by Andy McNab
Dima felt his anger subside a little. This changed everything. The mission was fucked. Paliov had it all wrong. All that waste of life. . Rajah raised his hands. ‘Foreign influences.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Dima, you told us to respect ourselves, to listen to our instincts. . This country is sinking into madness. Al Bashir has let the genie out of the bottle.’
‘What does that mean?’
Rajah shook his head. ‘He wants revenge — worldwide — for what he says has been done to our country. Even if he doesn’t live to see it. That’s why he was so fixated on the weapons — the portable ones.’
He gripped Dima’s arm. ‘Get away from here while you can. A PLR unit is in the air now.’
‘How long?’
‘Thirty minutes, fifty at most.’
Dima studied his old protégé’s face, embraced him briefly and left the room, collecting Gregorin on the way.
‘Forget the search: we’re leaving.’
18
FOB Spartacus, Iraqi Kurdistan
Black always addressed his letters ‘Dear Mom and Dad’, but he always sent them to his mother. That way he knew they would get read. She was the one who did the admin, opened the bills, sorted stuff out. To begin with he had written separately to each of them, but once, on home leave, firing up the PC, he looked at his father’s inbox and saw his mails unopened. Nevertheless he kept his discovery to himself and it was never spoken about — like so much to do with his father.
He opened his laptop and clicked on ‘New Message’.
Please do not ignore this mail. Dad, he wrote: Today I saw a man die in front of me and I was powerless to help him. I think that for the first time in my life I am finally beginning to understand what you went through. I just wish that—.
Montes burst in. ‘It’s go. C’mon.’
Black hesitated, about to click on ‘Save’, then chose ‘Send’. Who knows when I’ll get to finish it, he thought.
As they assembled in full body armour, two soldiers he didn’t recognise approached Black. Montes whispered, ‘Buddies of Harker’. The shorter one raised a gloved finger and pointed at Black’s name.
‘Did all you could, huh?’
‘I’m sorry about your buddy. Sorry for your loss.’
‘Your loss too, man. Not just ours.’
The taller but slighter one put a hand on the other’s arm, who was shorter but stockier, with a huge neck like a bull. He shook it off, bristling.
‘C’mon, Dwayne, don’t do this.’
Black stopped, legs apart, squaring up. Having failed to save Harker, was he now going to beat up his friends? It was too pathetic. All the same, he wasn’t just going to stand there.
‘Look, I appreciate—.’
‘You don’t appreciate nothin’, you fuckin’ coward.’
The other one put his hand out again, and again was thrown off. This was not an insult Blackburn could let stand. On the other hand, what they had been through, and thanks to modern technology what they had seen, was not in the manual either.
‘Men like you are a disgrace to the service. You make me sick, you piece of shit.’
Black took a step towards him.
‘Listen carefully,’ he said. ‘There. Was. Nothing. I. Could. Do. This is a war. People get killed. Six of my own men were killed yesterday and that is war. You got that?’
Both men watched him now, trying to gauge what sort of opponent he was going to be. The short angry one’s fist moved up a fraction and before it had gone two inches Blackburn had pinned his arm behind his back. ‘Now, take your friend and go and pound the punchbag. Okay?’
He saw Cole approaching and released the man’s arm. The three of them saluted and Harker’s friends moved on. Cole watched them go, then gave Blackburn a look.
‘Just shooting the breeze there, Sir.’
‘Okay, Sergeant. Let’s get this one done, okay?’
19
Bazargan, Northern Iran
It was in their training from day one. Be prepared for nothing to be what it seems, trust no one you don’t have to, and never entirely drop your guard with those you do trust. Spetsnaz were trained to do many things that ordinary soldiers wouldn’t have a clue about. Part of the selection process was to weed out anyone who showed any tendency to take anything for granted. Working undercover, living double lives, going months embedded in hostile organisations without hearing a friendly voice, living on your wits, thinking for yourself, making life or death decisions about who to kill and who you might save. Achieving this required resources that were beyond most humans.
