Zero 22, p.3
Zero 22, page 3
part #8 of Danny Black Series
A distended silhouette appeared in front of the headlamp. It approached slowly, preceded by its long shadow. Danny staggered to his feet, cursing himself for wasting his ammunition. The incoming danger forced his mind to achieve more clarity. Whoever this was, he wasn’t shooting. Did that mean he was friendly? No. It meant he’d calculated that Danny was unarmed, since Danny hadn’t drawn a weapon either.
He was ten metres away when Danny was able to get a proper look at him. He was huge. Danny was a big man. This guy was bigger. A head height taller and another foot around the shoulders. He wore standard military camo gear, but the sleeves of his jacket had been torn off to reveal thick, muscular arms, grimy with sweat. They were the arms of a bodybuilder, with perhaps a few steroids thrown in for good measure. His head was shaved, with the exception of a thick, black mohawk down the centre of his scalp, buzz cut to a height of a centimetre. The skin on one side of his head was horrifically marked with an embossed network of red scars. He had a weapon in his belt but he didn’t draw it. Obviously his hands were weapons enough. He was clenching and releasing them, like he was loosening them up, ready for action.
He stopped five metres from Danny, who staggered to his feet. The man looked him up and down, then he grinned. It was the kind of grin that had a very particular meaning: I’m going to rip you apart with my bare hands, motherfucker.
‘Fuck,’ Danny repeated under his breath.
The guy took a step forwards. Danny took a step back. He noticed something else. The guy had two patches sewn on to the chest of his jacket. They were SAS squadron patches. The A Squadron patch portrayed an animal that looked like a cross between a tick and a scorpion. The D Squadron patch was an Indonesian Kris sword. They looked like trophies.
Danny evaluated his options. He couldn’t run. The guy had a handgun and a vehicle. He couldn’t shoot. He had only one path open to him. This guy looked like he was spoiling for a fight. Danny had no choice but to give him one, when it was all he could do to stay upright.
‘Fuck!’ he said for a third time. If this guy hit him, Danny would be on the floor in an instant. No question. And there was a good chance he’d never get back up.
The guy stepped forwards again. His fists were permanently clenched now and the grin had morphed into a strained scowl. The guy lunged towards him, raising one fist to deliver a hammer blow to Danny’s head. Danny sidestepped. The guy overshot and Danny managed to raise his right heel and kick him hard in the kidney.
If he’d done that to anyone else, they’d have been floored, groaning in pain and possibly unconscious. This guy barely seemed to notice it. Danny felt like a wasp stinging an elephant – a minor inconvenience at worst. He glanced over at the motorbike. He could hear the engine turning over. Perhaps he could get to it. Not at the moment. The mohawk guy would just pull his weapon and shoot Danny in the back. Danny would have to play this out a little longer.
The guy turned and bore down on him again. This time he was ready for Danny’s sidestep. His fist clipped Danny’s right shoulder. It was enough to send him staggering back. His arm went numb. The mohawk guy pressed his advantage. When he charged again, Danny was too dizzy from the last hit to get out of his way, and he landed his first proper hit. It was a solid punch to the solar plexus, and it delivered all the raw power that the guy’s physique promised. Danny’s legs collapsed beneath him and the air shot from his lungs. The pain was excruciating – he wondered if he’d cracked a rib or even his sternum. His respiratory system didn’t seem to work, and he felt a moment of panic as he tried to inhale but couldn’t.
The next blow came to the side of Danny’s face. It came from the thick sole of the mohawk guy’s boot, and it nearly took Danny’s head off. He felt blood spurt from his nose as he hit the dirt, and it was flowing more freely from his left ear again. He choked and coughed and tried to grab some loose earth in the hope that he could throw it at his assailant to blind him. But the ground was baked; his fingernails only scraped the hard earth and one of them tore.
Then the mohawk guy was standing above him, huge and threatening. Danny looked up at him through a film of sweat. He noted that the guy hadn’t yet pulled his weapon. He obviously wanted to finish Danny off manually. But he wanted to gloat first.
