Ryan, Chris - Zero 22

‘Room 298’ Hamoud said, a bit too quickly. ‘Mr Al Asmar.’ He patted down his pockets. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve found it.’ He pulled out his key card and showed it to her. ‘I’m very sorry.’ He could feel the heat of embarrassment on his cheeks. He bowed slightly and shuffled away from the reception desk, hurrying towards the elevator. What had he been thinking? Even if he had somehow managed to persuade the receptionist to give him a key card to the room opposite, what then? Would he really have entered? What was he hoping to find?

He stopped. He had seen something out of the corner of his eye. He turned to get a better view.

It was one of the men he had seen in the corridor last night. He was striding towards the exit. Another man was following him. He looked Middle Eastern. He was wearing a baseball jacket with Donald Duck on the back that looked rather too big for him. But it wasn’t the colour of his skin that made Hamoud stop, or the clothes he was wearing. Hamoud recognised him. He knew that face. He had seen it before. He tried to think when and where, but the memory was slippery and he couldn’t grab it.

The guy in the baseball jacket exited the hotel. Hamoud stood where he was, his face screwed up as he tried to remember. Then he noticed people watching him and he felt self-conscious. He hurried over to the elevator and called it. On the second floor, he forced himself not to look at the door to room 297. He was embarrassed by his clumsy attempt to get the key card. Inside his own room, he sat on the edge of the unmade bed, scratched his palms and waited for his family to return.

Captain Mitchell had assigned them a dedicated ops room: a sparse, windowless area below decks that vibrated with the frigate’s engines. The SBS guys didn’t join them. They hadn’t asked why Danny, Bethany and the General needed a covert insertion into the US, and Danny had the impression that they were determined not to find out. A wise call, in the circumstances.

There was a trunk of mismatched clothes waiting for them in the room. Danny and the General stood outside to give Bethany the privacy to strip out of her dry suit and change. When they re-entered, she was dressed in nondescript jeans and a loose-fitting T-shirt. Her hair was matted from the salt water and she still looked cold. Danny found an oversized jumper among the clothes and gave it to her. ‘Keep warm,’ he told her, and she didn’t argue. She turned her back as Danny and the General changed. At first, the General put on chinos and an open-necked shirt, but that didn’t work for Danny. ‘You look too much like yourself,’ he said. ‘We don’t know if or how the media are going to present your disappearance from the hotel, but we’ve got to assume you’re going to be on most TV sets in the States. You have to disguise yourself better.’ He found a black hoodie emblazoned with a New York Yankees logo. The General put it on and raised the hood. He had a day’s stubble and dark rings under his eyes. The effect of the hood was to make him look like the kind of guy most people would want to avoid. He certainly didn’t look like top brass.

Danny found a hoodie for himself. This one had a Harvard logo. Pretty much the closest he’d ever get to a university. It wasn’t very clean. It reeked of another man’s sweat. That didn’t matter. In fact, it was an advantage. It meant people would avoid him, too. He put an old denim jacket on over it. He took his Sig and phone from the waterproof pouch in his dry suit. He checked the pistol over. All good. The General pointed at Bethany. ‘I want her weapon,’ he said.

Danny stowed his Sig in the inside pocket of his jacket, and his phone in his jeans. He took a moment to consider the General’s request. It made sense. As soon as they stepped foot on American soil, O’Brien was in danger. He might need to defend himself. And maybe Danny had been too trusting, allowing Bethany to be armed in the first place. She wasn’t reliable. And the time was surely approaching that he needed her to be unarmed in any case.

‘Hand it over,’ he said.

He expected an argument, but it didn’t come. Bethany handed the pistol to the General.

They waited. Time crept slowly. An hour. Two. Three. The General paced the room small room anxiously. Eventually, there was a knock. Danny opened the door. A naval rating stood there, red-faced and pimply. He looked barely young enough to be out of school and his acne spread all the way down his neck. ‘Secure comms from Hereford,’ he said. ‘I’m to take you to the bridge.’

‘Wait here,’ Danny told Bethany and the General. ‘Try not to kill each other while I’m gone.’

The bridge was busy but quiet. The captain sat at his control post watching his men as they went about their business of preparing the frigate for docking. Danny could see the eastern seaboard of the United States up ahead through the windows. There were three other naval ships in his field of view. A vast mackerel sky suggested that the weather was about to change. The rating led him to a comms post where Danny put on a headset with a built-in boom mike. ‘Go ahead,’ he said.

He recognised the CO’s voice, every word crisp and clear despite the distance of several thousand miles. ‘ I’ve been briefed ,’ said Williamson. ‘ Sounds like you’ve had a busy night. ’

‘Roger that, sir.’

‘ Some time, you and me are going to have a little chat about your detour. ’

‘Yes, sir.’ A pause. ‘It was the Wagner Group, boss. The same people who targeted the Zero 22 convoy.’

‘ Understood ,’ said Williamson. A beat. ‘ You have Bethany White with you? ’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘ You understand why? ’

‘Not entirely.’

‘ Because now that the op has evolved, US soil is the best place for her to end up dead. The Yanks are going to sweep this whole thing under the carpet. If they can do some of our tidying up for us, so much the better. ’

‘Understood, sir.’

‘ Prioritise the General. The frigate should get your feet on solid ground at about 15.00 hours local. It’s crucial that he broadcasts those deepfakes, even if it happens after the terror attack. We have no lead on when or where the attack is going to take place. This is the only way to put the skids on the President’s conspiracy. But when it’s done, finish your mission. ’

Danny stared through the window of the bridge. Naval Station Norfolk was fast approaching.

‘ Do you copy? ’ the CO asked.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Danny. ‘I copy.’

The line went dead. Danny removed the headset. The rating was standing nearby. Danny could tell he was trying to glean something from his end of the conversation, but was disappointed. He was just a kid, and Danny had learned that kids were often a little starstruck in the presence of an SF guy. He gave him a friendly smile. ‘What’s your name?’ he said.

‘Jack,’ the kid said.

‘Do me a favour, Jack? Find me a pair of binoculars. Meet me on deck?’

Jack reddened at the neck. Not from embarrassment, Danny perceived, but from pride at being included. He scurried away. Danny left the bridge and went to fetch the others.

There was not a cloud in the sky. It was the perfect weather for a day in the parks. They were busier than yesterday. The crowds made Hamoud more nervous than usual. They seemed to have the same effect on his children. They stayed closer and were less exuberant. Perhaps they were just tired.

Hamoud made a special effort. He shouted with mock glee as they sped round the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. He cooed and pointed as their sedate boat bobbed its way around It’s a Small World. He had his picture taken with a pirate, whose ar-harghs became less enthusiastic when he saw the real scar down Hamoud’s right eye. But whenever he knew his family was not looking, he was like a lighthouse, the beam of his gaze rotating in circles around him. What was he looking for? Another cartoon character taking his photograph? Familiar faces out of place? A brown-skinned man in an oversized baseball jacket whom he still simply could not place, no matter how hard he urged his brain?