Bad Soldier: Danny Black Thriller 4 (6 page)

Danny spoke into the radio. ‘Santa acquired, repeat, Santa acquired. Keep ’em coming.’

‘
Roger that
,’ Tony said, with the satisfied sound of a soldier whose op was going according to plan.

It took fifteen minutes to clear the rest of the deck. By now there were at least a hundred migrants in the holding area, but they were still one target down. ‘
We’re going to start emptying the hull
,’ Tony said over the radio. ‘
It’s mostly kids down there. If we spot Rudolph, we’ll send him over first.
’

‘Best idea you’ve had all day,’ Danny said under his breath. Over the side of the ship, he could see that Spud had lowered a ladder into the hull. He was standing by it, while a couple of kids scrambled up. Spud helped them over the top, then pointed them in the direction of Tony, who was standing by the larger ladder that scaled the side of the
Enterprise
.

‘They’re just children,’ Caitlin muttered. ‘They shouldn’t be doing this.’

Danny agreed. He spoke into his radio. ‘Let’s just isolate the kids on the
Ocean Star
,’ he said. ‘We don’t need to make them climb up here.’

‘
Negative
,’ came Tony’s voice. ‘
Everybody leaves the boat. That’s an order.
’ He looked up as he spoke. Across the difference in height, and through the rain and the darkness, Danny caught Tony’s scowl. It was full of contempt. And glancing at Caitlin, he saw an aggrieved look on her face as she stared down at her boyfriend.

The migrant kids were pitifully terrified as they scrambled, soaked, thin and dirty, over the railings of the
Enterprise
. Caitlin’s face was unreadable as she gently helped them on to the ship and sent them to stand, shivering, in the isolation area. They were in a shit state. Shivering, emaciated, badly clothed. Half of them didn’t even have shoes, and Danny could see that many of them were limping. As one of the limping kids passed him, Danny grabbed hold of him and checked out his feet. They hardly looked human – swollen in some places, practically rotting away in others. If they weren’t already infected, they would be very soon. Without medicine, the kid would likely be dead in a few weeks. The child looked up at Danny, obviously very frightened. Danny winked at him and tried to look encouraging as he pointed the kid in the direction of the isolation zone.

As Danny counted more of the kids on to the ship – twenty, twenty-five – his loathing for whoever had crammed them like sardines into that small boat intensified. But then he told himself to stay detached. He was here to do a job, not to right wrongs . . .

‘
We’ve got an adult down here.
’ Spud was speaking quietly, and there was an edge of tension to his voice.

Caitlin was carefully manoeuvring the twenty-sixth kid over. Danny looked down towards the
Ocean Star
. Spud was helping a hooded figure up from the hull. He had allowed his weapon to fall across his chest, obviously aware that Tony had his rifle engaged and was aiming it towards them, just in case the hooded migrant should get any stupid ideas.

Everything happened so quickly.

It was immediately obvious to Danny that Tony was about to fire. In a split second, he recognised the positioning of his body . . . the way he set his frame against the recoil of his weapon . . . the tiny adjustment he made to his aim as he prepared to release a round . . .

Danny’s eyes flickered towards Spud and the hooded target. The target had his head bowed and was just staggering off the hull ladder on to the deck of
Ocean Star
. There was no sign of a weapon, or any threatening behaviour.

Spud was a metre behind him, and fractionally to his left.

And Danny knew, instinctively, that Tony was aiming not at the hooded migrant, but at Spud.

‘
HIT THE FLOOR! HIT THE FLOOR!
’ Danny barked over his radio.

