“He speaks Mandarin too,” Dancer added. “He’ll be translating any intercepted Chinese product we get, fast-time.”
“I also do weddings, funerals and bah-mitzvahs,” Hugo grinned. “It would be false modesty for me to deny my technical genius.”
Ruben Grey rubbed a hand over his cropped head and smiled. “If you’re a genius, why are you only earning government pay?”
“Touché, sir,” Hugo replied. “Perhaps I’ll go for gold in my next career.”
“Hugo will stay here to help with any technical issues, I’ll be in the comms hut if you need me,” said Easter. She frowned as she stalked away, fumbling at a pack of cigarettes.
We settled around the laptops and began exploring the prison in 3D, as if we were playing a computer game. Steve Bacon appeared with a tea urn and sandwiches. We spent a few hours familiarising ourselves with the interior of the prison and surrounding terrain.
“There are missing areas on the map,” I said. “Like the basement, for example.”
“Yes,” Hugo nodded, scratching his head. “That piece of the complex is part of our retrieval operation. Sorry about that - it’s sensitive, so I’ve left it off your version.”
The men started to groan at the need-to-know bullshit, but I quietened them down. There was no point arguing, not least because I intended to ask Marcus what the score was. I rotated the computer model of the map so we could see the main complex from the small hill.
“Alex, you can cover us from your OP when we go in and come out. When we extract we can spot any movement towards the LZ.”
“I got it.”
“It needs to be aggressive and it needs to be quick,” said Dancer. “I want the enemy to think he’s being assaulted in battalion strength, so lots of things that go bang.”
“I’ve got that covered,” Bannerman grinned. “Making stuff go bang is my speciality.”
“Alex, we’ll put you in at dusk tomorrow,” I said.
He nodded. “Sure, it ain’t a problem.”
I asked Alex to join me over at the control room, a low-rise building with a satellite dish on the roof. A sign on the door read BASNEFT SURVEY GROUP – ENERGY IN ACTION. Inside was an office, three table fans moving milkshake-thick air about. Sat behind a desktop computer was Juliet Easter, wearing desert fatigues, sandals and a loose-fitting shirt. Body armour and helmets were neatly stacked near the door, the walls covered with maps, photos and satellite imagery. She looked up and gave me a wan smile.
Sat next to her was a stocky man in his forties, tinkering with a laptop. I recognised him from the file as Alan Brodie, the GCHQ technical officer. His file described him as an electronic warfare expert, specialising in encrypted networks and satellite communications. I remembered a warning note: Easter had caught him drunk on duty. There was an email in the file from Brodie to his boss at GCHQ, berating Easter’s management style.
Brodie wore the global uniform of the techie: baggy cargo pants full of pockets, chunky outdoor trainers and a polo shirt. A laminated BASNEFT ID card hung from his neck on a lanyard. He looked up and nodded in acknowledgement. “Hello there, I’m Alan,” he said, offering a pudgy hand. He had a soft Scottish accent and the flushed complexion of a heavy drinker.
“Alan runs all of our comms,” said Easter matter-of-factly. “We’ll be escorting him in on the raid.”
Alan’s unshaven, doughy face twisted into a frown. “I’ll only need about twenty minutes when we’re inside. Is that OK, do you think?”
“It’ll have to be. What comms have we got?” I asked.
“Satellite and personal role kit - we’ll be using Yank military radios,” he said, “but I’ve tweaked them, made them more reliable. They’ll have better range, too.”
Easter looked up at Alex. “Ah, Mister Bytchakov, I’ve read your file. Promising career until that unfortunate incident in Iraq...”
“An unfortunate incident in Iraq, lady?” he replied. “Take your pick.”
“Quite. Well good to have you here,” she said.
“Will we get any more intelligence on Murray?” I asked.
Easter shook her head, “we’ll have fresh imagery of the prison and airfield in the morning.”
“Good,” I said, “how are we for night-flying?”
“No problem. Idris is good, flies us in and out at any hour. We’ve got two South African pilots. They’re both ex-military, used to night work.”
“Is there anything else?” I walked towards the door.
“The RIB gets flown in tomorrow,” said Easter. “In the meantime, just let me know when you’re ready to put your OP in. There’s one other thing...”
