by Geoff Wolak
‘I know the man in charge of the military contribution,’ the Admiral informed me. ‘And that actor has a five-film contract.’
‘Five! Shit, I’ve made his career. He’s getting laid because of me.’ They laughed. ‘I’ll try and get that guy to pretend to be me for a while, walk around some bad areas.’
‘He’d have to mad to want to play you,’ Dehavilland put in. ‘Rumour has it that a few people have tried to kill you.’
‘Just a rumour, sir,’ I told him.
The Admiral added, ‘One of the films will be about your drop onto that ship at sea, one about Panama. You’re giving Hollywood some material to use.’
‘That was not my intent, sir, it … just kind of grew, from my first job for Intel – which was in Riyadh during the first Gulf War.’
Dehavilland put in, ‘Caught by the local police having sex in a rooftop swimming pool with a lady newscaster during a scud attack.’
‘I deny everything that can’t be proven in a court of law.’ They laughed.
The Admiral asked, still smiling, ‘Major, what the hell are we looking at here, because the story from above keeps changing? They said to wait for you.’
I took in the faces. ‘This is secret, so … anyone in this room who chats about it gets his own private cell. Is there anyone here who shouldn’t be here?’
The Admiral checked faces. ‘I can’t vouch for the CIA team obviously.’
‘I know them,’ I assured him. I took in their expectant faces. ‘The Tijuana Cartel took delivery of twenty-five Stingers a few days ago, the ship that blew-up and sank.’
‘And you’ll go after them?’ the Admiral asked.
‘Some of the missiles are being driven to east Mexico as we speak. But, if we get a target, we’ll insert a team, yes.’
‘We could just bomb the location, White House is all gung-ho about such things these days,’ he suggested.
‘We need to know we got them, sir, and to identify them, serial numbers, and to count them. Is there a man expert with Stingers?’
An officer raised a hand.
‘Ever inserted with special forces?’
He looked immediately worried. ‘No.’
I face Dehavilland. ‘I want a man expert with Stingers, freefall trained, good with a weapon. He comes in with us.’
‘I can arrange that quickly,’ he assured me.
I pointed at the original expert. ‘Go find my team, give them a quick lesson on identifying a Stinger, not something made to look like one.’
He was led out.
‘Decoy missiles?’ the Admiral puzzled.
‘We’re up against some tricky bastards, sir. And as I said, we need to count them, inventory them.’
‘Where the hell did they come from?’
‘I’m not allowed to say.’
‘And if you get the serial numbers?’ he pressed.
‘Then the men responsible for the warehouse they sat in get their arses kicked.’
‘They’ll get life in prison!’
‘They … may not be American servicemen, sir, but a friendly nation.’ They exchanged looks. ‘That topic is off the table, or careers will be cut short.’
Looking a little annoyed with my last statement, the Admiral asked, ‘So what do you need from us, Major?’
‘An ability to insert my team, sir, by sub, helo or boat, depending on the target location, extraction by helo, some decoy missions, bombing runs if we find something worth bombing, and intel gathering, indiscrete radio chat.’
‘Radio ships are still in place,’ he assured me. ‘The remainder of the mission profile can be put together in hours. Tijuana is on our doorstep!’
‘The missiles might be out of town or down the coast, sir, some place isolated. Some have already been moved. I have men close to the cartel, so we wait some solid intel.’
My phone trilled. ‘Excuse me.’ I stepped out. ‘Wilco.’
‘It’s Tinker, back on nights,’ he complained. ‘Oh, I got that envelope, all Arabs.’
‘Saudis, who sent the Stingers. Send it to Reggie fast, not a word to anyone else.’
‘OK. Well I’m up in GCHQ, and we think we have Charall and his storage place, twenty miles down the coast, inland a mile.’
‘Hold on.’ Back inside, I grabbed paper and pen and wrote down the coordinates. I pointed at an officer and at the coordinates, and he grabbed a map as I stepped out again. ‘Any word on missiles being sent east?’
