Authors: Chris Ryan
It only took a swipe of his left arm for Danny to knock her from her stride. She fell. It looked more alarming than it was, but suddenly everything was kicking off. The four armed men guarding the camp were shouting, engaging their weapons. Danny sprinted forwards and wrestled Buckingham to the ground. He was aware of Taff, Hector, Skinner and De Fries piling out of the vehicles behind him. He checked out the Syrian rebel gunmen. Distance: ten metres. Any contact would be short and ugly. Danny and Buckingham would be caught in the crossfire. Chances of survival: close to zero. Danny knew how to choose battles. Question was, did Skinner and Hector?
He saw that the rebels were hesitating. Had they made a similar analysis of the situation?
‘
Hold your fire!
’ Danny shouted, fully aware that there were members of his party who would enter into a contact without any encouragement whatsoever. ‘
Hold your fire!
’
‘
Do as he says!
’ Taff’s voice lent weight to Danny’s instruction.
A moment of tense silence. The rebels’ hands were shaking anxiously – never a good sign. At the flap of the smaller round tent, a Western-looking woman stood with her hands almost covering her face. Buckingham was breathing heavily, but he didn’t move as Danny had him pinned to the ground.
Slowly, the flap of the large tent opened. A giant of a man appeared – at least as tall as Danny and considerably broader. He wore an embroidered
dishdash
and had a white moustache and a thick mane of white hair. He stood at the entrance of the tent, shrewd eyes surveying the scene.
‘Let me go,’ said Buckingham.
‘Don’t be stupid. This could go noisy any second.’
‘For God’s sake, man, let me go. That’s Sorgen. He knows who I am. If he doesn’t recognise one of us, they’ll massacre us.’
He had a point. Danny released his grip, and both men got to their feet. He let his weapon hang loose from its halyard and raised his hands to show he wasn’t about to reach for anything else. Buckingham dusted down his clothes.
‘Hugo Buckingham,’ the fat man announced in a rich but strangely monotone voice, and in excellent English. ‘It’s a long way from the Quartier Latin, is it not? A man might become suspicious of such a remarkable coincidence.’
‘Sorgen. It’s good to see you again.’ Buckingham’s voice quivered slightly.
‘Tell your men to drop their weapons, Hugo. Let us avoid any tragic accidents. Dead bodies quickly become carrion in the desert, and I would not wish that upon any of you.’
‘Your men too,’ Danny butted in.
Sorgen smiled. ‘Bilateral disarmament? I don’t think so.’ The sweat on his brow glistened. ‘I see no reason why my men and I should not protect our territory.’
‘Do as he says,’ Buckingham called over his shoulder. Danny sensed the others’ reluctance. He shared it. ‘
Do as he says!
’
Danny looked back and caught Taff’s eye. They nodded reluctantly at each other. Taff lowered his rifle. The others, with an obvious lack of enthusiasm, followed suit.
Nobody moved. The wild woman was kneeling on the ground, weeping.
Sorgen’s face was unreadable. His footsteps crunched on the dry earth as he walked towards Buckingham, stopping half a metre from him.
‘And now,’ he said quietly, ‘I find you here. In the middle of the Homs desert. Surrounded by armed men. A representative of the British government that would install my brother to a position of power in Syria, and that would shed no tears over my own death.’
Danny felt his fingers creeping back to his M4. Could he take these guys? Was there time? The four armed men were each separated from the other by a distance of about five metres. Too far to take them out with a single burst. He had a fragmentation grenade in his ops vest. If he hurled it in their direction, would they scatter? Or would they fire first and run later?
Buckingham looked nervous now. The assured look he had displayed as he approached the encampment had disappeared. He stuttered like a man who had made a colossal miscalculation. ‘Sorgen . . . I . . .’
But Sorgen’s arms were outstretched and his face had suddenly broken into a grin. ‘Old friend,’ he said. ‘You are very welcome, today of all days, on the festival of Eid al-Fitr.’ He wrapped his enormous arms round Buckingham’s slight frame. He looked back at his soldiers and shouted a single order in Arabic. They lowered their weapons with obvious relief.
