Moving Targets_An Action-Packed Spider Shepherd SAS Novel

by Stephen Leather

  The landing proved to be bumpy and noisy but uneventful. They then taxied to a holding area that had once been reserved for hijacked aircraft. ‘Brings back memories, eh Simos?’ Jock said, with a grin.

  They were met there by a fleet of police cars, with sirens wailing and blue lights flashing. The weapons and equipment they had requested arrived separately in an armoured van that was normally used for transporting prisoners between the police cells and the courts. As Patrol Signaller, Jimbo made a quick examination of the radio sets that had been supplied. ‘These are VVHF,’ he said. ‘Line of sight, single fixed channel sets and OK for us to talk to each other over short distances without being listened to, but we won’t be able to hear or talk to anyone else.’

  ‘Looks like they’re trying to restrict our involvement,’ Jock said. ‘No worries, we can buy throwaway cell phones on the way into the city.’

  ‘Right,’ Shepherd said. ‘Divide the kit between four of the police cars, one of my team will go in each car, the rest of you divide yourselves up between the other vehicles. Simos, dismiss all the other vehicles, then please ask them to turn off those sodding sirens. You and me will go in the lead car and unless it all kicks off at the Parthenon while we’re on our way, we’ll all go direct to the police barracks and the firing range. Ask the drivers to drive safely and not too fast, we need calm nerves from here on in.’

  The range was in a dilapidated barracks on a headland overlooking the sea, to the south-east of the airport, a corrugated iron building as run-down as the rest of the camp. The barracks was almost deserted except for half a dozen caretakers, keeping their heads down and patiently waiting to be pensioned off.

  After stripping, cleaning and checking their weapons, including the angles at the top of every magazine, the team were ready to start their range drills. The Greeks had supplied MP 5s, each of which had a choice of a laser red dot sighting system or a white light torch. Each of them independently chose to keep the torch sighting, because the authorities had not supplied the requested night vision goggles.

  When they were ready Jock ran the shooting drill for Shepherd who was wearing full gear, including coveralls, balaclava and respirator. He started very close to the target, firing single shots until he had a grouping of less than the size of a thumbnail. He then increased the range and went on to fire double-taps, working back to longer ranges, initially hitting head shots and then eye shots, and neither man was satisfied until every round was going through either the left or right eye of the target.

  Jock then set up a number of obstacles, which Shepherd had to negotiate, going either under, over or through the obstacle, all the while taking on the targets, carrying out magazine changes, clearing weapons stoppages as ordered by Jock, rolling magazine changes, changing weapons from MP 5 to pistol and back again and firing in reduced light, then firing left handed to simulate being wounded. Eventually even Jock was satisfied, and Shepherd lifted the respirator revealing a face dripping with sweat.

  Shepherd and Jock swapped roles and the others then ran through similar drills. When they were all satisfied with their performance, they again cleaned and checked their weapons and refilled the magazines.

  ‘Now for some action!’ Geordie said.

  When they reached the Acropolis, they pulled up beside a group of yellow, air-conditioned pantechnicons, designed to fit together to form a modular Incident Management Centre. Nearby was a further vehicle for the technical assistance people, responsible for surveillance CCTV and listening devices. There were also numerous ambulances, engines running, their crews casually smoking as they awaited developments.

  Shepherd had now changed into the tourist clothes he’d requested. ‘Blimey, they’ve excelled themselves,’ Jimbo said, as he took in Shepherd’s Hawaiian shirt, purple Bermuda shorts and floppy orange cotton sun-hat, with a sports bag containing his pistol slung over his shoulder. ‘If there’s a fancy dress contest, I doubt if you’ll win a prize but I can guarantee that people will point you out!’

  Shepherd flashed Jimbo a thin smile and set off to make a careful recce of the area. The top of the hill on which the Acropolis stood was like a giant construction yard. After centuries of neglect, many of the ancient stones and columns had been sorted into piles as part of the long overdue reconstruction of one of the most sacred sites in Greece. Those gave him ample cover, making the recce relatively easy as he climbed the hill and made his way around the holy sites. The grass underfoot had been burned brown by the relentless summer sun and the leaves on the trees lower down the hill had shrivelled in the heat.

