CRISIS FOUR [030-011-4.5]
By: Andy McNab
Category: fiction spies
Synopsis:
Andy McNab's British intelligence agent, Nick Stone, is enough of a
rebel to be denied a permanent place on the SAS roster, but he's dragooned
into a freelance assignment with an ultimatum from his former employers.
He's to find Sarah Greenwood, a missing agent who's thought to have defected
from the service to aid Muslim militants intent on blowing up the world, or
go to prison and also lose the only other female he's ever loved besides
Sarah: a 9-year-old girl whose dead parents, Nick's closest friends, left
her in his care.
Nick manages to locate Sarah without much difficulty, but when he's
ordered to kill her, he has a change of heart. The hunter turns into the
hunted, as Nick and Sarah flee her hiding place in the North Carolina woods
and try to outwit the police, the intelligence services, and a team of
assassins directed by Osama bin Laden. As they make their way to Washington
to preempt a plan to kill Yasser Arafat and Benjamin Netanyahu, Nick tries
to sort out his conflicted feelings about Sarah. Is she part of bin Laden's
team, a so-called runner who's a threat to the CIA and the SAS, or is she a
loyal operative trying to outwit a highly placed traitor in the White House?
Crisis Four is strong on its depiction of agents in the field; McNab
excels at describing every last detail of the hunt, the chase, the kill.
ALSO BY ANDY MCNAB
Nonfiction
BRAVO TWO ZERO
IMMEDIATE ACTION
Fiction REMOTE CONTROL
'mi Hem
BALLANTINE BOOKS
NEW YORK
A Ballantine Book The Ballantine Publishing Group
Copyright 1999 by Andy McNab
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. Published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing
Group, a division of Random House, Inc." New York. Originally published in
Great Britain by Bantam Press, a division of Transworld Publishers, in 1999.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www. random house. com/BB/ Library of Congress Card Number: 00-190285
ISBN 0-345-42807-2
Manufactured in the United States of America First American Edition:
July 2000 10 987654321
IN MEMORY OF EDWARD C.S. HOOPER
OCTOBER 30, 1979-APRIL 15, 1999
CRISIS FOUR
TMOmV, OCTOBER 16. 1995
The Syrians don't fuck around if they think you're invading their air
space. Within minutes of crossing the border, your aircraft will be greeted
by a three-ship intercept, flying so close you can wave at the pilots. They
won't wave back; they've come to get a visual ID on you, and if they don't
like what they see they'll hose you down with their air to-air missiles.
he same rule doesn't apply, of course, when friendly commercial
aircraft blip onto their radar screens, and that was why our team of four
had opted for this particular method of infiltration. If Damascus had had
the slightest clue about what was about to happen aboard our British Airways
flight from Delhi to London, their fighters would have been scrambled the
moment the Boeing 747 left Saudi Arabian territory.
I was twisting and turning, trying to get comfortable, feeling jealous
of all the people sitting upstairs behind the driver, probably on their
fifth gin and tonic since take off, watching their second movie and tucking
into their third helping ofboeufen croute.
Reg 1 was in front of me. Six feet two, and built like a brick
shithouse, he was probably having an even worse time in the cramped
conditions.
His curly black hair, going a bit gray at the sides, was all over the
place. Like me, before I left in '93, he had been selected to do work for
the intelligence and security services, including the sort of job for the
U.S.
that Congress would never sanction. I had done similar jobs myself
while in the Regiment, but this was the first I'd been on since becoming a
K. Given who we were going in against, none of us was giving odds on whether
we'd get to do another.
I glanced across at Sarah, to my right in the semidarkness. Her eyes
were closed, but even in the dim light I could see she wasn't looking her
happiest. Maybe she just didn't like flying without complimentary champagne
and slippers.
It had been a while since I'd last seen her, and the only thing about
her that had changed was her hair. It was still very straight, almost
Southeast Asian, though dark brown, not black. It had always been short, but
she'd prepared for this operation by having it cut into a bob with a fringe.
She had strong, well-defined features, with large brown eyes above high
cheekbones, a nose that was slightly too large, and a mouth that nearly
always looked too serious. Sarah would not be troubled in her old age by
laughter lines. When it was genuine, her smile was warm and friendly, but
more often it appeared to be only going through the motions. And yet, just
when you were thinking this, she'd find the oddest thing amusing and her
nose would twitch, and her whole face would crease into a radiant, almost
childlike, grin. At times like that she looked even more beautiful than
usual maybe too beautiful. That was sometimes a danger in our line of work,
as men could never resist a second glance, but at thirty-five years of age
she had learned to use her looks to her advantage within the service. It
made her even more of a bitch than most people thought she was.
