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  “The rebels are concentrated here, fighting the Revolutionary Guards,” she said, pointing to the north of the city. “If we drive out by the southern route we may be able to avoid their forces.”

  “Then let’s crack on,” said Alex.

  The twenty minutes up, they walked down to the parade ground. It was getting close to midday, and as he stepped out of the villa Alex could feel the full force of the sun. It was thirty-five degrees, and there was a salty humidity to the air that made it feel hotter. The mortar fire was getting closer. Alex had heard it plenty of times on the battlefield: the slow, thundering advance of an army that already had the upper hand and was intent on battering its enemy into final submission. Less than three miles away he reckoned. The rebels could break through at any moment. Whether they could make it down to the bunker and back before the Compound fell there was no way of knowing.

  Not that it mattered, he reminded himself as he stepped towards the waiting Toyota.

  If we have the document, The Colonel’s life doesn’t matter a damn anymore.

  Jack was already inspecting the Toyota. The tank had been filled with diesel, and the weapons had been placed securely in the machine’s boot. Some steel plating had been quickly fitted to the side. It wasn’t quite an armoured vehicle, but it was close enough. It would offer more protection in a scrap than the Land Rover the British army used in Afghanistan.

  The Colonel was striding across the parade ground, Maruma at his side. He pressed a single sheet of paper into Alex’s hand. The code for bunker’s electronic locks, he explained. It changed every twenty-four hours. The password would get them in for the next twenty-four hours. “If you aren’t back by then, I’ll assume you’re dead,” he said.

  “And you’ll probably be right.”

  “Good luck.”

  Jack was already ahead of him, climbing into the driver’s seat of the Toyota. Then Maruma put out a hand, grabbing hold of the man’s shoulders. “He’s staying with us,” he said.

  Jack pushed him away angrily.

  But as he did so, four Zimbabwean mercenaries stepped forwards, their guns pointing straight towards him.

  Jack froze.

  “What the hell is this about?” demanded Alex.

  “You’re friend is staying here with us,” said The Colonel.

  There was a half-smile on his lips as he spoke.

  “He’s damned well coming with us.”

  Maruma was holding tight onto Jack’s arm, and starting to lead him away from the vehicle.

  “I believe in insurance policies,” said The Colonel. “It is how I have stayed in power for so long. Make sure you come back with the document and get me out of here and your friend will be fine.” He paused, casually shrugging his shoulders. “If not, he dies.”

  “We’re going to get that document, and we’re going together,” said Alex. “We might have to fight our way through the rebel lines. We need Jack...”

  “And I need a guarantee that you won’t simply steal the files and disappear.”

  Alex stared at the man, but could see that his mind was made up. Their real mission was to assassinate the Colonel as well as retrieve the hidden document. They’d be coming back for certain. But he couldn’t tell him that.

  “Make sure he’s looked after.”

  “Make sure you return” said the Colonel. “I believe you’ve already seen how we execute men here.”

  Alex looked towards Jack. Two soldiers were holding back his arms, making it impossible for him to move. “We’ll be back soon,” he said.

  But the soldiers had already turned Jack around and were leading the man away towards the barracks.

  Chapter Seven

  Harford looked down at the picture on the desk.

  They were grainy black and white images shot from a drone aircraft flying across Tripoli. “Look,” he said, glancing across at Greenway.

  She joined him in the cramped intelligence room of the battleship, a coffee in her hands. They had both been working though the night, monitoring the intelligence coming out of the Libyan capital. Vast amounts of data were being collected every hour. They were satellites trained on the country, drone aircraft flying across it, reports from spies inside both the rebel and government forces, and intercepts from mobile phone traffic. The picture was clear enough. The Revolutionary Guards were managing to hold onto some of the key roads leading into the Presidential Compound, and they still had the electricity plant and water system working. But the rebels were slowly taking the heart of the city, and many of the remaining government forces were starting to abandon their posts, and making their way back to their villages, or else fleeing across the border to Tunisia to make a new life for themselves. It was only a matter of time before the rebels broke through. Another two days was the latest intelligence assessment. But it could happen before nightfall.

  “What?” asked Greenway, leaning over the desk and looking down at the pictures.

  “They’re leaving.”

  The pictures were displayed on a flat screen. It had already been magnified five times. On one, you could see a man being led away. In another, you could see a pair of people climbing into a vehicle, then driving out of the Compound.

  “Two of them are in the car,” said Harford. “A man and a woman. It looks like Alex and Zena. And it looks like Jack is being led away by some soldiers.”

  “Christ,” muttered Greenway. “She should be back at the harbour preparing their evacuation.”

  “And they shouldn’t be leaving the compound without the Colonel.”

  Greenway looked worried. “We can’t let the rebels capture The Colonel. Not until we know where that document is.”

  “Then...”

  Greenway shook her head. “Get me some more intelligence. I need to know precisely what is going on in there.”

