‘Horah!’ said the medic kneeling beside her. ‘As your name says, you’re one lucky benzona, Lieutenant. You’ve lost your sergeant and two other men, with three others wounded, but you’ll live,’ said the medic, yelling in Glukel’s face while they worked on her. Glukel meant ‘lucky’ in Hebrew, but the lieutenant didn’t feel it. The two dead soldiers had been laid beside her. One was her brother, his eyes open, staring, accusing. She cried, not because they had died, but because she had lived.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Samuel Polski. ‘Who called in the fucking army?’ The man in his arms was dying. He cut the lock-tie behind the wounded man’s back, freeing his arms, one of which was broken. For years they’d been trying to infiltrate the Hezbollah. Finally, they’d managed the unbelievable only to have their own army come along, surround him and kill him. Beautiful! Kakat! Shit! The Mercedes dashed through the streets, heading for a Shin Bet safe house that contained a fully staffed OR with trauma specialists on hand. ‘Jacob, you kakat, hang on. Hang on!’ he screamed.
‘He’s saying something. What’s he saying?’ said Ahron Mandelberg, ripping open Jacob’s shirt, checking for chest wounds as the Mercedes bounced along.
‘They will vex us in the east,’ said Jacob as his heart gave out. He said it softly, almost in a whisper.
‘Jacob! Jacob! What did you say? Horah!’ Mandelberg placed his ear against Jacob’s chest. He slammed his fist against the man’s chest, cracking his sternum, trying to get his heart started.
‘He said, “They’ll vex in the east.” Does anyone know what that means?’ Mandelberg shouted, his ear close to the dead man’s lips. ‘Jacob! Where? East Jerusalem?’
‘Lie him down,’ called out Mandelberg as the car raced through the narrow streets. ‘Jacob! What did you say?’ yelled Mandelberg. ‘Is it some kind of fucking proverb?’
‘Forget it. He’s dead,’ said one of the other men. The concussion from a grenade had done its job well, shattering Jacob’s internal organs as completely as if a truck had hit him.
Baruch fingered the report of the operation. Two crack soldiers had died in the op, the platoon commander – one of his best – would be laid up in recovery for a month at least, and a Shin Bet agent working undercover had also died of his wounds. How the hell was he to know that one of the terrorists wasn’t a terrorist at all? The man ran with the enemy, fired on innocent people and then took on the army, for God’s sake. The whole fucking thing had happened so fast. And what would Shin Bet have done had it known one of their own was in that apartment building? Told everyone to pack up and go home? The icing on the cake was the loss of the UAV. It wasn’t one of theirs. It was on loan, on trial from the manufacturer in the United States, sponsored by the US military. And, of course, both were pissed about the disappearance of the multi-million-dollar toy, which meant his superiors were pissed at him too. Another excuse for them to hold back his promotion. A fifty-one year old lieutenant colonel in a young person’s army? Horah! Baruch snapped the folder shut.
The media had reported it differently, of course. They said it had been a great victory. Four senior members of the hateful terrorist group Hezbollah cornered, shot and killed. And this time, no civilian casualties to account for. He was a hero. Everyone was a hero. The unwinnable war was being won. What would winning it mean? Baruch had no real idea. He shook his head, trying to clear it of doubt. He buried the report under a pile of papers on his desk. There was a tight feeling in his chest. Stress. It would be another night of non-performance in the marriage bed, no doubt, staring at the ceiling.
Australian Defence Force HQ, Russell Offices, Canberra, Australia
Sergeant Tom Wilkes had been ordered to the briefing by the commanding officer of the regiment himself, Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Hardcastle, the same Hardcastle who’d single-handedly destroyed two mobile Scud missile launchers in Iraq during Desert Storm, and rescued a downed American pilot in Bosnia, carrying the man on his back for four days across hostile territory. And yet, like many in the SAS, the colonel was hardly the muscle-bound matinee idol type. He was of average height and weight with short brown hair that was now greying slightly at the temples, and large, friendly brown eyes. His was the face that disappeared in a crowd, a kind of Everyman, yet he was fearless, sometimes ruthless, and always passionate about the regiment and its fighting traditions.
