Danny closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Then he started talking. He told Caitlin everything. The details of the hit on Target Red. What happened when they made a move on Target Blue. His injury. Holroyd. The atrocity. Escaping from Camp Shorabak. The hidden camera he’d found in the compound. Everything. And as he spoke, he became increasingly unsure of himself, and of the wisdom of tracking Caitlin down. Would she believe him? Would Danny, in her shoes? He wasn’t sure. Danny’s trump card was that Caitlin had been on ops with Tony before. That, and her ill-advised relationship, meant she knew what he was like. She knew what he was capable of.

  Danny finished his explanation. He fell silent. Caitlin would have questions. She would try to pick holes in his account. He gave her the space to do just that.

  ‘The gear,’ she said.

  Danny was momentarily wrong-footed. ‘What gear?’

  ‘The gear that Tony and the others found on the Taliban targets they’ve been hitting. The laser sights. The encrypted radios. What was it you found at Target Red’s compound – an SF helmet?’

  Danny nodded.

  ‘Did Tony relay that stuff back to Spearpoint?’

  ‘It came up in the briefing. It’s not that important. What matters is—’

  ‘It is important,’ Caitlin cut in. As she spoke, there was a wailing from outside. It made Danny momentarily start, until he realised what it was: the call to prayer from the nearby mosque. Dawn must have arrived. Caitlin moved to the door, checked there was nobody outside, then returned to Danny. ‘Does the “Red Unit” mean anything to you?’

  Danny shook his head. ‘I just need to get to the bottom of why Tony—’

  ‘Will you shut the fuck up, Danny? You came to me for intel, right? Well let me lay it on you.’

  Danny made a ‘go ahead’ gesture. Caitlin paused for a moment while she formulated her thoughts. ‘I hear things, you understand? I’m in thick with the women of the village. They know more than their husbands and the tribal elders think. The guys, they reckon just because they can keep the women silent, they can stop them listening, using their brains. It’s a pretty dumb mistake. In the last six months, I must have identified fifteen high-value Taliban targets, just by talking to the women. Spearpoint has been confirming my intel, then green-lighting targets for Tony and his kill team. The only thing is, they’ve started getting picky about which bits of intel they act on, and which bits they sit on.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s one name that keeps coming up. Mohammad Al-Zafawi. He’s a Taliban commander. He lived in the UK back in the day, just one of your regular student extremist crazies. Now he has a list of atrocities as long as your arm – kids, hospitals, you name it, he’s blown it up. The word is that he’s putting together a team of Taliban fighters trained to SF level. That’s what the Red Unit is. Taliban special forces.’

  ‘It’ll never happen,’ Danny said. ‘You know what SF training involves. Expertise, time, money. What does it cost to train up one SAS guy? A couple of million? Doesn’t matter what they call themselves, they’ll still be amateurs.’

  Caitlin gave him a sceptical look. ‘Amateurs with laser sights, encrypted radios and SF helmets?’ she said. ‘Jeez, Danny, you don’t strike me as the type to underestimate the other guy. Trust me, the Red Unit’s a thing, and Al-Zafawi’s at the head of it.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ Danny said.

  ‘You do that.’ Caitlin looked over at the woman lying deliriously on her bed. ‘That woman gave me a solid lead on Al-Zafawi. I phoned it through to Spearpoint, asked their permission to follow it up. They weren’t interested. Stamped me down immediately.’

  ‘Did they give a reason?’

  ‘Oh, sure, they said—’

  Caitlin was interrupted by a groan from the woman on the mattress. She moved over to check on her. The woman fell silent and lay there breathing heavily. Caitlin returned to Danny. ‘There’s this Imam at the mosque. I’ve seen him a few times. Even spoke to him once. He’s a frail old guy. Looks like your regular village elder – beard, robes, you get the picture. He’s a Taliban sympathiser, but he commands respect in the village. There’s a rumour that Al-Zafawi has contact with him. Consults the old boy pretty regular, or that’s what I’ve heard. I asked Spearpoint for permission to interrogate him.’ She shrugged. ‘Look, he’s not going to give up the location of one of his congregation just because I ask him to, so there’s a chance the interrogation might get a bit spicy. Spearpoint said no. I’m here to win hearts and minds. Squeeze my intel out of the locals the softly softly way. If I start roughing up their precious Imam, I might lose a few of them.’ She made a disgusted snort. ‘Like I’d even let anyone know it was me,’ she said.

