Ultimate Sanction Page 14

  “That’s a long time ago, Mac. For all we know this is a stockpile and the DRC are getting ready to go to war with someone.” Jacob swept his finger over the nearest box. “There’s not much dust on everything.”

  “Jesus, I hope you’re wrong.” If this lot was destined to be used for a war, then Africa was in deeper shit than I thought.

  Lydia came out of the office with a printout in her gloved hands. “It’s a huge inventory and it’s all come from China or Russia, within the last 2 years.”

  “Have you cloned the hard drives?” Brant asked, being practical.

  “Yes, ma’am. The information is on a secure server.”

  “Good, we’ll go through it later. I don’t want our new friend to know what’s in here in detail. Or half of it will go missing before we get the UN in here,” Brant said.

  “The African Union –” Miri began.

  “No. This needs to be flagged outside Africa, but I need to know what it was going to be used for first. We don’t need anything complicated for this trade, so let’s find a box or two and get out. This place is giving me the creeps,” Brant said, looking around with distaste twisting her mouth.

  Lydia consulted her list. “Russian or Chinese?” she asked, looking at me and Jacob.

  “Russian,” we said together. Neither of us had much to do with Chinese weapons.

  “I’m not comfortable with this,” Miri said making us all pause and look at her. “What if we take the guns and they are used? What if we can’t get them back and they end up…” I watched her stuff her hand in the pocket of the jeans she wore. The tremble had not escaped my notice.

  I glanced at Brant who shrugged. We had a job to do and few of us had scruples about taking a few more weapons into a place already flooded with the damned things. However, I understood her perspective because I’d lived here, among the people of the DRC and I saw the constant turmoil.

  “We can damage each of the guns in such a way as to render them useless. You’re right, Miri, we should be careful and make certain they can’t do any more harm,” I said.

  Brant mumbled something to Lydia, but I didn’t catch it and Jacob turned back to the list of weapons in her hand. “Oh, those, I like those.”

  I glanced at Miri to see her reaction but she merely sighed and mumbled, “Men, fucking pricks.”

  She had a point; we were behaving like children in a toy store the week before Christmas. The ASh-12.7 was the gun chosen by Jacob. A tactical weapon designed for urban conflict to kill only those you pointed it at and not innocent civilians. They would be unfamiliar to Boko Haram and General Delta, which meant they’d be easier to fuck up as well. We’d need the right rounds for the gun and the search led us deep into the warehouse.

  Unable to help ourselves we also pilfered a list of other weapons that might come in handy for a rescue mission in the jungle including NV goggles and tactical clothing. Jacob and I found rounds for the guns we already had in our possession and Brant found her favoured sidearm, Heckler and Koch USP. Suitably armed and pushing a large trolley with cases of ammunition and weapons on it, we loaded the truck and left the premises, locking everything up after us. It felt a bit like a trip to a builder’s merchant.

  “We need to think about how to handle the meeting with Delta,” Jacob said while I drove being most familiar with the vagaries of Kinshasa.

  “Use one of the big guns and shoot the fucker,” Miri said from behind me.

  I couldn’t help but chuckle. The woman might be in a dark place, but I doubted it would hold her back for long. I’d wondered more than once, having rescued women from slavers while in the Regiment, what was worse – receiving a beating and prolonged torture from being a captive soldier, or being raped. I’d never been raped, and it wasn’t likely to happen, but I’d been held and tortured on a mission in Mexico and it still gave me nightmares.

  Jacob’s hand covered mine on the steering wheel. “You with us?”

  I glanced at him, surprised for a moment. “Yeah, yes, of course, sorry.” I glanced in the mirror and Brant’s eyes watched me but remained expressionless. “I think the only course of action with a man like General Delta is to play the game. If Jacob’s up for it, we continue the act that he’s working with Room 39. Once we have the connection to Boko Haram we can reassess. My concern is that BH don’t just keep people in the north of the DRC, for all we know they’ve moved her to their base in Borno. We’ll have trouble keeping the act up for long enough to get to northern Nigeria.”