‘A confirmation of the original intel, and we’re looking for phone hits from the vehicles moving east. We have a cousin chatting to his other cousin, the driver. Oh, and Reggie sent me a list of code words, all about football but in Spanish, and we’re piecing things together nicely now.’
‘Good, some progress.’
‘The Spanish-speaking boys here mentioned the Stingers to some lower cartel ranks, and now there’s a shit storm of an internal enquiry in the cartel as to who leaked the detail. They’re shouting at each other, and they mentioned Panama being on alert.’
‘Panama may be a target, but we don’t have solid intel.’
‘Well the cartel men are puzzled by the alert in Panama supposedly at their hands.’
‘Good, at least they’re not in Panama yet.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Miramar, Top Gun base, about to go to a carrier.’
‘Get Tom Cruise to sign an autograph! Not for me obviously, my nephew.’
‘Your nephew, yes.’
Called ended, my phone beeped. ‘It’s Harris, where are you?’
‘Miramar base, where are you?’
‘San Diego, just met the Marines escort detail. Look, they’ll transfer me to some carrier, but I got fuck all intel.’
I gave him a rundown of what we knew already.
‘And reading between the lines here?’ he asked.
‘Some people like the FBI pissing about and wanting the voters to vote Republican.’
‘I can’t give that to naval officers!’ he complained.
‘Talk about CGHQ and the phone hacking and tracking. I’ll be on ship soon anyhow. Tell them you’re jet-lagged.’
‘I am! But it was a direct flight to Chicago, and that saved time. But we flew over snow, and that was a worry.’
Inside, they had the target location, suggestion of a satellite photo and a high altitude photo recon. I nodded my head at both suggestions, feeling tired.
‘Send that to the carrier straight away please. Is there a plane or helo to take me to ship?’
‘Helos are coming soon,’ they assured me. ‘Take you to the Kitty Hawk. Admiral Nielson is in charge of the task force.’
‘Admiral Nelson?’ I queried.
The man smiled. ‘Nielson.’
‘Ah. I figured the other chap was dead already.’
‘Long flight, Major?’ the Admiral asked.
‘What day is it, sir?’
Faces creased into smiles.
‘Get some damn rest on the ship,’ he suggested. ‘And a fresh shirt.’
‘You lost a man?’ Franks asked as I sniffed my armpits.
I nodded. ‘Young lad, good soldier, three rounds to the heart. He shoved his mate down and took three rounds.’
‘Brave man,’ the Admiral noted.
‘The man he saved feels guilty,’ I told them.
Dehavilland put in, ‘They often do, my father did. Man shoved him down, took the bullet. Visited the grave every year of his life.’
I gave him a tired look. ‘Staying alive is sometimes the harder option, sir, we carry around the memories and the guilt.’
He responded with a sad look, a lowering of his head, the assembled officers exchanging looks.
Half an hour later the helos touched down, men and crates loaded, and I waved off the group of officers stood with Dehavilland, Franks sat next to me, a glance at the green lights from the cockpit controls.
He shouted to be heard in the darkened cabin. ‘What we looking at here?’
&nb
sp; ‘A decoy, then they sneak the missiles north of the border and start shooting down airliners.’
He stared back, horrified. ‘Do they know?’
‘Not yet, because I can’t back the intel, the source is … out of bounds but reliable.’
‘Does Langley have an idea?’
‘They got the basics, and they’re smart enough to figure this out.’
‘Why not tell them?’ he complained.
‘What if the intel is wrong?’ I posed.
He stared back as he considered that. ‘You’d get the blame for closing all our airports! Not even you would survive that!’
I lifted my eyebrows nodded back at him.
He added, ‘Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. And maybe that’s the real game plan here.’
‘I follow orders, remember,’ I said with a sinister grin.
After a thirty-minute flight we bumped down, doors opened to a stiff salty breeze, men led inside, crates seen being offloaded by efficient crewmen in large helmets.
