“Not to mention SIS,” I smiled. “And you too, right?”
“I think we can safely say I’m not the issue,” Easter shrugged. “My career trajectory is now fixed firmly in the crash and burn position.”
I got the feeling she meant it.
“My brief is to ensure that we get Murray back,” she continued, “before he’s tortured and coughs everything he knows. It’s damage limitation, pure and simple.”
Oz ran a hand over his perfectly smooth scalp, “anything else we need to know about this cake-and-arse party?”
Tom Dancer stood up like he was giving a Sandhurst briefing, except we were in a deserted office with sticky grey carpet and rising damp. “The plan is to extract Colonel Murray from the Kivuli Hatua secure facility, inside the annexed zone. I envisage an in-and-out job.” He tried to smile and lighten the mood. “After all, Seal Team Six bagged Bin Laden, didn’t they?”
“Seal Team Six had twenty-three fully-equipped Tier One operators, two secret stealth choppers, satellite cover and the CIA,” said Oz, “and a dog. I know, ‘cos I’ve seen the movie. And they only had to kill their target, not an exfil.”
“And one of the multi-million dollar stealth helos crashed,” I added helpfully. I’d seen Zero Dark Thirty too.
Juliet Easter studied her fingernails. “I’ll see if we can get you a dog, if that will improve morale, Mister Osborne. There’s a second objective. You need to escort my team into the prison.”
“This gets even better,” I sighed.
“I appreciate your concern, but my team aren’t helpless civilians,” she replied. “Apart from our technical expert, the rest are experienced officers.”
“I didn’t say you were helpless.”
“You didn’t need to,” she replied, cocking her head.
I finished my coffee and sighed. “I apologise if it came across that way. There’s a lot of new information being dumped on us in a short space of time.”
“Apology accepted,” she replied, rewarding me with a smile. “By the way, your fee is generous by SIS standards: a hundred thousand per operator, plus expenses and a successful completion bonus of twenty-five per cent.”
Dancer stroked his chin, pretending to be impressed. What a load of bollocks. It was chickenfeed compared to some of the dough I’d made for The Firm. “Wow,” I sniffed. “I won’t spend it all at once.”
Easter caught my expression, a smile twitching at the corner of her mouth. “You should see the pittance we get paid. As a bonus, upon completion of the contract you’ll be provided with a credible alibi for the Belov affair.”
You couldn’t put a price on that. It appealed to me more than money, even if I had to go to war to do it. I wasn’t going to tell Easter that half of my work on that job was for SIS, my first taste of skulduggery for Marcus.
“So why don’t you use your own covert operators?” asked Oz, “Special Forces or a legitimate PSC?”
“This has to be completely deniable,” said Easter. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but right now we’re a piss-poor little country with an army the size of a cricket team and the force projection capability of My Little Pony. Being sneaky bastards is all we’ve got left.”
“It has to be The Firm,” Dancer continued. “Nobody else has the capacity to integrate into an operation like this and remain genuinely deniable. Things need to look as normal as possible, until Mel’s safe.”
“There’s another problem,” said Easter. “The Zambutan elections are scheduled for early September. Whatever the result, there’ll be an army marching on the capital and then we’ll never extract Murray. I want him back within three weeks.”
I caught the laugh in the back of my throat, “three weeks? I’ll get out my pointy hat and magic wand. I’m a mercenary, not a magician.”
Easter smiled. She knew we weren’t in a position to turn the job down. “Abracadabra,” she replied.
I picked up the thick green SIS file, covered with protective markings. “OK, let’s see if you’re trying to kill me or not.”
“I’ll get Hugo,” she nodded, picking up her stuff and leaving the room. “He’ll look after you for the rest of today.”
Dancer caught me checking her out and smiled.
“How did you get wrapped up in this?” I asked.
He stood up and paced the room, “Mel head-hunted me in the early days of the company. I had nothing else going on at the time.”
“And what went wrong in Zambute?”
“Mel got too involved with the locals, went native,” Dancer shrugged, rubbing his jowls. He looked tired now, bags forming under his eyes. “Some men buy a Ferrari when they have their mid-life crisis. Mel started a war.”
