Four

Carter stepped out into the lamplit gloom of the street and headed north. A chill wind was whipping through the city, slashing at every inch of exposed skin and tugging at his leather jacket. He walked for several minutes down a broad leafy avenue lined with swanky new-build condominiums, financial investment firms and boutique shops, until he hit a busy main junction. Then he hooked a right and carried north on a three-lane main road.

Few at Hereford would mourn his departure, Carter knew.

The other Blades respected him for his fighting skills, but there was an element of jealousy mixed in with it. And hatred. Carter had poked a lot of colleagues in the eye over the years.

There were two sides to life in the Regiment. Soldiering was only half the job. There was a political side to the SAS as well. Some of the lads thrived not because of their achievements on the battlefield, but because they kept their heads down. They dodged the big missions, got their postgraduate qualifications, and steadily worked their way up the ladder.

Carter had been brilliant at fighting, but he’d never come to grips with the wider system in place at Hereford. For a born warrior, negotiating the politics of the unit had been like wading through mud. He’d lambasted operators who were more concerned with their next appointment than doing the job properly. Carter had been right, but his outspoken attitude had landed him in trouble on several occasions.

Despite everything, he still loved being part of the Regiment. The thought that it was going to be snatched away from him made his blood boil.

The SAS had saved Carter. He had misspent his youth in a bleak town in Northumberland, a place the rest of the country had left behind, and every poor fucker who lived there knew it. In that environment, you had to learn to look out for yourself from an early age.

Carter had never known his father. He’d been raised in a squalid council flat with his mother and stepfather, a violent drunk who spent most of his time pissing away what little cash they had at the nearby bookies. At school, he fought and flunked his exams. He was an angry kid, lost and full of inchoate rage.

He had always wanted to be part of a team, but he’d never given the army much consideration. Until one day he found himself waiting for a bus opposite the local army recruiting office. For reasons he couldn’t quite understand, he felt something drawing him to the place. Calling to him. The recruiter had given Carter the hard sell about life in the army. He’d talked about career opportunities, learning new skills and visiting far-flung countries.

But most of all, he had talked about the army as a family.

About being part of a team.

Soon after, Carter had joined the Parachute Regiment. He’d spent a couple of years in 2 Para before passing Pathfinder Selection, a common career progression for guys who were interested in one day applying for SAS Selection.

Now that chapter of his life was about to come to an end, he reflected bitterly.

Carter carried on for five hundred metres until he reached the British embassy.

From the outside, the place didn’t look much like a diplomatic station. It was a drab brick building, with tinted glass windows and a plain facade, situated on the corner of a busy intersection. The only hint of its true purpose was the Union Jack hanging limply from the flagpole mounted above the entrance.

The embassy operated a skeleton staff outside of regular business hours. There was one guy on duty at the front desk. A bored-looking Chilean with a pot belly, his chubby face lit up by the bluish glow of a TV screen. Carter was beginning to think there was something in the national diet. The guard buzzed him in through the main entrance and motioned for Carter to pass through the metal detector fronting the lobby. He made a quick call to someone, then returned to his TV show.

Carter waited.

Sixty seconds later, the lift doors sucked open. A grey-haired figure stepped out, swiped through the optical turnstile and marched purposefully over to Carter.

Peter Treadwell greeted Carter with a firm nod.

‘Jamie. Thanks for coming in,’ he said.

The tone was civil, but the look in his eyes was filthy.

Treadwell had the build of an ex-rugby player gone to seed. He was round-faced and puffy-eyed and carrying enough timber around the midriff to open a lumber yard. Too many hours sat behind a desk, presumably. Too much time guzzling champagne and grazing on canapés at official functions. But the narrowed green eyes were cold and hinted at a latent ruthlessness. Carter guessed you didn’t make military attaché unless you knew how to play the game.

Despite the late hour, Treadwell was smartly dressed in a crisp white shirt, plain grey trousers and tan leather brogues.

‘Before we go upstairs, I’d like to tell you something. You’re an absolute disgrace.’

Carter had nothing to say, so he stayed quiet. He didn’t want to get drawn into an argument with a guy whose day job involved nothing riskier than the odd paper cut.

