Off Reservation

by Bram Connolly

  ‘Just a telephone.’

  Satisfied with the answer, the Russian returned the phone to Faisal. If he had asked Faisal to empty his pockets, he would have seen that there was something there besides the phone: a small garage remote with two buttons.

  ‘Where’s Milko?’ asked Faisal.

  ‘I’m right here, Faisal.’ Milko emerged from the other side of the van. He was taller than the first Russian, but then that wouldn’t be hard. In his white chinos, black polo and sports coat, he looked like he would have been just as at ease getting out of a Ferrari in Monte Carlo as a Ford in an Istanbul laneway. He removed his jacket and placed it on the bonnet of the van. Faisal could see the butt of a pistol poking out from the top of the waistband of his trousers. The other men were armed too, Faisal noticed, with AK-SBRs, a short-barrelled version of the AK-47 at the ready.

  ‘Are you expecting trouble, brother?’ said Faisal.

  ‘Of course, I always expect trouble; you don’t deliver a package like this without some insurance. But, having said that, I see no reason why this shouldn’t go smoothly.’ Milko waved his hand slowly in a half-circle to encompass all of his men. ‘As you can see, we have all the firepower.’ He laughed.

  ‘Yes, that is clear,’ said Faisal. ‘God willing, it will go smoothly. So, do you have the case for me to see?’

  Without turning his head, Milko gestured to someone behind him. ‘Vasily! Show our Afghan friend the case!’

  The sliding door to the small van flew open. Faisal and Milko walked slowly towards it. Faisal couldn’t see inside the van in the dim light.

  The Russian who climbed from the van was a bald-headed, big-nosed mountain of a man. In his hand, he held a silver suitcase. It was larger than Faisal had expected. Vasily opened the lid of the case and shone a torch on the contents.

  Faisal could see it was the real deal. Clearly military made, it was exactly the same as the replica he had seen all those years ago in Quetta, except there was power to this one. A small receiver in the bottom left showed that it was connected to a transmitter somewhere. Small red numbers clicked over, disappeared and then reappeared – no doubt linked to the trigger initiator somewhere in Russia.

  ‘Now you must fulfil your end of the bargain, Faisal,’ said Milko. He walked over to his jacket, pulled a small bottle of vodka from an inside pocket and took a swig of it. ‘Call who you need to call and let’s finish this.’

  ...

  Matt strained to see from his position in the small courtyard at the end of the lane. A large tree in the corner created a dark shadow for him to hide within and the large crack in the wall gave him a great view down the lane. He hadn’t reckoned on it being this dark though. He could see shadows moving around a van located about seventy metres away. He couldn’t make out how many men there were, but he could hear most of the conversation via the listening device on Faisal Khan’s collar. The Russians were hard to understand through the audio, so he was relying on Khan’s part of the conversation. As far as he could tell, the case was there, and now Khan was going to contact his handlers to get the final payment transferred.

  Just then, a movement high up in a building to his right caught his attention. Freezing, Matt watched as a suppressor was slowly eased through the window of a drycleaner’s shop. Matt’s hand flashed to his own weapon as he pivoted towards the threat, feet shoulder-width apart, and dropped into a stable firing position; he gripped the handle ready to engage. He recognised the suppressor; it was most likely attached to an AK-101, a Russian assault rifle. While not particularly powerful, at this range it would be deadly and was more than a match for Matt’s Heckler & Koch P30SK pistol. Clearly the weapon was covering the lane, though, and the guy on the other end of it wasn’t a pro; a sniper would be seated well back in the room and would probably have cut the glass and laid mesh from the ceiling to floor to enhance the dead space and avoid detection. The suppressor pulled back slightly and then was laid to rest on the windowsill, further pointing to a lack of competence.

  Confident that he hadn’t been compromised, Matt settled back down to watch the show.

  C’mon, Faisal, don’t stuff this up, mate, Matt urged silently. Just get the case and we can all get the hell out of here in one piece.

  ...

  Faisal tapped a message into his phone then sent it to the number Hassan al-Britani had given him. A few seconds later his phone vibrated with a return message requesting that Faisal send a picture of the inside of the case, and in particular the small plate at the top of the lid which contained the military equipment number.