“OK, what’s the deal with SIS going into the prison?’” said Oz. I could tell that escorting a bunch of civilians into a hostile environment concerned him.
“I’m not cleared to know,” said Dancer conspiratorially. “But Juliet gave me a heads-up. The Chinese use the prison as a listening post. They’ve discovered the People’s Liberation Army have a piece of their latest Electronic Warfare kit stashed away there. It’s too good an opportunity to miss – SIS wants to steal it.”
He went to say something else, but Easter stepped back in the room. Dancer looked like a naughty schoolboy and fiddled with his iPhone.
“Right,” she announced, “accommodation is ready. You can begin planning there.”
I stood up and shouldered my bag. Dancer led us out of the dingy office, towards the bare concrete stairs.
“Captain Winter?” said Easter.
“Yes, Juliet?”
She handed me a bottle of Maker’s Mark in a duty-free bag.
“That’s my favourite bourbon,” I said.
“I know,” she winked. And then she was gone.
CHAPTER FOUR
Hugo drove us to a derelict army barracks, on the westernmost fringe of London. Nestled amidst industrial estates and derelict pubs, stray carrier bags flapped like surrender flags along the barbed wire fence.
“Welcome to the Hounslow Hilton,” Hugo chuckled.
“We’re expecting a new team member,” I said, cracking open the car window for some fresh air. It was time to put on my team leader’s hat, pretend to be the guy in charge. My fingers gripped the duty-free bag and the bottle of bourbon inside.
“He’s here already,” Dancer replied. “My guys scooped him up from Heathrow.”
We were ushered into the long-abandoned NAAFI, which still smelt of spilt beer, Kiwi parade gloss and pies. A pit-bull of a man was sprawled across a threadbare sofa, napping. He wore dusty Kuhl mountain pants with lots of pockets, sneakers and a faded blue muscle vest. He opened an eye, leathery face creasing into the type of smile a crocodile might give a lame antelope. “Cal?” he asked in a husky, half-strangled American accent, “Alex Bytchakov.”
“Yeah, I’m Cal Winter. This is Oz,” I said, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the ex-Marine.
Bytchakov was squat, no more than five-foot eight, but carved from a block of heavily-tattooed muscle. The American’s face looked like someone had re-shaped it with a hammer, scars snaking across his closely-cropped scalp. His close set eyes scanned us up and down. “I guess I’m the Fuckin’ New Guy,” he said, offering a paw.
“It’s good to meet you,” I replied, shaking his hand. I noticed the scar at his throat, two star-shaped gashes inches from his jugular. It explained the voice.
He caught me looking. “That was a 5.56 round, I was lucky as hell. It hit my throat and sailed straight through my jowls. The bullet stopped in some unlucky sonofabitch’s eye.”
“Where was that?” I asked.
“Tajikistan,” he replied. “I wouldn’t recommend it for a vacation.”
“What’s your CV, then?” said Oz, not unpleasantly.
“You mean resume, right?”
“No, I mean CV,” Oz dead-panned. “After all, we’re not in Butt-Fuck Ohio, are we?”
Bytchakov laughed. “I
served in the 82nd Airborne, 508th Parachute Infantry. After that it was Ranger School and onto Delta for five years, with a tour on The Activity. I’ve got seven tours in total, plus some excursions to other shitholes where Uncle Sam ain’t meant to be.”
Yank ops tours were usually twelve months – which meant Bytchakov had been fighting longer than the length of World War Two. They’ve also got more elite military units with dodgy names than I’ve had parking tickets. The Activity was another one of those black ops outfits, full of deniable snake-eaters and heavily-bearded killers. The kind of outfits they make video games and straight-to-cable movies about.
“MOS?” said Oz. American servicemen had a set Military Occupational Speciality, a number which denoted their trade.
“18B” he replied. “It’s the only way to fly.”
“That’s Special Forces Weapons Sergeant?” I said. There were lots of trades in the American SF, but the 18Bs were the pointiest of the pointy-end.
“Hey have a cookie,” Alex shrugged.
“And then?” I asked.
