by John Gardner
A smile crossed Adwan’s face. ‘Oh, ya. Ya. Right,’ he said.
10
MONARCHS OF THE SEA
James Bond felt the slight tremor under his feet, and with it the old frisson returned. There was nothing in the world like being at sea in a capital ship: the ordered routine, the feeling of men working as a quiet, well-trained team, the regularity of events, even in a crisis. To Bond, all this returned in a warm shower of nostalgia. No, it was better, because of the very special feeling of serving in this ship.
HMS Invincible was a relatively recent addition to the Royal Navy’s history. In some ways she had already become a legend: certainly the first kind of ship of her type – 19,500 tons of platform from which to launch practically any type of operation, including the nuclear option with the Green Parrot variable-yield weapons, capable of being carried by the Sea Harriers, to the 1kt versions, which could be dropped by Sea Kings as anti-submarine bombs. Invincible could also carry a Commando for armed assault, and, at this moment, 42 Commando, Royal Marines, was on board.
The ship’s air group consisted of ten Sea Harriers, eleven anti-submarine warfare (ASW) Sea Kings, two anti-electronic-warfare (AEW) Sea Kings and one Lynx helicopter, configured for Exocet-type decoy duties. Invincible was a very full ship, though officially, and technically, it was not even classed as an aircraft-carrier. Invincible was a Through Deck Cruiser (TDC).
Back in 1966, the then British government had cancelled a new building programme which would give the Royal Navy a number of conventional carriers for fixed-wing aircraft. In the following year a new programme went into action. What they required were light command cruisers with facilities for a number of helicopters. The whole political subject, mainly involving costing and pulling back on defence expenditure, was sensitive, but the success of the V/STOL Harrier aircraft changed things in a dramatic manner.
Plans were again changed, though the politicians still clung to the name TDC as opposed to aircraft-carrier. Three such ships were commissioned, and the success and lessons learned during the Falklands War had made for even further alterations. The exercise, Operation Landsea ’89, was to be the first chance for Invincible to show her paces following the extensive refit, which included new armament, electronics, communications and the 12° Harrier ski-jump which had replaced the original 7° ramp.
The ‘Through Deck’ principle remained, for practically all the ship’s equipment was carried below decks, apart from the complexities in the long, almost conventional island which ran along the centre of the starboard side using over half of the main deck’s 677 feet, bristling with tall antennae, radar dishes, and other domed detection devices. Most of the information required in the island was accessed from electronics buried deep below the flight-deck.
Invincible and her sister ships Illustrious and Ark Royal, were powered by four mighty Rolls-Royce TM3B twin-shaft gas turbines, designed on a modular principle, making maintenance and repair an easier job. Invincible, Illustrious and Ark Royal were quite simply the largest gas-turbine-powered ships in the world.
Once more he felt the slight tremor and rise under his feet. Bond sat down on his bunk, took out the Browning and began to clean it. Apart from the Royal Marine detachment on board, he was the only officer who carried a personal hand-gun: though he was most conscious that two armed marines stood only a few feet for’ard of his cabin, stationed there, on the port side, as a guard on the series of cabins that would be used by the visiting VIP brass, and already partially inhabited by the Wren detachment.
As he sat down, so there was the tell-tale click all sea-going members of the Royal Navy recognise as the Tannoy system about to broadcast either one of the many routine orders, or bugle calls, which tell off the time in a similar manner to the religious ‘hours’ in a monastery.
But this was not a normal message. ‘D’ye hear there! D’ye hear there! This is the Captain.’ Throughout the ship, Bond knew that all ranks would stop everything but the most necessary duties to listen.