  ‘Panjika’s not a big place. People would put two and two together. Maybe Spearpoint’s on the level. Maybe that is the reason they don’t want you near him.’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh. Every Western intelligence service in the world wants to put their hands on him, and you weren’t in on the conversation. They were cutting me short with a bullshit excuse. There’s a reason they don’t want me going after Al-Zafawi—’

  ‘Hang on,’ Danny interrupted. ‘You said you spoke to him?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘He speaks English?’

  ‘Yeah, pretty well.’

  ‘Why would some back-country Helmand Province Imam speak English?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Caitlin said. ‘I guess I just—’

  ‘You said Al-Zafawi was a student in the UK?’

  She nodded.

  The call to prayer was still continuing and there was a steely grey light spilling in under the door. Danny considered what Caitlin had just said. It was true that something didn’t quite add up. The whole point of the Spearpoint operation was to take out high-value Taliban targets. Why would they be resistant to taking out one of the highest? And if they both spoke English, had they met in the UK? Had the Imam radicalised Al-Zafawi in the first place? Was he now Al-Zafawi’s guy, embedded in this village?

  ‘Fuck it,’ Caitlin said. ‘If they want to ignore a lead that could take them to the head of the Red Unit, that’s their lookout. But if I was you, I know who my next call would be.’

  Danny nodded. Whatever the Imam’s history, he knew what she was driving at. The targets the kill team had been hitting had been in possession of expensive military gear that would only normally be in the possession of well-funded special forces. They didn’t come from nowhere. If what Caitlin was telling him about the Red Unit was true, the presence of that equipment suggested a direct link between Target Blue and Al-Zafawi.

  ‘What do we have on this Imam?’ Danny said. ‘Leverage-wise.’

  ‘There’s the family. They live on the other side of the village.’

  Danny gave that a moment’s thought, but quickly rejected it. He was out to prove that he hadn’t butchered one Taliban family. It wouldn’t help his cause if he went about it by turning the screw on another without official sanction.

  ‘I think I need to have a little face to face with our Imam,’ he said. ‘Want to join me?’

  Caitlin stared at him. ‘Spearpoint are right about one thing,’ she said. ‘If the locals think I’ve hurt the old guy, my cred will be blown.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Danny said. ‘Spearpoint’s dead in the water. Holroyd will see to that if Tony blows the whistle for him. We don’t get to the bottom of this, you’ll get dragged into the shit storm too.’

  Caitlin gave a grim smile. ‘If he finds out I’ve been helping you, I definitely will.’

  ‘So you want to get into bed with Tony and Holroyd?’

  ‘Maybe I don’t want to get into bed with any of you,’ Caitlin said. ‘Maybe I don’t want to get in the crossfire of a bunch of alpha males who won’t stop shooting till one of them’s out of the game.’

  Danny stared her down. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t blame you.’ He looked around the room. ‘You heard about Spud?’

  She nodded. ‘I’m sorry. He was a good mate of yours.’

  ‘Helped you out of a fix or two and all.’ And Danny refrained from saying what didn’t need to be said: that he himself had been instrumental in saving Caitlin’s life on ops before now.

  ‘More than I can say for Tony,’ Caitlin said. ‘What’s he up to, Danny? What really happened the other night?’

  ‘That’s what I’m going to find out. Are you with me?’

  Caitlin sniffed. ‘Of course I’m with you,’ she said. ‘We’ll go find our Imam after midday prayers. That’s when things are at their quietest round here. Too hot for anyone to be active. ANA patrols keep to the shade.’

  ‘And you don’t mention this to Tommy or your interpreter. For all I know, Holroyd’s got half the British army out looking for me.’

  ‘Noted,’ Caitlin said. ‘You can hide out here. Nobody wants anything to do with this one.’ She pointed at the woman on the mattress. ‘Now take your shirt off. Relax, Danny Black, I think I can just about manage to keep my hands off you. But that wound is going to need cleaning out and I need to take a look at it first.’

