Plenty to complain about, too. Swale late, and his back-up absconded. Ducky had expressed sympathy, in a whisper: ‘Not his night, is it.’
It wasn’t Yusuf’s, either.
Ben was shocked at his own blunder. One shout out of that guy, and the whole thing could have been blown. It was sheer luck that he’d been close enough to him to snuff out that shout before it started.
*
Geoff Hosegood was on the high ground above the mountain road’s junction with the track from/to the west. From the west if you were thinking about Swale and company arriving – which he was, all the time — and to it when you thought beyond that to the withdrawal afterwards. Not too long afterwards either: it was now 0417, which meant the night didn’t have much life left in it.
The same applied to Swale’s getting here, if he was going to make it before daylight. What was more, it wouldn’t be long before the moon put its oar in, to complicate the scenario. It was about rising now, would be a little while before it cleared the mountains.
The Swale team did have to be coming, or the Syrian wouldn’t be sitting up there. Geoff had had a visit from Chalky Judge, sent by Ray Wilkinson an hour and a half ago to update him on the night’s events. Including the gag that Ben had broken a Syrian’s neck because he’d thought he was doing it to Ducky Teal.
The moon was up, all right. Looking north with binos there seemed to be a diffuse pallor like mist on the floor of the plain beyond the valley. But it wasn’t mist. And — with the naked eye now — there was a lightening of the sky above that shoulder of the Alawis.
‘Nutty, Geoff?’
‘Yeah, Doc, thanks.’
Marines are natural sharers. They’re brought up to be.
‘You left the wrapping on, I’ve fucking swallowed it!’
‘All nourishment…’ Laker caught his breath. ‘Hey. Hey, what’s — Geoff, valley road close to the ridge, two o’clock!’
Hosegood had his glasses up, searching…
‘Yeah. I’m on…’
Also ‘on’ was the moon, which a moment earlier had slid its edge out from behind the peak, catching two ant-like figures — hunched, running now, a rush to get out of that sudden brilliance. Right where the Homs road began its climb up to the ridge. The other side of the road, above it: and Ben had guessed wrong, they had come from the north.
They’d escaped the moonlight now, lost themselves in the rockscape that rose from the far side of the refugee camp.
‘Doc — get to Ray and tell him, then Ben — or Sticks first if you don’t find him easy. And tell ’em I’m shifting down that way –—me and Romeo, OK?’
Laker was on his way. Geoff had to collect Hall from his outpost before he could move over towards the action.
*
As the C130’s engines wound down and fell silent Charles Hislop pulled the yellow sorbo-rubber protectors out of his ears and looked around the hold for his gear. One suitcase, packed by his wife in about thirty seconds flat while transport had been waiting outside the house to rush it up to Lyneham, and one duffel-bag from the base containing items which he might need but probably would not: para gear, drysuit, swimfins, ski-march boots, spare items of uniform and the field-stripped components of an SA80 Individual Weapon.
He wasn’t expecting to need any of it. He was here to organize and coordinate. But it was a long way to come and not have everything you might need with you.
He was the first of the handful of passengers to emerge — emerging into the lights of a staff car out of which a wing commander was climbing. At the same moment a jeep squealed to a halt beside it — Sergeant Bert Hattry at its wheel.
Hattry, Corporal Clark and Marines Kenrick and Deakin sprang out of it as it stopped. Hattry saluting, with a grin on his moustached, well-weathered face. ‘Great to have you with us, sir.’
‘Nice to see you lot. Where did you proff that antique vehicle?’
‘Only borrowed it, sir… The Nimrod drew blank, sir, not a whisper.’
‘Yes, I heard.’ They’d told him over the Herc’s radio. ‘Is the new outboard OK?’
A nod: ‘Froggie here’s done a routine on it, and we had it in the water, just a quick run, like.’
The wing commander, joining them, looked surprised as he got his first close look at the famed SB Squadron’s CO. Under the green beret the expression was so mild, the smile gentle enough for a curate to have worn it at a tea-party.
‘Major Hislop?’
