‘We could lose her.’ Xavier spoke as if there was an imminent risk of a death in the family.
‘Can we not hold on longer?’ Bart asked him, with a frown of anxiety.
Casper spoke. ‘I have two problems, each big, and they are the wind strength and the increasing cloud cover.’
‘The fuel load is close to critical,’ Xavier told them, ‘and I wouldn’t want her diverted to any local strip. She has to go home . . . She could get flipped in this wind, brought down, and we are not seeing much anyway.’
So, in a cubicle off a corridor that ran the length of a prefabricated building in New Mexico, three men – all experts in their chosen but limited fields – discussed the performance and capabilities of a Predator, altitude 12,000 feet, in a location many thousands of miles from them.
Bart made the case, ‘Because we saw boots. Our people wear boots. They were not sandals and not flip-flops. Somewhere, I have to assume, there will be a pair of Black Hawks loitering, but we have not had sight nor sound of them. What I am saying is that we have been their top cover, just us. The latest is that they headed down towards the road and the road runs to a village, one of those fortified places, to which a funeral procession and a wedding party have travelled, which is about the best disguise for a tactics conference. It has to be a covert tasking; those guys need us. Can we hang around, is what I’m asking? I checked up to see whether there was any possibility of getting a wolf pack here. But zilch – there are no spare birds, we are the only game in town.’
‘Hearing you, Bart,’ Xavier said. ‘And we are fuck-all use to the guys wearing the boots if we get turned over in a wind gust, or if we run the tanks dry and crash-land, plus I am sitting on a four point five million-dollar bird, and twin Hellfires which cost north of a hundred K each. And apart from all that crap, she is our baby. Don’t laugh, I mean it.’
Casper said, ‘I am flying the bird, and I need to know. Stay or head out? She is giving me grief.’
There were places where the ground was visible, though not many. It showed up as a grey, flattened mat, with occasional fleeting views of the road, but the turbulence rolled the bird and prevented the lens mount getting clear and steady visuals. Xavier thought back to when he and Casper had first been assigned to fly NJB-3. She was old now, close to antique, had flown a big six-figure number of air miles, could be cussed and could be threatened with a bone yard because of her mechanicals, and he reckoned there’d be more places than he could count where the paint had flecked off the bodywork, but they had nursed her and taken damn good care of her, and her picture was in his hallway by the coat hooks. But he had never, of course, seen her. He talked about her at table and his wife’s eyes would glaze over, and he thought about her when he stood in the shower while his wife stripped off, and imagined her as he heaved and worked up a sweat on the days when the quack advised them there was a fair chance of conceiving. It was a love affair.
Xavier came back to where they had started. ‘We could lose her.’
Bart did the calls. Xavier heard them in his headset. About cloud levels and wind strengths and fuel capacity. There was confirmation that a bird down in the Hadramaut had a more specific target and would not be diverted, and one was further south and near the city of Aden and was flying out of the base at Djibouti on Special Forces secondment. And, nobody knew – out of an army of watchers and listeners in the Hurlbert Field complex of analysts across the other side of the continent, in Florida – whose feet fitted in those boots. Nobody sounded that interested, Xavier reckoned; top of their priorities would have been zapping bad guys in northern Iraq and in western Syria, not Yemen. Authorisation was given. He leaned across and spoke in Casper’s ear.
A shrug from his pilot. He was not paid to make decisions. The guys who had flown out for combat missions in the Middle East had that built into their pay grade, but Casper carried out his orders and might just have a little personal attachment to the bird, too: not at Xavier’s level, but there all the same.
The camera angle banked. They were above the ceiling of cloud; Casper hoped to find clearer air at greater height. They had turned. The run back to King Khalid had begun. Xavier felt bad about pulling out and he saw Bart running his fingers hard through his hair, with what could have been a touch of shame. Concentration was writ loud on Casper’s face but he had flying to do. What was worth losing their bird for down on that ground, a damn heathen place? To Xavier, it seemed they had just run out on friends, but it was silly to think like that.
