Operation Pink Elephant

by Stephen Dando-Collins

  ‘It’s the best we could do, Oscar Zulu One. We were limited to a dawn deployment for Bluey. I’ll let you know once we have images. Meanwhile, I’ll get the Sallys in the air. They might manage a sighting. Over.’ In case they were needed to airlift the GRRR men in a hurry, both helicopters had spent the night on the ground, where they had set the team down ten kilometres to the north.

  ‘Just keep those Sallys high enough not to be heard on the ground,’ said Charlie. ‘They could spook Bullseye if he hears them. Over.’

  ‘Will do. In what direction was Sinker taken? Over.’

  ‘Due west, along the B3. Over.’

  ‘Copy that. I will advise. Sit tight. Papa out.’

  ‘Roger that,’ Charlie replied. ‘Oscar Zulu One out.’ He looked at Ben unhappily. ‘I hope Toushi’s good at dragging things out. We need time if we’re to find him and Zuba.’

  Ben nodded. ‘Toushi’s smart,’ he assured Charlie. ‘He’ll figure something out.’

  For ten minutes, the Kawasaki sped along the highway, only passing two other vehicles going the other way. Then the bike turned off onto a dirt road, which joined the highway from the south. Kawasaki and passengers bumped over the barren landscape for another ten minutes, passing a small village, after which the road petered out into a rough track. Before long, the bike came to a site of mud-walled ruins. Hidden by the early morning’s long shadows, there sat the two Land Rovers and other RAT trail bikes. The bike slew to a halt, generating a cloud of dust. As Toushi climbed from the back, three armed men approached from the ruins.

  Prior to joining GRRR, Toushi had been a backroom boy, a military computer whiz. He’d been loaned to the UN for that reason. But in Afghanistan, he had found himself with an assault rifle in his hand, on a secret and highly dangerous mission to rescue the UN secretary-general from the hands of Taliban insurgents. When he’d returned to Japan from that mission, his superiors had allowed him to opt out of future GRRR missions because they would likewise involve active service. But Toushi had thoroughly enjoyed that mission in Afghanistan. And to his surprise he had not been paralysed by fear when things had turned dangerous. He had remained calm, clear-headed and creative, even under fire. And so he had told his superiors he wished to continue in GRRR service.

  Toushi knew he was again in danger – that his comrades had lost contact with him, and that for now he was on his own. But he was supremely confident that Charlie and the team would locate him if he stalled long enough. So, once again, Toushi found that he was calm, clear-headed and creative. As the armed men approached, he smiled at them.

  The leader of the trio, a grey-haired man wearing a red beret and carrying a pump-action shotgun, smiled right back at him. ‘So, this is the ivory trader?’

  Toushi bowed to the man. ‘I am, honourable sir, Toushi Harada, from Tokyo. You are Colonel Zuba?’

  The grey-haired man laughed. ‘No, I am not the colonel. Clearly, you do not know much about him.’ His smile faded. ‘I am Captain Chawinga, the colonel’s deputy. Did you bring the money? Fifty thousand dollars?’ He held out one hand.

  ‘Colonel Zuba,’ Toushi responded, folding his arms and keeping the backpack on. ‘Colonel Zuba, if you please.’

  Chawinga glanced at the backpack. ‘Very well. You will follow me.’

  ‘Oscar Zulu One, we think we’ve nailed them,’ came Jinko’s voice, which betrayed a mixture of relief and excitement. ‘Over.’

  ‘Oscar Zulu One receiving. What have you got for me, Papa?’

  ‘Sally Two spotted two men on a bike on a back road at grid reference Romeo Eight. Over.’

  All the GRRR men grabbed for their maps. Ben was the first to get his out, and together, he and Charlie found grid reference Romeo Eight.

  ‘Looks about right,’ said Charlie.

  Ben nodded in agreement. ‘About thirty clicks northwest of here.’

  ‘Papa, that adds up to us. Over.’

  ‘And to me,’ Jinko replied. ‘There are ruins of an abandoned Seventh-day Adventist Church mission not far from the sighting – an ideal hide-out for Bullseye. And hopefully for Game Boy and Oasis. I’ve ordered the Sallys to pull back to collect your team, and we’ll have Bluey over the target shortly. Over.’

  ‘Do we go in? Over.’

  ‘Affirmative. On foot for the last click. The Sally One team from the south, Sally Two team from the north. Do you copy? Over.’

  ‘Copy that, Papa. Over.’

