Zero 22, p.27
Zero 22, page 27
part #8 of Danny Black Series
‘That’s why it’s so important I get to DC. If I expose the deepfakes before they happen, there’s no way they can go through with it.’
Danny put his head down and continued to drive.
He would never have recognised the drop zone at first. It was just a featureless patch of flat desert terrain. Hard-packed earth with a few scraggly weeds struggling their way through the cracks. Once they’d disembarked from the smuggler’s lorry, however, he noted the wadi where they’d dug in the chutes and he knew for certain they were in the right place. He scanned the surrounding area with his night sight, checking for threats. But there was nothing. The drop zone had been chosen for its isolated location, and it had been chosen well.
‘When they get here,’ Danny said, ‘they’re not going to want to stick around. They’re sending in a stealth chopper, so my guess is they’ll have breached Israeli and Jordanian airspace without permission. They won’t want anybody to get a whiff of what’s going on. Be ready to board as soon as the skids are on the ground.’
The General leaned against the front of the lorry. He stared at his shoes, his eyes narrowed, his face calculating.
Bethany said, ‘Where will they take us?’
‘My guess would be Cyprus,’ Danny told her.
‘They’ll put me on a flight home from there?’
‘That’s up to them. Not my call.’
‘You’ll tell them that I was going to do what they wanted?’ For a killer, she sounded weirdly vulnerable. ‘You’ll make sure I see my son again?’
‘I’ll tell them what happened,’ Danny said. They fell into silence.
Danny didn’t expect to hear the chopper until it was almost upon them. The stealth capability of a Black Hawk kept the noise of the rotors to an absolute minimum. He saw it, though, a black ink spot against millions of stars, flying low towards their position. And gradually, the sound became audible. The flight crew selected an LZ approximately thirty metres from their position. As the chopper touched down, Danny could discern the pointed, angular shape that allowed it to cause minimum radar splash. The side door was closed, of course. That was necessary for the stealth capability. It opened the instant the chopper was on the ground, by which time Danny, Bethany and the General were jogging towards it. Two members of the flight crew in camo gear ushered them urgently into the aircraft. If they were surprised by the sight of this mismatched trio – Danny still in his battered, dirty business suit, Bethany dishevelled in her once glamorous two-piece, the General in the bloodied gear they’d stolen from the dead Wagner Group guy – they didn’t show it. They simply secured the chopper again. By the time Danny and the others were seated in the dark interior of the Black Hawk, they were already airborne and speeding west out of Jordan.
If Alice Goodenough had been allowed to talk about her job to her friends in the pub – which she wasn’t – she would have to admit that it was not nearly as intriguing as it sounded. Most of her time was spent in her tiny office at her computer or on the phone. Sure, she dealt in secrets, but those secrets had to be typed up and analysed and shared with the appropriate personnel. Intelligence work was ninety-five per cent admin.
At least, that was what she’d have said before now.
Everything had happened so quickly. Stark had arranged it all with a few phone calls from the echoing Park Royal warehouse. The paramedics who had arrived in an unmarked ambulance within ten minutes to take away the unconscious Poliakov, guarded by the two MI6 operatives who specialised in that type of work. The car that had taken both her and Stark to Heathrow, their nearest airport, and directly on to the tarmac without the need for passports or security checks. The Learjet that had been waiting for them. What would her friends have thought if they’d seen her travelling like a pop star? What would her mum say? Not that they were on board to enjoy the facilities of the private jet. It was simply, Stark explained, the quickest way of getting from A to B. A being London, B being the British military base in Cyprus. ‘We have an operative extracting O’Brien from Jordan as we speak,’ Stark told her. ‘We need to be the first to debrief him.’
