Dark Horizon, page 12
‘Except you made it clear that wasn’t an option,’ said Finn, flicking a look at Ray.
The co-pilot couldn’t read Finn. Ray had only met him and the driver Miles that morning at a sketchy briefing in a windowless office at Vauxhall Cross. MI6 had pulled him abruptly from his last assignment with virtually no warning, forcing Ray to make an apologetic call to cry off from the family dinner he was supposed to be attending right now. Instead of sitting down to his maiden aunt’s delicious roasted chicken at her flat in Peckham, he was thirty thousand feet up over the Atlantic, in the middle of what was looking more and more like a life-threatening situation.
He thought of the lurid, disturbing stories he’d heard about pilots who locked out their crews and the horrible aftermath – the angry and the suicidal flying an aircraft into the side of a mountain. But that wasn’t the play here.
Ray looked across at the asset, the man rocking back and forth in his seat and muttering prayers under his breath. This was about him.
‘Get it open,’ demanded Breeze. ‘There’s gotta be an emergency release, or something—’
‘There isn’t,’ said Finn, cutting her off. ‘Unless you have a blowtorch in your pocket, we’re not getting in there if Hood doesn’t want us to.’
‘That’s the whole point of the thing,’ said Ray. ‘It’s not a security door if a hijacker can get through it at will.’
‘She’s doing the hijacking, not us!’ Breeze retorted, fixing Ray with a murderous stare. ‘You know what, this is on you, so unless you got something useful to add, shut the fuck up.’ The woman went back to Finn. ‘Hipster, you have a weapon? I know you do.’
Finn straightened his jacket, unconsciously smoothing the line of it down over the bulge where he carried a holstered pistol. ‘You’re asking me to discharge a firearm inside a pressurised cabin?’
‘That would be a very bad idea,’ added Ray. Visions of a ricocheting bullet punching through the Hawker’s thin metal fuselage, and the resultant catastrophic loss of pressure made his stomach tighten with sickly fear.
‘Yeah, I’ve seen the movies,’ Breeze said dismissively, ‘I know what happens. So if not that, give me another solution!’
Finn sighed and glanced at Ray again. ‘Look around, see what you can find in the cabin. There might be something we can use.’
‘Right.’ He moved to the nearest storage bin and cracked it open. Inside was a waterproof sack coloured bright international orange, full of gear for use in an emergency landing.
As Ray sifted through the contents, Breeze took a deep breath and drew herself up. ‘Step aside,’ she told Finn, moving back to the security door. ‘If our girl Katie won’t let us into the cockpit, maybe I can get into her head instead.’
‘I . . . do not want to die.’ The asset’s soft, fearful words were almost lost, his hands cupping his face as he leaned forward against the table in front of him.
‘Yeah, me neither,’ managed Ray, concentrating on the items in the bag.
Once the Hawker was on the new heading, Kate broke a whole other set of rules by deactivating both of the jet’s onboard transponders, pulling the circuit breakers to render them useless. Normally, the devices would ‘ping’ out the aircraft’s identification code to any local air traffic control or nearby planes in the same airspace, helping them to track it along its course, but now the Hawker was on its first step to becoming a ghost in the complex web of intersecting flight paths over the Strait.
Switching off a transponder wasn’t technically illegal, but it was suspicious, and within a few minutes a radio call crackled through Kate’s headphones as a query came in from Gibraltar International. Some attentive ATC operator in the tower there must have seen the code string fade from their screen and opted to contact the aircraft.
‘Hawker Lima Tango Tango Papa, Gibraltar ATC. Do you copy, over?’
Kate hesitated with her thumb over the button on the yoke that would key her mike and decided to remain silent.
The next call was more urgent. ‘Hawker Lima Tango Tango Papa, Gibraltar ATC. We show no transponder code from your aircraft at this time. Please respond.’
‘Typical,’ she said aloud. ‘Who rattled your cage, eh?’ Kate had vainly hoped she might slip by unremarked, getting lost among dozens of other planes flying there and back through this particular patch of sky, but it wasn’t to be. She was unlucky enough to be under the gaze of someone at Gibraltar both competent and observant.
