Gray Genesis

by Alan McDermott

  ‘Okay, knock it off guys.’

  When Gray got the two-minute warning, he ordered his team onto their motorcycles and the crew chief removed the fastenings. With fifteen seconds to go, the rear door of the chopper slowly descended, revealing darkness. Gray started his engine, and the moment the ramp hit the desert floor, he popped the clutch and rode out, stopping thirty yards from the bird. As soon as the last rider was on the ground, the Chinook took off, heading back to base.

  Gray led the way, keeping his lights off and using the passive NVGs to illuminate the landscape. The four men rode in single file, with Smart behind Gray and Levine next. Sonny brought up the rear. Their target was ten kilometres from the drop zone, a small village near the border with Pakistan, a hundred and eighty kilometres—or klicks as they called them—south of Kandahar airfield.

  It was two in the morning by the time they reached the first marker point. They hid the bikes at the base of a mountain, pushing them between huge rocks and covering them with grey tarpaulin, then set off on foot to cover the last two klicks.

  It was uphill all the way. Their proximity to the target meant they had to be as quiet as possible, making progress painfully slow.

  It was almost four by the time they reached the outskirts of the village. It sat on a plateau, with the north side overlooked by a towering mountain. The satellite images they’d studied before leaving the base showed a cluster of twenty-three dwellings, and the one they wanted was right in the middle.

  ‘Sonny, check it out from the east,’ Gray said. ‘Carl, you take the west.’

  The two men split off to recce the target, while Gray and Smart observed the south aspect.

  ‘A tenner says he’s not here,’ Smart whispered.

  It wasn’t a bet Gray was willing to take. This was their third attempt to capture Taliban commander Abdul al-Hussain, and the other two had been busts. It was all down to poor intelligence, or rather, the way it was gathered. The locals were promised more money than they could ever dream of in return for information on Taliban leaders, but most of the time the details they gave were either highly inaccurate or deliberately misleading. With seemingly infinite funds, the green slime—a derogatory name for the army intelligence corps—persisted with the exercise safe in their comfy barracks, while Gray and his men battled it out at the sharp end.

  ‘Whether he’s here or not, I’m more concerned about walking into a trap.’

  From what he could see, the village was occupied; a couple of goats were tethered to the nearest house which, like the rest, was a one-storey building.

  Gray asked the other two if they’d spotted anything.

  ‘Clear,’ Levine replied.

  ‘All quiet here,’ Sonny said.

  ‘Roger that, we’re moving up.’

  Gray instructed Smart to join up with Sonny, then ran in a crouch to Levine’s position.

  ‘We’ve got half an hour until sunrise,’ Gray said over comms. ‘I want to be out of here by then.’

  He got three clicks in his ear as acknowledgement.

  ‘Okay… time to dance, gentlemen.’

  There was no need for any other orders. They’d been over the entire plan many times, and everyone knew their role, the rules of engagement, and what to do if everything went to shit.

  Gray and Levine closed in on the village, aware Sonny and Smart would be doing the same from the other direction.

  Cover ran out thirty yards from the nearest building, and if this was an ambush, the bullets would start flying the moment they were exposed. Gray took a deep breath, then raced towards the house while Levine covered him.

  It seemed the longest sprint of his life, but seconds later Gray was pressed up against the side of the house. He stuck his head around the wall and signalled for Levine to move up, all the while training his rifle down the alleyway. When he felt his mate hit the wall next to him, Gray pushed on, sticking close to the building as he made for the next corner. After checking his angles, he moved forward once more, until he could see the target house. It was the largest of them all, a fitting place for someone like Abdul al-Hussain to reside in.

  Gray waited until Smart and Sonny came into view twenty yards away. As planned, Sonny broke off and ran to the house at the same time as Gray, with the other two ready to offer covering fire if needed.

  Gray had chosen to storm the house with Sonny because he was one of the best in the regiment at close quarter battle. He had few equals in the killing house, the building in Stirling Lines near Hereford where CQB training took place. In fact, though short on years, he was already tipped to be a future instructor.