It was Alice’s first time on an army base. As they stepped off the Learjet into the warm Mediterranean air at four in the morning, local time, she was surprised at how busy it was. A military vehicle was waiting for them as they disembarked, one of many that were driving across the tarmac, their headlamps glowing yellow in the darkness. There was the thunder of a jet taking off, and Alice saw the lights of two helicopters circling overhead. The soldier driving the truck looked to Alice barely old enough to shave. He, for his part, couldn’t hide his surprise at the arrival of young black woman with colourfully braided hair, painted nails and a nose stud, accompanied by a stout, dapper, balding older man. He drove them to a secure area cordoned off by armed soldiers. There was a single-storey building here, constructed from sectional concrete panels. Another armed guy at the entrance. Alice could tell from Stark’s confident stride that he’d been here plenty of times before. He led her into the building, and she found herself in a busy military ops room. Maps on the walls. Soldiers in camo gear with headphones and boom mikes at laptops. All male. Unlike the driver, these men barely seemed to notice Alice’s arrival. They were too focused on their work. Stark walked up to an older guy on the far side of the room and had a brief conversation with him. The older guy looked over at Alice, who stood by the entrance feeling awkward but trying not to show it. He nodded and pointed to a door leading to another room.
It was a sparse waiting room. A couple of uncomfortable sofas. A broken coffee machine. Alice and Stark sat down. Stark put a peppermint in his mouth and hummed a tune.
‘What now?’ Alice said.
‘Now?’ Stark sounded surprised at the question. ‘Now we wait. And we hope our chap in Amman is up to the job. There was an RV scheduled in the Jordanian desert at 04.00 hours. We should expect them back here at about five thirty.’
They sat and waited. Exhaustion overcame Alice’s adrenaline and she found her chin dropping often to her chest, her eyes closing. Each time she jerked herself awake again, she saw that Stark was sitting calmly opposite her, his hands on his stomach, eyes open. She wished she could match his alertness, but she simply couldn’t. When six thirty came, he had to shake her awake. ‘They’ve arrived,’ he said. ‘I’ve asked for them to be brought directly to us.’
Alice roused herself. She was angry that she’d fallen asleep, but Stark didn’t seem to care. He was pacing the room now, hands behind his back, throbbing with anxious energy.
‘Is the General alive?’ she asked.
The question was answered for her as the door opened. Three people entered. They brought with them a stench of sweat and fuel.
If Alice thought she was an incongruous sight, she was nothing compared to this mismatched trio. She could tell which one was General O’Brien. Well built, well tanned. A thick head of silver hair. Handsome, no doubt about it, but he had a slightly wild look in his eyes you might not have expected. He wore an ill-fitting pair of khaki trousers and a black T-shirt. Both were torn and the trousers spattered with something dark. Alice had a nasty suspicion it was blood. His skin and hair were dirty and there were bags around his eyes.
There was a woman. She was blonde and very beautiful, in her early to mid-thirties. She was as dishevelled as the General. She was wearing what had once been an elegant shirt and jacket. Alice couldn’t imagine what she had been through to make her outfit look as it did now. As beautiful as she was, there was something about her that Alice didn’t like. Could she detect a coldness? Alice prided herself on being a good judge of people. She decided that this was a woman to be avoided if possible, and respected if not.
The third person intrigued Alice the most. He was tall and broad shouldered. Scruffy black hair and a day’s stubble. He wore a suit that was a little tight. It was torn in places and the shirt was spattered with blood and dirt. He had a steely frown. Dark eyes. A square jaw. She couldn’t stop looking at him.
‘Welcome to Cyprus, General O’Brien,’ Stark said. ‘Would you like a peppermint?’
‘No, I don’t want a damn peppermint. Who the hell are you?’
‘I’m a representative of Her Majesty’s Government,’ Stark said, smoothly avoiding having to say his name. ‘I hope you haven’t been overly inconvenienced?’
‘Overly inconvenienced?’ O’Brien laughed harshly. He pointed to the dark-haired man. ‘This guy hadn’t been so quick off the mark, Her Majesty’s Government would have assassinated me a few hours ago.’
Stark smiled blandly, admitting nor denying anything.
The dark-haired man stepped forward. ‘I’m Black and you know the rest,’ he said. ‘We need to talk. That is, I’m going to talk, you’re going to listen. Sit down.’
Alice could tell Stark didn’t like being spoken to like that. His cheek twitched but he said nothing. Just sat back on the sofa. Alice did the same. The other three remained standing.
