by Geoff Wolak
I puzzled that and stepped out. I found a white civilian jeep, a man at the driver’s wheel looking like Rizzo’s twin. ‘Who are you?’
‘Jacko they call me, was Sergeant Preston, “B” Squadron, was on the books in “E” Squadron, now got a private number in Freetown, often work with Mally.’
‘This is not exactly the time for a social call.’
‘It ain’t. My boss has men up in Guinea, and an info pipeline of sorts if you want it.’
‘We do. Park inside.’
He drove past, leaving me frowning after him. I walked back in, his jeep against the wall next to the ammo, an odd place to leave it; there were easier places to park it. He stepped down and closed in.
Dicky was returning from the latrines. ‘Dicky, get this man a cuppa inside, I’ll be in soon.’
When the man ducked inside I waved over Sasha and his team, who had been exercising. In Russian I said, ‘Check that jeep, search it quickly, and get the handbrake off and push it back.’
I called SIS. ‘It’s Wilco. I need you to run a name, Sergeant Preston, known as Jacko, former “B” Squadron SAS, now working as a bodyguard in Freetown. Fast as you can.’
Next call was O’Leary, who had never heard of the man, and O’Leary knew everyone. I was worried.
I stepped toward the door, and glanced back. Sasha was pointing at the underside, his team pushing the jeep back. I stopped as Sasha jogged over. ‘Big bomb,’ he said in Russian, then rejoined his team.
I moved inside and found Jacko getting tea from the urn in the canteen, Dicky at his side. Placing down my rifle on the table, I took out my pistol, soon collapsing Jack’s nose with the pistol butt.
A second powerful hit, and his teeth went, and he dropped, Dicky shocked and moving back, all eyes on me. I landed a kick to the stomach, a second to the balls, the Lt Col on his feet, Donohue shocked.
‘Captain?’ the Lt Col asked.
I turned to Dicky as Jacko groaned. ‘Strip him, search him. Quickly.’
Dicky put down his drink and got started, Haines assisting without question.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ the Lt Col shouted.
I calmly faced him as I picked up my rifle. ‘Get your officers on the floor till we move the rather large car bomb this man just drove in.’
Morten shouted, ‘Everyone down!’ and his medics hit the deck, the Paras following suit as I stepped out.
Outside, I shouted, ‘Incoming! Get to cover, get down. Incoming!’
The men on the roof ducked behind the sandbag walls, others running off for cover, Paras NCOs repeating the order.
Sasha and his team ran in from the road, panting. ‘We push it down the road and off to one side -’
The blast had us all diving down, my ears soon ringing. I shook my head and blinked.
Sasha turned his head as bits of metal rained down. ‘I think I use my nine lives, no.’
‘You used them all up in Panama, my friend. You are on number ten at least.’
I eased up, and stood staring at the smoke plume.
‘Waste of good jeep,’ one of Sasha’s team noted, the rest laughing.
A chill went through me, from head to toe. I could have lost a lot of men, let alone been killed myself, and as I stood there I felt the fingers of blame pointing at me.
‘You OK?’ came in Russian.
‘Huh?’
‘You do not look well.’
‘I ... could have lost the men, one foolish decision.’
‘Why ... foolish?’
I glanced at him. ‘He knew exactly what to say to get me interested.’
‘Then he was well prepared, you were not at fault, and you were suspicious – we search the jeep.’
I heaved a big sigh. ‘It was easier in Panama, now I worry about the men too much.’
‘You are captain, it is job to worry.’
I smiled, and patted his shoulder. ‘All clear!’ I shouted, and I wandered back inside. Rifle down on the table, men were easing up. Dicky had placed down his tea, which I now pinched, Jacko down to his pants and tied up, blood pooling on the floor.
Morten was white. ‘That car bomb...’
‘You would not have felt anything, it would have been quick.’
A lady medic spun around and puked.
‘That’s hardly the point,’ Morten added, a glance at his medic. ‘And if it had gone off here?
‘No one inside this building would have survived. But I was suspicious of it, we moved it, so ... onwards, eh.’
Morten turned, a swift kick to the balls of Jacko, who most certainly would not be having any kids now.
The Lt Col closed in on Jacko. ‘Who are you working for?’ he shouted, a hand around Jacko’s throat as he knelt over our prisoner.
‘Nigerian oil companies,’ I calmly explained. ‘They want the idiot dictator next door gone, access to the oil.’