  Brant looked at Miri. “Any thoughts on that?”

  Miri sucked air through her teeth. “I think we should try to get this scientist to a mutual meeting place, maybe in Niger or Chad. If we keep her out of Delta’s reach it will make life easier for you because Delta may well double cross you.”

  “Even if he thinks we’re working for the North Koreans?” asked Jacob.

  “He’s not known for always making friends and being able to keep them. He’s greedy and if he thinks someone else is paying more or he can get this woman to give him more power, he’ll go for short-term interests over long-term plans. He thinks like a European or American politician, mostly short-term and self-serving.” Her bitter assessment didn’t escape anyone’s notice.

  “We have to get her back, so that remains the objective,” Brant said. “For now, we continue with the illusion she’s in the DRC, if that changes, we’ll think again but I’m not making plans based on assumptions. Lydia can monitor chatter among the groups, providing they aren’t speaking in one of the local dialects.”

  “The general can’t speak most of the languages of the area, it’s one of the things that kept me relatively safe,” Miri said. “I can manage some of them but if we’re talking the languages of Cameroon, Nigeria, and some of the others I’ll struggle.”

  Languages were not my strong suit. I could manage enough over a short period of time to keep me out of trouble, but I didn’t have Jacob’s skill and it sounded like Miri was some kind of savant.

  “Back to the club tonight then,” I said.

  “Joy, can we take Lydia as an extra gun?” Jacob asked, twisting to look at her in the back seat.

  She shrugged. “Sure.”

  “No,” Brant and Miri said.

  “Colonel,” Lydia’s voice took on a warning tone. “Remember the little chat we had about me being a big girl now?”

  Brant snorted and her jaw tightened. “Fine, but you’re going in with comms and I want a security detail of some kind as back-up. Mac, do you have some people you can call on or do I need to request manpower from the police?”

  I wanted to ask why I couldn’t get the comms unit she offered Lydia but thought better of it and just replied like a good soldier, “Yes, ma’am. I can find us back-up.”

  17

  Standing outside the club with Danny and eight of the men from the museum made me feel like a colonial prick. We’d gone, all of us, to the museum and I’d rounded up the men I had trained. I explained the mission, or as much of it as Brant deemed wise, and asked for volunteers. No one walked away. We’d been targeted by Delta more than once over the last few months and everyone wanted a little payback. I pointed out we didn’t want the mission to go noisy, but I had the feeling they weren’t listening with their brains, more likely their assault rifles and they wanted to take the fight to the bad guys for a change.

  “There will be civilians in the club. We do not kill civilians,” I repeated for the third time.

  “We know, Mac,” Danny said, hefting his SA80A2. I rolled my eyes.

  “Once more for the hard of learning,” I said. “Jacob and I go into the building with Lydia. We have four of you maintaining the perimeter that those in the club can see. We have two with the truck and the items for trade out of sight. Danny and Barker will be on over-watch, one at the front of the building, one at the back. Our CO, Colonel Brant will have command. You do as she orders while I am inside the building with Jacob. We allow business to go on as normal. You only
act if things go noisy inside and you only open fire if you are fired upon, is that clear?”

  A small chorus of, “Yes, sir,” came back.

  I grunted, not convinced. “We train to preserve life. That is our primary goal. Always.” I believed it as well. Despite what people thought, the SAS wasn’t in the habit of churning out killers.

  I looked over my shoulder at Jacob. The nod he gave me didn’t feel reassuring. During the long afternoon, consisting of humidity and therefore sweat, he’d slid back into the man who’d returned to my life a few days ago. The distant chill he exuded might suit the character we needed for the evening’s operation, but it didn’t reassure me. I just kept circling back to his emotional outburst the previous night and how unstable such a thing made an operator. He needed help, I needed help so I could offer him some kind of peace, but here I stood only giving him more bad memories. At least this time I could hold his back and try to protect him.

