Chris Ryan [Ryan - Head Hunters

Chris Ryan was born near Newcastle in 1961. He joined the SAS in 1984. During his ten years there he was involved in overt and covert operations and was also sniper team commander of the anti-terrorist team. During the Gulf War, Chris Ryan was the only member of an eight-man unit to escape from Iraq, where three colleagues were killed and four captured. It was the longest escape and evasion in the history of the SAS. For this he was awarded the Military Medal. For his last two years he selected and trained potential recruits for the SAS.

He wrote about his experiences in the bestseller The One That Got Away, which was adapted for the screen, and since then has written three other works of non-fiction, fifteen bestselling novels and a series of childrens books. He has also created a number one bestselling series of ebooks, Chris Ryan Extreme. He lectures in business motivation and security, and is a consultant for a security organisation.

Also by Chris Ryan

Non-fiction

The One That Got Away

Chris Ryans SAS Fitness Book

Chris Ryans Ultimate Survival Guide

Fight to Win

Safe

Fiction

Stand By, Stand By

Zero Option

The Kremlin Device

Tenth Man Down

Hit List

The Watchman

Land of Fire

Greed

The Increment

Blackout

Ultimate Weapon

Strike Back

Firefight

Who Dares Wins

The Kill Zone

Killing for the Company

Osama

In the Danny Black Series

Masters of War

Hunter Killer

Hellfire

Bad Soldier

Warlord

In the Strikeback Series

Deathlist

Shadow Kill

Global Strike

Chris Ryan Extreme

Hard Target

Night Strike

Most Wanted

Silent Kill

Head Hunters

Chris Ryan

www.hodder.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Coronet

imprint of Hodder & Stoughton

An Hachette UK company

Copyright Chris Ryan 2018

The right of Chris Ryan to be identified as the Author of the

Work has been asserted by him in accordance with

the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any

means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be

otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that

in which it is published and without a similar condition being

imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance

to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781473668003

Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

www.hodder.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

In the secret world there are secret briefings.

They take place in unremarkable conference rooms that have been swept for listening devices. Or in secure Portakabins in cordoned-off sections of military bases. Windows are covered up. Military personnel guard the entrances. Clerical staff understand that something is being discussed, not for their ears.

They are, in other words, not secret at all.

And then there are briefings like this.

Secret briefings.

Nobody knows they are happening, apart from the people involved. They take place in safe houses, or public parks, or in the back of vehicles.

Or in rough pubs, where rough men can discuss rough business. Pubs like this one, the George and Crown, standing alone on a deserted roadside in a remote part of Cornwall, where a bored barman watches Arsenal vs Spurs on the overhead TV. An alcoholic stares into an almost empty pint glass at a table by the door. A group of five lads take turns at the pool table on the far side of the bar. Three of them are vaping. Nobody complains.

Danny Black had instinctively clocked each of his fellow drinkers as he entered the pub half an hour previously, leaving his BMW parked under the solitary street light outside. None of them had returned the favour and he liked it that way.

The message had come through five hours ago on his encrypted work phone. A set of GPS coordinates and an RV time: 20.00 hours BST. Hed arrived at 19.30, thirsty from the four-hour drive from Hereford but in a heightened state of awareness as he took a few minutes to check out the pub and its surroundings. Entry and exit points. Potential surveillance. Incidental weapons. He was hard-wired to do it.

Hed soon established that the only threat to his personal safety came from the out-of-date, curled-up sandwiches on the bar. And hed put away a couple of pints of Fosters before his ops officer Major Ray Hammond walked into the pub, nodded at him and automatically walked to the bar to buy two fresh pints, before sitting opposite Danny.

Ray Hammond was the kind of soldier who only ever seemed at ease in camouflage gear. He looked uncomfortable in the civvies he was wearing a pair of chinos and an open-necked shirt. Danny couldnt imagine what he did with his time when he was off duty, which he never seemed to be. Hammond commanded respect in the Regiment. He was a no-nonsense type, unwilling to take any shit from his men but always prepared to go the extra mile to look after them. Hammond would never admit that his mens well-being was always at the forefront of his mind, but it plainly was. He could be a grumpy old bastard, though. He had a hangdog expression and perpetual dark rings around his eyes. The darker the rings, the shorter his temper. Everyone in the Regiment knew that. Tonight they werent so bad. Danny felt he could be reasonably at ease with the ops officer.

We couldnt have done this in Hereford? Danny said.

If we could have done it in Hereford, Hammond replied, wed be in Hereford. He looked at the two empty pint glasses on the table. And youd have broken the two-pint rule.

Danny took a deep swig from his third pint.

Get it down you, Hammond said. Itll be a dry old party where youre headed tomorrow.

Only place Im headed tomorrow is the range. But Danny already knew that this was unlikely to be true. His go-bag was in the back of the vehicle. Hed already made the call to the mother of his daughter that he was likely to be out of comms, maybe for days, maybe weeks.

You thought Id drag you down to this shithole because I like your company? Hammond sniffed. Youre deploying this evening. Afghanistan. After weve finished up here, were going to head to a secret military operations base about ten miles away where youll be briefed on a covert, deniable operation, codename Spearpoint. I just wanted to have a quiet word before you get the official line.

Danny tried not to look surprised. I thought we werent in Afghanistan, boss, Danny said.

Were not. Officially.

So why

Youre aware of the situation in Helmand Province?

Fucked up beyond all recognition?

Hammond nodded. Pretty much. Since the NATO withdrawal, practically every square inch of the damn Province has reverted back into the hands of the Taliban. Hammond looked around. Not that he needed to. The barman was still watching the football. The old drunk was still staring into his pint. Nobody was paying them any attention. And that, Danny realised, was exactly why they were here. Its hardly a surprise. Theres nothing out there to stop the Taliban becoming dominant. We have a few hundred green army guys in the country, mostly providing security around the Kabul area. The Yanks have recently deployed several thousand. But the lions share of security is down to the Afghan National Army. And frankly, I would trust those muppets to handle the security in this place. He waved an arm to indicate the deserted pub. The top brass of the ANA are bent as three bob notes. Few months back, they had to put a general in prison for flogging fuel and supplies on the black market that were intended to get his men through the winter.