Plausible Deniability: The explosive Lex Harper novella

by Stephen Leather

  ‘I’m grateful to you, Anwar,’ Harper said. ‘Generosity is always pleasing, but your help in eliminating a man who has proved to be a problem for both of us will be all the additional reward I need.’

  Anwar stood up and shook Harper’s hand. ‘We look forward to working with you, Lex.’

  CHAPTER 8

  Later that afternoon, Harper was taken direct to the Saudi black ops team’s base at Tabuk, close to the Red Sea and the borders of Jordan and Israel. Laiya had already set up a planning meeting for him with the members of her special operations team who had been chosen for the op. The men all seemed to have developed the ingrained self-confidence shared by Special Forces the world over, and were quite willing to fight their corner against their senior officers and NCOs when necessary. The only concession to their military background was to throw in an occasional ‘Sidi’ - ‘Sir’ in Arabic - when they were making a point quite forcibly to someone of more senior rank.

  Laiya then briefed them on the pirates SOPs: Standard Operating Procedures. ‘Their preferred method is to use small, armed, fast attack craft to force target vessels of high value to stop,’ she said. ‘They are then boarded and taken close to the Somali coast, near the pirates’ home villages, where the crew are taken ashore and kept in the sort of conditions that I’m sure you can imagine, until a ransom is paid. Each attack craft has a two-man crew, one overseeing the high-powered outboard engines while the other crew member is a weapons man, in charge of either rocket propelled grenades, medium machine guns or even just an AK 47. The target vessels are almost invariably unarmed and the threat from these weapons is usually enough to force the crews to surrender. The actions on target used by the pirates are to circle the chosen vessel and order it to stop. If it does not immediately comply, the weapons man will fire a couple of warning shots and if this still does not have the desired effect, he will put rounds onto the target. The whole operation is overseen from a mother-ship, usually a previously captured trawler or merchant ship, which waits further out in the Indian Ocean, watching everything on radar and directing the attack craft by radio, thus ensuring that the pirate leaders are well out of harm’s way if the attack goes wrong or the attack craft are intercepted by warships.’

  ‘One other thing,’ Harper said. ‘There is a NATO task force in the area but rather than enforcing the law of the sea, they appear to be operating a no-arrest, no-kill policy with regards to the Somali pirates. If the warship crews encounter them, they merely disarm them and even make sure they have enough water, food and fuel to make it back to the coast safely. So no one should be very surprised if the same crews then re-arm and return to the sea to carry out further hijackings.’

  After intense discussions, they eventually came up with what seemed to Harper to be an eminently workable plan. It was vital that it had come from the shop floor; the final plan had to be theirs, not one that had been foisted on them, because if it was their own, they would buy into it much more readily and strive even harder to make it succeed.

  Winding up the reviewing session, he reminded the team that they had agreed on a three phase operation. ‘Phase 1: we lure the pirates’ attack craft close enough to destroy them.

  ‘Phase 2: we force the pirate leader to abandon the mother ship and head back to his base onshore. We then destroy the mother-ship, preventing its use in any future pirate attacks.

  ‘Phase 3: our attack team, myself and twelve of you, land after dark, attack the leader’s house - the pirates’ “Mr Big” - kill him and then withdraw.’

  ‘One last thing,’ Laiya said. ‘The name of this Mr Big, as you call him, Lex, is known to us. He is Abu Moussa, and not only do we know who he is, we also know where he lives, and have satellite imagery of it.’

  Harper grinned. ‘Then what are we waiting for? However, whatever happens, we can’t simply take the easy option and destroy him and his mother-ship at sea. If you are going to send a message that you are a serious force to be reckoned with, so that not just Abu Moussa’s gang, but all the Somali pirates understand the price to be paid for any further hijackings of Saudi ships, you have got to be seen to be delivering that message. If we kill him at sea, there are unlikely to be any surviving witnesses, so we have to force him home and then kill him on land at his headquarters. If we do that, there will be no shortage of people who have witnessed the attack and before long, everyone in Somalia as well as a lot of other people around the region will know who killed him.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘So we know where he lives and we have imagery of the target, let’s go get him.’