“Yes?”
“When you put Bytchakov in, I’d like to come on the heli to take a look at the ground.” She fixed me with those cool grey eyes. I think Easter half-expected me to challenge her on it.
“No dramas,” I said, “it’ll be a good opportunity to talk a few things through.”
She raised an eyebrow. “That’s good to hear, I thought you might see me as a passenger.”
“It’s your operation.”
“We’ve all got our crosses to bear,” she replied.
“Well, maybe together we can drag this one somewhere quiet and forget about it.”
“I hope so,” she said. “I better finish this report. We’ll talk later.”
“Sure.” We strode outside. “Alex, I’ll meet you back in the briefing tent.”
Alex headed off as I lit a cigar, a thin mist of rain enveloping the camp. Raising my face to the sky, I enjoyed the sensation of moisture on my face. Alan Brodie walked outside, nodded to me, and shuffled off towards a cabin resting on breeze blocks. It was dusk now, the sun a shimmering fireball as it sank into the horizon.
I waited until he was out of sight then followed him.
CHAPTER TEN
Alan Brodie shuffled into his cabin, reappearing a few minutes later holding a wash-bag. He’d changed into shorts, sandals and a tee-shirt, a towel around his neck. I watched him plug in some ear-buds, head nodding in time to music. He traipsed towards the shower block, a warm wind blowing dust devils around his ankles.
I ducked out of sight behind the cabin. Brodie’s billet was unlocked, which didn’t surprise me given we were hundreds of miles from anywhere. Nudging the door open with my boot, I peered inside. The cabin looked like something by Tracey Emin. It smelt of cigarettes and old socks, clothes and empty bottles strewn over a sleeping-bag lying atop a camp bed. I noticed his poison was vodka, the odourless stealth-nectar of the veteran alcoholic.
I should know.
More empty bottles of Smirnoff were lined up on top of pallets of cola I guessed he was mixing it with. He’d taken to drinking the local stuff too, dirty yellow bottles of it jammed under the bed. I took a mouthful of vodka from a bottle under the bed and sighed happily.
Glancing out of the window, I reassured myself I was alone before carrying out a quick search.
The only personal effects lay on a scuffed wooden desk: a laptop computer, magazines on computer hacking and economics, a stack of personal papers tucked into a sticky copy of Men Only. I decided to leave the laptop alone, figuring that tampering with a GCHQ officer’s computer was like trying to break into Fort Knox with a wire coat hanger. Instead I leafed through the papers in the porn-mag, sandwiched between Gemma from Stoke and a reader’s wife. There was some general correspondence, mainly in Brodie’s cover name and relating to his ‘employment’ as IT specialist for BASNEFT.
There was also a National Crime Agency report on money-laundering, an open-source document and not protectively marked. I also found cash in US dollars and sterling and UK lottery tickets. Carefully tucked in the slim stack of banknotes was an SD card. I examined the lottery tickets. On the back of each was part of a carefully drawn grid, the boxes labelled from one to thirty-two. Each had a short alphanumeric code neatly printed underneath in black ink. Perched on the end of the bed, I took my digital camera from my map pocket and pho
tographed the paper several times, then replaced it.
Next was the SD card. It was a normal SanDisk 32 GB card, the sort you might put in a camera. I slid the card into mine, the device humming gently as it processed data. A series of photographs appeared. I scrolled through them. Most of them were of local wildlife and landscapes. A third of the way through, the images changed.
They were of Juliet Easter.
In all of them she was in the camp, usually on the telephone or her laptop. In one or two she was smiling, talking to Hugo. From the look of the images, I guessed Easter was unaware she was being photographed. In most of them she looked ravishing. Navigating back to the thumbnails of the snaps, I noticed there were eighty images on the card. Thirty-two of them featured Easter.
Was this linked to the GCHQ man’s apparent grudge against Easter, or was he some kind of stalker? Easter was so far out of Brodie’s league it was possible. Then again, the photographs appeared to align with the grids drawn on the back of the lottery tickets.
