Operation Pink Elephant

by Stephen Dando-Collins

  Ben took a swig of water and joined his mother at the window. A broad smile creased his face. ‘Will you look at that!’

  Maddie, Ben’s daughter, was playing with Caesar on the back lawn. The chocolate labrador sat there patiently, wearing a hat and sunglasses, as Maddie put one of her summer dresses on him.

  ‘So cute!’ said Nan, touched by the sight. ‘Caesar will let Maddie do anything with him.’

  ‘I wonder what the other war dogs would think if they saw Caesar in a dress,’ Ben said with a chuckle.

  ‘Dad! Nan!’ came Josh’s voice from behind them.

  The two of them swung around to see Ben’s son standing in the kitchen doorway, holding his laptop.

  ‘What is it, Josh?’ Ben asked.

  ‘I found a clip of Lucky talking about his new job. You’ve got to see it! We’ve all got to see it!’ Josh hurried to the door and yelled, ‘Maddie, come see Lucky in a video.’

  Maddie looked up and frowned. ‘Lucky? Lucky who?’ she called.

  ‘Our Lucky. Come on, it’s important!’

  ‘Oh, our Lucky? In a video?’

  Lucky Mertz and Bendigo Baz were close friends of both Charlie and Ben. All four of them had served together in Afghanistan. They had fought alongside each other in the very battle during which Ben and Caesar had become separated. Caesar had been lost for more than a year. Lucky and Baz had sometimes come with Charlie to visit the Fultons, and Lucky always brought sweets for Josh and Maddie.

  ‘Come on, Maddie!’ Josh urged. ‘Lucky’s saving the elephants!’

  ‘Elephants!’ Maddie jumped up and ran to the house.

  Josh set his laptop on the dining table, and the rest of the family gathered around to watch. On the screen, three men stood in front of a large map of Tanzania and surrounding African nations. One of them was a bulky, bespectacled African man dressed in a smart business suit and tie. The other two wore green military-style uniforms.

  ‘There’s our Lucky!’ Maddie cried with glee, pointing to him. She crawled up onto a dining chair to be closer to the screen, just as the African man in the picture began to speak.

  ‘My name is Benjamin Kadanka, and I am Tanzania’s Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism,’ he said. The minister was perspiring freely and was clearly nervous about speaking to camera. He cleared his throat. ‘Under the control of my ministry are the fourteen national parks, thirty-eight game reserves and forty-three game-controlled areas of my country. Between them, they make up twenty-eight per cent of the territory of Tanzania.’ He turned to the two men beside him. ‘With me today I have Tanzania’s Chief Ranger, Mr Wallace Springer, and his new Deputy Chief Ranger, Mr Lucky Mertz. Chief Ranger Springer, who is also President of the International Ranger Federation, will now address you.’

  Springer, a solid man of medium height and sporting a neat beard, took a step closer to the camera. ‘The killing of elephants for their ivory tusks has been illegal in Tanzania since 1989,’ he began in a broad Australian accent. ‘Yet, poachers have killed forty thousand elephants in this country every year for the past three years. Forty per cent of the country’s elephant population has been slaughtered during that period. At this rate, within ten years there will be no more elephants left in Tanzania. Not one!’

  ‘Not one?’ said Josh.

  ‘That’s hobble!’ exclaimed Maddie. ‘Why would anyone want to kill elephants?’

  As if to answer Maddie’s question, Chief Ranger Springer continued. ‘The elephants are being killed for their ivory. The poachers kill the elephants, cut off their tusks and leave the carcasses to rot.’ As he spoke, footage of slain elephants filled the screen.

  ‘Hobble, hobble, hobble!’ Maddie cried.

  ‘It’s okay, princess,’ said Ben, putting his arm around her.

  ‘No, it’s not, Daddy!’ Maddie retorted, snuffling back tears.

  ‘The ivory is smuggled out of the country in containers and shipped to East Asia,’ said Chief Ranger Springer. ‘There, the tusks are used in the extensive ivory-carving trade, and are ground down for traditional Chinese medicines. Ivory smuggling is now as profitable as the trafficking of illicit drugs. It’s worth billions of dollars.’

  ‘Wow!’ said Josh, looking at his father. ‘That’s incredible, Dad!’

  ‘It’s hobble, that’s what it is!’ Maddie reiterated.

