by Chris Ryan
His camouflage gear was packed up in his metal locker. The digital camouflage was made up of tiny squares, like a pixelated image in the familiar browns, greens and khakis. Sam was relieved to pull it on.
08.50. The kit was packed and double checked. RV in the briefing room in ten minutes. As he walked across the courtyard he saw two unmarked white minibuses parked up. Craven and a couple of other guys loaded heavy flight cases into the back of one of them. Away from Credenhill you wouldn’t give these vehicles a second look. If you did, you’d probably think they were transporting a school football team. But the flight cases didn’t contain sports gear. Far from it. These were the support weapons – a light machine gun, most probably; perhaps a mortar.
Unlike last time he had been here, the corridors of the Kremlin were now buzzing with activity. There were perhaps twenty-five guys in the briefing room and there was a low murmur of voices. Not rowdy, but not subdued either. The first thing Sam did was seek out Mac. The troop sergeant was up front with Jack Whitely, a sheet of plans in front of them. When he saw Sam enter, Mac raised a hand in greeting; Sam returned the gesture, but made a point of sitting at the back. Was it just Sam, or had Mac given him a penetrating kind of look? Ordinarily he would have told himself to stop being so paranoid; but just at the moment, paranoia seemed to be the sensible option. Someone knew more about his operation than they were letting on. Someone had tipped him off by posting that letter. Was it someone currently within the confines of RAF Credenhill?
09.00 precisely. Whitely did a head count. ‘All right,’ he said with brisk, military authority. The buzz of conversation immediately died down. ‘Looks like you all made it out of bed. Transport leaves in twenty minutes. No further briefing till you reach your forward mount position. Let’s get moving.’
The sound of scraping chairs as everyone in the room stood up. Sam led the way, walking decisively to his bunk to pick up the gear, then heading to where the buses were parked up. On the tarmac several hessian sleeves were laid out. Sam was the first to place his Diemaco on the sleeve – the others behind him did the same. When there were enough weapons on the hessian, it would be tied up into a bundle ready for transportation. Sam left it for someone else to do that, though. Next to the weapons bundles were the parachute rigs, straight from the para store – chutes, oxygen, goggles, helmets, straps. Sam had done enough high-altitude jumps in his time, but you never got blasé about making them and he felt a little surge – somewhere between apprehension and excitement – at the sight of the gear. He placed his tightly packed bergen in a pile ready to be loaded, and was first into one of the buses, taking a seat up front.
Tyler sat next to him. ‘Nothing like an away break,’ he commented as he settled into his seat.
‘Yeah,’ Sam replied, looking over his shoulder to see that the bus was full and the back doors were being secured. No sign of Mac. He must have got into a different bus.
‘Yeah,’ he repeated, his voice a bit distant. ‘Nothing like.’
*
Brize Norton. 12.00.
As they arrived, it was clear that the squadron was coinciding with another movement of troops. The airbase was full of soldiers. Soldiers leaving, soldiers coming back. Sam watched them from the window of the white van as it drove up to the bland terminal building. Some of them would have just landed in the UK for their R and R package in the middle of their tours. They were the ones with smiles on their faces. The glum, serious-looking ones would be returning by the same flight, most likely to one of the war zones of the Middle East. Kandahar, maybe, or Baghdad. No wonder they looked so fed up.
The squadron’s convoy of white vans pulled up outside the terminal and the men de-bussed. Once they were all out, the vans drove away. They would be approaching the special forces jet that was flying them to Bagram so that the gear could be swiftly loaded without having to go through the regular check-in process. Like a swarm of camouflaged bees, the Regiment men headed into the terminal. From the looks they were attracting from the uniformed squaddies all around, it was clear that everyone could tell they were not regular soldiers. And it was true: there was an aloofness about the SAS guys. Everyone in that echoing terminal building was on the same side, but that didn’t prevent a feeling of ‘them and us’. Sam just kept his eyes front and ignored the looks he was getting. The sooner they got on the flight to Bagram, he thought to himself, the better.