I put a hand on the Lt Col and moved him back as people glared at Jacko’s bloodied face, all wanting to tear him apart. ‘I’ll give you three choices,’ I told our prisoner. ‘One, I hand you over to the Sierra Leone Government, and you sit in a cockroach infested cell for ... the rest of your life.
‘Two, I hand you over to the Americans, stating that you were involved with gun running here – and you get an orange jump suit in a max security prison Stateside, or three – you tell me everything you know and appeal to my good side.’
He stared back, obviously in a great deal of pain, blood streaming down, his arms tied behind his back, Dicky to one side now, Haines to the other side as they lifted him. ‘Kelly, ex-Captain, not SAS,’ he said, blood spewing as he tried to talk, teeth spat out. ‘He’s in Guinea.’
‘And the funding?’
‘French oil company.’
‘And Nigerians?’
‘There was a Nigerian man with him, lots of bodyguards, gold rings.’
I faced Haines. ‘Have him taken to Freetown. Mister Donohue, he’s your prisoner, go with him.’ I turned to Morten. ‘Sedate him a little, have a nurse go with him.’
They shoved him outside, a blood trail left.
Rocko stepped in. ‘Any chance of getting some bloody rest?’
‘Should be quiet now, Staff Sergeant.’
‘You said that before!’ He turned and sloped off, cursing again.
The Lt Col was barely controlling his anger. ‘I could have lost most of my men,’ he growled as he stared after Jacko.
‘There are powerful forces at work, oil at the centre of it,’ I told him, his men all stunned. ‘We could expect more Fifth Column, so stay sharp everyone.’ I slung my rifle and took out my phone as it trilled. ‘Wilco.’
‘It’s the Duty Officer, SIS -’
‘That man Jacko just drove a very large car bomb into the FOB, no one hurt – we spotted it.’
‘Bloody hell.’
All eyes were on me.
‘I want twenty men investigating that man, and all his links, and right now. He was working for an ex-Army captain called Kelly, not SAS.’ I hung up and stepped out, and called the Cabinet Office. ‘It’s Wilco. We just had an ex-SAS soldier try to drive a large car bomb onto my base. If he had succeeded we would have lost most of the men here. And he was paid by the French oil company Elf.’
‘By ... god.’
‘Let the PM know.’
I stood staring at the gate, and the jeeps there, the smoke plume in the distance. I had let the man in, even when I was suspicious. He had played me, and he knew exactly what to tell me to get inside.
Haines walked back in, a jeep now taking our prisoner off. ‘I’ll tighten up on the gate.’
‘It was my mistake, and he knew exactly what to tempt me with. The men controlling him are switched on and well funded, and they know we’re coming.’
‘Be a warm welcome then.’
I nodded. ‘It could be, yes. But if they were confident, why send that man?’ I called David Finch.
David began, ‘I just heard about the car bomb. You OK?’
<
br /> ‘No injuries, we were lucky, very lucky, or you would be explaining to a red-faced Prime Minister why everyone in Echo had been killed from a failing in intel, your resignation being called for.’
After a long pause came, ‘It ... er ... chills me just thinking about it, but you’re not wrong, I would have been hung out to dry.’
‘Something don’t add up here. Why try and kill the men here? That would be a set-back, but they had no idea who was here. For all they knew we had deployed already, and Echo just got here. No, this smacks of small-minded gangsters thinking like they do back in the slums, an emotional action – no sound military sense. And this man Jacko said it was Elf Oil.’
‘A very great concern, because Britain and France cannot be seen to be squabbling over the same oil reserves.’
‘I think my friends in low places might be able to help you there. Anyhow, step up the intel whilst you’re still in the job, track that guy Kelly.’
‘So nice of you to phrase it like that.’
‘Given what happened, it’s fifty-fifty if you’ll be in the job tomorrow - they’ll be asking some tough questions later today.’
‘And right now I don’t have any answers for them.’
‘Talk soon, I have some calls to make.’ I called Tomsk.
‘It’s the middle of the night!’ he complained.
‘You want to keep that oil platform?’
‘Yes,’ he calmly agreed. ‘What can I do?’
‘Contact your French liaison, tell him you know that Elf Oil in France is behind the attempted coup in Liberia, that you have the evidence, and that it’s going to the world’s press.’
‘These French, they want the oil?’
‘They do, but I’m not sure who in the French government knows about it. So scare them, and right now.’