Sergeant Wilkes made his way to the Australian Defence Force HQ directly from the airport. He stepped out of the lift at the appropriate floor and was surprised to see the colonel seated on a leather chesterfield down the hall. The officer stood and walked towards the sergeant with a broad grin. Wilkes braced up, chest out, head back. Indoors, neither man was wearing a hat, so saluting was not required.
‘Stand easy, Tom. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. Sulawesi. You and your men did a great job there.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Air Marshal Niven debriefed me fully on the op. I know how tough things were.’
Wilkes saw the colonel’s eyes flick to the red scar that curled across the side of his face, and he resisted the momentary desire to rub it.
‘Yes, sir.’ Wilkes had attended two funerals when he returned, for men who had paid the ultimate price. He took a deep breath and let the oxygen smooth some of the pain the memory brought to his chest. Wilkes’s troop was close-knit. The men lived and died together, and while death was clearly a hazard of the job, losing a mate was never an easy burden to bear, and the memories were still fresh.
Hardcastle realised he’d touched a nerve. It was a place he’d personally been to many times over the years. ‘Well, Tom, with so many imposts on the regiment these days, I spend most of my time at meetings or pushing paper around a desk. But I do get the odd reward and one of them is informing people they’ve been promoted before anyone else steals my thunder…Warrant Officer Class Two Wilkes.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Wilkes, unable to stop the smile that spread across his face. He’d just joined a very exclusive group within Australia’s elite fighting force. And then the smile disappeared.
‘Is there a problem, Warrant Officer?’
‘This means I loose my troop, doesn’t it, boss?’
‘You’ve done everything and more that’s been asked of you, Tom.’
‘I’m not ready to wave the boys goodbye from the docks, sir.’
‘The promotion’s a done deal, Tom.’
‘What if I don’t accept it, sir?’
‘That’s not an option. But look…’ Wilkes’s reluctance to cease active duty as a troop sergeant could prove difficult. With higher rank came different responsibilities. And opportunities. ‘Okay, Tom, how’s this? You get your choice of ops. Something interesting comes up, I’ll give you first crack at it. If you think you need your troop along for the ride, if they’re not deployed elsewhere, they’re yours. Can’t be fairer than that.’
Hardcastle had a reputation for being a straightshooter. ‘Okay, sir. Call me Warrant Officer.’
Hardcastle put out his hand and the two men shook on it. ‘You should get the official confirmation within the week. Also, there’s talk of a Distinguished Service Medal for you, and various service medals for your men. The reasons for these awards will, of course, be kept from the public record, but the nation is nevertheless keen to show its gratitude for a job well done.’
‘Thanks, sir, I’m honoured,’ said Wilkes.
‘Now, I guess you want to know why we’ve dragged you all the way down here, away from the R & R you so richly deserve –’
At that instant, the double doors beside them opened and Wilkes was surprised to see them held wide by the Chief of the Australian Defence Force, Air Marshal Ted ‘Spike’ Niven. Both special forces men braced up.
‘Relax, lads. Andrew…?’ said the CDF, a smile on his face, eyebrows raised with a slight question.
‘We’re done, boss,’ said Hardcastle. He then turned to Wilkes. ‘I won’t be joining you, Tom. Just wanted to meet you and give you th
e news personally.’ He turned to the CDF. ‘He’s all yours, sir.’
‘Thanks, Andrew. We’ll talk later,’ said Niven.
Wilkes was still unwittingly braced up as Hardcastle walked off. ‘Good to see you again, Tom,’ said Niven. ‘And congratulations on your promotion.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Wilkes. Air Marshal Niven had personally debriefed Wilkes after Sulawesi. Wilkes liked the gruff CDF, a former F/A-18 pilot, because he was ruthlessly honest. The top job in the forces was as much about politics as it was about soldiering and Wilkes realised that it must be tricky reconciling personal views with those of the national interest, especially as politicians perceived it. A couple of years shy of fifty, Niven was a young man to be holding such a lofty position. As to how he earned the nickname ‘Spike’, it was his callsign back in his fighter pilot days. He also looked uncannily like a bulldog. Stocky frame, big jowls and an underbite. He’d never win a beauty contest, unless his mum happened to be the judge.
