Wilco- Lone Wolf 18

by Geoff Wolak

  At midnight, Swifty reached the border after a fast march to stay warm, and he was now getting radio signals ahead. He called me. ‘Got a strong signal, multiple signals, so a chatty bunch.’

  ‘Describe the area.’

  ‘It ain’t flat here. Road cuts through small ridges, say fifty feet high, but rounded, and there’s some rocks dotted about, clumps of them. We’re about half a mile from the road, a mile inside Yemen. Signals are northwest, no idea how far.’

  ‘Get in close -’

  ‘Rocket!’

  ‘What direction?’

  ‘Your fucking direction!’

  Phone down from my ear I shouted, ‘Incoming!’ and rushed outside and towards the billet. ‘Incoming!’ I fired a burst on automatic into the air just before I saw the streak, and it landed north of the airfield, not close to anyone, the dull blast reaching us a few seconds later.

  Stood there, people rushing around, I called Swifty.

  ‘Did it land near you?’ he asked.

  ‘North of the base, but good aim for that range, that’s more than twenty miles. Get close in and shoot them will you, people trying to sleep here.’

  ‘We’re moving towards them now, say under a mile.’

  ‘You have most of the team with you still?’

  ‘Yeah, like thirty of us. We’ll paste them.’

  The Omani major came running. ‘What was that?’

  ‘A rocket, fired from Yemen.’

  ‘A rocket? To reach here it is no small rocket.’

  ‘My men will attack the rocket team soon,’ I assured him.

  My phone trilled after I stepped out onto the flat roof of the ATC building. An Omani officer, stood shivering above me listening out for helicopters, asked if he could come down. ‘No, stay there. Wilco.’

  ‘Another rocket!’ came Swifty’s voice.

  ‘Incoming!’ I shouted.

  ‘Now can I get down?’

  I looked up. ‘No. And what are the chances of a rocket hitting you, eh?’

  The flash was west, outside the wire, the sound reaching us two seconds later.

  Hicks stepped out to me with Franks in tow. ‘We sitting and taking it?’

  ‘My men are closing in on the rocket crews, be done in ten minutes.’ I took in the horizon, looking for rockets.

  ‘Unless there are more rocket crews…’

  ‘Do you have a course of action to propose..?’ I waited.

  ‘We could disperse the men.’

  ‘Those rockets are landing at random after a twenty-mile flight, they could land anywhere. I have operational control on the ground, and I say your men stay put where they are and take their chances like the rest of us. That … is the chain of command, as agreed to by your superiors.’

  ‘It is,’ his dark outline finally noted.

  ‘Relax. When the fun really starts you’ll be knee-deep in body parts, this is nothing.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Meaning … that our good friends the Saudis have supplied money, intel and weapons to the men out there, and maybe they have a surprise for us, a nasty surprise.’

  He turned to Franks. And waited.

  ‘No comment,’ came from Franks.

  ‘No comment?’ Hicks repeated. ‘So there’s more going on here than I know.’

  I told him, ‘There’s always more going on. These soldiers, these are an extension of the CIA and British Intel, and those two groups are an extension of our government’s political double-dealing. We are the hand, the government is head, the voters are the heart.’

  Fifteen minutes later, Hicks gone, Swifty called, out of breath. ‘We sprayed them from distance, say two hundred yards, gave them a shit load of lead, double-tapping now, don’t look like any left alive.’

  ‘Watch out for booby traps. Any rockets left, blow them. No, wait, leave them, they’re evidence.’ I faced the dark outline of Franks. ‘Make some calls, see who has rockets that can reach twenty miles or more, and who might have supplied them.’

  ‘Not many armies have them, and the Palestinian and Lebanese rockets are home made. Palestinian rockets have a range of five to seven miles, Lebanese further, but not twenty miles – and not accurate. Those were accurate, so they had a guidance system more than just blind luck.’

  He took out his phone as I called Langley, getting the Deputy Chief, late afternoon on the East Coast. ‘Wilco, you still in one piece?’

  ‘Not for long, we’re taking incoming rocket fire, accurate fire from twenty miles out.’

  ‘Twenty miles, and accurate? Never heard of a small rocket like that – not in the hands of terrorists. Iranians have rockets, but I doubt they’re involved here, they hate al-Qaeda and the Saudis.’