  ‘I need to take a photo of the case, Milko.’

  ‘Of course, it’s here, take the photo as you need, my friend.’

  Milko scanned up and down the lane and then glanced up to where his sniper was set up. Satisfied there was no rush, he searched his pocket for his cigarettes and lit one. He offered the packet to Vasily, who accepted without thought. The other two Russians stayed at the front of the Ford Transit, covering the entrance to the lane.

  Faisal snapped a photo and sent it back to the same number. The five minutes he spent waiting for a response felt like a lifetime. Faisal could sense that Milko was getting annoyed.

  Milko lit another cigarette. Faisal’s phone finally beeped. Embedded in the WhatsApp message was a screenshot of a bank receipt. It showed that fifty million US dollars had been deposited to a bank account in the name of a Turkish agricultural company. Faisal handed the phone to Milko, who smiled his approval. He slapped Vasily’s back and then threw the phone back to the Afghan.

  ‘Well done, Faisal. You are the proud new owner of a nuclear weapon.’ Milko helped Vasily lower the suitcase onto its wheels. ‘Well, the Taliban are, anyway.’ Milko laughed. ‘Just remind your friends, the final fifty million needs to be sent to me in order to activate the weapon. No cash, no bang.’

  Faisal nodded; the Russian was irritating him now. He placed his phone back in his pocket and thought about pressing the garage remote just to make a point.

  ...

  Glyn looked down at the message that had just flashed up on his phone. It was from Rachel.

  All call signs this is GOLF ACTUAL, move now.

  With that Glyn jumped out of his seat and his team followed him out the door of the small cafe closest to the lane. Three other groups of men poured out of the restaurants and cafes just up the street and seconds later they were all arranged and into their rolling start.

  The Turkish and foreign civilians alike watched in awe at the speed of what was unfolding around them. Men seemed to be running everywhere, the cafes emptied in some sort of organised chaos.

  Alpha Team filed out on the left and Bravo Team on the right, weapons up and staggered so they could all fire if required. The snipers at the rear of each team had discarded their long bags in the street and had their SR25 rifles up and at the ready. They all disappeared into the entrance of the dark alley. Glyn had thought there would be more light than this and cursed himself for not taking NVGs.

  The SBS teams had run no more than a few metres down the lane when two shots rang out; while suppressed, they were still loud enough to register. John Higgins, leading Bravo Team, dropped to the ground as the rounds crashed into his small Kevlar chest plate.

  ‘Fuck it, I’m hit.’ He rolled to the left and into the gutter, out of the line of fire. ‘The window at the end of the street!’ he yelled. After quickly checking his vitals and establishing that he’d taken both shots to the body armour, he jumped up and attached himself to the back of his team.

  Stuart Ganley responded faster than seemed humanly possible. The guy in front of him stopped dead in his tracks and took a knee, and Stuart placed his weapon on his shoulder and steadied himself. He locked on with the SR25 and let rip four rounds; the Russian sniper fell forward through the window and down into the street.

  The Russians started to fire back down the alley in unison. The 7.62mm short-barrelled AKs made a deafening noise, but the untrained Russians, not u
sed to firing in low light conditions, all fired high over the heads of the SBS teams, as was usually the case with men who had limited training in firing in the dark.

  Glyn positioned himself against a wall and brought up his MP5. He punched the weapon forward on its sling and laid the red dot sight on the first muzzle flash, letting off fifteen rounds – full auto. Milko was dead before he could even get his second round off. Thirteen of the bullets pulverised his skull and the last two split his throat, making a hell of a mess all over the side of the small white delivery van. Glyn switched targets, putting ten more rounds into the flashes coming from the second AK. Vasily’s body was punched repeatedly by the slow-velocity 9mm rounds, each one doing more damage than the last. He fell back into the van’s open door, stone cold dead.

  The rest of the two teams made short work of the other Russians. The SBS operators had years of training in fighting with these types of weapons in close quarters and every shot found its mark in that narrow alley.

  Glyn and his two teams raced towards the Transit. They had got to within a few metres of it when a huge explosion blew the wall opposite the car to smithereens. Rubble showered down on them and dust and debris filled the lane. The men rocked back in shock, choking and gagging on the thick concrete dust that filled the once empty space.