  The vessel that the Saudis were using for the attack was the absolute top of the range in every way. Called Al Shaheen - ‘The Hawk’ in English - the ship appeared to be one of the elegant, hyper-expensive yachts that billionaires, oligarchs and the rulers of oil-rich states used to flaunt their wealth, but its luxurious exterior concealed a hidden purpose: it was the Saudis’ special operations launch vessel, designed to operate anywhere in the world.

  Laiya took Harper down to the dock where the yacht was berthed. It was an impressive sight, towering above them as they stood on the dock, with the sunlight reflecting from its gleaming, pristine white hull, dazzling Harper as he craned his neck to look up at the superstructure. ‘It looks like a billionaire’s super-yacht,’ he said.

  Laiya smiled. ‘That was our intention and yet, despite its looks, it has all the strike capabilities of a warship.’

  She showed him round, reeling off details of the specification, like a saleswoman trying to clinch a deal. ‘It was designed in Sweden to our own very particular specification,’ she said, ‘and then built under conditions of the utmost secrecy in South Korea.’

  They passed through the saloons and staterooms on the upper decks, all highly polished marble and exotic hardwoods, gold fittings and a ceiling studded with thousands of tiny diamonds to represent the stars in the night sky. Harper whistled. ‘There’s more bling here than a rappers’ convention.’

  ‘I’m not sure the ship’s designers would be too pleased with that comparison,’ Laiya said with mock severity. ‘Below decks you’ll find it’s much more functional than decorative.’ She led him to a companionway that led to the heart of the ship.

  ‘The Al Shaheen has seven decks and a bridge,’ she said. ‘As you’ve seen, the top two decks consist of state rooms and reception areas for entertaining visiting VIPs. The third deck houses the operations and communication centre and the lower decks contain accommodation, mess areas, stores and armouries, including an armoured ammunition bay. One whole deck is given over to medical treatment, including two operating theatres and staff, with facilities equal to the best in any UK hospital, and we carry enough blood and plasma stores to treat the casualties of a major battle. All of this, of course, is well hidden behind the façade of a rich man’s plaything. Any visitors on board see only what we wish to show them; everything else is off-limits. The ship also carries two distinct crews - the sailors and staff who operate the ship and entertain our rich guests, and our special ops team to strike at our enemies. Many people around the world welcome a Saudi super-yacht, seeing only the opportunity to make money, and they never look for the wolf in sheep’s clothing.’ She grinned. ‘We like the subterfuge, just like you British. I think this is why your country’s forces would like a new Royal Yacht to be commissioned, so they can have a strike capability like ours.’

  ‘And what does that strike capability consist of?’ Harper said.

  ‘Everything you could wish for, short of a nuclear bomb,’ Laiya said. ‘The vessel is armed with a range of weapons that include cruise missiles, surface-to-air missiles, Gatling guns and ship-to-ship missiles for defence. On the keel there is a docking port for mini submarines and divers, and there are doors at the rear for launching rigid inflatable boats and the on-board landing craft. There is also a heli-deck, giving an over the horizon capability using the helicopter carried on board, which also doubles as a troop carrier. The hull of the ship is constructed of compos
ite material and carbon fibre, shaped to give it a “stealth” profile that conceals it from enemy radar, and the parts of the hull external to vital components are protected by Kevlar panels. All the weapons are in hidden pods inside the hull and to maintain the ship’s stealth profile, they are only deployed when ready to fire.’

  ‘Pretty impressive,’ Harper said. ‘Are the engines similarly state of the art?’

  ‘Definitely. The Al Shaheen is propelled by water jets powered by three diesel-electric pumps that give it almost silent running, even at the top speed of over seventy knots. The absence of propellers and the ship’s shallow draft also allows us to work very close inshore when required.’

  ‘Perfect,’ Harper said. ‘Let’s get started and see if the ship lives up to the billing.’

