Authors: Chris Ryan
‘We’ll wait till dawn to enter the city,’ Taff replied. ‘It’s a quieter time. Night-time bombardments have finished, and snipers are still sleeping because there’s not so many targets in the street. We should be able to move around without too much trouble.’
Danny nodded. The strategy made sense. When the truck came to a halt, Danny joined Taff and Skinner in checking their location. Their drivers had parked in an abandoned stone barn about fifty metres north of the road. The vehicles were well hidden, and they appeared not to have left any tracks in the hard-baked ground. It was a good place to stop.
‘Get some kip, kiddo,’ Taff said. ‘You too,’ he added, nodding at Buckingham. ‘You both look like you could use it. We’ll keep stag.’
Buckingham looked uncertainly at Danny. He clearly didn’t trust these men, but Danny knew that his old friend was right: they couldn’t function properly without sleep. Minutes later Danny was on his back in the truck, his weapon by his side and his bergen a makeshift pillow. Buckingham curled up nearby. Both men were asleep in seconds.
When Danny awoke, it was with a start. His limbs were heavy with fatigue and it took a few seconds for him to remember where he was. He could tell that the grey dawn of his second day in Syria had arrived. There was nobody else in the back of the truck, so he pulled aside the canvas to see what was happening outside.
The others had congregated in two groups. The four Syrian drivers were crouched on the ground in the five metres between the two trucks, while Taff, Buckingham, Skinner, Hector and the man they’d referred to as De Fries stood by the entrance to the barn. They were deep in a murmured conversation. Danny couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Buckingham seemed unusually animated. The conversation continued for a good minute, until Skinner happened to look over his shoulder and noticed that Danny was watching them. He nudged Taff, who glanced quickly in Danny’s direction. A smile spread across Taff’s face as he walked towards his old mate. ‘Good sleep, kiddo?’ he asked.
Danny looked past him. The others had split up. Skinner was rolling a fag. Buckingham looked awkward as usual.
‘What were you talking about?’ Danny asked.
‘Our route into the city.’
‘Buckingham have a lot to contribute?’
‘Not really,’ said Taff. ‘We’ve arranged an RV with your mate Asu at 12.00 hrs. We’ll go to our digs first. You two boys can wash that mud off your faces.’
‘Where are your digs?’
‘An area to the north-west that’s so far avoided most of the bombing. Rebel areas on the north, west and south sides, though. Hard to get through. But if you want to approach from the east you have to go round the houses.’ He shrugged. ‘Or what’s left of them.’
‘I thought you said dawn was a quiet time.’
‘A quiet
er
time,’ Taff corrected. ‘No such thing as a quiet time in that dump. This Buckingham fella’s a bit of a drip. Can’t understand why you didn’t drop the fucker when you hit land, and report back that he’d been hit by enemy fire.’
Danny blinked. ‘I’ve got a job to do, Taff,’ he said.
‘Ah, you get paid all the same, kiddo, no matter what happens to the spook.’ He suddenly grinned. ‘I’m fucking with you, Danny. Come on, let’s move. The sooner we get you into the city, the sooner you can both sod off home again. Trust me – Homs isn’t a place you want to stick around for too long.’ Another grin. ‘Bit like Hereford, come to think of it,’ he said.
FIFTEEN
Taff was right. It was strangely quiet for a war zone. Somehow that didn’t make it feel safer. More like everyone was holding their breath, waiting to see what would happen next.
Danny didn’t like being stuck in the back of this vehicle, unable to see what was going on around him, to identify threats and stamp on them before they got the better of them. But he had to admit that Taff’s idea of having disgruntled Syrian soldiers drive them was a good one. Classic Taff. Better to avoid a fight than start one. They entered the city without hindrance. Even though they were travelling through high-risk areas, it sounded calm outside.
It wasn’t calm in Danny’s head, though. Far from it. In the hours that had passed since he and Buckingham had left the culvert, he’d been too busy trying to keep them both alive to reflect hard on their situation. Now the stark reality came crashing home. Three men down, within hours of entering the country. He winced as he thought of the look on Jack’s face before he plugged him, and horrific images passed through his mind of the indignities the others would be suffering – if they were still alive. The Syrian secret police were known to administer beatings that many of their victims didn’t survive. He frowned. It was one of the first rules of the Regiment: you look after your mates. He’d failed to do that. Not a good feeling.