  ‘What the fuck was that?’ said Glyn.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t nuclear or we wouldn’t be talking about it, bro,’ replied Semi Taufolo.

  Glyn did a quick scan of his teams, making sure they were all still combat effective. Then he caught a glimpse of someone running towards the end of the alley, dragging what looked like a suitcase. ‘Get after him, Semi!’

  ‘On it.’

  Semi took off at full speed, climbing over the broken bricks that had once been a wall.

  ...

  The blast on the opposite side of the road had reverberated through Matt’s hiding place and thrown him back off the wall. At the time, he had been weighing up his own options. Dazed, he got up and remembered that a moment before there had been a firefight in the alley. He had seen the sniper fall from the window and remembered that he had been impressed by the speed at which he had been engaged after firing. He had no idea who was on the other side of the shooting, but they were clearly well drilled. Small controlled bursts from 9mm auto weapons, double taps from suppressed 5.56 and a sniper who was more than handy with a 7.62. These guys were good.

  Shit – Faisal! thought Matt. He looked down the alley through the crack in the wall and could see that half of the Nowy Efendi Hotel was now on the other side of the road and in the street.

  ‘Should have known that’s what was in the black plastic bag, Faisal – you’ve got form for it, after all,’ Matt muttered to himself. He adjusted the volume on the listening device receiver and could hear that Khan was running somewhere. His breathing was laboured and Matt could hear the wheels of the case being dragged along the footpath. At that moment, in the distance, sirens began to wail.

  Time to get out of here, thought Matt.

  He jogged over to the gate and made his way out of the courtyard, only to bounce off a giant who was turning the corner at that exact moment.

  ‘You right there, bro?!’

  Matt was about to go for his pistol, but thought better of it when he saw the short-barrelled 10-inch C8 CQB weapon.

  The two faced off. Matt heard the giant say something and then realised that he was pressing a switch on the front of his shirt. He spotted the bone microphone in his right ear and recognised it as the type of communications device favoured by elite units.

  ‘I’m all good, mate, what about you?’ asked Matt. His mind was racing to interpret what was going on. Clearly this guy was a Pacific Islander, but was he a contractor or state-sponsored – and if the latter, what state? Australia? The UK? The UK was more likely given the weapon that he was carrying. SAS, SBS, SRR? Either way, Matt had to get out of there and fast. He thought about sweeping the Islander’s legs out from under him and then making a getaway down the street, but all the distances were too great – he would be fired on in an instant and besides, regardless of their size, Islanders were always more athletic than they seemed, especially if they were in this job. Sweeping his legs might be an act of suicide.

  The big guy stepped slowly to his left and walked around Matt, never taking his eyes off him. ‘I’d suggest you get out of here, pal,’ the Islander said. Then he jogged off down the hill, in the opposite direction to that which Matt knew Khan would have taken.

  Matt didn’t need to be told twice. That was a lucky break, he thought. He took off at speed up the street towards the hotel.

  ...

  In the back of the van, Rachel sat staring in shock. As if the snatch going kinetic and Faisal Khan taking off with the weapon hadn’t been bad enough to watch…She looked again at the image she had paused on Semi’s body cam.

  ‘Matt Rix,’ she whispered. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

  20

  ISTANBUL

  Faisal looked quickly back over his right shoulder. Behind him the evening crowds were still getting on with life, jumping on and off trams or milling around the numerous food shops lining the busy streets, completely oblivious to the carnage that had occurred barely a mile down the road. The sirens had all but stopped. Faisal assumed that the emergency services were crawling all over the blast site by now. No doubt they would at first think it was a Kurdistan Workers’ Party attack and they would take their time to process the scene. Satisfied he hadn’t been followed, he turned down Evkaf Street and made his way to the hotel.

  ‘Evening, sir,’ said the young receptionist behind the desk, glancing up from her computer screen.

  Faisal hadn’t seen her before.

  ‘Looks like you’ve been doing some shopping.’ She gave him a friendly smile.