  Most of the action was centred on the Parthenon, where there was an uneasy standoff between the terrorists, who had surrounded themselves with tourist hostages, using them as human shields, and the Greek riot police and paramilitaries - a couple of dozen men, dressed in steel grey pyjama type clothing, some armed with pistols - who were trying, without too much success, to maintain some semblance of control over the area.

  It was a surreal sight, with concentric circles of armed terrorists, their hapless captives and the security forces, yet immediately beyond them, there were still groups of tourists in summer clothing, apparently unconcerned as they sat in the boiling sun. Some of the tourist guides’ umbrellas were raised, showing the name of the tourist companies, and sightseers were still snapping pictures of the ruins. Even the people walking away towards safety were strolling along as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

  Shepherd ignored them, quickly identifying the police sniper positions before spending the bulk of his time studying the terrorists. He used his binoculars from the shade of a stone pillar, studying every detail of what they were wearing and the weapons and explosives they were carrying. He made his way back to the rest of the group and gave them a briefing. ‘It’s pretty ragged,’ he said. ‘Parts of the police cordon appear to be extremely porous, with people seemingly coming and going at will. It’s more like a works outing or a picnic than a terrorist siege.’

  ‘I got a good look at some of the bad guys and it is worrying. I put the glasses on them and they’re acting like automatons, or zombies, almost as if they’re already dead. Each of them is wearing a mask at all times, obscuring their faces, they seem to be communicating only by hand signals and they are all wearing a necklace and wristbands of det-cord, ready to be triggered by a handheld detonator. So if they release the pressure either deliberately or involuntarily after being shot, the det-cord will blow off their head and hands, with the obvious intention of making identification virtually impossible. The only other notable point - if it is notable and not just a coincidence - is that almost all of the hostages appear to be Asians: Chinese, Japanese, or maybe Koreans.’

  Simos, who had been talking to the police commanders on site, brought them up to speed with what he’d discovered. ‘The automatic initial assumption was that they are al-Qaeda,’ he said. ‘But it’s pure speculation because there’s been no attempt to negotiate for the release of hostages and no one is claiming responsibility. And there’s been almost no comms chatter at all. The terrorists are apparently acting on a one-way radio link from some unknown source, because they’re wearing earpieces, but as far as we can tell there has been no communication to them as yet.’

  Shepherd frowned. ‘Are we absolutely sure there isn’t some back-channel communication going on? If the government was trying to buy off the terrorists with a ransom payment, they certainly wouldn’t want it known, both because it would merely increase the chances of further hostage incidents and because all NATO countries have made a solemn and binding commitment that they will never pay ransoms in terrorist situations.’

  Simos spread his hands. ‘My friend, they may be negotiating a ransom payment, but if so, it is not being done through police or military channels, so we’ll only know about it afterwards … if then.’

  They went inside the Incident Management Centre, passing a communications room, an operations room and an intelligence centre. Across the corridor was a small r
oom for the negotiators, linked by field telephone to the “business” area of the Parthenon, though the terrorists had shown no apparent interest in negotiating with them. That room was next to the one housing the assault team and between the two a wooden contraption, known as “The Stress Indicator”, had been mounted on the wall. It consisted of a circular wooden disc about the size of a bicycle wheel and was painted in three coloured triangles to indicate the degree of tension being shown by the hostage takers. Blue denoted calm, amber heightened tension and red would indicate that the situation was spiralling out of control, necessitating immediate action.

  They wandered into the assault team room. In passing, Shepherd directed a questioning glance at the negotiators and received a quick shake of the head in reply. The members of the assault team were sprawled around their area relaxing, with belts undone and coveralls unzipped.

  Shepherd stopped to speak to one of the negotiators. ‘Anything yet?’

