Pitch dark. The moon would be up later but not for a while yet. He thought that when it did rise it would be hidden at first behind the mountains in the north, the west side of the valley at its open end. Then as it slid around it would light the valley, and this north-facing slope, and the lower part of the ridge, but the steep part where Kelso and Teal were holed up would stay dark.
Maybe it would be over by then, anyway. Yomping west, task completed…
‘Ray?’
‘Over here, Ben.’
Wilkinson observed, ‘They’ve let their fire go out.’
‘Here. Nutty.’ Ben dispensed chocolate, returning earlier generosity. They’d all been chewing slices of sugar-beet, but you could make yourself sick, after a while… ‘It’s not right out. Close up there’s still a glow in it.’
Chewing, looking across the valley towards the village, he saw a car come into sight on that high road — coming out of the village. Its headlights jumped up to full beam as it came into view, and its engine sound was a smooth purr, already receding. He hadn’t heard it start up.
‘Could be the Citroën.’
‘You’re right, Chalky, it could.’ Wilkinson had glasses on it.
‘If it turns down on to the Homs road, I wouldn’t bet against that either.’ Because it had come from Homs, or from that direction, a few hours ago. Not that it had to be of any relevance to the Swale operation; it was just that anything that moved invited speculation.
Cold. Not as cold as it had been in the mountains, but it would have been a pleasure to have pulled on a sweater.
Headlights still travelling north. Ray still watching it through binoculars. Ben left him to it, used his starscope to examine the camp, the stone hut, the wall on this side of the road a black streak scored into slightly less dark background.
Ray said, ‘Taking the hairpin bend now. It’s heading for Homs all right.’ There was a distant flash straight into their eyes as the car swung around through a hundred and fifty degrees, its beams then dipping as it nosed into the steep descent to the valley.
Maybe someone had decided Swale wasn’t worth waiting for, and was going home. More likely still, it had nothing to do with Swale.
Wilkinson was still following its progress. Ben testing his starscope over longer range, at the Valley’s wider part where the river looped and irrigation channels cut out a regular pattern of ditches. On that bend of the river, from which Ducky Teal collected water, a concrete pumphouse served the irrigation system. He couldn’t see it, couldn’t see anything at that distance; in fact a whole regiment of Swales could cross there, scale the goat—path to the qal’at…
The car was down on the flat, its headlights burning towards the ridge. Kelso would be looking down at it from the facing slope; Teal, farther round to the west where he could look down into the valley, would be losing sight of it as it boomed up out of the valley, sweeping up towards the camp. That wall was floodlit, and the nearer tents and the road ahead of it, all uphill to where it passed over the ridge and ran on to Homs. In maybe half an hour’s time that driver would be tucked up in a nice warm bed, Ben guessed, very likely in contact with nice warm wife… The starscope, clinging to the car now, confirmed that it was a fairly large saloon and Citroën-shaped.
Changing gear: having passed the camp, it was slowing, visibly and audibly.
Crawling along now. Then the headlights were swinging to the left: at the junction with the track that led out along the ridge. But swinging out of it again: and stopping, then reversing into that track. The sound of its engine cut off, and the lights went out.
Some Syrian playboy with a lass picked up from the village. If Syrians did that sort of thing, elsewhere than in London.
‘Could be the start of something, Ray. See you.’ As he moved off to the right Ray Wilkinson was sending Chalky down the wall at the roadside near the camp, and shifting his own position about a hundred metres closer. Ben was moving east, with the intention of turning down presently to get to the road on the far side of the parked car. Then he’d play Peeping Tom.
He’d covered about fifty metres when he heard a car door shut. Not a slam, but the soft thud was loud enough no hear easily in the surrounding quiet. Then it was repeated, and he guessed that two people had got out. At the same time, distantly, be was hearing an aircraft, without giving it any thought. Sitting, resting his elbows on his knees, he focused the starscope on that Citroën, and then around it and beyond it.
Two men were plodding up the track, away from the car and towards the high ground and the qal’at.
