Assassin

56

Back then he was not yet known as Carver. He was still Paul Jackson, the name given to him by his adoptive parents. His friends and brother officers in the Special Boat Squadron, the waterborne arm of British Special Forces, used his nickname, Pablo. So did Quentin Trench, Carver's commanding officer.

'Pablo, I want you to take Damon Tyzack along with you as your second-in-command on the Maid of Dumfries job,' he'd said one evening at SBS headquarters in Poole while they were in the officers' mess, drinking their after-dinner coffees.

'Are you sure that's wise?' Carver replied. 'He's never had a job like this before.'

'Well, he's got to start somewhere. This should be a pretty straightforward operation. Tyzack's fully trained for it. And you're just the man to make sure he doesn't let himself or anyone else down.'

Carver stuck to his guns. 'You know how I feel about him. It's a character issue. I don't trust him to react the right way under pressure. Don't think the other men do, either. He's not well liked.'

'Well then, it's a good thing this is a military unit, not a bloody popularity contest,' Trench snapped. 'Your reservations about Second Lieutenant Tyzack's character were noted during the selection course. But so were the rest of his results, and they were superb. His powers of endurance are remarkable. He's a first-rate swimmer-canoeist, his marksmanship is outstanding and he breezed through all the technical, tactical and theoretical aspects of the course. Scored rather better than you did when you first got here, as a matter of fact.'

That was a cheap shot and Trench knew it. 'Look,' he continued, trying to smooth things over, 'I know there are other issues. I served under Tyzack's father, best commanding officer I've ever known. But I'm sure you don't think I would favour a man just because I knew his dad…'

'No, sir.'

'Good. Take Tyzack. Give him some responsibility. Let's see how he handles it.'

Three days later, Carver and Tyzack were both among the six men seated in the cabin of a Westland Sea King helicopter, flying low over the black waters of the Bay of Biscay. The wind was blowing about fourteen or fifteen knots: a good breeze, but no more than that, with the waves no worse than choppy. Rain was falling steadily, just enough for the clouds to obscure a waning crescent moon. Somewhere up ahead was the Maid of Dumfries, a 72-foot trawler, rigged for tuna-fishing. According to the intelligence, passed on to the SBS from the brains at MI6 who had come up with the idea for the operation, there were no fish in her hold. Instead, the Maid of Dumfries carried a far more valuable cargo: an estimated three tons of cocaine, with a street value in the region of forty million pounds.

'ETA, two minutes,' the pilot announced, and the aircrewman standing by the sliding door in the flank of the chopper yanked it open, letting in a blast of cold, wet air. He signalled Carver to move into position. A heavy hemp rope about two inches thick hung from the roof of the cabin and fell to the floor where it sat in thirty feet of coils. Carver grabbed hold of the rope and held it as he leaned out of the opening and peered forward into the darkness.

Then he saw it, the stern light of the Maid of Dumfries.

The trawler was cruising normally, heading north-east at around ten knots. A boat this size could be handled by a crew of three and it didn't look as if any of them were aware of the Sea King sneaking up behind them, the clattering din of its approach masked by the sound of the ship's own engine, or blown away on the wind. Well, that was about to change.

The Maid of Dumfries had its superstructure and bridge in the middle of the boat, with gantries fore and aft for hauling nets aboard, and only a few bare, flat patches on the decks on which Carver and his men could land. But the gantries were relatively low, less than twenty feet high, and the wind was still benign. The helicopter hovered over the stern at forty feet, keeping pace with the trawler, but out of harm's way. The green light went on above the door. Carver threw the rope out of the opening, watched it hit the deck below, then stepped out into the void.

He descended the standard SBS way, as fast as possible, using only a pair of heavy leather gloves as brakes. As soon as his feet hit the deck, he moved forward, away from the rope, knowing that Tyzack was only seconds behind him.

Even while he was still on the rope, Carver had seen the doors opening on the ship down below: one at the rear of the bridge, above a set of metal steps that led down to the deck; a second at deck level, on the far side of the yellow-painted superstructure. Carver was targeting the bridge.

As he moved forward towards it, a man emerged at the top of the steps, carrying a gun. He looked towards Carver and the men descending like black-clad wraiths from the helicopter that now loomed over half the length of the boat.

Carver tried to shout over the noise of the engines, the rotors and the wind, 'Put down your weapon, now!' But before the words were out of his mouth, the man – acting out of courage, desperation or sheer blind panic – had started firing, his shots spraying randomly as he tried to keep his balance while his ship moved beneath him.

Carver did not hesitate. The moment his hands had let go the rope, he had torn off his gloves and reached for the Heckler and Koch MP5 strapped across his chest. A flashlight was attached to the barrel of the gun. Now Carver swung it to his shoulder, let the light pick out his target and fired a three-round burst that hit the drug-runner full in the chest, sending him back a couple of staggered paces before the boat pitched up into an oncoming wave, and sent him falling down the stairs.

His body came to a halt just above the deck, held by a boot that had caught in one of the steps. The dead man's forehead was bumping into the bottom step with every movement of the Maid of Dumfries. For some reason that steady, repetitive impact seemed more disturbing to Carver than the three gaping exit wounds his bullets had ripped from the corpse's back.

Carver forced his concentration back to the matter in hand.

To his left, on the far side of the deck, he saw Tyzack raise his own MP5 and fire. Tyzack flashed him a quick OK with his thumb and forefinger. A second man was down.

Carver nodded in acknowledgement and gestured to Tyzack to keep moving. Then he turned to the men behind him and started signalling more orders, his hands moving like a tic-tac man at a racecourse betting stall.

The six men now split into three pairs. Carver took one man and moved to secure the bridge and take control of the vessel. Tyzack and his back-up were tasked to enter the superstructure to clear the cabins and engine-room. The final pair would secure the holds and start the search for the drugs that were the justification for the entire operation.

When Carver and the man behind him reached the bridge, it was deserted, the boat moving forward on automatic pilot. So where was the third crewman?

The question had no sooner crossed Carver's mind than it was answered by a burst of gunfire from the cabin below. The last echoes died away. Then there was another short, sudden blast of firing. Then silence.

'Stay here,' Carver said to his partner. 'Keep an eye out. Make sure we don't bump into anything.'

Then he went back out of the bridge, stepped over the dead body now lying on the deck at the foot of the steps, and made his way towards the sound of the guns.