Blackout

SEVENTEEN

After Deakins and Spitz had arrived with the two replacement black 4x4 Fords MI6 had supplied, Cobb, Jackson and First Team had piled in and left Fletcher, the hospice and the two smoking wrecks of the cars behind. As they got into the vehicles, Cobb had ordered the two drivers to take a different route back to the Unit’s headquarters, regardless of the time it would add to the journey. And thirty five minutes later, the men found Nikki waiting for them inside the briefing room at the ARU's headquarters when they walked in.

She had been working hard since they’d left and had drawn up a chart on a board on the wall with the list of names Cobb had given her. In total, there were eleven photographs stuck on the board, forming a makeshift pyramid.

At the top were two men, Cobb and Jackson, the two men who had run Operation Blackout. Both photos were official ones from the file, and they were stuck side-by-side. Below them, the other nine were separated into three columns of three, neatly spaced out. The team looked at them closely. To the left were the three soldiers from the British Army, half of the rescue team from that night. Adams, McCarthy and King. Adams’ photo had a big X over it, but the other two were untouched. In the middle were Spears, Fraser and Webster, the three U.S Rangers, the other half of the rescue team. There were two big X’s over Spears and Webster.

And to the far right were the three former hostages.

Carver, Floyd and Fletcher.

Archer looked at the top two photographs, putting faces to the names of the two men. The photos were from some old military file, both guys dark-featured with short buzz-cuts and pale faces. Carver’s lips were almost sneering, his brown eyes glinting with arrogance, whilst Floyd’s expression was blank, just staring straight ahead. The two faces were forgettable. Archer pictured them both going berserk with M16s, mowing down women and children in a dark camp somewhere out on the plains in Kosovo.

Not a pleasant thought.

Shifting his gaze, Archer looked at the photo of Fletcher below them and was taken aback. It was an old photo and not an official one, but nevertheless Fletcher looked like a completely different person from the frail, damaged man in the hospice bed. In the picture he looked strong, healthy and confident, full of vitality, wearing a beret and his combat fatigues and smiling at the camera. He was about a hundred pounds heavier and a hundred times happier. The person in the hospice was just a withered shell of this man, like the skin that was left behind after being shed by a snake.

‘Here you are, sir,’ Nikki said. ‘I hope these are the right men. I heard about the cars. Are you OK?’

'We’re fine,' Cobb said, examining the board. 'And yes, these are the right men. I recognise them all. Outstanding work.'

He paused and stepped forward, tapping Webster's photograph on the board. Archer saw he was a blond-haired guy, dressed in desert combat fatigues, a similar photo to the one of Adams. He had a big black X across the photograph, concealing most of his face and features.

'They got to Webster?' Cobb asked her.

Nikki shook her head.

'No, sir. He was killed in Iraq, 2004. Stood on an IED.'

Cobb nodded, then stepped back, examining the board with the other men. He turned to Jackson, and Archer saw his face harden.

'So, CIA Deputy Director Carver was behind this?'

'It was classified,' Jackson said. 'You know the way it works. I couldn’t have told you.'

'I don't believe this. I was the one running the damn operation. I needed to be given the facts.'

'Oh don't play all innocent, Cobb,' Jackson replied. 'You're telling me you've never withheld operational information before?'

He paused.

'This was a case of national security. Carver was connected. If the press had got hold of what his son did, the damage would have been immense. You think the public would still have supported the war? All this shit happened just after the Clinton impeachment. The entire US didn’t know who to trust anymore. The American public had lost faith in its Government. Just picture it - not only does the son of the Deputy Director of the CIA murder an entire village of women and children on a drunken rampage, but then he gets rescued from capture because his father didn’t want him to get hurt? Right there in bold print, next to those about the President. Imagine the headlines.'

'I don't give a shit about the damn headlines.'

'You would if it was your son who did the shooting. You would if you had been one of the heads of the CIA. Support for American involvement in the war would have melted away and Carver’s career would have been toast.’

He paused.

‘We had to shut the whole thing down. If word got out, the consequences would have been irreversible.'

'They've already been damn near irreversible,' Cobb said, jabbing a finger angrily at the ruined glass of his office next door.

There was a pause.

Cobb shook his head in frustration and paced to the window. The four armed officers stood there in silence. This was a two man conversation.

'OK, so what happened to Carver senior?' Cobb asked, turning back to Jackson. 'Is he still in the CIA? Or is he on his way to the Presidency and sainthood?'

Across the room, Jackson shook his head.