  Minister Kadanka spoke again. ‘Over the past decade, more than three thousand park rangers have been killed by poachers.’

  ‘These poachers,’ Chief Ranger Springer resumed, ‘are very well organised, armed and trained. They act like an army. In fact, the largest group of poachers calls itself the Revolutionary Army of Tanzania, or RAT. They claim to be freedom fighters who only poach ivory to fund their revolutionary operations.’

  ‘But they are nothing more than bandits!’ Minister Kadanka interjected.

  ‘The Tanzanian Government has now authorised me to fight fire with fire,’ said Springer. ‘Deputy Chief Ranger Mertz, until recently, was a highly experienced soldier with Australia’s famous Special Air Service Regiment. He has been tasked to train our rangers in Special Forces techniques and lead the fight against the poachers. Lucky, would you say a few words?’

  Lucky stepped forward. ‘Thanks, Wally. In the past, the poachers have had the upper hand against the rangers,’ he said to the camera. ‘Many rangers didn’t even have proper boots. They frequently had no radio communications and were armed with antiquated weapons. Now, we’re equipping mobile anti-poaching squads with the best gear, the latest weapons and fast overland transport. And this is my message to the poachers: If you keep on poaching, my men and I will track you down. You will be caught, and you will spend the rest of your days in jail. You have been warned!’

  ‘Yeah!’ Josh cheered.

  ‘Well done, Lucky,’ said Nan, with pride in her voice. ‘That’s a really important job he’s taken on.’

  Maddie turned to her father. ‘Will our Lucky get the hobble poachers and save the elephants, Daddy?’

  ‘If anyone can do it, Lucky can,’ Ben assured her.

  ‘Lucky is about the coolest Special Forces guy there is,’ agreed Josh. ‘Apart from you, Dad – and Charlie.’

  ‘If Lucky doesn’t do it, Daddy,’ said Maddie, ‘you have to promise that you and Caesar will save the elephants. It’s dericulous what the poachers are doing. Someone has to stop them!’

  Ben smiled. ‘That’s what Lucky is over there to do, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘He’s got it all under control. I don’t think Caesar and I would be able to make much difference.’

  ‘Talking about Caesar,’ said Nan, ‘what’s he up to, I wonder?’ She headed back to the kitchen. Moments later, she let out a shriek. ‘Oh, no! He’s doing it again!’

  ‘Doing what?’ Ben asked, hurrying to the kitchen, with Josh and Maddie on his heels.

  ‘Digging up my roses!’ Nan wailed.

  Peering out the window over the kitchen sink, Ben began to laugh.

  ‘What’s so funny, Daddy?’ Maddie asked.

  Ben picked her up so that she too could see out the window. ‘Look,’ he said, grinning and pointing to the garden.

  There was Caesar, busily pawing away the earth around the base of a rosebush, still in bonnet, sunglasses and dress.

  ‘It’s not a laughing matter, Ben,’ Nan protested. ‘Stop him!’

  ‘Okay.’ Ben set Maddie back down. ‘But first,’ he said, reaching for his phone, ‘I have to get a picture of Caesar decked out like that! No one would believe me if I told them.’

  It was several weeks later. The sun was setting, sending purple and pink streaks across the western sky. In the distance, an Australian Army Tiger attack helicopter hovered fifty metres above the ground, the cannon beneath its nose pointing toward a rundown brick barn that was missing half its roof.

  From the west, three Black Hawk helicopters whisked in at treetop level, one behind the other, mere black blobs against the sun. They stopped so abruptly their noses lifted up br
iefly, making them look like bucking broncos. There they hovered, level and stationary, above the dry, flat earth. Rappelling ropes tumbled down from either side of each Black Hawk, and heavily armed SAS men came sliding down in quick succession. Each man was clad in black, a gasmask covering his face.

  Once their passengers were all on the ground, first one, then two Black Hawks lifted, banked and flitted away, heading back the way they had come. Meanwhile, the third chopper remained. Ben Fulton slid down a rope from one side of it, and Caesar was rapidly lowered from the other. Both wore gasmasks – with Caesar’s being specially made for war dogs. As soon as the pair were on terra firma, the last Black Hawk wheeled away.

  ‘Inform HQ that insertion is complete and we’re going in,’ Charlie instructed the group’s signaller, a man with a heavy VHF radio pack on his back and a large aerial jutting into the air above it.

  ‘Roger that!’ the radioman returned.

