by Geoff Wolak
‘Fine by me, sir.’
‘What about our new guests? And ... security?’
‘Tell our boys and girls to be discrete, sir, but this is about hostage rescue, no secrets not to share, and we have French soldiers with us, and we had an American with us. Have the French guy liaise with Paris regarding Hammad and Gorskov, that’s now the priority for all of us. Oh, find out where in Guinea Gorskov has his aluminium operation.’
‘OK, get back to you soon. And this intel on Niger -’
‘Will be passed to the French to keep them happy, sir.’
‘I understand the politics.’
Henri came and found me at 5pm. ‘French Echo will launch an operation in Niger, they have the intel. They were in Mali, at least half of them I guess.’
‘We’ll go into Guinea soon, then Angola. Might take some French Echo along since your government is pushing it.’
Sanderson called Captain Harris, and Harris called me in to the canteen, and to the map table.
‘Aluminium operation,’ he said, tapping the map. ‘Close to the border. Ten miles.’
‘Have a Chinook booked for the morning, to drop me ... here, map reading error, standby for casevac.’
Harris glanced at the RAF Regiment lads from under his eyebrows. ‘The government of Guinea may not be ... best pleased.’
‘They gave us permission to operate in their country,’ I insisted.
‘In the north east only, and last year!’ Harris reminded me.
I shrugged. ‘So we stretch that permission a bit.’
‘And London..?’
‘Will be given a timely update after I get back.’
With Captain Harris shaking his head I went and found Hunt and led him outside. ‘I’m going to stray across the border into Guinea by ten miles, and speak to some people in an aluminium mine owned by this chap Gorskov. I’ll let London know after, so keep it quiet. They want the results, not big on detail as to how I get those results.’
‘Ten miles, map reading error. Like Northern Ireland.’
‘Is there any evidence ... that I went south of the border in Northern Ireland?’ I challenged.
‘None, not a sausage, just the suspicion.’
‘Well, I can’t be jailed for a suspicion, can I.’
In the morning I assembled my team, which would be myself, Henri, Sasha and his team, and my snipers. All were told to leave ID behind, and Sasha gave out empty Russian cigarette packets, a few Roubles. With the Echo lads whinging at not being on the job I had Rocko make up a rescue team, to be on standby.
Rizzo asked about cash bonuses till he got a dangerous pointed finger from me.
The Chinook picked us up at 8am, and we flew the breadth of Sierra Leone east to west, across the border whilst avoiding towns and villages, and to an isolated spot. Off and running, I waved at the crewman before the Chinook roared around in a circle and away.
Weapons cocked, I had everyone get their facemasks on. ‘English boys, no talking.’
In Russian, Tomo said, ‘Your fucking mother sucks my swollen sloppy cock,’ Sasha and his team laughing loudly.
‘Good pronunciation,’ I commended. ‘If a Russian challenges you, use that – but expect a punch-up. On me, test radios.’ I led them off, teams forming, and we pressed west along a track at a good pace, not expecting any trouble here apart from a punch-up with any Russians we met.
I avoided farms, people and villages, a few small boys stopping to stare at us at one point, and we saw the mine from many miles away as we crested a ridge. It was a vast mining and refining operation, a river cutting down the middle of it.
Skirting around to the north over half an hour, I picked out what looked like the main building, and an hour’s study suggested it was indeed the main building, a top floor office looking very ostentatious, white men seen, but a black man sat in the big chair.
Henri tapped my arm. ‘There, fire escape, facing the trees, no people.’
I nodded. ‘On me, keep your facemasks on,’ I quietly called, and led the team down. Finding an abandoned concrete shell of a building facing the main man’s office I had my snipers take up position.
Moving down through thick bushes, stopping when movement was seen below, we wound our way around the side of the building, a guard noticed on the front door. Hidden from view, but moving in daylight, we benefitted from a timely downpour and so rushed to the metal-frame fire exit.