Spud’s reaction was immediate. He dived heavily towards the wooden deck of the boat at the same instant that a shot rang out. Danny saw a muzzle flash from Tony’s rifle, then a second spark as the round ricocheted off a railing at the stern. It took a full second for the hooded migrant – whose reactions were not so keen as Spud’s – to hit the ground. By which time, Danny was shouting into his mouthpiece. ‘
HOLD YOUR FIRE! HOLD YOUR FIRE! WHAT THE HELL’S GOING ON?
’

Tony lowered his weapon. He stared towards Spud and the migrant, then glanced up towards Danny. ‘
Thought that cunt was pulling a weapon
,’ he said calmly, as if he’d done nothing more serious than spill someone’s pint. He strode over towards the two prostrate figures. Danny saw Spud jump to his feet. He could tell Spud was shouting something at Tony, but as it wasn’t over the radio he couldn’t hear what. As Tony approached, Spud bore down on him and yanked the heel of his hands against Tony’s chest. Tony’s body language was immediately offensive.

And they had both taken their eye off the hooded man.

He had jumped to his feet, and was running to the stern of the ship. Danny didn’t know if he intended to hurl himself overboard, and he didn’t intend to wait to find out. He followed the figure swiftly with his rifle. When the man was five metres from the stern railings, he released a round that exploded on to the deck a metre in front of him. The target hit the ground again, but Danny had already turned his attention to Spud and Tony. The noise of Danny’s round had stopped them fronting up to each other. Tony had moved past Spud and was heading, weapon engaged, towards their target. He reached him in five seconds while Spud remained stationary, clutching his own weapon – and not, Danny surmised, because he was worried about the migrant.

Tony yanked the migrant up by his forearm, then pulled the hood back from over his head. ‘
It’s Rudolph
,’ he said curtly. ‘
Blotchy-faced cunt. Sending him up now.
’

Danny was aware of Tony dragging the target towards the ladder. But his mind was whirling. Rudolph
hadn’t
been pulling a weapon. He hadn’t even
looked
like he was pulling a weapon. And Tony – grizzled, experienced, untrustworthy Tony – wouldn’t have made a mistake like that. And even if he
had
made that mistake, it was impossible that he would have missed his target from that range. If Tony had wanted to put a bullet in Rudolph, he’d have done it.

But if Danny hadn’t warned Spud to hit the deck, what then?

There was no doubt in Danny’s mind. Tony Wiseman had just tried to nail Spud. A tragic accident, but friendly fire, easily explained away in the heat of battle.

Except there hadn’t been a battle. Just a disgruntled SAS trooper taking a potshot at a member of his team.

Spud looked up. He caught Danny’s eye. It was clear from his expression that he knew exactly what had just happened.

Three

Rudolph looked like he didn’t know whether to run or jump. Neither was an option. He was halfway up the rope ladder, with Tony at its foot pointing his weapon up towards him. For thirty seconds he didn’t move, but eventually he seemed to decide that the sight of Caitlin holding out one arm at the top of the ladder was the lesser of two evils. He ascended through the driving rain. As soon as he was in reach, Danny and Caitlin hauled him over the side of the ship. Danny bundled him roughly to the ground, rolled him over on to his back and yanked his right arm up into an armlock. Caitlin got to her knees, grabbed a clump of his hair, lifted his head back and stared at his frightened face.

‘It’s him,’ she said.

Thirty seconds later, the second target was plasticuffed, deafened, hooded and being led roughly across the deck by two Marines. Danny and Caitlin got to their feet. They were drenched, and slightly out of breath.

‘What the hell happened down there?’ Caitlin demanded.

Danny was prevented from replying by the captain, who was striding officiously towards them. ‘Get on the radio to HQ,’ Danny told him. ‘Tell them we’ve acquired both targets.’

‘They’re on the line now,’ the captain said. ‘They’re still insisting that all migrants get returned to the boat as soon as your targets have been located.’

Danny looked over towards the frightened, huddled mass of people in the isolation zone. And especially the children. ‘Get your ship’s medics over to them,’ he said. ‘Provide what help they can.’

The captain shook his head. ‘I’m not going to ignore a direct order,’ he said.