‘Okay, let’s go. After you…’ Niven ushered Wilkes through the doorway ahead of him. The room was a lecture theatre capable of seating fifty people in rows that climbed steeply from the centre stage. A number of people Wilkes didn’t recognise were seated in the front rows.
‘Everyone, this is Warrant Officer Tom Wilkes, SAS Regiment. He’s the man responsible for taking some of the photos you’ve seen here this morning,’ said Niven.
The newly promoted warrant officer felt vaguely uncomfortable in the presence of so much brass.
‘Take a seat, Tom,’ said Niven. ‘We’ve all read your report on your recent trip to PNG with great interest. The reasons why will become obvious in a moment. No one expects you to remember names and titles, but just so you know who you’re talking to, this is the Honourable Hugh Greenway, Minister for Defence; Graeme Griffin, Director-General of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service; Peter Meyer, Director-General, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation; Federal Agent Jennifer Tadzic from the AFP’s Transnational Crime Coordination Centre; Hamish Cameron, Assistant Director, Australian Customs; Gia Ferallo, Assistant Deputy Director CIA Station Chief, Canberra; Field Officer Atticus Monroe, Central Intelligence Agency; and Felix Mortimer from the Defence Intelligence Organisation.’
Wilkes directed a nod to each in turn. This must be serious! Most of these people spearheaded the intelligence and police services that Australia was relying on to come to grips with the eternal War on Terror, now so tragically a part of the nation’s daily life. Wilkes realised he’d never heard most of the names before, but then these individuals were steering organisations that worked effectively out of the public consciousness, so their anonymity wasn’t necessarily surprising.
The mix of expertise gathered in the room told Wilkes something big was in the offing, and he was instantly curious to know what that was and how he personally fitted into it. The CIA field officer stood out from the crowd, but only because he had a pair of bruised black eyes and looked like he’d gone a few rounds with a prizefighter and lost. The CIA woman, Gia Someone-or-other, wore a dark power suit, bright red lipstick and a string of pearls around her neck. The ambitious corporate executive. Pretty, and no doubt she knew it. Not his type.
‘What we have here, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Niven, ‘is a think tank of interested parties. You each have your own departmental concerns. The object of this session is to put those concerns, and what information all of us have, on the table. So, without further ado. Lights, please,’ said Niven.
Wilkes sat the end of the front row and tried to look inconspicuous. What the hell am I doing here? The lights dimmed and an image filled the screen on the wall. Wilkes recognised the picture instantly, because he’d taken it: the cargo ship ringed by the distinctive volcanic formations, dugout canoes on the green waters around it.
‘I have to say you’ve got bloody good instincts, Warrant Officer,’ said the bloke from the DIO as he stood and approached the screen at the front of the room, a bunch of notes in his hands. ‘The serial number of the Kalashnikov you sent back threw us into a bit of a panic, especially when we got your photos, and the ones taken by Field Officer Monroe here.’
The DIO analyst, Felix Mortimer, looked every inch the public servant, with his ragged beard, brown slacks and cardigan. His brown hair was a little too long and greasy and he had a round, flaccid face. Too much red wine and fried food. Wilkes found himself wondering if the man also had dandruff and coffee breath. But there was something about him that didn’t fit the picture of the disinterested career public servant. He was sharp and talked quickly. The guy knew his shit. He said, ‘The 7.62mm AK-47 assault rife designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov in nineteen forty-six. Over seventy million made. Weapon of choice for third-world armies, terrorists and thugs.’
An image of the weapon Wilkes had recovered from Papua New Guinea flashed up on the screen, a cardboard ident tag hanging from its trigger guard.
‘Serial number KL43389187UN. Manufactured in the Czech city of Mosnov, August eighth, nineteen sixty-seven. Despatched to Syria via the port of Odessa two months later. Over thirty years on, the weapon turns up in New Guinea.’
The image on the wall changed. This time, it was video footage. The picture was moving fast and only a metre or so above the water, as if shot from the bow of a powerful speedboat. Towering cliffs raced towards the camera and, at the last possible moment, the camera climbed sickeningly, sweeping over the top of a spire of black basalt, clearing it by death-defying centimetres. And then the cargo ship came into view. Part of a helicopter skid appeared in the bottom left of the frame. Of course, Wilkes realised, the footage was filmed from the chopper that had appeared suddenly over the bay.
