Traitor Read online

  ‘I take it you know these men?’ Jason asked.

  Stratton was not ready to act as if all that had been said before had been forgotten.

  ‘Shall we go down and greet them?’ Jason asked. He walked off through the room. Rowena hadn’t moved so, rather than remain with her, Stratton set off after Mansfield. It would be a relief to meet Chaz and the boys.

  They headed along another gently curving corridor and soon arrived at a more dingy part of the complex. The concrete was unfinished, as if the construction budget had been exhausted. Exposed pipes and conduits ran across the ceilings, connecting the bare strip lighting.

  They passed under an archway into an expansive room containing a cloudy standard-sized swimming pool. Their feet echoed in the cavernous space as they walked along its length. ‘Testing pool,’ Jason pointed out as if he was a tour guide.

  Another steel door led through to a wide room where overlapping sheets of rubber hung from ceiling to floor, which was covered in gravel. Around the room were distributed a dining table and chairs, a torn cord sofa, and two ragged armchairs - the cheap furnishings of an ordinary living room. Three men stood around the space in civilian clothes, two standing, one crouching. They didn’t move. Sponge dummies.

  Stratton noticed ammunition casings in the gravel as he crunched through it, bullet holes in the furniture. He was surprised. MI16 had a killing house.

  Jason glanced back at him. ‘When I got here it was a weapons-testing room. But I decided to make it more entertaining.’ They went into what appeared to be a storeroom containing rows of metal racks and shelving stacked with a variety of mechanical and electronic parts.

  A muted alarm began to sound. Jason stopped in his tracks and looked up at the red light flashing above a door at the end of the room. ‘What the hell . . .’ he muttered. He pushed through the door into a dull concrete bunker where Binning stood in front of a control panel, holding a phone to his ear. Above the panel was a small monitor filled with Chaz’s irate face.

  ‘You were told that all weapons and communications devices were to be left on the helicopter,’ Binning said into the phone, sounding vexed. ‘And under no circumstances were any pyrotechnics to be brought into the complex.’ Binning looked at Jason and shook his head in frustration. ‘One of the bloody fools brought something in. The vault has locked down.’

  ‘We didn’t bring anything in!’ Chaz shouted in defence of himself and the others.

  ‘Did you clean your equipment after your last training session or operational task?’ Binning asked. ‘I’ll answer that for you. No. You didn’t. You were warned that the system picks up the slightest chemical residue. If it has anything to do with explosives it reacts. You were told.’

  Jason looked around at Stratton with an irritated glare. ‘Don’t these people pay attention to detail, damn it!’

  Stratton didn’t like his tone but let it go. The boffins were clearly under stress. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘The security scanning system in the airlock is like the one you went through in the elevator,’ Jason explained.

  ‘And I put my phone and watch in a drawer and continued on down.’

  ‘You weren’t carrying any form of explosives. Without the clearance codes access goes into lock-down.’

  ‘Then give them the code.’

  ‘We don’t provide them,’ Binning said. ‘London does.’

  ‘Then send them back up to clear their gear,’ Stratton suggested, looking between the two men.

  Jason sighed heavily as he tried to calm himself. ‘We can’t.’

  Binning explained. ‘An unauthorised pyrotechnic invokes a Priority One protocol. It’s classed as an SSB, a serious security breach. We can’t override the system response and send them back up to the helipad. And neither can they carry on down to us.’

  ‘Our security is automated,’ Jason expanded. ‘Designed for a complex without physical security. We have no armed guards. Therefore we have far more stringent precautions . . . Your men are locked in, and that’s that.’

  Stratton was getting the picture. ‘For how long?’

  ‘The vault can’t be opened for twenty-four hours.’ Jason was not apologetic.

  Stratton automatically ran through the obvious implications.

  Jason got the impression from his expression that it was the fault of MI16. ‘This has never happened before.’

  ‘Can I speak to him?’ Stratton asked.

  Binning flicked a switch on the panel. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Chaz? This is Stratton.’

  ‘Stratton, what the hell is going on? They said we’re stuck in here for twenty-four bleeding hours.’