This one had it all. Dima could blame Paliov for the design of the mission, for its poor chain of command, for the intelligence failures — about Kaffarov, about what to expect in the compound. He could blame Shenk for his failure to wait until the compound was secured, for engaging in the firefight, putting his chopper in harm’s way. But above all Dima blamed himself for allowing Paliov to draw him into this catastrophic misadventure, and he particularly blamed himself for recruiting the team around him, who came willingly because they believed in him.
All of these thoughts ran through his head as he led them back to the cars. Already they could hear the PLR helicopter circling, looking for somewhere to land other than the compound, strewn as it was with bodies and debris.
They moved as swiftly as they could, bending low, dodging between branches and leaping over dips in the boggy ground. None of them spoke. He glanced at Gregorin and Zirak, their faces masks of shock, and sorrow for their comrades, roasted alive.
‘Anyone see where that missile came from?’ Vladimir asked, as they walked. “Cos it sure as hell didn’t come from the ground.’
Dima paused, looked at them all. Gregorin nodded. ‘He’s right. Came in from the west, not from below.’
Dima brought them to a halt and grouped them into a huddle. ‘What happened back there — I’ve seen some fuckups but none of them come close to that. A waste of fine men, for which I take responsibility.’
The others looked at the ground.
Kroll raised a finger. ‘Does this mean we’re headed home?’
Dima looked at their faces. ‘Each man is free to make his choice.’
Vladimir spoke next. ‘What’s your choice?’
Dima didn’t need to think. He already knew. ‘Continue. Hunt down Kaffarov, find his WMD.’
Vladimir looked at Kroll, then back to Dima. ‘Then I’m in.’
The other three nodded in unison.
For the first time that night Dima had a reason to feel optimistic.
‘From now on — our plan: no one else’s. We do this thing our way’
Dima stepped away from the group to get Paliov on the satphone secure line. When he had finished giving the report there was a long silence at the other end.
‘You still there?’
‘Yes, still here,’ came Paliov’s weary reply. ‘What do you want me to say?’
‘Kaffarov wasn’t abducted. He was there willingly. Tell me right now you didn’t lie to me.’
A long pause. ‘The intelligence was thin. We drew the wrong conclusions. I apologise. Nothing with Kaffarov is straightforward, you know that.’
‘And he knew we were coming for him. He was tipped off. There was a leak.’
Paliov’s indignation brought him back to life. ‘An outrageous suggestion. For all you know he may have just changed his plans.’
‘If you weren’t so defensive I might have believed you. Shenk’s chopper was downed by an air-to-air missile. Someone was ready for us. You better take a long hard look at who knew what. Someone told us Al Bashir’s come under “outside influences”. Any bright ideas from the great Russian intelligence machine?’
Another silence on the end of the phone. The sound of Paliov digesting yet more unpalatable information. They both knew what each of them was thinking. Eventually Paliov groaned. ‘That doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘Well you bet
ter think about it, but keep it to yourself. If it’s true, the longer Kaffarov goes on not realising we know, the better. He’ll get to hear about what happened at the compound, but it’s better he thinks the mission’s been aborted.’
‘So you’re going on?’
‘We still have a deal, remember?’
20
It was starting to get light. They changed out of their kit and put on the local clothing again. All of the kit went into the cars’ trunks. Each of them kept a handgun and a knife on them and put their compact AKs in the footwells. Vladimir took the wheel of the lead car with Kroll and Dima sitting in the back. Zirak and Gregorin were in the second vehicle — one at the wheel, the other in the rear watching their backs.
Dima was still seething, but he did his best to keep it from the others. He needed them to be in no doubt that he was keeping it together.
‘From now on we do this my way. The signal Shenk was getting from the WMD. Is it still transmitting?’ Kroll, the scanner in his lap, shrugged. ‘Well find out. If Kaffarov hasn’t disabled it I want a grid reference immediately and any changes sent to me by text.’