She sucked in a breath and pressed the button. ‘Gibraltar ATC, this is Hawker Lima Tango Tango Papa. We have a minor electrical issue. Stand by – should be resolved soonest.’ The controller began to respond but Kate cut him off by silencing the channel and switching off the radio entirely. Hopefully her reply would buy some time, and the ATC’s attention would move on.
On the control panel, the clock read six minutes shy of the top of the hour and Kate’s deadline.
She took a deep breath and recovered her smartphone from her jacket. Careful not to make any mistakes that might be misinterpreted, Kate prodded out a message with her index finger and sent it to Alex’s phone.
I DID WHAT YOU WANTED. AIRCRAFT HAS BEEN DIVERTED.
It seemed like an eternity before the phone vibrated in her palm and a reply appeared in a bubble of text.
CONTINUE ON COURSE TO THE LOCATION PROVIDED. AVOID RADAR DETECTION. WAIT TO BE CONTACTED.
She waited for more to come. When it didn’t, Kate tapped out another sentence.
I WANT TO KNOW THEY ARE SAFE, she demanded, seeing Alex and George’s faces in her mind’s eye. I WANT TO TALK TO THEM.
There was another long pause, and Kate’s panic threatened to crest. If she antagonised these people, there was no telling what they might do. But she couldn’t afford to appear weak; she had to push back.
The phone buzzed again. YOU DO NOT GIVE THE ORDERS.
‘Oh please, no . . .’ The threatening tone of the reply made her feel ill.
Then a photo message appeared in the chat queue, and she was afraid to open it in case it revealed something horrible.
Kate reluctantly pressed the on-screen tab and was rewarded with another picture of George and Alex. In this image, they were both sitting on the living room sofa, across from the television. They appeared haggard and glum, staring into the camera with real fear in their eyes.
On the wall behind them she could see the clock, clearly showing that the image had been captured less than a minute ago. They were alive and whole, at least for the moment.
Another text message followed swiftly. DO AS YOU ARE TOLD AND THEY WILL NOT BE HARMED. DISOBEDIENCE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.
UNDERSTOOD. Kate sent the reply before slipping the phone back into her pocket. The grim weight of what she had done came down on her, pressing her into the seat like the force of a high-G turn.
She tightened her grip on the flight yoke, briefly closing her eyes. From behind her, the banging on the cockpit door became more strident and forceful.
TWELVE
The rain had returned, sounding a monotonous rhythm across the roof of the car, the ticking of an off-kilter metronome. Through the rivulets running down the windscreen, Miles kept a wary eye on the Americans, watching their big black SUV beside the Teller Aviation hangar. The prisoner transport that ferried the asset to the airstrip had departed, but the CIA’s vehicle resolutely remained in place. As long as it was there, Miles’s orders remained to keep watch.
A drinks machine inside the hangar’s back office had exuded the cup of watery, unpleasant coffee that Miles held in one hand. He sipped at it more from the need to have something to do rather than anything else. None of Breeze’s people had spoken to him since the jet took off – not her tech guy or her pet shooter, not the armed private contractors that escorted them – and he had the distinct impression they regarded him as some kind of obstacle rather than a colleague.
The arrogance of the CIA team made him scowl. They were on British soil, on his turf, but they acted like they were the ones in charge.
He could see the big-framed shooter stalking a circuit along the spill of light thrown from the hangar. Periodically, puffs of grey would wreath his head and coil around the bill of his baseball cap as he pulled on a vape pen, and he peered into the rainy night, looking for threats that didn’t materialise.
Bloody Yanks, Miles thought sourly, glaring at the guy as he prowled. Wherever they go, they act like they own the place.
The CIA’s hulking four-by-four leaked a faint electronic glow through one fractionally lowered window, and Miles could tell from the stubs of different antennae on the vehicle’s flat roof that it carried a load of counter-surveillance, monitoring and tactical gear. Dark flights like tonight’s little escapade had, in the past, attracted the interest of crusading reporters and other nosy types; an occupational hazard for operations such as this that hid in plain sight. Miles imagined that scanners inside the mobile ops unit were watching for any red flags that might indicate someone out on the airfield perimeter taking too much interest in this evening’s departure. Had they detected anybody, that person would likely have found themselves being mobbed by grim-faced PMC men and dragged off into the darkness.
