The weather in the Gulf was more than a little warmer than back in England. Ryker certainly wouldn’t have enjoyed doing this in the British Channel or the North Sea at this time of year. The waters of the Gulf were calm with little nighttime breeze, although at their hefty speed in the highly powered inflatable dinghy, moist, salty air blasted against Ryker’s face and he was glad to have the protection of the tactical wet suit.
‘It’s a great city,’ the guy in the front of the dinghy said, looking out at the vast expanse of lights from the many skyscrapers of Dubai that clung to the shoreline. ‘You been before?’
‘Yeah,’ Ryker said.
His companion turned around, a quizzical look on his face as though he didn’t like the answer much. Companion? Not the best word, really. It suggested some sort of friendship and Ryker was already feeling like the two of them were far from compatible.
The man was Brock Van Der Vehn. South African. Six foot six and two hundred and fifty pounds of pure muscle and testosterone with a macho attitude to go with it. He looked like a rugby player or a gladiator. Probably more the latter, really, with the obvious scars on his arms, hands, face, and half an ear missing.
‘I love it,’ Brock said. ‘Dubai is a city where you can get whatever you want, whenever you want it.’
‘If you have the money,’ Ryker said.
Brock scoffed at that. But Ryker was cynical. Over recent years Dubai had become one of the most prosperous and most developed cities in the world. But to Ryker, it all felt a little fake. The fact was, for all its fancy buildings and luxury beach resorts and high-end shops and whatever else made it attractive to tourists and business people from all over, Dubai, the UAE as a whole, remained a place where rules and laws were heavily entrenched in religious ideals, and public freedoms were severely limited. Unless you were rich, of course. Rules and laws didn’t apply then. Which only made Ryker dislike the place all the more.
The city remained a couple of miles in front of them but they were only a few hundred yards from their destination, so Ryker slowed the motor and the boat’s front end dipped down as the craft crawled along at a much slower speed.
‘You done shit like this before?’ Brock asked.
‘Of course. You?’
‘Buddy, this is what I live for,’ he said with a wide grin.
Ryker had no response to that. Three days ago he’d asked Winter for a team of two others for this extraction. Winter had provided half of that. Van Der Vehn. He and Ryker hadn’t met until they’d arrived at the shore less than an hour ago. On the journey across the water so far Ryker had gleaned that Brock was ex-special forces but it seemed like he’d spent far longer, and his most recent years, as a mercenary. He went where he got paid to go.
‘You don’t talk much, do you?’ Brock said as Ryker turned the engine off and the boat bobbed along on the not-so-choppy waters.
‘We’re not here to chat. We’re here for a job.’
‘A risky, life or death job. I like to know who I’m working with, who’s got my back.’
Fair points.
‘I used to work in the intelligence services,’ Ryker said. ‘Most recently I’ve been freelance. Kind of like you.’
‘You think you’re like me?’ Brock said with a laugh. Ryker didn’t bother to ask what he meant by that.
‘How do you know Peter Winter?’ Ryker asked.
‘I don’t. All I know is he’s paying me.’
Ryker hid his scathing reaction to that. When he caught up with Winter…
‘What’s your favorite weapon?’ Brock asked as the two of them checked through the contents of their waterproof backpacks.
‘Weapon for what?’
‘What do you think? You like guns?’
‘They’re functional.’
Brock was looking more and more sullen.
‘My favorite weapon? Knives. Hell, I’m the best shot you’ve ever seen with any type of gun. Pistol, shotgun, rifle, sniper, I’m your guy. But guns are… too easy. Know what I mean?’
No. ‘Kind of.’
‘You killed before?’
‘What kind of a question is that?’
‘A simple one. Have you?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many?’
‘It’s irrelevant.’
Brock cackled. ‘I’m not so sure. It’s very relevant to me. And I know exactly how many. Twenty-five. Most of those were up close and personal.’
He said that with a wink and Ryker gave no response. The unfortunate fact was that he’d killed a lot more than twenty-five people, but he took no pride in that. Satisfaction? OK, he’d be lying if he said it hadn’t felt satisfying to dispose of some of the most despicable people. But not pride. He certainly never gloated about killing.
