“You are truly a man of vision, Barry,” Robert said.
Barry pointed the gun at Jack.
“Wait!” Robert yelled.
Barry lowered the weapon.
“For Christ’s sake Bob, don’t you know how dangerous it is to stop an Irishman when he is in the middle of an execution? Especially when he is executing a lowlife piece of British scum like Jack here.”
“You do not have a silencer on your gun,” Robert spluttered out.
Robert reached into a pocket of his jacket and he produced a silencer. He tossed the piece of equipment to Barry.
“Cheers mate,” Barry said.
Barry began to screw the silencer onto the end of his gun.
“You know Jack, ever since the first moment that I laid eyes on you I had a feeling deep down in my stomach that one day it would come to this. You must have thought that you were so very clever to have fooled so many good Irish heroes back in the old country?”
“Funny,” Jack said. “I seem to remember fooling you back then too. And it was easy.”
Barry smiled again.
“Full of shit right to the end Jack,” said Barry.
He raised the weapon and pointed it at Jack’s head. Robert smiled through a grimace as he readied himself.
“Not as full of shit as you Barry. Now, I’m assuming the explosives are in place?” Jack asked.
A look of confusion spread across Robert’s face. “You
would assume right,” Barry replied.
Barry re-aimed the gun in a flash and he quickly squeezed the trigger. The bullet entered Robert’s forehead dead centre. The large man hit the floor in a lifeless pile.
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Barry smiled.
“How did you know?” Barry asked.
“If you hadn’t been on our side she would have killed you and
Robert the moment that you walked into the room,” Jack explained. “So how long do we have?” “There’s twenty minutes left on the timers. But if we need to get the show on the road a little earlier then I can activate them remotely,” Barry said.
“OK then,” Jack said. “You two get the hell out of here. I have to see a mad man about a mad dog. Both of whom need putting down.” Alexa moved to make a protest but she knew it was pointless. Jack needed to finish the mission and there was no way that he would put her in danger as he did so. Barry wouldn’t have been his first choice as her bodyguard, but as he was the only one able to accept the job at that moment then there was no decision to be made.
Alexa and Barry left the office ahead of Jack. They didn’t look back as Jack watched them move down the short corridor to a fire exit which led outside. Twenty minutes to stop a well armed, highly protected mad man.
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18
Hell on Earth
Israel-Jordan Border, December 1989
Fireballs erupted high into the sky all around them. Jack tried to maintain his composure, if only for her sake, but it was a far from easy task. The Israeli air force was intent on the complete destruction of the entire area. Any one unfortunate enough to be in the area would be just one more casualty of a war without end. The first four or five bombs that struck were close to the target, but they didn’t quite hit the bull’s-eye. Each massive explosion and sudden flash of orange light was quickly followed by violent shockwaves which rocked their car like a toy boat on an angry sea. And with each explosion Jack held his breath in expectation of a thermonuclear explosion that would end once and for all their frantic attempt to escape. From various incidents during the Cold War Jack knew that nukes were by and large, quite safe, and that many of them had survived such catastrophic events as plane crashes, and even an explosion on a submarine. But this attack was many orders of magnitude more intense than anything that had gone before. There was no precedent for an all out, direct attack by warheads loaded with high explosives. One lucky shot could very well start a whole new chapter in the story of the bomb.
No matter how fast and how recklessly he drove away from the
area, he would never be able to put enough distance between them and an exploding nuke. Their only hope was that all the safety features that the engineers had put in place when constructing the weapons, did their job, and then some. Jack’s suicidal dash was initially to avoid the rain of fire that was being unleashed on the area, but he was also very well aware of the fact that even if the bombs didn’t explode there was still the very real danger that the layers of casing containing the nuclear material would not be quite so lucky. Given the choice he would prefer the not knowing that came with instant vaporisation over the long and agonising death that he would suffer if he was struck down with radiation poisoning. From the fleeting glimpses Jack got of the hell-like scene in his mirror he estimated that at least twelve helicopters were now in the sky. How many were providing cover, and how many were unleashing hell, he could not be certain.
After ten minutes of high speed driving along the dusty road it was certainly not time for them to breathe easy, but it was time for them to at least hope they might actually get out of the terrible predicament alive. Just as Jack allowed himself to hope to live to see another day two helicopter gunships broke off from the main attack and they headed towards them in an unfairly direct fashion and at a speed that their car could never compete with. They had obviously spent all of their missiles but that did not mean they were unarmed—far from it. The automatic weapons on either side of the helicopters could cut their car into tiny fragments in seconds.
“Stop the car, Jack,” Alexa ordered.
Jack paused. He couldn’t see what move she wanted him to make. “Stop the car, Jack,” sherepeated. “Thereis noway that we are ever
going to outrun them.”