  ‘Nothing. We’ve tried everything we have to contact them but they’re just not interested. So there’s not a lot we can do until they decide to talk to us.’

  ‘Strange, isn’t it?’ Shepherd said. ‘They must be doing this for a reason. Maybe they’re negotiating with someone else we don’t know about.’

  They followed Simos into the operations room. ‘We don’t know how long this is going to go on for, Simos,’ Shepherd said. ‘But I think we’d better prepare for the long haul. I’ve got three guys here who have nothing else to do but are perfectly capable of running the Control Point. That would free up your guys to do something else more important. What do you think?’

  ‘Good plan,’ Simos said.

  Shepherd called Rupert, Chas and Dave together. ‘Okay guys,’ he said. ‘This is the drill: the Control Point books everyone, and I mean everyone, in and out of the incident site. We need to know which of our people are on the site, what they are doing, how they are dressed, time on site and time off site, and all of this has got to be logged. From now on this is what you’re going to do. Simos will introduce you to the guys who are doing it now, so you can sort out a takeover with them, and then you’ll run it from here on in. If anyone tries to short-cut the system, let Simos know and he’ll come down on them like a ton of bricks. And guys? This isn’t fobbing you off with a “McJob”. This system is absolutely central to the outcome of any incident. Any questions?’

  As dusk turned to night, a strange calm settled over the city. Shepherd walked out onto the Acropolis and again skillfully used the cover of the ruins and the piles of stones awaiting restoration to work his way towards the groups of terrorists and hostages near the Parthenon. There was a surprising amount of light from the stars overhead and using his binoculars he was able to see the hostage-takers clearly. They were showing signs of agitation, some of them had unslung their weapons and they were pushing and prodding the hostages into a ragged line. Shepherd sensed at once that the situation had gone critical.

  ‘Go! Go! Go!’ he whispered into his radio, at the same time unstrapping the MP 5 from his chest. Emerging from cover, he began to walk towards the terrorists, just as they began to shoot the hostages.

  As Shepherd approached the terrorists, who seemed to be firing at random into the hostage groups, he had flicked on his sighting torch and, firing from the hip, shot the nearest terrorist through the eye. A fraction of a second later there was a detonation and the head of the terrorist disappeared in a cloud of blood and brains. He switched his aim to the next terrorist and repeated the action with the same result: another explosion. It was only then that the other terrorists became aware that he was there and began to target him. Several rounds flicked his equipment but such was his concentration that he barely noticed. He advanced remorselessly, taking out targets in the half light, always with the same aftermath, the terrorist’s head exploding and covering the surrounding area with blood, bone and tissue.

  Jock and Geordie had arrived at the Control Point moments after Jimbo, with Aimee at his heels, had started sprinting towards Shepherd. Without a second’s pause Jock and Geordie also dashed towards the gunfire, guided by the muzzle-flashes from the weapons. They could make out Shepherd’s silhouette from the light of the torch strapped to the barrel of his MP 5 and reached him just in time to help him deal with the remaining terrorists.

  In his haste to help his friend, Jock tripped and fell on the uneven surface just as Shepherd was dispatching yet another terrorist. An unstable partially re-assembled stone column crashed down on Jock’s forearm, trapping it, crushing the bones and almost severing it from his upper arm. Within seconds Aimee was kneeling beside him, unzipping her medical pack.

  Soon afterwards the area was a mass of bodies going through post-incident procedures, with the assault team separating the hostages from the dead terrorists and forcibly evacuating the site. The ambulance crews worked on the wounded and began transporting the most seriously injured to hospital while treating the minor wounds on site until ambulances were available to take them away.

  While Aimee checked Jock’s airway and tightened compression bandages around the wound in an attempt to stem the bleeding, his mates carefully lifted the stone column from his crushed arm. ‘We’ve got to get him to hospital fast,’ Geordie said, concern etched on his face.

