Zero 22, p.29
Zero 22, page 29
part #8 of Danny Black Series
Danny didn’t care who had checked. There was no way he’d use a chute without giving it the once-over himself. He checked the packing and the strapping and, once he was completely satisfied all was as it should be, he put the rig on his back. He unplugged his recharged phone and put it in the waterproof pouch with his Sig.
They had forty-five minutes to kill before the jump. Danny and the others took seats along the sides of the aircraft. The time passed quickly. A loadie gave them the signal and he walked over to Bethany. ‘You ready?’ he shouted over the engine noise.
She smiled at him. The brittleness had suddenly gone. She seemed softer. It made him wary. ‘This is getting to be a habit,’ she said.
‘Different to last time,’ Danny said. ‘A lower jump. No oxygen. But we still have to fall stable. You remember what to do?’
‘I’m a fast learner.’ They moved further to the back of the aircraft before clipping themselves together. Parker and the General were waiting for them by the tailgate. The remaining three SBS guys were packing up gear at the front of the plane, but they soon joined them. Lewis and Emerson clipped themselves together, while Gordon remained solo. Seven people. Four radar splashes. The Yanks would have no idea that this seemingly routine training jump was actually a covert op.
The tailgate opened. They had flown west with the sun, so it was a morning light that entered the C-17. There was a brisk, biting chill as the cold air entered the plane, and the external noise of the jets doubled in volume, making it impossible to speak. The Atlantic stretched out to a hazy horizon. There was no sign of any ships below and that figured: the guys planning the drop would have made sure the DZ was out of view of shipping, in case anybody noticed that three of the chutes were carrying personnel in tandem. The loadie by the red jump light held up five fingers and then, two minutes later, three. The parachutists positioned themselves according to Parker’s previous instructions. The tandem team of Lewis and Emerson to the left of the tailgate, with Danny and Bethany close behind them. Gordon to the right, with Parker and the General behind him.
The jump light turned green. Lewis, Emerson and Gordon fell from the C-17 out into the clear air. Danny, Bethany, Parker and the General followed close behind. The sound of the aircraft instantly disappeared, replaced by the rush of wind as they accelerated through the air towards the Atlantic, which sped up to meet them. Danny saw, in the distance, the dot of a ship and he knew that must be the frigate. But he kept his main focus on Lewis and Emerson and, when they deployed their chute, he deployed his just seconds later. The rush of air dissipated. The chute flapped open above them and then they were drifting. Danny used the steering toggles to follow Lewis and Emerson’s path. He could feel a wind blowing from the south. Lewis and Emerson turned into it. Danny did the same.
He had performed freefall jumps into water not nearly so often as onto land. Maybe six or seven times in his whole career, and never operationally. He knew, however, that one of the greatest dangers was cutting away too early. In the past, the SOP had been to cut the chute away when the parachutist was a couple of feet above sea level, but distances over water could be deceptive and Danny had heard of guys cutting away a hundred feet too soon. Not a good idea, especially in a tandem rig. Nowadays, the trick was to cut away as soon as your feet hit the water. So, as well as concentrating on Lewis and Emerson’s position, he focused on the ocean. The glint of morning sunlight on the surface. The curling flash of an occasional white horse. He estimated that he and Bethany were separated from the SBS guys by a hundred feet of altitude. He saw them cut away as they hit the water. ‘Get ready,’ he told Bethany. ‘Remember what they said about not inhaling.’
Bethany didn’t reply, but he could feel her chest expand as she drew a breath and held it.
Thirty feet.
Ten.
Five.
Water.
Danny yanked the cutaway handle at his shoulder. He felt the chute separate from his body.