He pulled a face. “I fell out of love with the army, which I guess was mutual. I left and got a gig with Steel Patriarch. That lasted three years, but I quit after Tajikistan. Then… shit happened and I end up on this outfit. I’ve spent the last year working out of Trieste, learning the ropes.”
Steel Patriarch was a Russian PSC. The pay wasn’t great and the discipline brutal, but you were guaranteed action. I also knew that The Firm’s central and Eastern European operations were run out of Trieste.
“What happened?” I said. “For The Firm to get you?”
Alex sat down and lit a cigarette. “Mister, that ain’t none of your business. Don’t ask again.”
“Fair enough,” I replied in Russian.
“What did you do?” replied the American in the same language. His Russian was fluent.
“I killed a man.”
“No shit?” he snorted in English. “Your Russian is good. Where did you learn?”
“Here and there,” I replied. “I pick up languages easily.”
“It’s his only talent,” said Oz.
Dancer reappeared. He was in shirtsleeves and tailored linen slacks, a pair of steel-rimmed glasses perched on his forehead. He looked around the gloomy NAAFI and shrugged. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”
“What’s the prison like?” I said.
“It’s called Kivuli Hatua. It was built by the Italians in the late twenties. The regime uses it for political opponents.”
“Why in the south of Zambute?” asked Oz, studying the map. “That’s bandit country, right?”
“It’s their version of Guantanamo Bay, but without the customer service.”
I picked up a sheaf of surveillance imagery. Kivuli Hatua was an angular, Beau Geste fort perched on top of a rounded cliff overlooking the sea. A broad, flat beach stretched further north, sweeping into a crescent as it met a lightly-wooded headland below the prison.
Oz turned his attention to the satellite pictures, sipping coffee and munching on biscuits. Crumbs dropped on the castle. “Dancer, there’s an airbase three miles northwest of the prison. There’s what looks like a mobile antiaircraft gun down there. What’s the score?”
He nodded, “that’s Quaani airbase. They’ve two ground attack jets there, and two Hind attack helos. Yes, that’s an exported ZSU 23/4 with radar.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” said Oz.
“Magic Eight Ball says this is a battalion assault,” Alex offered, rubbing his stubbly chin. “If we were doing this for real we’d deploy SPECOPS teams with Rangers runnin’ a hard perimeter. Right now, though, I see four of us.”
Dancer saw the look on our faces. “Only one of the jets is operational, they use ancient radar that only works when their generators aren’t broken. The helos are in good nick, there’s a Russian PMC providing maintenance and pilots. However, fuel is a problem, those Hinds haven’t moved for almost a fortnight.”
“You need to take those helos out,” said Oz, “right off the bat.”
“Damn right,” I said. “What air assets do we have?” I cracked open the Maker’s Mark and poured a beaker-full.
“Two helis: a Super Puma and a Dornier, a bit like a Huey. The rebels can help with the air base, I’ve got that covered.”
“And how’s that covered?” I asked. “It’s hardly a small detail.”
Dancer shrugged, “the Zambutan Freedom Army will launch an assault on the Quaani air base at a time of our choosing.”
“Why?” asked Oz.
“They love Mel,” he replied. “His links to the rebels might have dropped him in the shit with MI6, but we can exploit it to our advantage.”
I thought about it for a moment. If the rebels attacked in strength, it might just work.
“In which case I reckon infil by sea,” smiled Oz, tracing a finger across the map. I looked at his eyes, which darted back and forth across the map and schematics. I knew he was getting a buzz out of the thought of doing this for real. “This looks ideal.” He pointed to the comma-shaped beach north of the prison.
“If I wanted to storm fuckin’ beaches,” drawled Alex, “I’d have joined the marines.”
“Nobody has stormed a beach since Korea,” said Oz. “When I was a marine I only ever crept up ‘em.” He accepted a plastic beaker of bourbon from the American and smiled.
“Guard force?” I asked, shuffling maps and plans of the prison.
Dancer didn’t need to look at his notes, “a reinforced platoon of Presidential Commandos and twenty prison staff. Sometimes the Chinese get up there to do interrogation,” said Dancer.
“Chinese spooks?” I said.