Wilkes watched as a man raced to the bow of the ship and threw back the cover on the machine gun. The picture froze and the image magnified ten times. The weapon was indeed an American M4 .50 calibre as Wilkes had suspected. The beard and the baseball cap. Apparently, the man with his finger on the trigger was of Middle Eastern origin, and he never would have guessed that.
‘This is Kadar Al-Jahani,’ said Mortimer. ‘The given name is more important than the family name in the part of the world this man hails from. It reflects the hopes of the people who bestow it. Kadar means “powerful one” in Arabic. Kadar’s family was poor, so the name “Kadar” was probably a bit of wishful thinking. Kadar grew up to be a demolitions expert in the Saudi army. And, most recently, terrorist for hire.
‘The rash of suicide bombers who blew potholes in the Israeli–Palestinian Roadmap to Peace are thought to have been his students. He favours a booster charge material known as RDX, otherwise known as cyclonite or hexogen – a white crystalline solid that’s the basic ingredient of other explosives such as Composition B. It’s very stable and extremely powerful. Half a kilo of RDX will peel the roof off a Mercedes bus and turn it inside out. Perfect for the terrorist travelling light.
‘The question we’re asking is why here? Why New Guinea? What’s he doing there, way out of his own fish tank? Has he given away terrorism to make a pile of money gun and drug smuggling? In short, we doubt it.’
The video footage rolled forward. Muzzle flashes burst silently from the heavy machine gun in Kadar’s hands. The video swept the ship’s deck, back towards the wheelhouse, and focused on another group of men firing Kalashnikovs disconcertingly out from the screen at the people in the lecture theatre. Again the frame froze and stepped forward, bringing one of the men sharply to the foreground.
‘This is Duat. No second name, just Duat – that’s an Indonesian thing, by the way. A nasty piece of work. Duat teaches people how to kill with swords, guns, ammonium nitrate bombs, whatever. He belongs to a little-known terrorist group called Babu Islam, which basically means ‘Servants of God’. Like a lot of groups in this part of the world, such as Jamaah Islamiah, they’re dedicated to awakening Indonesia to their view of its Islamic responsibilities – namely, to kill as many non-believers as possible.’
‘Love his
dental work,’ said the CIA man, Atticus Monroe, to no one in particular. There was a quiet chuckle in the room. One of Duat’s front teeth was missing and the other was gold.
Wilkes recognised Duat. He was the leader of the party at the village, the man who demonstrated the hand gun by shooting the pig’s brains out.
‘Ordinarily, we just keep a loose eye on people like Duat through ASIS and the CIA,’ Mortimer continued, ‘but when he starts keeping company with the likes of Kadar Al-Jahani, we sit up and take notice. And, of course, there are other issues that are falling out of this unholy alliance. Jenny, you might want to leap in here.’
‘Jenny Tadzic, TCCC, Australian Federal Police,’ said the woman sitting directly behind Wilkes, introducing herself to the room. It occurred to Wilkes that occasions which brought all these people to the one place were rare, and they were probably strangers to each other as much as they were to him. He turned to look at her while she spoke. He guessed that she was around thirty-five, maybe a year or two older. She had an intelligent face with wavy dark hair pulled straight back, and a deep furrow between dark eyebrows that indicated she spent many hours of the day worrying.
‘There’s a lot of imported marijuana in circulation at the moment. It’s not the usual hydroponic stuff – it’s what’s known as “bush-buds”, grown naturally. Word of mouth says it’s from PNG and initial tests on samples are confirming this. Some say it’s a good thing when the market’s flooded with pot because the demand for harder drugs falls away. That’s true to some extent but it’s not the issue. We don’t know how the stuff’s getting into the country and that’s a big problem. Also, is this a new supply chain, or an existing one? We have a concern that when the pot runs out, the same supply chain could well be used for the distribution of harder drugs.’
‘Is that a certainty, Jenny?’ asked Niven during the pause. The Australian Defence Force chief was new to the world of drugs and smuggling.
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