If he was a stalker he was an unorthodox one. None of the photographs could be remotely construed as sexual – no attempts to photo her in the shower or in any state of undress, although they captured her earthy beauty, especially in black and white. To me they looked like surveillance photographs. There was nothing else of interest in the room. Copying the images from the SD card to my camera, I put everything back and stepped back outside.
“What were you doing in there?” asked Amelia Duclair sharply. Her hand rested on the grips of her pistol, worn in a drop-thigh holster. She looked like she was preparing for a tactical entry into the trailer.
“I’m looking for my accommodation.”
“It’s certainly not this festering pit, is it?”
“OK,” I shrugged easily, “my mistake.”
Duclair shot me a look and walked off. If I’d been busted, I’d stick to my story: I was looking to bag a half-decent room. Unless Brodie wanted to make a big deal of it, in which case I’d ask him why he was taking sneaky photos of his boss.
I headed for the briefing tent, where Dancer was in conference with Easter. I went to join them, not least to see if Duclair was going to mention my nosing around in Brodie’s room.
“OK,” said Dancer, sipping mineral water. “We’ll sort out weapons before we crash. We zero and test fire in the morning.”
“I’ll leave you with your toys,” said Easter. “Amelia and I have stuff to do, Vauxhall wants more updates.”
“How many ways can you write we slotted some bandits?” I shrugged.
“You’d be surprised,” she replied. Easter looked tired, dark smudges under her eyes. “The legal officers are considering the Human Rights implications of the firefight.”
We all laughed.
“Come on Jools,” said Dancer, “I’ll walk you back.”
“No, its fine,” she replied. I caught her shooting him a look. “Crack on with weapons and kit, Tom.”
Dancer smiled ruefully. We left the trailer and headed to the warehouse. Inside, the air was hot and stale, smelling of unwashed bodies and machinery. The men were unpacking weapons under the glare of arc lights. It was like Christmas morning for gun-nuts.
“What’ve we got?” I asked.
“It’s a Heckler Koch party pack,” said Bytchakov. “I prefer Russian or American hardware, but hey.”
“Yeah, why aren’t we using Soviet kit?” I agreed. I’d have preferred to use the same weapons as the locals, in case we ran out of ammunition and needed to scrounge in the field.
Dancer smiled, rifling through the olive green crates. “The HKs were part of a Bundeswehr shipment headed for UN forces, until some friendly pirates intercepted the cargo ship. There’s as much ammo as you can carry.”
“It ain’t all Kraut kit, the sniper rifles we ordered are here,” said Bannerman approvingly. “I’ve got my VSS.” He held up the suppressed Russian rifle and grinned.
Bytchakov nodded and produced a SOPMOD, a modern version of the classic M-14 battle rifle. “That’s way better. They’ve delivered my weapon of choice.”
“Over here!” shouted Ruben, crouching over some more BASNEFT crates marked DELICATE SURVEY EQUIPMENT in Cyrillic script. “We’ve got a Barrett 95 in here with peripherals.” The 95 was a compact .50 rifle. “Fuck me,” said the ex-Marine as his twin hauled a green tube from a crate, “we’ve got AT-4 and Stinger too.”
It was serious, war-fighting hardware. The seven of us would be as tooled-up as a rifle platoon. I could see the men were happy. Firepower builds confidence like that. I tapped Alex on the shoulder, “Alex, sort your kit out and pick up a satellite radio from Alan. Then find me in the office for a briefing OK?”
“Sure,” he replied, working the action on the M-14.
The men busied themselves with improvising a range. They found a stack of man-sized targets and began adjusting sights, optics and peripherals for their weapons. I walked outside and found Steve Bacon talking to the South African pilots. Both men wore shorts, flip-flops and fatigue shirts, Oakley sunglasses perched on their heads. The Dornier had been fitted with a machinegun on each door and a winch. “This is Peter and Henry,” said Steve.
They said their hellos in thick Afrikaans accents. Overhead, a thin slice of moon hung in the sky.
“You OK with the helis?” I said.
“Yeah, the Dornier is fine - it’s even got a winch,” said Henry. “You could use this for the extraction or the Puma, just this has the advantage of being smaller. Steve will patch it up, it took some bullets earlier.”
“You want to go in at night?” said Peter.
“Yes,” I replied, “that OK?”
