Meltdown (3 page)

SAS training area near
Hereford, England

They used to call them the 'killing houses', but back
in the 1990s, when the press picked up on the term,
the Regiment had decided to become politically
correct. Now they were known simply by the
official name, CQB houses.

At first sight the training area looked like a
bizarre cross between a small but deserted town
and a war zone. There were houses and blocks of
red-brick flats alongside parked aircraft and a
variety of vehicles. It all appeared bleak, abandoned
and haphazard, but everything had a very specific
purpose.

Fergus had wanted Danny to get specialist training
and he was getting it. Like a non-swimmer
thrown in at the deep end, Danny's only options
were to sink or swim, and he was swimming – or at
least keeping his head above water. It was tough,
but it was meant to be. The Regiment had a saying:
Train hard; fight easy. Train easy; fight hard – and die.

Danny's eighteenth birthday had come and gone
while they were in Canada, and as far as Fergus was
concerned, as his grandson was now part of a professional
team, his build-up had to be as hard and
tough as any SAS trooper's.

So the instructors were taking little heed of
Danny's age and inexperience. They had a job to do
and they were doing it. If Danny didn't come up to
the mark, it wouldn't be down to them.

Fergus wasn't even around to oversee Danny's
progress. He was up in Manchester working on
phase two of Operation Meltdown; the phase one
newspaper campaign had already taken place, with
the predicted mass-media interest.

Meanwhile, Danny was at Hereford with the two
other members of the task force. Their cover story
was that they were working for Fergus's security
consultancy company, and Fergus had insisted that
at least one member of the team must have genuine
experience of working for such a set-up.

Phil Reddington was ex-Regiment. He was ten
years younger than Fergus but their paths had
crossed many times. Fergus rated him, and that was
a good enough reference for Dudley. He had not
been difficult to poach from his employers, a private
military company, once Fergus had mentioned the
fee for the one-off job. He could always go back
when it was over; the best guys were always in
demand.

He had been working in Baghdad, guarding VIPs,
for the best part of two years, watching the locals
rip themselves apart as most of the country
continued its downward spiral towards total
anarchy, with the coalition forces helpless to do anything
but dodge the bullets and pick up the pieces.
Sometimes it was innocent bystanders, sometimes
insurgents, and sometimes – the worst times for
guys like Phil – it was friends. Guys like him.

But Phil didn't trouble himself too much with
politics, or deciding on the rights and wrongs of
situations; usually he was too busy making sure
he stayed alive. And getting on with his job. His
attitude to life was 'never explain and never
complain'. He kept himself to himself, but Fergus
liked that.

Dudley had recommended the fourth member of
the team, even though Fergus had the final word on
selection. His name was Leroy Simmons, and at just
twenty-five he was already highly regarded in the
Security Service. Fergus had met him, grilled him
and recognized quickly that Dudley's assessment
was correct. He was in; the team was complete.

Now Phil, Leroy and Danny were being put
through their paces in Hereford.

Phil had little to learn – he could probably have
taught most of the instructors a thing or two – but it
was important that the three got to know and trust
each other, and the best way to achieve this was to
train together, working as a team. Fergus also
wanted Phil there to keep a watchful eye on Danny
and, to a lesser extent, on Leroy, who was being
taught weapon-handling drills he'd never learned
with MI5.

The ten-day build-up was now virtually over,
and Danny was knackered, physically, mentally and
even emotionally. There was so much to take in. But
he'd not only hugely increased his personal fitness
levels; he'd also been fast-tracked through both
standard and advanced driving courses, and
improved his street craft and trade craft, which
Fergus had spent more than a year trying to drum
into him.

There had been MOE work, where Danny had
learned how to covertly break into locations so that
he could carry out close target recces.

