Soft Target 04 - The 18th Brigade

by Conrad Jones

  Chapter Fifty

  Terry Nick

  “A vehicle has just entered the quarry road, a new Ford, not what we were expecting,” a static clad voice spoke over the coms unit.

  “Roger that, Can you see the occupants?” Terry Nick replied as he walked across the quarry yard toward the last footbridge before the lakes. He had two snipers positioned on the first bridge which was out of sight in the darkness, and two more were hidden on the bridge that he was approaching. The radio crackled but remained silent.

  “Negative he`s too far away for the moment, it looks like there`s a single occupant,” the reply came.

  The Brigade had the road well covered. There were men on every bridge and half a dozen snipers along the cliff tops overlooking the quarry. Their trap was set but the arrival of an unexpected vehicle was not part of the plan. It created a nuisance factor to say the very least. They needed the Somalis to follow Jay all the way down the narrow road into the yard for the plan to be foolproof. A rogue vehicle parked in the darkness could spook them at the last moment. The Brigade leader needed to get rid of the vehicle and its driver immediately.

  “Terry. You`re not going to believe this,” the radio crackled to life.

  “Don`t use names you bloody fool, what`s the matter with you, has the Welsh air made you forget basic procedures?” Terry Nick was becoming irritable. Ever since the Somalis poked their heads above the parapet of the drug world they had caused him nothing but headaches. He had to remove them as a threat and get on with business as usual.

  “Sorry boss, I`ve just had a bit of a shock that`s all,” the voice on the coms unit said.

  “Don`t keep us in suspense, please feel free to tell us what you`re talking about,” the Brigade leader sniped.

  “The driver of the Ford is a white male, albino hair, I`m not one hundred percent sure but it looked like Mel Hickey,” the voice whispered over the coms unit.

  Terry Nick thought about it for a few long seconds. Sergeant Hickey had fucked up in Nisour Square, causing an international incident of gargantuan proportions. There was talk of him being hung out to dry by the Iraqi government but before anyone could do anything he had been hit by insurgents who had used a child as a human bomb. The unit had been wiped out except for the unfortunate Sergeant. The Brigade leader had only seen him once since his return from Iraq, and that was once too often for his liking. The increase in international contracts supplying mercenaries to companies like Blackwater had seemed like a no brainer at the time, but casualties had been frequent. The money ex-service men could earn was phenomenal, but the hazards were becoming increasingly harder to avoid and the consequences were incredibly cruel. Few mercenaries wanted to return after completing one stint in Iraq. Most of them chose to work for the Brigade in the domestic security business instead.

  The scenario of Sergeant Hickey being the mystery bomber began to take shape in the Brigade leader`s mind. It would make perfect sense. Hickey was aggrieved by his injuries and to compound the issue he was aggrieved by the response of his government. He had lost his legs, his career and then his wife and children to top it all off. Terry knew that the sergeant was well capable of making a roadside bomb. Planning to deploy it would be second nature to him. The only thing that confused him was the recovery he had made. He must be mobile, prosthetic legs maybe. The question was though, why was he here?

  “Are you sure?” the Brigade boss asked.

  “No, but I`m ninety percent sure.”

  Terry realised that the sergeant had come to finish the job that he had started in Westbrook, he`d missed killing Ahmed and now he wanted to complete his mission and annihilate the target. The Brigade leader had no desire to kill Hickey; in fact he hadn’t been to see him because he had empathy with his situation. What had happened to him in Nisour Square could have happened to anyone in a civilian area during an armed conflict. He had opened fire though fear and even the toughest soldiers felt fear in a combat zone. There was no way of telling who was a potential suicide bomber and who wasn`t, in which case innocents died frequently.

  “The driver is stopping the vehicle,” the voice said on the coms unit.

  “How far down the track is he?”

  “The next bridge away from your position.”

  “Roger that, standby,” Terry walked over to his snipers and kneeled down looking down the quarry road into the darkness. The snipers had night scopes attached to them. Two high powered 7.62mm rifles were zoned in on the new arrival. The driver of the Ford was completely unaware that he was under the skilful aim of four sharpshooters already.

  “Can you identify him yet,” Terry asked the snipers.

  “Yes, he`s right, it`s Mel Hickey sir,” the sniper said without taking his eye from the scope.

  “I don’t believe it, he`s tougher than I thought,” the Brigade leader whispered, almost impressed by the invalid veteran`s persistence.

  “Do you want me to drop him,” the sniper turned the elevation dial above the scope, calibrating the shot.

  “No, he`s no problem on his own. Have you got a shocker?” Terry reached over and grabbed a Remington 12-gaugue shotgun from the snipers bag. The snipers smiled at one another in the dark. Terry crouched low and headed down the footbridge and made his way along the top of the old railway bank which formed a natural flank to the quarry road.