‘What brings you here, my friend?’ Sorgen boomed. ‘No! Wait! Do not tell me! I have a feeling I will not like the answer! Let us have a few minutes, at least, to talk about the old days before the arguments start. Come! We are forced to live like nomads, and our surroundings are poor. But you are most welcome, Hugo. Your friends too. You are most, most welcome.’
With one arm still around Buckingham’s shoulders, Sorgen accompanied him to the tent. Danny followed three or four metres behind, ignoring the hard stares of the rebel gunmen as he passed them. As they entered the big tent, Danny was aware of the Western woman running up to the distraught mother who had tried to attack him. She helped her to her feet and back towards the smaller tent. Both women stared at him with expressions sharper than the knife one of them had just used to try to kill him.
The festival of Eid al-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting. It is forbidden to fast on the day of Eid, and Muslims often celebrate the festival by eating a small breakfast of something sweet.
As they had crossed the desert searching for Sorgen’s encampment, Buckingham had explained to the others what they could expect from the rebel leader. So far, it looked like he knew what he was talking about.
Sorgen and Buckingham sat together on a carpet in the middle of the big tent, a small plate of crystallised dates between them. He remembered Buckingham saying that Sorgen was a devout man, and could only assume this was true: who else would remember the essentials for this small ritual among the comms systems and ammo boxes that filled this makeshift ops centre? Danny, though, was more concerned with breakouts than breakfast. There was only one way in or out of this tent, but the canvas walls would be no match for either of his knives. A guard was positioned on either side of the flap, while Danny stood three metres from the carpet. Taff and his crew had been invited into the tent but had been directed to a spot ten metres away. Danny felt Skinner’s dead eyes on him. Fine. At the moment he had other things to worry about, like keeping Buckingham safe. These two might be playing happy families, but happy families could easily turn sour.
‘
Eid mubarak
,’ Buckingham said, accepting a date from the plate.
‘
Eid mubarak
,’ Sorgen replied. ‘Hugo, do you remember the last time I saw you?’
Buckingham smiled. ‘The Café des Amis in Châtelet. You drank coffee, I drank something a little stronger.’
‘You heard about my father?’
Buckingham nodded. ‘My condolences, Sorgen. I know how close you were.’
‘He was killed outside that very café. I have friends high up in the French government, but none of them can tell me why this Algerian boy would want to kill my father.’
It was a very strange thing, but at that moment Danny had Hector and Skinner in his sights. They looked at each other. It was nothing more than a glance, but it was full of meaning. He even saw a flicker of a smile on Skinner’s lips, before the moment passed as quickly as it had come.
But then he heard Taff’s voice in his head:
You’re losing your grip out here. You’re seeing things that aren’t there
. . . He dragged himself back to the main attraction. ‘It’s hard sometimes to understand the mind of a terrorist,’ Buckingham was saying.
‘There are some who would say that
I
am the terrorist, my friend,’ Sorgen replied. ‘Your government would gladly award me that label if Asu came to power. Which, I have to concede, looks ever more likely. And as soon as I have that label, there will be many people eager to help me on my journey to Paradise.’ He took a date and chewed it thoughtfully. ‘Which rather begs the question, my dear Hugo, of why I have this very unexpected pleasure.’
Buckingham took a moment before replying. Danny had the impression that he was choosing his words very carefully.
‘Yesterday,’ Buckingham said, ‘I met with your brother in the city.’
Sorgen’s face immediately darkened, but he said nothing.
‘I explained to him that the British government would do anything in its power to effect a reconciliation between the two of you.’
‘At which point, I am sure, my dear brother asked you to leave.’
‘No,’ Buckingham said simply. ‘He didn’t.’
Sorgen blinked heavily. ‘That is a surprise,’ he conceded. ‘He must have had good reason.’