‘SAS scum,’ he said. He spoke English, but his accent was definitely Russian. He tapped the two patches on his jacket. ‘I killed two of your comrades with my hands. You will be an easy third.’ He laughed, as if he’d just told a great joke. Then he took a couple of steps back, like a rugby player preparing to take a kick. And Danny’s head was the ball.
His mistake was not finishing Danny off the moment he was on the ground. In a weird way, Danny was disappointed in him. This guy and his men had just ambushed and massacred an SAS team. They were pros. They knew what they were about. And the first rule of hand-to-hand combat? Fight to win. Finish your opponent quickly and by whatever means possible. No second chances.
Danny had a second chance.
The Russian took his run up. Before he could take his kick, Danny rolled fast towards him and into the foot that remained on the ground. The guy tripped and fell, and now he was on the ground, face up, and Danny was on his feet. Danny stamped his heel into the Russian’s face and he roared in pain as his nose broke and blood spread and spattered over the scarring on the side of his scalp. He was fumbling for his weapon now and Danny had a split-second call to make. Observe the first rule? Grab his gun and finish him? He couldn’t. His arm was still numb. He wasn’t sure he could operate the handgun effectively and in any case the Russian had gripped it now.
So he ran like hell towards the motorbike. It was twenty metres away. He moved in a zig zag, out of the beam of the headlamp, so he was hard to see and harder to hit. He figured that, big as his opponent was, a boot in the face and a broken nose will at least have stunned the Russian and give Danny time to reach the vehicle.
He figured right. Danny threw himself on to the bike – just as he heard the retort of a handgun behind him. There was no sound of the bullet impacting. Danny forced the bike into a tight turning circle. The tyres protested against the desert floor as he moved the vehicle and accelerated hard. The gap between him and the mohawk guy began to widen: thirty metres, then forty.
Danny braked and skidded. The headlamp lit up the terrain in front of him. He could taste the fight in his mouth; a taste of blood and dust and pain. Around him, he was aware of the burning fires of the Jackals and the Bushmaster and the bomb site, and he felt again the bitterness of losing his unit mates. He turned the bike to face his enemy and revved the engine, fully intent on accelerating towards his assailant and hitting him with the full momentum of a heavy vehicle at speed.
The Russian was now on his feet again. He had his weapon raised and pointing at Danny. There was no chance of him landing a shot on target at that range. Their eyes locked. The guy had blood streaming down his face. Danny knew he himself probably looked twice as bad. He let the guy’s features imprint themselves on his mind. The buzz-cut mohawk. The horrific scarring on the scalp. The SAS flashes on his jacket. ‘One day,’ he muttered to himself. ‘One fucking day.’
It was almost as if the Russian could hear him. He grinned, inclined his head and then he spat on the ground. But he didn’t lower his weapon.
Danny turned the bike and accelerated again, heading east. He only glanced in the side mirror once to see the burning remnants of the Zero 22 op and the fading silhouette of the man who had just tried to kill him, and failed.
TWO
Devon. One week later.
Half past three. Going-home time.
The rain was incessant. The kids were spilling out of the playground, anonymous in their raincoats with the hoods crimped tight around their faces. They shook their teacher’s hand before being allowed off the premises to meet their parents. The mums and one or two dads congregated around the gates, a phalanx of umbrellas protecting them from the unusually heavy rain. When they each saw their child, they bustled them under their umbrella and hurried them to the car.
One of the kids was called Danny White. He didn’t have many friends. In fact, he didn’t have any friends. He’d arrived halfway through the school year. Friendship groups were established and, try though he might, he hadn’t been able to break into any of them. So he was alone as he shook soggy hands with the teacher. ‘Where’s your mum, Danny?’ she asked. He pointed to the yellow umbrella that he recognised, set slightly apart from the crowd. ‘Alright then. Good afternoon. Have a nice weekend.’