He queued to check in behind Craven, Tyler and another air troop member, a hard-nut little Scot called Cullen. Nobody knew his first name, or if they did they had long forgotten it, because Cullen was the only name he answered to. Cullen curtly answered the routine questions of the RAF soldier at the check-in desk before flashing his military ID and moving through to the lounge. Craven and Tyler did the same as Sam fished into his pocket for his own ID. It was a small, battered card, about the size of a driving licence, with a grainy, somewhat out-of-date picture of Sam and the few details that were deemed necessary for someone in his line of work. Name: Redman, Sam. Rank: Sergeant. Blood Group: AB. Religion: C of E. Sam snorted slightly as he read it for the millionth time. If he came home in a body bag they could say whatever prayers they liked. It made no difference to him.
There weren’t many people in the departure lounge, but they were all in camouflage gear, idling on the uncomfortable chairs and staring up at the departure screens and televisions dotted around the place. Out of one of the windows Sam saw pallets of cargo being loaded into the belly of an aging Tristar. That elderly war horse of an aircraft was for the regular troops or for their supplies. The Regiment guys knew they could expect something else – a C-17 – manned by special forces crew; but until its departure was announced, Sam would be staying here. He bought scalding hot, tasteless coffee in a plastic cup from a machine and stared blankly up at a news programme on one of the television screens. The hawk-like face of the Russian prime minister beamed the smile of a politician.
Sam found a deserted corner of the lounge and settled down to wait.
*
The cabin smelt of that mixture of grubby upholstery and air conditioning that clings to aircraft the world over; the engines were already humming. The squadron spread themselves out – there was plenty of room to do so. Almost immediately several of the guys started pulling hammocks from their bags and pinning them to the side of the cabin. Once take-off had been completed, they would knock back a sleeping pill and use the seven-hour flight to get some shut-eye. Along one side of the cabin there was a double line of stretcher beds. The first time Sam had ever been on a military flight – years ago, now – the sight of these beds had been more than a little unnerving. Now they were just part of the furniture, despite the fact that he’d seen plenty of guys unconscious, dripped up and full of morphine on those things. Some of them had survived; some of them hadn’t. You didn’t think of the ones who never made it when you were preparing to go out into the field. Do that and you’d never go anywhere, or do anything.
He chose a window seat over the wing and buckled himself in as soon as he sat down. He turned to look out of the window, but almost immediately he became aware of somebody taking a place in his row of seats. Sam turned to look. It was Mac. His friend was eyeing him a little suspiciously.
‘You all right?’ he asked.
Sam sniffed and looked away. ‘Course,’ he replied, aware how disagreeable he sounded. ‘Shouldn’t I be?’
He sensed Mac shrugging. ‘Dunno, mate. Just look like you’ve been sucking a lemon all day, that’s all.’
‘Just tired of schlepping to and from…’
‘Me too,’ Mac interrupted.
They sat in awkward silence.
The noise of the engines increased slightly and the aircraft gradually edged into movement. Sam could feel Mac’s gaze on him, but he stubbornly refused to return it. Normally in this situation he’d feel a sense of camaraderie. He’d want to talk to the guys, to feel comfortable with them. It was important. It would help grease the wheels in the field. But Sa
m felt totally unable to do it. He felt as alien to the squadron as they felt to the squaddies queuing up in the terminal building. With the others he could pretend. But with Mac… no. The man sitting next to him knew him too well. Mac would be able to see through any forced smiles or half-arsed banter.
The calm voice of the captain came over the loudspeaker. Sam barely heard it. He continued to stare out of the window as the aircraft turned on to the runway, accelerated sharply and smoothly rose into the air. The plane juddered as it hit the cloud line; Sam remained as still as a statue. Only when it was levelling off did he allow himself to turn back to Mac.
His friend was still looking at him. A thoughtful look. He opened his mouth as though about to say something and Sam felt his stomach lurch slightly. But Mac said nothing, having clearly thought better of it. When he did finally speak, it was not in the conversational tones of a friend. It was as a troop sergeant talking to one of his unit.
