by Geoff Wolak
Nicholson took his time, sling around his arm, a kneeling position, sights adjusted, and he took careful aim. A blast, damn loud without his silencer, a second blast, and he suggested that the two men were both very dead.
‘Spray the area!’ I told the Welsh lads, and they pumped out rounds as men came up behind me.
‘Get a patrol together,’ I told Ginger. ‘Go find the bodies. Nicholson, take them.’
When Nicholson appeared near the gate I had the Welsh lads cease fire. Left of me I could see French lads darting into the tree line, Seals moving towards the road. When they looked up I stood tall and pointed. Sniper rifles were made ready below me.
From my sandbag position I could see ten men running out, and they split in two, skirting around the muddy field – the cow still there, the patrol soon to the booby mounds, and soon dragging back two bodies as the scrub was searched.
I walked down, but without my kit on or even a rifle, and outside, men seen knelt ready behind jeeps. ‘Stand down!’ I shouted.
Ginger and Dicky dragged two bodies and dumped them down, local blacks in civvy t-shirts but with green army trousers, and boots.
Ginger began, ‘Are they scraping the bottom of the barrel?’
Dicky handed me a nice pair of binoculars, which we would keep, Mouri carrying two AK47 – no telescopic sights.
‘What the fuck would they hit with those?’ Dicky scoffed.
‘They’re the distraction, not the main course. Ginger, get everyone spread out and on the wire.’
Inside, I discussed our odd attackers with Moran.
‘Must be a distraction, because those two hapless idiots had no chance,’ he agreed.
‘So what’ll they do?’ I thought out loud. ‘A sizeable force would be spotted ten miles away, and chopped up. They know that. Lads are spread out, so mortars and rockets are little use.’
Ginger stepped in and handed me a small blood diamond. ‘Was in a packet in a pocket. A pocket packet.’
‘Blood diamonds?’ I puzzled. ‘We shut down all the operations around here, so why are these boys being paid in blood diamonds?’ I had Ginger wheel me out. Outside, men inspecting the bodies, I called Captain Harris. ‘You awake?’
‘Yep, hard at it. What you after?’
‘Contact HQ Freetown or the RAF down here, I want helos up looking for any blood diamond mines still in operation. Safe to fly, missile was captured. Oh, and we just shot dead two men at the FOB, local blacks sneaking up.’
‘Got a report … here … about blood diamonds, some place straddling the border. Yep, here. Place on the border with Guinea, operating blood diamonds, some warlord.’
‘Tell GCHQ that the warlord and his mine are now of great interest. Call Moran and give him the map reference. And forget the RAF searching.’
Inside, Moran took the call and wrote it down. A finger on the map, and he said, ‘Nasty hills and jungle, river, then the mine. River is the border.’
‘Send a team for eyes-on, use the Seals plus some of ours. Send Tomo and Nicholson, but have the Seal senior man in charge.’
‘A wise move,’ he quipped.
My phone trilled, a withheld number. ‘Hello?’
‘It’s Miller, and you were right, soldiers in the trees. My man was passive, taking a risk to go have a look.’
‘I understand these things. Do you have an opinion on who asked the soldiers to be there?’
‘Money buys friends in Ivory Coast, government and army friends.’
‘Is it feasible that Kruger paid for them?’
‘Unlikely that he would make such a choice.’
‘And who might make such a choice? Rene Bastion?’
‘You do know all the players, don’t ya. Yeah, he might make the call, but I don’t think anyone is paying him right now. He went on the run after his driver was picked up, now off grid.’
‘Off grid, even to you?’ I teased.
‘We’re not all powerful, and we like our passive intel, not so much the guns blazing style.’
‘Would Rene Bastion have access to money?’
‘Sure, there would be a fund in each country, reserves and cash, always cash for mine workers, some gold kept in a safe. What will you do?’
‘Cost him some money, and wait for an opportunity. I have some men to train.’