Sasha climbed up and released the caged steps, and down they came, a mad scramble to run up them, clattering as we went and about as stealthy as a herd of elephants.
On the roof I fixed my silencer as the rain came in sideways in sheets, loud curses coming from behind about the weather, and I quietly shot off a lock, the damp team soon following me in to the dark stairwell and down to the top floor.
A startled old guard got a rifle up his nose, a young black lady shrieking and dropping her files. Both were shoved into the main man’s office, wet muddy prints left behind by my team.
A white man stood with the black man in charge, both horrified to see us, hands raised.
I walked around a huge desk to them. Rifle down, dripping wet as they observed me and making a mess, I grabbed a pad and paper in silence and wrote down my sat phone number. ‘Have Mister Gorskov call me.’
‘Who ... who are you?’ came in English from the white man, but accented, obviously a Russian.
‘Petrov.’
‘Petrov!’
In Russian I said, ‘If Mister Gorskov does not call within one day, we destroy this place, kill everyone.’ I pocketed the nice pen, noticed by the smartly dressed black guy, and backed up out the office. On the roof we again got wet, soon clattering down the fire escape, onto a gravel road and sloshing through puddles as we ran.
In the bushes I looked back, no one following. I clicked on my radio. ‘Snipers, shootout the tyres of a few vehicles.’ I led the team up a muddy bank at the double.
Reaching the snipers, an explosion sounded out. ‘Report the explosion.’
‘It’s Tomo. When we hit them huge truck wheels they explode nicely.’
‘Five minutes, then withdraw. Anyone coming after us?’
‘Not yet, a few people looking out the windows.’
I led the others up the ridge, calling in the snipers, our tracks reversed.
At the pick-up point the Chinook crewman was not impressed by our muddy state, but that mud was almost dry when we touched down at the FOB. We were all in need of some dry clothes and a cuppa, all smelling damp.
Hunt stood waiting with Harris outside the building. ‘How did it go?’ Hunt asked.
‘Fine, job done, no one shot by us, none of us wounded.’ My sat phone trilled, an odd number. I held up a finger and stepped away. ‘Da!’
‘I am Gorskov. You wanted to speak to me?’
‘I have been contracted to kill you, and to destroy your operation, but ... maybe we come to an understanding.’
‘Contracted ... by who? Tomsk?’
‘No. I have ... other paymasters.’
‘You think you will find me?’
‘Yes. But I will find your business interests first, Guinea and Angola. After which ... you will be short of a few dollars.’
‘And this ... understanding?’
‘First, tell me about Hammad.’
‘That what this is about, that idiot! I have not seen him in a year, not spoken to him in six months!’
‘What do you know about poisoned water?’
‘Hammad thought someone was doing it to ruin him, he even believed someone had poisoned him, his health failing.’
‘After the British and French rescued hostages in Angola, Hammad sent an NSA double agent – Henri Gohort - to Sierra Leone to kill a British officer.’
‘You are well informed. That man took the money and ran.’
‘No, I killed him under contract.’
‘Oh ... and who paid that contract?’
‘You know that I would never reveal that
. You killed French DGSE agents?’
‘No, never, I am discrete. But I think either Hammad’s son, or the son’s driver, killed a man that was snooping.’
‘What was your business arrangement with Hammad?’
‘He supplied chemicals, I got to know him – he liked his vices, a visit to Lagos, young black girls – virgins. You know what these fucking Arabs are like for virgins. He also helped ship items to Europe, he had a secure pipeline.’
‘Because he was in bed with French Intelligence, for a while.’
‘Yes, they looked the other way, then it all stopped.’
‘Why go after this British officer?’
‘The president here, the Unita rebel president in the east, he wanted to save face, show his men what he arranged. That man mines the gold, I refine it and sell it.’
‘How many attempts did he make on this British officer?’
‘Why so curious about that?’
‘Just answer the question.’
After a pause came, ‘Just that one that I know about. The president here, he’s in bad health and dying, so he has other things to think about now.’