  Gray readied an M84 stun grenade and nodded to Sonny. They’d discussed what to do if they got this far without incident, and it had been a toss-up between a quiet entry to avoid waking the entire hamlet and full-on assault. The latter had been agreed upon, in case the ambush had been restricted to al-Hussain’s residence.

  Sonny kicked in the front door and Gray tossed the grenade inside. The moment it exploded, they piled in, weapons raised. The living room was empty, so Sonny peeled off to the left while Gray checked the room to the right. Gray kicked the door open to see a man in his twenties scrambling out of his bed. Gray’s instinct was to put a couple of rounds in his head, but he could see that the young man had lost his left leg below the knee, and there were no weapons in sight.

  ‘Down!’ Gray shouted. ‘Down on the floor!’ He motioned with his rifle to emphasise his order, and the man fell forward onto his stomach, his arms out by his side. After swivelling his head to check there was no-one else in the room, Gray produced a set of plasticuffs and secured the man’s hands behind his back, then ran out to help Sonny find the man they’d come for.

  Sonny was already in the living room. ‘Clear. There’s no sign of him. A woman and two kids in the back bedroom, that’s it.’

  ‘We’ve got movement out here,’ Smart said over the comms. ‘No sign of any hostiles, but you woke the whole fucking village.’

  ‘We’re coming out,’ Gray said, and gestured for Sonny to follow him.

  A dozen people were now forming in the streets, and though none were armed, the ambience was tense—and growing.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ Gray said.

  ‘You don’t want to ask these people if al-Hussain was here?’ Levine asked.

  ‘If he was, it’s too late, and there’s no way they’d tell us. We haven’t got time to force it out of them.’

  Gray set off at a jog, signalling an end to the discussion. Smart and Levine followed, while Sonny watched the rear. Once the other three were back in cover, Sonny turned and sprinted towards their position. When he reached them, they set off as fast as they could towards the bikes. It was all downhill and there was no need for stealth, so they made good time.

  When they reached the machines, Gray called in the support helicopter to pick them up at the pre-arranged point. It was ten klicks west of the original drop-off point, just in case that location was now compromised.

  ‘Do you have the package?’

  ‘Negative,’ Gray replied.

  ‘Roger that. Yankee five-two will be at the RV in four-zero.’

  Gray acknowledged the transmission and let the team know they had forty minutes to meet the chopper, otherwise it would be a long ride home.

  ‘One day this dodgy intel is going to get us killed,’ Levine said as he folded up his tarpaulin.

  ‘I’m with him there,’ Sonny said. ‘If we keep checking out every sighting, how long before they have a brigade waiting for us? I’m just surprised we haven’t come a cropper already.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Smart added. ‘The head shed needs to get its arse in gear and find us some real targets.’

  ‘Careful what you wish for,’ Gray warned him. While he, too, was frustrated at the lack of action, returning to base unscathed was far better than being vulture food. The SAS were trained to fight, to kill, but had no problem walking away from a mission rather than push a bad positi
on. If that meant chasing shadows and getting back to camp in time for breakfast, Gray wasn’t going to complain. Better to live to fight another day.

  With their camouflage stowed, Gray checked his handheld GPS device, got a bearing, and told Sonny to take point.

  Chapter 3

  It was the dust. That was what Ben Cooper hated most about Afghanistan. It got everywhere; his eyes, his hair, his throat. Riding through the desert in convoy was the worst part, breathing in the cloud kicked up by the vehicle in front. Even now, in the confines of the air-conditioned Nissan SUV driving through the centre of Kabul, it somehow seemed to find him.

  Just four more weeks.

  The money he made as a private contractor was good—seven hundred bucks a day—and in his three tours he hadn’t had to discharge his weapon once. That still wasn’t enough to make up for having to live in such a god-forsaken shithole.