  He waited in the darkness for the invalid sergeant. The Brigade leader heard him before he could see him. The footsteps were irregular and heavy, almost a shuffle. Suddenly out of the darkness he could see a shadow emerging from the pitch blackness. The white hair had been covered with a dark woollen hat, and a scarf covered the lower part of the face.

  Terry Nick stood up and chambered an EREMP round into the Remington`s breech chamber, the metal click carried in the darkness and the shuffling figure stopped.

  Chapter Fifty One

  Omar

  Omar pressed his foot to the accelerator and the hatchback lurched forward, closing the gap between him and the Brigade van. The driver of the van had obviously realised the vehicle behind him was encroaching into the safety zone that he had mentally set for it. The van accelerated and re-established the gap, never allowing Omar to get any nearer to it. Omar had survived over two decades of violent civil war in Mogadishu, and no one achieved that life span without a heightened sense of awareness. Omar`s sense of self protection sent tingles down his spine and he smiled in the darkness of the car, a glow from the instrument panel reflected from his gold teeth.

  “You know that I`m behind you don’t you,” Omar said out loud as he picked up his cell phone. He checked that his men were behind him and then took his foot off the accelerator, slowing his impromptu convoy down and allowing the Brigade van to increase the distance between them. The Brigade men were drawing them into a trap; that had become obvious now. Omar had used the technique of drawing rival militias into hostile territory in Mogadishu several times before with devastating results. He wasn’t about to drive straight into a trap.

  The dual carriageway threaded through a series of road tunnels cut through the Welsh mountains, a hundred feet above the rough seas of the Menai Straits. The lights of a service stop glowed in the distance, petrol station, toilet facilities and a hideously expensive self service restaurant, which was affectionately known as the `little thief` because of its prices. Omar dialled the emergency number, 999.

  “Hello emergency, which service do you require?”

  “Police please, quickly the man has a gun,” Omar faked panic in his voice as he indicated to turn off the carriageway into the service station. The Brigade van carried on its way and its red tail lights faded into the distance.

  “I`m putting you through to the police sir, please remain on the line until you`re connected.”

  “Please hurry up, they`re getting away,” Omar cried, still smiling as he brought the hatchback to a stop on the `little thief` car park.

  “Hello, police emergency.”

  “Hello. I`ve seen two men with
a gun, they`ve threatened a man at the service station near Abergele,” Omar read the sign post and tried to pronounce the Welsh town as best as he could.

  “Has anyone been shot sir?”

  “They fired the gun, but missed the man, init.”

  “Did you see their vehicle sir?”

  “Yes, it`s a black panel van, unmarked, registration MP3 NNY, they`re headed in the direction of Anglesey,” Omar wound his window down and waved to his men as they pulled into the parking bays next to him. He pointed to the cafe and made a cup sign, indicating that he wanted some coffee. His men looked a little confused at the unscheduled stop, but knew better than to question their psychotic leader.

  “How many men did you see sir?”

  “There were two of them, both big built men with shaven heads, bald you know, and they had tattoos under their ears, please hurry, my battery is running out on my cell,” Omar cut the police operator off the line and laughed out loud. His gold teeth glinted in the darkness and he opened the door and stepped out of the little hatchback.

  “Hey Omar what`s happening, init?” two of the Yardies were leaning against their vehicle, smoking a joint. Their boss swaggered toward them grinning from ear to ear.

  “We`re having a quick smoke break my friends, and then we`re going to be picking up our new van,” Omar laughed.

  He looked across the dual carriageway into the darkness, and he could see the tips of white horses crashing onto the wide beach beyond it. The Menai Straits widens out into the Irish Sea at that point creating vicious riptides and swirling currents. Two miles across the dark stretch of sea the streetlights of a castle town on Anglesey, called Beaumaris, twinkled in the blackness. Omar liked the sea, it calmed him. There was a different feeling to world when he was stood by the sea, and his thoughts drifted to the bullet scared buildings of his home in Somalia. The entire city of Mogadishu is pockmarked with shell holes, and every wall is riddled with bullet holes. It`s such a stark contrast to the golden sands that meet the Indian Ocean just a stone`s throw away.

  “Here boss man, hot coffee,” the Yardies voice pierced his thoughts. He turned toward him and grinned as he took the cup from him.

  “I like this place, I think I might buy somewhere here so that we can come here and chill out,” Omar said in his exaggerated accent. The group laughed in unison, which was a wise thing to do when Omar was holding court.

  “What are waiting for Omar, are we letting them get away?” one of the braver Somalis asked.

  “Have faith in me my brother, have a little faith,” Omar took a sip of his coffee.

  The sound of two loud police sirens approaching stopped the conversation. Two armed response vehicles roared past the service station with blue lights spinning on their roofs. Omar nodded his head and lit a cigarette, smiling from ear to ear.