  ‘Yes, there are some bargains in the markets,’ Faisal mumbled. He wheeled the suitcase through the foyer. He pressed the elevator button to go up, then pressed it again, and again, and again. He looked at his reflection in the shiny doors and studied his face. His black hair was a mess from the wind outside. He ran a hand through it to move it back across to one side. His eyes were sunken and his stubble was peppered with grey. The two years he’d spent in that Kandahar prison had taken their toll. His reflection looked vastly different from his heyday as a Taliban intelligence officer in Uruzghan in 2010. Back then he’d had a long black beard and his shoulder-length hair was as black as could be.

  The elevator doors finally opened and Faisal stepped in. He let out a sigh as the doors closed behind him and he pressed the number three. The handover had not gone well, but God willing he would get rid of the case tomorrow and be on his way back to central Afghanistan.

  ...

  Matt caught a glimpse of Faisal Khan at the bottom of the hill and followed him as far as the Starbucks. Then, having reassured himself that Khan had entered the hotel unmolested, he entered the cafe. There were half a dozen other people seated at individual tables, all engrossed in either smart phones or books. None of them paid any attention to the Australian as he ghosted in. Pausing beside a vacant table at the front of the narrow shop, he undid his windbreaker and placed it over the back of one of the pine chairs. He turned on the audio to the listening device, his mind still on what had just happened. Clearly those other guys were chasing Faisal Khan too. But who were they?

  His phone vibrated in his cargo pocket.

  ‘Hello?’ There was silence on the other end and Matt took the phone from his ear and looked down at the screen. It was an international number.

  ‘Hey, who’s this?’

  This time the phone connected.

  ‘Hey, brother, it’s TC. How you doing?’

  Matt smiled. Pulling the earbud from the listening device from his other ear, he glanced around the cafe to make sure no one was in earshot. ‘Mate, am I glad to hear from you. Where are you?’

  ‘I’m at your hotel. JJ is here too; we met up at the air
port. We just need you to come and swipe that magic Visa card of yours so we can check in.’

  ‘Sure thing – I’m only about five minutes out. I’ll brief you up when I get there.’

  ‘Roger that, bud, look forward to it.’ The phone disconnected.

  Matt decided not to listen to Faisal Khan anymore. He was in his hotel now, safe and sound, and presumably going to stay there until morning. Picking up his jacket, he stepped back out into the cold winter’s night, relieved that he had support from two of the most capable operators he knew. There were too many unanswered questions about this operation.

  Who were the guys that had intercepted the handover? Were they state-sponsored, or was another terrorist organisation trying to get its hands on the device? Whoever they were, they were surely now after Khan. It was up to Matt to make sure the Afghan handed that case over to the CIA operators, as per his initial brief. He thought about calling Steph to update her, then thought better of it. He didn’t want to talk to her unless there was no other option.

  ...

  Faisal picked up his prayer beads from the bedside table and squatted on the floor of his hotel room, opposite the silver case. He rolled the small beads between his fingers, deep in thought. He stared at the case for a few minutes and then sat cross-legged. Taking his phone out of his trousers, he sent a short message to Hassan al-Britani.

  I have the case, but there was an issue. Some men attacked us during the handover. I think Milko and his men are all done. I want to get this to you as soon as possible.

  He didn’t have to wait too long for the reply.

  No problem. Let’s meet tomorrow. I will send you the location in the morning. Relax.

  Faisal had an uneasy feeling about this. Relax? How could he relax?

  He looked at the case again. What was it Milko had said? Another fifty million or no bang…Faisal thought about it. With Milko dead, the case was only good for parts, unless someone other than Milko was controlling the trigger – which of course was a very real possibility. Faisal couldn’t work it out. Perhaps Hassan al-Britani had sent men to kill Milko and now he would come for Faisal. Maybe this was all his doing? Faisal jumped up and lifted the heavy suitcase onto the bed. He undid the latches and opened the lid. The insides were a complex mix of solenoids; wires and a long silver cylinder, which Faisal knew contained the plutonium. There was a small Uniden radio and, down the bottom, the initiator that had to match the same number as that on the remote trigger in order to work. The red numbers on the initiator slowly clicked over, changing every few seconds. It was held in place by a couple of small black cable ties.