  Danny had been running on adrenaline. Now that he had a moment to rest, alone with the delirious Afghan woman, his exhaustion and hunger caught up with him. His gun wound was pulsating and a cold pain crept down his arm and across his torso. Caitlin had returned to her compound to get some supplies. Danny had positioned himself in a seated position, his back to the wall facing the entrance. He kept his stolen handgun by his side, gripping it with his good hand. The delirious woman presented no real threat, but he couldn’t be sure, despite Caitlin’s reassurances, that an unexpected guest wouldn’t arrive. He felt almost naked with only a single clip of ammo, but it was what it was. He did what he could to stay awake and alert.

  Without success. He was woken by Caitlin gently shaking his good shoulder. He started and felt for his gun, but Caitlin had moved it away. ‘Let’s not have a negligent discharge when I’m in the line of fire, eh?’ she said.

  Danny cursed himself for falling asleep. He felt worse for it, not better. ‘How long—’ he started to say.

  ‘Relax. Twenty minutes, max. Here, get this down you.’ Caitlin ripped open a foil-packed MRE. Danny wolfed down the cold sludge straight from the packet, then gulped down a canteen full of water, which had the faintly chlorinated taste of purification tablets. He felt his body soaking up the liquid. ‘Okay, Rambo,’ Caitlin said. ‘Let’s have a look at that wound.’

  Danny removed his stolen camo jacket and winced as Caitlin peeled off the dirty dressing covering the wound. ‘Okay,’ she said calmly. ‘They’ve closed it up pretty good. I’m just going to give it a clean, then we’ll pad it up again.’

  She worked efficiently, filling a syringe from a sealed pack of sterile water and using that to flood the wound, before cleaning the area with antibacterial gauze and applying a fresh dressing. It hurt, but Danny waited until she was done before necking another couple of painkillers.

  ‘Okay, fella,’ Caitlin said. ‘You need to get some shut-eye.’

  ‘No way,’ Danny said. ‘Someone’s got to keep stag—’

  As he spoke, Caitlin removed a Sig 9mm. ‘You’re telling me I’m not up to the gig?’

  Danny smiled. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing like.’

  ‘You’ve got about five hours,’ she said. ‘Then we move on the Imam.’

  ‘Roger that,’ Danny said.

  He lay down on the hard floor. Almost immediately, he was asleep.

  Camp Shorabak was no longer home to military dogs. But this had not always been the case. In the days of the ISAF occupation, working dogs had been commonplace, and a dedicated area set aside for their accommodation. Holroyd’s insistence that the Malinois be confined meant that as the sun rose over the desert, Tony and Dexter found themselves heading to that seldom-visited section of the camp – much to Dexter’s annoyance.

  ‘That twat doesn’t know what he’s talking about,’ he muttered. ‘I understand Baron. He’s more comfortable with human company. He gets edgy if he’s separated from me.’

  ‘Mate, he just bit one of the camel jockeys,’ Tony observed. It hadn’t escaped his notice that Dexter was a lot more upset at having to put the dog into confinement than at Cole’s death.

  ‘Course he did. He was stressing him out.’

  ‘Well, let’s put him somewhere there’s no ANA to stress him out, okay?’ And when Dexter looked like he was going to continue arguing, Tony stopped and grabbed him by one arm. ‘Listen to me,’ he said in a low voice. ‘We’ve got Holroyd eating out of our hands right now. We’re going to be on a plane out of here in the next twenty-four hours – you, me, the dog. For now, we do what he says. Let him think he’s in charge. Got it?’

  Dexter gave him a dark look. ‘That ANA cunt was lucky Baron didn’t go for his throat,’ he said, but he didn’t argue any more.

  The working dog accommodation was in the north-western corner of the camp. There was a high-fenced enclosure about the size of a tennis court – an exercise yard where handlers could throw balls and perform training routines with their animals. The ground inside the enclosure was dusty and littered with debris and stones. It plainly hadn’t been used for a very long time. The gate in the fence was unlocked. Tony and Dexter walked across the exercise yard towards a line of man-high, steel-barred dog crates with enclosed kennels at the rear. Dexter had to drag the reluctant Malinois towards one of them: the dog clearly knew what the kennels were and had no desire to be cooped up inside one. Tony loitered in the exercise yard while Dexter entered one of the kennels with the dog. He looked around. There was a handful of military vehicles driving west-east across the camp about 150 metres away. A chopper was coming in to land from the south. But this section of the camp was deserted, apart from them. He had the impression that this was normally so.

