Hellfire (15 page)

An overpowering stench almost knocked him double. He retched, but managed to keep control of his guts as he stood in the doorway, peered into the gloomy hut and counted the bodies.

There were five, all African. Three men, two women. All naked. Painfully thin. They were sprawled across the floor, either on their back or curled up in the foetus position. They didn’t move. Against the wall, to Ripley’s eleven o’clock, was a small pile of excrement. The bodies had clearly been in here for some time before they died.

Ripley didn’t know what had killed these people. Malnutrition? Lack of water? But he knew this: they’d died badly.

He was on the point of stepping backwards out of the hut, when he saw a sudden movement. One of the two women was lying on her back on the right-hand side of the hut. Her abdomen had suddenly arched upwards and she let out a groan. She was still alive.

The SAS man moved out of instinct. He had morphine and antibiotics in his pack. Maybe he could help her. He let his weapon fall and knelt down by the woman’s side.

Only as his knees hit the ground did he realise that this was a very bad idea.

Now that he was inside the hut and closer to the bodies, he could see them much more clearly. Their brown skin was covered with disgusting black pustules. Some of them had crusted over. Others were still weeping. The faces of the dead were frozen in expressions of agony, as if they’d been suffering terrible pain at the moment of their death. The area around their nose and mouth was smeared with what looked like dried blood. And as Ripley’s eyes grew a little more used to the dim light inside the hut, he saw puddles of dried vomit and smears of liquid faeces over the corpses’ bodies and the rough rush matting on the floor.

‘What the fuck . . .’ he breathed.

He had to get out of there. Quickly.

‘What do you mean, “what of”?’ Danny demanded.

Another nasty smile. ‘So you haven’t found the guinea pigs, army bitch?’ He closed his eyes.

‘What guinea pigs? What are you talking about?’

Jihadi Jim winced with pain. ‘In the huts . . . dead . . .’

A beat.

‘Dead of what?’

Jihadi Jim opened his eyes again. ‘
I will drive him into the Hellfire
,’ he whispered. ‘
And what will explain to you that which Hellfire is? It allows nothing to endure, and leaves nothing alone. It blackens the skins of men.
’

‘I’m only going to ask you one more time, you piece of shit. Dead of what?’

‘Plague, army bitch,’ he said. ‘Plague.’

It happened before Ripley could move. The woman’s abdomen suddenly arched again. Her eyes opened and she tilted her head towards him, revealing a face whose brown skin was covered in horrible black patches. At the same time, a dreadful, harsh, grating sound escaped her throat. She coughed explosively. A warm spray hit Ripley directly in the face.

‘
Jesus . . .
’

Ripley jumped to his feet and jumped back. The woman was still again. Ripley touched his face then looked at his fingertips. They were covered in a watery, pale red liquid.

‘
Jesus . . .
Jesus!
’

He staggered outside and felt himself wanting to retch again. This time he couldn’t hold it in. He vomited on to the dusty ground. Then he wiped the watery blood from his face with his sleeve. It had turned sticky and sputum-like.

It was everywhere.

Nine

Ripley’s voice, taut and stressed, came over the radio. ‘
Can you hear me?
’

Danny tried to keep his own voice level: ‘Go ahead.’

‘
Fucking hell, mate, I’ve got a pile of Nigerian stiffs here. They died of some kind of . . . I don’t know, some kind of . . . infection, and one of them’s coughed out their fucking guts, all over my face
.’

A pause.

‘What’s your current location?’

‘
I’m in the compound. It was locked from the outside. I forced my way in. I thought there’d be another fucking arms cache or something . . .
’

Danny stood up. ‘I’ll be right there.’

Danny looked down at Jihadi Jim. It would be a second’s work to nail him, but the reality was that they needed him alive. He had information, and that information had bought him some time – as the bastard had no doubt calculated it would.

Instead, Danny turned his back on him. He spoke into the radio. ‘Tony, I’m leaving the kid. Hold off on that cas-evac. Pick him up when you’ve got the vehicle. Bring him back to the village, and for fuck’s sake keep him alive.’