‘I’m going to do the rounds,’ he said. ‘Talk to the guys. We’re going in tonight. There won’t be much time at Bagram to rest up. You should get some sleep.’
Sam nodded, then looked away again. Mac didn’t move, though, so he turned back with one eyebrow raised enquiringly. His friend’s lips were pursed, his eyebrows narrow. He held out his hand and offered Sam a small white pill. Zaleplon – half the squadron would be taking them to blank out the boredom of the flight. ‘I mean it, Sam,’ he said quietly. ‘Get some sleep.’
Sam took the pill. He rolled it around thoughtfully in his fingertips. Mac was suspicious of something, that much was clear. Did he know? Did he suspect? Sam couldn’t tell. What was more, he was never going to find out while they were 30,000 feet up and surrounded by the rest of the squadron. And it was true. He could use some sleep.
‘Thanks, Mac,’ he said. He popped the pill in his mouth, swallowed it and pushed his chair back.
Unlike most people, Sam could sleep easily in an aircraft seat and that was exactly what he intended to do.
*
It was the pilot’s voice that woke him. He roused himself quickly from his deep, dreamless sleep. The Zaleplon had knocked him out, but also ensured that he woke up feeling alert. Outside it was dark and he could feel that the aircraft was beginning to lose height. Looking around, he saw that the rest of the guys were getting ready for landing, removing their hammocks and settling down in their seats. There was quiet in the cabin – the quiet of anticipation, broken only by the noise of the engines and now by the pilot’s announcement.
‘Gentlemen, we’ll soon be landing at Bagram. To conform with the current night-landing regulations in this operational theatre, we’ll be turning off all lights both inside and outside the aircraft. Please ensure your seatbelts are fastened and your luggage is safely stowed.’
As it always did, it struck Sam as faintly ridiculous that this instruction should be given to a bunch of guys who, only a few hours from now, would be hurling themselves from the back of a plane. But he checked his belt nevertheless.
The lights were switched off soon after that, plunging the cabin into pitch darkness. Looking out the window Sam saw that even the small wing lights were no longer flashing. Down below he could make out an occasional fire, evidence of a settlement in the arid expanse of northern Afghanistan. How many Taliban were out there, he wondered idly, mortars at the ready in the hope that they might see an ISAF forces aircraft in the sky and get lucky with a potshot? If that happened, they’d get to fall from a plane a bit earlier than they expected, so Sam was more than happy to go through the procedure of a blind landing.
Cloaked in that precarious blackness, with only the whining sound of the jet engines for company, Sam felt at once vulnerable and strangely comforted. Darkness suited him. Hid him. As a Blade he’d been taught to live and hide in the shadows, out on patrols, making himself unseen, always being the grey man. That was the drill – disguise yourself whenever possible, then close in on your target and neutralise it. That was really all he knew.
He heard the pilot’s voice, as calm and reassuring as if he had just delivered a planeload of holiday makers to the Costa del Sol.
‘Welcome to Afghanistan,’ he announced, as the plane turned from the runway and trundled towards the main terminal building of Bagram Airbase.
NINE
It was only Sam’s second visit to Bagram. Most of his previous ops in Afghanistan had been in Helmand Province, which meant a flight to Kandahar in the south before connecting to Camp Bastion a bit further west. But in the summer of 2006 he and three others had been assigned to a job guarding an Afghan politician with an unpronounceable name who, on the instruction of President Hamid Karzai, was making an under-the-radar deputation to a warlord in Parvan Province. He was an unlikeable man who treated the Regiment unit like his own personal servants. At least, he had on the way there. They had left Kabul in an armoured vehicle and as they approached the warlord’s village they had driven straight into an ambush. The unit had fought their way out of it and hotfooted back to Kabul, noses bloodied but no lives lost. The politician had wet himself in the middle of the firefight, though. He was a lot less bolshie on the return journey. The secret talks, of course, were never held.