With a team dispatched to the north by jeep convoy, a two hour drive, I walked around the strip, exercising my legs, and I dropped in on the medics – so they could have a look at my legs and give an opinion. As I was there Rizzo came back from Freetown, his arm bound up.
‘They say I ain’t supposed to do anything for like weeks!’ he complained.
‘Go help Moran plan the action for a few days,’ I told him. ‘Don’t tug at the arm or the skin graft will break. Keep a sling on.’
Sulking, he sloped off.
‘Does he not want to heal?’ a medic asked, more of a complaint than a question.
‘They get addicted to life in the fast lane, and they don’t want to stop. That’s why ex-SAS troopers go mad, get drunk and kill people – and kill themselves. And men like him, they fear civvy street and a quiet apartment someplace.’
‘It’s well documented,’ a doctor put in. ‘I studied it. So what will you do if you’re badly wounded? Again.’
‘They’d never let me be a civvy, I know too much. I’d be killed off quickly.’
‘And you walk around here knowing that!’
I shrugged. ‘I made my own choices, dug my own grave. But I saved a great many people, and I stopped bombs going off, most of it kept quiet; what you see in the papers is the tip of the iceberg. So I’m proud of having stopped a few terrorists, saved some hostages, and … I could die in a car crash as a nobody.
‘But I’ll tell you something that’s ironic. I saved a man from the prison in Angola, not knowing he was a mercenary bad boy. It was him that fired the missile at my Chinook.’
They exchanged astonished looks.
‘He’s now dead. Small world, eh.’
I left them looking shocked and checked in on the tents, finding Dicky and Mouri with 14 Intel in the tree line, hides being made.
He stepped out to me, shaking his head.
‘Problems?’
‘Tits.’
‘Tits?’
He nodded. ‘Tits in t-shirts.’
‘Keep your eyes on other body parts.’
‘It ain’t easy, Boss,’ he playfully complained.
‘So … if an enemy agent sent a pretty girl, she could seduce you?’
‘Fuck yes, wouldn’t take long either.’
I shook my head at him. ‘And if the one called Tiny tried to pump you for secrets about me?’
‘I’d tell her everything, Boss.’
I frowned at him. ‘When we get back, go out more often, have a life, eh.’
‘What life, looking like me?’ he said with a smile.
I closed in on the scene, several hides being created. ‘Having fun?’
‘This is a lively spot,’ one of the men complained.
‘Is it always like this around here?’ Maggy asked.
‘Wait till you cross the border. Over there it’s lively. This is quiet.’
‘How’re the balls?’ Tiny asked with a coy smile.
‘I wasn’t hit in the balls,’ I pointed out. ‘And one is rubber anyhow.’
‘Rubber?’ Maggy repeated.
‘It got infected in Bosnia, so I amputated it in the field.’
‘Ouch,’ one of the men said, Maggy wincing.
I gave advice on hides and rain shelters, how to read tracks and how old they were, then left Dicky to stare at some tits.
At 6pm Nicholson called as I sat in the map room in my wheelchair. ‘Boss, we’re at the spot, and it’s all lit up like New York City over there. We’re up above them, half a mile out, and there’s got to be a thousand men working away down there.’
‘How many guards?’
‘Fucking loads, fifty or more.’
‘So the king pin is making a buck. Stay put, hide, expect some company tomorrow.’
I faced Moran. ‘That mine is huge, a thousand men working, fifty guards. Send twenty men up there, same route, join up with Nicholson.’
He got on the phone.
Ginger noted, ‘Operation like that, and they’re bound to be making good money. Did they send those two idiots down here?’
‘I think they’d make a better job of it, but why observe us?’
‘We shut down the mines.’
‘In Sierra Leone, not across the border!’ I pointed out.
‘Maybe they mined south of the border originally.’
I nodded, thinking. ‘And moved over there. But someone with that amount of money is trouble for everyone.’
Wheeling myself outside, I called Mike Papa. ‘It’s Petrov. Listen, there’s a huge blood diamond mine on the Sierra Leone – Guinea border, near Mgolo Valley.’