'He's gone. He retired and had a heart attack when he was walking his dog, about three years ago. They buried him at Arlington.'

Cobb shook his head and cursed, looking at the board.

The atmosphere in the room was tense.

'We should have been prepared,' Cobb said. 'If you had told me, we could have put precautions in place.’ He tapped Carver’s, Floyd’s and Fletcher’s photos. ‘These three men murder an entire camp of women and children and we expect their husbands and fathers to just forget it ever happened? Jesus Christ, Ryan. What did you think would happen?'

'What would you have done?’ Jackson fired back. ‘Given each of the men bodyguards and armed protection for the past decade? C'mon, think man. We never could have known it was going to go down like this.'

Cobb turned from the board and stalked back to the window.

In the silence, Porter turned to Nikki.

'Did you manage to pull anything on the enemy?' he asked her quietly.

Nikki shook her head.

'Nothing apart from the dead guy on the slab at the morgue. But I forgot to mention, another body turned up just before lunchtime. Same kind of tattoos as the man who attacked us here. Forensics think it was the second gunman, judging by the marks on his hands from the trigger guard of the rifle.'

Cobb turned and all the men looked at her.

'How did he die?' Archer asked.

'Single gunshot wound to the head. Self-inflicted. Suicide. About ten bystanders watched him do it.'

'He killed himself?' Chalky said.

'Probably because he failed,' Cobb said.

Porter turned to Jackson.

'The Black Panthers. How many men in a Unit like that?’ he asked.

'Eight,' Jackson said.

'So two down. We're looking at six of them left,' Cobb said. 'Do we even know what these men look like?'

Jackson looked at Nikki, who shrugged.

'All we know is they are exceptionally well-trained, extremely tough and according to all official records, don't even exist. None of them have used their real names for over a decade and no one knows for sure where any of them are. Officials at US airports on the East Coast are on alert in case they try to flee the country, but they don’t even know who they're looking for. These men are like ghosts.'

'And they want both of us dead,' Cobb added, looking back at Jackson.

Silence followed. Cobb walked back over to the board and pointed at three photographs, Fraser, King, and McCarthy.

'OK. We need to warn the others. Where's Fraser? The last remaining Ranger.’

Jackson nodded. ‘I already called ahead from the car. Two agents are on their way to him now. He works in an office near the Beltway, in DC. We'll get him guarded with round-the-clock security.’

‘OK,’ Cobb said, tapping King and McCarthy’s photos, the two British army soldiers. ‘These two are our responsibility. We need to find them before they do. Nikki?’

‘King lives not far from here,' she said, reading from the file in the crook of her arm. 'Small apartment in Angel. He works nights as security at a shopping centre. McCarthy is the floor manager at a home supply depot. I tried both their home phones but neither man is picking up.'

'Where does McCarthy live?'

'He has a lease on a house in his name in Notting Hill.’

Cobb turned to First Team, who were standing there silently, listening, their MP5s in their hands, waiting for instruction. Hard as the clean-up team had tried earlier, the floor under their boots was still stained with dried coffee and blood, reminders from earlier in the day.

‘Get over to Angel. Get King, then go to Notting Hill and get McCarthy. Bring them in,’ Cobb ordered. He turned to Nikki.

'Keep trying both men,’ he said. ‘Don't stop until you get an answer.'

'Yes, sir,' she said, following First Team, who were already moving to the door.

After they left, Cobb turned to Jackson again, the two men now alone in the room.

'If anyone else dies, it's on you. Know that.'

'Spare me,' Jackson said. 'I don't remember pulling a trigger.'

'You knew what they'd done. You should have told me.'

'Look man, let me ask you something,' Jackson replied. 'If I had told you what these men did, would you still have been as determined to get them out?'

Cobb suddenly paused. Silence filled the room.

'That's what I thought,' Jackson said. 'We'd have been in this shit regardless of you knowing every detail. So don't try and pin any of this on me. They came after me today too, you know. It’s not just you.'

Cobb shook his head angrily. 'Say what you want, Jackson. Whatever will help you sleep at night. But you know as well as I do that a lot of innocent people died today, joining everyone who was murdered in the town that night. If you'd warned me, we probably could have saved most of our guys, or at least given them a fighting chance. If we survive this, I hope you can live with that.'

Jackson turned before he said something he'd regret, and walked to the window, taking a deep breath and watching the four armed officers leave in one of the new black Fords.

I hope you can live with that, Cobb had said.