‘You’re an embarrassment to this embassy, and to your own unit,’ Treadwell continued. ‘Personally, I’m disgusted by your behaviour. You should be ashamed of yourself. The sooner you’re out of here, the better.’

Carter still didn’t reply.

Treadwell shot him another sharp look, his features twisted with contempt. ‘Right. Come on. The others are waiting upstairs.’

He gave his back to Carter, walked briskly over to the turnstile and hovered his security pass against the reader. The gate swung open, and Carter followed him towards the lift. They rode the cab to the third floor, passed through a self-locking door and marched down a dull corridor, passing rows of darkened offices and glass-walled meeting rooms. At the far end they stopped in front of a solid unmarked door. Treadwell rapped his knuckles twice on the hardwood, waited a beat. Then he wrenched it open and gestured to Carter.

‘Inside,’ he said.

Carter swept into a grey-carpeted room, long and narrow and low-ceilinged, like a submarine, with ornate wall lights and wood panelling. A massive walnut conference table dominated the central area, enclosed by a dozen executive swivel chairs. There was a speaker phone in the middle of the table, a laptop. Plus a stainless-steel French press, ceramic coffee cups, bottles of water, a plate of stale croissants. An antique side table with a vase of fresh flowers. A flat-screen TV had been rigged up to the far wall. The walls were decorated with canvas artworks and photographs.

Carter had been in places like this before, on other jobs in other countries. This was a secure room, frequently swept for bugs. Somewhere embassy staff could hold extremely sensitive discussions without fear of anyone else listening in.

Four figures sat around the table. Two on the left, two on the right. All of them stared at Carter as he entered the room.

Langton was sitting on the nearest chair to the left, a look of silent fury drawn on his face.

Next to him was a guy Carter hadn’t seen before. A pale-faced man, balding, with a long, slender nose and slanted eyebrows that gave a look of faint disapproval. He was fifty, Carter guessed, or in that ballpark, and dressed in a plain dark suit so sharp you could have used it to slice open a watermelon.

Carter slid his gaze towards the two guys sitting on the right.

And froze.

The nearest man was lean and sinewy. His thick beard was peppered with grey, and his lips were stretched in a wide grin. He wore a grey T-shirt and a pair of dark jeans. A frayed baseball cap crowned his grizzled head. He had a tattoo of a bone frog clutching a trident on his right arm, the kind of thing SEALs wore to honour fallen comrades.

‘What’s up, chief?’ the guy said in a slow Kentucky accent. ‘Been a while.’

‘Mike.’ Carter jolted in surprise. ‘Fuck me, what are you doing here?’

Mike Mullins was with SEAL Team Six. Otherwise known as DEVGRU, for Development Group, or Task Force Blue, depending on who you were asking and when they had joined. American SF teams tended to have more names than an identity thief.

Carter and Mullins had worked together in the last years of the war in Afghanistan, as part of a joint task force comprising US and UK SF. The door-kicking team. They had been given the job of going out on raids, detaining terrorist suspects and gathering intelligence at lightning speed. Then getting back into the chopper and heading straight to the next target.

Counter-insurgency tactics on steroids.

The operations had helped to forge a close bond between the guys in the SAS and their counterparts in Delta Force and SEAL Team Six. The Tier One brotherhood. Carter had befriended a bunch of lads from those units. Including Mike Mullins.

Carter had got along well with the Kentuckian. They had both experienced difficult childhoods, had both had to overcome all the shit life can throw at a person. Mullins had told him his story one night over a few beers. He’d been raised by his grandparents in a bumfuck town outside of Louisville. His father had been in and out of jail, and his mother and aunts had become addicted to prescription painkillers. Industrial-strength meds. The whole town had been high at one time or another.

Mullins had been a hell-raiser in his youth, working in a tile factory and spending his downtime drinking, getting into bar fights and dabbling in drugs. Hanging out with the wrong crowd. Then one night, sitting in the county jail, he decided to turn his life around. He kicked the drugs, joined the navy. Mullins had spent a few years there before he’d passed SEAL Selection, then joined DEVGRU.

On the surface, Mullins came across as a laid-back whisky-guzzling country boy. But in truth he was a brilliant warfighter and a deep thinker, with a postgraduate degree in war studies. One of the best soldiers Carter had ever worked with.