‘I have heard, a new warlord, he was a major in the army there.’
‘Contact him, tell him you will buy all his blood diamonds, to sell through Tomsk, but on condition. First, that his men never go south into Sierra Leone and shoot at the British. Second, that he informs you of what is going on in Guinea.’
‘That would be a prudent move, yes, to have him cooperate. But if he asks for too much money?’
‘I will kill most of his men, then you negotiate again.’
He laughed. ‘You have an interesting negotiating strategy.’
‘My men are near him now.’
‘I know someone who can get me an introduction, so I will call this warlord and put the pressure on. He is called Nancy.’
‘Nancy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh. While you’re on, invite in a company called Atlantic Oil, be very nice to them, give them any area they like for oil drilling, every assistance. They are made up of American, British and French share holdings.’
‘Ah, I see.’
‘Tomsk can also drill inland, but you need these governments on your side. They will protect you.’
‘Payment is due … for their past kindness.’
‘There’s always a payment down the road. Oh, get some western oil experts through Tomsk, to advise you on taxes and payments from the oil companies. Try and get a bank to open up in Monrovia, but not the American bank Pacific Prime, or any Dutch or Belgian banks.’
Back inside, I told them, ‘The warlord running that mine is called Nancy.’
They laughed.
Moran said, ‘N-a-n-t-s-e. One of Tobo’s men is also called Nantse.’
‘Ah,’ I let out. ‘So not a Nancy-boy then. And Dicky is having trouble with 14 Intel.’
‘He is?’ Moran queried.
‘Tits.’
‘Tits?’
‘Tit’s in t-shirts.’
‘Ah. I saw them earlier. And very nice they were.’
‘They’re trained to seduce men and kill them, so be careful.’
‘It’s not bloody fair,’ Ginger noted. ‘We’re in the sodding jungle here. If we saw girls like that in London we’d walk past, but this is the sodding jungle, and their female allures are accentuated tenfold.’
I faced Moran. ‘More bromide for this man.’
‘For all of us,’ he wistfully suggested.
My phone trilled. Kate, a shock. ‘Hey.’
‘You still alive?’
‘Some small wounds, and a helicopter accident.’
‘I know, it was on the news. Anyhow, I’m pregnant.’
‘You’re pregnant?’
All eyes turned to me.
‘Yep, so … well done, good sperm.’
‘Oh.’ I was lost for words.
‘Just to let you know, and that – you know – nine months from now a baby.’
‘Right…’
‘Bye.’
I took in their faces. ‘That was Major Bradley. His … next door’s dog is pregnant.’
They exchanged looks, arms folded, and stared at me.
‘OK, I knocked up my former … sometimes … lady, the RAF officer. Kate. Which I have a daughter with. She … wanted another one.’
‘This the lady you don’t see very often but pay for?’ Ginger asked.
I nodded reluctantly.
‘And now two kids to pay for, and not see,’ he added.
I again reluctantly nodded.
Ginger turned to Moran. ‘Get the medics to check for a blow to the head, he’s out of his fucking mind.’
‘Well past crazy,’ Moran noted.
‘Congratulations, sir,’ the Welsh sergeant cheerfully offered.
I glared at him and curled a lip. He turned and fled.
Later, sat with Moran and a brew in hand, Moran asked, ‘You wanted another?’
I nodded. ‘I spent some time with her recently, obviously, played with my daughter, and … it’s a different world, one you climb into and get covered in cotton wool, where things smell nice and taste nice, where there’s no danger. But then you wake up and row with your wife, kid is crying, it’s raining outside.’
He nodded. ‘I almost married, chose this instead.’
‘Fool.’
He laughed. ‘Maybe. I wish I was more like Tomo, not a care.’
‘Ignorance is indeed bliss,’ I said with a sigh.
‘Could you imagine yourself doing something else?’
I shook my head. ‘Never.’ I sipped my tea. ‘Recently, I was up against the old boy network in the UK, and angry at the double dealing, bombs on vans. I admit to enjoying hurting them, and I’ll keep after them.