  The funny thing was, when he was here as an enlisted soldier it hadn’t seemed so bad. He’d done his tour, rotated back to the world, finished up his seven years and got his DD214. He’d followed his dream of starting his own business, pumping his fifteen grand of savings and forty thousand borrowed from the bank into a coffee shop in the heart of his hometown of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

  It fell into trouble almost immediately. His sales projections were way off, and his income never exceeded his outgoings. The house he’d put up as collateral was soon in danger of being seized by the bank and so he felt obliged to return to the dustbowl to pay off the lender. His biggest mistake had been to leave the shop open. His sister now ran it, but every day it accumulated more debt, and finding a buyer had been impossible. His only option was to pay off the lease and walk away—and in four weeks he would have enough to do just that.

  He had no firm plans for when he got stateside, but he’d never look at a cup of Joe the same way.

  Cooper glanced over at his principal. Usually he acted as bodyguard for company executives and the like, but this one was different. Miriam Dagher was some kind of scientist from what he could gather. She was a heavy-set woman who appeared to be in her mid-to-late fifties. She had an American accent, but she’d told him she’d spent the last two years in London. Their destination was the Kabul Medical Institute where she would give a series of lectures on something or other to do with childbirth. As usual, Cooper had paid little attention. His job was to deliver them from point A to point B, period. If he got involved in a conversation he couldn’t do his job properly—which was to scan for threats along the route.

  ‘Traffic’s stopped up ahead,’ Joel Johnson said from behind the wheel. He, along with Sam Parker, made up the rest of the close protection team hired by the American pharmaceutical company.

  ‘Okay, guys, stay frosty,’ Parker said, checking his mirrors and looking for threats in the passing crowd.

  Cooper unholstered his Glock 17 and checked their six while a knot developed in his stomach. It was unusual to be attacked in the middle of the city, but there was a first time for everything. ‘What’s going on up there?’

  ‘Looks like a police checkpoint,’ Johnson said.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ Dagher asked Cooper.

  ‘Nah,’ he said, holding the pistol by the side of his leg, out of sight. ‘Checkpoints are thrown up all the time. We should be through it in a few minutes.’

  The vehicle edged forward, and Cooper relaxed a little. No-one was paying them any particular attention, and there were just three cars ahead of them now. They’d be through and be at the institute in about ten minutes. He could then clock off and tick another day off the calendar.

  Through the front windscreen, Cooper could see that the local Afghan police were giving each car a cursory inspection—as if they were looking for somebody specific.

  When the SUV reached the front of the line, Johnson wound his window down as directed. He spoke Pashto fluently and asked the nearest policeman what they were looking for.

  The officer glanced into the back of the SUV. ‘Step out.’

  Johnson turned his head slightly towards Parker in the front passenger seat. ‘Heads up.’

  Cooper heard him too, and immediately tensed. From the corner of his eye, he saw one of the police officers to his right remove a pistol from his belt, while another had brought his AK-47 up to a firing position.

  ‘Out!’ The policeman shouted this time.

  ‘We’ve got papers,’ Johnson said, removing their travel documents from inside his jacket. He held them out the window, but the Afghan officer slapped them out of his hands.

  Ben Cooper had trained hard for moments like this, and when the first round flew through the open side window and punched a hole in Sam Parker’s head, he pushed his client into the footwell and fired back, hitting one of the attackers in the chest with two rounds. A bullet flew past his head, missing by millimetres and embedding itself in the coachwork. The attackers opened up with their automatic weapons, but the bullets bounced harmlessly off the SUVs armour-plated bodywork.

  Johnson had fired in reply and was now stamping on the gas, trying to reverse out of the trap. But the line of vehicles behind him made it impossible. He spun the wheel and selected first, hitting the accelerator as he tried to duck down an alleyway to the right.