‘Long time,’ Mullins was saying. ‘What has it been, chief? Three years?’

‘Something like that,’ Carter said.

Mullins waved a hand at the guy beside him. ‘You remember Bryan, right? From Afghan?’

‘Hey, bud,’ Ortega said.

Carter nodded a greeting at the second guy. Bryan Ortega was ex-Delta Force, he recalled. Otherwise known as CAG, for Combat Applications Group, or ‘The Unit’, or Task Force Green. Clearly there was some serious competition to be the most titled team in the US Special Forces community. Maybe there was a prize.

A hard-as-nails bloke from Phoenix, Arizona, Ortega was in his late thirties. He looked like the typical Delta operator, barrel-chested and muscular. The veins on his forearms were as thick as gas pipes. He was decked out in an olive-green shirt that barely stretched around his immense biceps, a pair of creased khaki trousers. His forearms were sleeved with gang tattoos. A large silver crucifix hung around his neck.

Carter didn’t know him very well, but he’d heard second-hand rumours about Ortega from Mullins and a few of the other American operators. His parents, it was said, had fled Colombia during the years of the narco wars. There had been stories that Bryan had been involved with a local gang in his youth. People with connections to the Mexican cartels. Ortega had narrowly escaped the life, but some of his relatives hadn’t been so fortunate. He was a serious, brooding guy, deeply religious. He never swore, said little, and mostly kept to himself on ops.

‘Look like you messed up your hand, bud,’ Ortega said. He grinned. ‘What, you think you’re Floyd Mayweather now?’

Carter looked down at his bruised right hand. The skin on his knuckles was torn and bloody. Collateral damage, from banging the general’s son in the face. He hadn’t even noticed at the time.

Treadwell stepped forward, indicating the balding guy in the sharp suit.

‘This is Tobias Proudlock,’ he said. ‘He’s from Vauxhall. Six’s man in DC these days. Quite new to the role, so you won’t have crossed paths before.’

Carter blinked and snapped out of his stupor. ‘What the fuck is this about?’

Treadwell said, ‘These three gentlemen would like a word with you.’

‘About what?’

‘That is something we would very much prefer to discuss in private,’ Proudlock, the balding guy in the suit, said in a cut-glass accent. ‘You know how it is.’

He smiled politely and turned towards Langton.

‘We’ll take it from here, Simon. Thanks.’

Langton took the hint, levered himself out of his chair with as much dignity as he could muster. ‘Yes. Well. I’ll leave you to it, then. Anything you need, let me know.’

‘We’ll be fine,’ Proudlock said.

Langton turned to Treadwell and nodded. The latter started for the door. Langton followed, then stopped in front of Carter and gave him the stink-eye. Carter could smell the wine on his breath.

‘Just so you know,’ he slurred, ‘I had already made the decision to get rid of you. On account of your outrageous conduct this evening. Whatever business you have here with these fellows, don’t think you’re off the hook. I’ll be filing a complaint with your superiors as soon as possible. I shall make my displeasure clear in the strongest possible terms.’

Carter shrugged. ‘Fill out your forms if it makes you happy.’

‘You don’t have anything to say for yourself?’ Langton snapped. ‘Not even an apology, for Chrissakes?’

‘No,’ Carter replied. ‘Because I’m not bloody sorry. I’ll be glad to be gone.’

‘That makes two of us.’

Langton snorted contemptuously before he marched out of the room. Treadwell followed them out and pulled the door discreetly shut behind him. Then Mullins smiled and said, ‘You seem to have pissed him off pretty good, chief.’

Carter said, ‘That’s nothing. You should see him when the embassy canteen runs out of foie gras.’

Mullins’s massive shoulders pumped like pistons as he started to laugh. Ortega soon joined in. Proudlock gave Carter a disapproving look and waved a hand at the chair Langton had just vacated.

‘Have a seat,’ he said. ‘Get you something? Coffee? Water?’

Carter shook his head. His head was still spinning.

Mullins, the thickset Kentuckian, grinned and said, ‘Chief, I’ll tell you something. You have an impeccable sense of timing. You’re one lucky motherfucker.’

‘That’s not how it looks from here, mate.’