‘Terrorists have a cause and some anger, these old men want money and power for power’s sake. And I bet that if you sat them down they could not even explain why they do it. More money, more power, and for what?
‘They grow old, get cancer and die no matter how rich they are, how powerful. But I guess it gives them a stiff dick, to have that power and influence, to sit at a map and to make plans.
‘Some guy has a billion in the bank and he wants two billion, but what the fuck could you do with all that money? Do they go down to the bank once in a while and sit on a pile of cash the size of a bus, just to touch it?
‘I think, that they get started and get pushed along, and somehow forget how they got started and why, and why they shouldn’t plot and scheme behind closed doors, and kill people.
‘And now we have a new dimension, and that’s Americans that can see that Russia is on its arse, so why not invade the Middle East and bring peace to the region.’
‘Ha!’ Moran let out. ‘Peace in the Middle East? If you killed all the leaders the next lot would still be fighting each other. They blame us, but we’re not there and they’re still at each other’s throats. There’ll never be peace there.’
He shook his head. ‘If there was a socialist government in say Saudi, money spread around, then maybe they could find peace, but the rich are super rich and the poor are dirt poor. Not our fucking fault.’
‘Part of it is,’ I suggested. ‘We drew the borders after we pushed out the Ottoman Turks, and we put the monarchies on the throne – to make that rich-poor divide.’
Moran shook his head. ‘Did they do it with oil in mind? No, they weren’t pumping oil back then, and up to 1945 America was the world’s oil producer. Dubai was a sleepy fishing village.’
‘I know some Yanks that desire a war.’
He studied me. ‘They serious?’
I nodded. ‘Unfortunately, yes. My track record has given them hope in the media.’
‘Track record of small rescues and near misses, but that don’t mean we’ll win a fucking war someplace. Wars are won by supply lines and political alliances, not so much tanks and planes. And not by special forces.’
I nodded my agreement. ‘They want us hitting small targets in Yemen, good newspaper inches, then a bigger target, to get the public behind the idea that it can be done.’
‘And you’re OK with that?’
‘And the long drawn out campaign..?’
‘That would be decided by our democratically elected government being undemocratically pressured by the States.’
‘Like the Gulf War.’
‘Just like it; they want allies seen in the media. They want hand holding and justification, blame shared.’
‘And if they wanted to invade Iraq?’ Moran posed.
‘We’d be there a year, half the men lost.’
‘Jesus,’ he sighed out.
In the morning I felt stiff, but stiff from how I had slept, my legs a little better. Out on the flat roof I took a pee, a great target for a sniper in the tree line. ‘All quiet, lads?’
‘So far, sir.’
After a hearty breakfast, hopefully not poisoned, Tinker came on. ‘You were after details of that mine. NordGas paid for it, then just as they start to shift ore the civil war started, and the roads were no good – factions fighting, and the port closed down, banks closed, westerners fled, port was damaged and the current idiot took power eventually.
‘They left simply because they could not move the ore safely or get the workers or pay those workers. It was a mess for a year before it started to settle down, then the Monrovia Government looked after Monrovia and gangs wandered around up north, ex-Army factions. If you can’t get local labour, you can’t run a mine.’
‘And that road?’
Tinker reported, ‘Was to be used as a runway, yes, not quite finished, they were going to tarmac it over.’
‘How did they get their expensive equipment out? Moran said that there’s nothing at the mine.’
‘Locals stole it away, but it was insured.’
‘Track the insurance company and the pay-out please. I bet Lord Michaels had a hand in it.’
‘Western staff were airlifted out.’
‘Airlifted, eh. Thanks.’ I called Libintov. ‘Did you ever airlift western mining staff out of Liberia when the civil war started, twenty years back?’
‘I did, it was my first job just about, but back then the KGB were pushing things along, I was a front for them.’
‘You took men from a mine in the northwest, a very long concrete road?’
‘Yes, I remember, I was there.’
‘Do you have records from back then?’