  ‘The Sallys are on their way. Papa out.’

  ‘Oscar Zulu One out.’ Charlie handed the handset back to Brian.

  ‘Let’s hope Toushi can keep the bad guys talking long enough,’ said Duke Hazard, as he set about checking his ammunition.

  Chawinga led Toushi to a set of steps that had been cut into the dry earth many years before by the builders of the mission. Chawinga pointed to the steps. Toushi nodded, then slowly made his way down the steps to a battered, partly open wooden door at the bottom. Chawinga followed close on his heels. Pushing the door open, Toushi stepped into a dingy underground space, the mission’s former basement storeroom.

  A little light slanted into the room from square ventilation holes dotted around the upper parts of the walls. A candle glowed yellow in one corner, and there sat Abraham Zuba on a bench. At home out of the daylight, Zuba had his transistor radio to his ear.

  ‘Colonel, this is Mr Harada,’ said Chawinga. ‘The ivory trader.’

  Toushi came to a halt several metres from the RAT commander, then bowed. ‘Toushi Harada at your service, Colonel Zuba,’ he said.

  Zuba took the radio from his ear. Switching it off, he slipped it into a tunic pocket. ‘So, Mr Harada, you are the Japanese gentleman who is prepared to pay me fifteen hundred dollars a kilo for ivory,’ he said, looking up at Toushi.

  Toushi produced a puzzled expression. He would attempt to stall Zuba by pretending not to understand him very well. ‘Please? My English not good.’

  ‘You will pay me fifteen hundred dollars a kilo. For ivory. Yes?’

  Toushi smiled. ‘Ah, fifteen hundred dollar. For ivory.’

  ‘Good, good,’ said Zuba, as his smile reappeared. ‘But, tell me, why would you pay fifty per cent above the going rate? I would be happy to take your money, but I am curious to know why you would be so generous.’

  ‘Please?’ Toushi said, feigning helplessness.

  A frustrated look now adorned Zuba’s face. ‘I will come back to that. Just show me the money.’ He held out his right hand.

  ‘No,’ Toushi responded. ‘Money after deal.’

  Behind him, Chawinga reached for the backpack.

  ‘No!’ Toushi exclaimed, pulling away. ‘Red dye in bag. Unless Toushi Harada unlock, dye go all over dollar.’

  ‘What is he saying?’ Zuba asked Chawinga.

  ‘I think he said there is dye in the bag, Colonel, and unless he unlocks it himself, the dye will ruin the money.’ Chawinga looked more closely at the backpack and the lock on the latch. ‘It has a combination lock, Colonel,’ he announced.

  ‘Wrong combination, money all go red,’ said Toushi, with the faintest of smiles. He was pleased with himself for thinking up this ploy on the spur of the moment. It had been purely by chance that the backpack had come equipped with the kind of small metal combination lock commonly used on luggage. But Toushi had an exceptional eye for detail and had noted the lock’s presence, and had used it in his swiftly hatched plan to delay Zuba. Of course, there was no red dye device inside the backpack. But Zuba and his men didn’t know that, and Toushi was banking on them not running the risk of trying to open the bag.

  ‘Very tricky,’ Zuba said with a chuckle. ‘Very tricky indeed, Mr Harada. You are a man after my own heart. A clever man should always take precautions.’

  ‘We talk deal, then I give money,’ said Toushi. ‘Talkie talkie first. Money money second.’

  ‘If that is what you want, Mr Harada,’ said Zuba. ‘Please, be my guest.’ He pointed to the bench beside him. ‘Sit. Let us
talk.’ He glanced up at his deputy. ‘Chawinga, make Mr Harada some chai.’

  In single file, the GRRR men tramped across the Tanzanian plain. The forty-degree heat rose up like a wall before them and made the blue hills in the distance dance and shimmer before their eyes. There was a faint breeze, but that breeze was furnace-hot on their faces. Their sunglasses helped to subdue the glare, but provided no protection against the force of the sun’s rays that beat down on their helmets, shoulders and backs. Bathed in perspiration, their muscles aching with the effort of carrying their heavy loads, the men strode out as if they were merely going for a walk around the block. Years of ongoing fitness training and demanding operations in difficult conditions had prepared them for this.

