Return Fire (Sam Archer ) (17 page)

THIRTY

‘In total, I was in the army for ten years,’ Bernhardt said, as the five other people inside the ARU interrogation cell listened closely. ‘Joined when I was twenty, left when I was thirty. Spent all of it with the Paras. Saw action all over the place, but I left six years ago after doing my stint. My choice, not theirs.’

‘Why’d you leave?’ Nikki asked.

‘At the time, I thought I wanted to do something else. The army lifestyle is unique, but it was starting to get old. I was sick of long tours, constant danger and not getting paid enough for any of it.’

He smiled.

‘But the grass is always greener, right? Soon after I left, I knew I’d made a big mistake. I hated civvy street and started going crazy without the action. Life out of the army was as boring for me as watching a game of chess.’

‘But you didn’t re-enlist?’ Marquez said.

‘No; I didn’t. I missed the adrenaline rush and my mates but I was enjoying my freedom. But there was a way I could have both.’

‘Let me guess,’ Archer said. ‘Private contracting.’

Bernhardt nodded. ‘Correct. After calling up some old contacts and letting them know I was looking for work, I was called in to meet with a private security company based in Essex named
Shields Security
. At the time they had contractors working all over the Middle East and were always looking for well-trained men like me. By then, the industry was booming too; the annual revenue of Brit security firms by that year was 1.8 billion pounds.’

‘That much?
’
Josh said.

Ber
nhardt nodded. ‘This was six years ago too, so the revenue has actually increased since then.’

‘Where was all this cash coming from?’ Josh asked.

‘Once Saddam was toppled and the war in Afghanistan gathered intensity, the entire region needed restructuring, as well as needing specific training for some of their military forces. There were also big, big companies either wanting to stake a claim somewhere in the country or get to work rebuilding it; whoever they were, they all needed protection on the ground. Pay men like me the right amount of money and we’d do any or all of those things.’

‘Mercenaries,’ Chalky said instinctively.

Bernhardt gave him a look.

‘No
t all of us like that word;
private contractors
is better. Without us, the US and UK forces couldn’t operate over there; we’ve been crucial in helping rebuild the region. Shit, a lot of contracts come from the American and British governments, seeing as ex-squaddies like me are cheaper to hire than the military.’

He smiled.

‘And if one of us gets killed, they don’t have to announce it on the six o’clock news. Anyway, after an initial assessment and interview,
Shields
offered me a role, and two weeks later I was working as armed protection for military convoys in Iraq. Wasn’t a bad gig and was much better paid than the army, but I soon realised I was working for the wrong people.’

‘Why?’ Archer asked.

‘
Shields
was sloppy and cut corners; God knows where our weapons came from, but they were shit. Old AK-47s that were unreliable, pistols that constantly jammed, insufficient amounts of ammunition. Some of the other guys they hired were hot-heads, actively looking for trouble. And in other firms, most newcomers to private security work are given specialised training, but I never got anything like that.
Shields
regarded it as too much of an expense and just relied on their employees’ past experience.’

‘But you were all ex-military,’ Chalky said. ‘This wasn’t your first dance. You already knew what you were doing.’

‘Private security contracting is defensive, not aggressive,’ Bernhardt said. ‘It’s a completely different mind-set; to do it right requires additional training. In the army, it was seek and destroy, but for contractors it’s protect your clients and get them to their destination as quickly and safely as possible. They get killed, you don’t get paid.’

He paused.

‘Anyway, once that first protection contract was up, I ended up joining another company where the work was much better paid and far more professional. In the next twelve months, I earned over a hundred grand, tax free.’

‘Pretty good,’ Marquez said.

‘Sounds a lot, but that was only a fraction of what we should have been paid considering the constant dangers we were exposed to. By that point I’d been doing it for eighteen months; the nature of the work means you get to know the guys you’re working with better than your own family, so after a while, a few of us decided to set up our own firm. There were eleven of us in total and we began operating by ourselves, using our inside knowledge to intercept contracts before they could be put out there for bigger firms to scoop up.’

‘Were you all Brits?’ Chalky asked.