I was led upstairs with Franks and Dick past numerous handy signs on rough grey metal, metal steps clattering, the lads led below. In a large command and planning room, on what I figured was the flag bridge, we met the ship’s team and Admiral Neilson - a tall and thin man with a stern look and a pointed chin, Major Harris stood off to one side. Harris was, however, in standard British army greens and the odd man out.
The officers here were all in brown short-sleeved shirts save two men at a computer, those men in blue, odd bits of kit hanging off the ceiling and coming out the walls.
‘Major, welcome aboard, and I’m hoping we don’t get hit by a missile, that creates paperwork for me.’
‘Best have a few picket ships out there then, sir.’
‘Got thirty of them out there!’
A thick-set commander asked, in a voice that suggested he was in charge of something, ‘What are we looking at here?’
‘No cruise missiles, to start, the Tijuana drug cartel took delivery of twenty-five Stinger missiles. So, step one, alert all ships with an air wing or helos to be very cautious around Mexican airspace or waters.’
The commander turned a man. ‘Send the warning now.’ He faced me. ‘You plan to go get them; we received a target location?’
‘That location is based on intel, and intel can be wrong, so an insert might be a waste of time but it has to be done, we can’t bomb them.’
‘Why not?’ he challenged.
I rested my fingers on the central table, a glance at the map. ‘Could be a decoy, intel could be wrong. We need to get serial numbers, and to count the missiles. Ten in that location, where are the rest? You bomb it and report the missiles destroyed, and next week they shoot down an F18, and it’s your career on hold.’
‘We’d not claim a successful mission till we knew, so ground forces would be needed to confirm the strike,’ he conceded.
‘I’ll send my team in to have a look, get serial numbers, damage the missiles, and after they withdraw you bomb the place to be sure.’ I faced the Admiral. ‘Do you have any orders regarding my position here, sir?’
‘We’re to support you in every way.’
I turned to the commander. ‘You studied the location?’
‘Yes.’
‘How far from the coast?’
‘A mile. Small cliff at the water’s edge, some footpaths down to the water, a tourist beach in summer – quiet now, scrub land for a mile, some tourist hotels scattered about south of the position. Should be able to move unseen from the beach to the target, helo extraction is easy enough.’
‘How deep is the water there?’
‘Shallow for a hundred yards, then thirty metres. 500yards offshore is deep enough for this tub to sit there, could insert by sub.’
‘Might be an option,’ I agreed with a nod. ‘Could we insert before dawn?’
‘Tonight?’ he challenged.
‘They might move the missiles,’ I explained.
‘Helos could move you, ships and subs would take a day.’
‘Do you have a way to recon the area by plane, thermal cameras?’
He smiled. ‘We have an officer who has a brother there with a holiday home, the man sat perched up a hill. He just sat for ten minutes detailing what he could see during the day. Place is stuffed full of American tourists and retirees.’
He took out a large sketch. ‘Jeep patrols are regular, some old men with rifles on a hill sat smoking, a dozen men in a compound seen sat about playing cards.’
‘Is it a dangerous place for retired Americans?’ I wondered.
‘Not really, unless you mix with the wrong people and wander into the wrong area,’ he explained. ‘Got to be fifty thousand Americans there. Some kids go to college there, others are … old and drunk, shall we say.’
I nodded, a finger placed on the map. ‘So … how about … you bomb the open spaces either side of the compound, make some noise, then a helo puts a missile into the compound – small missile to shake them up as my team lands close on the heels of the bombing, and we rush the compound and hold it.
‘It’s open ground, so they won’t get close enough to bother my men, who’ll be out in half an hour, and we have helo support. What’s the weather looking like?’
A young-looking officer put in, ‘Stiff onshore breeze tonight, Major, no precipitation, same tomorrow.’
I faced the Admiral. ‘Unless you have any objections, sir, we hit them at dawn.’
‘Dawn is good for us, be in place by then,’ he assured me.
I faced the commander. ‘We need a tight execution, to the second. Bombs, missile, drop my men. When my men step down they should smell the lingering smoke.’