‘
What’s going on?
’

‘Just do it.’

Danny jumped on his bike, fired up the engine and sped back towards Chikunda. As the road levelled out, he could see Caitlin, misty through the heat haze, running along the road from the north end of the village. Hard to judge distances, but she was about three hundred metres away from Danny, and probably only fifty from the compound. He didn’t want to say over the radio what Jihadi Jim had just told him – it would freak Ripley out – but he had to stop Caitlin making contact with his mate . . .

He crouched down over the handlebars and concentrated on maintaining his speed. The bike bumped heavily over the rough road. As he sped past Block West he could see that Caitlin was still fifty metres from him, but just fifteen from the entrance to the compound where Ripley was. He engaged the brakes and skidded to a noisy halt, before letting the bike fall to the ground, its engine still turning over.

‘
Stop where you are!
’ he shouted. ‘
Don’t move!
’

Caitlin halted. She inclined her head, clearly confused by Danny’s instruction. Danny sprinted towards her. He was ten metres from the entrance to the compound when Ripley appeared at the open gate. His eyes looked slightly wild, and his dirty face glistened with a faintly pink smudge.

‘Tell me what happened,’ Danny said.

‘There are five bodies in a hut. They’re infected with something. One of them was still just alive – she coughed over my face.’ Ripley clearly recognised something in Danny’s expression. ‘You know what it is,’ he said. ‘Tell me.’

Danny took a couple of steps towards his mate. ‘You’re probably fine,’ he said. But before he could take another step forward, Ripley had pulled his side arm and was pointing it directly at Danny.

‘Keep your distance, mucker,’ he said. ‘And don’t fucking mollycoddle me. What did they die of?’

Danny fixed Ripley with a stare. ‘Plague,’ he said.

Ripley closed his eyes momentarily, but he didn’t lower his weapon. ‘Wait there,’ he said. ‘If I see you enter this compound, I’m going to fucking shoot you, got it?’ He stepped backwards.

‘Ripley . . .’

‘You’re going to have a kid, Danny. Do the right thing.’

Danny froze as those words hit him. He hadn’t even been thinking about that. Caitlin was looking at him strangely. ‘He’s right,’ she said. ‘You can’t approach. I won’t let you.’

Danny looked to his right. He could see the Range Rover approaching through the heat haze at a distance of about five hundred metres. He hoped Tony had managed to keep Jihadi Jim alive.

Ripley reappeared. He had a bundle of white material in his arms. ‘I saw this in one of the huts. It’s a hazmat suit. I’m going to isolate myself.’

‘Mate . . .’

‘Fucking listen to me, Danny,’ Ripley said, and for the first time his voice wavered. ‘You need to get on to Porton Down. There must be something I can take . . .’

He started to get into his hazmat suit. Legs first, then arms, then he pulled the white hood over his face. When he spoke again, his voice came over the radio set. ‘
I’m going to tell you what was in there while I still can
,’ he said. ‘
There are three males, two females, all naked. Their hut was locked from the outside – I’m guessing they were guinea pigs of some kind. They have kind of black pustules over their bodies. They’ve been shitting themselves and vomiting. There’s an open box in one of the huts with Chinese lettering on the side.
’

‘It’s weaponised,’ Danny muttered so only Caitlin could hear him. ‘Someone was checking their virus works.’

‘Which is why they cleared the village first,’ Caitlin said, her voice soft with shock. ‘And why they didn’t do this in Boko Haram heartland. They didn’t want to risk killing their own.’

‘You need some water,’ Danny called out. He took his own water bottle from his waistcoat and started carrying it towards his mate.

Ripley didn’t hesitate. He quickly engaged his weapon and pointed it directly at Danny. ‘Throw it,’ he said.

Danny paused, but then did as Ripley said. The water bottle landed with a thud at his friend’s feet. From the corner of his vision, Danny could see that the Range Rover had come to a halt twenty metres from their position. ‘We’re going to get you a medic,’ Danny said quietly. ‘Antibiotics . . . antiviral . . . whatever you need. You’re going to be alright.’ He hoped he sounded convincing. He wasn’t sure that he did.

