Danny rounded on him. ‘Give me a set of keys!’

  ‘You need to calm the fuck down, Danny.’

  ‘You should have told me this before Caitlin left. What if Tony goes looking for her?’

  ‘Why the hell would he? We’re under orders, buddy. Spearpoint know that Caitlin and Tony used to be a thing.’

  ‘Not any more. She fucking hates him.’

  ‘Even so,’ Brooker said, his tone measured. ‘She might have a relapse. Tip him off.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Brooker sniffed. Exchanged another glance with Riley. ‘We’ve had a kill order on Tony Wiseman,’ he said.

  Danny fell silent. Looked from Brooker to Riley, then back again. Their expressions made it clear that the idea of taking out an SAS brother was not one they liked. But it was equally clear that they intended to carry out their orders.

  ‘Spearpoint have given Caitlin’s team the order to extract. They’ll be ready for her when she gets there. Our job is to go after Tony.’

  ‘He could be anywhere.’

  ‘Sure. But at some point, we know where he’s going to be.’

  Danny stared at him. It took a moment to click. ‘The bullion?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘My money’s on him heading straight there.’

  ‘Maybe. He doesn’t know we’re on to him, remember.’

  ‘If I know Tony, he’ll twig. Say what you like about him, he’s smart. Get that map out again.’

  Riley opened it up on the bonnet of the nearest vehicle. Danny examined it closer. The cache location appeared to be on a slope heading up to a high peak. ‘It’s out of the way.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Brooker said. ‘Chances of anyone coming across it by chance are insignificant.’

  ‘What else do we know about the terrain?’

  ‘It’s green zone. We can expect rock, scree and trees. That’s all we can guess till we put eyes on. But Spearpoint are adamant about one thing.’

  ‘We IED the cache?’

  Brooker nodded. It made sense. A covert assassination was one thing. Taking out your own guy? Quite another. It had to be plausibly deniable. Helmand was littered with IEDs. A British soldier being taken out by one was easy to explain away. An SF sniper round to the head? Not so much.

  But it wasn’t that straightforward. Danny checked the time. 21.59 hours. ‘If he heads straight there, there’s a chance we’ll coincide. Then we’ll have to do it however we can.’

  ‘Either way, we need to move,’ Brooker said. He gestured towards Danny’s shoulder. ‘You need med care?’

  ‘There’s no time.’ He looked over towards Murray and Kit. ‘Call your guys in. We head to the cache immediately. Let’s get this sorted.’

  Brooker nodded and gave a low whistle to the others.

  Two minutes later they were on the move.

  Caitlin was more anxious about the journey back to Panjika than she would ever have admitted in front of Danny and the other guys. A lone woman travelling the deserted highways of Helmand Province at night was not safe, no matter how much weaponry she had on her person and in the vehicle. If a group of armed Taliban hoods decided to erect a roadblock, her only option would be to fight her way through. So whenever she saw road lights in the distance, her pulse quickened and her eyes flickered to the handgun on her dashboard. Maybe she’d made the wrong call, splitting up from Danny Black.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about him. The dark hair and even darker look in his eye. It wasn’t a romantic obsession. Caitlin had long ago learned that it was a bad idea to let your private life intrude on an op. No, it was something else. That grim, relentless nature of his. Danny Black was a guy who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Caitlin had met soldiers like that before. Most of them had ended up dead, on ops. She couldn’t help wondering if this was the fate that awaited Danny. She glanced around her as she drove. The moon silhouetted some craggy hilltops to her right. Would it be here, in the bleak wilderness of Helmand, that Danny’s luck would run out?

  Lights up ahead. She inhaled sharply and slowed down. A moment later she realised it was another vehicle approaching from the opposite direction. She relaxed slightly. She was just a couple of klicks from Panjika now. In a weird way, it felt like home. She was kind of looking forward to seeing Tommy, gruff and silent, and Gabina, wide-eyed and earnest. Familiar, friendly faces. A girl could miss her friends, in such an inhospitable location, so far from home.

