by M G Leslie
“Yes Sir,” the Duty Officer replied – before printing it and walking over to the SIS Operations Room, “Here you are Sir.”
“Thanks,” said the Chief of Staff, as he read it – it was a short email that read:
Subject: EMERGENCY INFORMATION
Your intelligence officer, Price, has an SIS Tracker, which is at GPS location 18.871, 121.256.
I suggest you go and get him.
Good luck.
Your friend, Mary.
The Chief of Staff handed the piece of paper to the Chief and turned to the Duty Officer, “Get that email traced – I want to know who Mary is.”
The Duty Officer said, “Yes Sir, I’ve already kicked that off – but it seems to have been bounced off a series of email servers across Europe and the US – some of which are probably not even real. So all we know at the moment is, it was sent by a professional,” then he left the Operations Room.
Once he had left, the Chief of Staff and Chief loaded the coordinates they had been given for Price, in to the Operations Room systems. Then they verified that it was possible for the Tracker signal they had picked up earlier, to originate from the location in the email.
The Chief of Staff spoke first, “It could be a trap.”
“Quite possibly,” said the Chief, “But it’s the best information we have. Let’s make preparations and in the mean time, find Mary, whoever she is.”
“Price had a girl friend called Mary about 10 years ago Sir,“ said the Chief of Staff, “In fact, they got engaged and then broke it off – I think she was Chinese and went back home for family reasons if memory serves me correctly.”
“I’m sure we all had girlfriends called Mary at some point in our lives. Let’s get him back before we start that line of enquiry,” said the Chief, “I’ll be in my office – I’m going to call the usual suspects and seek permission to go in with force. Keep me posted,” and then he left and returned to his office.
The Chief of Staff smiled to himself. The ‘Usual Suspects’ was his Chief’s way of referring to the people he called for permission to take action that would normally be considered illegal. They consisted of the Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister and the head of the SAS (officially known as the DSF, or Director of Special Forces).
After what turned out to be a very short meeting between the Chief, the Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister and the DSF, it was agreed that a full military assault on the island was not practical. As the Prime Minster commented, “Whilst that might be something our cousins in North America undertake, we try to avoid invading other people’s countries without their permission, unless there really is no choice.”
The Chief made his view clear though, “He’s one of ours – we want him back – not least because he is one of us, but also because he probably has vital intelligence. And we need to know who Mary is!”
Everyone agreed, and the Prime Minster said jointly to the Chief and DSF, “Go and get him. Find out why he’s there and if necessary, destroy any threats. But…. and this is key… don’t get caught – I don’t want any witnesses!! This operation has to be deniable and handled very carefully.”
The DSF just said, “Sir” and then the Foreign Secretary said, “I’ll sign a Section 7.”
This was an abbreviation for Section 7 of the Intelligence Services Act 1994 which basically says, if “a person would be liable in the United Kingdom for any act done outside the British Islands, he shall not be so liable if the act is one which is authorised to be done by virtue of an authorisation given by the Secretary of State under this section”.
So in layman’s terms, it basically means the Chief could legally break the law, as long as it was outside the UK and had been approved – and on this occasion it had – in fact the Section 7 sign off he had submitted a few minutes later had been very vague in its description, that left him plenty of scope.
Once the meeting had finished, the DSF and Chief met to agree their strategy and the DSF started with, “What are walking in to?”
The Chief gave an outline description of the island, “It’s a very small island, barely a mile from end to end – roughly elliptical in shape – originally volcanic but now covered in fairly dense bush. Satellite photos suggest there’s possibly a small runway to the north, so I would imagine that’s how he got there. There’s two main settlements – a tourist area, which is strictly private, to the south east and an old Spanish fort on the north east – we think that’s where Price is being held. The tourist resort is long established and completely legitimate, so we should probably try and avoid that at all costs.”
“Being that small, it’s going to be difficult to drop in by air unseen,” said the DSF.
“Yes,” said the Chief, “The north coast is mainly cliff, but they’re not very high and to the north west there’s a small beach which looks like our best option. It’s also as far as we can get from the target, so less likely to be patrolled at night.”
“OK,” said the DSF, “Let’s work on that basis – what else?”
“Well,” said the Chief, “This information came to us from an unknown source – it could be a trap. So, tell the team to proceed with extreme caution – we don’t know what we’re going in to here. And worst still, since we received the information, we’ve been tracing network traffic to and from the island. It looks like this could be some kind of headquarters.
We’re also seeing traffic to the Stanley Bay location in Hong Kong that we already know about, as well as traffic to the club in Manila and, very worryingly, to somewhere in the UK – although we’re having trouble pin-pointing that at the moment as they’re managing to scramble the data.”
The conversation continued during which it was agreed to use two SAS patrols of 4 men – the first patrol would recover Price, whilst the second would try and recover any intelligence information that was available, including the girl if she happened to be at the location. Depending on Price’s feedback, they would either leave, ideally relatively quietly, or destroy any on going threat.
