Assassin (John Stratton) (17 page)

‘Victor, Victor, this is Solas, do you copy?’ the voice asked again.

Stratton went for it, in his best American accent, and could only pray that it was even close to what it was supposed to be. ‘Victor’s good,’ he said.

‘You fallin’ asleep, Victor?’

‘Bad earpiece,’ Stratton replied.

‘Copy that,’ the controller said. ‘This is a general standby. Looks like we’ve had a positive read. Remote interdiction will commence within five. Out.’

A man left the lead vehicle and headed along the track in Stratton’s direction. He pulled his gas mask over his face as he went to the far canister and crouched by it.

‘All stations, this is Solas. Commence lockdown,’ the
controller said over the radio. ‘I repeat, all stations lockdown.’

Stratton didn’t need to guess its meaning. He went back to the body, removed the gas mask from its pouch and pulled it on.

Back at the road the man initiated the furthest canister from the trucks and went to the next one to repeat the process. In less than a minute every canister, a dozen of them, had been activated. A loud hissing sound filled the air and a jet of vapour issued from every canister, rising up in an increasingly broad cone shape for several metres before bending under the influence of the breeze. The smoke dispersed into the darkness. Stratton leaned out of the bushes to get a better look at the activity around the vehicles. The group of men were still standing there.

The canisters steamed away for a couple of minutes. It suddenly occurred to Stratton that he might be missing an opportunity. For what, he was not sure. But his instincts urged him to go with the flow. All of them were in full NBC suits that included gloves, hoods and of course, gas masks. They were all identical. He quickly went back to the sentry, the sound of his movements now masked by the hissing canisters. He unbuckled the webbing and rolled the man from one side to the other to remove his jacket. By the time he had the suit off the canisters were almost out.

As he pulled on the suit he was aware of a different sound. A gentle voice. He paused to listen. It was distant. He suddenly realised it was coming from the earpiece that had fallen from his ear.

He shoved it back in, in time to hear his call-sign being called.

‘Victor here,’ he said in a low voice.

‘You need to fix that earpiece,’ the voice said. ‘Stand by. The teams’ll be moving in one minute.’

‘Copy that.’

Stratton tightened the hood around his gas mask and pulled on the webbing, weapons and ammunition, clipping the radio into a webbing strap. As he got to his feet and took a deep breath, he was reminded how much he hated gas masks. He moved to the track and looked at the Suburbans. The gas canisters had reduced to a fizz. He was just in time. The men were heading along the track away from him and he hurried to catch up.

As he went past the three Suburbans, he glanced in the centre one at the two men still inside. There was no one else about. The track took a sharp turn to the right. He guessed the gas would have gone along it at that point. He saw men up ahead and slowed as he reached them. He wanted to remain in the rear. Beyond them were lights and a high mud wall. The men at the front approached a pair of metal gates.

It looked like a pretty big compound.

The lead group didn’t appear to care how much noise they made pulling the gates apart. Time seemed to be the factor. The team entered the compound and Stratton slowed so as not to get too close to the men immediately in front of him. No one looked back. They were all focused ahead and anxious to get into the compound. They had good reason not to care about their backs.

Stratton walked through the open gates after the rest of the team. A chain with a large padlock attached lay on the ground. The men were heading up the central path to the far end, past homes on either side. They seemed to know exactly where they wanted to go. As he walked across the compound, he saw an animal lying on the ground on its side. When he got closer, he realised it was a goat. Its eyes were open and its tongue hung from its mouth as froth bubbled out. Another goat was lying in the same condition a few feet away.

Stratton crouched to inspect it, putting a hand on its chest. The animal was dead. He looked further along the track and saw a man lying still against a wall. Stratton went
over to him. He had wide-open eyes and slime oozing out of his mouth, just like the goats.

Stratton stepped to the nearest mud house, which had a light on, and he looked in through the window at a man seated at a dining table. A kerosene lamp in front of him lit his dead face on the table, his arms hanging limp by his side. Beyond him two children lay on a bed as though asleep. Stratton looked away.

