But Danny? He had a very different take. If Tony walked into this pub right now, what would he do? Put the fucker on the floor? Worse? Truth was, he didn’t know. Just the thought of him made Danny see red.

  How much did Hammond know about Tony? Certainly the ops officer had fallen on Danny’s side during previous confrontations between the two Regiment men. But did he know the depth of their enmity? Did he know what Tony had done to Danny? That he’d taken the glory for Danny’s actions in the field? That he’d tried to kill Danny’s best friend? That he had put his family at risk, just to get back at him?

  Danny had no way of judging what Hammond knew or believed, and the ops officer wasn’t going to hear it from him. The Regiment didn’t work that way. You sorted out your own problems.

  But Danny knew this: if he and Tony were in the same room together, there would be fireworks. Same team? Bad idea.

  Seriously bad idea.

  ‘Come off it, boss,’ Danny said. ‘You know me and Tony . . .’

  Hammond’s hangdog expression hardened. ‘You’re on that flight to Kandahar tonight, Danny. End of. Tony Wiseman’s out there because we know he’ll hit as many targets as we need without taking it too hard. You’re going because you’ve shown yourself to be pretty damn adept at it yourself. I don’t remember you ever having a crisis of conscience before. I’m not asking you to be Tony Wiseman’s best buddy. You don’t even have to be in the same room as the guy when you’re not on ops. I’m asking you to do a job.’ He paused. ‘Telling you to do a job. In case you hadn’t noticed, this is me breaking the news nicely so you don’t make a dick of yourself in front of people who matter. You have your orders.’

  Hammond finished his pint.

  ‘Who’s in charge?’ Danny said.

  ‘Tony.’ He raised one hand. ‘Suck it up, Danny. The other guys on the team are Rees Dexter and Billy Cole. You know them?’

  Danny clenched his jaw, but nodded.

  ‘The Spearpoint base is ten miles north of here.’ Hammond handed him a piece of paper with a fresh set of coordinates. ‘It keeps things separate from Hereford, and deniable if the shit hits. The guy in charge is an MI6 officer called Cadogan. Military background, but he’s a spook. Don’t underestimate him. He comes across as a bumbling toff, but he’s ruthless. He wants to meet you before you deploy. Look you in the eye, all that old-school kind of crap. Just don’t be fooled by the Boris Johnson act. Understood?’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘There’s also a Special Investigation Branch RMP on site. His name’s Holroyd. Bit of a twat. I did some digging. He used to be in the Royal Irish Regiment, but there was some business with his platoon in Iraq. He was the only one who walked away alive. There was some suggestion that he was at fault, but the paperwork’s been buried. Came back to the UK, joined the RMPs and found God, believe it or not. I walked into his office the other day, saw him on his knees, praying. On the surface he sees it as his role to keep us bad lads on the straight and narrow, but deep down I think he’s just your typical nosy policeman. Cripples him that he doesn’t have sufficient vetting to get through the door into the main ops room. He’ll probably make himself known to you, but just ignore him. We’ll feed him whatever we need to feed him to keep everyone sweet.’ Hammond narrowed his eyes at Danny, as though sizing him up. ‘I’m heading down there now. I’ve got a few different people to see. Get yourself something to eat here, have another drink and meet me there in an hour. We’ll get some face time with Cadogan, then we’ll be on our way.’

  Without another word, Hammond stood up and left. Danny didn’t move for a full minute. When he did, it was to down his pint in one. He looked at the coordinates on the paper that Hammond had left him. Then he looked up at the bar. The barman had dragged his attention from the football and was giving him the eye.

  ‘Whisky,’ Danny said. ‘Double. Now.’

  ‘Do I look like a fuckin’ waitress?’ the barman said in a thick Cornish accent. But he couldn’t withstand the look Danny gave him for long. ‘All right, all right,’ he muttered, as he turned towards the optics behind the bar and started pouring Danny his fourth drink.

  CHAPTER 2

  Afghanistan, 23.30 hours AFT.

