Wilco- Lone Wolf 9

by Geoff Wolak

  The tracks led on and we followed them, hard to follow in places; the wind last night had not helped us any. Nearing the road I could see men working in the fields and they could see us. Stopping and kneeling in the sand, I could see the jeep treads, only they weren’t jeep treads.

  ‘Swifty, what do those look like?’

  ‘Car treads. BMW, I used to have one.’

  ‘They didn’t drive from Algeria in one, so maybe hired local cars, two of them.’ I pointed. ‘Here we go.’

  Swifty smiled. ‘Someone took a shit.’

  Finding a crisp packet, I gathered the dried lumps and pocketed them.

  ‘That’s why the SAS take their shit with them,’ Swifty noted.

  I stood. ‘They drove in from the south, out the south, so ... not Timbuktu.’

  Walking back, I called Freetown and asked for our Hercules at noon the next day. Reaching the bottling plant, my snipers waiting, I told the French manager I wanted jeeps or a truck for a trip to Timbuktu, to the British Consulate I knew was there.

  He waved us to his jeeps, and we again navigated around the pipes to an admin building, drivers and jeeps allocated. I had the lads keep rifles on the floor of the vehicles, webbing off, bandoliers off, pistols ready. Happy that the local police would not shoot us on sight, we set off north as the sun hung low on the horizon.

  I called Hunt. ‘Have the British Consulate in Timbuktu expect us, coffee on.’

  ‘Found anything?’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Shit?’

  ‘Dried shit.’

  ‘Ah, DNA evidence.’

  ‘Notify the French Consulate in the Timbuktu that we’re heading in with evidence.’

  ‘OK, I’ll call the new French guy at GL4. He can start earning his keep.’

  A half hour drive saw the flat expanses turn into agricultural areas, small villages, then the brown mud-brick houses of Timbuktu. But the ancient town also housed a more modern part, and our local driver knew the way, to where the consulates were.

  We eventually found the gated and guarded consulate, allowed in after torches were shone in our faces. Parked, two Brits stepped out and across to us.

  ‘Captain Wilco?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not sure what we’re expected to do to assist you, but we were told to assist you, so -’

  ‘Need you to send some secure parcels, and ... do you have a photocopier?’

  ‘Yes, photocopier inside. Come.’

  I led the team in, a room found for them, Nicholson handing over the sheets. I told my hosts, ‘Crude finger prints. If you photocopy the sheets you often get the prints, so try it, then send them to SIS London first class. Also...’ I handed him the crisps packet. ‘Dried shit.’

  ‘Dried shit?’

  ‘From a terrorist.’

  ‘Ah. To be sent to London no doubt, not just someone you don’t like.’

  I smiled. ‘SIS London, from me, ask for DNA work. Also got a cigarette packet to get prints off.’

  The French officials appeared, welcomed in, coffee made, my lads sat in a side room, cake and sandwiches offered. The photocopies revealed faint prints, and were faxed off to SIS London, a copy to French Intel.

  I asked my hosts where I might hire a BMW around here. They did not know of a place in Timbuktu, so I asked them to find a place that was south, and I asked for them to stay late.

  After half an hour both the British and French agreed that the only place to hire BMWs was in Baramko, the capital, a long drive southwest.

  ‘Map please,’ I called, and they fetched a map, all of the staff now keenly observing, and I got the impression they did not do much around here of a evening.

  A finger on the map, and I said, ‘Petrol station here, get a local listing, call them, ask about two BMW’s day before yesterday, six smart dressed Arab men. Now please.’

  Looks exchanged, they got to work, a total of eight petrol stations on the list to call. Two threw up the same men, six smart dressed Arabs, two black BMWs. And none of the men were over twenty-five, so Hammad was not with them for this act of vandalism.

  ‘Gentlemen, I want the local counter-terrorist police to that BMW dealership in the morning, records gone over.’

  I called Tinker. ‘You awake?’

  ‘What time do you think I go to bed?’

  ‘Just checking. Listen, I want all passenger manifests for aircraft, Baramko in Mali north to any Arab state or to France, yesterday and the day before, then hotels yesterday night.’

  ‘Won’t be easy, have to send someone to the airline desk for the records; would take six months to be logged by Interpol. French have men down there, I’ll get their guy on it in the morning.’