  Chapter Fifty Two

  Jay Blythe

  Jay didn’t wear the title General well at all, as it conjured up the image of a stuffy ex-public school boy with an ornamental moustache. Jay had been a true commissioned officer in the British Army for a short period. He had been a snotty nosed lieutenant when he`d left the regular army, sick and tired of the military institution and its prejudices. Promotion up the ranks was never achieved by talent alone. The candidate`s hereditary blood line and place of graduation were far more important than natural leadership ability. He had been overlooked for promotion several times before he finally couldn’t stomach anymore.

  Jay went back to civilian life with a spring in his step, full of ambition and optimism for the future. He was genuinely excited about starting a real career, although he wasn’t really sure what form that would take. It didn’t take long to realise that life outside of the service wasn’t much different to the army; prejudice, racism and corruption ran through every big institution. Jobs were hard to come by and once his army pension had been eaten away by bills he was soon forced to take a job as a bouncer working on the door of a night club in Liverpool. His sheer size made it a natural step, and the pay wasn’t too bad.

  Word soon reached the senior hierarchy of the Brigade that he once had been a commissioned officer in the British army. Terry Nick took him under his wing and offered him a six month tour of Iraq, taking charge of two units of Brigade men who were being subcontracted by the American mercenary giant, Blackwater. The money was too good to turn down and he was back in Iraq as a mercenary before he`d had time to think.

  One tour was his swan song as far as Iraq was concerned. During his tour he had grown in stature within the 18th Brigade and the position of running the domestic business in his home city of Liverpool seemed to be the ideal role for him. He was happy within the Brigade structure, plus the money was three times what his army salary had been. The domestic business was seedy and sordid to say the least, taxing money from franchised drug dealers and pimps. They organised the hijack and disposal of dozens of articulated lorries and their precious cargos as they left the Liverpool docks.

  While their activities seemed to be highly illegal, (mirroring the Italian Mafioso in America), careful planning and military style execution left the law enforcement agencies baffled as to who was responsible. The business with the Somalis was just another day in the office for Jay. They weren`t the first small time crime gang to rattle the 18th Brigade, and they wouldn’t be the last.

  Jay was staring into the wing mirror trying to work out why the Somalis had pulled into the services.

  “They must be out of fuel,” Jay said to the driver wearily.

  “I`ll slow down a little, they`ll catch up when they`re done fuelling up, that`s if they want to,” the driver replied yawning.

  “Don`t make it too obvious,” Jay warned him, yawning too. The day`s events were beginning to catch up with them, tiredness was creeping up. Travelling as a passenger at night on a long journey always made him dead tired.

  “I won`t make it too obvious, but I`ll have to slow down,” the driver replied. “What`s in store when we get to the quarry?”

  Jay looked at the driver in the darkness, and the dashboard lights gave his face an eerie glow. He turned back to the windscreen in silence, and never answered the question. His eyelids were heavy and he couldn’t be bothered to answer a stupid question. The Yardies were as good as dead, but they didn’t know it yet. Sleep was starting to take hold of him when the blue lights of two speeding police interceptors lit up the interior of the van.

  “Shit,” the driver said, looking in the rear view mirror. The two approaching vehicles were travelling at high speed toward them.

  “What is it?” Jay mumbled from his doze, trying to recover his composure. He looked in the wing mirror and saw two vehicles travelling full pelt behind them. They seemed to be in pursuit of someone. They pulled into the fast lane as if they were heading somewhere further down the expressway.

  “They`re going past,” the driver said.

  “I`m not so sure,” Jay reached for his cell phone. If there was a problem then he had to alert the Brigade men on the island.

  The first police car roared past them in the outside lane. Jay thought it was passing them because of the speed it was doing, but as the vehicle cleared the van it swerved violently in front of them and slammed on its brakes. The Brigade man stamped on the brake pedal in an attempt to avoid hitting the police car but he was travelling too fast. They were thrown forward like a pair of ragdolls as the tyres screeched and the van fishtailed along the carriageway. The police car was now stationary and the skilful driver had handbrake turned it across both lanes. The Brigade van driver snatched the wheel hard left to avoid the imminent collision, and the van skidded across the hard shoulder, onto the grass bank before stopping in a flurry of burnt rubber and flying grassy sods.

  Jay hit the dashboard hard. He`d loosened the seatbelt slightly while he was in a doze, and the force of the impact had propelled him forward, cracking his head on the hard plastic dash. The driver had been bent double by the crash, hitting his head on the steering wheel, micro-s
econds before the airbag was deployed breaking his nose. Jay groaned and tried to regain his senses, but everything was a blur. He looked toward the driver, who was comatose in his seat, his head was hanging backward at an awkward angle with his mouth wide open, and blood was running freely down his face.