Henry sat in a comfortable canvas foldaway chair, watching the fire, burning the last of the wood that Lamya had gathered, augmented with pallet strips left behind by the troops.
Whatever the outcome, it was the last night.
All would be changed before the dawn came and the first songbirds chorused. The wind caught the fire, flaring the embers, and sparks scattered in front of her, but they had nowhere to fall and do damage because the tents had been taken. She had been brought a plate of food, poorly cooked by Lamya’s standards, and had pecked at it, then had gone to the wire fence, and tossed away the leftovers. Rats would have it – maybe the same big bastards that had eaten through the mortar of the old Marib dam, a wonder of the ancient world, and caused it to breach. She would never come back, would never again see sluices built by architects two millennia before. What she had done was finished, and what she had achieved was pitiful. She believed that one of them would come for her, had to. It might be the boy from the northeast, who lived a lie and who had lost a healthy tooth, and who was walking a tightrope above a pit of torture and death. Or it might be the one who had come into her tent, had seen her wash, who spoke with cold certainty – one of them. They alone knew where Henry Wilson had been and what she had done, and she would share a life with one of them if it were on offer. Not at the expense of her work, her study, but they would share what was left. An outsider would know nothing.
Unless she cared to get up, go into the darkness and look for more of the pallet strips, then the fire would die. She had heard Lamya washing her plate and the cooking bowls. She did not think Lamya would be there in the morning. She would have slipped away, gone without a word. In the morning, the military would arrive in force from Marib garrison, and Henry would be shipped out, and any pompous protestation about the value of her work would be ignored. But she believed that, before then and in the darkness, one of the men would come for her.
She hated the quiet. It frightened her. No military vehicles, armoured personnel carriers or trucks ventured out on to the main road. The wedding guests or the mourners, or the fighters, had already done their journey. Beyond the fire, a blanket of darkness faced her and nothing moved: no rats, lizards, snakes, nor the killers who stalked the ground.
She could have turned on her radio, but she did not. She sat and gazed at the fire and watched its life ebb. She did not know which of them would come, but she knew which she wished it would be. She was a changed woman, more vulnerable and yet more able to summon courage. She did not know how it would play out, how long she would wait. The flames played less on her face and the cool of the evening closed on her as the fire lost its life.
The security men came for him, whispering respectfully from the door. The Emir acknowledged them.
He flicked his fingers, old and clamped with rheumatism, to alert his wife, and she came from the shadows behind him. Their bags, packed but still with space to spare because they denied themselves trinkets and trifles, were by the door. The security took them. She was a half-pace behind him. He had accepted that she had chosen to follow him, was grateful that she had not abandoned him and returned to their children, but it was not discussed. He never asked her if where they slept was satisfactory, though if she had said that she didn’t like where they were because she thought security inadequate, or something had aroused her suspicion, then he would have ordered the guards to move them within a half an hour. They were a partnership, though it would have been easy for him to have divorced her, sen
t her to Taiz and her sister, where the children were. Many men offered their daughters, barely through puberty, to him, but he had never betrayed her, or raised his voice to her.
They left the house. Outside, from the edge of a canvas awning, one of his security men strained to see into the cloud cover; another wore an earpiece that would have been purchased from the internet. The Emir was told it was clear of drones, to the best of their knowledge. He accepted the rider – they, if mistaken, would die with him. The door of the vehicle was opened. It was a black painted Toyota pick-up, and he knew that engineers would have worked on the engine. A familiar strategy – two goats were tethered in the open back of the pick-up, and two men would be crushed together in the front, and a nurse from Palestine that he respected, and the driver would barely have room to work the gearstick or turn the steering wheel, and there would be laughter. Another man would share the back bench seat with himself and his wife. They were like his family. The one who rode alongside them was Libyan born and slow to speak, even slower to show emotion, and had been alongside him in the mountains, and in the Yemeni gaol, and if he were about to be taken would shoot him, and if he could not shoot him then would hug and hold him close while the pin from the grenade bounced on the ground at their feet. He would not be captured alive.