‘As you all know,’ the Captain – Rear-Admiral Sir John Walmsley – continued, ‘the land, sea and air exercise called Operation Landsea ’89, will commence at 23.59 hours. You will have already been briefed about this exercise by your Divisional Commanders, so you know it’s not in the normal run of similar training such as Ocean Safari. I want to remind you that, as from 23.59, we will be operating under actual rules of war and rules of engagement, apart from using the big bangs, of course. This message is to be relayed to all other ships in what is to be known as Taskforce Kiev, and we will darken ship at exactly 23.59. You are also aware that this evening we will be receiving aboard three very senior officers and their staffs. There will be women among the staffs, and there is a detachment of Wrens aboard at this moment. I have no reason to repeat what your divisional officers will have already told you, though I will: fraternisation with the female officers and ratings aboard, apart from normal and obvious duties, is strictly forbidden. Anyone either attempting to, or actually fraternising can expect the harshest possible penalty. Apart from that . . .’ there was a long pause: the Rear-Admiral had a quirky sense of humour, ‘good luck to you all.’
Bond smiled to himself. The entire message had been blandly understated, for this certainly was a different type of exercise, if only for the strange mixture of who were Red Side, and who were Blue. To inject an even deeper than usual ‘fog of war’ some units of the NATO powers remained in their real-life situations; while others were split in half – some Red and some Blue. For instance this very Taskforce consisted of ships of the Royal Navy, but were Red, other ships, particularly submarines of the Royal Navy, were Blue.
Bond had read his own sealed orders, after coming aboard, and had sat in on Walmsley’s briefing to the Executive Staff.
The Exercise briefing was in three parts. Political situation; current strategic situation at the commencement of Landsea ’89; objective of all parties involved, with an accent on their own powerful Taskforce Kiev.
The fictional scenario was shrewd and complex: shortly before Christmas there had been a major military attempt to take over Chairman Gorbachev’s ruling power in the USSR. This action, spearheaded by high-ranking officers of the Russian Army, Navy and Air Force, coupled with some ambitious members of the Politburo – all disenchanted with Gorbachev’s glasnost – had gone off at half-cock, but was far from being a failure.
The bulk of the military power remained anti-Gorbachev and now threatened to take their own idealism out of Russia, and draw world attention to the changing events in the Soviet Union, by engaging the NATO powers in a series of tactical operations designed to show they could rattle sabres as loudly as anybody.
The USSR was, as Gorbachev had known from the first, heading towards a huge, possibly catastrophic, financial and economic crash. Gorbachev’s way had been a more open system of government which would assist in his begging-bowl diplomacy. The military, and more hawkish members of the régime still held to the idea that one could bargain only from power. Glasnost was, to them, a watered down version of a great political ideology. The USSR had to show strength, and, they argued, the only way to get help from the class-ridden, consumer-orientated West was to show strength and ability. They wanted to threaten the West – blackmail by force to get assistance.
That night, elements of Red Side – representing Soviet forces – would cross into the West, and start aggressive covert military operations against NATO bases, throughout Europe. These actions would be carefully limited and controlled. In reality, the troops would be members of the United States Tenth Special Forces Group (Airborne), and two troops of Delta Force – each troop consisting of four four-man squads. The choices had not been arbitrary, for the units bore a close resemblance to the Soviet Airborne Force, which does not come directly under the Red Army chain of command; and highly trained Spetsnaz – ‘Forces at Designation’ – who come directly under the GRU (the élitist Military Intelligence) and are also known as ‘diversionary troops’.
US Air Force facilities within the NATO boundaries could provide air back-up to Red Side if things got out of hand, though no USAF bases in the UK were to be used. The Royal Air Force, and remaining British and US Forces in Europe, would act as their real selves, as would United States Naval forces. They would be Blue Side – the goodies – while the British 2nd Parachute Regiment; the Special Air Service; 42 Commando, together with Taskforce Kiev would be Red Side – the baddies.
At 23.59 hours – which is a naval euphemism for midnight – Taskforce Kiev would be approximately fifteen miles off the Belgian coast, steaming west. The Force was made up of the flagship, Invincible; six Type 42 destroyers; and four Type 21 frigates.
They would, at the start of the exercise, be aware that they had been shadowed since leaving their Russian bases – their main opponents being their own Royal Naval colleagues, the submariners. So, Taskforce Kiev would be hard-pressed to make their dash through the narrow English Channel, around the Bay of Biscay, heading for Gibraltar, where they were to land 42 Commando and, with their considerable presence, seal off the Mediterranean. All this was a calculated risk. Red Side did not believe the Western forces would precipitate matters by escalating the crisis.
