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  Whatever was the case, the rumour was treated as highly plausible. Pretty much every Western government intelligence organisation began a search for the buyers and, most importantly, the weapons. The spiral-like patterns of the intelligence gathering system took a series of acute turns when someone working in the depths of the MI6 building on the Thames in London postulated that the shootings of the aircraft could well have been rehearsals. For something else. The theory had analysts sitting up all over the place.

  A week before Stratton’s visit to Washington DC a name surfaced, through British sources in Yemen. Someone had identified a possible missile provider. The name was Tajar Sabarak, a Saudi Arabian businessman. A name previously unknown to Western intelligence organisations. Sabarak was known to the Yemeni and Saudi authorities but as a petty smuggler who had so far eluded both countries’ authorities. He made his income out of the legitimate transportation of khat leaf from Yemen to Somalia. And he was suspected of using his international network to traffic, on occasion, in blood diamonds.

  The breakthrough came when MI6 sources in Yemen reported that Sabarak had met with representatives of people who a year earlier had shown up as being interested in purchasing ground-to-air missiles. Shortly afterwards, Sabarak began flying around the world, several of those trips to Hong Kong and Indonesia, nowhere that had anything to do with the buying and selling of the amphetamine khat leaf or blood diamonds. But when it came to places like Indonesia, plausibly everything to do with Muslim extremism. A sting operation was planned to try and entrap the Saudi into selling his missiles. And even though it failed, what it revealed, on secret recordings of meetings, was a man clearly obsessed with global jihad.

  It was enough to trigger a reaction stronger than just the need for more clandestine information gathering, said the MI6 man. The SIS decided to bring Sabarak in for questioning. The decision was based on the feeling that it would be better to have Sabarak in custody than put him under surveillance in the hope of finding the weapons and then risk losing him. It was believed that whatever the jihadists were planning, it had in some way already begun.

  While Stratton was landing in DC, Sabarak was flagged arriving by air from Saudi Arabia into Sana’a, Yemen’s capital. From there he took a domestic flight to Riyan on the south coast. Before leaving Sana’a, Sabarak placed a call to a Somali in Riyan, a man named Mustafa Jerab, a man with strong ties to Al-Shabaab, an Islamic terrorist group. Stratton knew all about Al-Shabaab. Based in Somalia. No small-time organisation. In just a few years it had grown from a little-known gang of fanatics into a membership of tens of thousands and control of almost half the country.

  Sabarak’s phone conversation was recorded and sent to MI6 by a British spy operating within the Yemeni Secret Service. Sabarak and Jerab talked like business associates. They said nothing specific but the inference was quite clear to the British intelligence translator. Sabarak wanted to discuss the shipment of something highly sensitive.

  Stratton’s task was straightforward enough, the MI6 man said. He was to go to Riyan with one other operative and two Gurkha special forces support staff, snatch Sabarak and take him to the Oman border seven hours away by road, where British intelligence staff, with the nod from the Omani authorities, would take the Saudi away for a long rest and some very intensive interviews.

  The MI6 man stopped talking. He picked up a phone and made an internal call. He needed a car out front right away.

  Stratton’s ride took him back to his hotel to pick up his belongings. From there it took him over the Anacostia river to Bolling Air Force Base, where he was met by a senior US Air Force officer whose job it was to escort him through the camp’s bureaucracy and take him to a waiting aircraft.

  Judging by the schedule Stratton had been given, he didn’t have a lot of time to get to the UK to meet his next transit east. He climbed into a scuffed US Air Force van and as they headed for a line of huge C-141 jet transport aircraft he couldn’t see how he was going to make the connection in time. So he wasn’t surprised when the driver pulled the van past the transport craft towards a lone two-seater F-16 parked on the skirt.

  Stratton stepped from the van as an aviation fuel truck drove away. After the senior officer’s brief explanation of the flight – basically what not to touch and what to do in the event of an emergency – the man handed him a helmet and life vest and invited him to climb the ladder into the back seat of the dull-grey fighter. Stratton nodded to the pilot, who was already aboard. After a brief exchange the canopy closed and the engines roared as the bird rolled off the skirt.

