You want to contact a gun for hire in a lawless African state? There’s no rule book that tells you how. No number you can call, or website you can visit. You either know about them or you don’t.
Danny Black did.
Knowledge like that went with the territory in the squadron hangars at Hereford. You couldn’t help but hear tales – possibly exaggerated – of this or that ex-Regiment guy who ended up plying his trade in some foreign backwater. Everyone knew their time in 22 was limited. When the moment arrived to say goodbye to RAF Credenhill, you needed an exit strategy. For most it would be private security work, guarding beautiful, young rich kids or ugly, paranoid businessmen. For some, it would be a life of exile in the dark and dangerous corners of the world, scratching out a mercenary’s career with the occasional deniable government contract or – easier – simple criminality. Either choice meant keeping your ear to the ground the same way a snake listens for vibrations: because it’s the best way to stay alive.
That was the kind of guy Danny needed.
13.07hrs, East Africa Time. Danny stepped on to the terminal concourse of Massawa airport, Eritrea. It only took him a few seconds to locate his guy. A man in his early fifties was standing apart from the congregation of about forty locals waiting to greet those arriving on Danny’s flight from Heathrow. He was leaning casually against a concrete supporting pillar that was covered with what looked like water stains, even though it was indoors. Square-jawed, deeply tanned, several days’ stubble, a blue denim shirt the same colour as his eyes, with a pair of Ray-Bans hanging on a cord around his neck, he looked like a local even though he was Caucasian. Something about the way he held himself told Danny he was perfectly at ease here.
Danny walked quickly across the concourse towards him, brushing off with a few well-chosen swear words the three yellow-toothed Eritrean teenagers offering to be his guide for ten American dollars a day. Danny had a military bearing, and he knew it. How could he not, after five years in the Regiment? Sometimes he made an effort to shake it off, but right now it was an advantage, because it ID’d him to his contact.
From the distance of ten metres he saw that the guy in the denim shirt had slightly watery eyes. Redness around the nose and cheek. That figured. It must be lonely this far from home, and a man could find companionship in a bottle.
‘John Triggs?’ he asked as the man fell in beside him.
‘Black?’ A hoarse, bronchial voice.
Triggs was one of the old guard. Decades out of the Regiment, but with the Regiment still in his blood. If what Danny had heard about him was true, he was one to be wary of.
‘Where’s your car?’
‘You got any luggage?’ He had the faintest remnant of a West Country accent.
‘I decided to manage without my swimming trunks. Where’s your car?’
‘You’re in a hurry, boy.’
‘Damn right I am,’ said Danny. ‘Enough with the questions. Get me to your vehicle.’
It was a black Land Cruiser, covered in dust and with mud splashes around the wheel arches. The vehicle was parked up alongside a few others in a cordoned-off patch of hard-baked earth about a hundred metres from the terminal building. Heat haze rose from the scorching metal. A local lad, about sixteen, was sitting on the hood, obviously guarding the car, his head nodding to Afrobeat in his earphones that Danny could hear several metres away. When he finally noticed them approaching he jumped on to the ground, pulled out the earphones and eyed Triggs carefully. Triggs handed him a couple of notes, which he hungrily grabbed, before making a strange clicking noise in the back of his throat and wandering off.
‘I drive,’ Triggs said, wandering round to the driver’s side, ‘you talk.’
Once he was in the passenger seat, Danny pulled his own shades from the top pocket of his shirt, which was already wet with sweat, while Triggs took a hip flask from a compartment in his door and took a swig. He offered it to Danny, who caught a whiff of some rough alcohol he couldn’t identify. Danny took the flask. Then he opened his side window and drained its contents out into the road, before handing the flask back to Triggs. ‘Not on my time,’ he said.
Triggs gave him a wary look, as though he was deciding whether or not to protest. He clearly elected not to as he shoved the flask back in his pocket. Danny checked out the vehicle’s optional extras. There was an Iridium satellite phone connected to the dashboard and he realised, from the way the sound outside the vehicle was unnaturally deadened, that he was sitting behind thick, toughened glass. It was immediately clear to him that the Land Cruiser was the right tool for certain types of job.
‘I’m looking for a friend,’ he said.
‘Ha!’ Triggs barked noisily as he pulled out of the parking area. He gave Danny a sidelong glance. ‘You know what normally happens when people come out here “looking for friends”? The friends end up dead in a ditch somewhere in the bush. You want me to help you, let’s drop the bullshit right now. If I’m going to find myself part of a murder team, I need to know.’
‘No murders,’ Danny said. ‘Unless someone gets in my way.’
‘That supposed to make me feel better?’ Triggs wheezed.
Danny ignored that. ‘His name’s Spud. I left him here a week ago. We were on an op together. He got badly injured in a firefight. I had to drain his chest cavity and leave him with a couple of Red Cross doctors at the airport. I don’t know how to find him, but I’m not leaving Eritrea unless he’s in the seat beside me.’
‘How touching,’ Triggs murmured, his hoarse voice little more than a whisper.
‘And you don’t get your money,’ Danny added, ‘unless you help me find him.’
Triggs fell silent for a moment. He pulled on to a busy, broad highway. The afternoon sun reflected dazzlingly off all the other cars, and the distant tarmac wobbled in the heat haze.
‘This op,’ Triggs said finally. ‘Was it Regiment business?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Care to elaborate?’
‘Hunter-killer mission.’
Triggs nodded sagely. ‘So, boy, if this Spud fella’s a Regiment lad, what’s with all this lone wolf shit? How come the boys from 22 haven’t rocked up to pick up one of their own? Or have things changed since I was in Hereford?’
Danny gave that a moment’s thought. Had things changed? He didn’t know. But he knew this: he and Spud had been part of an operation that plenty of people would like to keep quiet, by whatever means necessary. And last time he’d seen Spud, his mate was properly fucked up. Unable to walk, barely able to breathe. It would be the easiest thing in the world, in a backwater like this, to silence Spud permanently.
‘You don’t trust them?’ Triggs asked.
‘I don’t trust anyone,’ Danny said. Least of all you, he added silently.
‘Who else knows you’re here, boy? You tell anyone about your little rescue mission?’
‘Nobody. I’m off the grid.’
Triggs inclined his head, as if to say: That’s what you think.
‘Red Cross, you say?’
Danny nodded.
‘They have a facility in Asmara. I’m guessing you already checked that out?’
‘He’s not there.’
‘Makes sense, boy,’ said Triggs. ‘The NGOs out here make a point of staying out of governm. . .
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