You don't know the half of it, Jackson thought.



As the four officers of First Team headed out quickly, they passed Deakins on the stairs who was leading an attractive woman in her thirties and two young boys up to the second floor. When they arrived, they moved down the corridor and Cobb saw them coming as he walked out of the briefing room.

He turned and moving forward, kissed his wife, his two sons staring at the damaged glass of their father's office.

Behind him, Jackson walked out of the room and saw the family.

'I'll check on Fraser's situation,' Jackson said to no-one in particular, excusing himself and nodding to Cobb’s wife. He pulled his mobile phone from his pocket and walked down the corridor, disappearing out of sight.

Standing beside the doorway to the briefing room, the tech team working away in the ops room beside them, Cobb's wife turned to her husband.

'Are you OK? We saw what happened on the news.'

'I'm fine,' he said.

His two boys were looking up at him and he hugged them both quickly, one by one.

'Guys, I want you to go and sit in my office for the time being, OK? I need to talk to your mother,' he said. The two boys nodded and shuffled round the corner, stopping to look at the damaged glass up close.

Alone, his wife lowered her voice, allowing the concern on her face and in her voice to show.

'Jesus, Tim. Who did this?'

'Come with me,' he said, motioning to the briefing room.

She followed and he led her towards the notice-board.

It took him ten minutes or so to explain what had happened. He ran through everything, from Adams’ suicide to the anthrax hoax at the Embassy and the unexpected attack on the station. He told her about Blackout and Fletcher’s revelations about what he, Carver and Floyd did in that village. And finally, he told her about the men involved in that operation all being killed systematically, picked off one by one, and how the teenage thief trying to steal his car had saved his, Jackson’s and four of his men’s lives. His wife listened closely to the whole explanation, then shook her head in disbelief once he finished.

'So they know you're still here? That's so dangerous, sweetheart. They could be back at any minute.'

'I have men guarding downstairs, both entrances. No one gets in without ID.'

'But these are Special Forces soldiers, Tim, not street-thugs. You need to get out of here. They'll come back for you and try again and again until they succeed.'

'I can't leave. This is our base. Everything we need is here. And besides, what would I tell my men? That I'm going to leave them to fend for themselves?'

'But they aren't trying to kill your men, Tim,’ she said slowly. ‘They want to kill you.'

There was a pause.

Cobb shook his head, taking a breath and pacing the room. He didn't like his options.

'Your men can handle it. These killers don't want Nikki, or Porter, or Archer. They want you.'

'I won't leave them.'

She moved across and took hold of him, looking into his eyes, putting more emphasis behind her words.

'These men are coming to kill you, Tim. They won't stop until they do. They know exactly where you are, and they’ve almost succeeded twice today. How many times will they have to try before they get lucky?'

Cobb didn’t respond.

'You can still command the Unit from elsewhere. Please Tim, I'm begging you to leave. Please.'

Pause.

‘And don’t forget you’re putting everyone else here in danger by staying.’

He looked at her.

He knew she was right.

'Where would we go?' he asked her.

'My family's house. It's off the radar, and none of these men will know about it. They won't have a clue where you'll be. From there, you can organise your team. You can still run the operation and track these men down, Tim. At least you won't still be here, with a big target painted on your chest.'

Cobb thought about what she had said. His wife came from a wealthy family, and their home was a beautiful Hall an hour or so outside the city. Called Hawkings, after her family surname, it had been passed down from generation to generation over hundreds of years. It was a big place, over two hundred acres of parkland and forestry surrounding a beautiful large manor.

She had a point. None of the soldiers would have any idea about the place.

'Damn it,' he said, quietly. 'I hate it when you're right.'

'Which is often,' she said, standing on her tiptoes and kissing his cheek.

'I'll explain to Nikki what's happening,’ he said, giving in. ‘Before we go, I need to call Porter and tell him to take over until I’m established at the house.'

As he turned and headed into the ops room, his wife watched him go and finally let her abject relief show. Her husband could be stubborn and was so caught up in the current situation she was worried he'd lost perspective.

The enemy he was dealing with here were professionals. All that had saved him so far was a cocky thief and an inch of reinforced glass.

As she watched the man she loved talk with Nikki, she looked over at the damaged panes of his office and felt her anxiety rise. The dents and pockmarks on the glass told a chilling story.

The same as the bloodstains on the floor beneath her feet.

Hurry, she thought, watching her husband explain the situation.

She wanted to get the hell out of here.

Before the men who did that to the glass came back to finish the job.