The Hunter

CHAPTER 69

Eighty Miles East of Tanga, Tanzania

Monday

12:27 EAT

Sykes squinted against the glare of the afternoon sun. He stood on the deck of the commercial salvage vessel hired by Dalweg and Wiechman. The pair were former Navy SEALs who ran their own diving-and-salvage company based a few hundred miles up the coast in Kenya. They didn’t have the greatest of service records before leaving their respective teams, Dalweg in particular. He’d left the navy with a dishonourable discharge for beating a prostitute so bad she almost died. But the retired special-forces guys had been used by the company before on deniable operations and knew how to keep their mouths shut.

The pair had arrived in Tanga the day before Sykes and had hired the boat and purchased equipment they weren’t able to bring across the border. A sizeable chunk of cash had already been wired into Dalweg and Wiechman’s company bank account. They would get the same amount again when the mission had been completed.

As Ferguson had made clear, Sykes had first informed them of the rough details of their task and had only given them a full briefing when they were on the boat.

‘That’ll increase the fee by twenty-five per cent,’ Dalweg had said.

Sykes had assured him that he would see to it when the job was done. Figuring that would happen, Sykes had only offered them half of what Ferguson was willing to pay. Even with their increased fee, Sykes would still walk away with a fat few K’s of the total in his own pocket. He was pretty pleased with his brokering skills, and it felt good to be ripping off that fucker Ferguson too.

Sykes found Dalweg and Wiechman to be typical ex-military types, particularly ex-spec ops guys. They were big built and tanned, with lined and weathered faces and stares that could curdle cream. Both were around forty and had the scars and stories that only men who had fired rifles in anger carried. Despite their penchant for expletives and bad taste in jokes, Sykes found them to be all business.

The temperature had slowly been on the increase since the boat had left port, and Sykes was sweating more than he had in years. He wore long shorts and a T-shirt that was showing dark stains under the armpits and at the centre of his chest. He would’ve taken his shirt off, but, despite his weekly gym visits, he felt very body conscious alongside the two former SEALs, who both had arms as thick as his thighs. He knew, even without their taking a look at his love handles, that they already looked down on him as a soft CIA pen pusher who had no place in the field.

They had dropped into the sea twenty minutes ago and had assured Sykes their recon dive would take no more than half an hour. With the aid of standard dive tanks, they had descended to the seabed to examine the frigate and the missiles. They would then surface and plan how best to extract them from the sunken ship. With luck they would be back at port before dark, and anything they couldn’t get today would be extracted tomorrow.

There was a big hydraulic winch fitted onto the deck, next to which was a large amount of equipment that Sykes didn’t recognize, and he didn’t want to show his ignorance by asking for it to be explained. He knew it was salvage-and-demolitions equipment, but that was the extent of his knowledge. He unscrewed the top from a bottle of water and took a long drink.

The ocean was far calmer than he expected, but Sykes was a certified land lover who much preferred a swimming pool and a deck chair to a beach and surf. He’d popped a couple of sea-sickness pills just in case, and it was almost time for some more.

Normally waiting around with nothing to do would have frustrated Sykes, but he was deep in thought. It wasn’t long ago that he was fantasizing about briefcases full of dollar bills and bank balances with lots of zeros. Not any more. The close calls and narrow escapes of the past couple of weeks, combined with the new insight into Ferguson’s plans, had left him feeling scared and regretful. If he wasn’t in so deep, Sykes would have gone straight to Procter to fess up. Ferguson’s comment about the lethal injection was never far from Sykes’s mind.

Whatever else happened, Sykes was sure of one thing: it wasn’t going to end well. Ferguson had shown himself to be a thoroughly unscrupulous and spiteful bastard who Sykes could barely trust. After the way Ferguson had made sure everyone who knew anything about his plans had met with the grim reaper, how did Sykes know he himself wouldn’t end up being a similar liability that needed silencing?

That thought had meant he’d barely slept since Ferguson had ordered him to fly to Tanzania. He put a hand to the back of his shorts and checked that the SIG was still there. He’d kept it on his person every second since landing. Dalweg and Wiechman didn’t strike him as the kind of guys who would turn hitman for a few extra bucks, but he wasn’t about to take the chance.

He knew he was probably just being paranoid. Ferguson needed him. But Sykes, who was aware of his own considerable usefulness and the irrationality of having him killed, was also perfectly aware that Ferguson had shown himself to not always be the most rational of individuals.

Until things had calmed down, Sykes would stay on guard. If anyone so much as looked at him funny, he would turn himself in. Maybe he’d be able to cut a deal, testify against Ferguson to avoid the needle. Better to spend his life behind bars than end up victim of Ferguson’s madness.

He stared off into the distance. All around was water. Endless blue sea that met the sky at the horizon. He felt utterly alone. There was a splinter of worry at the back of his mind. What if Dalweg and Wiechman got chowed on by sharks or their tanks ruptured? Sykes didn’t know how to drive the boat, and he certainly didn’t know how to navigate.

He took another gulp of water and turned around as he heard a noise. A head emerged from the sea a few feet from the boat. Wiechman. He pulled his goggles up from his eyes and removed his mouthpiece. He pushed sandy blond hair away from his face.

‘What’s it like?’ Sykes called.

Wiechman shook his head. ‘It’s a wreck.’

‘I know that.’

The former SEAL swam the short distance to the boat. When he reached the back he pulled himself on board. ‘It looks good,’ he said. ‘Hull’s split open real nice, so we’ve got an open channel straight to the missiles.’

‘Yeah?’

‘There’s eight on board, four are crushed, smashed, or otherwise totally fucked up. The casings on two more have ruptured, and the seawater has corroded them to hell. We can get two for sure. It’s going to take all day, though, because of the amount of other crap down there burying them.’

‘Two’s good.’ Sykes’s eyes squinted behind his sunglasses. ‘We never figured on getting them all.’

‘Looks like they’re just practice warheads.’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

Dalweg surfaced and swam to the boat. Wiechman wiped the water from around his eyes. ‘Fuckers are big, though, bigger than I thought; we’re never going to get them up here in one piece. We’ll have to dismantle them as best we can first. Then bring them up with balloons before we winch them on board.’

‘Whatever it takes.’

‘Okay.’

Dalweg joined them on the deck. ‘Reckon with a little luck we’ll get you the two good ones up before we have to head back later. Can always come back tomorrow to see if anything else is recoverable.’

‘That’s fine,’ Sykes said. ‘Just make sure you don’t blow yourselves up.’

Dalweg laughed, but Sykes hadn’t been joking.

He took a seat while the two divers sorted through their gear. He didn’t understand how the hell he’d landed himself in such a mess. He’d thrown away his honour for nothing more than money. It wasn’t as if he was even poor to begin with. He’d just wanted more than he had. Sykes put a hand to his chest, feeling the sudden burn of rising acid. If his insides didn’t melt away before the end of this thing, he was going to be very surprised.

Luckily it was almost over now. They would have two extremely valuable missiles within twenty-four hours, and they’d sell them to jihadists or North Korea or whichever psychos paid the most. Then they could develop their own arsenals of antiship cruise missiles, and Sykes would spend the rest of his life praying one was never used to sink an American vessel.

Sykes knew he was greedy and stupid and a coward.

But at least he was going to be rich.