Logic and guesswork said they were going to meet Swale. So the obvious thing to do was to stay with them. But Sticks would have heard those doors, he’d have his scope on them now. He’d stay where he was: as they were going now they’d be closer to him in five or ten minutes’ time than they were now. So they weren’t likely to become lost to human kind, not for a while anyway, one didn’t have to rush after them…
Just as well. Focussing on the car again, he was pretty sure there was still someone inside it, behind the wheel.
So he’d leave them to Sticks. To cross the road without being seen by the guy in the car would mean crossing it about two hundred metres higher up, beyond the curve. Then catch up on the midnight strollers.
Unless that was only a shadow, in the car…
The driver clinched it for him, conveniently at that moment. He must have used a dashboard lighter; no match or gas-flame had flared, but a cigarette tip glowed brightly and then dimmed as it moved downward in a hand that came to rest on the wheel.
The aircraft noise was louder as he detoured eastward. Thinking who else would have seen the car stop and the men get out of it… Geoff Hosegood, for instance, wouldn’t have seen it but he’d have heard it. He’d know something was happening, and he’d be on his toes — if he hadn’t been before this… Ben turned down towards the road, still on a slant so as to get out of that driver’s field of view. He’s been hearing the airplane ever since it had started as only a hoarse whisper of sound in the southwest: then closer and in the south but still remote, irrelevant to his concerns here. But it was louder still again now, pretty well overhead. It would obviously be Syrian and still didn’t have close interest, although hearing it did remind him of the suggestion he’d made to Hattry about Sarbe communications — if the Crabs would risk it, or be allowed to risk it.
Which they would not. Sticks had been right, the idea had been crazy.
He’d crossed the shoulder of the hill: could turn straight down to the road now. Thinking that maybe he should have stopped and switched on his Sarbe. Having told them he’d listen out if aircraft came over, he supposed he should at least have gone through the motions.
Having crossed the road he veered left, over rock and scrub, to get to the track where the going would be easier and faster.
*
‘Foxtrot 2 Bravo, calling Ben… D’you hear me, Ben?’
Russell Haig took a breather, holding the mike in front of his mouth but with his thumb off the button for a moment. His co-pilot was doing the driving, and in the middle section of the aircraft Jimmy Drake, the tactical navigator, was watching Syrian airfields — Hama, Al Qusayr, Shayrat.
Haig had brought his Nimrod across the sea at zero feet, crossed the coast near Al Hamidiyah not much higher, over that low terrain where underground oil-pipes from Iraq reached the coast through the Tall Kalakh pass; he’s climbed steeply up and out of that pass, to nine thousand feet. It was a good height for present purposes for two reasons. One, low-flying would have added to the already considerable risks, encouraging every Syrian for miles around to put two and two together and maybe guess right, which wouldn’t have improved Ben Ockley’s local standing. Two, nine thousand was an optimum height in the context of the Sarbe’s upward reach from the ground, which was in the three-dimensional shape of a cone standing on its apex and extending upwards to a maximum vertical range of ten thousand feet. At nine therefore you were inside the littl
e transmitter’s range and had about as much horizontal scope as you could get.
For the umpteenth time: ‘Foxtrot 2 Bravo, calling Ben. D’you hear, Ben, d’you hear, Foxtrot 2 Bravo calling Ben!’
‘Skipper, they have us illuminated from Hama now.’ Drake’s voice came tersely over the intercom. ‘We’re lit up like Oxford Street.’
Radar-illuminated, that meant. They’d had one station fingering them within seconds of that soaring climb out of the pass. What TACNAV would be looking for and hoping not to find was missile-head radar, the kind that locked-on to an intruding aircraft and blew it out of the sky on impact. A Nimrod wasn’t designed for dodging missiles.
He’d be watching for Migs too. There had to be a limit to the extent they’d let you twist their noses. And that Hama field was getting closer every moment, on this flight-path.
‘Foxtrot 2 Bravo calling Ben. D’you hear me, Ben?’