Having been here once before, then, Sam knew what to expect. The large runway was surrounded by three big aircraft hangars. Various other support buildings – originally built by the Soviets during their occupation – provided a pretty basic level of facilities to the troops at the base, though lots of them were little more than empty shells, having been destroyed by warring Afghan factions over the years. The airfield itself was surrounded by the enormous, craggy, snow-topped mountains that characterised this part of the world, but these were obscured by the darkness as Sam and the rest of the squadron disembarked into the warm, dry air. Instead, all they could see were the bright lights and bustle of the airfield at work. The loadies had already started to unload their pallets of equipment and forklift them on to a truck, while the guys themselves were directed towards one of the hangars, outside which an American A-10 Thunderbolt was parked. The aircraft had a mouthful of shark-like teeth painted on its nose, from which protruded a 30 mm gun. Even though it was 11 p.m. and still swelteringly hot, a technician was hard at work on the undercarriage – he barely glanced at the men who, almost deafened by the roar of their own aircraft’s engines, walked past him and into the hangar.
It was a huge, cavernous space the size of a couple of football pitches. There were three aircraft housed in there, but hardly any people: just a British Army representative who ushered them in towards the right where an area had been walled off with some temporary partitions. Waiting for them was a man in regular civvies. He wore square glasses with titanium rims and had a tanned face that was beginning to show signs of age. His hair was black, though, with no sign of grey: it was impossible to tell how old this man was and his expression was similarly inscrutable. Sam remembered Whitely saying that a representative from the Security Service would be waiting for them. The moment he saw him, one word went though Sam’s head: ‘wanker’. The very sight of him filled Sam with a sudden, burning anger.
Once the squadron was assembled, the man spoke – the clear, confident voice of someone used to talking in public. ‘Don’t get too comfortable, gentlemen,’ he announced. ‘You’ll be going in tonight.’ He looked around. ‘Air troop sergeant?’
Mac stepped forward.
The spook nodded. ‘Get your lads together. The rest of you, remain on standby.’
The British Army representative spoke up. ‘You can get food at the PX,’ he announced. ‘And I’ll show you where you can bunk down.’ He walked back towards the entrance of the hangar. There was a brief moment of camaraderie among the men – those who were remaining on standby briefly shaking hands with those going on the op. Nothing over the top. Nothing showy. Nobody said ‘good luck’; nobody said anything at all, really.
The others quickly melted away, leaving the eight members of air troop alone with the spook. Th
ere was Sam and Mac, Craven, Tyler and Cullen; and three others. Matt Andrews was the troop medic. He was black-skinned with short, cropped hair and a quiet, serious manner. Steve Davenport was one of the regiment’s parachute instructors. He’d done more HALOs than most of the guys had had hot dinners; he’d taught half of them everything they knew and it was always good to have him along during an airborne insertion. And finally there was Hill Webb. Real name Hillary, but call him that and you’d be given a pretty swift demonstration of the Regiment’s more advanced fighting skills. Sam had always found him to be a testy little fucker, but sometimes that was exactly what you wanted.
‘You’ve been briefed on the basic nature of the operation?’ the spook asked when they were all alone. It was only half a question, though, and didn’t require an answer. He turned and led them to a corner of the partitioned room where a large whiteboard had been erected. Two maps were pinned to the board, both of them a couple of metres square. One was an aerial view of a piece of land, crystal clear. It looked like it had been photographed from only a hundred metres up, but in fact it was a satellite image. Next to it was a simple map, a line drawing showing the salient areas of the region in more detail.
‘Your objective is here,’ the spook told them, without preamble. He pointed to three long, rectangular-shaped buildings, set at right angles to each other in a horseshoe arrangement with a small, separate building, not much bigger than a shed, at the north-west corner. Arcing round from the south of the training camp to the west was a thin band of forest. Sam glanced at the scale and estimated it to be about two hundred metres deep. North of the camp and the forest, running west to east was a perfectly straight road. Still further east, stretching further than the boundary of the maps, was what looked like agricultural land. The spook pointed at it. ‘Hemp plants,’ he told them shortly. ‘This area is known as the Chu Valley. It ’s a major centre for marijuana production. There are no major settlements close by, but you need to be aware of the possibility of hemp farmers moving their product up and down this road under cover of night.’