  Chapter Eight

  Alex tapped his foot on the brakes. The Toyota was driving south through the city, avoiding the worst of the fighting, but the rebels had set up roadblocks right around the periphery, and the checkpoint ahead was controlling access to the main highway that led down to the country’s interior. Ten cars were backing up at the checkpoint, the closest they’d seen to a queue since they’d left the Compound twenty minutes earlier. Otherwise, the streets of the capital had been deserted. Of civilians, anyway. The city was turning into a war zone, with running gun battles between rebel and government forces breaking out on every corner. Most of the civilians had already fled, and the few that remained were sheltering in their houses trying to stay alive.

  “How many men?” asked Alex.

  “Four,” replied Zena crisply.

  “Think we can run through it?”

  “Impossible,” said Zena.

  “Jesus, there’s only four guys up three,” snapped Alex. “We have the firepower.”

  Zena turned to look at him. “We could try using our brains for once.”

  Alex shrugged. “Your brains maybe. Mine never got me anywhere.”

  He steered the car into the back of the queue. There were five cars now separating them from the checkpoint. Up ahead were four rebel soldiers, two in proper military uniforms, two in jeans and sweatshirts. One man was stopping each car and questioning its driver, whilst the others stood behind him, their AK-47s head ready to deal with any trouble.“Let me talk,” said Zena. “My Arabic is fluent. We’ll say we’re Egyptians planning to drive home through Tunisia.”

  “Then you better take the drivers’ seat,” said Alex.

  As they switched places, Alex checked the clip on his on his Browning. Full. Ready to fire. There were a pair of assault rifles, machine pistols and grenades hidden under a fake floor in the Toyota’s boot. Major Maruma had made sure they were ready to fight their way into the bunker if necessary. Alex reckoned the rebels were looking for men still loyal to The Colonel fleeing to the interior to regroup their forces. Zena was right. If they thought they were another pair of the tens of thousands of foreign workers running from the
chaos as fast as they could, there was no reason why they should stop them. Even so. He wanted to have his gun ready. Just in case.

  Up at the roadblock, men were shouting. Alex’s eyes darted forward. Two men had climbed out of an aging white Renault and were shouting at the soldiers. The sudden retort of a rifle being fired silenced the argument. One of the men had crumbled to the ground, clutching a face that had been shot open. Two more men had jumped from the Renault, opening up on their own guns. A raging fire fight had broken out, bullets flying everywhere. “Back up, back up,” shouted Alex. “We’re getting the hell out of here.”

  “I can’t,” screamed, Zena.

  Alex looked around. The Toyota was boxed in. There were four more cars behind it, and there was no space on the curb to turn around. People were screaming, and bullets were flying everywhere. Two of the rebel soldiers had gone down in a hail of bullets, and a third had turned around and started running. Only one of them was left standing, his AK-47 on automatic, firing wildly at anything that moved.

  “Shit,” he muttered under his breath.

  A gun. It had smashed straight through the window of the Toyota and was pointing straight into the side of his face. Alex glanced sideways and upwards. On the end of the gun was a tall, lanky Arab, about twenty-five with sweat pouring down the side of his bearded face. “Get out,” growled the man.

  Alex remained motionless.

  “You’ve got one more fucking second.”

  Alex slid open the door, and climbed out of the vehicle. He put his hands up. Up ahead, the remaining rebel soldier had run out of ammo, and his head had just been blown off. The men in the Renault – whoever the hell they were - were winning. One of them was running towards them, pointing his gun towards Zena. He was barking at her in Arabic. She climbed out and handed across the keys.

  “On your knees,” snarled the man with his gun to Alex’s head.

  “Take the fucking car,” growled Alex. “Just leave us...”

  “On your knees.”

  Christ, thought Alex. They are going to take the Toyota, and execute us to make sure we don’t come after them.

  He looked towards Zena.

  She was being held roughly by another Arab, a gun in his right hand.

  “I said, on your knees.”

  Alex looked again at Zena. He nodded curtly.

  I hope you know what that means, he thought to himself.

  Fight back.

  It’s better than getting shot in the head.

  His right elbow smashed outwards. It was a deft glancing blow, and delivered with enough speed to briefly knock the man off his balance. He squeezed the trigger on his handgun, but the blur of motion had robbed him of balance and aim and the bullet lodged itself harmlessly in the bonnet of the Toyota. Alex spun around. His training for this kind of escape had taught him that a close quarter fight was all about movement. He was swivelling around, and at the same time throwing both his right fist and left boot into a pair of punches that connected with the man’s neck and thighs. The guy grunted as the wind emptied out of his throat, and the sudden shortage of oxygen to his brain dulled his focus, making it even harder for him to react. Planting both his feet on the ground, Alex steadied himself, then grabbed for the man’s ears with both hands, yanking his head down with brutal strength, and then thumping his right knee straight up into his chin. There was a sickening crunching of bones as the blow smashed into the man, but this was no moment for sympathy. Alex delivered one more blow to his neck, then tossed his body into the dusty pavement. He’d come round in a few hours. But he’d think twice before attempting to hi-jack a Toyota again.

  A shot.

  He looked around. A man was lying dead at Zena’s feet, and his handgun was in her right fist. “Run like hell,” she yelled.