And there had been extensive weapons training:
if Danny was old enough to carry a weapon, he was
old enough to use it. And there was no point in him
learning how to handle a weapon unless he was
willing and able to pull the trigger – to save his own
life, or someone else's. He had to accept that if ever
he pointed a weapon at someone, he had to shoot to
kill. So 'Show your hands or I will shoot' could
never be merely a threat. If he said it, he had to
mean it.

He'd become familiar with a comprehensive
range of weaponry, ranging from the latest 9mm
pistols and 5.56mm assault rifles to the sort of stuff
used by street gangs – revolvers and shotguns.

Now Danny was embarking on a final day of
tests. He was holding a 9mm Sig semi-automatic
pistol. The weapon already had a familiar feel in his
hands, and so far he had acquitted himself well on
the ranges and in various exercises.

But this task was going to be very different from
anything he'd done before. He was about to burst
into a room and take on a number of life-size
cut-out x-rays with rapid double taps to the head.

Danny had learned new words as well as the
skills that went with them.
X-rays
were the enemy
while
yankees
were those on his own side. He was
already familiar with the term 'the third party' from
his time with Fergus. The third party was Joe or
Josephine Public – anyone who was unaware of
what was going on around them on the streets.
These code words were used by the SAS to make
information sent over the radio net easier to
understand.

As far as this exercise was concerned, Danny
would know if the rounds had hit the x-rays
because each one had a red inflated balloon filled
with red chalk dust pinned to the head.

It sounded simple enough, but there was an
added complication. Amongst the targets was a real
person: Phil Reddington was sitting on a chair
somewhere in the room. And on top of that, Danny
had no advance knowledge of where the x-rays
would be sited. They might be directly in front of
Phil or just inches to the side.

Phil's life was literally in Danny's hands.

The Regiment uses such exercises to build confidence
and trust, and as Danny waited for the
order from his instructor to go, he was desperately
hoping that Phil's apparent confidence in him
would not be misplaced.

The burly SAS instructor looked at Danny closely.
'Remember, always head shots.'

Danny nodded.

'No good nodding, son. I want to know why.'

'Because the x-rays could be wearing body
armour.'

'Correct. Anyone can get hold of it these days.
And not only that: if you come up against someone
high on drugs, it might take three or four double
taps to the body before the stupid bastard realizes
he's dead.'

Danny smiled thinly at the even thinner joke.
He'd got used to the very particular brand of
humour that ran through the place. The guys here
were being trained in the art of killing, and the
terrible jokes and camaraderie helped them all to
keep a sense of sanity as they went about their
deadly business.

'A double tap to the head will make sure they
drop like liquid,' added the instructor as he poked
Danny's head twice with an index finger. He
nodded at the closed door. 'Your mate's in there.
Make sure he's still your mate when it's all over.' He
moved back a little, ready to give the order to begin.
'Stand by! Stand by!'

Danny braced himself and held the pistol in both
hands.

'Go!'

Danny sucked in a breath, raised his right foot
and kicked open the door; with his pistol in the
aim and both eyes open wide so as to assimilate as
much information as possible, he ran into the room,
taking in the immediate threat as he entered.

There were two x-rays to the left, one two metres
away, the other further. He double tapped the
closest one, the main threat, and the weapon's
report thudded in his ears as the walls bounced
back the short, sharp, high-velocity sounds. The
balloon exploded and sent red dust into the air as
Danny kept moving forward, his eyes already fixed
on the head of the next x-ray.

Danny's mind went into slow motion, even
though he knew he was operating quickly. The
target became blurry: both his eyes were focusing
on the pistol's foresight as it lined up on a female
x-ray's head. With only the front pad of his finger
on the trigger he squeezed off a double tap, short
and sharp, and the balloon disintegrated in a cloud
of red dust.

His head flicked right. A figure was sitting behind
a table. Beyond that was another. He saw a flash of
red on the first figure and kept focused on it, turning
his body and weapon towards the target,
bringing it in line with the head as he raised the
weapon into the aim. The target went blurry as he
focused once again on the foresight and tightened
the pressure on the trigger.