The smile turned his way. ‘Yup?’
‘I’m Jeremy Cox. Group Captain McKenzie’s compliments, and there’s a meal of sorts waiting, if—’
‘Thanks. Very kind of you. And maybe a bit later… Look, would you give me just a minute?’
‘Of course.’
‘Oh, did the Harriers turn up?’
Cox pointed into the dark. ‘One’s being made ready for takeoff quite soon. 0530?’
Hislop checked his watch: ‘0330, being still on Zulu… Have they painted out the roundels and underwing serials?’
‘It was being done, half an hour ago.’
‘Great… I must see that pilot before he takes off, though… Hang on, just a minute?’
He joined his Marines, and continued walking, away from the Hercules, from ears that didn’t need to hear.
‘Now here’s the score. A bit vague, until we get the results of this next recce — if there are any, for which let’s keep our fingers crossed. A Harrier’s more suitable than a Nimrod — nip in and out a lot faster, and it can go slow when it puts the brakes on, if your team leader condescends to switch on his Sarbe. And of course it can look after itself, if it had to. So that’s out first move. There’ll be a Nimrod up shortly afterwards in any case, in the hope they may appear offshore: and who knows… Strictly between ourselves, the broader picture is that it’s been decided at the highest level that no effort should be spared to extract them at the earliest possible moment, and in so doing to accept such risks as may be unavoidable. Because whatever the effects might be, they’ll be a damn sight worse if we don’t get them out.’ He drew a breath. ‘So — we’ve two options, as of now. One, a Sea-Rider drop, by you four, to collect them and bring them out. This Herc I’ve just come in will be standing by for it, so we can lay it on at minimal notice once we know they’re on the water — or even on or near a beach. The alternative’s a pick-up like you blokes had, Super Stallion. The Americans are willing and ready to lift them out of Syrian territorial water as long as we can guarantee an accurate R/V. This is partly what makes it so desirable to establish comms, you see… But that’s it, so far. We’ll talk again when the Harrier gets back; if there’s no panic by then I’ll join you blokes for breakfast — all right?’
He walked back to the RAF car. ‘I’m sorry no hold you up.’
‘No problem.’
‘Can we start in your ops room, or whatever you’d call it? And have that Harrier pilot along?’
‘Surely. But Group Captain McKenzie—’
‘Maybe he’d like to join us there. I’ll look forward to meeting him anyway, but this is really rather urgent. I’ve got recent satellite photos and various things… This Herc’ll be unloaded pretty fast, will it?’
‘Like a dose of salts.’ The wingco opened the car door, ushered him in. ‘And refuelled, and your boats embarked.’
‘Oh, God, yes.’ He wound the window down. ‘Sergeant Hattry!’
They’d have to see to the loading of the Sea-Riders… Hattry assured him it was all in hand. The boats were on a flatbed truck, had only to be driven over, loaded and secured. Containers were already fitted, with essential gear in them, drysuits, chutes, the lot. ‘Gas-tanks full, top line, sir.’
‘What about rations? And water? You could be picking up eight very hungry and thirsty guys.’
He sat back. and the car moved off. He hadn’t mentioned that if they took the option of a para drop he was thinking of jumping with them. It was a personal inclination, but he was aware that it might not be
appropriate to indulge in it. For one thing, Hattry shouldn’t be allowed to imagine he wasn’t regarded as capable of running his own show, and for another he, Hislop, was supposed to be here, running this end of it. London was still vivid in his mind: the sense urgency, based on clear-sighted appreciation of the possible consequences if Ben Ockley and his team didn’t make it.
*
Tait growled. ‘Fucking moon…’
Objecting to it because just as they’d been thinking they’d made it across the valley, he and Denham had been caught in that shaft of light. Bob and Charlie, ahead of them, had already been up among the rocks.
They were now in the broken, craggy area half a mile above the camp.
‘Somewhere here’ll do you.’ Bob was winded, getting his breath back before he went on up to meet his Syrian. ‘But get into cover; be moonlight here, pretty soon.’