The cold was no less shocking for being expected. The silence no less sinister. Even though he was prepared for the darkness and the sense of disorientation that naturally accompanied a sudden submerging, he had to work hard to prevent the instinctive panic. He was good at it. Bethany, still attached to him, wasn’t. As they plunged deeper, he felt her flailing with panic. She wasn’t dealing with the sensory overload. He could tell that she was trying to find the inflating cord on her life vest but she couldn’t work out where it was, and was desperately grabbing different bits of her apparatus. Danny was experiencing the overload of his senses too, but his muscle memory kicked in and he yanked the inflating cord on his own life vest. He felt the pressure of the vest against his abdomen, but it wasn’t immediately sufficient to stop their downward momentum. He opened his eyes. Bethany was little more than a shadow in the underwater gloom. She was fumbling for her own inflating cord, unable to find it. He stretched out one arm, located it immediately, and tugged.
The second life vest made the difference. They rose towards the surface. The gloom dissipated. Seconds later, they broke through the water into the open air. They both inhaled deeply, and it felt as though Danny’s ears were inhaling the sound of the ocean too. The SBS guys had predicted a calm sea state, but there was a noticeable swell that blocked his view not only of the horizon but also of his immediate surroundings. He couldn’t see the frigate. He couldn’t see the SBS guys. He couldn’t even see the cut-away chute.
‘You’re okay!’ he shouted. ‘We’re safe.’ She replied with a nod. Danny noticed that she was shivering as she gasped for air and he felt protective. ‘I’ve got you,’ he told her. ‘Move your limbs. Arms and legs. Do it.’
She started treading water and Danny copied her movements so they were bobbing in sync. The current turned them and the swell raised them, and Danny saw their chute and its lines just a couple of metres away from them. They kicked away from it.
And then Lewis and Emerson were there, appearing as if from nowhere. They had unclipped themselves from their tandem harness and had obviously donned their fins because they were cutting speedily through a mound of swell. Emerson reached them first and helped them unclip from each other. Lewis moved close to Bethany, ready to help her if she got into trouble. Danny caught sight of her face for the first time since the jump. Her skin was very pale, her blonde hair plastered to her cheek. She looked vulnerable, bobbing in the vastness of the Atlantic. And although Lewis stuck close, it was Danny she looked to.
He could feel his own body temperature dropping and was relieved to hear the approaching buzz of an engine. It grew louder very quickly and, as the swell raised him again, he saw a large black RIB approaching. Beyond it he caught a glimpse of the frigate, grey and immobile in the distance. Then the RIB was alongside them. A coxswain leaned over the side, shouting at them to board. Danny kicked his way to the RIB and remained in the water as the other guys helped Bethany. He clambered over the side. The RIB only had one other crew member at the wheel. He followed the coxswain’s instruction to sit behind him next to Bethany. He could almost sense the relief coming off her.
It only took a couple more minutes to collect the others. The General looked in pretty good shape for an older guy. He swam powerfully towards the RIB and barely needed any help boarding. Then they were speeding back towards the frigate, bouncing on the waves, spray everywhere, the air a mixture of salt and fuel fumes. Apart from the Royal Navy vessel, the ocean was deserted in all directions. Their insertion into American waters might have registered as a radar splash, but he was confident that no American eyes had witnessed it. He couldn’t help noticing, though, how the General scanned the horizon constantly, as though searching for some unseen watcher.
They were travelling against the current, so it took longer than Danny expected to reach the frigate. Maybe fifteen minutes later its vast hull loomed above them, and the ocean itself seemed to shake with the rumble of its idling engines. Overhead, a crane jutted out over the deck railings. It supported a heavy winch, which lowered a set of ropes and carabiners down to the bobbing RIB. The SBS guys fastened the ropes to anchoring points on the RIB, and in seconds they were hauled aloft. Danny saw Bethany gripping her seat so hard that her knuckles turned white. The SBS guys almost looked bored, this manoeuvre was so routine for them.
The crane lowered them on to the deck. A man stood there to greet them. He was dressed in blue naval uniform, and wore a full black beard, flecked with grey. His eyes were sharp and blue, and he spoke cheerfully with the remnants of a Liverpudlian accent that sounded out of place here in the middle of the ocean. ‘I’m Captain Mitchell,’ he announced, ‘and you’re very welcome aboard.’
Danny stood and shook hands with him. ‘How long till we dock.’