“No problems, man,” said Henry, who had a Robinson Crusoe beard and bad teeth, “just let me know who’s choosing the LZ and I’ll speak with him. The Puma would be better for hauling your boat in my opinion, man.”
“The guy going in is called Alex,” I said. “I’ll send him over soon OK?”
“Cool,” said Peter, rolling an exotic cigarette, “the Dornier is a good bird, we have no problems with her. Steve is a good mechanic.”
“Hey, let’s find this Alex guy,” said Henry, punching Peter on the arm and belching loudly.
Peter lit the jumbo-sized reefer. He saw my expression and grinned, “I fly better when I’m relaxed.”
I went back to where the men were still checking weapons. Bytchakov was sitting quietly, poring over maps.
Bannerman passed me a HK G36 rifle. “Take that one Cal, its fine. I think I’ll take the MG4 for extra firepower.” The Scotsman picked another machinegun from its crate, “these MG4s are mega, like a Minimi but German. It’s like the difference between a VW and an Audi,” he grinned. Quickly stripping the weapon, he pulled some spray cans of firearms paint and masking tape from his bag. He started camouflaging the weapons in streaks of sand and grey.
At the end of the line were the Grey Twins. They were fluidly practicing weapon-switching between their G36 rifles and suppressed HKSD5 sub-machineguns. They spoke quietly among themselves, adjusting sights and tactical weapon slings.
“OK fellas?” I said.
“Yeah, sorted boss,” said Ruben, “more metal ‘ere than there is buried in Epping Forest. All the kit is brand-new Magpul, too.” They pointed to a pile of weapons peripherals and rails to customise their weapons, all made by the popular American tactical manufacturer. Another box contained gloves, knee-pads, load-carrying gear and similar kit.
Raphael simply nodded, studying his weapons with dead, hooded eyes.
At the end of the line was Oz, wearing floral shorts, flip-flops and a 42 Commando tee-shirt. In front of him was a selection of Very Dangerous Stuff: plastic explosives, grenades, a brace of AT-4 antitank weapons and a Stinger antiaircraft rocket. He’d also found a General Purpose Machinegun and a M224 60mm mortar. Belts of ammo, like sharp bronze teeth, snaked across the floor.
“Decisions, decisions,” said Oz lightly, waving a hand at his armoury.
�
��It’s an in-and-out, Oz, not bloody D-Day,” I smiled.
“Yeah, right, I’ve heard that one before. I’d take it all if I could,” he said. “I’m taking the ’36C and two AT4s. The twins are taking the last MG4 and a Stinger. You should take the rest.”
“I’m not hauling a mortar in there,” I replied.
“You’ll regret it.”
We’d been provided with a selection of German army-surplus flecktarn desert camouflage fatigues, American AirFrame helmets, British Osprey body armour and load-carrying gear. None of the equipment had any insignia or identifying markings on it. The men rifled through it carefully in the dimly lit warehouse, looking for familiar kit and adjusting it to their own requirements. I found a close-fitting wicking under-armour shirt, baggy German combat smock and trousers. Easter turned up and issued vacuum-packed bundles of dollars, in case we were split up inside Zambute and had to pay bribes to get out. We each had ten thousand in twenty and fifty dollar bills.
“Shit, this is like Christmas,” said Alex Bytchakov. He held up a tiny, toy-like heli he’d found in one of the crates. “This baby is a PD-100.”
The PD-100 was a small, palm-sized recce drone. I’d heard of them, but never used one.
“How many are there?” said Ruben eagerly.
“Three, all good to go,” Alex replied. The drone looked like a mix between a helicopter and a dragonfly, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. “It’s got a thousand metre line-of-sight with a tilt and pan camera.”
“OK, shall we split them up?” I asked.
“I should take two,” said Alex. “The battery life is pretty short, and if one breaks I’ve got a spare.”
“That makes sense,” said Oz. “Plus, you’ll have something to play with when you’re bored.”
I rummaged through the remaining weapons and kit, making sure I had two water bottles and a body-worn rehydration system. Along with the G36 rifle I chose a Walther P99 pistol and a thigh holster. The clothing was well-worn and comfortable. I would wear my own boots, knee-pads, scarf and goggles.
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