Failsafe Query

by Michael Jenkins

  JJ was fondly revered by his men, who always referred to him as ‘Jackdaw’ Jones, or JJ for short after Beeton’s nickname had stuck. JJ had seen the effect that a few score troopers had in Baghdad during the darkest days of the Iraq wars.

  Swartz knew JJ well from the regiment and had operated as his second in command in 2005 when the SAS undertook house raids to chase down the 21 July London bombers. He smirked as he remembered how JJ had introduced himself as JJ to the guys – and as Richard to all the political monsters he came into contact with. ‘But why JJ?’ he thought. Swartz’s team ran many human intelligence agents in the Afghan region, and he had previously been visited by government officials who would undertake audits of the cash that was being dished out on behalf of the British government – in return for high-grade human intelligence. Ministers wanted to be assured of value for money. He wondered if this was the same kind of snap inspection? He remained sceptical. He was no fool and had seen his fair share of political shenanigans and SAS soldiers being used by MI6 in irregular ways. His gut feeling was that this visit was something irregular.

  ‘Great to see you again, Swartz,’ JJ said, holding his hand out. He was dressed in a dapper beige suit and white shirt. ‘It’s been too long, eh?’

  Swartz smiled, his fingers held just inside his sleeveless body armour by his armpits, legs astride. He shook JJ’s hand. ‘It is, mate – I certainly didn’t expect to see you again,’ he said. ‘For fuck’s sake – you’ve become a respected businessman, haven’t you? Or have you been caught out and sacked already?’

  They laughed, then patted each other on the back. Swartz knew more than most about JJ’s gung-ho, cavalier and renegade reputation. He was a fighting man through and through, yet had the charm and swagger of the best senior officers.

  Swartz turned towards the civil servant. ‘I’m Warren, but most people call me Swartz,’ he said. ‘Long way to come for an inspection if that’s why you’re here,’ he inquired.

  ‘I’m Jack. Pleased to meet you, Swartz,’ the suited official said. ‘I’m afraid it’s a bit more than just an inspection but something I’m sure you’ll enjoy.’

  Jack was small, probably five foot eight and slightly scraggy with a weathered face, but he also had boyish looks with the classic short-back-and-sides haircut. Nothing special, Swartz thought, noticing how the chap was quiet of voice. Yet Swartz sensed he probably wasn’t the normal diplomat that he was used to seeing come out on inspections.

  ‘Great,’ Swartz said. ‘Follow me, chaps and we’ll saddle up and get ourselves through suicide alley.’

  Swartz ushered them towards his white, armour-plated land cruiser. His driver opened the doors and Swartz threw his body armour into the front before going to the boot. He switched on the radio-frequency jammer to provide a secure electronic bubble around their vehicle to protect them from any radio-controlled initiation of any improvised bombs as they travelled. He jumped back into the front seat, made a quick radio call to his operations room and they set off to Bagram airport – on a route they alternated from day to day to avoid, as best they could, the threats of suicide-vehicle bombers.

  Swartz switched on his dash-mounted phone, sent a quick text and his driver shot down suicide alley, carefully avoiding the larger trucks and remaining on heightened alert as they drove past any potential threats. It was forty-two degrees and the height of summer as they breezed past the rickety roadside stalls, manoeuvring the Toyota land cruiser with skill amongst the Kabul traffic mayhem, which was now in full flow.

  No one talked during the initial part of the journey but, as they neared Bagram airport, Swartz turned to the rear. ‘Well, I’m looking forward to hearing what you have up your sleeve this time, JJ,’ he said. ‘If we can possibly avoid a diplomatic incident before you fuck off home that would be good.’

  JJ and Jack both smiled. ‘Not on your nelly,’ JJ said. ‘This is all very kosher you know, Swartz.’

  ‘That’s as maybe, mate – you always used to say that – remember Kosovo?’ Swartz asked. ‘You nearly got me and half the squadron sacked for that little escapade you conjured up.’