  Caitlin suppressed a shudder as she passed the location where the road bomb had exploded just four nights previously. She remembered the horrific sight of the kid with the flayed skin, and relived the scream of the young girl as Caitlin fitted a painful tourniquet to her life-threatening bleed. The wreck of the vehicle was still there, and the bitter smell of burning hung in the air. Caitlin didn’t look back as she passed it.

  She came off the road and parked up behind the treeline of a copse directly to the south of her compound. People seldom came here, and it was better for unfamiliar vehicles to remain unseen, if you didn’t want to attract attention. She was about to turn off the lights when she noticed they were illuminating something through the trees. Another vehicle. She killed the lights and the engine, exited the Hilux and approached a beige Land Rover with a crack across the rear window.

  An unfamiliar vehicle. Hidden, just like Caitlin’s.

  She stared at it for a moment in silence. A noise disturbed her. She spun round, scanning among the trees.

  Nothing.

  She returned to her vehicle and put on her robes, secreting her weapons underneath. She slung her rucksack over her shoulder. She looked around again, unable to shake the sensation that she was being observed. She saw nothing. Nobody. So she headed around the copse towards the compound.

  As always, the village was silent, the streets deserted. Caitlin moved swiftly, keeping to the shadows, her eyes and ears fully alert. As she approached the compound, she saw that there was no light emanating from it. That figured. Tommy and Gabina would be asleep. Skirting around the southern wall to the entrance, she put one hand into her robes and withdrew the iron key that would unlock the door into the compound. Once she was there, she slid the key into the lock and tried to turn it.

  The door was shut, but the lock was open.

  Caitlin removed the key slowly and silently. She could feel a pulse in her neck. There was no way Tommy or Gabina would have failed to lock themselves in. Something was wrong.

  She stowed the key and drew her handgun. Cocked it. Raised it. With her free hand she quietly opened the door.

  And stepped inside.

  Gabina’s body was the first thing Caitlin saw.

  The young woman was lying on her back in the middle of the courtyard. She was not wearing her usual burka, but a plain nightdress, demeaningly hitched up to expose between her legs. Her throat had been cut: a brutal, deep gash that had caused blood to flood on to her nightdress. There was a grotesque, rictus grin on her once-beautiful face. Those wide, innocent eyes of hers were open. The blood was fresh. It glistened in the moonlight.

  Caitlin felt a mixture of nausea and raw, burning anger. A fog descended on her. Still brandishing her weapon, she stepped forward. She scanned around the compound. The doors to her room and to Gabina’s were closed. But the door to Tommy’s was ajar. Just a couple of inches. No light spill.

  Caitlin advanced towards it.

  She could smell excrement as she passed Gabina. The interpreter’s body was undergoing its usual post-mortem procedures. But she kept her focus, and her weapon, trained on Tommy’s door. When she reached it, she paused for a moment. Breathed deeply to steady herself. Then she hooked the door open with her right foot, weapon pointing directly into the room, finger on the trigger.

  It was darker inside than out. Her eyes took a moment to adjust. The outline of Tommy’s form appeared gradually over a period of twenty seconds. Each second revealed a detail more gruesome than the last.

  He was dead, but that was not the most shocking thing. Whoever had done this to him had done it slowly. He was slumped against the far wall, his body limp and lifeless. A rag had been stuffed in his mouth to keep him quiet. Some of the material was sticking out from between his lips and, like his beard, the material was soaked with blood.

  The blood came from his eyes. They had been gouged. Stabbed. Caitlin couldn’t tell if the eyeballs were still in the skull. The eye sockets were just a bloodied, mushy mess.

  She wanted to vomit. She wanted to cross the room to Tommy. At the very least to cover his brutalised form. In his gruff, military way he had been kind to her. They’d been friends. Tommy would have liked them to be more than that. Now look at him. Another wave of nausea flooded her body. She suppressed it. And she turned. Because she knew that Tommy had not only been murdered. He had been tortured first. And Caitlin had a good idea what his killer had been trying to locate.

  Or rather, who his killer had been trying to locate.