  As the pilot taxied the fighter, he called in to the tower and received clearance to go. He turned the F-16 on to the runway and fired the thrusters. Stratton’s seat had been lowered to reduce the effects of the g-force but the take-off acceleration was exhilarating even for him. Especially since all he could see were the clouds through the polycarbonate bubble canopy. Once they were airborne, the pilot raised Stratton’s seat back up and after climbing to thirty thousand feet, they shot through the skies at around fifteen hundred mph, more than double the speed of a commercial jet.

  After a while looking at nothing but clouds below and blue sky everywhere else, Stratton nodded off. Until a strange noise woke him. For a few seconds he wondered where the hell he was. A long tube with a bulbous end was hovering above him outside the cockpit. The far end of the tube was attached to the back of a large aircraft above and in front of them. The F-16 was being refuelled, a new experience for Stratton and he watched it with interest.

  Three hours after leaving DC, five hours quicker than a Boeing 747, the fighter craft touched down at Mildenhall Air Base in Norfolk and Stratton got taken to an MoD civilianised Gulf jet, where he met Hopper, Prabhu, Ramlal and the ops team who were to give them the detailed briefing and provide the specialised equipment they needed.

  Six and a half hours later the aircraft landed in Salalah, Oman, and after that the team rode in a Toyota Land Cruiser heading for the Yemeni border, which they crossed to follow the coastal road all the way to Riyan.

  2

  Flickering lights coming from the village snapped Stratton out of his reverie and he leaned his elbows on the edge of the wadi to look through a night-vision monoscope. Two Suburbans were making their way between the houses in his direction. It had to be their target departing the rendezvous.

  He looked over at Hopper, who was on his knees holding the wire. The last house in the village looked about a thousand metres away. The vehicles would cover the distance in a couple of minutes on the rough road. The first vehicle emerged from between the perimeter houses and into the open, the second one close behind it, their headlights bouncing as they came over the undulating ground.

  Stratton placed three small gas grenades on the top of the wadi and slid a hand inside his jacket to touch his holstered P226 pistol. It was a subconscious check. The weapon was already loaded. He had been ready for a fight from the moment they crossed the border into Yemen.

  He looked once again at Hopper. ‘You a happy man, Hopper?’ he called out.

  ‘I will be when we’re on our way home.’

  Stratton should have expected such a reply. He would bet fifty quid that Hopper was thinking about his family even then. But he took a moment to ask himself what he would feel like if he had the ideal girl waiting for him to get home.

  Headlights suddenly appeared, coming from the coastal highway, and flashed across their position. It was a vehicle speeding along the track towards the village and the two Suburbans.

  Stratton and Hopper dropped to the bottom of the wadi just before the vehicle, some type of 4×4, tore by, kicking dirt and stones into the wadi and on top of them. They knelt back up to watch it head towards the oncoming Suburbans.

  ‘What the bloody hell was that?’ Hopper called out.

  Whatever it was, Stratton didn’t like the look of it.

  A sudden loud bang came from the direction of the two Suburbans. Not so much like a gun going off, more li
ke the muffled burst of a tyre. Stratton and Hopper watched as the headlights of the leading Suburban bounced hard before turning sharply to one side like the vehicle had lost control. It came to a dusty halt and the second Suburban behind slid to a stop.

  Stratton quickly took up the thermal imager and saw several figures running from a fold in the ground where they had obviously been hiding. There were four of them in total and they split into pairs as they went towards both vehicles. He could hear popping sounds as the figures reached the Suburbans. Then he heard a shot.

  The red tail lights of the 4×4 flared as it came to a hard halt on the stone track right in front of the Suburbans. The sound of men shouting carried across the night air, the language impossible to decipher.

  Hopper stood to get a better look but also out of mild shock. ‘Is what I think I see going on what I think is going on?’