‘Seemingly — and sickeningly — not. And not far to go now, not many more seconds over the target area. At any rate the designated target area… He tried again: same call, same lack of response, and hope of one just about gone, too… ‘Ben, d’you hear me?’
Turning to port. One last try — talking fast and willing him to answer: ‘Ben, come in, Ben!’
‘OK.’ He sagged back in his seat, defeated, as the Nimrod turned its tail towards those various dangers. Flying west now, and no more transmissions. Suggestions of trawling across the mountain passes and along the coastal strip had been turned down; if the SBS team weren’t in or close to the target area it was to be assumed they were on their way out; there’d be a Nimrod — McPhaill’s — over the sea at dawn.
*
Kelso held his starscope on the two men climbing the track, coming more or less towards him at some moments. At others he lost them, rock spurs intervening where the track wound through them, but always picking them up again as they reappeared just that much nearer.
Be would be trailing them, he guessed. Hoped… Because when they got to about this level they’d be passing out of sight from here. Unless he shifted his position — which would leave the north side of the camp unwatched. Those two would obviously have come to rendezvous with the Swale party, presumably at the qal’at since that was where they were heading, but the target was Swale himself, not a crowd of Syrians before you could get at him.
Ducky Teal was the answer to the immediate problem. Ben might not be all that close behind them, and you couldn’t risk losing them altogether. He might be sussing out that car, for instance. So move Teal higher. He was on the west-facing slope, two hundred metres from here, but from higher up he could still keep an eye on the valley while at the same time marking where those Syrians went.
He took another look, confirming that they were keeping to the track, then put the starscope away and moved off towards Teal.
*
Bloody dark. With the starscope or even binos from a good position you could see over fair distances, especially movements and light colours — like faces, even Syrian faces, that weren’t cam-creamed — but on the move you’d be doing well to see a man six feet in front of you.
Ben was on the track now. It was easier going, but it would have been unwise to have yomped it fast, maybe yomped right into them.
One of his trainers had split across the instep, and his toes were out of both of them. Kelso had been right about trainers as footwear for mountaineers.
Stopping to listen, he picked up their sounds immediately. Hard-soled shoes on rock, quite a long way ahead. He moved on again, still not hurrying.
Kelso would have sent Teal up to the top, he guessed. He decided to branch off from the track and confer with him. He’d pick the Syrians up again easily enough; they weren’t making any attempt to move quietly. He left the track and began cautiously to traverse the rock slope: it was not only steep at this level, it was a mass of crags, ravines, potential legbreakers all the way, and only an idiot would try to move fast over it when he didn’t have to.
‘Sticks…’
No answer…
He found the place where he’d been, a kind of cockpit among the rocks; and he’d left his backpack here. Ben squatted, using his ears and getting the starscope out.
Seeing him — within half a minute of putting the scope up — he gave him early warning: ‘Sticks, Ben here. Waiting in your hide.’
He’d stopped, but was now coming on again.
‘Problems?’
‘No… Did you send Ducky up to the qal’at?’
‘Yeah. Didn’t know where you’d—’
‘Right. Sticks, for your info, there’s a guy in that car still. Chain-smoker, doesn’t care who sees it.’
‘They’re noisy too.’
‘Yeah. Bless them… I’m going on up.’
He went back to the track. Listening from there, hearing nothing at all, he thought they must have reached the top. The track didn’t go all the way to the qal’at itself, and if they’d been still climbing, negotiating the last stage which was really a climb, he was sure he’d have heard them.
It took him about three minutes to get to the flat bit where the track ended. It was a plateau large enough to have parked a few cars on, if you could have got them up here. In days of yore the castle’s suppliers would maybe have unloaded their carts here; there might have been steps from here on up, or some kind of pulley-hauly arrangement. He crossed the level ground, and climbed that final stage. It was easy enough in daylight, but getting up there quietly in darkness meant taking it very cautiously.