  Her.

  She was sweating heavily as she turned. She exited Tommy’s room. Scanned the compound. There was no sign of anybody. She fixed her attention on the exit. The door was slightly ajar. She ran towards it, past Gabina’s stinking corpse. At the door she stopped. Breathed again. Readied her weapon. Prepared to make a sprint back towards the Hilux.

  She stepped outside and immediately knew she’d made a catastrophic mistake.

  Her attacker was waiting just to the right of the door. In her haste to leave the compound, she hadn’t checked.

  The first punch was a hammer fist straight to her face. Caitlin felt the bone in her nose crack and collapse. Blood flowed from her nostrils, over her lips.

  The second punch was an action replay. It hurt more as it made contact with the broken bone.

  She felt her handgun being ripped from her hand.

  After that it was a blur. The blows to the face came in quick succession. To the nose, to the mouth, to the eyes, which she had to keep closed to protect them. She could feel her face bloodying up, her head spinning. An agonising punch hit her breasts. She doubled over, gasping for breath, and a knee jabbed her under the chin, knocking her back against the wall. A hand grabbed her hair tightly and the blows to the face started up again. Forceful. Relentless.

  She tried to fight back. It was impossible. Her assailant was too strong. She knew it was a man, from the smell. But she had blood in her eyes and couldn’t see him. When she raised one leg to knee him in the bollocks, it was swiped easily away. The gesture was rewarded by another agonising strike to the breasts.

  She collapsed, trying to suck in a lungful of air. An elbow struck her in the side of the face.

  She was unconscious before she hit the ground.

  Mina was scared. But she was also in pain.

  She had waited until her grandmother was asleep before crossing the village towards the compound where the female British soldier stayed – the one who had given her painkillers and sanitary products before. She was in trouble with her grandmother. Mina had told the British soldier about Abu Manza and Abu Noor who lived in the village of Gareshk. And while she’d not admitted it to her grandmother, the old woman was wise. She knew Mina well. Her frowns and silence were eloquent.

  To inform against the Taliban was dangerous. No wonder, then, that Mina’s grandmother had refused to take her back to the soldier’s compound for more medicine. That was why she was forced to do it alone, and in the dead of night.

  Panjika was completely deserted, as it always was after dark. Wrapped in her blue robes and headdress, Mina kept to the shadows. She stopped and looked around frequently to check that she wasn’t being observed and followed. Occasionally she winced from the cramping in her abdomen. Did the fear of being caught make it worse? She didn’t know.

  There was an old wooden bridge that crossed the dried-out river on the southern side of the village. The soldier’s compound was directly opposite it on the other side of the main street. The bridge creaked as she crossed it. The noise made her cringe. Once she had forded the riverbed she stopped in the shadow of a tree and looked out towards the compound.

  She froze. There was movement. A figure was approaching. It was skirting round the edge of the compound, towards the main door. The figure stopped there, its back to Mina. She had the impression that whoever it was, they were trying to unlock the gate. It only took a few seconds. The gate opened and the figure slipped inside.

  Mina remained quite still. She didn’t know who it was that she’d just seen entering the soldier’s compound. She needed to be careful . . .

  Thirty seconds passed. Then there was more movement.

  It came from a different direction. There were five trees a few metres to the left of the compound. A second figure emerged. Mina could see that this person was male, and wearing military clothes. He moved quickly to the door and stood just to its left with his back to the wall.

  Mina didn’t like the look of him. She didn’t know why. She wanted to run, but she was too scared to move. So she stayed where she was, an invisible, huddled mass beneath the tree, and watched.

  Two silent minutes passed. Then the door opened again. The first figure appeared. She was carrying a gun. Mina could see her face now. It was her friend, the female soldier.

  Mina was used to violence. In Helmand Province, you couldn’t avoid it. But what she saw next still sickened her.

  The male figure thumped her hard in the face. He ripped the gun from her hand, then continued to pound his fist into her face and then her breasts. It all happened silently. The woman doubled over and received a knee to the chin. Then more blows to the face.