But there was something else bothering him too. The conversation he’d had with Buckingham just before the Syrian soldier had disturbed them in the culvert was a shadow in a corner of his mind. He couldn’t get it out of his head. What was it Buckingham had said? ‘Must have been very hard for your brother, to see your mother shot like that
.
’ But his mother
hadn’t
been shot. She’d died in childbirth, shortly after his arrival. At least, that was what he’d always been told.
Or had he?
He tried to think back. Of course, those exact conversations were now gone from his memory. But he knew this: whenever the subject of his mum had come up, his dad had always –
always
– changed the subject. Danny thought he understood why. He knew his dad remembered nothing of his life before he was wounded in action.
He glanced over at Taff, whose back was against the wall of the truck, his eyes closed. Taff never changed, and as Danny stared at him he felt a familiar feeling of affection. As he stared, a long-forgotten memory rose in his mind. Danny couldn’t have been more than ten, and Taff was making one of his irregular visits to their little house in Hereford. He was deeply tanned and had mentioned he’d just come back from Africa. Dad had taken himself off to the toilet – a half-hour operation at the best of times – and Danny had walked into the sitting room to find Taff holding the framed picture of his mum that always sat on the TV. He’d watched Taff for about thirty seconds before Taff noticed him and returned the picture to its place.
‘Beautiful woman, your mum, kiddo,’ he’d said. ‘Beautiful woman.’ There had been a bitter, self-mocking look in his eyes, and even as a young boy Danny had realised something: that Taff’s feelings for his mum ran deeper than he could ever say. In the years that followed, Danny had tried to question Taff about her on the frequent occasions when they’d been alone together. But, like his dad, Taff had always found a way to change the subject.
A noise shook Danny from his thoughts. Gunfire. A single round. Not too close, but probably within 100 metres of their position. Taff’s eyes sprung open, and Skinner suddenly looked more alert.
‘Sniper fire,’ Taff said, seeing Danny’s quizzical look. ‘Grows worse as the day gets on.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Hard to say. Government forces sometimes, picking off anybody they think looks suspicious. It could just be a regular Homs citizen, if that’s what you want to call them. Not many of them left, but there are some people who actually like the civil war as it gives them a chance to go looting. Or it could be one of the organised rebel factions. Some of them are OK, some of them are total cunts.’
‘What about this Asu guy, the one you’ve been supplying the training package to?’
Taff snorted. ‘He’s the worst of them, kiddo. Thinks he’s Che Gue-fucking-vara. If I wasn’t being paid to help the fucker, I’d be more than happy to give him one behind the ear.’ He glanced at Buckingham, who just stared straight ahead as though he hadn’t heard any of the conversation.
‘Why, what’s wrong with him?’
‘Thinks he’s the cat’s fucking pyjamas. You’ll see this afternoon. He’s expecting us at his current HQ.’
‘What about his brother Sorgen? You know him?’
‘Only by reputation. I do know that Asu would start shitting rocks if he knew you were planning to make contact. Fucking hate each other. No brotherly love lost there. Something you’d know about, I suppose, kiddo.’
‘I don’t hate Kyle.’
‘Course not,’ Taff said blandly.
Before Danny could reply, the vehicle came to a halt. There was a knocking on the cab. ‘We’re here,’ said Taff. ‘Let’s get out.’
Skinner – who hadn’t spoken since they left the barn – opened the back of the truck and jumped out without a word. Taff went next, then Danny, then Buckingham.
They found themselves in a rectangular compound, about thirty metres by twenty, surrounded by a solid stone wall five metres high and topped with barbed wire. As Danny looked around, he was aware of Skinner, Hector and De Fries disappearing into the adjoining house. The gate through which the two trucks had driven was a thick sheet of metal attached to runners on the wall to one side. A Syrian kid – he looked about seventeen – was hurriedly sliding the gate shut. It clanged to, and he used a thick chain and a sturdy padlock to fasten it. Taff nodded in the kid’s direction. ‘Local,’ he said. ‘We throw them a few scraps to cook our meals, do our washing. It’s peanuts, but more than they’d get anywhere else.’