  Stratton couldn’t think what else could be going on.

  ‘Someone’s beaten us to them,’ Hopper said.

  Stratton didn’t ask the question, who was carrying out the attack? All he could think of was what he needed to do about it. His team wasn’t equipped for any kind of major firefight against numbers. They only had a pistol each. This was all now about coming up with the right reaction.

  The 4×4 carried out a u-turn, its headlights pointing back the way it had come. They heard more shouts accompanied by the slamming of the vehicle’s doors.

  Stratton watched through his imager at what appeared to be the original ambush party: four or five men running across the rocky ground in the direction of the coast. The 4×4 accelerated along the track back the way it had come – towards Stratton and Hopper.

  ‘Pull the claws!’ Stratton shouted.

  Hopper hesitated, looking for confirmation. He’d had the same concerns as Stratton – they weren’t equipped for a firefight beyond a handful of pistols.

  ‘They’ve got our target,’ said Stratton. ‘We’re gonna take him back.’

  Hopper yanked on the wire and dragged the multi-barbed snake out of its housing until it was stretched across the full width of the track.

  ‘Nothing’s changed other than we have just the one vehicle to take on,’ Stratton called out. ‘We also have surprise. They won’t be expecting us.’ He looked behind him and back up the mountain track hoping the Gurkhas would be ready to react as they had originally planned.

  The 4×4 came fast along the dusty, rocky track, skidding on the bends, its lights bouncing violently over the ruts. Whoever was driving it was at the limit of his abilities. Stratton and Hopper pulled on their gas masks and braced as the vehicle closed on them. The driver was reckless, Stratton could see, the guy could easily skid into the wadi after hitting the claws. He hugged the edge of the riverbed, crouched below it as the headlights came on.

  The vehicle shot over the claws, the teeth biting into the rubber and the links then wrapping around the front wheels as they were designed to, shredding the tyres. The driver fought to keep the SUV under control but he couldn’t and slewed off the track opposite the wadi, the wheel rims gouging the ground. As the car stopped, Stratton and Hopper strode up and out of the wadi, pulling the pins from their grenades as they walked.

  The front passenger door opened as Stratton arrived. He tossed a grenade inside. But as the cap fired with a loud pop and smoke hissed loudly from it the passenger climbed out. The man was wearing a gas mask. He was reaching inside his jacket. Stratton had several distinct thoughts in the space of half a second. Going for his own pistol could be the wrong move. The guy could be anyone. He was kidnapping a bad guy so he wasn’t necessarily a bad guy himself. Stratton kept his forward momentum. He rapidly closed on the man, whose pistol came into view, and slammed into him, knee to crotch, palm to face, slapping the gun away with his other hand. The man dropped back into the vehicle with the force of the contact, his feet still on the ground. Stratton grabbed him by his front, ripped him from the vehicle and threw him to the ground.

  On the other side of the car, Hopper had grabbed the driver, who was also wearing a gas mask, and pulled him out of his seat. The man crumpled to the ground and submitted the instant Hopper leaned his weight on him.

  Stratton’s man had no intention of giving up. As Stratton moved over him, the man kicked out, a hard blow to the torso that knocked Stratton back. The guy was some kind of a martial artist. He got to his feet, grabbed Stratton, swung him back against the 4×4 and gripped his collar with both hands in a judo-style strangle -hold. Thick white vapour continued to stream from the gas canister, gushing out of the SUV’s open door around the pair. Choking under the power of the man’s grip, Stratton ripped away the guy’s mask. He immediately began to succumb to the knock-out gas, loosening his hold on Stratton. The operative swept the man’s legs out from under him and he landed hard on his side.

  Stratton slammed the door shut to cut off the gas and placed a knee and his full weight on to the man while he removed his own gas mask and levelled his pistol at the guy’s head.

  ‘Hopper!’

  ‘I’m good,’ his partner called back, breathing hard. ‘Driver’s down. One man unconscious in the back. It’s Sabarak.’