It was no good, I couldn't get comfortable. We'd been on the aircraft
for nearly fifteen hours and my body was starting to ache. I turned and
tried the left side. I couldn't see Reg 2, but I knew he was to my left in
the gloom somewhere. He was easy to distinguish from Reg 1, being the best
part of a foot shorter and with hair that looked like a fistful of
dark-blond wire wool. The only thing I knew about them apart from their zap
numbers was that, like me, they had both been circumcised within the last
three weeks and that, like mine, their underwear came from Tel Aviv. And
that was all I wanted to know about them, or about Regs 3 to 6 who were
already in-country, waiting for us even though one of them, Glen, was an old
friend.
I found myself facing Sarah again. She was rubbing her eyes with her
fists, like a sleepy child. I tried to doze off; thirty minutes later I was
still kidding myself I was asleep when I got a kick on the back of my legs.
It was Sarah.
I sat up in my sleeping bag and peered into the semidarkness. Three
CRISIS FOUR 5
loadies (load masters) were moving around with orienteering lights
attached to their heads, glowing a dim red so as not to destroy our night
vision.
Each of them had an umbilical cord trailing from his face mask, and
their hands moved instinctively to make sure it didn't get snagged or
detached from the aircraft's oxygen supply.
I unzipped the bag and, even through my all-weather sniper suit,
immediately felt the freezing cold in the unpressurized 747 cargo hold. None
of the passengers or cabin crew would have known there were people down
here, tucked away in the belly of the aircraft. Nor would our names have
appeared anywhere on a manifest.
I folded the bag in half, leaving inside the two "aircrew bags" I'd
filled during the flight--plastic bags with a one-way valve that you insert
yourself into and piss away to your heart's content. I wondered how Sarah
had been getting on. It was bad enough for me because my cock was still
extremely sore, but it must be hard being female aircrew on a long flight
with a device designed only for males--and the female commander of a
deniable op. I put a Post-It on my mental bulletin board, reminding myself
to ask her how she got around the problem. That was if we survived, of
course, and were still on speaking terms.
I could never remember which was starboard or port; all I knew was
that, as you looked at the aircraft from the front, we were in the small
hold at the rear and the door was on the left-hand side. I clutched my
oxygen tube as a lo adie crossed over it, and adjusted my mask as his leg
caught it, pulling it slightly from my face. The inside was wet, clammy and
cold now the seal had been broken.
I picked up my Car 15, a version of the M16 Armalite 5.56mm with a
telescopic butt and a shorter barrel, cocked it and applied the safety. The
Car had a length of green para cord tied to it like a sling; I strapped it
over my left shoulder so the barrel faced down and it ran along the rear of
my body. The rig (parachute) would go over that.
I pushed my hand under the sniper suit to get hold of the Beretta 9mm
that was on a leg holster against my right thigh. I cocked that, too, and
pulled back the top slide a few millimeters to check the chamber. Turning
the weapon so it caught one of the loadies' red glows, I saw the glint of a
correctly fed round, ready to go.
This was my first "false flag" job posing as a member of Israeli
special forces, and as I adjusted my leg straps I wished I'd had a little
more time to recover from the circumcision. It hadn't healed as quickly as
we'd been told. I looked around me as we got our kit on, hoping the others
were in as much pain.
We were about to carry out a "lift" to find out what the West's new
bogeyman, Osama Bin Laden, a Saudi multimillionaire turned terrorist, was
getting up to in Syria. Satellite photography had shown earth moving and
other heavy equipment from Bin Laden's construction company near the source
of the river Jordan. Downstream lay Israel, and if its main source of water
was about to be dammed, diverted or otherwise tampered with, the West needed
to know. They feared a repeat of the 1967 war, and with Bin Laden around it
was never going to be a good day out. He hadn't been dubbed America's
"public enemy number one" by Clinton for nothing.
Our task was to lift Osama's right-hand man known to us only as the
"Source" for op sec (operational security) reasons from on site. His private
jet had been spotted at a nearby airfield. The U.S. needed to know what was
happening in Syria, and, more to the point, maybe learn how to lay their
hands on Osama. As the briefing guy had said, "Bin Laden represents a
completely new phenomenon: non-state-supported terrorism backed by an
extremely rich and religiously motivated leader with an intense hatred of
the West, mainly America, as well as Israel and the secular Arab world.
He must be stopped."
Once ready and checked by the loadies, it was just a question of
holding on to the airframe and waiting. There was nothing to do for the next
few minutes but daydream or get scared. Each of us was in his or her own
little world now. Before any operation some people are frightened, some are
excited. Now and again I could see reflections from the red flashlights in
people's eyes; they were staring at their boots or at some other fixed
point, maybe thinking about their wives, or girlfriends, or kids, or what
they were going to do after this, or maybe even wondering what the fuck they
were doing here in the first place.
Me, I didn't know what to think really. I'd never been able to get
sparked up about the thought of dying and not seeing anyone else again.
Not even my wife, when I was married. I always felt I was a gambler
with nothing to lose. Most people who gamble do so with the things that are
important to them; I gambled knowing that if I lost I wouldn't break the
bank.