  ‘That seems to be the story, mate.’

  ‘That’s madness. We’ve got to get on.’

  ‘I know. There doesn’t seem to be a solution,’ Stratton said, looking at Jason to be sure.

  A buzzer went off on the panel. Binning touched a button. ‘Binning here.’

  ‘London’s just called.’ It was Rowena. ‘The crisis response centre received an airlock-shutdown alarm.’

  ‘Tell them it’s under control.’ Jason cut in. ‘Give them our duress code, let them know we’re fine. It was an error. The SBS lads brought something into the lock.’

  ‘What a surprise,’ Rowena said.

  ‘Have London send the unlock code,’ Jason ordered.

  ‘We didn’t bring anything into the bloody access!’ Chaz shouted.

  Jason looked at Stratton as if he’d been through that already. ‘It will take twenty-four hours to get them out. Nothing can change that.’

  ‘That’s bloody ridiculous,’ Chaz’s voice boomed.

  ‘You have to understand what this system was designed for,’ Binning explained. ‘Think of it like a bank vault that someone has tried to rob . . . the Bank of England, for instance. There are billions of pounds’ worth of systems in here. But it’s not just their financial value. Some of the devices would be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. It would be catastrophic, in fact. There are foreign governments that would give almost anything to get hold of some of the items we have in here.’

  ‘Yeah, but—’ Chaz began to argue.

  Jason was growing more irritated and cut him off. ‘Let me put it another way. If this had been an actual break-in attempt, on a scale of importance to this country’s security your oil-platform hijack would have equated to a handbag snatch in comparison . . . There’s nothing more we can do. Deal with it. Good day to you.’ He headed out of the room.

  Binning gave Stratton a sympathetic look and followed his boss.

  Stratton watched them go before looking back at the small screen. ‘Sounds like you’re going to have to sit this out for the next twenty-four, Chaz.’

  ‘That’s just friggin’ brilliant!’ Chaz shouted. ‘We didn’t bring anything in here. Their system screwed up!’

  ‘I know exactly how you feel. What was the task?’

  ‘Dropping in some new surveillance device that these guys put together.’

  ‘When are the assault teams supposed to be getting in?’

  ‘First packet in the next forty-eight hours. Two more to follow soon after.’

  ‘Where’s the forward mounting base?’

  ‘Aberdeen initially. Then on board one of the assault ships. They’re going to give us our RV within the hour.’

  ‘Any task timings?’

  ‘No. But they want to have the ability to assault asap. This puts us back big time. Someone’s going to be pissed off in Poole.’

  ‘I’d better let them know the bad news,’ Stratton said as he realised what he was going to have to do.

  ‘Sorry, mate.’

  Stratton suspected that Chaz was going to get it in the neck. ‘Make yourselves comfortable. I’ll talk to you later.’

  Chaz’s frustrated look filled the small screen.

  Stratton headed back to the main complex.

  7

  The wind whipped at Deacon as he walked down a s
et of metal steps beneath the housing deck that was sandwiched under the main deck. He stopped to look further down between multiple cross-struts at a couple of his men working below. ‘How’s it coming?’ he shouted.

  The Scotsman looked up, grimacing unhappily. ‘It’s coming,’ he said as he fixed a thick malleable plastic pack horizontally to one of the massive supporting legs that reached down into the foaming grey water thirty metres below. The metre-long pack joined the end of a string of others fixed around the leg. The Bulgarian handed Jock another pack from one of several large plastic containers that the team had brought with them.

  ‘That storm front’ll be here in an hour,’ Deacon shouted. ‘That stuff’ll need to withstand a good pelting.’

  ‘You do your job, I’ll do mine,’ the Scotsman shouted back without looking up.

  ‘Good enough,’ Deacon mumbled to himself. His satellite phone buzzed in his pocket and he took it out to read the screen. He pushed the call button and put it to his ear. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You are cleared to go to the next phase,’ a rugged male voice said.

  Deacon checked his watch. ‘We’re ahead of schedule, then.’

  ‘The schedule was always meant to be flexible.’

  ‘Will do,’ Deacon said, unconcerned. He turned off the phone. ‘How much longer will you be?’ he called out.

