Deception Game (18 page)

Whatever plans and preparations they could make had been made. From this moment on, the success or failure of their mission tonight would depend on quick thinking, improvisation and no small measure of luck. The first two they could certainly count on. As for the third, that was as always beyond their control.

‘All right, guys. Gather round for a minute, would you?’ Drake said, beckoning his team to join him in the centre of the room.

As they closed in around him, he looked at them each in turn. All were dressed in black for the night operation, webbing covering their torsos and equipment packs slung over their shoulders, silenced weapons holstered and ready. Each wore the same look of focussed, tense resolve. They were prepared, both physically and mentally, for what lay ahead, and were eager to get started.

‘Thank you. For this, for everything. I owe you a debt I can’t begin to repay,’ he said, his voice quiet, almost reverent. ‘We go in tonight as a team, just like we always have. We watch out for each other, we trust each other, we listen to each other, and we come home the same way. Together, as a team.’ He paused a moment. ‘Everyone ready?’

He was met by a round of resolute, determined nods.

This was the moment – the last chance to call it off, to back down and abandon the dangerous mission that could see one or all of them killed. Drake wouldn’t have thought less of them if they had. But they didn’t, just as he’d known they wouldn’t. They faced it down, and not one of them flinched.

‘All right. Let’s get it done.’

Fifteen years earlier

Drake winced as his fist connected with the other fighter’s torso again, pain radiating out from the damaged joints in his hand like ripples in a pond. At last, like a mighty tree surrendering to the relentless blows of a woodsman’s axe, his opponent buckled under the blow. His legs gave way beneath him and he went down on one knee, bloodied and bruised, gasping for breath.

‘Stay down, for fuck sake!’ Drake yelled, his voice almost drowned out by a mixture of cheers and boos echoing from the crowd all around. A couple of rounds earlier they had applauded his every move.

He’d been a popular fighter right from the start; young, energetic and aggressive, eager to take the fight to his opponents and rarely backing down. Virtually all his fights had ended with dramatic early knockouts. He was met with cheers every time he stepped into the ring, and he loved it.

But now he sensed the shift in their collective consciousness; the admiration and respect turning to frustration and outright hostility. In their eyes, he was taunting the older fighter, humiliating him, beating him to the verge of a knockdown but refusing to finish him for good.

They couldn’t have been further from the truth. He wanted this to end as much as they did. He had no interest in humiliating the man. And more than that, he was hurting. His increasingly desperate efforts to knock his adversary out were wearing down his stamina, his endless flurries of heavy punches taking their inexorable toll on his hands.

‘You’ve done enough. It’s over! Stay down!’ he screamed.

The older man looked up at him, breathing hard, blood dripping from a cut above his eye and another on his cheek. Then his jaw clenched, he planted his feet firmly on the ground and forced himself to his feet.

The crowd cheered their approval for the tough, resilient underdog, and Drake’s heart sank.

Drake glanced down at his right hand, slowly clenching and unclenching it, feeling the familiar ache in the damaged joints. The old injury rarely troubled him, except sometimes when the weather was cold or damp. Then he felt it; a silent reminder of a very different sort of battle he’d fought a lifetime ago.

He reached up, wiping the stinging salt water from his eyes as another blast of spray arced over the Zodiac’s prow to strike him full in the face. It had started out as a small but inevitable annoyance when they’d first cleared Malta Freeport and the craft’s pilot had throttled up to full power, sending them hurtling across the sea towards the distant, unseen coast of North Africa. Now, three hours later, the combination of unceasing wind and occasional random soakings were wearing on his nerves.

It wasn’t the only discomfort he had to endure. His legs and back were aching from holding the same position for so long as the black inflatable craft powered its way through the rolling waves of the southern Mediterranean, its five passengers crouched down on the semi-rigid deck in stoic, uncomfortable silence.

In reality the weather conditions were mercifully good tonight, with little wind and only a light swell to contend with. But their vessel was small and moving at high speed, and thus every gently rolling wave felt like a mountain of iron beneath them, pitching and bumping the small craft with endless impacts that were taking a slow but inexorable toll on its reluctant crew.

Behind him, manning the wheel, was their pilot, a gruff, grizzled man of at least sixty years who answered to the name Hoyes and nothing else. Drake knew little about the man, save what Dietrich had told him; that he’d once been an officer in the Royal Navy before taking early retirement and settling into a far more profitable business ferrying ‘cargo’ around the Med.