I watched the glowing redheads pack our kit away into the large
aluminium Lacon boxes. Once we'd been thrown out and the door had closed
again, they'd stow all other evidence that we had been there in the boxes
and just sit it out until they were taken care of in London.
Two of the loadies started a sweep with their flashlights to make sure
there was nothing loose that could be sucked out as soon as the door opened.
Nothing must compromise this job.
We got the order to turn on our own oxygen, disconnect from the
aircraft supply and stand by. Sarah was standing in front of Reg 1, who was
to tandem jump with her. She had never failed to amaze me. She was an IG
(Intelligence Group), the very top of the intelligence-service food chain,
people who usually spend their lives in embassies, posing as diplomats.
Their lives should be one long round of receptions and recruiting
sources through the cocktail circuit, not running around, weapon strong.
Then again, Sarah had always made a point of finishing the jobs
herself.
She was masked and goggled up, looking for all the world as if she'd
done this a thousand times. She hadn't; her first jump ever had been three
weeks before, but she took her job so seriously that she'd probably read ten
books on free fall and knew more facts and figures than all of us lot put
together.
She turned and looked for me. We got eye-to-eye and I gave her an
everything-is-OK nod. After all, that was part of this job, to look after
her.
The lo adie motioned us toward the door. Our berg ens each containing
forty pounds of equipment, were hanging from our rigs and down the back of
our legs. We waddled forward like a gaggle of geese, putting weight on each
foot in turn. Thankfully the berg ens hadn't needed to be fully laden. If
everything went to plan, we'd be on the ground for only a few hours.
There was a pause of about five seconds as the lo adie by the door
spoke into his mike to the British Airways navigator, then he nodded to
himself and swung into action. The door was about half the size of an
average up-and-over garage door. Pulling out all the levers, he swung them
counterclockwise, then pulled the handles toward him. Even though I had a
helmet on, I heard the massive rush of air, and then a gale was thrashing at
my sniper suit. Where the door had been there was now just a black hole.
The tags on the aircraft's luggage containers fluttered frantically.
The freezing cold wind whipped at the parts of my face that weren't covered
by my mask. I pulled my jockey's goggles over my eyes, fighting against the
blast, gripping hard on to the airframe.
Seven miles below us lay Syria--enemy territory. We did our final
checks. I wanted to get this jump out of the way, get the job done and be in
Cyprus for tea and toast tomorrow morning.
We rammed up close to each other at the exit, the roar of the wind and
the jet engines so loud I could hardly think. At last came a handheld red
light from the lo adie We all joined in with a loud scream: "Red on, red
on!" I didn't know why, no one could hear anything; it was just something we
always did.
The lo adie light changed to green and he shouted, "Green on!"
He moved back as we all shouted to ourselves, "Ready!"
We rocked forward, trying to scream above the roar: "Set!"
Then we rocked back.
"Go!"
Out and out we spilled, four people on three rigs, tumbling toward
Syria. Being the last man, I was pushed by the lo adie to make sure there
wasn't too much of a gap between us in the sky.
You can now free fall from an aircraft flying at high altitude and
miles from the target area and land with pinpoint accuracy. The HAHO (high
altitude, high opening) technique calls for extreme weather clothing and
oxygen equipment to survive temperatures as low as minus 40 C, especially
when a fifty-mile cross-country descent can take nearly two hours.
It has now largely replaced the old HALO (high altitude, low opening)
approach, for the simple reason that, instead of hurtling toward the ground
at warp speed, with no real idea of where you're going to land or where the
rest of the team are once you're on the ground, you can glide gently onto
the target sitting in a comfortable rig. Unless, of course, a man in a white
coat has recently clipped a bit off the end of your cock.
I felt the jet stream pick me up and take me with it. As the aircraft
thunders over you at 500 miles an hour you think you're going to collide
with the tailplane, but in fact you're falling and never hit it.
Once I was out of the jet stream it was time to sort myself out. I
could tell by the wind force, and the fact that I could see the aircraft
lights flashing three or four hundred feet above me, that I was upside down.
I spread my arms and legs and arched my back, bunging myself over into a
stable position.
I looked around--moving your head during free fall is about the only
thing that doesn't have an effect on your stability--trying to see where
everyone else was. I could just about see a figure over on my right-hand
side; I didn't know who it was, and it didn't matter. As I looked up I saw
the taillights of the 747 disappearing way above us, and downstairs, on the
floor, there was nothing, I couldn't see a single light.
All I could hear was the rush of air; it was like sticking your head
out of a car traveling at 120 mph. What I had to do now was keep stable and
wait for the AOD (automatic opening device) to do its bit. The drill is just
to assume that it's going to work, but to get in the pull position just in
case. I thought, Fuck that. I knew my pull height--30,000 feet, an 8,000foot
drop. I moved my left hand up, just above my head, and my right hand down to
the pull handle. There has to be symmetry with everything. If you're in free
fall and put just one hand out, that will hit the air and you're going to
tumble.