  For a moment, Cooper thought they would make it, until a puff of blood erupted from Johnson’s head and he fell forward, his foot still flat to the floor. The vehicle shot forward for a few yards, then smashed into the corner of a building. Cooper saw it coming but couldn’t prevent himself being thrown into the back of the front passenger seat. His head hit hard, and blood immediately began pouring from a deep gash in his temple.

  Time seemed to slow down. He could see Dagher was screaming, and that a police officer was shouting, but no sounds reached his ears. There was a blast of heat as the door was pulled open and Cooper was dragged from the car, landing heavily on the ground. Two of the Afghans stood over him, the muzzles of their rifles inches from his face.

  This was it. He was going to die, helpless on his back, in a country he hated. All he could hope for was a quick death, a bullet in the head that he wouldn’t see or feel. The strange thing was, he didn’t fear it. If somehow he managed to get out of this, what then? Another month in Afghanistan to pay off his debts followed by a lifetime working for minimum wage to make someone else rich? His poor business skills meant he would never make a success of running his own company, so his future looked bleak. He would spend the next fifty years existing, not living. Imminent death suddenly didn’t seem that bad.

  ‘Do it,’ he heard himself say.

  The end didn’t come. Instead, he watched as Dagher stepped out of the vehicle and walked away, flanked by two of the Afghan police officers. They weren’t holding her or forcing her towards their vehicle. She seemed to be going willingly.

  One of the attackers opened the rear door of a Toyota Hilux and Dagher climbed in. Cooper watched as she pulled at her seat belt without a glance back in his direction, then pushed a niqab forward over her face. Her bags were taken from the Nissan and carried over to the Toyota.

  One of the Afghans shouted something before getting in beside Dagher. Ben Cooper understood maybe a couple of dozen words of Pashto—and this was one of them.

  Before his brain had a chance to process the barked order, everything went black.

  Chapter 4

  Tom Gray and his team rode their bikes down the ramp that led towards the motor pool used by the British forces. They signed the Hondas back in and carried their equipment back to the barracks in anticipation of a shower, food and sleep. Gray, though, had other matters to attend to. After dropping his gear next to his bunk, he walked to the CO’s office.

  It was one of few permanent structures on the base, though more were springing up all the time. The airport had been captured and secured just six months earlier, and the coalition forces were obviously keen to show they were there for the long haul. Engineers from several countries were engaged in the building process, a
nd Gray often dreamed of the day he could swap his tent for an air-conditioned hut. He knew it would never happen; such luxuries were not afforded the front line men.

  Captain Paul Russell’s adjutant told Gray to knock and go in. The CO looked up from his paperwork when he entered.

  ‘Before you say anything, I’m as frustrated as you are, Tom.’

  Gray had served under a few senior officers, most of whom had seen the SAS as a career step; doing their couple of years before moving on to greater things. Those were the people who would accept the impossible missions and expect them to be carried out so that they could sit back and claim the glory. Russell wasn’t like that. He would discuss the mission with the boys, and if it seemed too risky he would kick it back upstairs with his recommendations. His approach had earned him the respect of his subordinates, if not his superiors.

  Russell was thirty-three, former 2 Para, and a couple of inches shorter than Gray. His black hair and black moustache reminded Gray of eighties TV shows. He’d been in charge of B Squadron’s 8—Mobility—troop for just over a year.

  ‘It’s not frustration, sir. I’m worried for the safety of my team. If we respond to every sighting, how long before they realise they can walk us into an ambush?’

  ‘My thoughts exactly,’ Russell said, ‘which is why I raised the issue with Lance Durden. We need more reliable intel if we’re to avoid that situation.’

  Durden was the CIA liaison to the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force (CJSOTF)—also known as Task Force Sword—headed by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). He had been in country before Operation Enduring Freedom had even kicked off, and was supposed to be the expert on the region. So far, though, his efforts at pinpointing the men on the Joint Prioritized Effects List had proven fruitless. The JPEL was the Taliban most wanted list, and at the top was Osama Bin Laden. The target of that morning’s raid, Abdul al-Hussain, was third.