Sporting a short greying beard and the kind of craggy, weathered features that could only come from a life of exposure to salt and sea, he stood as tall and unmovable as a statue at the helm. Spray and wind seemed not to trouble him in the slightest as he adjusted their course or tweaked the throttle controls. Whatever his dubious past, he seemed to know his business when it came to boats, and that was enough for now.

Drake glanced at his watch, knowing he wouldn’t like what he saw. Three hours and forty minutes since departing Malta. Under normal circumstances they should have been ashore already, but the sighting of a large commercial vessel directly across their path about an hour into the journey had forced Hoyes to alter his course eastward, adding precious time to their already tight schedule. Time was one resource they couldn’t afford to waste.

But it was more than just the minor delay that had stirred his unease. Despite himself, Drake couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow it was an ill omen. He wasn’t given to superstition when it came to things like this, but neither could he deny the evidence of past experiences.

He’d been on his share of operations where an early problem or setback invariably meant further difficulties ahead; for whatever reason, nothing seemed to go right afterwards. Whether it was genuinely down to something as intangible as luck, or whether an early blow to a group’s collective morale affected its decision-making ability, he couldn’t rightly say. All he knew was that if an op got off to a smooth start, the rest seemed to fall into place.

Feeling a hand tap his shoulder, he turned and leaned close to Frost so he could hear her speak over the roar of the outboard motor and the tearing wind around them.

‘Remember when I said I’d never parachute into another mission as long as I lived?’ she prompted, grimacing as they hit another wave that jarred their bones. ‘I take it back.’

Trying to hide his misgivings, Drake grinned at her. No sense in bringing his comrades down. ‘I’ll keep that in mind.’

No sooner had he said this than the ever-present roar of the big outboard motor began to drop away as Hoyes eased off the throttle.

‘I see lights,’ he called out. ‘Port beam. On your ten o’clock.’

Drake twisted around once more. Sure enough, he could faintly make out the glimmer of electric lights against the darkness of the horizon maybe fifteen miles distant.

That was Tripoli, where their target Tarek Sowan was – hopefully – tucked up in bed and fast asleep. With no idea what was coming for him.

Ahead of them lay the darkness of the Libyan coast. According to their limited intel, the stretch of coastline where they were to make landfall was uninhabited, save for an oil and gas complex several miles to the west. It was about the only viable location in easy range of their target.

‘What do you think about our landing place?’ Mason asked.

At this, Hoyes offered a far from reassuring shrug. ‘We’ll know if they start shooting at us, won’t we, son?’

With the engine running at half speed to reduce noise, the Zodiac crept in towards the coast. At first the stretch of coast ahead of them remained invisible, shrouded in the darkness, but gradually they caught occasional flashes of car headlights moving by on the Libyan Coastal Highway that ran the length of the country.

At last Drake spotted the coast itself; rugged and inhospitable, with rocky headlands and narrow beaches giving way to steep slopes and weathered cliffs. Few trees grew in what was clearly an arid, desert landscape, meaning the group would be afforded little cover as they made their way ashore.

About 400 yards offshore, the engine powered back and finally shut down altogether. Compared to the constant mechanical roar that had been their companion for the past four hours, the silence that followed was deafening in its totality.

‘Right lads, this is as far as we go under power,’ Hoyes said, nodding to the set of oars lashed to the deck. ‘You’re younger than me. Time to put that energy to good use.’

He certainly wasn’t going to lend a hand. Instead the oars were unfolded and quickly put to work by Drake and Mason. Noise carries a long way over water at night, so the final leg of their journey would have to be completed by old-fashioned hard work.

As they bent to their task, Frost and McKnight took up position in the bow, silenced weapons out and ready. Likewise, Hoyes stood on constant alert, ready to drop the engine back into the water and power the craft out of the area if anything looked amiss. For obvious reasons, small-arms fire was deadly to inflatable boats like theirs.

However, despite their precautions, they saw no sign of activity as the rocky coastline crept closer. No lights were directed their way, no sudden eruption of weapons fire. The land ahead was mercifully, eerily quiet.

‘We’re close,’ McKnight whispered, her voice partly obscured by the steady crash of breaking surf. ‘Twenty yards out.’

Both men were sweating, their arms and shoulders starting to burn with the exertion when they finally felt the hull bottom grate against a rocky shore.

The two female operatives up front wasted no time, leaping down into the knee-high water and peeling off left and right, taking up position to cover their two companions as they prepared to disembark. There was about ten metres between them; close enough that they could communicate easily, but far enough that a single grenade or burst of fire couldn’t take them both down.