I could see the needle on my wrist alti. I was past 34,000. Instead of
waiting to feel the pull of the AOD on the pin, I kept on looking at the
alti, and bang on 30,000 feet I pulled the handle and pushed my hands up
above my head, which made me backslide, which meant the air would catch the
drogue chute to bring the main pack out. I felt it move and rock me slightly
from side to side. Then bang--it's like running into a brick wall. You feel
like one of those cartoon characters that's just been crushed with a rock.
I still wasn't particularly worried where everybody else was in the
sky, I just wanted to sort myself out. I could hear another canopy cracking
open, and I knew that it was near. I looked up to make sure I had a canopy
rather than a big bag of washing above me. The middle three or four cells of
the big mattress were full of air. I grabbed hold of the brake lines, the
two handles attached to para cord on each side of the canopy, and ripped
them from the velcro that held them in position on the webbing straps just
above my shoulder and started pulling. There are seven cells to the canopy;
by pumping you expose the end cells to air to quicken the process.
I had a look around me now, trying to find out where I was in relation
to the others. Fuck, my cock hurt! The leg straps had worked their way
farther up my leg and it felt like someone was giving my dick a squeeze with
a pair of pliers.
Above me I could see Sarah and Reg 1.1 must have had a slow opening of
the end cells, as they should have been below me. They were now spiraling
past me, his right arm pulling the brake line down to get into his correct
position in the stack. Sarah just hung there like a small child as he
slotted in between me and Reg 2, who was below me somewhere.
Being the last man in the stack, it was a piece of piss for me; I was
just bringing up the rear. As long as I was directly above and just touching
the rear of the canopy below me, I wasn't going to get lost, unless Reg 1
got lost with Sarah. Reg 1 would be doing the same to Reg 2, who was at the
bottom; he'd be doing all the navigating and we'd just be checking. And if
the worse came to the worst, we could actually shout to each other once we'd
got off oxygen.
Reg 2 would be looking at the display on his sat nav (global
positioning device, via satellite). All he wanted was one bar in the center
of the display.
Technology is wonderful. We were traveling at about thirty-five knots;
the canopy gives you twenty knots, and we were running with the wind, which
was fifteen.
I checked my height--just over twenty-eight grand--good. Checked the
sat nav, good. That was it. Everything was done: the oxygen was working, we
were stacked. Time to get comfy. I got hold of the risers that attached the
canopy to the rig, and pulled myself up and wiggled my legs to move the leg
straps halfway down my thighs.
For the next thirty minutes we minced along the sky, controlling the
rig, checking height and the sat nav. I started to see lights now. Small
towns and villages with streetlights following the roads out of the built-up
areas for about half a mile, then darkness, only car lights giving away the
road.
I looked at my alti. I was about 16,200 feet. I thought, I'll just go
for a few more minutes and I'll take my oxygen mask off. The fucking thing
was a pain in the ass. If I started feeling the effects of hypoxia
dizziness, I'd bring the mask back to my face and take a couple of deep
breaths. By now I was just under 16 grand; my mouth was full of saliva and
it felt all clammy. I got hold of the clip with my right hand and pulled the
press stud off, and the thing just fell down and dangled by the left-hand
side of my face.
I could feel the cold around my mouth where all the moisture from the
mask had been. I was freezing, but it was nice; I could stretch my mouth and
chew my jaw around a bit.
After about ten minutes I checked my alti again: 6,500 feet, time to
start working. I put on my NVGs (night viewing goggles), which had been
hanging around my neck on para cord and started looking for the flash on an
IR Firefly (infrared detecting system). It was the same flashing light that
you would expect to see on the top of a tall tower to warn aircraft, but
these are just little handheld things that throw out a brilliant quick flash
of light, through an IR filter. No one would see it apart from us--or anyone
else with NVG, of course. I kept looking in the darkness. It would be easy
to pick out. Bang--there it was to my half right.
We were coming in on finals. I was concentrating on keeping myself
positioned right on top and to the rear of Reg 1 's canopy, which was larger
than mine as he had the extra weight to jump with. I heard him below me
sounding like a nursery-school teacher.
"Right, any minute now. Keep your legs bent and under your hips. Are
your legs bent?"
She must have acknowledged. I pulled the NVGs off my face and let them
hang.
"OK, put your hands up by me." I imagined her with her hands up,
holding Reg 1 's wrists on the brake lines to keep them out of the way so
she didn't damage herself if they took a bad landing.
I couldn't see any ground yet--it was far too dark--but I heard:
"Standby, standby. Flaring soon ... flaring ... flaring ..."
Then the sound of his bergen thumping into the ground, and his command
to Sarah: "Now!"