He shook his head. ‘I was the only one. The rest were from all over; South Africa, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand. Two of the lads were from Afghanistan.’

He paused.

‘And your man Dash was one of them. In fact he was our leader.’

‘Tell us about him,’ Nikki said.

‘He’s an ex-ANA Commando. No wife, no kids. Tough bastard. He’d been in the Afghan army for a few years but had left like me and was looking to make some real money.’

‘Did you like him?’ Josh asked.

‘Yeah, I did. Until today, at least.’

‘His record is surprisingly clean,’ Nikki said.

‘He was good; very loyal. But fed up of not making any money.’

‘What about his background?’

He shrugged. ‘Aside from his army career, Dash never really talked about it. Said his father was dead, hadn’t seen his mother in years and had a brother somewhere, but that was about it.’

‘What kind of work did your new team do?’ Josh asked.

‘All sorts; some of it was more savoury than the rest. For the proper money, we were happy to do anything, neutralise or capture someone for interrogation. Shit, for the right amount of cash, we’d have gone after Bin Laden himself.’

He paused.

‘But then the beginning of last year came about, two and a half years into our operations.’

He paused, looking down at the burn scars covering his arms.

‘And that’s when the shit hit the fan.’

*

‘In February, seventeen months ago, we’d just closed out a contract on four mid-level members of a Hezbollah cell,’ he continued. ‘The op was smooth, and our extraction equally so. But that night once we returned to Kabul to celebrate, there were two guys waiting there for us that we hadn’t exactly expected to encounter.’

‘Who were they?’ Marquez asked.

‘A pair from the CIA. Yeah, that was my reaction,’ Bernhardt added, seeing the look on Josh’s face. ‘They were Americans in the Middle East looking for help, which kind of surprised us.’

‘Why?’ Marquez asked.

‘Ever since 9/11, your homeland hasn’t exactly been struggling for volunteers willing to pull a trigger. These guys had recently received some new intel and figured three prominent Al Qaeda figures were hiding out in a certain part of Kabul, laying low. Bin Laden was dead by that point but other members of the organisation were still out there and they were just as dangerous. A bit like the Hydra; cut off one head, two more appear.’

The group listened close.

‘The CIA wanted our team to help them out; we were men who knew the area, the players, the culture, not trigger-happy inexperienced recruits who’d never even left their own State before arriving in theatre. In the past, they’d bombed the living shit out of the caves trying to kill Bin Laden, but this time figured sending in a team like ours would be more beneficial. Local knowledge goes a long way in a conflict on enemy soil.’

He paused.

‘It was a smart move to approach us; we knew the area, were already tied up with the locals and had valuable connections; most of us could speak passable Arabic and some Pashto. US soldiers fresh from the homeland with a buzz-cut would never get anywhere near these guys. And the Agency made it very clear that it would be worth our while, and we figured they’d better, considering who we were going after. You know the deck of cards right?’

‘Of course,’ Archer said.

‘Fifty two cards, fifty two of the most wanted men from the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The three guys they figured were out there in the caves were three of the Royals of the deck. Big targets, big bounties, big retaliation expected from the enemy if they were killed.’

He paused.

‘They offered us seventy thousand dollars each and a cut of the bounty if we capped them off, so we went to work, doing what we could to find these bastards, talking to locals and slowly acquiring information. After a tip-off, we finally managed to pin down two of them, hiding out in a warren of caves in the countryside east of the capital. We geared up and moved in; there was a lot of money at stake.’

‘What happened?’ Archer asked.

‘We fired on the pair, but they took cover and retreated into the caves just as the sun was going down. Entering those bloody places is a nightmare. You’re in enemy territory and they know those caves better than you know your own house, so we decided to call it in. We’d still located and pinned them down, so we figured that had to be worth some gold.’

He paused.

‘We waited for a few hours, but never heard anything back. By then it had gone dark; we had a quick vote and decided to move in after them at first light to finish the job.’

He sighed.

‘Turned out the Agency had other ideas. At dawn, just as we’d started to make our approach we heard an aircraft high overhead. We stopped to look up, thinking it might be an enemy carrier, but it wasn’t.’