  The Al Shaheen eased away from its moorings that afternoon and, travelling in radar stealth mode to avoid alerting the NATO flotilla, cruised south down the Red Sea, heading for the Gulf of Aden. They kept to about thirty knots, less than half the ship’s top speed, with four surveillance drones deployed invisibly high in the sky relaying images of the Eritrean and Yemeni coasts and the shipping using the waterway directly back to the operations centre. As Laiya had claimed, the yacht’s three diesel-electric pumps worked almost silently, driving the yacht forward by injecting thousands of litres of water per second through nozzles at the rear of the ship.

  The daytime heat was ferocious, well into the forties Celsius and, standing at the rail, watching bottle-nosed dolphins surfing the pressure wave at the ship’s bow, Harper was glad of the breeze the ship created as it cut through the waves. Off to his right he would see the barren sand dunes and parched scrub of the Eritrean coastal desert, with the mountains flanking the central plateau intermittently visible through the heat haze and dust.

  He also caught occasional glimpses of tribes of Bedu trekking through the dunes beyond the coast. ‘I’m always amazed how they survive in this kind of terrain, and in this kind of heat,’ Harper said, as Laiya stood next to him at the rail of the ship.

  ‘Most Europeans wouldn’t last twenty-four hours,’ Laiya said. ‘But Arabs and Africans have been surviving and even thriving here for thousands of years. There is a lot of skill and a lot of knowledge and lore passed down from generation to generation, but it’s also a matter of temperament. Europeans and Americans always seem to be in a rush, whereas we Arabs have learned the value of patience.’ She glanced to the south where a fog-like bank was now spilling over the water from the desert shore. ‘Especially in a sandstorm. I suggest we get below decks before it hits us.’

  They hurried along the deck, but the sandstorm was upon them before they reached the sanctuary of the ship’s air-conditioned interior. The storm turned bright daylight into dusk and though Harper wound his Arab keffiyeh scarf around his face, the stinging, gritty grains of sand found their way through every chink. He could feel sand on his lips and eyelids, and in his ears, and had to grope his way to the doorway by touch, since he could not see his hand in front of his face.

  The storm cleared as quickly as it had arrived and the vistas of desert sand and rock reappeared. As they passed the Eritrean border with Djibouti, the terrain grew even harsher and more forbidding, with desert, rock and range upon range of mountains, virtually bare of vegetation.

  The Yemeni coast, visible from the opposite side of the ship, was little more fertile. The Tihama - the narrow, semi-desert coastal plain - rapidly gave way to the forbidding highlands and mountains that made up ninety per cent of the country. Fringing the Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia, Yemen had not a single permanent river and in the fearsome heat of summer, everything - rock, earth, buildings, livestock and people - seemed to be the colour of dust.

  As Harper watched, he heard the roar of fast-jets and four Saudi warplanes screamed overhead and crossed the Yemeni coast. A couple of minutes later there were the vivid red-orange flashes of multiple bomb-blasts and missile strikes on an inland town. Gouts of oily black smoke began billowing upwards into the sky, just as the delayed sound of the distant explosions reached his ears.

  He caught Laiya’s eye. ‘Perhaps best if we don’t talk about what your country is doing to the Houthis and the Yemenis,’ he said, ‘Not exactly a fair fight, is it? Fast jets and Hellfire missiles against people armed with AKs if they’re lucky and antique hunting rifles if they’re not.’

  Laiya gave him a baleful look. ‘Of course you British know all about fighting fair in Yemen, don’t you? I don’t remember being told of much interest in human rights in the days when Aden was a British colony, a coaling station on the Empire route to India. Nor when British soldiers - your predecessors, Lex - were engaged in a brutal campaign against Yemenis fighting for their country’s independence from Britain.’

  ‘Very true, Laiya,’ he said, ‘but to be fair, that all ended half a century ago, whereas what Saudi Arabia is doing to Yemen is happening right here, and right now.’

  She shrugged. ‘What can I say, Lex? We’re soldiers, aren’t we? And what soldiers do is obey the orders they’re given by their superiors, whatever they might privately think of them.’

  Harper grinned. ‘Which is dangerously close to what the Nazis were all saying at the end of the Second World War: “We were only following orders”. Sorry,’ he said, as he saw her face redden with anger. ‘Ignore that last smart-arse remark, I was just pulling your chain.’