‘We can do that,’ he assured me. ‘SEALS ready for rescue and extraction, medics on standby. Are your men rested?’
‘Tough shit if they’re not.’ I shrugged. ‘They can wake up and fight a few hours then go back to bed.’
‘You got a fresh shirt, Mister?’ the commander asked me.
‘Do you have one, my size?’ I countered with.
‘Where’d you fly from?’ the Admiral puzzled.
‘Liberia, sir, we had an operation there. Lost a man.’
‘Something on Reuters,’ the commander noted.
‘Is there a viewing deck I can use my sat phone on?’ I asked, and they led me out with Major Harris. It a stiff cool breeze I called London and told them where I was.
Next call was Colonel Mathews. ‘I’m on the Kitty Hawk, and my team goes in at dawn, a place we think might have some of the Stingers.’
‘You’ll go in with them?’
I stared out at the dark ocean. ‘No, I’ll coordinate it back here, my hip is still a bit fucked.’
‘I’ve been moving teams south, odd questions being asked, but we have a great many men on exercise near the border. CNN ran the story about Panama, hold on … news just hit, they’re sub-texting that the Tijuana Cartel has the Stingers. No great panic so far.’
‘Yet to be seen what they do with the missiles.’
‘But you think they may try and sneak them north of the border, hence your idea of closing the border…’
‘It’s a risk we can’t take.’
‘Wait … something happening … the screen is showing a jeep on fire, border crossing incident.’
I considered Carlos. ‘Probably not related,’ I lied.
Called end, I said to Harris is a stiff breeze, ‘You all settled in?’
‘I learnt what to do on the last trip, got the buzzwords, know my way around a ship now, and I love these carriers. Got a book at home, studied it.’ He led me back inside.
Franks was waiting with an expectant look. ‘Been a border incident, RPGs and heavy machineguns used, six border patrol officers hurt.’ He waited.
I glanced at Harris as the assembled officers observed us, a look exchanged with Franks and Dick.
‘Something we need to know?’ the commander asked.
I took in their
faces. ‘It’s … possible that they want to get some of the missiles north of the border.’
‘What for?’
I hesitated, a look exchanged with Franks. I finally faced the commander. ‘To shoot down civilian airliners.’
A chorus of whispers shout around the room as I stepped out to the platform again, the guys in blue turning heads around. I called Langley, the Deputy Chief awake and at his desk.
‘Wilco, there’s been a major border incursion, fucking fifty cal and RPGs!’
‘I told you this would get bad.’
‘What do you know!’
‘I suspect … that they’ll try and get missiles across the border and start hitting civilian airliners.’
‘Jesus, there’ll be a panic, our fucking airports closed!’
‘You’d best send my theory up the line.’
‘No fucking theory, they’re fighting their way across the damn border as we speak!’
‘Might not be related.’
‘How lucky you feeling?’ he asked.
‘Not very. Send a warning, just in case.’ I called Bob Staines and woke him. ‘Sorry to wake you.’
‘Needed a pee anyhow. I’m only fifty-one, but I pee more these days, a worry.’
‘Listen, get your friends in low places to release a story, a comment heard from me that it would be very dangerous for British tourists to visit Mexico at the moment. Work fast.’
‘OK, I’ll make the call. They might be up and peeing as well.’
‘After your pee, check Reuters, we got the game on. And don’t forget to wash your hands!’
I called London.
‘Duty Officer.’
‘It’s Wilco. Send to Cabinet Office and Foreign Office, from me: I strongly urge that a travel warning for Mexico be issued, just in case.’
‘The news about Panama just hit here, now CNN is running a border incident, a major shoot-out.’
‘From bad to worse. Make sure you’ve had your coffee, my team goes in at dawn Tijuana time. Put me through to GCHQ please.’
‘Wilco?’ came a moment later.
‘Yeah, is Rick in?’
‘He lives in his office these days! Hold on.’
‘Wilco, that you?’
‘Where we at, buddy?’
‘We just got a hit, and we’re sure we have the truck driving east, an approximate track.’