They took the road going northwest towards Gürbulak. The sooner they put some distance between them and the Bazargan compound the better. Dima called the contact who had emailed him the photos of the compound walls. Darwish gave them directions to a tea shop run by a ‘most trusted friend’ in Meliksah, a small town eighteen kilometres away. Dima located it on the map and radioed the reference to the second car.
‘Tea shop? What about breakfast?’ was Zirak’s response.
At the first crossroads they hit a road block, two pick-up trucks with the letters PLR daubed hastily on their sides, parked across the road to make a tight chicane, and two men with PLR insignia pinned on their jackets, each with an AK.
From the back Dima instructed Vladimir. ‘Brake late and hard. Look furious.’
Vladimir snorted. ‘They look like they got hired ten minutes ago.’
Before the Peykan had come to a stop Dima was out of the car, shouting furiously in Farsi. ‘Are you the escort? Turn these trucks round and take us through to Kharvanah. Now!’
The guards looked at each other.
‘Don’t you know who I am?’
Dima thrust his dog-eared Iranian passport at them. ‘You know what’s happening.’ He gestured furiously at the hills behind them. ‘An entire platoon of foreign insurgents in those hills is what. You should be looking for them, not stopping senior PLR officials. Who’s your commanding officer?’ Dima pulled out his phone. ‘I’m calling him right now!’
The guards looked at each other. The taller bowed slightly. ‘I apologise for not recognising you, Sir.’
‘So you’re not the escort. What a shambles. Move those trucks. Let us through. Do it NOW!’
Back in the car, Dima laughed as he watched the guards recede in the mirror.
‘How did I do?’
Vladimir, at the wheel, shrugged.
‘You could have waved your arms a bit more.’
‘Your turn next time.’
‘Where the fuck is Kharvanah?’
‘Fucked if I know.’
The main street of Meliksah was rutted and dusty with no sign of any damage from the quake, but the whole place looked neglected. There were no people in sight except for a couple of old men sitting on a bench under a cypress tree, who stared as they stepped out of the cars.
All of the shops were boarded up and the windows shuttered. Definitely too quiet. Gregorin volunteered to keep watch on the cars. Kroll carried a radio so they could stay in touch. The tea shop was up a narrow flight of stairs. Inside there was some life, several men at tables drinking tea. As Dima entered all of them stopped talking and stared. Zirak nodded and spoke first. Once they heard his accent and mention of Darwish’s name they seemed to lose interest and went back to their conversations.
A rotund man in an apron came huffing up the stairs and greeted them as if they were his long-lost brothers. Then Darwish entered the room.
‘Dear Zima,’ said Darwish, embracing him and reminding him of his old cover name. ‘Come, I have reserved a room.’
They followed him down a passage to a small low-ceilinged room with peeling walls. In it were a couple of benches, an antique spinning wheel and some hens strutting about, pecking at the sawdust strewn on the floor.
The café owner brought in a tray of tea in small glasses and a plate of flatbread, local white cheese, jam, pomegranates and figs. Zirak could hardly hold himself back.
‘Please accept my apologies for the condition of this room,’ said the café owner.
‘No, no, it’s perfect. Your hospitality is too generous.’
Darwish waited for him to go, then shut the door behind him and locked it. All trace of bonhomie vanished. He raised his hands in the air as if appealing to Allah.
‘This is big, big trouble.’
‘You can say that again,’ said Dima.
Darwish clutched his brow and shook his head. ‘There’s already an alert out for you. No descriptions — just a group of foreigners, all armed. But shoot on sight. Big reward for information about you, even bigger one for your bodies. I sincerely advise you to cross the border as soon as possible. The PLR are using the aftermath of the earthquake to tighten their grip on the whole country.’
‘You said “foreigners”. Why not Russians? They must know our nationality.’
He shook his head vigorously. ‘No no. Much more cunning. They are claiming you are American-backed insurgents. It plays much better with the people, and strengthens support for the PLR.’