  ‘Ask around for me.’

  ‘I will do, yes, this is a worry, they could target shipping in the Red Sea, set an oil tanker alight.’

  ‘I’ll collect up rocket fragments, you send someone to have a look.’

  ‘They’ll be experts on ship, I’ll send a note; they can swab the propellant and get a chemical fingerprint.’

  Walking to the billet I told men to get some sleep if they could, they would be inserting in six hours. ‘Swifty got the rocket crew,’ I assured Tiller and Brace when they asked about tin hats. In with 14 Intel I spoke to the two CT police officers.

  ‘We had a wager on being bombed within two days,’ one joked.

  Around to the Greenies tents I gave them some assurances and I suggested that they get a few hours, they had a job on, but that they could have a lay-in in the morning.

  In the HQ room I sent to bed anyone that needed to get to bed, did the rounds and then headed to bed myself, hoping to get four hours. As I lay down, men grumbling about having their sleep disturbed, I had to wonder about that dead Saudi diplomat – and what he was going to warn me about.

  I woke as an Intel captain nudged me.

  ‘You said 4.30am, boss.’

  I eased up and yawned, the lights out, the room dark. ‘Thanks,’ I whispered, soon grabbing my kit and following him out quietly into a still calm night, not quite dawn yet. In the HQ room they thrust a coffee at me, plus a chocolate bar. Sat down, the rooms and corridors quiet, I nibbled the chocolate and sipped the coffee. ‘All quiet overnight?’

  ‘It’s only been four hours since you went off. For most people … that’s half a night.’

  I smiled, feeling tired, but the coffee was helping minute by minute. They read out overnight reports, two Wolves shooting lone wandering gunmen, one gunman exploding.

  I told them, ‘Have the local police go out at first light to where Swifty was, grab the rocket components for analysis.’

  The captain reported, ‘Swifty said he left one intact before he pushed on. Three metre tall he said.’

  I nodded, and nibbled my chocolate. ‘Have them collect up the rocket parts here as well, might learn something from them.’

  At 5am I walked to the billet as the sky turned dark blue, and I shouted people up before I drove around to the Pumas, finding the tents quiet but the pilots awake and getting ready.

  A young Omani pilot pointed towards the ATC. ‘Sir, when we start the engines … it will wake the other officers.’

  ‘That’s OK, there’s a war on. Start your engines, be ready in half an hour, or when you have no mechanical issues. Double check everything.’

  I checked that the Lynx pilots were awake. They were awake, but hardly fresh. ‘Get some coffee, some chocolate, cold water on your faces!’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Back at the billet I made sure that Rizzo, Stretch and Monster got some coffee and some chocolate; they were crap in the mornings.

  At 5.45am, not 5.30am, the Pumas roared over to us, Echo men lined up in groups of eight – Salome with them, Moran head-counting and then waving them onto the Pumas as the local police and soldiers observed, the sand-coloured Pumas soon pulling off and disturbing those men still sleeping, flying towards a dark blue horizon over black sand.

 
They were soon just a distant drone as two Lynx buzzed about high and north of the base, set to follow the Pumas. I hoped their flares worked, or I would be explaining a downed Lynx to the Crown Prince. And I worried about Salome.

  In the HQ room I got a fresh brew on, handed a sandwich as Colonel Clifford appeared, looking less than fresh.

  ‘You OK, sir?’ I asked, making him a brew.

  ‘I went to bed at 11pm, so I had plenty of sleep, but the bed was damn uncomfortable and something was scurrying around in my room all night.’

  ‘Geckos, sir, but they eat insects so don’t kill them.’

  ‘I’ll have it moved next door,’ he threatened. ‘It can eat someone else’s insects.’

  ‘Trick is, sir, to go to bed when very tired, that way you sleep through the geckos.’

  Moran called, all the teams down safely, no one around, but that there were a shit load of jeep tracks in the valley, litter dumped in the sand. The teams were split up either side of the valley and now moving north, no one seen so far.

  He was back on at 8am. ‘More jeeps and trucks arriving, some mounted Dushka. Do they know we’re planning an attack here?’

  ‘I doubt that, but they may have some outside help, some keen radio scanners on the Saudi border.’