But something was wrong. The red was on the
target's chest, not the head. It had to be Phil!

Danny kept moving forward towards the target
behind Phil.

'Get down! Down!'

He needed a clear shot. Phil dropped to the floor
as commanded, and Danny double tapped the final
x-ray about seven metres away from him. His first
shots missed, and he kept double tapping and
moving towards the target until red dust exploded
into the room.

The instructor stopped the exercise. 'Stop!
Unload!'

It was over. It had taken no longer than ten
seconds. Danny's heart was thumping as the
adrenalin pumped through his body. He could feel
his fingers trembling slightly on the trigger of the
Sig as he squeezed off the action after unloading.
His ears were ringing as they struggled to cope with
the high-velocity noise he had created.

Phil Reddington got up, looking completely
untroubled apart from the red chalk-dust that
covered his hair. It was as though he'd sat through
nothing more threatening than a thunderstorm. But
Phil was old school; he gave little away. His focus
was on the next part of his job, which was to debrief
Danny.

'Not bad,' he said with a shrug. 'But you took too
many rounds to drop that fella behind me, didn't
you?'

Danny nodded. 'Yeah. Yeah, sorry.'

Phil indicated the chair. 'Take a seat, son,' he said
with a smile. 'It's your turn now.'

*

Danny and Lee, as Leroy preferred to be known, got
on well from the outset, which was good news
because they were going to be operating as partners
for much of the time. And Danny was glad that one
member of the team was a lot closer to his own age.

Now they were sitting together in a vehicle on a
firing range. Their objective was to carry out an
anti-ambush drill, with Danny at the wheel of the
Audi A4 and Lee in the passenger seat.

Danny had proved to be an instinctive and fearless
driver, without being reckless, which at the
speeds he'd been travelling would soon have
proved fatal. He'd advanced smoothly from the
basics of cockpit drills and getting the most from
the vehicle by the use of the gears, through to intensive
high-speed work and then offensive and
defensive driving, which was carried out on the
firing ranges.

The high-speed work took place on the roads
between Hereford and Bristol – everything from
country lanes to forest tracks, dual carriageways,
motorway, and the city of Bristol itself.

Now Danny was ready for his final test.

He was far from what anyone in the Regiment
would describe as the finished article, but there was
no more time. He'd had a couple of run-ins with
Phil Reddington, who was almost as hard a
taskmaster as his grandfather – maybe that was one
of the reasons why Fergus had wanted him on the
team.

Danny sat behind the wheel of the A4 as they
prepared to go. Lee's MP5 was in the footwell,
covered by a coat, just as it would have been if they
were out on the street. The automatic machine gun
was an excellent car weapon. Its collapsible butt
made concealment easy, but the 9mm high-powered
rounds could easily rip through a vehicle
windscreen.

Lee looked at Danny. 'You ready then?'

Danny pulled his seat belt across his body, but he
didn't click it home. On operations, they didn't
wear seat belts because of the time it took to
unbuckle them. Even SAS troops under fire have
forgotten to unbuckle themselves, losing precious
seconds in getting out of a vehicle to take on the
enemy.

That was why Danny and Lee had Velcro glued to
the buckle and holder. The seat belt had to look as if
it were being worn correctly so that they blended in
with the third party.

Danny secured the belt and nodded. 'Yep.'

He pressed the send button on the gear stick and
spoke into the concealed microphone on the
dashboard.

That's Delta One mobile.'

Danny shoved the gear stick into first and got his
foot down; soon he was doing seventy mph along
the narrow track, cutting through the woods
towards the range. The trees on either side became
a green blur, and when Danny took it over a rise, the
A4 flew into the air, the engine roaring. Lee pushed
his feet into the footwell to support himself as they
touched down again and the range came into view
about half a mile away.

Danny hit the gear stick pressel, taking a sharp
bend as the track cut across fields.