He continued up the path past bodies on the ground to the biggest house in the compound. He could see the head and shoulders of a figure on the roof, slumped over the parapet in what appeared to be a gun emplacement. The front door of the house was open. The team were all inside.

Stratton understood the rationale of using gas. The compound was heavily guarded. A surprise attack, even with silent weapons, would be a risk if the guards were vigilant. But that was not enough of a reason to use a gas like the one that had been used here. It could only be warranted if those in the compound had the capability to react in dangerous ways if aware of an attack. But then, gas would never be used if there was a chance of killing innocent civilians. That could only happen if the risks were immediately life-threatening on another scale.

Stratton had a good idea what was inside the building.

Two of the men walked up behind him. He kept still, hoping they’d pass by. One of them patted him on the shoulder. ‘Inside,’ the man said, his voice muffled by the gas mask.

The soldier moved ahead to enter the house and the other waited for Stratton to let him go in. He was silent. Stratton walked through the front door and followed the first into a large, nearly empty living room. Dim electric lights bathed everything in an orange glow.

Two bodies lay on the floor, one a young boy, the other a man with a greying beard. Their eyes were open and saliva streamed from their mouths. Stratton looked to his left at another body slumped in a chair by the window. This one was well-dressed and wore a silk cravat. Stratton wondered how strong the gas was and how far it could travel before dispersing to a safe concentration. It had been virulent enough to be immediately effective at two to three hundred metres just filtering into these houses. That suggested it could remain potent for several hundred metres more at least. He wondered how many more innocent people had died. But then, if he’d guessed right about why the men were here, many more would have died anyway.

The man who had ordered him into the house stood on the other side of the room with several of the others around a large wooden table. He appeared to be the operation leader and was examining a substantial black plastic container on the table. He raised the lid of the container and, with the help of one of the other men, opened the sides.

Stratton got a glimpse of what looked like a beer keg connected to a smaller black box beside it with cables. He had never been that close to an atomic weapon before. One of the men, presumably a technician, set about unscrewing
the panel. Everyone else waited patiently. The technician carefully raised up the panel flap to expose the shiny innards. A small keypad and a row of glowing LEDs indicated power.

Stratton looked behind him at the sound of wheels moving across the floor and stepped clear of a trolley being pushed by two more of the team. It had a more sophisticated-looking black plastic box on it. The technician took the ends of the cable attached to the black box on the trolley, brought it to the table and connected it to the nuclear device. He removed an electrical cable from a wall socket that was connected to the now-surplus small power box on the table.

The technician closed the panel on the bomb and set about returning the screws. When he was finished he nodded to the head man.

‘Let’s transfer it to the support habitat,’ the man said.

Stratton couldn’t be sure, but he thought he recognised the voice.

Four of the men surrounded the box on the table and reached inside to take hold of the device. Someone gave a command and they lifted it out of the box, grunting as they raised it off the table and shuffled it over to the trolley.

‘Easy,’ the commander said.

They lowered it down into the new box. It fitted like a glove. The men closed and latched the box tight, as the head man headed across the lounge and out through the door. The trolley followed him. The others walked behind as if in attendance and Stratton joined them.

The group went slowly back to the Suburbans and the
box was lifted into the back and the technician gave it a cursory inspection before latching it to the floor of the car. The doors of the vehicle closed and the men began to disperse. A man who wasn’t wearing a gas mask stepped from the centre vehicle, walked up to the leader, who was talking to another of the men, and tapped him on the shoulder. The leader turned, then reached for the bottom of his own mask and raised it up over his head.

It was Jeff Wheeland. He rubbed his face and took a cigar from a pouch.

The man he was talking to removed his mask. Spinter.

‘You can take your mask off, son,’ Wheeland said to Stratton.

Stratton reached for his mask, turned away at the same time as he took it off and walked away along the track. He heard a voice over his radio and put in the earpiece.

‘All stations, close in. Copy,’ the voice said.