It was important where they went. Many had come to see him and to hear him. Alliances needed to be held together and morale to be kept high.
Was she comfortable? She nodded. Was she ready to leave? She was ready.
He was a disciple of the sheikh. He believed in the tactics of his dead leader. There should be strikes that attracted the attention, and the fear, of his enemy. The man who had been chosen to walk with the device sewn into his body was an individual to be cosseted: he would create true terror. He despised the newcomers to the war against his enemy, the creatures of Iraq and Syria, who had already bored of their shooting, beheading and burning videos, but they attracted recruits. It was a matter of concern to him that young men – intelligent and faithful – should not flock to join them. He had to show himself, to talk to the young and convince them to follow him. He must also recruit the tribal and village elders on whom he depended. He could not step off the treadmill now; he had to press on, no matter how exhausted he was.
The Emir heaved himself, painfully because of the exertion, into the middle of the bench seat. He carried only a handgun, and it stayed in the body holster under his jacket. It was loaded but not armed. His wife was by the right side door of the rear part of the cab and he had taken the middle place, and the bodyguard – as trusted as his wife, was wedged against him and against the left-hand door. It was the routine positioning. The front of the cab’s windows would be open and could be fired through if they were ambushed. If it were a Hellfire, it would not matter whether he sat in the middle of the back bench or whether the men with him could fire in response. He had seen vehicles turned over, charred, and had seen the bodies of colleagues, hard to recognise. It was his life, it was what he had chosen.
Could they go? The Emir said they could. The pick-up pulled out of the village, and bumped on to the track that led to the main road, travelling slowly so as not to arouse suspicion.
The men watching Belcher had been distracted. The village was encircled, the track and the footpaths into it were sealed. He had said that he needed to piss, and he’d headed up a dark alley with turnings off it.
The shadow came out of a dark doorway and crossed a lane, then went into an entry. He didn’t reckon the Sixer would last here ten minutes in daylight. Too broad at the shoulders, too long a stride, and there was enough of a pool of light halfway across the lane to show that he had laced footwear. It amused Belcher. He followed.
Cobbles under his feet. Darkness and deep shadow around him, and only occasional lamplight, and soft voices and the sound of TVs. Belcher strode on, and the rifle on his shoulder flapped on its strap. A hand, coming fast, brushed against his shoulder, then fingers lodged on his throat, and he gasped. Close range, and a torch flashed on, focused at Belcher’s face for two or three seconds, then it was reversed and Belcher looked at the same features he had registered nearly an hour before.
Belcher could remember that night in the villa near Aleppo, how it had been, the personality of the man who had won him. From the first hour, when he’d set eyes on this prisoner, he had been drawn into the mesh, had not been able to break clear of it. He had said prayers before turning in, had undressed, and placed his rifle near his head, unloaded, and he would have seemed relaxed. He had feigned sleep, and had breathed regularly, and from time to time his name was called, and he brought the other guys sweet tea or a glass of water. They were interested in him, fussed over him, wanted to talk about his old home, but he had returned to his bed. Had not slept for a single moment. He had listened to the sounds of the night in the building, and after midnight the boys in the restroom put a movie on – porn, from the soundtrack. He had strained to hear movement in the corridor, the Sixer dragging his body along and going past the door where they whooped applause for the actors, but he had heard only the quiet. He had not heard the door opening or closing. Had waited for the rifle shots and the yelling and the guys rampaging at the start of a search, but the film had finished and the TV was killed and the guys rested. A hell of a man, the Sixer, and gone before first light. Then the chaos had begun, and panic, but everyone knew that he had been asleep. A phone number was lodged in his boot. He had appeared to sleep until the shouting burst around him. It had been a long time ago, much water had gone under the bridge since then. What to say?
‘How are you doing?’
‘Doing all right, why would I not be?’
‘This is a bad place at a bad time . . . He’s coming, on his way.’
‘What you already told me.’