Mason went next, weighed down with both Frost’s equipment pack and his own. Since Frost and McKnight were first out, they needed to move fast and unencumbered. They would redistribute their gear once they were all ashore.

Snatching up McKnight’s pack, Drake paused for a moment at the bow and gave their pilot a nod of gratitude, then turned his attention to Dietrich.

‘Thanks, mate. For the help,’ he said quickly.

Dietrich reached out and shook his hand. ‘Good luck, Ryan. My man should be waiting for you near the road. Now get your ass ashore.’

Leaping down from the vessel’s prow, he felt his boots come down hard on loose pebbles as water splashed around his knees. Straightaway he was moving up the shore, fighting his way out of the water that would inevitably slow him down.

Dropping down on one knee, he laid McKnight’s pack in front of him and drew his automatic. Already the Zodiac was moving away, both Dietrich and Hoyes lending their arms to the oars to get clear of the coastline.

For the next twenty seconds or so, Drake said and did nothing; just sat there listening and waiting, allowing his senses to tune into his new environment. His eyes were by now well adjusted to the darkness, allowing him at least a partial view of the rocky cliffs and slopes ahead of them. He could sense nothing out of the ordinary.

Reaching up for the little radio transmitter fixed to his throat, he switched on the unit and spoke a quiet command. ‘All units, move up.’

Rising to his feet, he advanced up the beach at a steady, ground-covering pace. There was no need to run, since they weren’t in immediate danger. Running over rough ground in the dark expended needless energy they might need later, and was also a quick way to fall and break an ankle. The latter would spell death for their chances of success.

Clearing the beach, Drake halted in the shadow of a big rectangular boulder that seemed to have tumbled down the slope in years gone by. By unspoken consent, the rest of the group converged on his position.

‘Everyone good?’ he asked. The golden rule on missions like this was that nobody ever played the strong, silent hero. If someone had a problem, they were expected to make the group aware of it right away so it could be dealt with.

‘Good to go,’ Frost replied as she shouldered her pack.

Ignoring her remark, Mason pointed up the slope. ‘There’s a draw over there to the right. It’s a little exposed, but it’s probably the easiest way up.’

Drake followed his line of sight, spotting a path that wound its way up through the tangled brush and boulders. ‘All right. Five-metre spread. Cole, on point. Sam, Keira, behind me. Move.’

Mason, a former army Ranger with years of reconnaissance experience, was an ideal choice for scouting ahead. He also seemed to have a nose for trouble. Whether it was particularly keen senses or just natural intuition, Drake didn’t really care. But it would serve them well tonight.

With Mason leading the way, the group advanced up the slope, heading for the high ground overlooking the cove. There was no talking as they picked their way over rocks and around bushes that could snag on clothes and make additional noise they didn’t need right now. If someone had something to call out, they would. Otherwise they remained silent.

Nearing the crest of the slope, Mason suddenly held up his hand, gesturing for them to halt. Straightaway they froze, watching him closely for further information. There was no thought of challenging him. The man on point was, in effect, the leader of the group until relieved of that duty. Any instructions he gave were obeyed without question.

The general rule in situations like this, when the point man had seen something the others couldn’t, was to do exactly what he did. Thus, when Mason lowered himself into a crouching position, the others did likewise.

Drake watched as Mason held up a clenched fist, moving it slowly from side to side as if he were holding an imaginary steering wheel. He’d spotted a vehicle.

Next he held up a single finger pointing skyward. One target in sight.

Lastly he ran a hand down his chin as if stroking a beard. One target, male.

Drake could feel his heart beating faster. It certainly sounded like the man Dietrich had arranged to meet them, but there was no telling for sure until they made contact.

Careful to avoid disturbing any loose rocks, Drake crept forward until he was close enough to whisper in Mason’s ear.

‘One vehicle, one man?’ he whispered, wanting to ensure he’d understood his companion.

‘Yeah. Two o’clock, about thirty yards,’ Mason confirmed. ‘Think he was having a smoke.’

Deciding to chance a look, Drake edged up over the crest and directed his gaze where Mason had indicated. Sure enough, he could make out the dark square bulk of a van silhouetted against the night sky. And beside it, a figure stood hunched over. Judging by the height and general build, it was indeed a man, and he was cradling something in his hands. Drake saw the distinctive red glow of burning tobacco as he took a draw on a cigarette.