Black spoke. Alice listened, first in astonishment at the extreme nature of their insertion into Amman, in alarm when she understood the role the blonde woman – it transpired that her name was Bethany – had to play in all this, in horror at the gravity of the conspiracy the General had revealed to them, and finally with a sense of growing panic when she learned that a major terrorist atrocity was going to take place today. She wasn’t stupid, of course. She could tell he was glossing over parts of his account. Why, for example, did he lead the Wagner Group into an ambush when he could have simply discarded their tracking device? She realised that she might have to accept that the reality of operations on the ground did not always align with the MI6 playbook. And anyway, if he hadn’t done that, they wouldn’t have learned that the attack had been brought forward.
Stark didn’t seem to share her concerns. He had his fingers pressed together and his eyes closed. She knew he was listening intently. When Black finished, Stark remained like that for a full thirty seconds, silently processing. Then he opened his eyes.
‘I take it, General O’Brien, that you are unwilling to share the location of the deepfake footage with me?’
The General pointed at Stark with a ‘this guy knows what he’s talking about’ gesture. ‘Damn right,’ he said. ‘Can you blame me?’
‘Not in the least,’ said Stark. ‘It seems to me that you have precious little reason to trust politicians. But you can perhaps trust me?’
‘Don’t blame you for trying, buddy, but that’s not going to happen. How quickly can you get me to DC? No Homeland Security, obviously.’
‘In time for you to stop a terror attack that’s going to happen today? That’s going to be a challenge, even for us, but I’ll make some enquiries.’
‘Make them fast. With the time difference, today hasn’t started yet in the US. But if these guys can change their plans once, they can change them again. If we don’t publicise these deepfakes, the attack could happen any minute. We might even be too late as it is.’
Stark inclined his head and left the room. Nobody spoke. Alice sat silently, trying not to stare at any of this strange trio, without success. She was shocked by what she’d heard. Astonished by the dangers they had encountered in and around Amman. Faintly sickened by the idea that, but for her investigations into Poliakov, the General might now be dead. The silence in the room thickened. She found it almost unbearable. She jumped, but was relieved, when Stark entered again.
‘It’s in hand,’ he announced. ‘We’ll get you into DC at the earliest opportunity. But I have one or two conditions. The first is that we keep all knowledge of this operation from Number 10. They’re simply too compromised, too reliant on the approval of the American administration. I can’t guarantee that they wouldn’t put the brakes on the operation the moment they hear of it.’
‘Suits me,’ said the General. ‘What else?’
‘Danny Black and Bethany White will accompany you.’
As he said it, Alice happened to be looking at Bethany. She was standing behind Danny and the General, and Alice was certain she was the only person in the room to notice Bethany’s reaction to this news. It was quite brief. Barely a flicker before she regained her composure. But like all MI6 officers, Alice had been trained to observe, to read and interpret people’s responses. There was no doubt about Bethany’s response: shock, suspicion, the dawning realisation of something sinister that she forced herself to suppress. Then it was gone. She was expressionless again.
‘I see no reason for that,’ the General objected. ‘Once I’m in DC, I know what to do. This is my play, not yours.’
‘Forgive me, General,’ said Stark. ‘I don’t blame you not trusting us. But right now, we have only your word, and a forced confession from Mr Poliakov, about the matter in hand. You’ll allow me a little mistrust too, I hope. It seems to me that you work well with your new friends, and I’d feel much more comfortable if they were with you, just to make sure you do what you say you’re going to do.’
‘This is an American matter.’
‘No, General. You claim your president is planning a right-wing coup. You claim he is prepared to sacrifice innocent civilians in the process. You claim two of the world’s superpowers are intimately entwined in a conspiracy to subvert democracy and the rule of law. This is a matter for us all.’ He smiled. ‘You should be thanking us. I’m assigning one of our top SAS operatives for your protection, not to mention an extremely experienced MI6 officer should you need any intelligence expertise on the ground.’
‘Ex-MI6 officer,’ Bethany White said.
A beat.