The Syrian was going to be spitting blood. Five hours late, almost. He had a ready-made excuse but it still wasn’t going to be easy… His breathing was now under control; he was squatting, using binoculars to check the topography, make certain of it. Earlier he’d made a fool of himself over the navigation, but he could make up for it now, he hoped. In Moscow they’d had a big scale-model of the area — the ridge, qal’at, every detail. The refugee camp was bigger than he’d been given to expect, but in other respects it was like revisiting a place one knew intimately.
‘Right then…’
‘Good luck, Bob.’
He’d planned on following the track that led up the east side of this ridge, but it would take time to get over there, over all the rough stuff, and time was what he didn’t have. This would be harder going, but so much shorter that it had to be quicker too.
The most significant effect of arriving this late, apart from personal annoyance to the Syrian, was that the action would have to be delayed. They’d have to lie-up for the daylight hours, and make the move after dark this evening. There’d be no moon then, either: and in a way he was glad to have a day’s respite — time to get himself straight, get his nerves in hand. It was going to demand a lot of nerve: he’d seen this coming, and feared it, ever since that first briefing in Moscow by Gudyenko and Vetrov. He remembered clearly how he’d felt — Gudyenko had been describing the operation, the fake atrocity, and Leo had been startled almost into panic, visualizing the problems not only of setting it up realistically enough to con Swale into believing that SBS personnel were indulging in mass murder, but also somehow to coerce the pseudo-SBS into actually doing it, opening fire on a crowd of refugees. But the general had said off-handedly at an earlier stage of that briefing, ‘This is detail, you’ll get it all later’: so he hadn’t cared to question that ‘detail’ either, he’d had to assume it would be explained later. Then when he hadn’t been able to restrain himself from interrupting — on that same, insuperable obstacle, as he’d seen it then, asking Gudyenko, ‘They’ve got to be hoodwinked, but also join in the pretence?’ — Gudyenko had answered flatly — flatteningly — with the one word, ‘Exactly …’
At that time, he’d discovered shortly afterwards, they had not had an answer to those problems. Hadn’t even seen that the problems existed. He, Leo Serebryakov, and the planners, Gudyenko’s backroom brains, had been expected to provide solutions so that the overall plan, the general’s own brilliant concept, could be implemented. Leo had wondered how often such plans might have been dropped as a result of the impossibility of building any structure that could support them: and whether it wasn’t about to happen in this present case… But they’d licked it, extraordinarily enough, and really quite simply. A staff officer named Pavluchenkov, whom had disliked for his tendency to sneer, had come up with this Doppelganger plan. Pavluchenkov was a German specialist and linguist, and he’d supplied the label as well as the solution itself.
*
Geoff Hosegood left Hall with Wilkinson and Judge, the three of them spaced at intervals along the drystone wall facing the camp. This became in effect the base-line. It was as close to the target as guns could be placed, and there were deep shadow this side of the wall so that they had good cover and a well-lit area in front of them — road, tents, the stone hut.
‘Ray.’ Geoff pointed: ‘I’ll cut over — like there, see?’
Meaning he’d cross the slope from right to left well above the camp, aiming to end up somewhere close to where the Swale team might be. Sticks was above them, and so was Ducky and most likely Ben, and by this time the Doc would be up there too. With these three closing off this end of the covert, Geoff would be the dog that went in to flush out the game. Or maybe just to point at it.
‘Be at the top, maybe, where the Syrian guy went.’
‘Yeah.’ Geoff nodded. ‘And what goes up must come down. See you, lads.’
*
Sticks had his starscope on the climber. He was in moonlight a lot of the time — the climber was, not Sticks — and hadn’t any clues about moving quietly or using cover. Another thing obvious was that this was not Swale. He was no more than average height, if that; and no ex-SAS man of Swale’s experience, even he was drunk, could be so clumsy.
‘Sticks…’
He’d heard, but he kept the starscope on his target. ‘Yeah.’ Turning very slowly to the right, following the guy up. ‘See Ben, did you?’