  A strategy began to form in his mind.

  ‘He’ll need water,’ he called to Dexter over his shoulder. ‘It’s going to get hot in there.’ But he couldn’t see either the dog or its handler – both were inside the covered kennel area. He could hear Dexter talking soothingly to the animal. When he emerged a minute later, he was tightening the lid of an empty water canteen. He exited the crate and closed the door latch behind him. There was no sight or sound of the Malinois. It had remained in the kennel.

  ‘Maybe you should take its ops vest off,’ Tony said.

  ‘He’s more comfortable with it on.’

  ‘Hot though.’

  ‘Look, who’s his fucking handler, Tony? You or me?’

  ‘Just a thought.’

  ‘A stupid one.’

  Dexter was stony faced as they walked back across the exercise yard. Tony kept quiet until they’d left the enclosure. ‘We need to get back to Holroyd,’ he said. ‘He wants to debrief us about Cole. You got it all straight in your head.’

  Dexter stopped walking. ‘You need to stop talking to me like I’m a fucking child.’

  Tony stared at him. Then he raised both hands. ‘Buddy,’ he said, ‘take a chill pill.’

  ‘Don’t tell me to fucking chill. Cole was our mate. I didn’t see you putting a gun to his frickin’ skull.’ Strain was telling around Dexter’s eyes.

  ‘Mate, I just want to make sure we’re singing from the same hymn sheet. Holroyd’s a dickhead, but if our stories don’t add up—’

  ‘I’m fucking watching you, Tony. Don’t think you can do me the way you did Cole.’

  ‘You did him, buddy. Remember that. You did him.’

  Dexter gave him an evil look, then spat on the dusty ground. ‘Let’s get back,’ he said.

  He strode off towards the centre of the base. Tony watched him go. He glanced back towards the dog enclosure, taking a mental snapshot to confirm the geography of the area. Then he jogged towards Dexter and fell in beside him. His unit mate clearly wasn’t in the mood to talk, and that suited Tony just fine.

  Danny’s sleep was uncomfortable and disturbed. He kept reliving the moment he was hit and the gruesome sight of the butchered bodies. And he kept seeing Tony’s face: ruthless, calculating. More than once he woke suddenly, half expecting to see Tony standing over him. But all he saw was the outline of Caitlin, still in her robes but crouching down with her 9mm pointing at the door.

  He was dragged out of sleep for a final time by the sound of the midday call to prayer echoing across the village.

  ‘Hey, sleeping beauty,’ Caitlin said as Danny sat up, sweating heavily. ‘You stink like a dingo’s ball sack. No offence.’

  ‘None taken. Is there any more water?’ His throat was sandpaper, his limbs lead.

  Caitlin chucked him another canteen. ‘Go easy,’ she said. ‘It’s all we have left.’

  Danny used a couple of mouthfuls to get some more painkillers down his throat. Then he stood up. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Hold your horses,’ Caitlin said. ‘You can’t go walking around like that in the middle of the day. The villagers are used to seeing Tommy, but not you. You’ll freak them out. Here, put these on.’

  She threw him a bundle of blue material: another set of women’s robes. Whoever had supplied them had been a big girl, because they looked like they would fit Danny well.

  ‘I brought you some bits and bobs,’ she added. She handed Danny an M4, a couple of full clips and a lanyard. An ops vest filled with a couple of fragmentation grenades and a flashbang. A night sight. Danny silently accepted the gear. He put the ops vest on, slung the assault rifle by the lanyard down his side and then pulled on the robes. She handed him a headdress, which Danny put on. He didn’t like the way it limited his peripheral vision, but Caitlin was right: stealth was crucial. He made his handgun safe and plunged it into a slot in the robes.

  Caitlin had done the same. Fully robed up, she was now leaning over the delirious woman. ‘Asleep,’ Caitlin said. ‘She’ll be okay.’ She straightened herself up. ‘We’ll give it ten minutes,’ she said.

  ‘How old is our guy?’