  As he spoke, a vehicle came careering to a stop on the track. Prabhu and Ramlal. Ramlal hurried to help Hopper haul the prone Sabarak out of the back seat. Prabhu joined Stratton and they looked down on the man lying on his side breathing heavily as he fought against the effects of the gas.

  He rolled on to his back, coughed and spluttered. He looked East Asian, his eyes narrow, a large, flat face. Stratton went through his pockets and produced a wallet and passport. The man was Chinese, or so the documentation showed.

  ‘Who are you?’ Stratton asked.

  He remained expressionless, looked away like he had not even heard anything.

  Stratton felt like his gut instinct had been right. This man was the vehicle’s commander and he wasn’t linked to terrorism, he was part of some organised security service like Stratton. He had used the same technique to carry out the kidnapping as Stratton. A controlled, sophisticated approach. But Stratton doubted he would volunteer any information about who he was and why he wanted Sabarak. Not without some help.

  He aimed the pistol at the man’s head. ‘You attacked me and tried to prevent me from arresting a suspected terrorist. I’d be justified in shooting you. No one here’s going to say it wasn’t self defence.’

  The man still didn’t react.

  ‘I don’t have much time,’ Stratton said. ‘All I’m asking for is a reason not to kill you. Why do you want Sabarak?’

  The man blinked. But that was all. Hopper came over to take a look at him.

  ‘I think we’re going to have to add a dead Chinese person to our report,’ Hopper said.

  ‘Unfortunately I think you’re right,’ said Stratton. ‘Get Sabarak into our vehicle,’ he said to the Gurkhas.

  Prabhu and Ramlal dragged the unconscious Saudi into the back of their Land Cruiser.

  Hopper looked through the thermal imager monoscope towards the village. ‘Bodies moving this way. His ambush party have worked out what’s happened, I expect.’

  Stratton stepped back and clenched his teeth like he was about to shoot. ‘Sorry, mate. You chose the wrong day to play the strong, silent type.’

  ‘I work for Chinese State Security Ministry,’ the man said quickly in halting English. Stratton kept the pistol pointed at him. There had been nothing in the brief about anything Chinese.

  ‘What’s your interest in Sabarak?’

  ‘I cannot tell you that. Even on pain of death.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘You will eventually know the answer to that anyway. My life and reputation would be worth nothing if I told you.’

  ‘Shall I engage them, sab?’ Prabhu asked, looking to the approaching men who were less than a minute away. He’d unholstered his pistol and held it at the ready.

  Stratton looked into the darkness towards the village, then at Ramlal be
hind the wheel of the idling Land Cruiser. ‘No. Let’s go.’

  Stratton pocketed the Chinese man’s passport, holstered his gun and climbed into the front passenger seat. Prabhu got into the back along with Hopper, and Ramlal floored the accelerator pedal.

  Hopper kept an eye on their rear while Stratton studied the way ahead. He saw the foreign ambush team reach their commander. He saw the guy get to his feet. He saw them stand in the middle of the track, talking.

  The Land Cruiser bumped heavily along. A lone car passed along the coastal highway in front, its headlights silently cutting into the blackness.

  ‘What do you think the Chinese Secret Service wanted with this clown?’ Hopper asked. The Saudi sat between him and Prabhu, his head lolling left then right, his tongue hanging out. He couldn’t stop drooling. Hopper shoved Sabarak away on to Prabhu, who was equally unimpressed.

  ‘No idea,’ Stratton replied. His focus had switched back to delivering their man to Oman. The threat had passed so short of any unforeseen accident, they would be at the border by first light. There was something niggling him though he did not know what. Whether it had been the fight or the close call that almost lost him his man, he didn’t know.

  He made an effort to unwind, shake off the uncomfortable feeling and concentrate on the drive. They would divide the journey into two watches. The Gurkhas were fresher than him and Hopper so they could take the first couple of hours. As soon as they were heading comfortably along the highway, he would grab a nap. It had been another long day.