He waited until the other sentries had replied before he did the same. He had to get going. He stepped off the track into the bushes and quickly found the dead man, as he had left him. There was nothing he could do about it. They would either search for him or not. It was possible, in the darkness, he might not be accounted for. They would be anxious to get back with their prize. Even if they did notice he was missing, they would hardly risk the bomb to search for him.

Stratton dropped the gas mask but kept the weaponry and collected his clothes. He left cover and crossed the patch of open ground to find the bike. He stuffed his
Afghan clothes up under his webbing, slung the carbine on its strap over his head and carried the bike through the gap in the wall and down onto the track and got going.

Ideally, he’d like to follow them into the base and see where they went, but he would have little chance of keeping up. He’d just have to hope his intuition was right: they’d go back to the black Globemaster and get the bomb on board as soon as possible. He glanced back, wondering if they were searching for the missing sentry. It would confuse the hell out of them if they found the body, his clothes removed, weapons and webbing gone.

The track straightened up ahead. He could see lights from houses and traffic on the main Bagram–Kabul road. He looked back again and saw lights moving through the trees. Buildings appeared on both sides of the track and the main road loomed up ahead. Left went towards Kabul. Right to the air base.

He took station in the shadows of one of the buildings and watched a couple of massive fuel trucks rumble past on their way to the base, their engines growling loudly. All in all he was feeling relieved. Betregard must have learned of the bomb and confirmed or shared the information with his Russian friends. The arming codes had been captured to reduce the risk and to delay General Mahuba and give the Americans time to find and secure the bomb. It would probably be taken back to Bagram and flown to Langley, Virginia, where it would be made safe. And no doubt used as a bargaining chip in the dealings with Pakistan. Stratton could understand them keeping it all
secret for political reasons. A lot of people, in many countries, would have been totally unnerved by the idea of a suicide atomic bomber on the loose. To the intelligence community it would completely alter the perception of Pakistan’s role in the world, even after the bomb had been successfully retrieved. It was best all round that it was not public knowledge. As it turned out, Betregard had done a good job. Reluctantly, he had to say the same for Wheeland.

Stratton decided there and then not to bother trying to witness the bomb going onto the plane. There was no point in taking the risk of exposing himself. Wheeland would for sure have a concern about his missing sentry, and Stratton didn’t want him making any kind of connection to him. First of all, he would never be able to explain what he had been doing in Afghanistan. And second, he would probably face court-martial. He’d call his buddy in the SEALs when he got back to the base and had disposed of the NBC suit and weaponry, and secure himself a flight back to the UK asap. With luck he could be back home by the end of the following day.

It felt good to, once again, think of a pleasant Mediterranean beach somewhere, a quiet café, gentle waves. He could practically taste the seafood already.

He still had Chandos’s death to deal with. It remained unexplained. Perhaps the reason would become clear at a later date.

The lead black Suburban glided into the junction, the other two close behind it. They stopped at the crossroads to let a lumbering fuel truck pass by, heading towards the
base, and then pulled left onto the main drag one after the other.

Heading south, not north.

In the direction of Kabul, not in the direction of Bagram.

Stratton’s first thought was that perhaps they were taking another way into the base. It had several other entrances for sure. The Suburbans would have to take a circuitous route several kilometres long to get to them. Which was why it made no sense. The main checkpoint was in a straight line less than a kilometre away. A clear and secure road. Surely they needed to take the quickest and safest route to the camp. The fuel trucks had been heading that way without a pause, which indicated no roadblock or traffic jam. Perhaps Wheeland had been warned of something else. A threat that had forced them to use another checkpoint.

Stratton stepped out from cover and ran up onto the tarmac to watch the tail lights of the Suburbans head away. A fuel truck spewing out filthy fumes as it went past him towards the base briefly blocked his view. He stepped off the road as another heading for Kabul came towards him. An empty one. It slowed to negotiate the junction and presented Stratton with an opportunity he had to take. He couldn’t exactly say what drove him to do it but he ran at the fuel truck as it accelerated past and grabbed the fixed ladder at the back, pulling himself up a couple of rungs. He got his feet on a lower rung and climbed onto the top of the tanker and hung onto the handles of the hatch.