‘You have confirmed what we believed,’ I lied. ‘So we won’t be moving on you.’
‘You shot the tyres out of twenty trucks!’
‘I needed to get your attention.’
‘I’ll send Tomsk the fucking bill!’
‘If you want to deal with Tomsk, call him, maybe he can help you with a few things, he is quite approachable.’
‘They say he is a short fat idiot..?’
I suppressed a smile. ‘That’s just a front. He’s a sharp-minded man. And he makes three billion dollars a year, so he’s doing something right.’
‘Well, maybe I chat to him, ask him for some money for new fucking tyres!’
I cut the call and walked back to Hunt as he stood near the front of the building. ‘That was Gorskov, and he had nothing to do with it, at least not much. He mines gold in Eastern Angola, and pays off the president there, and the self-imposed president lost his elite brigade to me – wanting revenge to save face. Gorskov spoke to Hammad, who offered his man – the NSA double agent.’
‘You just called him up ... and chatted?’
‘Why not?’
‘You chatted as Petrov,’ he noted, and I nodded. He blew out. ‘If this was done by the book, and I was earning my keep, the operation over the border would not have been allowed, or you calling a suspect direct. But it’s always a grey area, and I can see why you get frustrated at where the line is – hard to tell where the line is even for me.’
‘London wants results, but they’re never big on exactly how to get those results.’
I grabbed Henri and gave him the story, to update Paris, and I updated Tinker before I changed my wet clothes and had a bite to eat.
Paris called an hour later. ‘You spoke to this man Gorskov?’
‘Yes, and he’s quite approachable. He keeps a low profile and wants no trouble, and he did not shoot your man. He thinks Hammad’s son has a driver-bodyguard, and that he shot your man, caught spying on them. It doesn’t sound intentional.
‘And Hammad is in hospital somewhere, a tube up his arse; that is why he has not been seen for many months. Someone poisoned him.’
‘There was another incident yesterday, no accident, a saltwater desalination water works in Mali – funded by us, insured by us.’
‘You still believe that someone wants to get back at you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Desalination?’ I puzzled. ‘Mali has no ocean?’
‘They have huge salt lakes.’
‘Ah, OK. I’ll go looking for Hammad, maybe in that hospital bed.’
I called Tinker. ‘Forget Gorskov, all out effort on where Hammad is, and he might be getting medical care. Need to know what doctor he used, what’s wrong with him, then where he is.’
‘Israelis were not keen till I mentioned Hammad, and now they’re very keen.’
‘Could the fucking Israelis be poisoning the water? It’s just Arabs being targeted.’
‘They wouldn’t want to upset Paris, and the French are terrified of the final insurance bill. And some of the insurers are Jewish companies!’
‘A place in Mali was hit yesterday, so ask the French guy to get the detail and get me access to it. Run a list of people using hotels or petrol stations nearby, anything, see if the ghost of Hammad in his blue hospital gown – arse showing - had been anywhere near it, get everyone on that, then get me a list of water works sponsored by the French Government, and try and figure a good next target eh.’
‘I’ll have Interpol looking for a man in a blue hospital gown wandering around the deserts of Mali!’
I called the airport and asked for Hercules as an emergency flight. They had one sat there. Chinook requested, I put together a team. Swifty was here so I grabbed him, as well as Henri and my snipers.
Hunt asked, ‘Why go to this place? They’ll be long gone.’
‘Tracks, evidence, and I want to know if it was an accident, an employee, or if someone came over the fence.’
I asked Captain Harris to hold the fort before we boarded the Chinook, all armed as if off to war. At the airport I called Tinker and got the location of the desalination plant in Mali, the location handed to the pilots – who thought me joking when I said we were off to Timbuktu, planning permission to be arranged as we were on our way, our flight to be registered and noted by London after the fact.
The Hercules was already prepped and checked, and we took off quickly, soon heading north.
I went forwards and got the spare headsets on, the pilots glancing around. ‘You hear me?’
‘Yes. And our map lists no airfield where we’re going, so ... where the heck are we going?’