All that gear inside the SUV had another function, though. Everything about this operation was being streamed in real-time around the world to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia – and if MI6 had asked nicely, they might be getting a slice of that feed secondhand.
Miles’s scowl deepened. By contrast, all he had was a plastic cup of ditch-water coffee and a motor that even the car-thief scallies back on his old estate wouldn’t have bothered nicking.
He pulled back the sleeve of his hoodie and checked his wristwatch. In the next half hour the team on the flight would officially make contact with their opposite numbers from the DST, the General Directorate for Territorial Surveillance in Morocco. Those men would be waiting for the jet when it arrived at the airstrip at Sidi Ifni, ready to take custody of the asset for ‘processing’ in one of their off-grid holding facilities.
Miles had never seen a real black site but he’d gone through the rigorous preparation demanded by the Security Intelligence Services at No. 1 Military Training Establishment, the SIS’s ‘school for spies’ at Fort Monkton in leafy Hampshire. Inside a bland concrete blockhouse, Miles and the rest of his trainee class had been put into a convincing facsimile of a secret prison so they would have some experience of what it was like to be interrogated by the enemy. For days, bellowing instructors and hard men seconded from the SAS physically and mentally abused him, pushing him to find out where his limits were.
He’d made it through, drawing on the reservoir of inner strength his tough upbringing had gifted him, but it had been a close-run thing. Miles never told anyone how close he’d come to cracking under the pressure. He thought again about Yusuf al-Amal, and the abject panic he saw in the man’s eyes back on the dockside. Someone as soft as that would crumble like wet sand when the Moroccans got their hands on him. He almost pitied the bloke.
The Security Services and the Central Intelligence Agency weren’t exactly troupes of choirboys, but the DST was in another category entirely. They excelled at the callous arts of rendition and covert incarceration, allowing the governments of other powers to keep their hands clean and maintain plausible deniability, while they acted as jailers and interrogators for the most dangerous men and women on the planet.
Miles had made his peace with this grubby reality. In his mind, it was a clear binary choice – if a bad actor had information that could shut down terrorist networks and ultimately save lives – using any means necessary to get that information was justified. Rights and morals didn’t enter into it. This was about stopping mass-murders, plain and simple. He thought about the recent incidents in Germany and Cyprus, the brutal deaths and blood on the streets. If Yusuf al-Amal was knowingly connected to the people behind those atrocities, in Miles’s consideration he’d already renounced his chance for a fair trial.
If. Miles hung on that word, frowning. The asset didn’t come off like some stone killer jihadi fanatic. He reminded Miles of his dentist.
Maybe Breeze and the Yanks had made a mistake. Maybe they had black-bagged the wrong man. But that was for other people to decide, not Miles.
A flurry of movement drew his attention back to the SUV. The tech bloke, Chester, almost ran into one of the contractors in his haste to get out of the vehicle. Miles clocked him carrying the chunky form of a satellite phone, and through the vehicle’s open door he saw a grid of screens and consoles.
‘Knox!’ Chester shouted the shooter’s name at the top of his lungs, and the other man snapped around like a cat hearing a bird. ‘Get over here!’
The tech couldn’t conceal the alarm in his voice, and the contractors in earshot heard it too. They reacted as Knox did, getting ready for trouble.
Miles leapt out of the Ford, tossing away the rest of the unpalatable coffee, and strode across to the SUV. Something was evidently kicking off, and he wasn’t going to watch from the sidelines.
‘Trouble?’ He made it to Chester first, fixing the other man with a hard look.
‘It’s, ah . . .’ The technician hesitated on the cusp of telling him, then drew back as Knox came sprinting across the apron toward them. ‘We’re handling it.’
‘Oh, right?’ Miles made it clear he was unconvinced. ‘Handling what, exactly?’
‘Step back.’ Knox walked into the conversation, imposing himself between the MI6 agent and the technician.
Chester paled a little and held up the sat phone, its glowing screen showing it was active. Knox snatched it out of his hand, studied the screen, and grimaced.