  ‘OK, put the pressure on. Looking for six young men, smartly dressed Arabs. And we just faxed SIS London with their prints. Try Hammad’s son first.’

  ‘OK, will do. I’ll send them an email now.’

  ‘Email? All the latest technology, eh.’

  ‘It’s quick and secure, unlike a letter in the post.’

  Off the phone, I told my hosts we needed a place to stay. The Brits had no rooms, but the French had rooms, so we headed over there after I thanked my British hosts.

  A short distance away, around a hundred yards, we were allocated rooms in the French consulate, much larger than the British, all of us having to double up, a few on the floor, Henri organising food and bottled water.

  Several of us ventured onto a flat roof, water boiled for a tea as if we were in the desert, and we sat against a wall under the stars, peering out across ancient Timbuktu.

  Swifty idly commented, ‘These six men, they’re not the most switched on terrorists.’

  ‘No, amateurs,’ I agreed.

  Henri put in, ‘Down here they expect poor and slow police work.’

  ‘And they were fucking right,’ Swifty noted. ‘We did their jobs for them!’

  As we finished our tea, sat staring at the twinkling lights of the town, a French official came out to the flat roof. ‘Ah, here you are. Paris matched a fingerprint to the son of Mohammad Ali Hammad, his name Jillil Ali Hammad.’

  ‘Ask Paris to make him Interpol’s most wanted man,’ I told our host through the dark. ‘And right away.’

  The man scampered off.

  ‘Why’s the son doing it?’ Swifty wondered. ‘To piss off his father, to ruin the family business? He’ll have no inheritance.’

  ‘It’s odd,’ I agreed. ‘But sons often fall out with their fathers.’

  ‘Not in the Arab world,’ Henri put in. ‘First son is everything. Family is everything.’

  ‘So why?’ Swifty asked.

  ‘We’ll ask him after I kill him,’ I suggested, the lads laughing. ‘Won’t take long to find him, he’s an idiot, he’s left a trail anyone could follow.’

  ‘Anyone with some training,’ Swifty countered with. ‘And a keen desire to get out of bed in the mornings, not some local copper who don’t give a shit. If he had poisoned something in Europe he would have been caught on day one.’

  ‘The thing is,’ I began, ‘he’s targeting just French charitable projects, so ... he has an issue with the French colonial attitude.’

  ‘Of course,’ Henri put in. ‘He is Algerian, so a score to settle.’

  ‘He was raised in Paris,’ I noted.

  ‘Would not stop him hating us,’ Henri noted. ‘As a child he would have been bullied, called names by the white children.’

  ‘He’s not fussed about being caught,’ I thought out loud. ‘A young man, life ahead of him, could have been rich, so ... what’s on his mind?’

  ‘Religion, and vengeance,’ Henri put in. ‘He has become religious and sees this as his duty to fight back, a fight to the death.’

  ‘So why not poison the water in Paris?’ Swifty wondered.

  ‘It is well guarded, tested,’ Henri suggested. ‘Here he makes a gap between us and those we try to help. He wants the Arabs to distrust Paris, not French citizens dead.’
>
  ‘And French insurers pay a price,’ I noted.

  As we made ready to get some sleep, the senior French official knocked and entered. He looked perturbed. ‘A morgue in Paris has now identified the body of Jillil Hammad after the prints were circulated again, some oversight. His body was found in the river, and he’s been dead six weeks.’

  I exchanged a puzzled look with a puzzled Henri and a puzzled Swifty. ‘The son is dead, the father is missing, so who the fuck is poisoning the water?’

  ‘And how come the ghost of this twat is leaving prints down here?’ Swifty asked.

  Henri said, ‘If Hammad is sick, his son dead, he has nothing to lose. He sends men.’

  ‘To destroy his own company?’ Swifty asked. ‘And blame his own son?’

  ‘He has nothing left to care about,’ Henri insisted. ‘His only son is dead.’

  ‘Something stinks,’ I told them. ‘Either the body is not Jallil and the DGSE are fucking about, or someone is fucking about with the prints we sent. Either way, we can’t trust intel from Paris on this.’

  ‘Pah!’ Henri let out. ‘DGSE have an agenda here too, they tell no one.’