  A full moon hung, startlingly bright, over the Helmand River. It silhouetted the Kajaki Dam in the north, and the stately mosque of Lashkar Gah further to the south. Between the two, it cast midnight shadows on the village of Panjika, where everything was silent.

  Caitlin Wallace didn’t like it when everything was silent.

  Panjika was a village of two halves. A narrow riverbed – almost dry in summer – ran north-south, cutting it through the middle. Running parallel to the river on the eastern side was the main street, with ramshackle stalls and tumbledown shops. At the north end of that street was an open square with the village mosque on one side, which had been partially destroyed by an ordnance strike many years previously. There were perhaps fifty individual dwelling places on the western side of the river, and a further ten white-walled compounds – clusters of tiny buildings surrounded by square perimeter walls. On the eastern side of the river there were fewer individual dwelling places dotted around the main street, but more compounds – about twenty. The single room Caitlin had called home for the past six months was in one of these compounds, on the south-eastern side of the village about fifty metres from the river.

  They called this area the green zone. Irrigated by the tributary of the Helmand River that cut through the village, it was lush and verdant. Here, the villagers could grow fruit and vegetables. And it was these that made it a potentially dangerous area.

  Helmand was Taliban territory. Not all of it, and not this small village of no more than five hundred people. Panjika was protected by three Afghan National Army forward operating bases – one to the north, one to the south and one to the east, with the river forming a natural barrier to the west. But if – when – the Taliban finally moved in, they would congregate around the green zone. Because militants need food too. The well-irrigated avocado trees that shaded Caitlin’s compound attracted all manner of people: good, bad, and many whose loyalties were somewhere in between. In Helmand Province, it was often difficult to tell them apart.

  Caitlin’s room was half bedroom and half storeroom. A stubby candle provided the only light as their electrical generator was too noisy, and the fuel that ran it too precious, for it to be going all night. A rucksack was propped up in the corner. Under the bed, a small arsenal. She had an M4 and several boxes of 5.56 rounds. She had a Sig P226 handgun and its attendant 9mms. She hadn’t fired either of these weapons on this deployment. But she was damned if she was going to stray very far from them.

  Other items had proved more useful. Medical supplies. Clean bandages. Water purification tablets. Then of course there were the plain white boxes, piled up next to her rucksack, which contained her valued supplies: sanitary towels, paracetamol and ibuprofen. She had insisted on bringing substantial quantities of these items when she first arrived in-country. Whenever there was an opportunity for a re-supply, she insisted that Cornwall prioritised them as much as items such as MREs and ammunition. Cadogan queried it every time. Complained, even. He didn’t realise that these items were helping achieve their objectives just as surely as Black Hawks, laser sights and night-vision capability. But that was men for you.

  Caitlin lay on her bed, sweating in the appalling night-time heat. Damp, shoulder-length brown hair. Khaki trousers. A white T-shirt, damp across the back. Well-worn boots. Grey eyes open, listening to the silence. It made her nervous. She preferred the reassuring buzz of an ANA helicopter flying overhead. The noise of the locals in the street. Too often, silence meant people were scared. In Helmand Province, they frequently had good reason.

  There was a banging noise. Caitlin started. She sat on the edge of her bed and reached underneath it for her Sig. Cocked and locked. The banging came again. She tucked the handgun into her khaki trousers and headed to the door. Opened it and peered out into the courtyard.

  The courtyard itself was tiny. The size of a squash court. It was surrounded on three sides by rooms identical to Caitlin’s. The fourth side was a whitewashed wall, five metres high, with a thick wooden entrance gate. A man and a woman had emerged from the other rooms. The woman was smaller than Caitlin. She was extremely petite, with a beautiful, dark-skinned face that had an almost childlike innocence to it. She wore plain black robes. The other was a beast of a man: six foot five and a beard so unruly that it concealed his white skin, and meant that even some of the locals mistook him for one of them. Gabina was an interpreter from Kabul who had moved to the UK in her early teens and offered her services to the military – a kind, thoughtful, precise young woman who helped Caitlin commune with the locals. Tommy Webster was Caitlin’s SAS muscle, and a lump of a man. Caitlin wasn’t sure an original thought had ever passed through his mind. He hardly ever seemed to speak. But Caitlin knew that Tommy had an eye for her and she wasn’t above exploiting that. Not to mention that he would be useful in a fight.