‘My understanding,’ Stark said, ‘is that you have very good reasons for remaining on-message.’
The look of poison that Bethany White gave Stark was chilling. But there was no evidence of that poison in her voice when she said: ‘I suppose I do.’
‘And I might remind you, General O’Brien, that there is absolutely no possibility of you re-entering the United States without our help. Your face is well known after all. And if the Homeland Security officials fail to recognise you, their facial recognition systems most certainly will.’
The General didn’t immediately reply. Alice watched him intently as he stared into the middle distance. He was clearly thinking deeply. Eventually he nodded his agreement. ‘How do we do it?’ he said. ‘How do we get into the States without anybody knowing.’
‘May I say,’ Stark said, ‘that I admire what you’re doing. When you release the deepfake footage and expose the conspiracy, you will of course be—’
‘Laughed out of DC. Spare me the Oscar speech, will you?’
‘No Oscar speech, General O’Brien. Far from it. If you fail to locate the footage in time, questions will be asked as to whether you refused to tell us its location because you were too concerned about your own position.’
‘You saying I’m risking civilian lives?’
‘I’m saying questions will be asked. It won’t be a good look.’
‘I don’t care what it looks like. I’m just a soldier, end of the day. We do what needs to be done.’
‘How do we get into the US?’ Danny Black asked.
‘I’m a humble intelligence officer,’ Stark said. ‘Such matters are not my area of expertise. The military personnel in the next room will brief you.’ He raised one hand to indicate that they should go through to that room. ‘Good luck, gentlemen. And lady, of course.’
Danny Black, Bethany White and the General exited wordlessly. Stark watched them go, his eyes half closed, his face unreadable. Alice waited until the door was closed. Then she waited a moment longer. Then she asked a question that was perplexing her. ‘I understand why Danny Black needs to accompany the General,’ she said. ‘They need to make a covert border crossing, and the SAS are trained to do that. But why does Bethany White need to go? Surely her role in all this is over.’
At first she thought Stark hadn’t heard her. He was still staring after the others, as though he could see through the wall. Then he seemed to shake himself out of a reverie. ‘You’re a smart young lady, Alice,’ he said. ‘If they manage to stop this conspiracy, it will be in large part down to your efforts. But I’d advise you not to ask too many questions from here on in. There are some things you’re better off not knowing.’
He stared through the wall again. Alice remembered the fleeting expression on Bethany White’s face when she learned she was to be part of the insertion into DC, and a suspicion formed in her mind.
TWENTY-ONE
The briefing occurred on the move.
Danny, Bethany and the General strode across the tarmac to a waiting Land Rover, accompanied by a thin man with a thin moustache, whose camo gear seemed too big for him, but who was clearly in charge of the ops centre in the adjoining room where they’d met with the spooks. He’d introduced himself by his surname, Forshaw, and he spoke as they walked. ‘We’re in direct contact with Hereford. They’re fully aware of your projected movements.’
‘Great,’ Danny said. ‘Be good if we were too.’
Forshaw let the sarcasm pass. ‘We have a Royal Navy frigate currently heading into NS Norfolk.’
‘What’s that?’ Bethany asked.
‘Naval Station Norfolk,’ the General said. ‘Biggest naval station in the world. Three and a half thousand acres of Norfolk Virginia, home to a hundred and fifty thousand military personnel and their families. Hell of a place. Home for the US Atlantic Fleet.’
‘The frigate is scheduled to dock at Norfolk in about two hours. We’ve sent word to the captain to delay that for several hours. We have a C-17 incoming from Brize Norton as we speak. We’ll give her the chance to refuel and then we’ll get wheels up. She should be able to get you across the Atlantic in about eleven hours. You’ll board the frigate and then it’ll dock.’
‘This gives us hardly any time,’ Danny said. ‘What if the hit’s already happened by the time we get on to US soil.’
‘We have to take that chance,’ the General said. ‘I’m not revealing the location of the memory stick. I don’t trust anyone but me with it.’ He frowned. ‘If the hit’s on the west coast, that buys us a bit more time.’ He didn’t sound optimistic.