Having agreed the purpose of the operation, they started working on the logistics, which were slightly more complicated.
Whilst the four SAS men who had initially helped Price, had travelled back to the Philippines, there was no way they could assist in the assault from there. So they took a flight back to Hong Kong where they met a British warship that was on manoeuvres in the South China Sea, having just assisted with some Indonesian earthquake relief efforts.
From there, the men were transferred by helicopter to a British nuclear submarine that was secretly listening to communications in the region as part of the UK’s nuclear deterrent – and that’s where they met the second patrol.
Once on board the submarine, the most senior officer of the SAS team, known to everyone as Chas, briefed the men on the plan.
“OK lads,” started Chas, “Here’s what we’re doing. Timing is critical. The operation has to be completed within a specific window so that foreign spy satellites cannot photograph this sub when it surfaces to extract us, because as you can imagine, it’s not supposed to be here.”
The other men smiled, so Chas continued, “We also need to avoid a number of foreign naval ships that regularly patrol the South China Sea. There’s a whole bunch of islands in this area that are still being disputed – mostly by the Philippines and China – neither of whom, are likely to be particularly understanding or sympathetic to UK military action.”
Then he placed a map on the table in front of the men and a piece of paper showing the expected timing of each part of the operation. “We’ll leave the sub underwater before taking a short boat ride to the shore on the northwest coast – then it’s a short tab across the island as shown – it’s very small so won’t take long. Price is north central although that’s second hand information, so watch your backs. There’s a potential target in the northeast – some kind of deserted fort.
We’ll leave by the same route and we won’t hang around because as I say,
timing is everything. Questions?”
The men asked about likely resistance, the layout of the building and extraction plans. Then once satisfied, they returned to the mess to get some food before preparing their weapons and equipment.
Nuclear submarines are a claustrophobic combination of corridors, cabins, bunks, steep metal ladders and messes too small to seat everyone in one go – so, not surprisingly, this soon became the topic of conversation in the mess.
“How do people stay sane in this ‘Underwater world’?” asked Dave, one of the other SAS men, as that sat in the tiny mess.
“I quite like it,” said Chas, “I was stuck on a sub for 3 weeks last year – I spent the whole time discussing the merits of rap music with the first officer.”
“And what was the conclusion?” asked Dave.
“We agreed that rap has a silent ‘c’ at the beginning.”
The team laughed, then Chas said, “Seriously though – don’t forget, nothing is signposted lads, so try not to get lost. Back here in 90 minutes with full kit,” then the team went their separate ways to get ready.
Meanwhile, on the island, the search for Price had begun in earnest – Lucy had sent security guards out to patrol in every increasing circles around the perimeter of the building – they were all armed and instructed to shoot on sight.
Then completely out of the blue, she received an SMS message on her phone, “URGENT! Get off the island immediately!”
She recognised the number as her contact from the UK and guessed what was about to happen. She had no idea how she had been found, but that didn’t matter. So she packed up her personal effects and initiated a program to delete all the data on her computer systems.
Once she was satisfied that it was running and doing its job, she picked up her bags and made her way to the plane that still sat on a grass runway a short distance from the building.
As she carried her bags to the plane, she saw the pilot and said, “Let’s go.”
“Now boss?” he replied.
“Yes, now!” Lucy replied as she climbed on board.
“OK but we have to register a flight plan, so it will take time.”
“No, get this plane in the air, we will radio in from the air. Did you change the registration as I instructed?”
“Yes boss,” the pilot replied, “As far as anyone will be concerned, this is a completely different plane with different paperwork and a new ID.”
“Good,” replied Lucy, “Let’s go – get moving now!”
Twenty minutes later the plane was refuelled and back in the air, heading for Clark Airport, just north of Manila.
Price was crouched down when he heard it go, and looked out from a small cave he’d found at the base of the cliff he’d climbed down.
As Lucy touched down a couple of hours later, the SAS men were preparing to deploy, just off the coast of the island. They had all squeezed in to an airlock at the top of the submarine that was specially designed to enable Special Forces soldiers to enter the water whilst the submarine was still submerged. So once their scuba masks were in place and each man was breathing through his regulator, the compartment filled with water, before opening at the end to let them swim out in to the sea.
On reaching the surface, the men retrieved two waterproof containers that had been released from a separate hatch on the top of the submarine.
They turned a lever on the side of each of the containers, which then fell apart, revealing a pair of inflatable boats with outboard motors. Using air tanks to inflate the boats, the men climbed inside and made the short journey to the shore. The satellite photos of the island had been accurate, and as they arrived at the shore on the northwest coast, there was no sign of any inhabitants.
Nevertheless, the men moved swiftly and carried the boats ashore, hiding them in amongst some trees before performing a final check on their equipment – guns loaded, communications functioning correctly!
The SAS soldier in charge of communications signalled their safe arrival and switched on his radio receiver, which would enable them to pinpoint Price to within a few meters. He had an extra button on the receiver, which could be used to send a message to Price. It would not make a sound, but would buzz twice.
