Kroll caught up with him and clapped him on the shoulder.
‘Hey.’ He peered into Dima’s eyes. ‘Uh-oh, I know that look.’
‘Kroll, your life is shit. What makes you so fucking cheerful all the time?’
Kroll shrugged. They paused to let the others catch up. Vladimir caught the change of mood and grinned his vampire grin.
‘It beats another night in Butyrka.’
Zirak nodded at the street ahead. ‘I hope Amara’s got the dinner on.’
33
Camp Firefly, Outskirts of Tehran
Black sat at the folding table, the field laptop open in front of him and Campo and Montes behind, the light from the screen giving their faces a ghostly glow. The video, shot at night, was almost indecipherable, but there was enough to be in no doubt as to what was happening. Cole stood over them as they watched.
Campo hissed through clenched teeth.
‘We got any idea who this cocksucker is?’
The man, tall, with the end of his turban wrapped round his face, stood over the hooded figure, whispering. Then with a magician’s flourish he whipped off the hood to reveal the face of the terrified tanker, Miller, before he drove a blade into his neck.
Cole reached forward and slammed down the lid, looked at Black, waiting.
‘Same guy?’
Black nodded. ‘It’s like he’s taunting us. Does he think making us this mad’s gonna help his revolution?’
‘What do intel say? They got a fix on him?’
Cole shrugged.
‘Nothing. Okay guys, listen up. We got confirmation Al Bashir’s run to the northwest of the city where the PLR forces are concentrated. They’ll be kept occupied by ongoing airstrikes.’
Cole broke open a map and spread it over the table.
‘Al Bashir and any sub-commanders must be captured alive. Assault element, call sign Misfit 2–1, will be flown in by Osprey. Black, your team will provide overwatch from these positions.’
Cole pointed to two locations on a satellite shot of a large shopping mall.
‘Extraction will be by Osprey. Okay gentlemen, get to work.’
Montes looked at Black.
‘Do you get the feeling we just missed another night’s sleep?’
Campo chipped in. ‘No way baby, you’ve just had eight hours and a nice lie in. Don’t you remember that nice nightcap the lady with the big tits brought you in your suite? And how she served it, with whipped cream and—.’
Black wasn’t listening. He opened the laptop. Played the video again.
34
‘Hey! “Is it a bird? Is it a plane?” Whooh!’
Campo, grinning, watched through a tiny window as the Osprey’s rotors tilted from take-off into flight position. He nudged Black, yelling above the roar.
‘Man, don’t you love it? The first flying machine to combine the vertical take-off capability of a chopper with the cruise speed of a turboprop plane. Is that a beautiful idea or what?’
Black wanted Campo to stop nudging him and shut up but he didn’t say so. He knew he meant well. Campo always meant well. If he hadn’t damaged an eye in training he’d have been up there in the cockpit. Flying was what he’d signed up for, but his injury had finished that dream. He had accepted it as he did all setbacks, by seeking out the next positive. Blackburn wondered what positives he would have found if he had seen Harker’s beheading.
‘And you know what’s way cool? The enemy can hear us coming but they don’t know where the fuck we gonna land. ‘Cos this thing can drop on any roof, any playground it wants. They gonna be shitting their girlfriends’ panties in that shopping mall when we come out to play!’
Campo gave him another nudge.
‘And you know who wanted to kill it off? The Lord of War himself, Dick Cheney, back when he was Secretary of Defense. But know what? He got overruled by Congress. Our elected representatives said, “Go build that bird”.’
The relative merits of the Osprey were a subject of heated debate among the Marines. Being able to fly right in and deploy on top of the enemy was a big plus: why fight your way into hostile territory by land when you could just drop regular Marines right on top of their HQ like they were Navy Seals going to get Bin Laden? All good, except for that tense moment they all hated, as the craft hovered teasingly over its landing site while its rotors switched to land position.
‘Not so much a sitting duck as a hovering duck,’ Campo said.
What was on Blackburn’s mind now wasn’t the Osprey, but Cole’s last words before he boarded. ‘You bring us back Al Bashir, the Harker thing is forgotten. Got that?’ Cole wasn’t letting up.
Black looked out of the porthole as they swooped towards the LZ. Above, a black night dotted with stars, an almost full moon rising over the mountains to the north. It was a long time since he had looked at anything so beautiful. He stared, as if trying to absorb as much of the serenity as he could before the Osprey took them back down into the firestorm.
35
Niavaran, Northeast Tehran
Amara cradled the glass in her hands and stared at the last remaining mouthful of rum.
‘Pig scum.’
Dima wasn’t sure exactly sure who she was referring to. He decided not to seek clarification.
She had taken the news of Gazul’s death with a stoic resignation that he hadn’t anticipated. He might have sat beside her and ventured to put a comforting arm round her shoulder, if she hadn’t been such a miserable bitch. Plus on the way back into the house he had caught sight of his reflection. Vladimir’s attempt at wiping off the remains of her husband’s brains had left a lot to be desired, so after the battering he’d received earlier he opted to deliver the news from a safe distance.
‘Just to let you know — I let the boys use the facilities to get themselves cleaned up.’
Miraculously the showers in the house still worked, and the electricity was on a generator. Vladimir was in a bath, singing a rousing old Soviet pioneer song, splashing as he raised his fist and slammed it back into the water. ‘Forward, people of the Motherland! Fight girls! Fight boys! Slay the fascist beast. . ’ Ah, the good old days.
From the kitchen he could smell a stew being prepared by Zirak, of what it was probably best not to ask. Kroll, who would have to be reminded to wash, was trying to fix the scanner, which had suffered its second near-death experience during the evacuation from the burning APC. Gregorin, freshly groomed, had helped himself to Gazul’s wardrobe and was engaged in cleaning their weapons, getting smears of grease on his dead host’s best shirt.
The house looked just as the home of the Intelligence Chief’s mother should. No one had come looting or even bothered the current occupant, because they were too busy fleeing.
‘Pig scum. I hope they are hijacked by Taliban and spit roasted, both ends.’ She pointed her two forefingers at each other and made a sharp jabbing motion.
‘All the other wives, first hint of trouble —.’ She sliced the air with her hand. ‘They take the first plane out to Dubai. They’ll be round the pool at the Jumeirah Beach now, knocking back the daiquiris at 150 dirhams a time, eyeing up the waiters and thanking Allah their husbands banked offshore.’ Her hand flew in a wide circle, indicating the house. ‘Mother, cousins, sisters: all gone. When we married they took me into their family.’ She jabbed her thumb in the air. ‘Fuck them all!’
Dima flinched slightly to avoid the fuming spray from her mouth. He was longing to get under the shower himself and wash the whole lot off, not to mention the last of her husband. He had told her a vaguely plausible story about how her poor hero had been bravely negotiating on her behalf before being tragically cut down in his prime. He wasn’t sure she believed him, but now that they’d pretty much run out of options there was potential in playing nice for a bit. That was another thing he’d learned over the years. Spetsnaz trained you to trust nobody, but life had taught him something even more usefuclass="underline" don’t stop your dislike of someone from letting them come in handy. As his mother’s favourite proverb had it: ‘Don’t spit in the welclass="underline" you may have to drink from it.’