  Aimee nodded. ‘The wound looks pretty bad, but it’s not life-threatening. He’s relatively young and fit and strong as an ox, so if we stop the bleeding and then monitor his vital signs for indications of any worsening in his condition he should be OK for now. If he goes to the hospital he’ll only be left on a trolley in a corridor while the ERT guys work on the more serious cases, so as long as we look after him, there’s no rush until the panic dies down. The first thing we need to do is a one hundred per cent check to make sure there are no other injuries that we’ve missed.’

  As Patrol Medic, Geordie might easily have been peeved to see Aimee dealing with Jock’s injury instead of him, but he had no ego where treating casualties was concerned. Having satisfied himself that her diagnosis and the treatment she was proposing were correct, he was content to work alongside her to treat his mate’s injuries and ease his pain. While the two of them were dealing with their patient, Shepherd was deep in thought. ‘It might be quicker if we can casevac him on the 125 back to the UK,’ he said. ‘Jimbo, get through to the Skipper, explain the situation and find out what the flying time is to the UK, will you? The best place for Jock to be would be the Centre for Defence Medicine at Birmingham but we must make him fit for travel before we can make a move. Ask the Skipper for his advice, but it might be best if we go direct to Brum International.’

  A tense half-hour passed before Aimee and Geordie were able to report that all the major blood vessels in Jock’s arm had been either tied or clamped off, and the bleeding from the minor blood vessels was being controlled by compression bandages. ‘In my opinion,’ she said, ‘I think he’s fit to travel but we can’t hang around too long because the wound is filthy and there is a chance of gangrene setting in. If he starts to bleed again en route we will have to divert to the nearest airfield and hope that any hospital within range of it has the right type of blood.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ Geordie said. ‘Spider and me are universal donors, both O Positive. As long as you have cannulas, we could donate almost one-to-one. So if he’s okay to move, let’s get him back to the Management Centre where he’ll be more comfortable.’

  Jock, who was ghost-white and had been drifting in and out of consciousness, was listening to the exchange and spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Get me back to the UK. It’s the best place for me to be if they are going to save my arm.’

  CHAPTER 19

  As soon as they reached cruising altitude after leaving Athens International, Chamberlain was able to speak with the operations team at RAF HQ Air Command in High Wycombe and he quickly outlined the situation. After a crisp ‘Wait Out’, a calm female voice came through the headphones. She identified herself as the officer in charge of repatriating pat
ients back to the UK, asked Aimee about Jock’s condition, congratulated her on how she and the patient were both doing and said she was handing them back to operations but would speak to them again in a few minutes.

  Another calm voice, male this time, outlined to Chamberlain the contingency plans they had in place. Along the route there were pre-selected airfields and hospitals to which the 125 could be diverted in the event of any deterioration in the patient’s condition. It was a tried and tested system that had been used frequently over the years to repatriate wounded service personnel from the Middle East. With the responsibility removed from his shoulders, Chamberlain visibly relaxed, and even Shepherd, Geordie and Jimbo stopped looking so anxious.

  Every ten minutes, as regular as clockwork, the casevac officer spoke to Aimee, who relayed Jock’s vital signs and general overall condition. Jock meanwhile had gone into a self-induced semi-hypnotic state, something he had taught himself over the years.

  The follow-up from the terrorist attack at the Parthenon came in an immediate statement from al-Qaeda claiming responsibility that was relayed to them on the aircraft. ‘But that’s got to be bullshit, hasn’t it?’ Jimbo said. ‘Those guys weren’t Arabs or Chechens or any of the usual al-Qaeda groups. What was left of them looked more like they were Chinese or Korean, or something.’

  Shepherd shrugged. ‘Maybe. I agree it didn’t look like the normal al-Qaeda MO but there are Muslim minorities in China and a lot of other Asian countries, so you can’t rule it out.’

  As they transited over France they were updated on how Jock’s situation would be managed on their arrival in the UK. ‘London air traffic control will give you priority clearance through to RAF Northolt, where you will be met by a surgical team and a helicopter which will transport the patient to the Centre for Defence Medicine in Birmingham. This is a better option than the 125 flying direct to Birmingham International.’