Whilst it would be inaudible, they knew that an intelligence officer would normally stow the device on his person, so he would feel it. The only downside of sending the message was that it did give away their position – but seeing as it was such a small island anyway, they judged it was worth the risk. So the man hit the button and held it for 10 seconds – that would create two long buzzes on the device.
Price, who was now struggling to maintain consciousness due to the pain in his arm and feet that had got steadily worse over the preceding hours, felt the tracker device vibrate and his spirit was immediately lifted. He picked up his gun and made his way out in to the open, looking around carefully to make sure he wasn’t about to be captured again. He was fortunate though – with Lucy gone, the searchers were not being that thorough – some had even given up for the night and headed back in the building.
As the SAS team headed east across the island, they realised that the going wasn’t as rough as they had expected and they were moving much faster than originally planned, so Chas spoke to the patrol, “We’ll be there in no time lads – let’s get Price first and see if he can give us any intel on the building, then we’ll split up.”
Price stood looking at the sea at the bottom of a cliff when the SAS men arrived. Their infrared goggles gave them a clear view and they could see that he was alone. Nevertheless, it was always possible that it wasn’t him and that someone who looked similar was waiting for them, whilst others hid out of sight. So they split up, with four men staying at the top of the cliff to keep watch, whilst two descending behind Price, taking a similar route to the one he’d taken a few hours before and the other two approaching along the narrow beach from Price’s left and right.
Once everyone was in place, Chas, who was one of the two who silently descended behind Price, hugging the rocks as he climbed down, spoke, “Price is that you? It’s Chas here mate.”
Price hadn’t heard them coming and spun around in surprise, with his gun raised and ready to fire.
As he turned, the SAS man could see it was definitely Price, so he said, “Mate it’s me, relax, we’re here to get you out. Lower the weapon!”
Price looked in a bad way, so Chas removed his goggles and against all his training, switched on a torch, pointed at himself and said, “Mate, it’s me, lets go!”
Price lowered the gun immediately, walked forward, threw his arms around Chas and said, “Boy am I glad to see you.”
“You look terrible mate. Can you walk?” Chas replied.
“Yes,” said Price, “But they took my shoes and my feet and legs are cut to ribbons, so I’m afraid I will be slow.”
“OK,” said Chas, “Here’s what we’re going to do” then he pushed the button on his earpiece so the other men in the patrol could hear him. “Medic, get over here and fix his feet – bind them and get something on his feet, I need him to be able to walk. Dave and John, you’re going to take him back to the boats and wait for the rest of us.”
The SAS medical officer ran over to Price who sat down as his feet were treated and bound in bandages, whilst Chas said, “Tell me about the building – size, layout, number of people, weapons, everything that could be useful.”
Price started summarizing what he’d seen, “It’s basically an old Spanish fort – square-shaped with a courtyard in the middle, rooms on all four corners and down the west and east sides. The main room with all the communications and computer equipment seems to be on the northeast corner. I escaped through a door on the northwest corner that is about 50 meters from the woods – there’s a corridor that runs north to south on that side and that’s where I saw about 10-15 guards running when they were looking for me – but I don’t think they’re that highly trained – they are armed though, mostly with small side ar
ms.” Then he said, “So what’s the plan?”
“I can’t tell you,” said Chas, “You know that. You need to be de-briefed before I can give you any more mission data. But tell me this, are we walking in to a trap?”
“Understood,” said Price, “And no, you’re not walking in to a trap because I don’t think they expect anyone to come here – so they’re not really set up to keep the place that secure. I think the girl has gone though.”
“I know, GCHQ are still tracking communications in this area,” said Chas, then he looked up and said, “Dave, John, get going with Price – we’ll see you in around 40 minutes”, then to the rest he said, “OK lads, let’s go.”
The two SAS men, Dave and John helped Price back up the side of the cliff and then slowly made their way in a westerly direction, back to the boats. Meanwhile, Chas and the other SAS men set off towards their target – the former Spanish fort.
20 minutes later, Dave, John and Price arrived at where the boats were hidden. They approached with caution in case someone had discovered them – but it soon became clear that the boats had not been disturbed, so the three men found small corner in amongst some rocks, so that they could rest and keep watch whilst waiting for the rest of the team.
Meanwhile, Chas and the other SAS men arrived at the northwest corner of the fort and found the door that Price had described. “OK,” said Chas, “Let’s get in, get anything we can that might be useful and get the hell out of here. Ideally, I want no contact, so let’s keep the noise to a minimum.”
Each man was carrying their usual C8 Carbine assault riffle, fitted with a sound suppressor, as they entered the building. Travelling single file, they hugged the sides of the corridor and made their way towards the room Price had described as containing the computer equipment.
It was very late in the night, so they were hoping everyone was asleep, but as they turned the corner to enter the room where Price had been questioned, a man emerged and saw them. Chas didn’t hesitate, and a short burst of bullets sent the man flying backwards against the wall of the corridor before falling to the floor.