“I know that. But there is nowhere here for us to hide.” When she issued the instruction for the third and final time she
did so in a low, resigned tone. Jack instantly knew what she was trying to tell him. Inwardly he was protesting—on the outside he remained the dignified British officer. He brought the car to a stop. They exchanged knowing looks, kissed passionately, then broke off and got out of the car. They met at the front of the vehicle as one of the helicopters passed overhead, slowed, and then turned to face them. Jack barely noticed that Alexa had taken him by the hand. Her hand was trembling. That was the one and only time that she had shown any fear in his presence and it spoke volumes of how little she actually believed in the wisdom of her own plan. Jack turned to her and he grinned; it was warm and it was reassuring, but it was not enough to kill the tremor.
With her free hand Alexa began to wave to the helicopter. The rail gun mounted on the left of the craft began to spin. Within seconds it was at the optimum speed for firing. One quick burst would be enough to reduce Jack and Alexa to mincemeat. They held their breath and waited. After what seemed to be an eternity the gun stopped spinning. Dust and small stones blasted Jack’s face as the craft edged forwards and landed. Four commandos leapt from the helicopter. Two took up defensive positions at the side of the helicopter while the other two soldiers dashed towards Jack and Alexa. For whatever reason, and in moments like that those reasons were seldom questioned, someone in charge had changed the order to kill everyone and everything in the area, to an arrest and detain command, and Jack was only too willing to cooperate with that new order. The commandos lead Jack and Alexa to the helicopter and plastic straps were tied tightly around their wrists before they were bundled into the craft, just as it was taking off. That the restraints were fixed suggested that the soldiers had no idea who they really were, and that fact alone made the order not to shred them as they stood in front of their car all the more perplexing.
“Any chance that you might tell these fine gentlemen exactly who we are?” Jack said, to Alexa.
“Until we are back in my country it would not matter,” she said. “I
don’t understand?”
“Anyone picked up in a hostile zone must have their identity verified by their
immediate superiors. It is protocol. These guys probably know who I am but until we land they will treat me like the enemy.”
“Let’s hope they don’t treat us in the same way that your government treats some of its other enemies,” Jack said, and then smiled.
Alexa did not take the criticism in the way that it had been intended.
“We are alive Jack, and had I been in charge of this helicopter we would not have been. Let’s put this one down to a bit of good luck, and leave it at that.”
“You’ll get no arguments from me on that one, doll.”
What she said made sense, yet at the same time it made no sense at all. If there was any doubt about their identity then they would have been shot on the spot. He knew that much about the Israelis. Shoot first, and then ask questions; it was what they were famous for and given the precarious position the country found itself in on purely geographical grounds, that kind of terror was the only thing keeping it from being whipped from the face of the earth by its neighbours.
Something was definitely not quite right and it gnawed at him not knowing what it was. That the commandos allowed him to continue talking to Alexa on the helicopter, and that they allowed them to hold hands, meant that they knew they were not a threat. Yet the restraints meant that the trust was not complete. Alexa did not look like a woman who had just escaped a certain death and who was about to be brought back to the safety of her own country. She had the look of the condemned about
wrong. He also knew
her and Jack knew that something was very enough to know that she would only let him know what was wrong when she was good and ready, and if he tried to force it out of her through a pointless round of nagging then she would shut up even more tightly, and perhaps she might shut up permanently on the matter.
Although it was a perfect day in that part of the Middle East, the ride back into Israel was far from smooth. The helicopter at first climbed high into the sky—the angle was so steep that Jack found himself clinging onto his seat with his free hand—which itself was clinging onto Alexa’s hand with perhaps a little too much force. The craft levelled out for a short time before entering into a near vertical dive until they were so close to the ground that Jack could see clearly the looks of fear on the faces of children out working in the fields. They flew at high speed towards a ridge of small hills and as they approached Alexa loosened her grip—that was a clear sign to Jack that they were almost out of danger. Just over the ridge a large military complex came into view. There were two runways; a large, main runway, and a slightly shorter, secondary landing strip. Tanks and other
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types of more lightly armouredvehicles were everywhere. In fact, there were enough troops and hardware assembled in that twenty acre plot of land to launch an invasion. Jack counted at least twelve helicopter gunships out in the open; and the three massive hangers were no doubt concealing many squeeze his hand tightly pain and worry.
“Jack, before we land there is something that you should know. I told you that I have been running this operation a little bit off the books. Well, I am afraid I may have grossly under-exaggerated just how off the books I have been operating.”
“I’m sure your government will understand once you have explained why you did what you did. After all, you did find the nukes and if that attack had not been successful then you would have been their only agent on the ground keeping track of the weapons.”
Alexa’s expression changed to that of shame. “I learned some time back that there are elements inside my government who wanted the weapons to get through.”
“I don’t understand. Why would they do something that reckless? If the weapons got into the country then who knows what might have happened. The terrorists may have set them off prematurely if they thought that your forces were closing in on them. It could have been carnage.”
“I know Jack. But that is exactly what they wanted. Carnage. The plan I uncovered involved ceasing the weapons inside our border, then killing all those involved in the shipment. One of the nukes was going to be taken to a small fishing town and remotely detonated. Thousands would have been killed. My government was then going to tie that attack in with all of our enemies in the region and use it as an excuse to nuke them back to the Stone Age.”