“Probably,” he said. “There’s also a battalion of Chinese marines up in Marsajir. They’re part of the international anti-piracy task force, but I doubt their Rules of Engagement extend to fighting rebels. If we go in early doors they’ll be tucked up in bed anyway.”
“A battalion, you say? A quick-in-and-out,” laughed Oz. “What do you think, Cal?”
I thought about it for a moment and looked at the glowing tip of my cigar. It was crazy. “Fuck it,” I groaned. “Who wants to live forever? Being a mercenary and not liberating a small African country? It’s like being a rock star and not throwing a TV through a hotel window.”
Dancer grinned. “You sound like Mel Murray, you stupid bastard!”
Alex Bytchakov shook his head for a moment. Then he laughed, which sounded like a high pitched buzz saw. “Jesus, gimme another drink,” he croaked, pointing at the Maker’s Mark.
I sloshed Bourbon into a beaker and pushed it towards him.
“I didn’t know what to expect when I got screwed into this,” he said, “but it sure weren’t a Kamikaze mission.”
“Welcome to The Firm,” said Oz, “you pick up your rising sun headband tomorrow.”
Dancer produced another bottle. He opened his laptop, showing us maps and pictures of Zambute. He explained the Americans had already sanctioned drone strikes in the south, on alleged High Value Targets from the Shadow of Swords mujahedeen. “So if we’re not only dodging the Chinese, we need to worry about Reaper drones.”
We watched some video he’d taken in-country. Zambute was the colour of yesterday’s porridge, spindly trees littering the blighted landscape. The battle-scarred towns were made of breeze-blocks and corrugated iron. The only thing that cheered it up, like every Third World war zone I’d been to, were kids playing football.
My Firm-issued satellite phone rang. I picked it up and headed for the door.
It was Monty. “Did Bytchakov get to you?” he said. “He’s a useful man.”
“Yeah, he’s here. They’ve put us up in a barracks in London.”
“OK,” said the Handler sourly. “Don’t show your faces. I’m still managing the fallout from your last operation.”
“I’d prefer to talk about this Mission Impossible you’ve lumbered us with.”
“Let’s
not get off… on the wrong foot,” he said haughtily.
I blew cigar smoke as I gazed over the parade square. “I’ll suck up as much crap as you can throw. But we need more operators.”
“Syndicate Three arrives tomorrow,” he replied. Monty didn’t sound like a soldier, not like Harry did. “And I doubt you have any idea how much crap I can throw at you.”
“We need more men,” I repeated.
“Stop whining or I’ll put someone else in charge,” he snapped. “And you’ll be floating in the Thames with your bloody hands sawn off.”
“Threats don’t change the fact that we’re under-staffed.”
Monty thought about it for the moment. “I’ve been given authority for Fallen Eagle support on this operation. Does that help?”
I’d heard the term before, another of The Firm’s legends.
Fallen Eagle was The Firm’s codename for UES, Urgent Exfiltration Support. It wasn’t offered lightly, but if a job was deemed especially politically risky, we were given ‘Fallen Eagle’ status. If we activated the protocol, we would be given ‘Extraordinary Assistance.’ It was The Firm’s own arrangement, compartmentalised from whoever was sponsoring the operation.
None of us knew what the ‘assistance’ was. Some of us reckoned it sounded like the CIA, as the Americans used macho codenames. So, we figured, perhaps their Special Activities Division would appear, like the Seventh Cavalry with big beards and Oakley sunglasses, to magic us away. Seeing as we were British, I guessed it was more likely we’d get a mini-cab.
My view was if they could extract us that easily, they could extract Mel Murray too. Why chuck good money after bad? A more realistic outcome was assistance in lying low in-country until we could escape. Nonetheless, some of our best operators, men who should have known better, relaxed when Fallen Eagle was offered. It was a bullet-proof comfort blanket, for men sent on pointlessly risky missions like extracting Mel Murray.
Like everything else on The Firm, I knew a little, but not enough to leverage any advantage out of it. I felt like an inmate in an old prisoner of war movie, slowly figuring out the guards’ patrol pattern and the timing of floodlights… “It’s better than nothing I suppose,” I told Monty. “Whatever the hell it is.”
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