Ryan, Chris - Zero 22

He saw none of them. As they sat at a refreshment stall and guzzled Coke from enormous cups – a rare treat for them, of course – he maintained his surveillance under the guise of taking in the view. He saw children, some dragging their parents by the hand, others wilting in the heat. He saw adults, some of them so enormous that they required the use of mobility vehicles. He saw Walt Disney World staff, all tans and smiles. He saw characters clowning around with the visitors, animated despite the heat.

But he saw nothing suspicious.

Why, then, was the urge to scratch his sweaty palms so overpowering that he felt the need to cool them down on his Coke cup?

It was the face. The long, curious face that he recognised but could not identify. He was so close. But each time he thought he had it, it slipped away again. He felt like a drowning man grabbing at a life raft, only to find that the touch of his fingertips perpetually nudged it out of reach.

They finished their Cokes and the children, revived now, grabbed their parents’ hands and dragged them off to the next amusement, whatever that might be.

Danny, Bethany and the General stood on deck as the frigate docked. There were very few other crew members outside. Those that were, walked with purpose. They clearly had jobs to do and they paid the trio scant attention.

The docking was an impressive manoeuvre. The ocean churned all around them. There was spray and the vast grind of engines. But for all its bulk, the vessel moved with an almost delicate precision as it drew up to its berth alongside one of a long line of concrete piers. There was an aircraft carrier at the next berth. Beyond that, huge grey destroyers and a variety of supply vessels. As they docked, Danny watched the conning tower of a sleek, black diesel-electric sub break the water to the north-east. The activity wasn’t limited to the water. An aircraft of some description was circling in the distance. Closer by, three Seahawks were coming in to land. Beyond the pier was a huge area where at least 200 military vehicles were parked up. There were more vehicles moving along the pier itself: supply lorries mostly, but also armoured trucks and three buses. It was these that drew Danny’s attention as the frigate came to a halt by the pier and vast ship-to-shore mooring lines were thrown from the vessel. The buses were parked in a line. It was hard from a distance to judge accurately the space between them, but Danny estimated about twenty metres. In front of the leftmost bus was a tall post and it had something mounted on it. Danny could quite make it out, but he thought he knew what it was. Right then Jack appeared with the binoculars Danny had asked for. ‘Good man,’ Danny said. He took the binoculars. Jack stood a respectful distance of a few metres while Danny put the binoculars to his eyes.

NS Norfolk appeared through the lenses in greater detail. It was huge. A vast, flat area, dotted with hangers and runways and roads and accommodation blocks and all the infrastructure of a busy military base. Danny couldn’t see its boundaries. He adjusted the binoculars and focused in on the buses and the post in front of them.

The object mounted on the post was a camera, as Danny expected. Security would be high on a naval base like this. He doubted there would be airport-style facial recognition, but there would be some level of CCTV surveillance and he was seeing evidence of it now. He had no means of knowing whether his attempt to stage the General’s death back in the Roman ruins outside Amman had worked. He needed to plan for the worst-case scenario, and that meant avoiding all video surveillance if at all possible. He scrutinised the position and angle of the camera. It was pointing downwards and just to the right of the leftmost bus. The middle bus was likely in its field of view. Not the bus on the right.

Danny lowered the binoculars and turned to Jack. Gave the spotty rating his friendliest smile. ‘Do me a favour, bud,’ he said. He pointed in the direction of the buses. ‘You see those three buses?’

Jack nodded.

‘I’m guessing they’re to take crew members off site.’

Jack grinned. ‘Party time,’ he said. ‘We’ve been a long time at sea. They’ll be hitting the bars the moment they open. You joining them?’

‘Bit early for me,’ Danny said. ‘But you see the bus on the right? I need you to get a message to whoever’s in charge that we need to be on that bus, and once we’re off site the driver’s going to have to stop for us when I tell him to. Can you do that for me?’

It was almost comical, the way Jack nodded casually, as if this was something he did every day, then turned and almost sprinted back along the deck. Danny raised his binoculars again and monitored the activity on the pier. There was much to-ing and fro-ing. Military vehicles approached, and service lorries. Already there were people disembarking from the frigate. Danny focused in on them and saw a couple of official-looking US Navy men leading the four SBS guys to a vehicle. Just a quick word, no doubt, to confirm that their training exercise was just that. Danny knew he could rely on them to keep quiet about their extra tandem loads.

Jack was slightly out of breath when he returned. ‘This way, guys,’ he said, before remembering that Bethany was one of their group, and flushing a little. He led them below decks. There was much activity now. Sailors hurriedly squeezed their way through the narrow corridors, plainly eager to get off the frigate and paying Danny and the others almost no attention. Jack led them down into the noisy, dirty hull of the ship, where the grinding sound of the engines vibrated through their bodies. Here there was an exit, where a metal platform had been laid between ship and pier. A group of crew members had congregated here. They were full of boisterous good humour and although Danny and the others drew a few glances from them, they were clearly more concerned with their trip on to land than with this mismatched trio who had joined them. One guy stood slightly apart from the others. Jack went to talk to him, pointing out Danny, Bethany and the General. He nodded, made a quick head count and then divided the sailors into three groups, before indicating which bus each group should board. Danny, Bethany and the General were in the right one. Danny winked his thanks to Jack, who ballooned with pride, and then they walked down the platform and along the concrete pier towards the buses. The trio walked in the middle of their group, heads down. The bus’s engine was already turning over when they reached it, an impatient and rather sweaty driver sitting at the wheel flicking through his phone. Danny took a seat next to Bethany. The General sat in the seat in front, next to a sailor who obviously had no idea who he was and was more interested in talking excitedly to the guy across the aisle from him. The bus filled up quickly. The doors hissed shut. There was room enough on the enormous pier for the bus’s wide turning circle. It trundled away from the frigate and made its way towards the exit of Naval Station Norfolk.

It was a fifteen-minute drive around a perimeter road that passed inlets on the left and the outskirts of the huge naval station infrastructure on the right. This was just a blur in Danny’s peripheral vision. He kept his eyes forward, head slightly down, avoiding any interaction with the other passengers.

They reached an exit – a lowered barrier manned by several US Navy personnel. The bus came to a halt. The doors hissed open again and Danny felt a lurch of anxiety. ‘What’s happening?’ Bethany whispered.

Danny stopped himself from peering down the aisle to check. His mind turned over. Had the SBS guys messed up? Did the Yanks have some way of knowing that the four-man drop wasn’t what it seemed? Getting out of this naval station ought to be straightforward. Had they hit an obstacle? Danny felt hemmed in. The bus offered only a single exit. Even if they managed to get off, leaving the naval base when it was on a security lockdown was a whole other proposition . . .