Mullins laughed, took off his cap and scraped a hand through his mussed hair. Carter dropped into the empty chair opposite the Americans, his guts twisting into a knot.

‘You figured this was something to do with that jerk you beat up earlier. Right?’ Mullins asked, replacing his cap.

Carter shrugged. ‘It crossed my mind.’

Mullins laughed again. ‘Can’t say I blame you. Would have done the same thing myself. Honestly, it sounds like the dipshit deserved it. Beating the shit out of the kid in the general’s office, though. That takes some serious cojones.’ He shook his head and smiled. ‘I’ll say this. You Brits certainly do it in style.’

Carter said, ‘What are you lads doing here?’

Mullins uncrossed his legs and said, ‘Full disclosure. Since we’re all friends here. Bryan and I work for the Company these days. But then I guess you figured that out already.’

Carter stiffened.

The Company.

The CIA.

Which meant that Mullins and Ortega were ops officers with the Special Operations Group, the CIA’s elite paramilitary unit. SOG was a close-knit team of veteran ex-SEAL Team Six and Delta guys tasked with carrying out black ops on foreign soil. Doing the Company’s dirty work. The agency had hired a bunch of lads from the US SF community in recent years, either directly or as third-party contractors to create an extra layer of deniability.

Which prompted another question.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked, searching the faces of the two Americans facing him. ‘Why the fuck am I here?’

Mullins tipped his head at Proudlock. Giving the floor to the MI6 officer. Proudlock leaned forward and laced his hands in front of him. His silver cufflinks glinted sharply in the glow of the wall lights.

‘We’ve been sent down from Washington to brief you,’ he said. He shifted his weight and grimaced, like he had a serious case of piles. ‘Luckily for you, I might add. If we had got here a few hours later, you would have been on a flight back to London by now.’

‘That, ah, situation with the kid has been taken care of, by the way,’ Mullins said. The Kentucky native poured himself a cup of black coffee and proceeded to tip the contents of four sugar sachets into it. ‘The general won’t be pressing any charges. You’re in the clear, regardless of what your ambassador may think.’

Carter nodded slowly. He should have been elated. Two minutes ago, he had been facing the sack. The end of his life as a Blade. Now he was in the clear. But any sense of relief he felt was immediately tempered by the knowledge that the Company wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help him without wanting something in return.

Whatever they wanted, Carter figured it had to be better than the alternative.

Better than running a crap training package and taking shit from the Vargas family.

‘I’m listening,’ he said. ‘What’s the craic?’

There was a pause of silence while Proudlock produced a manila folder from a leather satchel beside his chair. Ortega sat with his thick arms folded across his chest, stared at a point on the table like he had a problem with it. Mullins tore open a fifth sachet of sugar and tipped it into his mug. Carter was beginning to think the guy had a problem.

Proudlock placed the folder down in front of him, flipped it open and looked up. Then he said, ‘What can you tell me about a chap called David Vann?’

‘Dave?’ Carter sat upright. ‘He’s ex-Regiment.’

‘You knew him personally, I understand. Chum of yours.’

‘Yes.’ Carter sighed between gritted teeth. ‘I knew Dave all right. He was one of the legends of the Regiment when I joined. He was my instructor on Selection.’

‘You served under him directly, correct?’

Carter nodded. ‘That’s right. When he came off Training Wing, he took over as my troop sergeant.’

‘Would you say you were close?’

Carter shrugged and said, ‘We were both Para Reg.’ He saw the blank look on Proudlock’s smooth face and added, ‘We both came from the Parachute Regiment before joining the SAS. We were both ex-Pathfinders.’

Proudlock furrowed his brow. ‘What has that got to do with anything?’

‘A lot of the guys who pass Selection come from Para Reg. They tend to form their own cliques at Hereford. Look at everyone else as a crap hat or a wanker.’

‘Did you?’

‘At first. There’s a mindset when you’re in the Paras.’ Carter tried to find the words to explain it to a civilian. ‘You can be a bit of an arsehole, but if you’re ex-Para, you’ll get away with it. The other Para lads will give you a break. Because of the loyalty to their old unit.’

‘So Vann looked out for you? He was a mentor, you might say?’

‘Yes.’

But there was more to it than that, Carter knew.