  ‘Yes, you did rather save my ass back then,’ JJ said, chuckling, before addressing Jack. ‘You ought to know, Jack, that you’re in highly qualified hands here with Swartz.’

  ‘Great to hear,’ Jack said.

  ‘Swartz is first-rate at this sort of stuff – when it comes to the crunch, he’ll deliver.’

  ‘Spare me the shit JJ,’ Swartz said. ‘Besides, our best ever excitement came with you leading the charge across open ground on an Iraqi compound, you nutter.’

  ‘Oh, I think you’ll find this job will be far more exciting than that,’ JJ uttered as the vehicle approached the entrance to their ultra-secure Bagram airport base.

  Swartz shook his head, smiled ruefully and said ‘Fuck’ as he opened the door. He knew the ruse was coming.

  They got straight down to business when they walked into the special operations compound.

  ‘Only bunk beds and Brillo-pad army-issue blankets, I’m afraid,’ Swartz said. ‘Rooms are through there guys, and we can speak safely in the interview room just by here.’

  JJ mentioned that Jack would not be staying there. Swartz shrugged his shoulders. The compound was a tiny piece of Britain on a US airbase. Not only that, it was one of the most secure yards on the base, set behind reams of five-metre-high corrugated steel frames so that no one could see in or out. No other British HQ contingents were allowed behind these steel walls, largely because the compound was used to debrief Afghan agents who would covertly arrive at night through two airlocked gates in trashed-out cars with full blackout windows.

  This was a dark-ops world – cocooned in the safety of the American base, but a ‘one eye’ – British eyes only – UK facility. The compound consisted of an MI6 officer, two GCHQ operators, a handful of intelligence officers running interrogation ops and a small team of specialised, task-specific SAS troopers. This was exactly what Jack wanted.

  Swartz set the mugs out in the centre of the interview room table and ushered his radio operator into the room, he brought in a tray of biscuits, water, coffee and toast. Swartz had checked the vetting clearances of JJ and Jack to ensure they had the right level of credentials to allow access into the highly vetted compound – each had impeccable clearances at STRAP and DV level. This immediately struck Swartz as odd, given that JJ had left the army years ago. What was he up to now, he wondered?

  Swartz was now a major in the SAS having risen through the ranks since joining at seventeen as an ammunition technician at the Army Apprentice College in Chepstow. His trade as a bomb-disposal officer saw him undertake six tours of Ireland and eleven short tours of Iraq and Afghanistan. He became embedded in the regiment in the ‘90s as their black-ops bomb-disposal officer before completing selection training and becoming a fully badged soldier in B Squadron. Swartz was short but stocky, with cropped fair hair. He was a taekwondo enthusiast, and a calm, experienced operator.

  Swartz took off his radio headset, adjusted his thigh holster and then sat down opposite Jack, with JJ to his right.

  ‘Swartz, the official story is we have come to interrogate one of your sources and look for intelligence linkages into the Maghreb,’ JJ said. ‘But we won’t discuss that again; you can explain that away as a STRAP 3 Level 1 eyes-only piece of info. Jack is from Box and will explain the help we need.’

  Swartz listened intently to JJ before switching his gaze back to Jack.

  ‘We need your help Swartz: some firepower and trusted men to carry out a slick, short job for us in Kabul.’

  Swartz perked up, shuffled in his chair and held his palms together as he leant forward over the small table. He had a sense of excitement, but was also cautious as to what this was all about.

  ‘The UK needs a very important intelligence officer brought back to the UK. We need him for some other business back home,’ Jack said. ‘I’ve managed to track down where he’s being held in Afghan
istan.’

  Swartz stayed quiet as Jack sat back and shifted his eyes to look at JJ.

  JJ took up the story. ‘Jack has asked me to make this op happen, and to get this guy back to the UK,’ he said. ‘As you’ve gathered already, and I know you get it – it’s a deniable operation. You and I will carry out the job and Jack will cover our diplomatic trail and step in politically if we fuck it up.’

  Swartz breathed in hard.

  ‘Why can’t you use the guys attached to the intelligence services? Or bring in a team? Seems odd to me to use my guys if it’s all kosher?’