Jack grinned.
“At least all those on the Arab Street would have been proved right,” Jack said. “In spite of all the denials, Israel has a nuclear arsenal.”
“Yes, and it is a sizeable one at that. Over one thousand large warheads. And each one has already been locked on to a target. The attack on the town would have been the signal to launch all of those weap
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more. As they came into land Alexa began to once again. She turned to him with a look of
ons, within hours. Instead of being surrounded by enemies we would find ourselves buffered by a nuclear wilderness.”
“Christ almighty, there is no way in hell that they could think that the world would let them get away with it. Even your strongest allies would turn on you. And I wouldn’t be too sure that the condemnation would end with trade sanctions. And what about Russia? She may be in terminal decline but that doesn’t mean that she hasn’t got the will and the ability to strike back. And you don’t need me to tell you that the Kremlin is full of people who would like nothing more than to see the complete destruction of America’s closest ally.”
There was a pause. “And here was me thinking that Britain was our closest ally,” Alexa said, with a smile.
“Afraid not love. Unless someone discovers massive oil reserves in Ireland or France, poor old Blighty is no more relevant to the US than anyone else. We are only ever useful when they want to refuel their submarines or send out their bombers on long range missions. We are nothing more than a glorified US base these days. And they are in charge of the relationship.”
“Good job you are Scottish then,” she retorted.
Jack smiled.
“So what is going to happen now?” Jack asked.
“If we are very lucky I will be arrested and put in prison for the rest of my life and you will be deported back home.”
“And if we are unlucky?”
“We will be tortured and then shot. They will say that we died at the scene of the attack, or something. And that will be that. Either way, when we set foot on the ground we will never see one another again.”
Jack smiled warmly.
“Not bloody likely doll,” he said.
Jack squeezed her hand firmly as they touched down. The door beside them slid open and they stepped out. As they were led across the tarmac Jack began to run through all kinds of escape plans. None of them could ever succeed with the bulk of one of the most highly trained and best equipped armies in the world only yards away. That
220 small, yet all important fact to one side, Jack felt motivated to at least die trying as she was worth the effort. By the time they got to a small building next to one of the large hangers Jack was still of a mind to try an escape attempt, but when they entered the building all thoughts of escape vanished.
The building was a command centre. There was a large battlefield mapped out the room a everything that went on in that room. The room was not currently active as there were only two military strategists in uniform milling around, but behind the desk on the platform sat two men in uniform and one man in a navy suit. The military men were unknown but the man in the suit was all too familiar. It was Deeley. Jack had never been so glad to see his old commander. Surely Deeley’s presence meant that they would get the opportunity to tell their story and save Alexa from whatever terrible fate her masters had in store for her?
“Good to see you Jack,” Deeley said.
“Believe me, I’m a hell of a lot happier to see you than you are to see me,” Jack replied. “I wouldn’t be too pleased to see me if I were you, Jack. You and your lady friend have been on quite a little adventure. During your little adventure you have managed to piss off a hell of a lot of
the very easily upset governments in this region. Some of those governments are holding British nationals for various reasons and you have single-handedly managed to set back years of hard work on our part in trying to get your countrymen and women sent back home to their families.” “With all due respect sir, and by that I mean with absolutely no respect at all, we were trying to stop thousands, if not millions of people in this country being vaporised. And I do not believe for one minute that the self-serving bastards in Whitehall could square the delayed freedom of a few people who put themselves in harm’s way of their own free will, with the deaths of millions of innocent people who found themselves in this part of the world through an accident of birth. And if you think for one minute that I’m going to stand here and take a lecture on right and wrong from you, in front of them, then you really have misunderstood what I’m all about.”
on a table in the middle of the room, and at the back of large desk sat on a raised platform, looking down on Deeley jumped to his feet and he banged on the table.
“That’s the problem Jack,” Deeley yelled. “I do not know what
you are all about. You were in a foreign country, a country who we have been at war with for decades and you go off the radar. You go rogue. What are we supposed to think? And when we get a call from our friends here, as a courtesy mind you, to tell us that one of our agents has decided to involve himself in a major operation, and that his thoughtless actions could lead to the start of World War Three, then what you are all about suddenly takes on a whole new meaning. Seriously Jack, what the hell was going through that stupid head of yours?”
Spittle spewed from Deeley’s mouth as he berated Jack in front of the Israelis.
“If you want to take your dick out and start swinging it around in front of your friends you go right ahead, sir, but this whole situation stinks. This woman has been fighting against powerful forces in her own government to try and stop this whole region from turning into a nuclear desert and as soon as we are finished here she will be taken away and she will never be heard from again. Our little adventure, as you put it, may have stopped the world from witnessing one of the worst crimes against human beings since the last war. Now, if you have finished chewing the bollocks off me, perhaps you could sit the hell down and think of a way to get her the hell out of this mess.”
Deadly States (Seaforth Files by Nicholas P Clark Book 2) Page 25