  Brant touched my arm and I followed her away from the group of people. “Stop worrying about him,” she said, her voice low and her eyes glancing at Jacob.

  “Can’t help it,” I muttered.

  “I’m serious, Mac. He’s trained for this. The headspace he’s entering to get this done is something we need. You might think this is cold of me, but Jacob has developed the thick skin a true operator needs and it’s something you deprived him of, so let him be the man who gets this done for us. That’s management, Mac.”

  “It’s hard, watching him close down,” I muttered, fiddling with the lanyard on the SIG516 I carried. The thought of going into the club without it made my stomach churn. I might as well have nothing on me with all the use the Glock handgun would be inside the lion’s den.

  “Just be there for him when he comes back,” Brant told me with meaningful eye contact.

  I grunted and wished he’d found me by a strange choice of holiday destination rather than chasing down some scientist who’d gone AWOL from Porton Down. I remembered doing some training there, back when I’d been a grunt in the regular army. The place is surrounded by gentle rolling hills of verdant English countryside and woodland, but its labs and bunkers contain all of the world’s worst viral diseases, poisons, bacteria and their cures. Facing an unseen enemy was far more terrifying than facing a true army.

  Brant took over command of my men, Jacob handed Danny his SIG assault rifle and I handed mine over as well. Lydia appeared with Miri and we both stared.

  Lydia in a combat uniform designed to save lives looked hot enough, even I could admit that, but Lydia in a combat uniform designed to save lives and look sexy made Jacob and I both stare open-mouthed. I heard several uncouth comments from the men behind me and shot them all a look that quelled their enthusiasm for the young sergeant. Her dark hair, large brown eyes and full pouting lips were enhanced just enough to draw attention to her well pronounced cleavage.

  “He’s not going to be listening to a word I say,” Jacob commented.

  Miri grunted. “Not my idea, the man is the worst kind of sexual predator, but Lydia wants him off balance and dressed like this, she can function as a bodyguard and your ‘beard’ if you find you need one.”

  “I’m not sitting on your lap,” Lydia stated for the record.

  “Shame, I might be tempted to switch teams again,” Jacob said with a wink to me.

  For a moment he’d returned and my anxiety eased. “I might let you,” I said.

  Lydia rolled her eyes. “For fuck’s sake, you’re all just children and so easy to manipulate, I wonder why we bother with any of you.”

  Jacob slung an arm over her muscular shoulder. “You just need to keep us in line, Greenbrook.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I’ve broken tougher men than you, Hayes, just remember that.”

  “I can well believe it,” he said.

  “All right, you two, stop comparing dick sizes, I have the feeling Lydia is going to win,” I said, grabbing their shoulders and turning both of them towards the club’s street.

  Off the three of us went while the others took up their positions. Some obvious, others less so. Lydia had a concealed ear bud under her thick black hair and a double shoulder rig fitted around her anatomy, helping to give the impression of a warrior woman. I had my Glock at my back, spare magazines in my pockets and another in a shoulder holster. A small revolver sat in an ankle holster under my jeans and boots as well. Jacob carried the same. It didn’t feel like anywhere near enough.

  We rounded the corner from the side street we’d gathered in for our preparations and strode, arms away from our sides, up the road towards the club. Jacob remained in the middle, I took point and walked a little to his left, Lydia took up the rear and maintained distance a little to his right. By the time we reached the club the huge black guy from the evening before stood in the street.

  His sneer said it all and the pattern from the previous meeting continued the antagonism. I watched Jacob grow colder and more distant by the moment, but so did Lydia and I had to wonder – was I like that once? Was I doing the same thing but just didn’t feel it? Or had I changed forever when I left the Regiment? I didn’t feel like the same man I had been 3 years before, I knew that for certain and the last few nights in Jacob’s arms had released something powerful inside me and I didn’t know where it would lead.