  Swartz knew JJ would have anticipated this question and he watched as JJ stood up and looked at the aerial imagery of Kabul on the walls, showing some blue insertion and extraction routes, used to covertly bring Afghan agents back to the compound for debriefing and paying off.

  ‘I can’t blag you Swartz – it’s a side op not known about by the agencies back home. But it’s sanctioned very high up in the centre. And actually, it’s not too tricky a job.’

  Swartz leant forward again and looked up into the air in disbelief. ‘For fuck’s sake, JJ,’ he said. ‘That means no fucker in the regiment knows and my ass is on the line after all these years of approaching an honest pension. I’ll be hung out to dry, denied by the UK and probably chucked in a cell. I like a bit of fun, but shit, mate…’

  Swartz leant back, opened his posture and gestured with his palms up in the air.

  ‘I know,’ JJ replied very calmly. ‘But I have something here which I hope will convince you.’

  JJ slid a passport-sized picture of a man across the table for Swartz to look at. Swartz was shocked at who the man in the picture was. A man he knew well. A close friend. He looked up and noticed Jack smile.

  *

  It occurred to Swartz that this had all been set up by JJ and he imagined him and Jack plotting this ruse in some grubby East End London hotel, which was where most side ops were plotted. He wondered who the main boss was. What was the aim here? And what was the risk to him as he approached his latter days of service before retiring? The fact that they had found out that he was in command in Kabul was probably a total fluke – especially given who it was he had been asked to rescue. Swartz began thinking in detail about the mission. It had a bloody good chance of success – and he relished the deviation beyond the norm.

  He was relieved knowing that it was JJ on this mission; that was a level of trust he could accept. But he was concerned about the risk of the whole side op not remaining unknown to government agencies – and the deep shit he would be in. But given who it was who was in a pretty shit situation and needed his help, he knew he had no choice. It was a close friend of his. Honour amongst military friends and never leaving a man behind was the SAS ethos. As well as ‘Who dares, wins’. ‘This is full on fucking daring,’ he muttered, ‘and how many times have I heard the words This is very tight hold, only a few people know – bullshit by the truck load, I reckon.’ Swartz was seasoned enough to know that such statements were never true and that invariably there were hidden people who knew what else was going on. Such was the standard fare of the deceptive world of intelligence operations: no one ever knew who was pulling the strings or who else had a hand in the outcomes.

  Swartz wondered who else knew about the task he had to complete, and who exactly was Jack’s boss? He made a note to find out.

  He had a thought or two about Jack and his poker face, along with his amenable and smiley engagement. A career spook, he thought, nothing special, but as with all spooks Swartz had met, he knew they were all utterly treacherous.

  Jack had clearly arranged things well. Swartz noted how he had disappeared to the British Embassy in Kabul, no doubt keen to maintain his guise of an official visit – another deception Swartz felt Jack was very skilled at.

  *

  Swartz arranged the satellite imagery of the target site so that he and JJ could come up with a plan, and see if it was feasible to rescue the officer. He passed two files to JJ on old HUMINT reports that gave detailed information on the target building from those who had worked on the inside.

  ‘This could all be out of date,’ Swartz said. ‘Let’s get on the ground to have a look and I’ll get the boys to put together some target analysis packs with high-resolution imagery. We need to get this guy out and back to Britain with as little fuss as possible.’

  ‘Agreed, mate. I think we need to rehearse the insertion too.’

  ‘Definitely – I’ll get the boys to rig something up.’

  ‘Good, let’s recce the place.’

  Swartz and JJ spent the next couple of days looking at the precise layouts of the buildings, the corridors, the key people inside and any weakness or vulnerability they could expose to pull it off. Swartz’s team carried out helicopter reconnaissance, and JJ drove around the target building where the Brit was being held. The drive-bys and aerial reconnaissance were backed up by Swartz’s intelligence from interrogating two Afghan men who knew the place well. Swartz arranged for collection of each of the men over two nights, extracted them safely from their separate communities in Kabul, smuggled them blindfolded into a battered old French Renault van and brought them back to the compound for questioning.

