Free Bad Soldier: Danny Black Thriller 4 by Chris Ryan

paracetamol that he had stolen from a shop in northern Italy. There were only four tablets left, but they might make the woman feel a little bit better. He stepped up to her and pressed the packet into her hands. ‘You should stay warm,’ he said. ‘Stay out of the rain. Go back to the fire at least. Don’t worry about me. I won’t do anything stupid.’
    The woman looked up into his eyes, but didn’t argue. With a slight bow, she clasped the tablets to her chest, then turned and started to walk back to the fire. Joe continued along the road, but stopped again when he heard the woman’s voice calling. ‘Young man!’
    Joe turned. ‘Yes?’
    ‘I hope you find what you’re looking for,’ she said.
    Joe inclined his head. ‘Me too,’ he said under his breath. ‘Me too.’
     
    Sending Santa and Rudolph back to the UK was out of the question. Everyone in the unit – or what remained of it – understood that. As soon as the prisoners set foot on British soil they’d be lawyered up, given medical care, fed, watered, the works. It would take the spooks weeks to get anything out of them. By which time, it could be too late. The headshed hadn’t even instructed Danny and his unit to conduct the questioning. No. These two were about to be the recipients of what was delicately known in the trade as ‘enhanced’ interrogation.
    Santa and Rudolph were in for a long night.
    Whether they knew this or not, they were utterly compliant. Fear was a good motivator. Hooded, and with their wrists and ankles bound, they lay face down and silent on the floor of the Wildcat. A strong smell of urine wafted up from where they lay. One, or maybe both, had evidently pissed themselves.
    The unit were silent too. The events of the night had obviously shaken them up. Danny found himself reliving certain moments. The kid with the rotting feet. Tony’s near miss, Caitlin standing up to him, and the look of absolute hatred on his face when he heard that the headshed had reassigned him . . .
    Flight time to Malta: fifty minutes. It was pitch black outside. The pilot was flying low over the waves, with no external lights but with the aid of a night-vision headset. The lights of the coastline came into view through the window of the Wildcat, but quickly disappeared as the chopper headed further inland. Hammond had told them that they were delivering their targets to an interrogation centre. Such places were unlikely to be situated in built-up areas. Danny didn’t know what kind of under-the-table dealings had been done between the British and the Maltese government to allow them to fly in under the radar like this, and he didn’t much care. He wanted to be back home. The sooner they delivered the two scumbags in the hoods to the creeps who were going to torture the hell out of them for whatever intel they had, the better.
    There were no lights or sign of habitation as the chopper finally started to lose height. The conditions outside hadn’t improved much. The helicopter shakily set down in the middle of the darkness. Caitlin kicked open the door and a wave of rain hammered into the interior. It made no difference to Danny, who was still damp and cold after their stint on the ship. He cut the cable ties binding the prisoners’ ankles, then grabbed one of them – he wasn’t sure which was which – and pulled him roughly from the aircraft, leaving Spud to deal with his mate. The prisoner stumbled as Danny dragged him away from the downdraught, Caitlin at his side, Spud following.
    Once they were twenty metres from the aircraft, Danny stopped and tried to get his bearings. They seemed to have landed on a flat patch of rough ground at the foot of a steep hill. He detached his torch from the rack of his rifle and shone it up the hillside. It lit up a high wire fence, with razor wire at the top and sturdy uprights every twenty feet. To his nine o’clock, also at the foot of the hill but further along, was a low building –