  The SAS men ran toward the trees at the crouch, quickly spreading out as they advanced. Ben and Caesar loped along behind. At the same time the Tiger helicopter moved forward, and as it passed over the top of the barn, several canisters dropped from beneath it. Moments later, grey clouds of tear gas swelled up through the roof opening.

  The men had surrounded the barn in seconds. Some had dropped flat and lay with their weapons trained on the barn’s door and windows. Like Charlie, several were positioned on one knee.

  ‘Time for Caesar to do his thing, Ben,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Roger.’ Ben unclipped Caesar’s metal leash and spoke quietly in the labrador’s ear. ‘All the way around the barn, mate. See what you can find.’ Standing up, he commanded, ‘Seek on, Caesar!’

  Leaping forward, Caesar bounded toward the barn.

  Charlie now spoke into the personal radio attached to the top of his black Kevlar bulletproof vest. ‘EDD going in. All eyes peeled!’

  Ben eased down onto one knee and watched his dog’s progress, occasionally letting out a piercing whistle. He had a different whistle for ‘Go left’, ‘Go right’, ‘Forward’, ‘Back’, ‘Return’ and ‘Return quickly’. Caesar recognised every whistle and reacted immediately to each, almost as if Ben had him on an invisible string.

  Caesar trotted along the front of the barn, his tail wagging slightly, before turning down the building’s right side and disappearing around the back. Ben always felt uneasy when Caesar was gone from view. He preferred to have his four-legged mate in his line of sight. But the SAS men posted on the other side of the barn knew to report if Caesar found anything, in which case Ben would hurry to join his EDD.

  Caesar reappeared along the barn’s left side, trotting with his nose down. A battered old Land Rover was parked nearby, under the shade of a ghost gum tree. The Land Rover’s front passenger door hung open. Caesar did a quick circuit of the vehicle, then sniffed its interior. When he dropped back onto all fours, Ben knew that Caesar was satisfied the Land Rover was ‘clean’. He whistled for Caesar to return. Caesar took several paces toward Ben and stopped. His head came around, then he turned and headed for the ghost gum.

  ‘Is he going for a pee?’ asked Baz.

  ‘I don’t know what he’s up to,’ Ben confessed, intrigued, ‘but Caesar always has a reason.’

  Charlie nodded. ‘Roger to that.’

  When Caesar reached the tree he stood up on his hind legs, with his paws on the white trunk, and looked back at Ben. Then he dropped to the ground and sat there, staring intently up into the ghost gum.

  ‘Caesar’s found an IED in the tree,’ Ben stated categorically. ‘It’s probably sited to detonate when anyone goes near the car.’

  ‘In the tree? Someone has been very creative with their bomb planting,’ Charlie remarked. He turned the switch on his personal radio. ‘Be advised, there’s an IED in the tree beside the Land Rover. Avoid both. Beta Team, enter the barn via the rear doors. Beta, go, go, go!’

  Ben whistled the recall, and this time Caesar loped back to him immediately with his tail wagging furiously. ‘Good boy, Caesar!’ said Ben, ruffling the dog’s neck. ‘You found it, didn’t you? Good job, mate!’

  At the same time, there came the sound of automatic weapons fire from inside the barn. Only seconds passed before Beta Team emerged, dragging two men who had tears streaming down their faces. A third man, whose tied hands were being freed, was led out behind them – he had been held hostage by the others.

  The radios on Charlie’s and Ben’s vests crackled to life. ‘Hostage secured,’ said the leader of Beta Team. ‘Two insurgents taken alive.’

  ‘Roger to that,’ Charlie said with satisfaction, coming to his feet and removing his gasmask. ‘All units stand down. Exercise complete. Repeat, exercise complete.’

  The SAS men holding the two insurgents let them go and, sharing a joke with them, proceeded to bathe their stinging eyes with damp cloths produced by the group’s medic. The ‘hostage’ and the ‘insurgents’ were all SAS men, acting out the roles in a training exercise. On this occasion, they were in the bush north of Perth, Western Australia.

  Training exercises are a part of SAS routine. Just as a football team will train for six days a week before its game day, daily life for Special Forces units not on frontline duty is all about training, training and more training. This is designed to keep their men sharp and in a constant state of readiness for the real thing, and to hone the skills of new members of the squadron.