  ‘Great, them again. So we press on?’

  ‘Yes, because those radio scanners can’t stop an air strike.’

  I had Harris, who was now awake and with it, prepare the Lynx for an air strike before I called Major Pritchard.

  ‘Ah, Wilco, we’re up and we’ve had breakfast, sneaking in now, west of the target valley, a team the other side sneaking in.’

  ‘I need my men to get eyes on first, a count of the men there. The camp west of you has four hundred men in it, so we need some numbers first. And I’ll also arrange a strike by the Lynx to keep them busy as you move in. For now it’s eyes-on only.’

  ‘We have plenty of cover, small round hills and tight gullies to move through.’

  ‘Watch out for mines in the sand.’

  ‘Boys are careful after that plane.’

  ‘I want eyes-on from you first, so send your best man forwards for a sneak look and then call me.’

  ‘We should have eyes-on in an hour.’

  Moran called back first. ‘We’re having to go wide, a group of men guarding the valley. If we hit them it will alert the others, but we can see the main camp, say a mile or more north. And these shits left a tonne of litter everywhere!’

  ‘When you’re close, have Nicholson do a count for me; jeeps, tents and men. Oh, give me the coordinates of that ambush point.’ He called me back a few minutes later and listed the coordinates, the map updated.

  At 9am Kovsky took a call, Admiral Jacobs on his way to me in a Hawkeye AWACS. Jacobs set down half an hour later, F18s seen circling above, his top-cover. Out with a small team, the AWACS took off and flew southwest.

  Stood lined-up with Colonel Clifford, the Omani Major, Hicks and the RAF Squadron Leader, we saluted Admiral Jacobs and welcomed him, leading his team inside as they took in the sparse base, questions asked about facilities and logistics.

  Inside, coffee made, Major Harris detailed the action so far and the movements, finally the latest positions.

  When done, I added, ‘We’re seeing reinforcements arrive this morning, hopefully not a leak this end.’

  ‘If they bunch up … we bomb them,’ Jacobs noted with a shrug.

  ‘A few bombs will see the men scatter, and we want them all dead or captured, IDs taken, some fingerprints and mug shots, so I’m trying to both safeguard the teams, reduce the potency of the camps, but also to get in close on foot.

  ‘And jeeps went out this morning and brought back rockets and rocket parts, so we’re trying to get a handle on who made them.’

  Jacobs pointed over his shoulder. ‘Ya want this whizz kid.’

  The young officer told me, ‘I’m from Ordnance, sir.’

  I pointed at the Omani major. ‘Take him to the rockets, please.’ They stepped out.

  Jacobs noted, ‘So they’re coming to you as much as you going to them…’

  ‘Yes, sir, they must have had spies nearby, and they were quite inventive with that crash-landing transport. Rockets are more their style, but these rockets are new, not seen before.’

  ‘Just one bunch of rockets so far?’

  ‘One crew, yes, at the border. If they have a fixed range then it will be hard for them to fire more, there’s only one road and fuck all in the way of tracks across the hills and the sand. And after today they’ll re-think their strategy.’

  ‘You want us to bomb at noon?’

  ‘Around that time, we’re waiting the detail from your SEALs. We think they sleep in the heat, and if so the SEALS will see men bunched-up and not hidden in the rocks.’

  ‘No one has fired a missile up at us yet,’ he noted.

  ‘Have you flown near these target camps?’

  ‘No, we avoided them deliberately, didn’t want to spook them.’

  ‘Then today could see a missile fired up at your planes, sir. When we have eyes-on we can confirm men stood ready with rockets waiting for an expensive F18 to fly over.’

  My phone trilled, all eyes on me.

  ‘It’s Moran, and we spotted a big Russian-made radar controlled fifty cal, big like a tank. They have camouflage nets over it.’

  ‘Can you get to it quietly?’

  ‘No, open ground near it.’

  ‘OK, keep the reports coming.’ I faced Jacobs. ‘Russian-made radar controlled fifty cal sat waiting to give you a warm welcome, but here.’ I tapped the map. ‘Not where you’re set to bomb.’

  ‘Fifty cal is only good below 2,000ft,’ Jacobs noted. ‘I’ll warn them about it, but it could make a mess of a helicopter.’