Then he was on the top. Broken sections of wall, crumbling conduits, collapsed arches or doorways, short sections of flights of steps. And — movement — close to his left. And —he’d frozen, holding his breath while he concentrated all his senses on identifying it — separating itself from what might have been a chimney, a pillar but rectangular in cross-section — the tall, wide-shouldered figure of Ducky Teal.
‘Ducky, where’ve they—’
The figure jerked round, facing him. Reek of cigarette smoke, a fag-end burning between his lips. Teal’s build but not Teal — an astonished Syrian, gleam of white teeth in a dark face as his mouth opened, a gasped syllable of Arabic before Ben hit him twice in quick succession, a spearhand jabbing at his throat to cut out the incipient shout of alarm and then the edge of his hand like an axe where the neck joined that Teal-like spread of shoulder. Ben caught him as he fell: he was crouched, looking for the other one, his eyes probing the darkness as he let the Syrian’s body down and then left it, moving to merge into the dark upright of that chimney.
Controlling his own breathing so he could listen: but no sound, no movement.
*
The co-pilot answered Akrotiri’s question: ‘Negative. No contact. Over.’
‘Roger, Foxtrot 2 Bravo.’
Haig had taken over the driving, and they were over the sea now, well out. He was depressed by the failure of his mission. He’d been keen to undertake it, but his superiors had been very much against it. The pressure to go ahead had come from London. Now to come out of it empty-handed was galling, and left huge doubts over what might be happening in those mountains.
If he’d been able to establish communications he’d have first asked Ben for a report on the situation there, then told him that the Cousins were offering to lift him and his team out of their boats inside Syrian waters provided a reliable, guaranteed time and position for the rendezvous could be given. They didn’t want to mess around, but if it looked like a neat, clearly-defined rescue mission they’d do it.
Would have done it, rather.
Akrotiri was on the air again. Deep in thought, he’d only half-heard that operator telling Foxtrot 2 Bravo to stay clear of the base, maintain present height in a holding-pattern to the south.
He reached for his own mike.
‘This is Foxtrot 2 Bravo. May we know what’s the hold-up, and how long? Over.’
‘Wait, Foxtrot 2 Bravo…’
Quite a long wai
t… Then a voice he knew well: ‘Russell, we have two Harrier GR3s all the way from the UK and they can’t stay up for ever. Give us a break, will you? Out…’
‘Well.’ The co-pilot murmured, ‘What d’you know about that.’
‘Bugger-all… Take over, will you?’
It did seem that something must be going on, though. The fact that this unproductive Nimrod intrusion had been ordered from dizzy heights in London, that the Cousins were coming in on the act, plus a rumour that someone of importance to the SB Squadron’s operation was on the his way out — which was supposed to be why they’d been so insistent on getting a report from Ockley… And now RAF Harriers, for Christ’s sake…
He checked the time: 0128. He’d expected to be Akrotiri’s only customer; normally the airfield shut down at 3 p.m.
15
Having used his starscope from a distance he’d thought that the Citroën’s driver had taken off, but up close, looking in through a misted window, he saw him sprawled asleep on the back seat. It was better than having him wandering around.
0412 now. He went some way down the road before crossing it and starting up the rocky hillside to Ray Wilkinson’s position. The simplest way to get straight to it was to climb up from a recognizable starting point.
The Syrian he’d killed was now in a deep cleft in the rock slope on the west side of the qal’at, where Ducky had been climbing up when Ben had mistakenly assumed he’d already have reached the top. The man who’d died as a result of that misunderstanding had evidently been the other one’s minder, stationed at the south edge of the ruins maybe to watch out for Swale’s approach. About an hour after that event Teal had heard the surviving Syrian call out, evidently summoning the deceased one, then after repeated calls he’d gone to find him, peering into corners as if he’d expected to find him asleep somewhere. The dead one’s name had been Yusuf; his boss was quite young, tall and slim, dressed in denims and a leather jacket. Eventually he’d gone back to where he’d been waiting since not long after midnight — a flight of steps with an archway over them. This one smoked too; also — Ducky said — he talked to himself a lot, in tones of anger and complaint.
Special Deception Page 29