  We walked up the stairs behind the club’s main area and women began approaching Jacob; they gave me a wide berth for some reason – maybe I wore the wrong aftershave or maybe it was because I had a better scowl. The first one who placed a hand on Jacob’s arms had Lydia in her face.

  “Paws off,” Lydia snapped, removing the glittering manicured fingers from his shoulder.

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “You think you better than me because you have paler skin?”

  A nasty smile crept over Lydia’s face. “No, I think my guns make me better than you.”

  The woman hawked and spat on the ground near the sergeant’s boots. “Guns don’t keep a man warm at night.”

  “This one does,” Jacob said, placing an arm around Lydia’s waist and pulling her close for a moment.

  Seeing them like that, even for a second, and a wash of memories from Jacob’s sexual history burst forth. All those times I’d watched him slope off with some female from a bar in which we’d been drinking somewhere in the world. It added just a little more fuel to the fire of fear burning bright in my belly.

  We weren’t hassled again on the journey to the room holding General Delta and his men, though it seemed to take even longer than the previous evening. We walked into a twilight zone which could be stuck in time forever, nothing seemed to have changed from yesterday. The same drugs, the same girls, the same glitter and guns. These men and women would never escape this life. They were doomed to repeat each day, each night, until a bullet, a knife, an overdose or AIDs killed them. Maybe a few would escape but they would be as rare as the white rhino.

  Jacob took point, Lydia and I at his back. Lydia didn’t grace any of the men with so much as a glance, but I caught her eye wandering over some of the women. She glanced at me and flashed a grin.

  “White boy,” General Delta said the moment we walked into his comparatively quiet area of the large room. “You came back and with some more interesting company than your aged soldier.” The general rose from his sofa and approached Lydia.

  Jacob and I shifted but the moment Delta reached out for Lydia a knife appeared in her hand. “I don’t think so, General. I appreciate the compliment, but I keep this,” she waved the large blade up and down her torso, “for him when it’s convenient for me.” The blade pointed at Jacob.

  The general stopped and shook a finger at her. “You are a dangerous woman. I hope he has the leash on you good and tight.”

  “I let her carry her own leash,” Jacob snapped. “Now, if you’ve stopped harassing my personnel, perhaps we can talk business.”

  Delta’s mouth twisted and the jovial man turned into a warlord. A chilling hardness swept over
his entire body and sunlight bent around the violent energy stirring through his veins. I could almost see the evil in the man’s soul leap forth to the clarion call of its master, the mind of a murderer. “You bring me no gifts, white boy, so perhaps I take some.” Several men stepped forwards and raised their AKs. “Your old man will scream nicely while I rape your girl and give her a real cock.”

  Jacob didn’t move, neither did I or Lydia but the sweat on my back gathered together and raced down my spine. The need to retaliate burned in every muscle but one wrong move and we’d be exactly where Delta wanted us – as victims.

  “I have a case of MP5s among other things in a vehicle guarded by two of my local men. I also have others forming a perimeter around your club. There are several snipers who have eyes-on. General, this isn’t my first shit show and it certainly isn’t my first negotiation. I’ve been asking around about you and the British and American embassies are likely to come calling after what you did to the spy and the safe house.”

  Delta assessed Jacob again. “They come into my country and expect to operate without my permission? I have sent a message to the British and the American dogs.”

  “A message you need to back up with more ordnance,” Jacob snapped back. “Stop fucking about and let’s get on with this please. I have a report to file with my people and I’d like to give them something positive about your proposed regime change, because if they don’t receive my report, be very sure Room 39 will prevent you taking power here.”

  “You threatening me?” Delta asked, drawing himself up to his full height.

  Jacob looked up at him. “No. I am merely stating facts. This posturing will benefit no one. We want an ally in the region. I would like it to be you. I think you have potential, but you need to leave this nonsense behind you,” he waved a hand towards Lydia and the other women. “We want to deal with a businessman, not a barbarian.”