  The radio operator now came to Charlie and Ben. He pulled off his gasmask to reveal a puzzled look on his face. ‘Just got a weird message for you guys and Baz.’

  ‘What’s the message?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘Rice for water,’ the radioman replied. ‘You’re to report to RAAF Pearce right away. Any idea what “rice for water” means?’

  Charlie looked at Ben. ‘We sure do,’ he responded with a wry smile.

  ‘It’s the GRRR activation code,’ said Ben. ‘Somewhere in the world, GRRR is needed.’

  ‘Call in a heelo,’ Charlie instructed the radio operator. ‘Ben, Caesar, Baz and I need to get to RAAF Pearce. Fast!’

  Ben, Caesar, Charlie and Baz strode across the tarmac from an army Black Hawk at the Royal Australian Air Force’s Pearce Base in Bullsbrook, just outside Perth. The chopper had given them a ride in from the desert. In the background a pair of training aircraft from the Singaporean Air Force went streaking down the airstrip and took to the air. The Government of Singapore trained its pilots at Pearce Base.

  When the quartet walked into the base’s briefing room they were greeted by a man they knew well – SAS intelligence officer Major Alex Jinko.

  ‘Good to see you blokes,’ Jinko said warmly, after exchanging salutes with them all. ‘And you, too, Caesar.’ He gave Caesar a vigorous pat, and Caesar responded with a wagging tail.

  ‘What’s up, sir?’ Charlie asked. ‘We got the call from GRRR.’

  ‘I’ll let Captain Lee brief you,’ Jinko said, turning and walking toward a large LED screen on the far wall. On the screen was an office with framed military pictures on its walls. That office could have been anywhere, but it was in fact halfway across the world in Manhattan, at the headquarters of the United Nations beside New York’s East River. ‘Captain Lee, are you there? Charlie Grover’s team is here.’

  A slender woman with very short hair walked into view and settled on the edge of a desk, facing the camera. In addition to being in charge of protecting the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Captain Liberty Lee was also Commander of the Global Rapid Reaction Responders, a small, elite UN unit founded by the Secretary-General. It was a unit to which Charlie, Baz, Ben and Caesar were attached, with the approval of the Australian Government. ‘Hello there, gentlemen,’ said Liberty.

  ‘Evening, Captain Lee,’ Charlie said with a smile, as he, Baz, Ben and Caesar joined Jinko in front of the screen.

  ‘Thank you all for responding so quickly.’

  ‘What mission have you got for GRRR, Captain?’ Ben asked.


  ‘Yeah, where are we headed?’ added Baz.

  ‘The mission is in East Africa,’ Liberty replied. ‘The secretary-general received calls from both the Prime Minister of Australia and the President of Tanzania, asking for the United Nations to help sort out a particularly tricky hostage situation.’

  ‘It’s a hostage rescue?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘That is correct, Sergeant Grover,’ said Liberty. ‘A rebel group calling itself the Revolutionary Army of Tanzania, or RAT, has taken a senior wildlife ranger hostage.’

  ‘Where does the UN come in, Captain?’ Ben asked. ‘Can’t the Tanzanian Army take care of the situation?’

  Liberty sighed. ‘I wish it were as easy as that, Sergeant Fulton. For one thing, while these RAT rebels operate for the most part in northern Tanzania, they move freely back and forth across the borders of neighbouring nations such Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and the Republic of the Congo. International law prevents the Tanzanian Army from crossing those borders in pursuit of RAT rebels, so those rebels can always escape to other countries. And the governments of those surrounding countries are either unwilling or unable to capture them – they have their own criminals to worry about. This is a cross-border issue, an international issue. A UN issue.’

  ‘And therefore a GRRR issue, ma’am,’ said Ben.

  ‘Precisely. There is also another international aspect to the problem. The ranger taken hostage by RAT is not Tanzanian. He has Australian citizenship.’

  ‘An Australian citizen?’ said Ben. He recalled the video that Josh had shown him only weeks before. ‘Not Chief Ranger Springer?’

  ‘No, not Chief Ranger Springer,’ Liberty replied. ‘I’m sad to say we all know the ranger involved very well. He is a former member of the SAS and of GRRR. Your good friend Lucky Mertz.’

  For a moment there was a stunned silence. Baz was the first to react. ‘Not our Lucky?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘How could a highly experienced SAS man like Lucky be taken hostage?’ Charlie demanded, incredulous.