He shook his head in disgust and looked at them regretfully. ‘So far you are playing into Al Bashir’s hands. What you have done —.’ He pointed in the direction of the compound. ‘That only supports his claims about foreign incursion, which he uses to tighten his grip on us. Why did you let that happen?’
He clutched his forehead and closed his eyes.
Dima put an arm round him. ‘First of all, thank you for risking your life to see us. We won’t forget. But we’re not going home yet. What do you know about Amir Kaffarov?’
Darwish’s eyes narrowed. ‘Before Kaffarov, people like me, progressive, who wanted change, we were sympathetic to Al Bashir who we believed wanted change also. Peaceful change. But now Al Bashir has lost interest in building a coalition of support and it’s becoming clear he wants all the power for himself and his clique. Now it’s all about demonstrating the power, a show of strength. Some put that down to Kaffarov. Kaffarov comes along with his wares and he’s got Al Bashir addicted. Any trouble in our area he will come back and—.’ He made a flattening motion with his hand. ‘So Zima, we are very much trying to avoid trouble. So you must go.’
Dima held his gaze. ‘Not just yet.’
Darwish started to protest, but Dima put a finger to his lips. He explained Kaffarov’s deadly luggage and the aborted meeting with Al Bashir. ‘Time is not on our side. We need to get to someone right at the heart of the PLR High Command. We need information from that level. Someone we can pressure.’
He turned Darwish’s face towards his.
‘You are an influential man. You know people. You can help.’
Darwish shook his head. He reached for the glass in front of him and downed the contents in one, as if it was his last drink on earth.
‘One more favour, for old time’s sake.’
‘Zima, you are like a brother to me. You know I would die for you but. .’
‘We’re all going to die if we don’t find that bomb.’
Darwish’s hands rose and fell. ‘Loyalty to Al Bashir is driven by fear. All this time he was the popular leader, the great hope for our nation. Now. .’ He shook his head in despair. ‘Many of his oldest allies have been purged. The people round him now — foreign—.’
‘Yes I know. Foreign influences. What sort?’
‘You know Tehran, all the time rumours. Some say a secret son he fathered abroad.’
/>
This wasn’t going anywhere. Humour him. Dima smiled. ‘Darwish, you are the man who knows everyone, you have many influential relatives. . Maybe one of them?’
The charm wasn’t working. Darwish was sweating, shaking. Showing all the signs of a man who had got himself into something he wished he hadn’t.
‘You ask I take photos. For old time’s sake. Fine. It’s dangerous but I do it. Next thing you crash helicopters, kill a lot of people. Now you ask me to betray. .’
Dima butted in, still with the charm. ‘You are an operator, Darwish, very well connected. You have played the game well all this time. Very few of us know your true loyalties. The fact that you are able to meet us in the open in a time of national emergency tells me that even now you believe you have nothing to fear from the PLR. No one need know your role. This isn’t just for me; it’s for your country. Think about it.’
Darwish was thinking all right, but not in the way Dima wanted him to. Not yet. He pressed on, colder now.
‘We don’t have time to do the research, checking people out, surveillance, finding their weaknesses, compromising them. Instead of weeks, months, we have days, or maybe only hours, to find Kaffarov and his bombs. Brother, don’t make me push you any harder.’
Darwish pulled away, a last burst of indignation. ‘You’re blackmailing me. After all I’ve. .’
Dima fixed him with a cold stare. Their relationship had always been an unequal one. While posing as a Russian Special Forces instructor to the Revolutionary Guard, Dima had acted as Darwish’s handler, running him as a high-value source deep inside the government. The intelligence had been invaluable and Darwish had been handsomely rewarded. Darwish’s cover was never blown, but he always knew that he would be in Dima’s debt.
Dima piled on the pressure. ‘Someone close enough to Al Bashir to know about Kaffarov. We know there’s a relationship there because they were scheduled to meet in person last night. And if Al Bashir was prepared to travel up here to meet him that means he regards Kaffarov as valuable. Very valuable. Come on Darwish, think about the old days. “Anything is possible,” that was your mantra. “Anything you need Zima, you got.” Remember?’