  Two more men were advancing from the Renault with guns drawn. Other armed men had climbed out of the queue of cars and a fresh fight was breaking out.

  Alex glanced back at their Toyota. Their weapons were all on board. It was their only transport. But it was too late to worry about that now. All that mattered was staying alive.

  Just to their left was a narrow alleyway, leading to a patch of scrubland.

  He kicked back his heels and started to run.

  Chapter Nine

  The cells smelt of blood, urine and fear. Jack didn’t mind the blood and the urine so much. You couldn’t spend years in the Special Forces without growing used to the grisly odour of both. But the fear unnerved him. He’d seen plenty of men about to go into combat, and he’d seen men about to die on the battlefield, and they’d all been afraid, and rightly so. But this was something different. The ghostly, abject fear of men who have lost all hope.

  “This way,” said Major Maruma, pushing him roughly in the back.

  They were walking along a dark corridor. There were cells off to either side. Each one measured ten feet by eight, with bars that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. Even in the dim light, Jack could see that each one was packed, with fifteen or sometimes twenty men cramped into a tiny space.

  “Here,” growled Maruma.

  A door swung open, and Jack was pushed inside.

  He stumbled, his eyes still adjusting to the semi-darkness. The floor was rough concrete, and the walls were made from stone, their surface covered with graffiti and dirt. There were two bunk beds on the left hand side, and four men were using them to get some rest. Another six men were squatting on the side wall, playing some kind of game with a collection of small stone. Five more men were standing up, pacing around and around in a small circle. In one corner, there were a pair of buckets, one used as a toilet, the other for drinking water. A terrible smell was drifting from both of them, so disgusting it hit Jack in the nostrils with the force of a coiled fist.

  A pair of eyes looked towards him. Dark, savage and hostile. “Welcome to hell, my friend.”

  Chapter Ten

  Harford slammed the intelligence assessment down on the desk. “I thought you should see this,” he said.

  Greenway drained the last of her cup of coffee before looking down at the print-out. She’d been working non-stop for more than seventy hours now, catching no more than two hours sleep a night. The ship’s doctor had given her some amphetamines to keep her going, but as Tripoli fell to the rebels, the flow of intelligence information was constant, and she was taking calls every hour from London. The Minister of Defence had called twice in the last twelve hours, so had the Foreign Secretary, and even the Prime Minister had interrupted his holiday to check in. The questions were always the same. When will The Colonel finally fall? And what’s happened to that document?

  She glanced down at the executive summary. There were sources both within the rebel forces and among The Colonel’s remaining loyalists feeding back constant information to add to the pictures they were receiving from satellite surveillance and the drones flying constantly over the country.

  And they all said the same thing.

  The final hours were approaching fast.

  “We may need to put in a cruise missile strike,” said Harford. “If Marden and Rogan haven’t been able to locate that document themselves, then we have to destroy it before the rebels overrun the place.”

  “It would mean killing our own men.”

  Harford shrugged. “Everyone is expendable,” he said coldly. “And men in Unit Five are more expendable than anyone.”

  “I’ll speak to the PM,” said Greenway. “This will need authorisation from the highest level.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The bunker was a low, flat building built on the edge of a rocky hillside that shielded it from the nearest road. It measured a hundred feet across, by twenty deep. There was a single doorway that led inside, and standing next to it were four Libyan soldiers armed with AK-47s. Two hundred metres out, it was surrounded by a fence of barbed wire fifteen feet high. The only way in was along a single track that led through the gates. The land all around its perimeter was mined, according
to signs up in both Arabic and English. Nobody could get close. Not without risking their lives anyway.

  Alex was lying flat on the ground, six hundred yards away from the entrance.

  “Reckon we can take it,” he said, looking across at Zena.

  “We’ll have to try,” she answered crisply.

  Alex glanced at his watch. It was just after three in the afternoon and the worst of the midday sun was beating down on his back. After losing their Toyota, they’d run for several hundred yards, then used one of the gold coins they’d bought with them to buy a twelve-year old VW Golf. The gold was worth $3,000 which was three times the value of the car, but they were in no position to haggle, and once the owner had agreed to chuck in a pair of AK47s and two hundred rounds of ammunition, the deal had been sealed. The Golf was a GTI, but the roads weren’t in any state to test its acceleration. They bought themselves some local clothes in a street market, and by keeping to the back rounds, and not sweating too much about their speed, they’d managed to cover the hundred miles down to the bunker without crossing any more roadblocks. All we need to do now is break in, then get back to Tripoli thought Alex with a tense smile. Preferably alive.

  “How exactly?”

  Zena was glancing left and right. The barbed wire was too high to climb, and the minefields were impossible to cross. If they’d hung onto the Toyota, they’d have sniper rifles and they could take out the guards at a safe distance, but the AK-47s only had an effective range of two hundred metres and they weren’t able to get close enough to eliminate them from here.

  “I’ll get up to the wire over there to the right,” she said, pointing. “When I open fire, you storm the gate.”

  “The ground is mined,” said Alex.

  She pointed to a narrow strip. “Tyre tracks,” she said. “At that spot, a vehicle has come up to the bunker. It should be clear.”