  That evening they passed through the narrows of the Bab-al-Mandeb strait linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. It was one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and they passed an endless stream of container ships heading north towards the Suez Canal, laden with Chinese goods for Europe, while supertankers carrying Middle Eastern oil were travelling in the opposite direction.

  They maintained speed through the night and by midday the next day they were off the coast of Somalia. In any other part of the world, the beautiful white sand, palm-fringed beaches would have made it a dream tourist destination but the only tourists who had set foot in Somalia in decades were adrenaline junkies and “adventure tourists” too young, dumb and full of come to realise the jeopardy they were placing themselves in. Riddled with drought, crime, corruption and food insecurity, Somalia was a failed state, run by warlords and criminal gangs, with Islamist terror groups like Al Shabaab a growing presence. There had been no direct US or UK involvement in the country since the “Blackhawk Down” disaster twenty-five years before. The economy was virtually moribund, the only growth industry being piracy, carried out by warlords, approved by the clan elders and largely supported by the local population since it gave some of them a cash income that no other activity could provide.

  On board the Al Shaheen, the crew had already carried out a series of practice drills with the various weapons systems and had become more slick and proficient by the hour, while Lex and the troops delegated for the upcoming op continued to review and fine-tune the plan that they had devised.

  They avoided the NATO naval flotilla with ease, since it was busy escorting supertankers in and out of the Gulf, and had no time to spare for luxury yachts, even when they were making directly for some very dangerous waters. Harper could imagine the conversation on the bridge of the warships in the flotilla, if they spotted the Al Shaheen: “If some half-witted billionaire wants to risk his yacht and his life in search of something exotic enough to tickle his jaded palate, who are we to stop him?”

  The Saudi ship had now reached the favoured operating area of the Somali pirates. There was no breath of wind and the heat seemed even more intense on the eve of probable combat, with the blazing sun turning the ocean the colour of molten brass.

  Switching off the stealth radar systems, they slowed the ship right down and waited for the pirates to take the bait. Their reaction was not long in coming. Within an hour, the Al Shaheen’s high definition radar was highlighting the blips of vessels approaching the yacht at high speed. At the same time, they were picking up radar emissions from further
out to sea, which the radar operator quickly confirmed were coming from the pirates’ mother-ship.

  Soon they were being circled by four attack craft, their high-powered outboard motors churning the sea into white foam as they sped around the Saudi ship like Native Americans attacking a circled wagon train. Harper could see that men on two of the craft were armed with medium machine guns. He assumed that the other two would be carrying an RPG or something similar. At once, there was a call over the ship’s radio ordering the Al Shaheen to stop. When this was ignored, one of the pirate vessels fired a long burst over the top of the ship. Laiya then ordered the skipper to bring the ship to a standstill while the pirates’ attack craft continued to circle around it at top speed.

  The yacht’s wake faded away and as it rolled gently in the swell, still in the water, Harper ordered the stern doors to be opened to allow the pirates access. While three of the pirates’ craft continued to circle the yacht with their weapons trained on it, Harper swiftly descended from the bridge and ran to the stern in time to see the fourth pirate vessel making a cautious approach.

  As the pirates got closer to the stern dock, Harper, standing on a pontoon, was able to make out the faces of the two Somalis, who were very nervously trying to peer inside the ship. Harper gave a broad smile, gesturing for them to come in. They hesitated and then gingerly resumed their approach. They were concentrating on keeping their vessel safe, and by the time they had registered that Harper had calmly drawn an automatic pistol from the waistband of his jeans, he had shot both of them in the head.

  As Harper had arranged with the weapons officers on the Al Shaheen, the sound of his shots triggered an immediate follow-up. The weapon pods on the sides of the hull rotated to reveal four electrically-powered Gatling guns. Remotely controlled from the weapons centre, the Gatlings spat fire at the rate of 6,000 rounds a minute, and completely destroyed the remaining three pirate boats in seconds, leaving the surface of the ocean empty but for debris, oil slicks and bloodstains that slowly dispersed and dissipated in the current. None of the pirates had got off even a single round in reply.