‘There’s a strip at the desalination plant, supposed to be big enough. This place is fucking miles from anywhere, so supplies by plane I’m thinking.’
‘We’ll have to eye-ball it first. No way to contact them unless we try standard frequencies.’
‘Let me know when we get close.’
‘We wait for you?’
‘No, come back a few hours later, wait my call.’
I sat back down, a few of the lads folding arms and closing eyes, but it would be just two hours, our target south of Timbuktu.
The crewman nudged me two hours and twenty minutes later and I went forwards.
Headsets on, the pilot told me, ‘Strip is ahead, man in a car with a radio. We got wind direction and length, it seems OK.’
‘In we go then.’ I knelt and observed as we lined up, the lake below us, the plant off to the right, many tall shiny metal workings, pipes going into the ground.
‘You’re not allowed to be knelt there when we land,’ the co-pilot quipped.
‘I’m not allowed to kill people either,’ I tersely replied, and I sat on the crewman’s fold-down chair and strapped in, just in case.
Touchdown was smooth enough, the rear door soon opened, and I led the team out into brilliant late afternoon sunshine after we had halted. We stepped down onto what felt like crunchy dried salt, till I realised it was dried salt.
A line of jeeps sat waiting, a French manager in a white shirt stood waiting. With Henri chatting to that man, the lads claiming seats in jeeps, I observed our ride turn around in a cloud of dust and power back down the runway and off.
After shaking hands with the French manager I mounted up, and I insisted that we go to the site of the interference straight away – no time for coffee.
It was a short drive under or around huge pipes, many men in boots and hard hats seen working on those pipes, and to an isolated part of the operation. Tomo tried his Russian insult on our Arab driver, but it went unnoticed.
We stepped down onto sandy soil, and in front of me lay a small shimmering lake that smelt terrible, a warehouse with trucks in the distance, a pipe disappearing into the sand, three small pump housings.
The French manager bega
n, in broken English and heavily accented, ‘Here we ‘av output. Good water, not so good, and for farming. Good water in plastic bottle, some water in pipe to town, bad water for farming, pipe to area east.’
‘Good water was poisoned,’ I noted.
He led us off, the lads lazily holding weapons. But then again, so was I. Another French man appeared from the bottling plant, and after a few words they showed me a can, about five litres. It had been poured into the output tank, valves opened and re-sealed, little other evidence left behind – save the very obvious can of poison.
I asked if the police had finger printed it, getting a rude reply from the French manager.
‘So no. Henri, I want that drum in a plastic bag or poncho, back with us – washed out first!’ I pointed at the second manager. ‘White paper, please, some diesel oil or grease.’
He shrugged and fetched an A4 pad, a small tin of oil.
‘Nicholson, sling your rifle. Finger in the oil, smooth layer over the paper as if you don’t want any on there, minimum amount but all over. Hand me sheets when ready. Swann, help him.’
The French observed us as if we were mad, closely observing as I placed the oily paper on the barrel and gently rubbed it. Peeling the paper off slowly and carefully, I placed a clean sheet against it and made a paper sandwich to take back, four sheets used on the barrel.
The French got the idea, and assisted as we finger-printed the valves and the area around the water tank.
To the mine manager, I said, ‘No one was seen?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Lock was broken?’
‘Oui!’
I used the greasy paper on the door before taking in the terrain. Northeast, half a mile away sat agricultural land, and a road. I led Swifty and Henri around the back of the bottling plant, tracks found. I knelt. ‘Six men, and you don’t need six men for this, so I’m thinking about armed guards to hand. And these are city shoes, not boots.’
I followed the tracks into the sand, up and down small dunes. I cocked my weapon. The others copied.
After two hundred yards I found a cigarette packet, five cigarettes still inside. ‘Not thrown away, dropped at night. Smokers don’t throw away good cigarettes.’ I lifted it so as to not spoil any prints. ‘Algerian. Which means they came themselves, not hired someone.’