  They strode across the courtyard towards the gate. Gabina called something in Pashto. A voice came from the other side. Female. It sounded anxious. Gabina turned to Caitlin, clearly about to say something.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Caitlin said, stepping out into the courtyard. ‘Let them in.’

  Gabina lifted the big metal bar that bolted the gate. It was a bit of a struggle for someone so small. Tommy positioned himself between Caitlin and the entrance. The moon cast his imposing shadow across the courtyard. As it swung open, Caitlin had to squint to make out who was standing there.

  Two figures. Women, dressed in dark robes and headdresses. One old, one young. The older woman’s face was deeply lined and weathered, with hard eyes and a hooked nose. Mother and daughter? Possible. People aged quickly in Helmand Province. But most likely, she thought, it was grandmother and granddaughter. Gaps in the generations were common out here, where life was cheap. The older woman had one arm around the girl. They were both looking up at Tommy with apprehension.

  Caitlin strode past him. ‘Don’t scare them,’ she muttered as she hurried up to the new arrivals. She made a ‘come in’ sign with her hands and, when they gingerly entered, nodded at Gabina to close the gate again. Tommy stood still. Caitlin had to manoeuvre the newcomers round him towards her room. Gabina followed at a respectful distance. As they shuffled into the room, she stood in the doorway.

  Caitlin offered them the edge of her bed to sit on. They sat close to each other. The young girl had one hand resting on her abdomen. The grandmother started to talk in Pashto the moment they sat. Gabina translated, but Caitlin held up one hand to silence her.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said.

  Caitlin knew why they had come. She walked over to her supplies, took a box each of sanitary towels and paracetamol and handed them to the girl. Caitlin regularly distributed these items freely to the women and girls of the village. They only had to ask, but that was more difficult than it sounded. They were embarrassed – it was a cultural thing – and the Taliban disapproved of anything that made a woman’s life easier. The older women remembered the punishments they received when those monsters were in charge, and the young women weren’t stupid: they knew the situation was getting bad again. No wonder they crept up to Caitlin’s compound, shamefaced and in the dead of night.

  Caitlin popped a couple of paracetamol from the wrapper and handed the girl her beaker of water. The girl timidly swallowed the pills, avoiding Caitlin’s gaze.

  ‘Where do you live?’ Caitlin asked the grandmother. The lines on her face seemed even deeper in the candlelight.

  The grandmother replied with a nervous quaver in her voice. Gabina translated. ‘At the edge of the village. By the poppy fields.’

  ‘Her parents?’ She indicated the girl.

  The grandmother shook her head. ‘Her father was in the army. He died six months ago. Her mother died when she was little.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Caitlin paused. ‘I’m here to help in any way I can. You have a problem, come to me.’

  The grandmother lowered her head. ‘The wrong people would find out,’ she said. ‘The Imam . . .’ Her eyes tightened a little. This wasn’t the first time that Caitlin had seen women mention the village’s Imam with a degree of apprehension. There were rumours that the old man who led the daily prayers in the nearby mosque was sympathetic to the Taliban. He commanded respect in the village, though. If Caitlin was to win hearts and minds, the Imam was off limits.

  She turned her attention back to the grandmother, who said: ‘I only came tonight because . . .’ The old lady looked at her granddaughter, who was also staring at the floor. ‘It is her first time. The pain is bad. The men don’t understand.’

  ‘The medicine will help. If you need more, you come back and see me.’ She crouched down and put one hand on the grandmother’s knee. ‘Who do you mean by “the wrong people”? Can you give me a name? Tell me where they live?’

  The grandmother shook her head vigorously. She stood, pulling her granddaughter up with her. ‘We must go,’ she said. ‘If we are seen . . .’