  ‘Ten, maybe fifteen minutes,’ the Scotsman shouted.

  ‘Head up to the control room when you’re done. I need you to do that video feed.’

  ‘Am I the only bastard with any brains in this outfit?’ Jock shouted.

  The Bulgarian paused to look at the Scotsman as he handed him another explosive charge.

  Deacon knew that the man actually relished the responsibility. Jock was one of only two on the team whom he’d met previously. The first time had been in 2004 in the Green Zone US military hospital in Baghdad. Jock had had three bullet holes in him. Deacon had only had a piece of shrapnel in his leg. The Scot had been the sole survivor of an ambush on a six-vehicle, thirty-man convoy to Mosul.

  A couple of hundred insurgents had hit them from all sides on the outskirts of the city. It had been a soldier’s worst nightmare. They’d had no support, no air cover, no reinforcements and no hope. Jock’s steel-plated black pick-up had been riddled with armour-piercing bullets within seconds and the next thing he remembered was running down the road back the way they’d come with a couple of colleagues on his tail. They’d all taken hits. The others had gone down but Jock had managed somehow to keep on going. Stopping would have meant death.

  He wouldn’t have survived had it not been for a local who’d happened to come out of a driveway. God only knew why the man had chosen that moment to go for a drive. Iraqis tended to put all survival judgements in the hands of Allah. Operating on full survival mode Jock had shot the man through the head, yanked him out of the car, jumped in and hit the accelerator.

  Within a couple of months he’d been back on the convoy route. The man was part crazy, Deacon was certain of that.

  Deacon headed back to the accommodation block and went in through a door and then another immediately after it that acted as an airlock. The doors closed with a bang behind him, slammed shut by the rising wind. ‘Viking, this is Deacon,’ he said into his walkie-talkie. ‘I’m heading to the galley to set up the first media scenario.’

  ‘Understood,’ a voice came back.

  Deacon pocketed the radio and walked along a narrow corridor of rooms, some with their doors open to reveal beds and closets. Bedding and clothing lay on the floor of the corridor as if there had been a hasty exit. There was no one here.

  Deacon pushed through a door at the end, past vending machines, emergency firefighting equipment and signage, through a pair of swing doors on his left and then into another long corridor. Near the far end Viking and the Lebanese thug stood outside yet another door, carbines to hand, magazine pouches on belts around their waists, pistols in holsters on their thighs and radios dangling around their necks.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’ Deacon called out as he approached.

  The red-headed warrior glanced at his Arab colleague and then back at Deacon.

  ‘Yeah, you,’ Deacon said, looking at Viking.

  ‘I answered,’ Viking explained.

  ‘So what are you still doing here? Go set up the bloody camera!’

  The Norseman understood, grabbed his foul-weather jacket off a hook and hurried away.

  ‘Viking idiot,’ Deacon muttered as he pushed in through the door they had been guarding. The Lebanese thug jammed it open with his foot, his weapon at the ready.

  Inside the large dining room a hundred and sixty-four platform workers minus those maintaining the rig’s life-support systems sat on the floor, hands secured behind their backs with heavy-duty plastic cuffs. They were a variety of shapes and sizes, many of them big or just overweight, dressed in dirty clothes and looking dishevelled. Among them were the rig manager and the security supervisor. They all eyed Deacon, their expressions ranging from curious to self-pitying, from coldly calculating to angrily malevo - lent. The room felt uncomfortably warm with that number of bodies crammed into it and the smell of sweat and other body odours was almost overwhelming.

  Banzi and Pirate squatted on the edges of the counter in opposite corners of the room with guns held easily in their hands. Queen walked between the hostages, offering water which he squirted none too accurately from a plastic bottle into their open mouths. He looked approvingly at one handsome young man and gave him an extra helping.

  Deacon took a moment to look them all over before stretching out a hand and pointing to one after another. ‘You, you, you, you, you, you. Stand up.’

  The randomly selected six men looked from one another to Deacon, each waiting for the others to make the first move. Several of them looked concerned about their possible fate.