  She collapsed. Mina gasped involuntarily, then moved her hand over her mouth to silence herself. The man hauled the woman over his shoulder. He looked around once, failed to see Mina, then ran with his victim round the back of the compound, and out of sight.

  When Caitlin regained consciousness, she was upside down and moving. With thickly blurred vision she could see the ground passing quickly underneath her. It took a few seconds for her to realise that she had been slung over her assailant’s shoulder. Her mouth was stuffed with something to stop her shouting out. Her hands were bound behind her back. Her skin was sticky with blood and the pain in her face and upper body was debilitating.

  Never agree to being moved. It was the first rule. She wriggled as violently as she could, trying to writhe herself off her assailant’s shoulder. No good. He was too strong. Twenty seconds later he dumped her on the ground. She fell heavily. The world, still blurred through sticky, bloodied eyes, was spinning. She felt a hand round her throat, pulling her up from the ground and thrusting her hard against a tree.

  Blurred features came close, face to face. She felt hot breath. She squinted, trying to make out her assailant’s features, but her eyes were rolling in her head.

  It was only when he spoke that she knew who it was. She’d recognise that voice anywhere, no matter what state she was in.

  ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ said Tony. ‘Feeling rough? I’m going to be honest – you’re looking pretty rough. Not as bad as you’re going to look, though, if you don’t tell me where the fuck Danny Black is, and what he’s doing.’

  CHAPTER 21

  He’s bluffing.

  It was the clearest thought Caitlin could manage. Surely Tony had no way of knowing Danny had made contact with her.

  She could just make out colours in her peripheral vision. She was in an orchard of some description. Avocado trees, maybe, and vibrant flowers all around. It was unexpectedly lovely. There was a faint smell, like honeysuckle. In a corner of her mind, Caitlin wondered how she had managed to miss this place in all the time she’d been living here.

  ‘You see what I did to your man Tommy?’ Tony said. His harsh voice brought her back to the present.

  Caitlin nodded.

  ‘It was quite sweet, really. He didn’t want to give you up. I took the first eye out when he told me you’d been called back to the UK. Second one when he refused to talk any more. That one killed him. I went a bit deep. My bad. I’ll know better next time. Anyway . . .’ Caitlin felt cold metal beneath her left eye. ‘I’m going to take this rag out of your mouth. You know what’ll happen if you make a noise.’

  He inserted his fingers into her mouth and pulled out the rag. She gasped.

  ‘Where is he?’ Tony breathed.

  He’s bluffing.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t seen him. I didn’t even know he was in-country.’

  Silence. Caitlin considered shouting out. But she could still feel the blade against her eye. Her vision was beginning to clear a little. Tony’s face was more distinct. His eyes were red. Wide. He looked insane.

  ‘You see,’ Tony whispered, ‘this is why I don’t believe you. I’m thinking, here I am, Danny Black. I’ve been arrested by a member of the RMPs. I’m under armed guard in Camp Shorabak, waiting to be flown home to have all kinds of shit thrown at me. But I manage to escape. I’m injured. I’m alone in Helmand Province. I don’t know a fucking soul, except one person – that’s you, by the way – and I know where she is. So what am I going to do? Sit around playing with my dick until either the Taliban or the filth catch up with me? Or make contact?’ He leaned in a little closer. ‘That retard in the compound was one thing. You’re quite another. Be a fucking shame to take your pretty little eyes out. Maybe I’d start somewhere else.’ He moved the knife away from her face and pointed it between her legs. ‘It’s about time I put something up there again. Be quite romantic, wouldn’t it, surrounded by all these flowers. So let’s have another go, you stupid, stupid bitch. Where is he?’

  Caitlin’s body temperature had dropped. She was shaking. Her wrists hurt where they were bound behind her back. She knew Tony would carry out his threat. He was a desperate man. It was only a matter of time before she cracked. If she could just give him non-specific information for a little while longer . . .

  ‘He’s met up with a Regiment unit from Kabul,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know where they were headed. I think they’re just going to get him out of—’