  Each man was duly paid with official UK Government funds, enough for four months’ earnings, and returned home unscathed and unseen by their local neighbours, who were none the wiser regarding their collaboration with coalition forces. Swartz chuckled at the irony of it all.

  Swartz considered a blagging-type scam – approaching the entrances and reception area of the building with an air of high authority whilst dressed as diplomats in suits and ties and escorted by some big burly protection. The lax security, and lack of will to stop such authoritative figures striding in purposefully, had certainly worked in the past. But, after discussion with JJ, he felt a simple, no-nonsense, direct approach with surprise as their main weapon was a better strategy. And they would deal with whatever came at them as it emerged. They needed to extract the man and get him back to the compound to allow Jack to surreptitiously whisk him back to the UK.

  Chapter 9

  Outskirts of Kabul, 8 April 2016

  Swartz checked his watch. It was 2.40am on the darkest night of the week. He was chuffed there were no CCTV cameras or high-tech electronic security measures to be defeated. Just a number of poorly trained, lightly armed, Afghan Police guards in one-piece grey coveralls who were patrolling listlessly – he watched their sluggish manner through his night-vision goggles.

  Swartz had rehearsed his team well. He glanced to check they were poised and ready to go in their four black land cruisers, tactically positioned for his pre-prepared assault. Each was armed with two nine-millimetre pistols, holstered on their thighs and waistbands, and each carried a shorter-barrelled version of the MP5 automatic machine gun used on house raids. It was a nimble weapon that could be easily trained on the target using the red laser-targeting sight.

  Swartz pulled his goggles over his eyes and checked the activity around the target. It was a large, sprawling colonial fort with whitewashed mud walls at the base of the sheer ramparts and red-brick watchtowers. Entry over the walls was a non-starter, but Swartz knew exactly where the guarding weakness was – right at the heart of the entry into the site through its giant iron-framed gates.

  Swartz spoke quietly on his hands-free radio, ordering two of the SAS operators, Dell and Bob, to move into position to make a final approach to the small wooden hut where the external bearded guards wandered lazily.

  Swartz was revelling in a slightly different job from the norm. A jailbreak.

  The moonless night and cloud-laden sky were ideal for concealing their approach. The guards could be heard chattering around the corner, smoking and kicking their heels, doing little to look like professional guards. Swartz had observed their amateur behaviour on each night of their detailed reconnaissance. ‘Should be a breeze,’ he murmured, as he hogged the darkness, moving to his assault posit
ion. Swartz checked the safety catch was released on his weapon, felt the adrenalin rise and sensed his heart beating at an elevated rate now. He was charged and ready. He patted Dell on the shoulder, spotting the glint of light from the blade in his right hand.

  Emerging from the shadows, like a cheetah striking a gazelle, Swartz charged at the closest guard, shouting ‘Go, go, go!’ to the others. He grabbed the guard from behind, one hand on his forehead, the other around his neck, and then hurled the man to the floor in a rolling motion. In milliseconds he was disarmed, face in the mud, and with Swartz’s knife positioned to slit his throat.

  Swartz glanced to his side to see Bob attack the second guard by punching him straight in the face – he was immediately knocked out. The silence remained. Swartz watched Dell and Bob handcuff the guards as he moved silently around the right-hand side of the recess, just behind the huts, to the main gate.

  He waited. It was perfectly quiet and still as he ordered his team into their next assault positions. It was time to tease the other guards out from behind the walls.

  Six minutes later the gate opened. A dark figure walked cautiously through the small gap. Swartz grabbed the unsuspecting guard and threw him to the ground with a brutal judo throw that knocked the wind right out of him. He signalled for Dell and Bob to rush through the gate to storm the control room, where three other guards sat behind their desks – another guard stood up just inside the door and made a ranging movement with his hands and weapon.

  Right on his shoulder, Swartz watched Dell pop two nine-millimetre rounds right into the guard’s thigh, and saw the man crumple to the floor with a loud moan.