He blinked, stretching the translucent skin on his face.

‘Then it happened.’

‘What did?’ Archer asked.

‘They carpet bombed the entire hillside.’

THIRTY ONE

Silence followed.

Suddenly, the former soldier’s scars made a lot more sense.

‘Know what a daisy cutter is?’ he asked the group.

‘It’s a bomb,’ Marquez said quietly.

Bernhardt nodded. ‘The BLU-82b weapons system. A fifteen thousand pound incendiary used to create an instant clearing for a chopper to land. It was built to flatten forests and take out entire townships. One of the largest and most dangerous conventional weapons ever created, and I can testify to that.’

He licked his dry lips.

‘Twelve and a half thousand pounds of ammonium powder, aluminium and polystyrene slurry shit that needs to be dropped from six thousand feet above ground level for the pilots in the plane to be safe. Any lower, they’re in as much trouble as anyone on the ground below. And that was our reward for finding the two Taliban targets.’

‘Why the hell didn’t they warn you?’ Chalky asked, incredulous. ‘Get you to pull out?’

‘There was a lot of distrust back then, even with the American guys towards the Afghan boys who were on their side. They’d had some bad experiences with each other; suicide bombings once they’d infiltrated army bases, US soldiers fresh from Pendleton firing blue-on-blue and killing guys on their own side. The intelligence we’d acquired and radioed in was so valuable that I guess the importance of the targets outweighed their concern for us. Wasn’t the first time that kind of shit happened and won’t be the last. And as I said earlier, that’s why they hired men like us. Not only do we not make the headlines, but you also don’t have to tell Ma and Pa back home that you took me out to kill the enemy.’

He paused.

‘The US Army had already used the daisy-cutters to
knock off some Al Qaeda and Taliban bases, and they’d dropped them on Tora Bora a few years back when intel told them Bin Laden was hiding out there. And we were right there on that hillside when they let go of that next one.’

‘How did you survive?’ Josh asked.

‘It hit the top of the hill about two hundred yards from us. At that point, we were close to the entrance of one of the caves, but they were Taliban hideouts and not exactly a safe refuge. After the first blast, we didn’t have any choice and just made it inside one of the warrens before the fire hit. Even so we still got caught and the impact caused a collapse of rocks inside the cave. Killed five of the guys instantly, the rest of us trapped inside. Burned and now buried alive; hell of a way to go.’

Silence.

‘How did you get out?’ Archer asked.

‘I passed out and woke up some time later. The others were all dead; Dash and I were the only two left. We were both in so much agony that I can’t even begin to describe it; so bad that I wanted to pass out again
just so it would end. But I managed to drag myself over to the rocks blocking us in and packed them with our C4 and grenades. I pulled Dash back behind cover and blasted it. If it worked, we’d get out. If it caused another cave in, hopefully we’d die quickly.’

He paused.

‘The blast cleared a big enough gap for us to get through and we just made it out before the cave behind us totally collapsed. It was nightfall, but the hillside around us was still smouldering with parts of it on fire. We were both severely burned, most of our clothes gone, patches of what remained stuck to our flesh. We went as far as we could off the hillside but we didn’t make it far. The last thing I remember before passing out was knowing I was going to die.’

Silence.

‘However, I came to a few days later and was in a hospital. It turned out some locals on the Western forces’ side had found us and taken us to the doctor in the local town, who then transferred us to hospital in Kabul. They doped me up with a shitload of morphine so the next few weeks were a blur. Found out later over seventy per cent of my body was covered in burns.’

He paused to lift up his shirt. Just like his face, it was patchy, translucent and milky, all scar tissue. Even now it looked angry and painful, and that was after the wounds had healed as well as they were ever going to.

‘Word had spread around the place about who I was and what I’d been doing, so they continued to treat me,’ he said, lowering the garment. ‘After four months of skin grafts and constant pain, I was ready to be discharged. Once I left the hospital, I spent some time recovering out there, holed up in a hotel in the city. I’d already stowed away a large sum of money along with my passport at a bank in the city before I’d left for the job, so I used it to pay for everything and then book a flight home.’