Brock finished looking through his bag and huffed as he slapped it down on the bench.
‘So we get nothing but a few darts and a fishing knife.’
‘Thought you liked knives.’
‘Yeah. I do. But I’d feel safer for something like this with at least one gun.’
‘We don’t need guns. This isn’t a kill mission.’
‘You don’t think the other guys will be armed?’
‘They probably will be. So just try not to get shot.’
Try not to get me shot was probably more apt.
Brock laughed again. ‘Doesn’t matter. I’ll use whatever I can to get the job done. You wanna know what the weirdest thing is I ever used to protect myself?’
Ryker didn’t really, but he also had to at least try and keep this guy on his side until the job was done. ‘What?’
‘A wooden spoon. You know, like what you use for stirring cake mixture and shit.’
Ryker smiled, but more because of Brock’s last few words. Shit stirrer. He definitely was one, Ryker felt. But the smile unfortunately only added to Brock’s animation.
‘Yeah. The deal was we were targeting this asshole trafficker. He’d been selling teenage girls. Taking them from refugee camps at the start of the Syrian war. Taking money from their parents, pretending he’d get them somewhere safe. Europe, wherever. And a lot of them did end up in Europe, but only so they could be passed around gangs. It’s sick. Really fucking sick, and I mean sick in the old sense of the word, not how kids use it.’
‘I understand,’ Ryker said.
‘Yeah, well, this guy… He had a mini army at his compound. Five of us. We stormed it at night. Popped them off, one after the other. Except we couldn’t find our guy. We searched high and low. I ended up in the basement where he had this huge industrial-style kitchen, all stainless-steel units, you know?’
‘I guess.’
‘You know where I found him? In the fucking walk-in freezer. I still don’t know if he put himself in there and got trapped or if his friends hid him there, expecting to go back. I could have left him to freeze, but we needed to clear out and I wanted to make sure he was finished. So I opened the door and he comes at me with a meat hook. I let rip with my Glock but he’s wired and I hit his Kevlar four times but he just keeps coming for me. The gun’s spent, I’m all out because we’ve already taken out fifteen other guys between us. So I toss the gun and go for the only thing I can reach.’
‘A wooden spoon.’
‘A wooden fucking spoon. Still in the mixing bowl with some shit or other all over it. Pancake batter, I don’t know. I slap him around the head a few times with it as we scuffle.’ Brock paused and laughed as though fondly reminiscing on the moment. ‘He’s got pancake mix all over his face, he’s screaming every obscenity at me, still trying to get at me even after I snap his arm in two and pretty much gouge out one of his eyes. We end up on the floor. And that wooden spoon… The handle ends up right through his other eye.’
Brock paused and deflated a little, as though the gravity of the harrowing situation had come back to him, something real above the unnecessarily jovial telling of the story.
‘So I’m lying on the floor panting, sweating.’ Somber now. ‘I’ve got a meat hook sticking out of my shoulder, blood everywhere. But I’m alive. Him, on the other hand – he’s lying next to me.’ Brock laughed again and his horribly upbeat manner returned. ‘And there’s this wooden spoon just sticking up in the air, out of his face, pancake batter still dripping down it.’
‘Resourceful,’ Ryker said, not really knowing what else he should say.
‘Damn right.’
‘But like I said, this mission isn’t about elimination. Right?’
‘Whatever you say, boss.’
‘We ready?’ Ryker asked.
‘Yeah.’
They both pulled on their backpacks, tightened the straps, then grabbed their goggles and mini oxygen tanks – the kind small enough to fit right underneath the mouthpiece. Brock tossed the weighted line into the water while Ryker took out his knife and plunged it into the side of the dinghy. He sheathed his knife and they both pushed themselves off the rapidly deflating craft.
They trod water for a few moments, watching their destroyed boat slowly disappear as they readied their diving equipment. Once the boat was fully submerged, Ryker gave Brock the OK signal and the two of them slipped under the water.