‘Perhaps,’ Buckingham said. He stood up and turned his back on Sorgen. Danny could see the fierce concentration on his face. This discussion was, after all, the whole reason he had come to Syria. ‘I’m here with a proposal,’ he said. ‘My government understands your loyalty to the French. They looked after your father in exile, and they support you now with funds and arms, just as the British support Asu and the Russians support the current administration.’ He started to pace slowly up and down the tent. ‘I’ll be honest with you, Sorgen. My superiors wanted me to lie to you. To tell you that we have Syria’s best interests at heart. I told them I wouldn’t insult your intelligence, that you fully understand diplomacy is about self-interest. It is in Britain’s interest to have a mutually advantageous relationship with the new Syria when it arrives. I told them you would understand that.’
Sorgen tipped his head to one side and made a little hand gesture, as if to say: go on.
‘You and Asu are stronger united than you are divided. You know that and he knows that. I’m here to ask you to consider joining forces with him to ensure that it is your family and not one of the other rebel factions that comes to power. And I’m here to offer you whatever it is you need to achieve that. However much the French are funding you, we are prepared to double it. Whatever weapons the French are supplying you with, we will improve upon it. We will make you the best-equipped fighting force in the Middle East.’ Buckingham paused, then turned to look directly at his old friend. ‘We will win this war for you, Sorgen. Think of the lives that could be saved. Think of the Syria that you and Asu could rebuild together, with our help.’
Sorgen stood to give his reply. ‘I thank you for your offer. I fear, however, that the rift between myself and Asu is too deep to heal. And I feel – forgive me for saying it – a certain loyalty to the French that I do not feel towards the British.’ He gave a knowing little smile. ‘With the exception of the present company, of course.’
Buckingham nodded, as if what Sorgen had just said was entirely reasonable. But he had a response ready and waiting.
‘Would your loyalty to the French be quite so fierce, my friend, if you knew that it was under their instruction that your father was assassinated?’
A silence fell upon the tent.
‘You are my guest, Hugo,’ Sorgen said in a dreadfully quiet voice. ‘But if you take my father’s name in vain—’
‘Four weeks ago,’ Buckingham interrupted, ‘the Algerian suicide bomber met in Paris with his handler, a member of the GIA terrorist group. We know beyond question that this handler was an undercover member of the French security services. MI6 has more evidence, frankly, than you would wish to see. There’s no doubt about it, and I’m sorry. But the French killed your father.’
Alarm bells rang in Danny’s head. He thought back to the briefing Buckingham’s boss – Carrington, wasn’t it? – had given them at the vehicle pool back in west London. He’d mentioned none of this. On the contrary, he’d said that Sorgen’s father was a valuable French asset. Either he’d been lying, or Buckingham was now.
None of these thoughts appeared to occur to Sorgen. It was as if a cloud had descended over the tent. The rebel leader’s face barely moved. Buckingham was watching his face intently, clearly trying to tell what effect his bombshell was having. And the effect was plain to see. Sorgen’s eyes grew watery. He dried them with the hem of his
dishdash
.
‘If I learn that you have been lying to me, Hugo . . .’
‘It’s the truth, Sorgen. As sure as I’m standing here.’
Another pause.
‘Asu has agreed to this – this reconciliation?’ Sorgen asked.
‘Absolutely. He is eager for it.’
More silence.
‘I do not lead this army in isolation,’ Sorgen said. ‘You must understand that I cannot make a decision of this magnitude without first discussing it with my commanders. We meet tonight, here, to celebrate the festival of Eid.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘But of course, Hugo, you already knew that.’
‘I suspected it. I remember your Eid celebrations of old. You will put it to your commanders tonight? I’m sure they’ll see the wisdom of my suggestion.’
‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. I can only suggest it.’
‘That’s all I ask, Sorgen. That’s all I ask.’
‘Come back tomorrow at dawn. I will have an answer for you, and for Asu.’ Sorgen’s face grew pensive. ‘You are here, Hugo Buckingham, because we have a bond of friendship. Such things are important to me. I trust you will not betray that bond.’