The trucks had parked in the centre of the compound. Next to them were two Land Rovers. Along the right-hand wall were three battered old saloon cars. Another Syrian kid was sitting in the driver’s seat of one of them, pumping the accelerator. ‘We turn them over twice a day,’ Taff said, ‘to make sure they’re running properly. If the bombardment hits this part of town, they’re our ticket out of here. They’re not up to much, but you can only shit with the arse you’ve got. Talking of which . . .’
Buckingham was approaching. He looked at them suspiciously, as if he thought they’d been talking about him.
‘Come on, pretty boy,’ Taff said. ‘I’ll show you round.’
Facing the compound was a two-storey house built of grey concrete. Although Taff had said they’d managed to avoid the worst of the bombardment, the building was not entirely unscathed. A deep crack ran up the front, and the left side was caked in thick soot.
‘Fire?’ Danny asked.
‘Before we got here. That’s why it was deserted.’
‘What if the people who own it come back?’ Buckingham asked.
‘Trust me. Whoever used to live here, they’ve left for good. Took everything. They’ll have buggered off to Turkey or Lebanon by now, like half of Homs. Or they’ll be stuck in one of those IDP camps up near the coast. Come on.’ He led them through the main door into a large, open-plan room that seemed to take up half of the ground floor. In one corner of the room was an old CRT television, with a portable aerial hanging from the wall behind it. Al-Jazeera news was on, but the sound was down. The concrete floor was covered with enormous carpets that had no doubt once been brightly coloured but were now dull and dusty. The fire had not damaged this room, but everything in it seemed ingrained with an overpowering stench of smoke.
Along one wall was a wooden rack about two metres wide. Hanging from it was a selection of weapons. Five AKs, two Colt Commandos, even a couple of MP5s. On the floor beneath this armoury were three thin mattresses, all occupied by sleeping Syrians – Taff’s cheap labour, Danny assumed. Against the far wall were two windows, both of them boarded up with thick planks of wood bolted to the concrete on either side. Consequently there was very little light in here, but Danny did notice that in each window there was a gap of about an inch between two of the planks – wide enough to accommodate the barrels of any of the weapons on the wall. Murder holes.
Under the windows were more mattresses, and more sleeping Syrians in dirty jeans and sleeveless vests. The carpet nearest them was littered with cigarette packets and empty Pepsi bottles. The young men were clearly dog-tired – they didn’t even stir as Taff, Danny and Buckingham passed through. It crossed Danny’s mind that Taff was getting his money’s worth out of these locals.
Along the left-hand wall was a door, also boarded up. Taff pointed at it. ‘Best to keep out of there. That half of the building’s structurally unsound because of the fire.’ Beyond the door was an open staircase, and they followed Taff up it.
They came to a corridor with five doors off it. The first led to a bathroom, of sorts. The door was open, and as they passed Danny saw – and smelled – that it wasn’t somewhere you would want to spend much time. Taff led them through the second door, into a long room some eight metres by five. In the far wall was a big window, two metres wide and a bit taller. There was no glass in the pane, but there were iron bars on the inside and thick wire mesh on the outside. At the bottom right, two of the iron bars had been cut and bent up and the mesh folded back. Pointing through this gap was the barrel of a GPMG, its body propped up by a bipod on the floor. Next to the gimpy were two ancient air-con units; their fans made a grating, grinding noise as they turned. They were powered by an old generator in the centre of the room, from which power cables spread out like spider legs, several leading out of the room to other parts of the house. The generator added a low hum to the noise of the air-con, and a fug of burning fuel. Bizarrely, to the right of the door was a chintzy old armchair, upholstered in a threadbare fabric with a red and beige floral pattern. Hector was slouched in the armchair, his M16 propped up next to him, eating cold Heinz baked beans from the tin. He barely acknowledged the others as they entered the room.