His canopy started to collapse below me as I flew past. My bergen was
dangling by the straps from my feet; I kicked it off and it fell beneath me
on a three-meter line. As soon as I heard it land, I flared, too. Hitting
the deck, I ran along for three or four steps, turned quickly and pulled my
lines to collapse the canopy.
A body appeared behind me. Regs 3 to 6 had been on the ground for five
days preparing the job and were manning the DZ (drop zone). Fuck knows how
they'd inserted in-country, and I didn't care.
"You all right, mate?" I recognized his voice. Glen, the only one whose
name I knew, was the ground commander. He looked as if you'd hear steely
Clint Eastwood when he opened his mouth, but in fact what you got was softly
spoken David Essex.
"Yeah. Fine, mate, fine."
"Let's get all this shit off."
Within minutes our rigs, sniper suits and oxygen kit had been stowed in
large bin liners and we were aboard two Toyota Previas, the drivers wearing
NVGs, bouncing along the desert floor, heading for a light industrial estate
on the outskirts of a town less than a mile from the Golan Heights and the
border with Israel. All of us were dressed the same, in green jump suits,
with civilian clothes underneath as part of the E&E (escape and evasion)
plan, plus belt kit and our own choice of boots. Mine were a pair of Nike
hiking boots, which we'd checked were available in any Tel Aviv main street.
Glen and I went way back. We had done Selection together in the early
Eighties, and had got to know each other later while chatting up the same
woman, who was now his wife. He was the same age as me-late-thirties--had a
swarthy Mediterranean look and a few moles on his face which were sprouting
hair, and he always needed a shave. Constantly smiling, he was one of life's
good guys--in love with his wife and two kids, in love with his job,
probably even in love with his car and the cat.
For the last five days they'd been preparing and placing an explosive
attack on an electricity substation, which was going to close down the town
while we hit the target, and I knew that Glen would have enjoyed every
minute of it.
"We're at the drop-off point."
If we had to talk it would be in a low whisper from now on. As we
clambered from the vehicles I motioned to Sarah for both of us to stand out
of the way. We got underneath one of the small stumpy trees that made up
this olive grove, the stars giving us just enough light to move in without
bumbling. The thing I'd always loved most about the Middle East was the
stars; it felt as if you could see the whole universe, and so clearly.
The Regs were putting their berg ens on and sorting themselves out.
The glow of the town could be seen coming from the dead ground about
five K-s beyond the target. The night air was cold after the warmth of the
people carrier and I couldn't wait to get moving.
The driver came over, holding up a small magnetic box.
"The keys," he said.
"Both vehicles, rear near-side wheel arch."
I glanced at Sarah as we both nodded. She had a smaller bergen than
mine, containing her trauma kit, with fluid, and anything else she would
need. Once the patrol kit was packed, what else went in was down to personal
choice.
Glen joined us with a jolly "You OK?," as if he felt he had to bolster
Sarah's morale.
She looked at him blankly and said, "Let's get on with it, shall we?"
There was a pause as he let the tone of her reply sink in. He didn't
like it.
"OK, let's go." He pointed at her.
"You, behind me. Nick, behind her, OK?"
On the track between the olive groves I could see shadowy figures
shaking out into single file. My only job was to protect her; we hadn't let
Glen in on this, but if there was a drama, the two of us were going to fuck
off sharpish. We'd just let them get on with it and die. As we joined the
snake I wondered about the times I'd done jobs while in the Regiment, not
realizing that no one really cared.
We moved off into the shadows, weapon butt in the shoulder, index
finger across the trigger guard, thumb on the safety catch. Sarah was
carrying only a Beretta for self-defense. We were there to do everything
else for her.
For about forty minutes we moved through wide groves. When we finally
stopped I could hear only the crickets and the wind in the trees.
Ahead of us now was the target, a row of six or seven low-level, brick
faced light industrial units with flat aluminium roofs and windows. The
entire complex was surrounded by a three-meter-high chain-link fence, with
just one entrance, which was gated off for the night. The road was lit by
yellow street lamps every thirty meters, and there were floods on the fronts
of the buildings, facing down the walls and lighting up the shutters.
There were also lights on in some of the units, but no sign of
movement.
Apart from the fence there seemed to be no security, which would be
about right for units that supposedly housed nothing more serious than JCB
spares.
The buildings gave off enough light for us to see what we were doing,
but we were still in the shadows of the grove. Glen came alongside me and
said quietly, "This is the FRV (Final Rendezvous). The target ... if you
look at the nearest building on the left..."
We were looking at the long sides of three rectangles. He indicated the
closest one.
"You see the lights on?" I nodded.
"All right, count three windows from the left. That's where we reckon
he is or was last night." The "reckon" would have been a bit of a judgment
call: the latest pictures we had of the Source were three years old. I
didn't even know his name. Only Sarah did, and only she could positively
identify him.
I could make out two small mobile satellite dishes and a wire half-wave
dipole antenna on the roof, looking like the world's longest washing line.
You didn't need that lot for road building.
