him again. He saw a suitable location soon enough: an abandoned petrol station, run down and boarded up, no sign of any pumps. He manoeuvred off the road and brought the vehicle to a halt behind the main building, where weeds and debris littered the ground, the kind of place most sensible people would avoid. He killed the engine. Killed the lights. Grabbed his Sig and jumped out of the car. Opened the rear passenger door and pointed the Sig at the General. ‘Get out,’ he said.

‘What the hell—’

‘ Get out, now! ’

The General hesitated for a second then did as he was told. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re—’

‘Take your clothes off.’

‘You’re insane.’

‘Do it now.’ Bethany had also exited the Nissan and was staring at Danny, a questioning look in her eyes.

Danny ignored her. ‘ Now! ’ he repeated.

The General started with his sports jacket. As he wormed his body out of it, Danny took the jacket and felt inside the pockets. There was an asthma inhaler and a wallet. He removed the canister from the inhaler and checked the plastic casing. Nothing. He looked through the wallet. Several credit cards, some American dollars. Nothing else. He dropped the jacket on to the ground and indicated with a wave of his Sig that the General should remove his pink shirt. He scowled at Danny as he unfastened the buttons and handed it over. The shirt was crumpled and sweaty. It smelled bad. It was not the crisp, clean article of clothing he had been wearing when he entered the hotel bar six hours earlier. Danny checked the breast pocket and the hem. Nothing. He dumped the shirt with the sports jacket. ‘Trousers,’ he said.

Wordlessly, the General kicked off his brown brogues. They were still shiny. He removed his trousers and handed them over. Danny checked them: pockets, lining, hem, belt buckle. Nothing. The trousers joined the rest of the General’s clothes pile. O’Brien was standing in his socks and underpants – the same ones that Bethany had stuffed in his mouth – and his humiliation was plain to see in his face. Danny was about to tell him to strip completely when he remembered the brown brogues. He pocketed the Sig then bent down to pick them up. They smelled of boot polish and foot odour and were warm and moist inside. Danny removed the inner sole from the right shoe. Nothing. The inner sole from the left.

There it was.

The tracking device was no bigger than a mobile phone sim card, but thicker. It was stuck into a recess in the sole of the shoe. Danny picked it off with his nail and held it up. ‘It wasn’t the car they were tracking,’ he said. ‘It was you.’

‘How the hell did they plant that thing on me?’ the General said.

‘I don’t know. Doesn’t matter now. Get dressed.’

Bethany walked towards Danny. The General was scrambling to get his clothes back on, seemingly embarrassed to be seen by her. But she showed no sign of interest in the older man. She was interested in the tracking device. ‘Destroy it,’ she said. ‘Or just leave it here on the ground. They won’t be able to track us then.’

‘Yeah,’ Danny said. She was right. No tracking device, no trails. He dropped it on the ground and prepared to grind it with his heel.

But then he stopped.

He looked back along the road. He could just see the headlamps of Turgenev’s car blazing into the darkness a couple of hundred metres away. He squinted. There was no doubt about it. A figure was standing in front of the burning car. Even at this distance, Danny could tell that he was taller and broader than the average man. ‘Turgenev,’ he muttered.

‘The guy with the mohawk?’ the General said.

‘Yeah,’ Danny replied. ‘The guy with the mohawk.’

He thought of the Zero 22 operation. Of Bullethead and Chinese Mike. Of Dougie and his daughter. He remembered the ambush and the air strike and the burned and butchered bodies littering the blast site. The carnage that Turgenev had orchestrated. He thought of their fight, and of Turgenev’s promise to kill Danny with his bare hands. He thought of the two SAS patches he had on his jacket, and of Turgenev holding the heads of decapitated SAS men.

Danny Black was a Regiment man. It was in his blood. And from his very first day in Hereford, one rule had been instilled in him: there are consequences to killing SAS men.

Two hundred metres, he thought. I could deal with him now.

It wasn’t an option. Turgenev was likely to be armed and would see him coming. Not to mention that the police would likely be on the scene at any moment, as well as any Wagner Group backup.

If Danny wanted to deal with that mohawk-headed fucker, he’d have to think a bit smarter.

He checked his watch. 22.59 hrs. The stealth chopper would be at the pick-up point at 04.00. That gave him five hours. He consulted the geography of the area in his head. Their current location. The drop zone forty miles to the north-west of Amman. The location of the ruins where they’d hidden the smuggler’s lorry. If he was to go back there, it would involve a ten-mile detour to the south. He had enough time, just.