  In the morning we ate with the French consulate staff before heading back around to the British Consulate.

  The senior man told me, ‘Police moving on that car dealership as we speak, and the airport. Might have some answers soon.’

  ‘Jillil, the son, is apparently dead, on ice in Paris for six weeks.’

  ‘Then ... who’s our mystery man?’

  ‘Might find out from the car dealership or the airport.’

  After a coffee and a chat they arranged a bus for us, tinted windows, and we set off south along quiet roads, an hour to reach the isolated strip, a strip of compacted white salt. We found a guy sat in a jeep with an aircraft radio, and I called Freetown to confirm that our ride would be coming for us at noon.

  Stood there, I clocked a man working on a pipe, the man glancing our way a bit too often – no hard hat on his head. ‘Nicholson, use your sights over Tomo’s shoulder, man working on the pipe. Have a look at his shoes. Discretely.’ I quietly cocked my rifle, the others copying, eyes everywhere all of a sudden.

  ‘Boss, he’s wearing trainers,’ came from Nicholson.

  ‘Get ready,’ I cautioned. ‘Tomo, kit off, rifle down, two hundred yard dash to get the dicker, pistol only, I want him alive. Rest of you, when I say, spread out and get down, all round defence. Standby.’ Tomo got his kit off, a nod my way when ready. ‘On your marks ... get set ... go!’

  Tomo ran, I knelt - aiming at the man on the pipe, everyone else running and diving down, the man on the aircraft radio wondering what was up.

  The dicker failed to notice Tomo till a hundred yards out, then panicked and ran, but was slow despite his trainers. I put a round into the ground in front of the man, and he stopped himself, falling over. Tomo was there as the man got up, a kick to the stomach. A quick search, a pistol removed, and Tomo led the man back, the man being beaten along with his own pistol.

  Back at us, I pinned our prisoner down as the man in the jeep made a call on a sat phone. I twisted our prisoner’s arms till he screamed – as best he could with a face full of salt and sand, and in Arabic I asked questions. I was not getting answers.

  ‘You come with us to France,’ I told him. ‘Unless you want to make a deal.’

  ‘They’ll kill me.’

  ‘They won’t know!’

  ‘This man is with them.’

  ‘The radio operator!’ I shouted, Henri sprinting for the jeep, two rounds put into the engine grill.

  We soon had two men pinned down.

  ‘Jeeps coming!’ Nicholson shouted. ‘Armed men.’

  ‘Get ready!’ I shouted. ‘Hit the jeeps at distance!’ I winded the radio operator and stamped on his ankle; he was not going anywhere. Lying on my back in the salt, I got my sat phone out and hit a familiar number.

  ‘Duty Officer.’

  ‘It’s Wilco, we’re at the airstrip of the French desalination water plant in Mali, trace this location. Sitrep: two enemy prisoners held, in contact with hostile force, Hercules is inbound. Contact the French military in Mali, and quickly!’

  Phone away, I took aim as cracks sounded out, and I hit a windscreen, stopping a jeep. Men dived out of the jeeps, a few hit and spun. Rounds cracked overhead, the salt and sand around us spitting at us. I took careful aim, calmed my breathing, and hit a man knelt behind a jeep trying to cock his rifle.

  A man got up and ran off, hit in the back, a second man fleeing but hit in the head. Only one man remained, down and firing at us with some determination till someone got the top of his head. It fell quiet.

  ‘Henri, go left and around, stay down! Tomo, go right, hundred yards out, double tap!’

  Henri ran forwards, knelt and fired, Tomo doing likewise as we covered them. When Henri reached the jeep Swifty ran to him, and I lifted my phone as I knelt, my prisoners both crying in pain. I hit the nearest in the face with my rifle butt, demolishing his nose.

  ‘Duty Officer.’

  ‘It’s Wilco in Mali. Shots fired, eight men down, no casualties on our side. Update David Finch and GL4, and the French here. Wilco out.’

  Swifty walked back. ‘Not much of an ambush,’ he complained. ‘Fucking amateurs.’

  ‘As were the men poisoning the water,’ I noted. ‘Odd fucking bunch of weekend terrorists.’

  Fifteen minutes later we noticed more jeeps, these being police or security. We got ready, but I noticed the mine manager and his assistant in time.