Danny didn’t think he would have a nice weekend. His weekend would be like all the others. Solitary. Since moving down here with his mum, she had been different. She was kind enough, alright, and she looked after him, made sure he had enough to eat and his clothes were clean and he got to school on time every morning. But she was distracted. She kept the curtains closed during the day but often slightly parted them to look outside, as if checking for something or someone. When Danny asked if they could go to the park, she always found a reason to say, ‘Another time, sweetie.’ She only went out to do the school run and make the occasional trip to the supermarket, and even then, she always wanted to get back as quickly as possible.
His mum was standing next to the lamp post as usual. Danny’s shoes were wet through as he approached her. He was looking down at them, thinking about how much darker they looked when they were wet, so it wasn’t until he was under the umbrella that he realised that the person holding it wasn’t his mum. It was a man. Danny was embarrassed and was about to turn away when the man took his shoulder. He had a cheery, friendly face.
‘Danny?’ he asked.
Danny nodded. The man wore brown leather shoes, smart new jeans that were wet from the knee down and a black leather jacket. He offered him a Maoam chew. ‘Your mum said these were your favourite,’ he said.
They were Danny’s favourite. He took the Maoam and started to peel the wrapper, but then decided he might keep it for later and put it in his pocket. ‘Where’s my mummy?’ he said.
‘Her car broke down,’ said the man. ‘She asked me to come and get you. Shall we go?’
Danny frowned. He knew about stranger danger. ‘What’s your name?’ he said.
‘Sorry. I’m Andy. You’ve probably seen me around?’ Danny shook his head. ‘Well, I live next door. Come on, let’s get you home.’
Danny hesitated. The man had very broad shoulders and he’d just noticed a scar on the right-hand side of his nose.
‘Why didn’t my mummy come with you?’ he said.
‘Her car broke down on the way.’
‘I have to tell my teacher.’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ said the man. ‘We’ll get soaked if we don’t get back to my car.’ He pulled a mobile phone from his pocket. ‘We’ll call your mum, shall we?’
‘Okay,’ said Danny.
‘I’m parked just down here. Want to hold the umbrella?’ He handed it to Danny, who had to walk on tiptoes and hold it aloft in order to cover them both. The man offered Danny his free hand.
‘I thought you were going to call my mummy.’
‘I’ve got her number in here somewhere,’ the man said, swiping the screen. He took Danny’s hand in his and started to walk away from the school. There was a firmness to his grip and Danny found he had to walk quickly to keep up. The man showed him the phone as if to indicate that he’d located his mum’s number then put it to his ear. They turned a corner at the end of the street, into a tree-lined avenue with cars parked on both sides. ‘She’s not answering,’ said the man. ‘We’ll try her again in a minute.’
Danny stopped. ‘Where did you get her umbrella from?’ he said.
‘She lent it to me. Didn’t want you getting wet. You know what mums are like, hey?’
‘She keeps it in the car,’ Danny said.
He might only be six, but he wasn’t stupid. He could tell the man was lying. He tried to release himself from his grip, but he couldn’t. The big hand enveloped his and the man was too strong. Danny wriggled. ‘Let go of me!’ he said. And then he shouted it: ‘Let go of me!’ The noise of the rain against the umbrella was loud and the nearest person was on the other side of the street. He knew nobody had heard him.
The man didn’t reply. He put his phone back in his pocket and gripped Danny’s hand a little harder. Danny tried to stop walking, to drag his heels. It made no difference to the man, who walked faster, pulling Danny along the pavement. Danny tried to hit him with the umbrella, but the man simply grabbed the umbrella back.
Danny started to cry. He wanted to scream, but suddenly found he was too scared to do it. It was like someone had punched him in the stomach. He could barely catch his breath through the sobs. He looked back over his shoulder, hoping somebody might see them. But nobody did. There were very few people in the street. Those that were had their heads down and their umbrellas up. Danny was invisible to them.