  ‘You have anti-radar missiles,’ I pointed out.

  He pointed at Kovsky. ‘Call ship, have a bird fitted out straight away, a run at the radar the same time as we move in, second bird to this other camp. Update AWACS, they can pinpoint an active radar.’

  Kovsky stepped out.

  When my phone trilled it was the SEALs, ten miles or so west of Moran. ‘Major Wilco, Lieutenant Kravitz here.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘After dawn they gathered and had a kind of roll call, followed by prayers, and we counted them, then after that they ate before they moved into the tents. Most are in the tents now, some men on guard duty.’

  ‘Any fifty cal Duskha?’

  ‘Three we can see, mostly at the north end, pointing north.’

  ‘Any shoulder launched rockets?’

  ‘Not that we can see.’

  ‘RPGs made active?’

  ‘Some carried and stacked up earlier, but just moved from A to B.’

  ‘Do they look like they’re expecting trouble?’

  ‘No, they have their thumbs up their asses.’

  ‘Move up dead slow, don’t risk being seen, wait for a big bang then rush in to get a better position. Standby.’ Phone away, I faced Hicks. ‘Have your men ready to go now.’

  ‘I thought I’d go with them, rear command area set-up.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’ He glanced at Admiral Jacobs, and puffed his chest. ‘You have operational command on the ground, but these are my men. So I’d like to know why not.’

  I glanced at Jacobs, but he was not interfering. ‘My sources tell me that you’re a good officer, and that someday you’ll make general, so go to staff college and study – and make general.’ I pointed. ‘Captain Holsteder is a special forces officer, good in the field, you’re not. And he’ll never make general.

  ‘What’s best for the American tax-payer, and the liner progression of the US military, is that you make general, and do a good job at it, not get your nuts shot off in the desert. Others are better suited. That clear?’

  Admiral Jacobs tried to hide his grin.

  ‘Clear,’ Hicks agreed as he saluted Jacobs and stepped out.

&n
bsp; Holsteder jokingly asked, ‘You trying to say I’m a grunt?’

  Jacobs barked, ‘Yes he is, so get out there and earn your damn keep, Mister!’

  ‘Right, sir,’ Holsteder agreed, saluting Jacobs as he stepped out.

  I faced Jacobs. ‘Bomb the shit out of that camp now, sir, don’t delay it.’

  He lifted his phone and stepped outside.

  Clifford faced me. ‘Good to see that you’re still making friends with visiting officers.’

  Harris hid his grin.

  ‘Major Hicks is no special forces operator, he’d be a liability on the ground.’

  When Admiral Jacobs stepped back in, with Kovsky, he informed us, ‘Thirty minutes, or just under.’

  I called Lieutenant Kravitz. ‘You have thirty minutes till the air strike. Don’t get too close, a stray bomb might bust your eardrums.’

  ‘We’ve seen the F18s in action before, we know what it’s like.’

  Swifty called in.

  ‘Where you been?’ I asked.

  ‘Sleeping,’ came back from a grumpy man.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Up a hill, say five miles southwest of those rockets. Mitch is opposite with his team, over the road, no fucker around, but there is some traffic on the road.’

  ‘Leave two men, eyes on the road. Any suspicious trucks or jeeps, armed men, they report it.’

  ‘OK, I’ll sort that after some breakfast. Oh, boys thought they heard a low flying Cessna.’

  ‘Yeah? That’s cheeky. Chat later.’ I faced Harris. ‘Low flying Cessna, ten miles southwest, over the border, so thirty miles from here. I faced Jacobs. ‘Have your AWACS take a look, sir.’

  ‘If it’s down on the damn deck in a valley it won’t show up, they know that as well as us!’

  ‘Stick an F18 in the area, sir, bird might get lucky if he slows down enough.’

  ‘Be damn hard to hit a Cessna,’ Jacobs complained.

  ‘Only so many places it could land,’ Harris noted, glancing at the map, ‘The road, and … very little else.’

  I suggested to Jacobs, ‘Could fly down that road and have a look, sir.’

  He nodded at Kovsky, who lifted his sat phone. ‘Guy in that Cessna would be a regional commander, out to chat to the troops, rally them, pass messages.’