Laker grunted an affirmative. ‘Gone up to warn Ducky, told me to join you.’
‘This wally’ll be out of sight in a minute. Hear him, can you?’
‘Yeah…’ Doc got the climber in his binoculars. ‘Ben and Ducky’ll be hearing him too… Not tall, is he.’
‘Right. The big fellow’ll be down there, someplace.’ Indicating the rockscape below them. There was a lot of it, and it was very broken up, a jumble to the eye that made a kind of camouflage pattern of its own, but with the moon getting to it now it wasn’t quite the needle-in-haystack game it might have been.
Laker emitted a grunt of satisfaction. ‘There. Five o’clock, four hundred metres, guy going creepy-crawly left to right.’
‘Be one of our blokes.’ Sticks left the climber to get on with it, turned with his scope held ready. Laker muttered. ‘I’m on him now. He’s approaching the line your chum’s taking… Dare say you’re right, though.’
Sticks grunted then, as he found the target. Still hearing the other — behind them, up to the right… He murmured after a moment, ‘Geoff, that is. Moves like a fucking mantis — see?’
‘Maybe I should—’
‘Hang about.’ Watching Hosegood, and still hearing the unidentified climber’s scramblings receding, thinking over that suggestion… ‘Yeah. Get down there. Halfway, say.’
‘Right. Below Geoff, or—’
‘Piss off Doc.’
*
The climber was almost at the top. Ben tapped Teal’s arm, pointed to the right, saw him squirm away into moon-streaked dark. Moon and shadow… He flattened himself close to the lower courses of an ancient wall; the entire area was covered with the relics of the centuries-old fortification, all of it throwing long shadows for the benefit of those who knew how to use them. Picnickers’ leavings too: behind him in an angle of this metre-thick wall was a heap of broken glass and bottles, some intact and some smashed, as if someone clearing up the site had tossed them into that corner. Crawling, you had to look out for the glass.
The Syrian was exactly where he’d been for most of the last five hours — on crumbling steps, framed in an archway that was still intact and now in silhouette against the moon. He’d made another search for his missing back-up, Ducky had reported, searching around the ruins and calling, stopping on the brink above the drop to the plateau and staring in the direction of the car. Then he’d given up again, returning to his steps, grumbling to himself and lighting what must have been about his fiftieth cigarette of the night.
If this climber went directly to him, he’d be passing between Ben and Ducky. Ducky would then withdraw, fade away to take up a position down on the track, the east side of th
e ridge; it was a good bet they’d move down that way, and you’d want to stick to this fellow then, in the expectation he’d lead you to Swale.
The visitor rose into sight, moonlight. Twenty feet away. And the Syrian had heard him, had been watching and now saw him. He jumped up, started forward — peering, not sure whether this would be the guy he’d spent the night waiting for or the missing Yusuf. This one meanwhile doubled, hands on knees, panting like a dog. The Syrian advanced towards him, peering aggressively through the darkness: ‘Leo?’
It had sounded like ‘Lay—oh‘…
Now stream of fast, hissing Arabic, incomprehensible except for its tone — that of a man barely keeping his fury under control. The other one, upright now, raised his arms as if in surrender to the torrent of invective: ‘Hafiz, Hafiz…’
*
They’d got over the first stages of recriminations, and now they were at loggerheads again. Leo insisting, ‘Out of the question. Don’t you see he’d never go along with it? Nobody’d believe we’d pick a time like this!’
‘The fact remains, it has to be completed right away. Now, or not at all, we call it off. It was not I who came so late, you know!’
‘Listen. Hafiz… If I went down to them now and said we’re breaking him out right now, before dawn, they’d refuse. Swale knows we’d need darkness to get away in, there’s no chance he’d be persuaded.’
‘Then it’s cancelled.’ Hafiz flung down his cigarette and stamped on it. ‘It’s finished!’
‘But you’ve only to wait — what, twelve hours—’
‘My people will never trust Moscow again. I’m sorry for you — Moscow won’t love you, you realise?’
Special Deception Page 30