I sat against a stubby tree while the patrol prepared itself, bringing
out kit from their berg ens very slowly to eliminate noise. There was no
light from the town to the north, which was lost completely in the dead
ground.
Reg 1 and 2 checked in with Glen, then moved off. Glen pulled an
antenna out of a green twelve-by-eight-inch metal box and began to press
buttons. I didn't have a clue what the box was called, but I knew what it
did. A little red light came up, which no doubt was a test to make sure he
had com ms with whatever devices were rigged up at the electricity
substation that supplied the power to this area. I imagined they'd be using
a number of small stand-off charges, something about the size of a Coca Cola
can, to penetrate the cast-steel casings. All they'd need to do was make a
hole big enough for the coolant to drain out of and the generators would
quickly burn themselves out.
Sarah wanted confirmation about the target. She pestered Glen, "Are you
sure that's the building? Are you sure he's in there?" He was already pissed
off with her, and told her politely that she might be in overall command but
he was the commander on the ground, so shut the fuck up and let him do his
job. Good one, Glen, I thought.
We were kneeling around him at the edge of the grove as he made his
final checks on the target and confirmed the orders with the rest of us.
There were no changes to the plan. It was Sarah who would give the
final Go or No Go now. She nodded at him.
"OK, everybody, here we go." Glen got his box of tricks and pulled up
the antenna the last few inches.
"Standby, standby ..." I heard the click of a button being pressed.
There was a delay of about two seconds, then a bright flash in the distance,
beyond the glow from the industrial units.
Then, after twenty seconds, there was total darkness as the lights went
out in the compound.
Glen was back to enjoying life, despite Sarah's presence. He grinned.
"OK, let's go."
We moved off at a slow jogging pace along the edge of the trees. Once
level with Reg 1 and 2, we turned left over the waste ground and went
straight for the fence. They were pulling at the straight line of the cut
they'd made, making a big upside-down V for us to get through.
We took advantage of the darkness and sprinted the fifty meters to the
target building. There was the odd outburst of hollering and shouting
through an open window--nothing frantic; the voices just sounded pissed off
that the power had failed, probably halfway through the Syrian version of
East Enders. Now and again I saw the glint of flashlights from inside.
We reached the edge of the target building and everybody got against
the wall, Glen looking toward the nearest corner. Around that, to the left
and next to the shutters, was our entry point. Sarah was between us,
catching her breath and trying to keep the noise down.
The other three in the crew were on their knees, nearer the corner. If
the door was locked they'd have to blow it. They started to get the prepared
charges from their belt kit. I watched as they worked together, slowly
unwinding the det cord, which looked like white washing line, but was filled
with high explosive.
They stood up with the charge. Everything was nice and slow and
controlled.
As they started to move, the door burst open.
Voices were shouting in Arabic from around the corner. The door charge
was quickly placed on the ground. I saw hands reach into belt kits.
They would have to remove the threat, but quietly.
The voices got closer and closer and I could hear the sound of flip
flops slapping against feet. Two boys rounded the corner wearing sandals,
arm in arm, both smoking and still shouting about something, maybe what
Grant Mitchell was up to in the Queen Vie.
Two of the Regs climbed aboard them, and almost at once I heard a
distinctive buzz and crackle. The boys were getting Tazered good style, at
the same time as being dragged out of sight toward us. Tazers are cattle
prods for humans. As the two electrodes touch a body, you press a button and
100,000 volts zap through the target. They are a great weapon as you can
hold the victim at the same time as you fuck them up big time, without
getting zapped by the current yourself.
As the blokes got them down on the floor, I could hear them moaning and
groaning under the hands that covered their mouths. They were still being
dealt with as Glen put on his NVGs. We did the same.
Glen looked back at Sarah to check we were ready. Following his cue, we
moved toward the corner with Sarah still between us. It was now one of those
situations that couldn't be stopped. We just had to get on with it.
The fuck-it factor had taken over.
We piled in through the door. A Reg secured the entry point and waited
for the other two to join him, dragging the two dazed Syrians. The corridor
was dark and silent. In a loud whisper Glen said, "With me, with me, with
me." We moved like men possessed down the breeze-block passage, the world
through our NVGs looking like a light-green negative film.
We turned right, and through the windows to our left I could see the
outside of the building; on the other side there were plywood internal doors
leading, I guessed, to rooms or offices. The smell of cigarettes, cooking,
coffee and the sweat of not too much air conditioning was almost
overpowering.
We came to a T-junction. Glen stopped on the left, Sarah right up
behind him. I came up level, on the right. I wasn't too sure which way we
were heading. Glen would tell me. I looked over and he was moving hisIR
flashlight beam, attached to his weapon, to the right.
I cleared the corner, moved forward three or four meters and stood my
ground, waiting. I knew Glen would be clearing the other way. I saw his
weapon'sIR splash against the walls as he turned toward me, then they both
passed on my left. Sarah still had her pistol bolstered and was keeping
close to Glen. The floor was tiled or concrete, it was hard to tell which.