  Gabina’s translation was interrupted by a distant bang. The old woman and her granddaughter started and looked frightened. Caitlin swore under her breath. She instantly grabbed a shoulder bag filled with medical supplies and a narrow torch. She hurried to the door, pushing the guests out of the way. ‘Stay there,’ she hissed. And when the older woman started to complain, she repeated herself more forcefully: ‘Stay there!’

  Tommy was already at the gate, blocking it.

  ‘We’re going,’ Caitlin told him. He shook his head. ‘I said, we’re going!’ Caitlin knew that Tommy wouldn’t resist her if she insisted. His face darkened with reluctance, but he stepped to one side and opened the gate. ‘Gabina!’ she called over her shoulder as she moved out into the village. ‘We need you!’

  Caitlin didn’t wait for a reply as she sprinted out of the compound and into the village. She had been embedded in the region long enough to recognise the sound of a roadside bomb when she heard one. Maybe an IED had been dug into the road. Maybe explosives had been hidden inside the carcass of one of the many animals that were routinely left to rot on the side of the road – that was an increasingly common occurrence, Caitlin had noticed.

  But the type of bomb was not of primary importance. Caitlin’s reasons for getting to the blast site were at once humanitarian and tactical.

  And for both reasons, she needed to get there fast.

  Caitlin estimated that the explosion had been about a klick away. Although it was hard to tell the exact direction, she knew she had to head south-east. That was the direction of the only road in and out of the village. She had to take a circuitous route, however, along the main street that cut north-south through the centre of Panjika.

  She emerged on to the street through a line of low, ramshackle buildings, Tommy at her shoulder. By day these were a bottle shop and a hardware stall of sorts. A couple of old bicycles were propped up against them, and some rusted steel oil drums littered the road in front. The village seemed completely deserted. No inhabitants were out at this time, nor any of the ANA soldiers who regularly patrolled by day. Opposite her was a line of rough stalls and shops, all bolted up and secured. A couple of stray goats were loitering by one of them, and a solitary old rickshaw had been left in the middle of the street. At the northern end of the street was the village mosque. It was a plain building: low, sand-coloured, much like any other in the village of Panjika. At some point in the past, its western corner at the rear had been destroyed in a munitions strike. The locals had tried to rebuild it using breeze blocks and concrete, but the job was still half done. Metal reinforcing rods pronged, porcupine-like, into the air, making the mosque look more like a building site than a place of prayer. It disappeared from Caitlin’s peripheral vision as she ran south, her feet thumping against the hard ground as she curved round to the south-east, past another small grove of avocado trees and along the only road in and out of the village. There was danger here. She knew it. Whoever had set the IED might expect people to approach and help any casualties. She was aware of Tommy, just behind her, scanning the area with his weapon as he ran. Caitlin accepted his protection and sprinted straight ahead.

  She could smell the plume of smoke before she saw it lit up by the moonlight on the far side of a parched field. This part of the village was dotted with tiny compounds, similar to the one in which Caitlin and her team had been living. The closest one was just twenty metres away, and from it she could hear a child wailing, woken by the noise. She knew from experience that very few people were likely to leave their compounds. It was safer for them to stay home.

  The smoke was fifty metres away, but Caitlin couldn’t risk heading directly across the field that separated her from it. Everyone knew that field was full of legacy mines and IEDs. The ANA were too stretched to clear it, and none of the locals had attempted to cultivate the land for years.

  So she had to go round it. Her boots thumped against the hard-baked, red earth. Tommy was close behind her and Gabina trailed by ten or fifteen metres, her shorter legs unable to carry her as fast. It took a minute to get there. The acrid smell of explosives grew stronger. As Caitlin turned the corner of the field into the poorly made road, she knew that a terrible scene awaited her.

  A vehicle had been hit. Not a military vehicle, most of which were properly armoured and reinforced against the threat of such devices. This was a civilian vehicle, but it was too much of a wreck for Caitlin to identify its model as she sprinted towards it. The chassis was twisted and gnarled. There was a glow of flames from the rear where the fuel tank had ignited. The smoke was coming from the smouldering tyres, and there was a huge crater in the side of the road.