‘Four hours?’ He seemed to notice Danny’s frustration. ‘Sooner if possible. I’ve a got a boat full of men and women who’ve been at sea for several weeks and we’ve just delayed their arrival into Norfolk by eight hours. I’ll be honest with you. They’re getting thirsty.’
With a twinkling smile, the captain turned and led them along the deck.
TWENTY-TWO
The chef at the breakfast bar made the children pancakes shaped like Mickey Mouse’s head and flecked with chocolate drops. They stared at their breakfast in awe, as if unable to process that something so extravagant and delicious could be theirs to eat. Rabia nursed a bowl of fruit and a glass of orange juice and fondly watched the kids take their first bites and close their eyes in ecstasy as they chewed.
Hamoud had nothing but a small cup of strong coffee. He wasn’t hungry but he was tired. He hadn’t slept.
The dining room was very large but only half full. Perhaps a hundred people, half of them children, none of them sitting anywhere near Hamoud and his family. A young child had pointed at his scar and started crying. His parents had hurried him along to another table much further away.
Disney characters, in their huge, colourful costumes, were moving from table to table. There was Baloo, the bear, pretending to steal a young boy’s chocolate milk. There was Cinderella, white gloves up to her elbows, gracefully curtseying at a table of wide-eyed girls. Chip ’n’ Dale were messing around at the far end of the restaurant. They had frightened a baby in a high chair and were putting their hands to their mouths in false alarm.
Hamoud was sweating. He was scratching his palms under the table. He was looking from character to character and he realised he was searching for Goofy. For the Goofy who had taken his picture yesterday.
Or had he?
‘Is everything alright, my love?’
His wife put one hand on his and he smiled in return and took a sip of coffee. There was no Goofy. None of the characters were paying him or his family the least attention. He was about to point at Chip ’n’ Dale because he knew their antics would make her laugh, when something caught his eye. It was a security camera, positioned over the entrance to the restaurant and angled so that it was pointing directly at Hamoud’s family.
A surge of panic rose in his chest and he fought to control it. He shut his eyes. In an instant he was elsewhere. He was sitting alone in a foul cell, cross-legged on the floor, a tray of food that only a starving person would countenance eating. A camera above the door, pointing at him. The flashback was sharp. Vivid. He could see every streak on the concrete walls and every tiny dot of rodent droppings on the floor. He could smell the toilet in the corner and taste his thirst. He could hear the footsteps of the guard outside.
And then he opened his eyes and was back in the restaurant, his family staring at him as he continued to scratch his palms under the table.
‘My love?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I think I have an upset stomach. I’m going to the washroom. Shall I see you up in the room?’
The children were munching again. Rabia squeezed his hand. ‘See you up there,’ she said.
Hamoud left the restaurant. The elevator that would take him back up to his room was straight ahead. The reception desk was to his right. He stood for a moment, contemplating the two. He looked over his shoulder to check that his wife couldn’t see him. She was out of view. He walked up to the reception desk. There was a small line and he had to wait a couple of minutes to be seen. Long, sweaty minutes. His mouth was dry and his palms itched. He forced himself not to scratch them because that would make him look even more nervous than he already did. He had never tried anything like this before.
‘May I help you, sir?’
The woman behind the desk was plump, with bleached hair scraped tightly back. She smiled, of course, but it was the fixed, forced smile that Hamoud recognised so well. The smile of a prejudiced American attempting to hide their true feelings. Her eyes kept flickering to his scar, and Hamoud could tell that she was making unfavourable judgements without even talking to him.
‘I’m very sorry,’ Hamoud said, keeping his voice low so that the person behind him in the line would not overhear, ‘but I’ve lost my key card. May I have another?’
‘What room number would that be, sir?’
He hesitated before delivering his lie, then cursed himself for hesitating, and so he stuttered and had to repeat himself. ‘Room 297,’ he said.
He knew he’d blown it the moment the words were out of his mouth. The receptionist couldn’t hide her suspicion. She typed at the terminal in front of her and said, ‘I’m sorry, sir. The guest in Room 297 checked out this morning.’
‘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.’