Vann had already been in the Regiment for several years when Carter had first joined D Squadron. Every lad at Hereford knew about Vann. He’d fought in Bosnia in the 1990s, Sierra Leone. Then Iraq, taking the fight to al-Qaeda and the insurgents lopping off the heads of Western hostages.

Vann had a reputation as a brilliant, occasionally reckless, soldier. One of the true hardcore operators. He was feared and respected by the other lads in equal measure.

Carter had looked up to Vann. Admired him.

And he’d saved Carter’s career.

Some of the guys in the SAS were guilty of slacking off once they made it through the rigours of Selection. Once you got that beige beret on your head, it was easy to fall into the trap of thinking you had reached the pinnacle of your army career. For a while, Carter had made the same mistake. Instead of knuckling down and learning how to fight, he had started to act as if he was the greatest fucking soldier in the history of the world.

For the first year he’d regularly gone out on the piss with the other lads who came from Para Reg, getting into scraps with the locals. He was on a path to destruction.

Then Vann had pulled him to one side after training one day. ‘Calm down, son,’ he’d told Carter in his Belfast brogue. ‘You’re in the SAS now. Know what that means?’

Carter had just looked at him.

‘You think you’ve hit the big time, right? But that’s a load of bollocks,’ Vann had continued. ‘All you’ve done is join another unit with better kit. That’s it. Now you’re gonna have to prove yourself every day, all over again. If you don’t, you’ll get fucking RTU’d.’

If anyone else had spoken to Carter that way, he wouldn’t have listened. But he respected Vann enough to realise that he was telling the truth. If Carter wanted a long-term career in the Regiment, he had to start looking after himself.

Learn how to live like a professional, Vann had said.

Take yourself seriously.

From that moment on, Carter had dedicated himself fully to life as an elite operator. But he never forgot Vann’s advice. Without his intervention, Carter would never have survived in the Regiment. He’d be back in Para Reg now, wondering what might have been.

He said, ‘What’s your interest in Dave?’

Mullins and Ortega looked knowingly at one another. Proudlock sat back and glanced at the Company men, waiting for them to take over. Mullins frowned at his palms for a long beat, as if he was trying to read his own fortune.

He lifted his gaze to Carter. ‘What we’re about to tell you goes no further than these four walls. It’s important you understand that. Soldier to soldier. OK?’

‘OK,’ Carter said warily.

Mullins sipped his sugar-plus-coffee and said, ‘For the past five months, Vann has been running an operation for us. Strictly off the books.’

‘What kind of operation?’

‘A training job,’ Ortega said. ‘In Afghanistan.’

‘Vann has been working with what’s left of the anti-Taliban forces,’ Proudlock explained. ‘The resistance movement.’

‘I’m surprised there’s anyone left. I thought the Taliban crushed most of them lot during the takeover.’

‘There’s a small group of holdouts,’ Mullins said. ‘Veteran mujahideen fighters, soldiers, plus a few disillusioned Taliban. They’re currently operating in the north-eastern pocket of the country, between the Panjshir Valley and the border with Tajikistan.’

‘Your old stomping ground, I believe,’ Proudlock interjected.

Carter gave a slight nod. ‘I was an embed in them parts for a while.’

‘This was . . .’ Proudlock consulted the file. ‘Between 2018 and 2019, I understand.’

‘That’s right.’

Afghanistan.

Carter had been embedded for eighteen long months with a Special Forces unit in the north of the country. The Regiment ‘embeds’ had been tasked with leading groups of elite Afghan soldiers on missions to gather intel and carry out attacks on Taliban positions. Acting independently of the coalition, they had sabotaged static targets, ambushed insurgent forces and neutralised heroin dealers. Taking out those enemies beyond the reach of conventional forces.

For a while, the operations had been devastatingly successful. But the stress of living in total isolation from his colleagues, dealing with the blood feuds and tribal rivalries, while waging a dirty war against the enemy, had eventually exacted a heavy toll on Carter.

He had returned from his rotation a changed man. As if he’d undergone a personality transplant. Something had broken during that long period of disconnect from the Regiment and the rigid structure of army life. He suddenly found he had no tolerance for the political bullshit at Hereford. For a man with no filter, that was a serious problem.