The final objective of both sides was to come to a successful cessation of hostilities, not allowing actions to escalate into anything more than a tactical show of force and guerrilla warfare. For the first time, politicians of the NATO powers would be called upon to make true political decisions. The ideal ending would be the withdrawal of all Soviet units, and a move to the bargaining table, where Gorbachev’s future – indeed the future of the Soviet Union – would be thrashed out.
The scenario was neat and interesting, apart from one facet. Bond, and some of the intelligence chiefs, already knew that playing games with real army, air force and naval units, in this realistic manner, made some form of terrorist intrusion a heady temptation. BAST were poised for some specific action against Invincible, and that was no surprise to 007 when he thought of who would eventually be aboard the ship, for this was the tightest secret of all, the final box of a Chinese puzzle of boxes. This last secret of Landsea ’89 was coded Stewards’ Meeting, and this was Bond’s true reason for being in charge of security aboard Invincible. Already, his brushes with BAST had proved they were a ruthless and determined organisation. What nobody knew was their size, true efficiency in a critical situation, and the final aims of their possible assault on Invincible.
Bassam Baradj, most recently in the guise of the smooth Toby Lellenberg, station chief of Northanger, was the only person who could have told Bond, or anyone else, the real truth about BAST: its strength, and, more particularly, its true aims.
Baradj was certainly all the things the many dossiers said about him – and they all said the same thing: immense wealth, former close friend of Arafat, ex-member of the PLO; no photographs; could not be tied into any known terrorist operation in the past twenty years. Indeed that was the sum total of the man, apart from the varied number of descriptions taken from a variety of sources.
True, he was, as they suspected, the Viper of BAST, on the back of which rode the Snake, the Man and the Cat. If it had been possible to ask any, or all, of these last three, each would have given slightly different answers to the questions, what is BAST? What are its true aims?
Only the short, sleek man known as Bassam Baradj was in a position to give the correct answers; though it was unlikely he would do so, for they were locked tightly in his head.
In a couple of words, the answers were Bassam Baradj and Bassam Baradj. He was BAST and he was its true aim. If you asked the further question, how did Baradj gain his truly immense wealth? It was plain to see, but only if you had the eyes to see it.
It was not strictly true that there were no available photographs of Bassam Baradj. There were many. The New York Police Department had several, as did the Los Angeles Police Department, and Seattle, Washington, New Orleans, Paris and Scotland Yard, London. Most were filed under F – for Fraud; and they carried varied names: Bennie Benjamin aka Ben Brostov, Vince Phillips and Conrad Decca: and those were only for starters in the files of the NYPD.
Over the past twenty years Baradj had gained quite a reputation, but under many different guises and modus operandi.
Bassam Baradj had been born plain Robert Besavitsky, in the old Hell’s Kitchen area of New York. His father, Roman Besavitsky, was of mongrel immigrant stock, part-Russian, part-Rumanian, with a strange dash of Scottish via his great-great grandfather on his mother’s side. Eva Besavitsky, Robert’s mother, was of a similar mixture: part-Irish, part-French, with a tincture of Arab – not that you would have guessed it from her maiden name, which was Evangeline Shottwood.
Robert Besavitsky was, therefore, the product of half a dozen other mongrels, and, as such, was born with two great talents: ambition and the ability to sense when it was time to move on.
As a growing boy, Robert was well and truly streetwise by the age of ten. By the time he reached fourteen he knew exactly what one needed to survive in this world – money; for money was the direct route to power. If he could make money, the power would come later. He made his first million by the age of twenty-one.
It started with the seemingly accidental find of an automatic pistol, shoved into a garbage can in a back alley off Mulberry Street in the Italian area. It was a Luger and had a full magazine, but for one bullet. Twenty-four hours after finding this weapon, Robert had carried out four quick stick-up jobs on liquor stores, which netted him six hundred dollars. The following day he sold the weapon for a further one hundred dollars. Then he set about spending wisely. He bought clothes: two good suits, four shirts, three ties, underwear and two pairs of shoes.