He ran towards the Range Rover. He could see Jihadi Jim sitting in the passenger seat, his head back, staring at the roof. He strode round to the passenger door, yanked it open and pulled him out of the vehicle before Tony had even had chance to alight. He dragged him away from the Range Rover and gripped him by the throat. ‘Get on the ground,’ he hissed. ‘If I see you move, I’ll kill you, and I don’t care what you know.’

He pushed the kid to the floor. Then he strode back to the Range Rover.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ Tony demanded. ‘What’s wrong with Ripley? What’s the deal with Target Blue? Why aren’t we chasing that fucking Chinese guy?’

‘We need to get on to comms with Hereford,’ Danny told him curtly.

He crossed over to the vehicle, with its radio pack installed beneath the seats, and made the call.

Ten

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 15.00 hrs Arabic Standard Time.

Hugo Buckingham had hoped never to return to the Middle East. He had spent a lot of time here as a younger man, and had even grown fond of Riyadh with all its peculiarities. But a stint in Syria with a wild SAS soldier called Danny Black, and several brushes with death, had made him reluctant to leave the comfort of his desk in the MI6 building.

He had felt fear pressing down on his shoulders as the British Airways 747 cruised over the desert kingdom. Sitting in the comfort of his first class seat, he picked out the billowing chimneys of the oil fields, and desert settlements, insignificantly small compared to the vast sand dunes. And his mind drifted to thoughts of Danny Black. He knew the SAS man had walked the wrong side of the line out in Syria. Even better, he knew there were factions in the CIA who would be very happy for Black to meet with a terminal accident. All Buckingham had to do was say the word. Buckingham liked having that power. It made him feel good. As he flew into an unknown situation in Saudi, it was comforting to remind himself that he had a talent for oneupmanship. He could manipulate people. He was good at it. It gave him a little bit of confidence about the job ahead.

There were no diplomatic privileges at the airport. He was here under the radar, so he queued up at passport control with all the other ordinary passengers. A Saudi immigration official in full traditional robes and headdress examined his passport carefully, stamped it and politely let him into the country. Buckingham knew enough about the way things were in Riyadh to realise that the Saudi secret police – not an organisation you wanted to get on the wrong side of – would be aware of his presence within about twenty-four hours. When that happened, he knew that a black vehicle, probably a Mercedes, would sidle up to him in the street and a polite but firm official would ask him to come downtown for a little ‘chat’. But Buckingham fully expected to be safely housed in the British Embassy by then. He was here for a single conversation, nothing more. As soon as the conversation was over, he’d head to the embassy and await further instructions.

Buckingham hadn’t exactly forgotten how hot it was in this part of the world, but it was always a surprise to be hit by the brutal force of the Saudi climate. He winced as he stepped outside the air-conditioned terminal at Riyadh King Khalid International Airport. At least, he thought to himself, it wasn’t high summer, when it was intolerable to be outside even for a few seconds. Still, he was glad to get into an air-conditioned taxi – it was covered with a thin dusting of sand – and head into central Riyadh.

Buckingham had always found Riyadh to be a city of contrasts. The spectacular, modern, high-rise buildings showed how rich the country was. But they sprouted from areas where the buildings were low and traditional, where the mosques, the hijabs and the burkas acted as constant reminders that this was a deeply conservative and religious place. The call to prayer sounded five times a day. Alcohol was banned. It was illegal for women to drive a car. Riyadh was modern and medieval at the same time.

‘Al-Dirah district,’ he told his cab driver in flawless Arabic. He had learned, in his time here, that it was quite usual to talk down to those whom you considered inferior. It was something Buckingham had no problem with, and he spoke with curt sharpness that came quite naturally. The driver was wearing white robes, just like the passport officials. And while he wasn’t exactly unfriendly, Buckingham caught his suspicious glance in the rear-view mirror on more than one occasion. He understood why. Al-Dirah district could hold an unwelcome surprise for unsuspecting foreigners. ‘Drive,’ he instructed the driver. ‘I haven’t got all day.’