Eventually, the head shed had grown tired of Carter’s outspoken attitude. His CO had accused him of not being a team player and packed him off to Mali on a training posting.

Then he’d intervened in the terrorist attack in Bamako. Made himself an enemy for life with the British ambassador.

He snapped back to the present as Mullins continued the briefing. ‘The rebel fighters call themselves the National Alliance. They claim to be the legitimate government of Afghanistan and have vowed to fight the Taliban to the death. They’re led by a guy called Jabar Hakimi.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘You wouldn’t. He’s from the younger generation of Afghans. His older brother, Rashid, fought against the Taliban for several years before he was killed in a gun battle last year near Aybak. The Alliance elders promptly declared Jabar as the new leader. Before that he had served as one of the junior field commanders.’

Proudlock said, ‘Hakimi is something of an unknown quantity. But his brother was a brilliant leader, which buys him a certain amount of support. Rashid was politically astute, charismatic, moderate. A humble ascetic who inspired fervent devotion among his followers. Did his thesis at Durham. Wrote about the tactics of the Viet Cong. A rather interesting read, actually.’

‘You think his younger brother is up to the job?’ asked Carter.

‘He has the credentials,’ Proudlock replied confidently. ‘His brother’s name carries a lot of weight among the tribes. Jabar has some military experience, and he knows his men. He’s the horse we’re backing in this race. We’ve invested considerable resources in him.’

Something clicked inside Carter’s head. He suddenly understood why Six had agreed to run a deniable operation inside Afghanistan with the Company. Because Whitehall had staked its chips on Hakimi one day becoming an influential power broker in Afghanistan’s political landscape. A risky strategy, with no certainty of a favourable outcome. But worth a shot, given the potential upside.

Ortega said, ‘The rest of the rebel leadership fled the country after the latest Taliban offensive. They’re out of the picture. Which means Hakimi is basically the last man standing.’

Mullins swigged his coffee and said, ‘Shortly after the evacuations, we began supplying arms and equipment to the National Alliance. Small arms, mostly. A long-term project. As part of the arrangement, we agreed to send in a guy to teach the rebels how to use them. An outsider. Six recommended your buddy.’

Carter canted his head to one side. ‘Why send in Dave? Why not one of your own lads?’

‘We wanted a buffer. Orders from the very top, you understand. We were given the authorisation to equip the National Alliance, but on condition that nothing could be traced back to us. The commander-in-chief wanted clean hands on this one, in case of a clusterfuck. Which is why we brought you guys onto the team,’ he added, gesturing towards Proudlock.

‘I should point out that our involvement in this operation is strictly in an advisory capacity,’ the latter said. ‘We’ve facilitated the arrangement with Vann, but the financial muscle and logistics come from our cousins across the pond.’

Carter frowned and rubbed his stubbled jaw. ‘I don’t understand. What has any of this got to do with me?’

Mullins said, ‘Vann was in regular contact with us, using an encrypted satphone linked to a secure line at Langley. Bryan has been acting as his handler,’ he added, nodding at Ortega. ‘The deal was, Vann would file a sitrep once a week, or whenever he needed supplies. Or to report an engagement with the enemy.’

‘I know the drill,’ Carter replied irritably. ‘What’s the problem?’

Ortega said, ‘Six weeks ago, Vann went silent.’

Carter crinkled his brow. ‘Dave hasn’t sent back any more reports?’

‘Negatory, bud. We haven’t heard so much as a mouse fart from the guy. He’s off the grid.’

Mullins said, ‘We’ve been working with your people to try and find out what’s going on out there. But we’re short on reliable assets right now. Most of the local networks went underground after the Taliban takeover. Dismantled. We’ve got some contacts, but they’re low-level guys. They don’t have the right skill sets for a search operation. There was one potential candidate, but he was killed in a firefight a few days before the Taliban completed their takeover. So you see our problem, chief.’

Ortega said, ‘We’ve got a lone British operator somewhere in the north of the country, in the middle of a war zone, and no one has any clue what he’s doing or why.’

Carter said, ‘What do you want me to do about it?’

Mullins paused and looked him hard in the eye. ‘We want you to go into Afghanistan and locate Vann,’ he said. ‘Find out what has happened to him. Before the Taliban, or anyone else, gets to him first.’