‘I’ve done all I could.’
The Sixer said, ‘Perhaps we’ll wheel you to the palace for a gong.’
‘It’ll be difficult for a Hellfire in these conditions.’
‘That so?’
‘They don’t perform well in winds, and there’s cloud too.’
‘Any of that relevant?’
‘We get to know about Predator capabilities, because—’
‘It’s low on my list.’
‘Because, I wouldn’t want to get blown up by one of the fucking things. Will a Predator go after him?’ Belcher asked.
‘No.’
‘You turned me,’ Belcher whispered. ‘You gave me respect. I’d lie awake in the night and thank you. It was a precious gift.’
‘You were the right guy in the right place, for me – no more and no less.’
‘I put my life on the line for you.’
Belcher had his hand on the Sixer’s arm, gripping the fabric. He had a tremor in his voice: he had expected, when they met, that the Sixer would embrace him and thank him for what he’d done.
‘Water that’s flowed by. I never thought about you again.’
‘That’s it?’
‘Yes.’
Belcher thought he was lying. It wasn’t easy to discern, in the darkness, how his face shifted as he murmured the answer. Belcher was an expert on deceit. He’d had to be, or would not have lived. He’d seen enough of those who’d been killed brutally while a camera recorded. They used drugs on some so that the video appeared to show acceptance of guilt and death, but often there were no sedatives available, and then men fought back and were battered into the final submission. He’d witnessed these deaths and had always made certain that his features displayed the necessary interest and approval, because the bastards watched the audience. They might move towards a crowd, hands snaking out to pull a man clear, putting him beside the condemned. He might jabber his innocence – because they always watched. He reckoned the Sixer was lying.
‘And do you care as little about Henry – Miss Wilson at the camp – as you care about me? Embedded, trapped. Do you feel any responsibility for her, if not for me?’
‘I decide wha
t happens. I’ll make the call on her, not you. Actually, she’s a good woman – not your concern.’
Belcher asked him. ‘You have people on the ground for lifting us clear?’
There was no operational need for Belcher to be inside the loop. Corrie spoke curtly, describing a lane and an alleyway, and a lean-to with a corrugated-iron roof, and the animals and the fodder, and a place where the ground fell steeply from the buildings perched on the rock. He talked of an ambush point, and what would slow a vehicle, and a signal given to the marksman: the bare bones.
Corrie could have remembered then, fleetingly, how he had lain in the hospital bed in a corner of eastern Turkey and had muttered, through the drowsiness caused by the painkillers he was dosed up with, how he had recruited an asset, an agent codenamed Belcher, and given him a contact number. The response had been a chorus of laughter: ‘You did that, my boy. You are a fucking genius.’ Then Jericho had reached down and clasped his stubble-covered cheeks, and had pressed his fingers gently on the skin where the sunburn had suppurated into raw sores, and had planted a wet kiss laced with chilli breath on his face, then slumped back, laughing. He was the only man Corrie trusted, with whom he could exchange confidences.
Now Corrie heard men running with sandals flapping on the cobbles; he could see that more had fanned out, forming a net around the base of the rock on which the village – the maq’il – sat. He looked far down the road, and saw them.
Just sidelights, no headlights. He had the torch out. He flashed the power on for two or three seconds and then off and then on again, and taking a chance, giving the signal. He felt naked and alone, had done what he thought necessary, could not have backed away. Two pinpricks, coming steadily, as if a careful driver was at the wheel, not one that would have caused suspicion. The wind swirled around the buildings, tugging at hanging cables and snatching at his clothing. It was the moment of truth. Yes, they could have been on the communications and could have said that a great man – an Emir who was a High Value Target and likely had a multi million-dollar bounty on his head, dead or alive – was on the road, in a black Toyota pick-up with a bent and rusty fender. And Jericho might have passed it to the Agency people or military intelligence, and they might have a Predator available and might not, and might be close and might not, or might have bugged out an hour before because of the wind, and the lowering cloud ceiling.
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