While on the buying spree, he also lifted a silver cigarette case and lighter, a pigskin briefcase and matching wallet. This left him with one hundred and fifty dollars. Fifty went into his pocket, the remaining hundred opened his first bank account. What followed would have been legend if the cops and the Feds had ever managed to interconnect him with all the fiddles, some of which were not just fiddles, but fully orchestrated capital crimes.
During the past two decades, Robert had been married twice, under different names. Both women were obscenely wealthy, and both apparently died accidentally within a year of the marriage. The first was a widow. Robert, under the name of William Deeds, had managed to ingratiate himself with a stockbroker called Finestone. Jerry Finestone knew all the tricks of the stock market, and took a liking to young Bill Deeds, who proved to be an apt pupil. After six months poor old Jerry walked into an elevator that was not there, but thirty floors down. Later the coroner heard there had been a wiring fault which had allowed the doors to open. It just so happened that Robert, or Bill or whatever you chose to call him, was by way of being an electrical expert, but who knew? Good old Jerry left three and a half million to his widow, Ruth, who, after an appropriate period of mourning married Bill Deeds. Sadly, she followed her first husband within the year: a nasty business which involved a Cadillac and an unmarked road which led to a sheer drop. The contractors, who swore this cul-de-cliff had been well marked, lost the case when Bill Deeds sued them for one and a quarter million.
Thus set up, Bill Deeds moved on – to Los Angeles, where he made the money work for him, and married a movie star. By this time his name had changed to Vince Phillips. The movie star was a big name and the headlines were even bigger when they found her accidentally electrocuted in her Malibu beach house. Another one and a half million passed to Vince Phillips formerly Bill Deeds, in reality Robert Besavitsky.
Two out of two was enough of that game. Robert altered his name yearly from then on, and was involved in several dozen stock-market frauds – hence the name changes – before he turned his hand to buying and selling. He would sell anything as long as he could buy cheap and sell at a profit, and he certainly never asked questions about the things he purchased. That was how he became a good friend to Yasser Arafat, and
even a member of the PLO.
It was at the time when the PLO needed a regular supply of arms and, as it turned out, Bennie Benjamin tka (truly known as) Robert Besavitsky had made a good friend of an unscrupulous Quartermaster with an Infantry regiment. This was how Bennie got hold of hundreds of assault rifles and automatic pistols, together with thousands of rounds of ammunition and four large drums of Composition C-4 disguised as drilling mud. Ninety per cent of C-4 is RDX, the most powerful plastique explosive in the world, the rest was a binding material. It is known by various names these days, including its Czechoslovak clone, Semtex. All the arms and explosives ended up with the PLO during the time when that organisation was branded as a terrorist army.
It was then that Besavitsky saw there could be a possible future in terrorism. He spent time with the PLO and learned a few tips, then went back to buying and selling – world-wide, under dozens of aliases, dealing in anything from stolen paintings to rare collectors’ motor cars. For many years he stayed well ahead of the law. But he was no fool. He liked a luxurious lifestyle and knew that it was possible the time might eventually come when they could catch up with him. Just as he knew that one really major killing could set him up for life and allow him to retire in exceptional luxury, and never have to look over his shoulder again.
This was in 1985: the year he decided to make international terrorism work in his favour. It was also the year when his name changed to Bassam Baradj, and it was as Baradj that he went out into the streets and hiding-holes of Europe and the Middle East in search of converts. He had links with a number of disenchanted terrorists and, in turn, they had other links.
Baradj had always had an unhealthy interest in demonology. Now he used it to his own purpose and founded BAST, dragging into his net the three very experienced people who would act as his staff – Saphii Boudai, Ali Al Adwan, and Abou Hamarik. Bait for them was twofold. First, a blow of huge dimensions against the corrupt Superpowers, plus the United Kingdom. Second, a very large financial gain which would, of course, assist the cause of true freedom everywhere. The Brotherhood of Anarchy and Secret Terrorism had a nice ring to it, but Baradj saw it as one of those meaningless titles that would draw a certain type of person. His three lieutenants trawled the terrorist backwaters and, by the end of 1986, they had over four hundred men and women on their books.