He smiled.

‘Look a little different to the way I did when I left mind you. UK Border Control grilled me for over an hour seeing as I didn’t resemble my passport photo anymore.’

‘When did you get back?’ Josh asked.

‘Five months ago.’

‘But you have a house in Tottenham?’ Archer said.

‘Inherited from my grandmother. Was sitting there empty the whole time I was away.’

‘What about Dash?’ Chalky asked. ‘What happened to him?’

‘Two months into our treatment, I asked the nurse how he was doing. She said he’d left a few days earlier and no one knew where he’d gone. This was in April last year; until today, I hadn’t seen him since.’

And just like that, his story ended; it was followed by a period of silence as everyone absorbed what he’d just told them. The former soldier’s story had been hard to listen to, made more difficult by the graphic evidence on his face, arms and body.

Standing with his back to the mirrored wall, Archer looked at the ex-Para in the chair.

‘I’m sorry that happened to you,’ he said.

‘Join the club.’

‘You heard anything from Dash since you last saw him?’

‘Not a peep and I didn’t seek him out. I didn’t want anything to do with that world anymore.’

‘Well he’s reappeared, back on the radar,’ Archer said. ‘You saw him as clearly as I did.’

Bernhardt nodded. ‘Judging from what you told me, he must have realised you’d find his file and figured you’d pay me a visit. Guess he doesn’t want me talking to you and telling you about the past.’

He sighed.

‘Not that I know that much about him anyway. As I said, he always kept to himself.’

‘And now he’s got a new team after all your other guys were killed,’ Chalky said. ‘All ex-military, for sure.’

Bernhardt nodded. ‘After seeing them in action, I agree. Trained killers. I know the type; I used to be one of them.’

‘Do you think Dash could have switched sides?’ Marquez asked.

Bernhardt paused. ‘What; joined the Taliban?’

She nodded.

‘Maybe,’ he replied. ‘Experiencing the daisy cutter isn’t somet
hing that exactly endeared the US Army to us. But since he left the army, Dash wasn’t a guy who liked to be tied down to one organisation; I’d say he’s still doing contract work.’

‘What about you?’ Josh asked.

‘I’d had enough of conflict for one lifetime.’ He motioned at his arms and face, at the disfigured skin. ‘No adrenaline rush is worth this.’

He paused again. Across the room, Marquez shook her head and swore, frustrated.

‘So how the hell does this connect together?’ she said. ‘Did someone put a contract on Alice? And if so, why didn’t Dash just kill her at the villa when he had the chance? Why come after us?’

She saw the look on Bernhardt’s face.

‘What?’

He hesitated.

‘It might not be something you want to hear.’

‘Go on,’ Archer said quietly. ‘Speak.’

‘I know Dash. I know the kind of men he’ll have hired.’

He glanced at Archer.

‘But you’ve heard nothing from him? No ransom demands or threats?’

‘None. Just a series
of attacks.’

‘Then maybe she’s not the actual target; one of you is.’

The room suddenly went silent.

‘And if that’s so, I’d say it’s almost
a certainty that your colleague is already dead.’

At that moment nine miles south of the ARU HQ, Grange entered a UPS collection point with a package under his arm and a heavy black holdall slung over his shoulder, having come straight from the safe-house under fresh orders from Dash and their employer.

The place was closing very shortly, but there was no queue and he walked straight towards an open booth. There was a man sitting behind the desk and he smiled at the Canadian, who didn’t return it as he slid the square box onto the counter.

‘How can I help you sir?’ he asked.

‘A colleague of mine booked Express Delivery by phone earlier,’ Grange said. ‘As requested, she wants this parcel to be delivered by 9pm.’

‘Do you have the booking details?’

Grange gave them to the employee, who checked the computer.

‘That’s fine, sir. Please confirm the delivery address.’

‘The Armed Response Unit,’ he replied, the square brown parcel on the desk under his arm sealed tight. ‘It’s a police station across town.’