Up ahead, there was a white van. The rear windows were blacked out. As they approached it, in the side mirror Danny saw the reflection of somebody watching in the passenger seat. The door opened and the person stepped out. He looked similar to Andy. The same broad shoulders. The same thick neck. But he wasn’t smiling. He closed the passenger door and banged against the side of the white van with a clenched fist. The rear doors opened, by which time the new guy had grabbed Danny’s other arm. Danny wriggled and writhed even more strenuously. He even managed to shout out despite his breathlessness. But he was completely overpowered by the two men. They lifted him from the pavement while Danny’s kicks simply bounced off their shins. They manoeuvred him over a puddle of water that had collected by the kerb and towards the back of the van. Through his tears, Danny saw two more men in the vehicle, but it was gloomy in there so he couldn’t fully make out their features. All he heard was a gruff voice saying: ‘Get him in!’
Danny knew he only had one last chance. He screamed as loudly as he could, then raised his legs and struck Andy with all the force he could muster. He obviously hurt him, because Andy said, ‘Little shit!’
One of the guys in the van said, ‘Just throw him in!’
The two men hurled him into the van. Roughly. He caught his foot on a lip in the doorway. It caused his body to twist and he hit his head hard, once on the side of the van and a second time on the floor.
And that was the last Danny knew of his abduction.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ said KitKat.
They called him that because he only has four fingers on his right hand, like the chocolate bar. His thumb was missing in action, last seen spinning through the air when his SBS team were providing a training package to a group of rebels in the DRC. He’d been demonstrating how to use a Russian landmine as a booby trap when it went off prematurely, earning him not only a nickname, but also the loss of sight in one eye and a career henceforth limited to carrying out the SBS’s donkey work. Work like this, abducting a six-year-old kid.
Nobody joined the SBS to abduct six-year-old kids.
‘Fuck’s sake!’ KitKat repeated. What were they playing at? There was nothing to the boy. Why did they have to throw him in so hard? KitKat winced when he saw the kid’s head hit the side of the van. His neck had jarred to the right and there might even have been a crack, he wasn’t sure. He lurched forward to catch him, but too late. The boy had gone limp and his head slammed hard against the floor.
The kid lay there, still as a corpse. One of his feet was still poking through the door opening. ‘Get him in!’ said the guy outside. KitKat grabbed the kid’s shoulders and pulled him further into the van as the doors slammed shut and they were plunged into darkness. Rain hammered on the roof and the engine turned over. By the time KitKat had pulled his Maglite torch from his pocket, the van had pulled away. He shone the torch at the kid and rolled him over on to his back.
Every special forces operator is well trained in field medicine. The training kicks in when it’s needed. Automatic. Instinctive. KitKat reached out with his good hand and placed his index and middle fingers against the kid’s neck. He knew he wouldn’t find a pulse. When you’d seen as many corpses as he had, you learned to recognise the signs. The rictus of the mouth. The heavy stillness of the body. KitKat went through the motions, blowing rescue breaths into the kid’s mouth, performing chest compressions. But he knew it was hopeless. The kid was dead. Roughed up by a four-man SBS unit whose instructions had been to abduct him and keep him safe.
‘Fuck’s sake!’ he said for a third time as he gave up on the CPR. He turned to his mate who was watching from the corner of the van. ‘He’s a fucking goner,’ he spat. ‘And we’re toast.’
He slammed a fist against the inside of the van in frustration. The van accelerated. KitKat switched off the torch. He didn’t want to look at the boy’s pale face any more than was necessary.
THREE
Back in the day, when Danny Black had first joined the Regiment, an old-timer told him that there were two kinds of SAS men. The ones whose minds gave up before their bodies and the ones whose bodies gave up before their minds. Danny was beginning to think that he was the latter.
That wasn’t to say he slept easy. How could anyone do that, when they’d seen the things he had? The Zero 22 debacle was a week old and it stuck with him. The image of Bullethead’s burned face kept returning. He’d visited Dougie’s missus. He’d put on a clean shirt and even shaved. His face had felt naked after months of wearing a beard on ops. There’d been no sign of Dougie’s daughter, but Danny couldn’t help noticing the precious new iPhone that had so worried her dad. It was sitting on the kitchen table in a Hello Kitty case.