  ‘Hold your fire!’

  Their convoy halted near the other jeeps and they soon stepped down, shocked by the bodies, and they finally walked over to us as we dragged our prisoners towards the jeeps, our salty-faced and bloody prisoners.

  Henri shouted at the mine manager, arms waved. Seemed that Henri was not impressed with the security around here, and was not about to be shy in his opinions. Weapons were collected, ID cards, our prisoners tied up – both men limping now, and ten minutes later a Puma roared in, circled and landed, young French soldiers running out. Henri greeted them as the Puma pulled away in a cloud of dust.

  My phone trilled. ‘Wilco.’

  ‘It’s David, are you OK?’

  ‘Yeah, lame attempt to ambush us, eight men, all dead. We got two prisoners as well, so pressure the local authorities to identify the men and make them talk.’

  ‘How did they know you were there?’

  ‘We landed yesterday, night in the French consulate, so they had time. Someone in the facility was with them.’

  ‘So that facility was not targeted at random.’

  ‘No, they had some inside help. At least here.’

  ‘Suggests an organised gang spread across several countries.’

  ‘Hammad had people in many places, so this lot could have been on his payroll.’

  ‘I just got the note about his son, which rules him out, and Hammad has not been seen in many months. So maybe someone else in Hammad’s company is doing this.’

  ‘Someone who failed to get his Christmas bonus last year wants to wreck the company and piss off the French?’

  ‘It’s a Muslim company, so I don’t think they pay Christmas bonuses.’

  I laughed. ‘We’re heading back to Sierra Leone. And Boss, take any intel coming from Paris with a pinch of salt; dead men don’t leave fingerprints.’

  ‘I see, yes. And the Americans were asking about the NSA man’s sat phone – and why you never handed it over.’

  ‘I went back a day later and we searched again and found it. Nothing sinister.’

  ‘And Gorskov?’

  ‘Wants a quiet life, no shots fired. He’s not involved.’

  ‘But he did confirm the assassin’s paymaster as being the Unita President?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well that closes one chapter, and we know it was not the Americans or the French that wanted you dead. All we need now is to stop the
water contamination – and find the ghost of Jillil.’

  ‘Plenty of intel surfacing, we’ll make quick progress. These boys are crap.’

  ‘I’m wondering why the French made little progress, given the cost to them, but if as you say Paris is being conservative with the evidence then they have an agenda here.’

  ‘They don’t think outside the box, I do. And I have Petrov to call upon.’

  With the sound of our ride registering I ran to the jeep, sat inside and grabbed the radio. ‘Wilco for Hercules. Receiving, over?’

  ‘Hercules for Wilco, receiving. What happened down there?’

  ‘A few local bad boys tried to ambush us, all killed, safe to land, French Army are here now.’

  ‘Roger that, on approach.’

  Out the jeep I shouted for the lads and they ran across, Henri having final words with both the mine manager and with the soldiers. Shoulders were patted, waves given as Henri ran back to us.

  With the Hercules hitting the dirt I had the men make safe, and we chased after our ride – salt in our faces, inside as soon as the door opened and off, soon climbing away, and now safe from amateurs with half an idea. As we levelled off my mind was on the French DGSE, and what they were up to, really up to. I was also curious about the white salt residue on my boots, and would it corrode them?

  My mind was also on how odd this all suddenly seemed, my thoughts back at Brize Norton, Catterick, and basic training. I had gone from being a nobody to simply asking for a Hercules to be at my disposal. Times had changed, and now I wondered why this was so routine.

  Back at Catterick this would have seemed impossible, but here I was, not even happy to have a Hercules at my disposal, worried about risks and consequences, the risk to my men, and of arseholes trying to trip me up or to lay blame.

  The fun of doing this had been well and truly squeezed out by the arseholes above me, and what should have been exciting was now just routine. I had to stop and wonder why I did it, why I still did it. This was every teenage boy’s dream, yet the arseholes above me – like the JIC – managed to take the fun out of it, every drop of fun.

  I sat thinking about what Rocko had once said: “You fight for your mates, not Queen and country, not the arseholes you work for”. Perhaps there was some justification after all about that old SAS attitude, at least some clearer reasons for an attitude that I now had a handle on.