All I knew was that there was an echo of footsteps and squeaking rubber
as we moved.
Glen stopped and pointed at a door. He took his weapon out of the
shoulder, put his back against the wall to the left and reached for the door
handle. I moved to the opposite side, weapon still up in the shoulder, ready
to make entry. He nodded; I took off my safety and nodded back.
He turned the handle and I moved inside, pushing the door with me.
I was blinded. The NVGs were totally whited out. It was as if someone
had let off a flare in front of my face.
Glen shouted, "The fucking lights are back on!"
I fell on my knees and ripped off the NVGs, blinking hard as I tried to
get back some normal vision. I made out movement in the right-hand corner
and rolled to the left, trying to make myself a harder target. As my eyes
adjusted I saw a middle-aged guy, his head bald apart from wiry side hair.
He was curled up against the far wall, his hands protecting his face,
flapping even more than I had just been as you do when, just as the lights
come on, a man with a weapon bursts in on you. Fuck it; they must have had
standby power.
I became aware of bits of electronic machinery PCs, screens and
computer stuff all over the place, whirring and crunching now the power had
returned.
I lifted my weapon into my shoulder and pointed it at him. He got the
message. I called for Sarah.
She came in and confirmed, "That's him." She gob bed off in Arabic and
he immediately did as he was told, sitting down on the sofa against the
other wall, away from the desk with all the machinery on it. He didn't move;
his eyes were like saucers, trying to work it all out and listen to Sarah at
the same time.
From my bergen, I pulled out six magnesium incendiary devices. All I
needed to do was to get them sparked up and we could be on our way.
It was then that Sarah pulled a laptop and some other gear from her
bergen and started plugging it in and revving things up, still talking to
the Source, referring to the Arabic script displayed on two of the screens.
He replied at the speed of sound, trying his best to stay alive.
I was confused. This wasn't in the plan. I tried to keep a calm voice.
"Sarah, what are you doing? Come on, it's time to go."
Glen stayed outside in the relit corridor, giving protection. I knew he
would feel exposed soon and would want to move out. After all, we'd got who
we'd come for. I said, "Sarah, how long's this going to take?"
She was still scrolling down the screen. I was getting pissed off. This
wasn't what we were supposed to be here for.
"No idea--just do your job and keep everyone back."
I needed to underline the problem we faced.
"This is going to turn into a gang-fuck soon, Sarah. Let's just grab
him and go."
She wasn't even looking at me, just hitting one of the keyboards.
The Source sat tight, looking as confused as I felt.
Glen was starting to get agitated. He stuck his head back into the
room.
"How much longer?"
She said, "What's with you people? Wait."
Sarah seemed gripped by the information she had before her. I walked
toward her, trying to be the good guy.
"Sarah, we've got to go. If not, we're in a world of shit." I grabbed
her arm, but she pulled away and glared at me. I said, "I don't understand
the problem. We have the Source, so let's grab him and go."
We were inches apart, so close I could feel her breath on my face as
she spoke.
"There is more to do, Nick," she said, slowly and quietly.
"You don't know the full brief."
I felt ridiculous. Very near the bottom of the food chain as usual, I'd
obviously been shown only one piece of a much bigger jigsaw puzzle.
They'd justify it in terms of "need to know" or "op sec," but the real
reason was that people like me and Glen simply weren't trusted.
Just as I took a step back the silence was broken by shouting, then the
distinctive signature ofAKs on auto, their heavy calibre 7.62 short rounds
flying around outside the building.
"Shit.. . don't move!" Glen shouted into the room. We had gone noisy:
not good. He left us and ran down the corridor. I closed the door.
I could hear the lighter sound of Car 15s returning fire, and lots of
shouting, from our guys as well as the Syrians. It didn't matter that the
Syrians could hear us shouting in English--there was now so much gunfire and
confusion that it was irrelevant--much more important was to get the
communications right.
I tried to sound calm.
"Sarah, time to go."
She turned her back on me and carried on working. Our new friend on the
sofa was getting more worried by the minute. I knew just how he felt. There
was another exchange of fire outside.
"Fuck this, Sarah, we've got to go. Now!"
She spun around, her face tight with anger.
"Not yet." She almost spat the words. She jabbed her finger toward the
direction of the contact as more rounds were fired.
"That's what they're paid for. Let them get on with it. Your job is to
stay with me, so do it."
Glen was at the end of the corridor, screaming to me at the top of his
voice.
"Get them out! Get them out now!"
I moved across the room toward the Source. He was curled into a ball,
like a terrified child. I grabbed his arm and started to drag him off the
sofa. I hadn't even put on the plasticuffs.
"Let's go, Sarah, we're .. .
going ... now!"
She turned, and as she did I realized that she was drawing down on me,
her pistol aimed at my center mass. She stepped back so there was too much
distance for me to react to it.