  ‘Come on. Hurry up. Get to your feet,’ Deacon called out.

  ‘Piece o’ shit,’ someone grumbled loudly.

  ‘Who was that?’ Deacon asked, not particularly annoyed and even somewhat admiring of the man’s spirit. He managed a smirk. ‘You six selected men. Stand up and file out of the room. Nothing’s gonna happen to you. The only shootin’ we ’ave planned, for the moment at least, is a little TV show.’

  ‘Lying bastard,’ another voice called out.

  The men still did not move.

  ‘If you make it difficult for me, I’ll make it difficult for you,’ Deacon assured them.

  ‘Gutless bastard,’ another man muttered.

  Deacon pulled out his pistol, walked over to the outspoken hostage and stopped behind him. The man was suddenly horrified about the outcome of the move. He had good reason to be. The hijacker slammed the pistol into the side of the man’s head, almost knocking him senseless. The man fell onto a colleague, blood pouring from a wound across his ear.

  ‘If you men don’t stand up in five seconds I’ll kill this gobshite,’ Deacon snarled, placing the muzzle of his pistol an inch above the man’s skull. ‘And then I’ll kill another, and another . . . If you think we went to all the trouble to hijack this bloody platform to be jacked around by its staff you must be on drugs.’

  One of the men began to get to his feet, though he struggled to gain his balance with hands tied behind his back. It was more than this that hampered him. One of his legs was giving him trouble.The man was Jordan Mackay, Stratton’s old mate. He gritted his teeth and dragged his faulty leg beneath him, making a determined effort to get upright.

  Jordan breathed deeply with the exertion and set his stare coldly on Deacon.

  Another five men got to their feet.

  ‘Good,’ Deacon said, stepping back through the hostages to the galley entrance. ‘Now follow me.’

  They paused in the corridor to await further instructions. ‘That way,’ the Lebanese thug said to Jordan, giving him a firm shove.

  With his short temper Jordan did not appreciate the push but he controlled his anger
and headed along the corridor. Deacon took up a position in the rear and followed the line of men.

  The Lebanese led them through the swing doors and along to a staircase, which he climbed. He pulled on a foul-weather jacket, pushed open a door at the top and stepped into a narrow airlock that led to another door that required an effort to open. The fierce wind ripped into the structure, tugging and chilling the men in their jeans and T-shirts as they filed outside.

  Jordan stopped once again, waiting for further instructions.

  The Lebanese thug pushed him on, this time more aggressively. ‘That way,’ he snarled.

  Jordan almost fell over and when he regained his balance he faced the hijacker, baring his teeth. ‘Don’t push me again,’ he warned in a low, deliberate voice.

  Jordan’s impudence astounded the Arab, who slammed him in the gut with the butt of his weapon. The ex-SBS man doubled over as the wind went out of him, his face spasming. The thug wasn’t finished with him and took a firm hold of his hair. ‘You don’t talk to me, ever.’

  As Jordan pulled away the thug belted him across the face, sending him sprawling across the metal decking.The sea was visible far below through the grillework. Blood seeped from a cut on his mouth. He rolled onto his face, his hands tied tight behind his back. Using his forehead to support his weight, he brought his knees underneath him in order to stand up.

  ‘Stay down if you know what’s good for you,’ the Arab growled.

  Jordan ignored him and fought to get to his feet. He had never been a man to bend easily.

  The Arab poised himself to deal Jordan another severe blow with the stock of his weapon.

  ‘Easy, shit-for-brains. You need to chill out. No one dies unless I say so,’ said Deacon from behind them. He looked at Jordan as the man finally managed to get to his feet.

  Jordan was out of breath with the effort and the blow to his gut but his eyes found the Arab’s and stared into them. The thug smirked at him.

  Deacon felt like remonstrating with the idiot but knew that he couldn’t in front of the prisoners. He had orders not to harm the rig’s workers unless it was absolutely unavoidable, and if he did he would have to prove that there’d been no alternative. An unsatisfied client meant a reduction in pay. He had already lost one hostage to the Lebanese fool, which he felt he could get away with by docking the Arab’s pay. The man was a liability, no question.