Miles heard Breeze’s faint but unmistakable voice issue out of the device. ‘Don’t keep me hanging, Marty, we have a serious situation up here!’
Miles stiffened. If there was a problem on the flight, his first order of business would be to keep Vauxhall Cross in the loop. ‘Let’s put that on speaker, yeah?’
Knox eyed him. ‘I’m not doing that.’ He nodded at the Ford. ‘Be smart. Go wait in the car.’
‘Fuck off, mate,’ said Miles, without heat. He was half the body mass of the American, and he didn’t doubt the guy knew a dozen ways to kill him. But he hadn’t backed down when those SAS bruisers had been at him in training, and he wasn’t about to do it now. ‘You’re here by the grace of the Crown, innit? And as far as you’re concerned, right now I’m the one wearing it.’ He pointed at the phone. ‘If there’s a problem, we’re all on.’
Knox clearly saw that further argument wasn’t going to wash, and indicated the SUV. ‘Get in.’
The vehicle was roomy and surprisingly comfortable, with a row of seats rigged up opposite the console fixed to one side of the interior. Miles’s gaze swept over screens and panels, catching sight of the feed from a flight tracking display.
The big American sat heavily and held the sat phone in one hand, aiming it like a weapon. ‘Go for Knox,’ he said into the microphone. ‘Be advised, we have one of the Brits with us.’
‘Uh huh.’ Breeze’s voice came back instantly. ‘Marty, you there?’
‘Affirmative.’ Chester gave Miles a wary glance, before moving over to put himself in front of the monitor screens, attempting to block the other man’s view.
‘Okay, here’s the thing. Hood, the pilot? She’s locked us out of the cockpit and she won’t respond.’ The woman wasted no time hedging. ‘She faked out Six’s guy, got him off the flight deck. You following?’
Knox glared at Miles as if this sudden, worrisome turn of events was his fault. ‘Copy that,’ he growled.
Miles heard Finn in the background say something he couldn’t quite catch, and Breeze relayed it. ‘We’ve changed course. Heading east now.’
‘You tracking them?’ Knox prodded Chester and nodded toward the screens.
‘Last known location is here.’ Chester clicked a mousepad and manipulated the flight display, zooming in on an area of the map. ‘There’s a time delay on positional reporting from the jet, but it looks like the transponders have been nixed. That can’t be a coincidence.’
‘Going dark,’ said Miles. ‘Pilot’s been compromised.’
‘You think?’ retorted Breeze.
‘Can you forcibly access the cockpit?’ Knox stared into the middle distance and Miles had the sense he was playing out that tactical scenario in his mind’s eye.
‘Nobody brought a can opener,’ said the woman. ‘And we can’t exactly climb out and bang on the windshield.’
Knox gave a curt nod. ‘All right. I’ll kick this up the line. If you figure out a way to get in, call back. Otherwise, sit tight. Copy?’
The immediate shift in Knox’s manner didn’t escape notice. Suddenly he was talking like he was the one in charge, giving Breeze orders when all along Miles had been under the impression the acerbic woman was the boss.
‘Sit tight?’ Breeze’s reply was flat. ‘I know the protocol, man. Don’t bullshit me on this.’
‘We’ll do what we can from here,’ said Knox. ‘Mobile out.’ He cut the call and tossed the phone back to Chester, who caught it awkwardly.
‘What’s the protocol?’ Miles met his gaze.
‘Not your concern,’ began Knox, but Chester shook his head.
‘In the event of a hostile takeover of an aircraft under Agency control,’ he said, as if reciting the words from a manual, ‘if the situation cannot be resolved, lethal force options are to be deployed.’
‘Shoot down a civilian jet?’ Miles blinked at the thought. ‘We didn’t agree to that! You won’t get permission . . .’
‘We don’t need permission.’ Knox glared at Chester for his lack of silence. ‘We already have it. Had it the second this op was green-lit.’
‘And Breeze knows that,’ added Chester.
Miles scowled. Things were starting to run away from him, but as the only MI6 officer on site, he still had a job to do. ‘I have to call this in.’
