Ryan, Chris - Zero 22

‘You don’t,’ Sturrock said. ‘Turgenev is very far from being our principal target.’

Danny remained stony faced. ‘Speak for yourself,’ he said. ‘How did the Wagner Group know we were coming?’

‘Does the name General Frank O’Brien mean anything to you?’ Attwood said.

‘Rings a bell,’ Danny said.

‘He’s American. Five-star general. Popular with the men, thorn in the side of the guy in the Oval Office.’ Attwood glanced at the other two men in the room. Danny could tell he was about to deliver some sensitive information. ‘It’s obvious that the Russians received information about your movements from someone with inside knowledge. The CIA believe that person is O’Brien.’

Danny did not think he could dislike Sturrock any more, but at that moment the spook proved him wrong. A self-satisfied smirk crossed Sturrock’s face. Danny wanted to grab him by the throat, pin him to the wall and ask him exactly why he found the death of thirteen Regiment men so amusing.

He restrained himself. He just said: ‘Something funny?’

‘You wouldn’t understand,’ said Sturrock. The three men stared at him. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘For the Americans to have a Russian mole at that level is a matter of extreme embarrassment to them. You wouldn’t understand if you didn’t work in the service. Back in the fifties, Kim Philby was our principal liaison with the Americans. He was exposed as a Russian spy. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the CIA have been holding that episode over our heads for the past seventy years.’

‘They should get a life.’

‘Administrations have long memories, Black. MI6 has an ill-deserved reputation for being leaky. But a five-star general passing operational information to the Russians? That’s bigger than Philby. For all we know, O’Brien’s been sharing classified information for the past two decades. Our transatlantic cousins are eating some humble pie just at the moment.’

‘How do you know it’s him?’ Danny said.

‘It’s him,’ Sturrock replied, as if that ended the matter.

‘The Yanks have shared their intel with us,’ Attwood said. ‘Look, if they hadn’t withdrawn from Syria, it would have been them picking those Kurds up from the prison. Truth is, we were extracting those guys at the Americans’ request, so there were elements in the American military who knew what you were doing that night. O’Brien was one of them.’ Attwood picked up a tablet from the table in front of him. ‘Three nights before the Zero 22 operation, O’Brien was in Crete on holiday. He was staying in a hotel outside Chania. Turns out there was another guest there by the name of Dmitri Poliakov. Poliakov is a known FSB agent.’ Attwood held up the tablet and showed Danny a picture. It looked like a still from a CCTV camera and showed two men sitting at a bar. One of them was well built, with a straw Trilby hat and a tropical shirt. He had a flamboyant cocktail in front him. The other was much skinnier, with short dark hair and a sober sleeveless shirt. He wore dark sunglasses and his lips were pursed. In front of him was a small coffee cup. ‘O’Brien and Poliakov having a cosy little chinwag.’

‘And let’s be clear,’ said Sturrock. ‘They weren’t discussing the temperature of the pool.’

‘We know what they were discussing?’ said Danny in a tone of disbelief.

Attwood looked at him. ‘It’s a fairly busy bar. Lots of smartphones around. You don’t need me to tell you that the CIA have ways of remotely accessing data on these devices. Video snippets intended for social media. Voice assistant recordings. They’ve managed to piece together bits of their conversation. It’s not the whole thing, not by any means. Just a patchwork really. But it’s enough. They supplied us with the recording. This is the transcript.’

He handed Danny a piece of paper, stamped TOP SECRET.

O’BRIEN: . . . we shouldn’t be seen together . . . blow everything apart . . .

POLIAKOV: . . . I need to know that you mean what you say . . .

O’BRIEN: You don’t need to worry about that . . .

. . .

O’BRIEN: . . . fourteen men . . . night-time raid . . . Zero 22 . . .

. . .

POLIAKOV: This is the biggest operation we’ve worked on. We need to be careful we don’t make a mistake.

O’BRIEN: I need to be careful nobody points the finger at me . . .

Danny let the paper drop to the table. He felt sick. ‘You have this on tape?’ he said.

They nodded.

‘Where’s the General now?’ Danny asked quietly.

The three men shared another glance. ‘We’ll come to that, Danny,’ said the CO. ‘You want some water or something?’

Danny shook his head. Water was the last thing he wanted. Sturrock cleared his throat. ‘Clearly,’ he announced, ‘something needs to be done about O’Brien.’

‘Something involving a nine-millimetre round and his skull,’ Danny said. ‘Delta will deal with it like that.’ He clicked his fingers.

Sturrock gave another bland smile. ‘There are good reasons for keeping Delta Force well clear of this,’ he said. ‘Like I said, General O’Brien is popular with the men. Particularly with the special forces. Fights their corner when the liberals start making noises about war crimes. Sending in an American SF force to deal with him would be high risk.’

‘They’d do what they have to do,’ Danny said.

‘Forgive me, Black, but you yourself are walking proof that special forces operators are not entirely averse to going off-piste.’ He raised a sarcastic eyebrow.

‘The Yanks have passed it over to us,’ Atwood said. ‘They’re dressing it up as a favour, giving us the chance to hit back at the guy responsible for our boys’ deaths. It’s bullshit, of course. O’Brien’s a big problem for them, but they want to keep the solution at arm’s length. Ordinarily, we’d leave them to clean up their own mess. But the PM’s been informed of the situation and he doesn’t see it that way. Politically, it suits him to do the Yanks a favour. Brexit and all that. When a big US–UK trade deal’s on offer, it helps grease the wheels if we can remind them how we helped out with their little problem.’

‘We don’t need to worry about the politics,’ said the CO. ‘Frank O’Brien as good as killed thirteen of our guys, Danny. Nobody gets away with doing that.’

‘You want me to nail him?’ Danny asked.

There was a moment of silence.

‘We want you to help someone do it,’ the CO said.

‘I think I’ve got the skillset.’

Attwood gave a bleak smile. ‘No doubt,’ he said.

‘So why don’t I just do it.’ The thought of avenging his mates was a comforting one.

‘That’s one possible plan,’ said Attwood. ‘But there are several reasons why it might need a little . . . tweaking.’

‘Like what?’

‘O’Brien’s not easy to get to.’

Danny pointed at the transcript on the table. ‘Poliakov managed it.’

‘Of course. But that meeting would have been set up by the General himself. In the normal course of events, he has a ring of steel around him. Bodyguards wherever he goes. Special forces, mostly. And especially in the next few days. He’s attending a summit in Jordan, laying down the basis for a peace deal between the Turks and the Kurds. O’Brien’s the main event. Like we told you, he’s a popular fellow, very charming, very diplomatic. He’s well liked by certain elements high up in the Turkish administration, and the Kurds trust him. If he’s there, the warring parties will at least come to the table.’

‘You want to take him out in the middle of a peace conference?’