My new friend didn't want anything to do with this. He just stood next
to me, his arm still half elevated by my hand, gently and calmly praying in
a low Arabic moan as he waited to die.
Sarah had had enough.
"Sit him down." She said something in Arabic that must have been to the
effect of "Shut the fuck up!" because he jumped back on the sofa. She
levelled her eyes on me again.
"I'm staying here, what we are doing here is important. Do you
understand?"
It doesn't matter who it is, if somebody's pointing a gun at you, you
get to understand very quickly. Whatever her agenda was, it must be
important.
She turned calmly, bolstered her weapon and went back to work on the
keys.
I had one last try.
"Can't we just take him, plus the computers, and fuck off?"
She didn't even bother looking at me.
"No. It has to be done this way."
I couldn't do both take her and the Source. I was still working out
what to do when I heard Arabic voices inside the building. The best way to
do my job and protect her was to go forward, to get out of the room and stop
the threat before it came screaming in to get us.
"I'm going outside," I said in an urgent whisper.
"Don't move until somebody comes to get you. Do you understand me?" I
checked my mag was on tight as she looked up from the computer and sort of
acknowledged.
I put the Car 15 into my shoulder, and holding the pistol grip to keep
the weapon up, opened the door with my left hand.
The lights were still on in the corridor and the sounds of contacts
were louder to my right, but my immediate concern was the noises to my left
in the corridor. I decided to move down to the next junction and hold it
there;
that way there would be a weapon at each end with Sarah in the middle.
I closed the door behind me and started to run. After seven or eight
strides I was moving past an external door when it burst inward. The thud as
it hit me full-on was as hard and sudden as if I'd walked into the path of a
moving car. I was hurled against the opposite wall, stunned and winded.
Worse, my weapon had been forced out of my hands. I had lost control of it.
There was yelling on both sides; me from the pain, once I got my breath
back, and the Syrian from the surprise. He jumped on top of me on the floor
and we grappled like a couple of schoolkids. I tried to get to the pistol on
my right thigh, but he had me in a solid bear hug around my armpits. I was
pinioned with my arms out like the Michelin Man.
I tried to kick and buck out of position, then to head-butt him. He was
doing exactly the same. Both of us were screaming.
The bloke stank. He had a week's bristle on him and it was rough
against my face and neck as he squeezed and squeezed, his eyes closed,
snorting through his nose as he cried for help. He was a big old boy,
packing over two hundred pounds of solid weight.
I needed help, too, and screamed for Sarah. There was no way she
couldn't have heard me, but she didn't respond. I wasn't entirely sure what
this boy was trying to do, whether he wanted to kill me, or if he was just
fighting to protect himself.
I yelled again.
"Sarah! Sarah!"
He responded by lifting his head slightly to scream out even louder. It
gave me a momentary window. I head-butted him, trying to make contact
wherever I could. He did the same. Then something happened that moved the
situation on. You don't normally feel pain during a fight, but I felt a
stinging in my left ear. His teeth were sinking in. I could actually hear
the skin break and then the sound of him straining to bite harder. The
fucker had a gristly bit of my ear lobe in his mouth and was starting to
pull his head back.
I felt the capillary bleeding at once, warm and wet, splashing the side
of my cheek as his heavy breathing spat it out. He was in a frenzy, growling
at me through clenched teeth, snot and saliva. I was still trying to get my
hands down toward my leg so I could reach my pistol, which wasn't helping
keep my ear intact.
I managed to get my legs around his gut. I tried to squeeze, but could
only just about get my feet together. I felt the snorting from his nose move
away from my face slightly, which wasn't good news for my ear. Then his head
jerked back, taking part of the lobe with him. The pain felt like a
blowtorch on the side of my head, but now that he'd moved back a bit I could
start to get my hands around his head. I could see the blood on his face and
snot running down from his nose as he fought to breathe through his
still-gritted teeth. My fingers reached his eyes and he squeezed me up even
more, shaking his head and screaming as I began to get a good hold on his
face and dig deeper with my thumbs. He tried to bite my fingers.
I moved my right hand so I had a flat palm underneath his chin, then
switched my left to just below the crown of his head and grabbed a fistful
of his hair.
You can't just whip a head around to break someone's neck. The design
is too good for that. What you have to do is screw it off, as if you were
untwisting the cap on ajar. You're trying to take the head off at the atlas,
the small joint at the base of the skull. It's relatively easy if you're
doing it against somebody who's standing, because if you get them off
balance, their body is going down and you can twist and turn at the same
time, so their momentum works against them. But I couldn't do that; all I
could do was keep my legs around him and try to keep him in one place.
I managed to get my boots interlocked, and at last I could squeeze and
push down with my legs, at the same time twisting up with my arms as hard as
I could. I kept on turning as we both screamed at each other. The fucker
didn't like it; he knew what was going on, but fortunately for me