  Sally One had dropped Charlie’s group south of the mission. Baz was out in front, leading the way, toting his Minimi as if it were as light as a feather. Charlie came next, with the Tanzanian Army’s Sergeant Simma close behind. Simma had grown up in a village nearby and knew this area well. Ben and Caesar were next in line, with Caesar padding along contentedly on a long leash, tongue hanging out and panting to keep cool. Unlike humans, dogs don’t sweat through their skin. They perspire through their feet via sweat glands around the hairless parts of their footpads. They pant to regulate their body temperature, moving cool air over the moist surfaces of their tongues and lungs.

  Behind the labrador and his handler, Angus Bruce, Chris Banner and Casper Mortenson brought up the rear of the column. Big, tall Chris was carrying the GRRR team’s second VHF radio on his back, along with his other equipment.

  Charlie glanced at his watch. ‘Ten minutes,’ he said over his shoulder to Sergeant Simma. ‘Pass the word – we should spot the mission in ten minutes.’

  At this same moment, several kilometres north of the old church mission, Duke Hazard was in charge of the second half of the GRRR team as it made a southward forced march after being set down by Sally Two. Tim McHenry was out in front, with Hazard next and the Tanzanian Army’s Lieutenant Roy coming not far behind to act as local guide and interpreter. Brian Cisco followed behind, with the aerial to the large radio in his back swaying back and forth with his every step. Willy Wolf was second last in this column, with Jean-Claude Lyon in the rearguard position.

  To the south, as the members of Charlie’s column tramped along at the cracking pace set by Baz, they could make out a stand of plane trees in the distance, which looked like a collection of ragged beach umbrellas. There were several large motionless shapes close by, partly obscured by the trees.

  ‘Elephants,’ Sergeant Simma called to the others as they walked, answering the question on all their minds. ‘Those are elephants.’

  ‘What are they doing?’ Angus called. ‘They seem to be just standing there.’

  ‘They are in mourning,’ Sergeant Simma replied.

  ‘Mourning?’ Angus responded.

  ‘That is the location of the recent slaughter of elephants by Colonel Zuba and his men,’ Sergeant Simma explained. ‘The wildlife rangers brought in bulldozers and such things to bury the dead elephants in a mass grave. The families of the murdered elephants will come to the burial place often, to mourn the loss of their relatives.’

  ‘They know that the dead elephants are under the ground there?’ asked Chris Banner.

  ‘Oh, yes, they know,’ said Sergeant Simma. ‘An elephant is a much more complex animal than most people think. Elephants will mourn the loss of family members for as long as six months. Unfortunately, poachers know this, and only have to come back to a killing ground such as this to find more elephants to kill.’

  ‘Terrible shame,’ said Angus. ‘Poor wee elephants.’ He cast his gaze to the distant group, whose members, young and old, remained stationary. It was as if they were carrying out a vigil over the place where their relatives had perished. ‘Those majestic beasts do no one the slightest bit of harm, as long as we leave them alone.’

  ‘Those particular elephants would not be in a very good mood if we went near them,’ Sergeant Simma called to Baz, the column’s leader. ‘They know that it is humans who killed their kind. I think we should keep well away from them, or they could charge at us.’

  ‘That’d be like being charged by an Abram tank,’ Angus remarked. ‘I’ve seen angry elephants trample people to death.’

  ‘Stay downwind of them so that they do not acquire our scent,’ suggested Sergeant Simma. He stopped to gauge the direction of the breeze, establishing that it was a northeasterly coming in from the Indian Ocean coast. ‘We should keep to the west of them,’ he said, resuming the march.

  ‘Roger to that,’ Charlie acknowledged. ‘Baz, skirt around to the west of the pachyderms.’

  ‘Of the what?’ Baz returned.

  ‘The pachyderms – the elephants.’

  ‘Ah, gotcha,’ said Baz, nodding. ‘That’s a roger.’ The path that Baz now paved gave the grieving elephants a wide berth, and kept the party in a position that didn’t allow their scent to reach the animals on the breeze.

  Duke Hazard’s group had come to a temporary halt. As Hazard checked his handheld GPS, the men around him drank from their canteens.

  ‘We’re on track,’ Hazard announced, before taking a look at his watch. ‘And on schedule. We’ll be in place ahead of Zero Hour.’

  ‘I hope our friend Toushi is keeping Zuba and his men talking,’ said Jean-Claude Lyon.

  ‘May I ask,’ said Willy Wolf, ‘how many armed men are we expecting to be with Zuba?’

  ‘Zuba claims that he has an army of five hundred men,’ said Hazard. He took a swig of water.

  ‘The guy is all hat and no cattle,’ said Tim McHenry.

