54

They returned to camp shortly after midday. Black let the others eat and brew coffee before laying out his plan of attack. It was simple and direct: create maximum chaos and confusion and move unseen among it. The risks were considerable but no higher, he assured them, than those on many other similar operations he and Finn had nailed, like the time they rescued five British and US hostages from an al-Shabaab enclosure in the Somali desert, leaving more than one hundred dead and as many wounded.

He was expecting resistance but Riley and Fallon listened with the impassive yet resolute expressions of men about to take their fight to the enemy. When he had finished talking, he looked into their eyes for signs of doubt. They stared straight back at him with almost unnerving calm.

‘Are we agreed?’

They nodded.

Then Fallon smiled, breaking the sombre mood. ‘What did you expect, boss? It’s not like we signed up for the Girl Guides.’

They laughed harder than the joke deserved.

They agreed to make their move at midnight when the Sabre mercenaries would be at their most tired and ineffectual. The early afternoon was spent checking and preparing kit. Everything they needed would be carried in four webbing pouches worn across their bodies: ammunition, grenades, plastic explosives and detonators, goggles, radios and GPS units. Before launching their assault, they would make their way around to the south of the camp and stow their packs and machetes at a position set back from the road half a mile out from the gates. This would also serve as their default rendezvous point. If all went as they hoped, they would be making their escape driving the only functioning vehicle remaining in the compound. If not, they would be forced to improvise. In combat, spontaneity and instinct were every bit as important as meticulous preparation.

From four o’clock onwards they rested. Black took the first watch and was relieved by Riley two hours later.

Six hours to go.

Black lay silent in his hammock as darkness fell. Several feet behind him, separated by a thicket of bamboo, Fallon lay in his own hammock breathing with the slow and steady rhythm of a man who had fallen deeply asleep. When the last of the light had vanished, Black pulled on his goggles and scanned the surrounding area. He saw Riley standing ten yards away, facing out, composed and still. For a moment Black doubted himself. Was he imagining things? Had Finn’s death cast him into a state of irrationality and paranoia? Perhaps Freddy Towers had had nothing to do with the transfer of a genocidal criminal in his custody into the hands of a private army? Perhaps it had been a freak, unfortunate coincidence that Towers had arranged for Finn to act as bodyguard for Dr Sarah Bellman only to be killed by the same people he had fled from months before?

He turned the possibilities over and over in his mind and each time came back to the same conclusion: the only coincidence, if it could be called that, was that Kathleen had turned to him to identify Finn’s body. For Towers it had proved an unbelievable stroke of luck, a gift that he had grasped with both hands.

There was another explanation, of course, offered in the words of the young Classics student, Sam Wright, who had spoken to him in the hours before Kathleen’s phone call: Events unfold only because they’re heading towards an inevitable conclusion.

Black thought of the bullets he had dodged, the explosions he had avoided by seconds, the two dozen times he should have returned home in a box. By any objective measure he had far outlived anything that chance could explain. He was the flipped coin that had come to rest on its edge.

It was a consolation of sorts. If his fate was sealed and his destiny set, nothing barring the collapse of the eternal laws of the universe would alter the fact.

Keep going and take what comes.

Try to survive.

It was all he knew.

He slipped silently from his hammock.

Black watched from dense cover twenty yards out from their camp as Riley made his way back towards Fallon. It was a minute before eight. Even at this short distance the beat of the jungle night drowned out the sound of his footsteps and the brief exchange of words between the two men. Through his goggles Black watched Fallon climb out from his hammock and reach for his own goggles and rifle only to find that neither were where he had left them. He said something to Riley, who turned, his body language betraying alarm.

Black spoke into the headset mic of the intercom stowed in his webbing. His voice was transmitted to Riley’s unit, which Black had placed in the undergrowth next to Fallon’s hammock.

‘Listen up.’ He watched both of them turn to the source of his voice. ‘Do exactly as I say or I shoot, understood? Stay where you are. Chris, take off your goggles, drop your rifle. I won’t tell you twice.’

Black waited. Riley stiffened but did as he was told. The two of them were now standing by Fallon’s hammock, staring out blindly into the night.

‘Pistols on the deck.’

This time there was a longer pause as they weighed the risks, then decided to comply.

‘Thank you. I apologize for the circumstances of this conversation, but I’m afraid I’ve no choice. These are the rules: lie to me and I shoot, tell the truth and you live.’ He watched them straining to see through the darkness, hoping against hope they could locate him and scatter. But there was only the faintest moonlight. Barely enough to see a hand at arm’s length.

‘Ed. You first. You’ll answer clearly, directly and fully. Understood?’

‘Boss.’

‘State the full extent of your orders from Colonel Towers.’

Fallon took a breath. A moment to collect his thoughts. ‘To accompany you on the mission. To sabotage and disable the Sabre base. To eliminate as many Sabre personnel as possible, especially senior officers and staff. And if circumstances allow, to extract hostages.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘No, boss.’

‘Why did you agree to accompany an ex-officer you had never worked with before?’

‘Just obeying orders, boss.’

‘I thought you volunteered.’

‘We were asked, boss. You don’t say no.’

‘How much is Colonel Towers paying you?’

‘Nothing, boss.’

‘How much?’

Fallon hesitated. One second. Two.

Black lined the sights of his M&P with his forehead and fired. The suppressor reduced the noise of the shot to a click no louder than a door catch. Fallon dropped – his knees folding beneath him – and lay still.

Riley froze, his body rigid and paralysed with fear.

‘You’ve got a wife and child at home, Chris. I’d like you to see them again. That’s why I didn’t want to tempt you to lie. How much is Colonel Towers paying you to be here?’

‘Thirty thousand, boss.’

‘In exchange for what?’

‘To achieve the objectives Ed stated –’ he paused to swallow – ‘and to make sure you didn’t come home.’

‘Were you given a reason for killing me?’

‘He said you were a dirty soldier, boss. That you were heading for court and would smear the Regiment.’

‘Did he specify my alleged crimes?’

‘He said you killed women and children. Tortured prisoners. Cut off their fingers and raped them. He said there was a dossier that the Iraqis had compiled. Your name was top of the list. He wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of putting you on trial.’

‘When were you planning to kill me?’

There was a short pause.

‘After the op.’

Black took a moment to weigh his options and hoped Riley was doing the same.

‘OK. We have a challenge. I want you to think very carefully before you answer, Chris. Can we find a way to work together, to get the job done and both get home alive?’

‘Yes, boss.’

Black pulled the trigger.

It was a lie.

Whatever. However.

It was binary.

Live or die.