Zero 22
Chris Ryan
www.hodder.co.uk
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
Head Hunters
Black Ops
In the Strikeback Series
Deathlist
Shadow Kill
Global Strike
Red Strike
Circle of Death
Chris Ryan Extreme
Hard Target
Night Strike
Most Wanted
Silent Kill
First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Coronet
An Imprint of Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Copyright Chris Ryan 2020
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.
Cover image: Lewis Csizmazia
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
Hardback ISBN 9781473667952
eBook ISBN 9781473667945
Trade Paperback ISBN 9781473667969
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
www.hodder.co.uk
CONTENTS
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
ONE
23.45 hrs, Eastern European Time
The convoy headed west.
It comprised four vehicles. Three sand-coloured Jackals, each containing three guys and mounted with two general-purpose machine guns. The Gimpys had an effective range of two thousand metres in sustained-fire mode. Regular infantry would need two men to operate each weapon. Not the SAS. Each gun was constantly manned by a single Regiment guy wearing night-vision goggles, surveying the desert terrain and ready for whatever threats they might encounter. The fourth vehicle was a Bushmaster. Camouflage paint. Sturdy, rear-mounted spare tyres. A safe, sealed, air-conditioned unit. Five guys. Remote weapon station with a manned 40mm grenade launcher. Heavily armoured. It led the convoy as it trundled through the night along a rough, unmade road.
The Iraqi border was seventy-five klicks to the east. Thirty klicks north: Turkey. This bleak, blasted patch of desert was officially Syrian territory, and there was always the risk that the convoy would encounter Syrian government forces. Unofficially? Emboldened by the American withdrawal and the backing of the Russians, the Turks were making frequent sorties across the border. The militants of Islamic State still infested the region. The Kurds, fierce fighters with good reason to fight, viewed this land as part of their tribal territory of Kurdistan and were still in situ, despite their supposed friends the Yanks fucking off and leaving them to the non-existent mercy of the Turks. The Russians had Spetsnaz special forces on the ground and some remaining Delta Force were here.
Try to untangle that little web of enmity and alliances. Try to distinguish your friends from your enemies in this messed-up part of north-eastern Syria.
Danny Black didnt care to. He was happy to follow orders and so were the rest of his troop. They were heavily armed and confident in their ability and firepower. They knew they could handle anything they came across.
B Squadron SAS had been in-country for a month now. At first, Danny had been glad of the distraction after the rigours of his previous op: a mission to hunt down a lone-wolf killer called Ibrahim Khan that had not gone at all the way anyone had expected. Now Danny was throwing himself into B Squadrons current objective: regular sorties mounted from a base in Iraq, over the border into Syria to take out known IS targets. It had been a blood-soaked month. A month of night raids on isolated villages. Of 9mm rounds discharged ruthlessly into the skulls of IS scumbags. Danny had no problem with that. None of the guys did. Each IS militant they put in the ground made the world a better place. But it had also been a month of screaming wives and suddenly orphaned children. It would get to even the most cold-hearted Regiment death squad eventually.
Their latest orders, delivered to Danny that morning over the encrypted radio, felt like a momentary relief. Even Bullethead had said so. Implacable, relentless Bullethead, who had more kills to his name than anybody Danny knew. He was so called because of the pointed shape and shine of his bald head, which beaded with sweat in the heat whenever he wasnt wearing a helmet. He had the lowest voice Danny had ever heard. When he spoke, it was like the engine of a motorbike turning over. Change is as good as a rest, he had growled, as Danny told them they had new instructions.
Theres a secure prison facility three hundred klicks south-west, Danny said. Up until a couple of months ago it housed IS prisoners and was guarded by Kurds.
So, when we say prison facility, we mean torture facility, right? Bullethead said. Otherwise the Kurds would have just killed the fuckers.
I guess, said Danny. Anyway, the Kurds came under attack and had to abandon the site. The IS prisoners escaped. Chances are weve shot a few of them in the last few weeks. The facilitys been deserted since the breakout, but a Kurdish unit have just returned. Theyve got some documentation that might help identify further targets. And reading between the lines, theyre shitting themselves. They want an escort out of Syria in return for the intel. Thats us. Operation call sign, Zero 22.
Which was why, as the rest of B Squadron continued their dark work across the area, Danny now found himself sitting in the Bushmaster, the constant groan of the engine grinding in his ears. The vehicle had two places up front and two vertical rows of four seats in the back, facing each other. It was cramped and hardly luxurious, but it was a hell of a sight better than the tin ovens that were the Jackals. As the senior guy, Danny reckoned hed earned his place here. When they grew closer to the target, however, hed transfer to one of the Jackals. If anything went wrong, he wanted to be in the best position to call the shots, not stuck inside this armoured beast.
Bullethead sat opposite him, staring into the middle distance, his body moving with the vehicle. Next to him was Dougie, an acerbic Glaswegian which a shock of ginger hair. They were all in their early thirties. Tough men in the prime of life and peak of fitness. They were dressed similarly. Crye Precision camouflage gear with knee pads sewn into the trousers. Armoured flaps to cover their groin area, currently clipped up. Plate hangars with magazines for their personal weapons stashed round the front and side. Personal radios at shoulder height with a stubby antenna pointing upwards and coax cables coiling round their bodies. Boom mikes and earpieces. Helmets, cut away around the ears, with night-vision goggles fitted to the top, ready to pull down when necessary. GPS units on their wrists. Their personal weapons suppressed C8 rifles and Glock 17s were sprayed in olive camouflage colours. Dougie had a black bandana over his mouth and nose. In other circumstances, it would be there to conceal his identity. Out here, it was a filter from the dust that stuck to everything. Lots of the guys wore them. Danny didnt bother. Hed operated in this part of the world so often that clean air was now a novelty to him.
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