  This brought a laugh from Hazard and Cisco, who both knew what he meant. But the German and the Frenchman both looked mystified.

  ‘What is the meaning of this “hat and no cattle”?’ asked Willy.

  ‘Friend,’ said Tim, ‘back where I come from – the great state of Texas – there are people who claim they’re something they are not. These guys wear a mighty fine ten-gallon hat, just like a big-time cattle rancher. And they throw a pile of money around and tell you they got a million acres and a hundred thousand head of Short-horns back home. But when it comes down to it, those guys are lying through their teeth – they’re all hat and no cattle. The same goes for Abraham Zuba. He don’t impress me none. The guy is all talk.’

  ‘That would seem to be true,’ said Lieutenant Roy. ‘From what the locals have been telling us, Zuba has perhaps thirty men with him. And a number of them are boys.’

  ‘Boys with guns,’ added Jean-Claude.

  Duke Hazard was slipping a fresh piece of gum into his mouth. ‘Sure enough,’ he said, nodding. ‘Even a boy with a gun can kill you.’

  McHenry nodded. ‘Ain’t that the truth.’

  ‘Okay, people, let’s get this show on the road again,’ said Hazard. ‘We need to be in position to launch the assault on Zuba in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Oscar Zulu One and Oscar Zulu Two, from Papa. Bluey is in position. Over.’

  ‘Oscar Zulu One copies. Over.’

  ‘Oscar Zulu Two copies. Over.’

  Charlie looked to the sky. The circling Heron UAV was much too high to be viewed from the ground. But its cameras could see all the way down into the ruins of the old Seventh-day Adventist Church mission.

  ‘We have twenty-plus hostiles in the ruins,’ Major Jinko advised. Sitting at his desk hundreds of kilometres away aboard Canberra, he was watching the live pictures from the Heron – close-up pictures of the mission. ‘Could be more hostiles in cover. Over.’

  ‘Papa, this is Oscar Zulu One,’ said Charlie. ‘Any sign of Sinker? Over.’

  ‘Can’t be sure if Sinker is there, Oscar Zulu One. Over.’

  ‘Do they have pickets out? Over.’

  ‘No pickets visible. There’s little movement. Looking pretty sleepy down there. Both Oscar Zulus move in on my command. Over.’

  ‘Roger that,’ replied Sergeant Hazard. �
�Over.’

  ‘Roger to that,’ echoed Charlie. ‘Over.’ He looked around at the men of his group. They were all lying in the undergrowth beside a snaking dirt track with their eyes focused on the ruins 300 metres away across almost clear ground. Ben was directly beside him, with Caesar stretched out full-length at his side, lapping up water from the aluminium cup that Ben held for him.

  ‘Do you think we should send Caesar in first?’ Charlie asked Ben. ‘I doubt they’ve laid any IEDs, but he could serve as a diversion.’

  Ben smiled approvingly. ‘Good idea. Let’s see how close we can get before I send him in.’

  Charlie raised the radio handset to his mouth. ‘Papa, from Oscar Zulu One. Permission to send in EDD in advance? Over.’

  ‘That’s a roger, Oscar Zulu One. Permission granted. He might draw some of the hostiles into the open. Inform me when he’s in position and we can launch the assault. Over.’

  ‘Roger to that. Out.’

  ‘This is Papa. Do you copy, Oscar Zulu Two? Over.’

  ‘Oscar Zulu Two copies,’ Hazard advised. ‘Out.’

  ‘Papa out.’

  Charlie pointed to the ruins. ‘Ben, you and Caesar work your way around to the left, to that dead tree. Then send Caesar in.’

  ‘Roger.’ Ben stuffed Caesar’s drinking cup into a pouch on his belt, then leaned close to Caesar and spoke softly to him. ‘Okay, mate, time to play.’

  Caesar’s tail began to thump on the ground, and the look on his face seemed to say, Let’s go, boss! I’m ready for some fun.

  Ben and Caesar crept across the dusty terrain on their bellies. This sort of belly crawl didn’t come naturally to a labrador. They would do it briefly in play, but not over an extended distance. As part of his military training, Ben had taught Caesar the long-distance crawl. Once the pair reached the dead tree sitting beside the dirt track that led to the mission, Ben unclipped Caesar’s leash and pointed to the ruins. ‘Seek on, Caesar. Seek on!’

  Caesar immediately rose up and trotted toward the mission. Behind him, Ben clicked on the personal radio attached to his bulletproof vest. ‘EDD deployed,’ he said in a low voice.