As he spoke, Danny’s earpiece crackled. Tony’s voice: ‘
Approximately ten kids still in the hull. We’re going to empty them out and keep them on the deck here. Then I’m going to search the hull, check we haven’t missed anything. Spud can babysit. Poor fella looks a bit shaken up.
’

Danny looked over the side. As babysitters went, Spud looked the least maternal Danny had ever seen. He was standing aft, rain pelting on to him, the butt of his weapon pressed hard into his shoulder. He was covering the open area above the hull. But the beam of his torch was flickering around Tony. Spud was defending himself. No doubt.

Danny turned back to the captain. ‘We can’t send them back down for at least another fifteen minutes,’ he said. ‘Surely your medics can patch a few of those kids up. Depends how you want to sleep tonight.’

The captain’s face was momentarily a picture of indecision. But then he turned to one of his crew and barked: ‘Get the medics here. Now!’ The crew member scurried away. ‘I’ll update Whitehall,’ he said, before turning on his heel and marching back towards the bridge.

‘You do that,’ Danny muttered. He looked over the side. Spud hadn’t moved. It was up to Tony to help the remaining kids out of the hull.

‘We should check Santa and Rudolph are secure,’ Caitlin said.

Danny didn’t take his eyes off Spud and Tony. ‘They’re not going anywhere,’ he said. ‘The Marines can take care of them for a bit.’ He raised his weapon and directed it down on to the
Ocean Star
. As he did so, he could feel Caitlin’s eyes on him.

‘It was just an accident,’ she said, rather uncertainly. ‘Tony wouldn’t—’

‘Tony wouldn’t what? There’s
nothing
Tony wouldn’t do. You should remember that. And don’t take your eyes off them, OK?’

Danny was only half aware of the movement of personnel behind him on deck. He trusted the Marines to keep the frightened migrants in order. He stood like a grim statue, looking down on to the
Ocean Star
, the beam of his Surefire torch diffusing into the rain-filled night. Caitlin was three metres to his left, doing the same. Down on the deck of the smaller boat, Spud had got the remaining children to sit cross-legged by the wheelhouse while he stood sentinel beside them, as motionless as Danny, his weapon pointed towards the open section into which Tony had disappeared.

Five minutes passed. There was no sign of Tony, and no word from him. The sea state was getting rougher. The rain harder. Danny couldn’t have been wetter if he’d jumped into the ocean. But still he didn’t move. What the hell was taking Tony so long? From his vantage point, Danny saw the occasional flicker of Tony’s torch down in the hull. How long could it take him to search such a small area?

Tony suddenly appeared back on deck. The unit leader looked across at Spud, then up at Danny and Caitlin, who had their weapons trained on him. Danny couldn’t see Tony’s expression, but there was something in the way he hesitated for a moment that told him he knew he was being observed.

‘
Smells worse than an anchovy’s cunt down there
,’ Tony’s voice came over the radio, ‘
but it’s clear. Start sending them back down.
’

Danny barely moved. He just turned his head to look at Caitlin. ‘Do it,’ he said. Then he went back to covering the
Ocean Star
in general, and Tony in particular. He didn’t care if it looked suspicious that he had his rifle aimed at his unit leader. And he didn’t care that Caitlin had to help the terrified migrants back down the precarious rope ladder by herself. Spud had asked him to watch his back, and he was going to do just that.

It took a full thirty minutes to cross-deck the migrants again. It was grim work. None of them wanted to get back on to the
Ocean Star
. Many were sobbing. Some implored Caitlin to let them stay on the naval vessel, but they had their orders from Whitehall: every last migrant was to return to the boat. It left a bad taste in Danny’s mouth watching Tony force the kids back down into the dark, cramped hull. He wondered if Tony gave a shit, and as he kept his rifle trained on Tony’s back, he found his forefinger twitching occasionally on the trigger . . .

‘That’s the last of them,’ Caitlin said, as a tearful young woman made her way down the rope ladder. Danny glanced over to the isolation area. Sure enough, it was empty. Down on the
Ocean Star
, the crowd of migrants were face down on the deck again, being pelted by the rain. They were caught, surely, in the middle of their worst nightmare. Danny found himself hoping that they hit land safely, and soon. But he reckoned some of them wouldn’t make it through another night.