‘OK, I get a coffee and make a call.’
As I put my phone away two Chinooks loudly announced their arrival and set down, “G” Squadron walking out the rear with heavy Bergens, M16s carried. I saluted Major Taggard as he drew near.
He glanced at the rising smoke as he men gathered together. ‘Any wee problems here?’
‘Large car bomb, meant for us. You just missed.’
‘Car bomb?’
‘Driven by an ex-trooper.’
‘A trooper. Fooking hell, what’s the world coming to?’
‘Grab tents at the rear, sir, but stay sharp, then come inside with your officers. There’re 2 Para lads there, mess tent over there.’ I pointed. ‘Grab some food if you need it.’
‘Travelling all night, so yes – we need it.’
Back inside, I said to the Lt Col, who was still fuming, ‘If I brief your lads now, we can get some away from here, be safer for them.’
‘We’ll send most of them, if we’re to have a base camp in the jungle. As you said, be safer to be spread out.’
With the NCOs assembled out front, about thirty of them, the officers stood at the rear as I stood on a box, rifle slung. ‘In a short while you’ll move off to your jungle base, where it may be a bit quieter than around here, just tree frogs for company. Some of you already know the place, and the route to walk there.
‘We could send you by truck, but walking will do you some good, some time to get used to the jungle, and for brains to adjust. It’s about six miles, but slow going in places.
‘Down the airstrip east, at the end, is the start of the track north. To the east of it is a river, and that’s the border with Liberia. You go up that track two miles, drop down to a road, bridge on your right, Ghurkhas there. Go straight over, track next to the river, on a few miles to the next small bridge – simple navigation.
‘Leave some men this side, hidden in the hills, watch your rear. Cross over, and you’ll find a road east. Four miles down that road is a town, next to a military camp that has had the crap kicked out of it a few times, now abandoned.
‘Put your men in the trees above the road, watch that road, send out roving patrols if you like – short range, but the chances of the rebels approaching through the jungle are remote – they’re lazy fuckers. If and when we know where they are and what they’re up to you can move off down that road and engage them.
‘In the short term ... have lots of men both sides of the road, high up, aiming down. If a convoy does approach, let it get to the bridge, then open up, don’t just deter them – or you’ll be fighting them the next day. Batter them.’
‘Rules of engagement, sir?’
‘If they have black faces and are carrying a gun – kill the fuckers. Simple. But you may also come across a white mercenary, shoot him as well – but be sure who they are first, capture them if you can.
‘Now, let’s take a moment to consider jungle warfare. The rules of the game are simple: whoever has the static ambush wins the engagement. So, you see a patrol coming at you. You set a static ambush point, sit and wait, well camouflaged, all your men behind something solid – not a fucking bush. The rebels approach, you open up, kill as many as possible. They will run away.
‘You then sneak out low and re-position. What you don’t do ... is walk forwards and police-up the bodies. If a rebel is injured, he’ll open up, you’ll have men killed and wounded, a long way from help. Your jobs, as NCOs and officers, is to bring your men back alive. Is that piece of shit swamp and jungle worth the lives of your men? No, it’s not.
‘This is not D-Day, 1944, this is a surgical strike to reduce the rebels as best we can. We’ll gain no ground, we’ll not take prisoners. We aim to reduce them, and send them packing, then we go home, rebel bodies left where they fell. Do not ... try and apply European ideals of warfare here, do not do what you were trained to do.
‘When engaging an enemy patrol, what you lot think you should do is charge at them and finish them off, storm up a hill and win a medal. No. You open up from cover, they run off, you re-position, you keep casualties down.
‘If I hear of someone storming a hill position I’ll make sure that families of the dead know about it, as well as my good buddy the Head of the Army, and I’ll make sure the sergeant gets a nice long sentence, a cell to himself.’
I pointed east. ‘That shit-tip piece of jungle over there is not worth the lives of your men, and you’re not required to be heroes. Your job ... is to wear down the rebels till they fuck off home. Simple. More you kill the better, so that they don’t shoot young enlisted men here next month.
‘And let’s take a moment to consider just who those rebels are. They’re not an army, they’re a gang of drug dealers, weapons smugglers, rapists and murderers. I saw as you came in some fresh-faced young lads, and you lot need to try and keep them away from seeing things they don’t need to see.
‘You may come across a village that has had a visit, women and babies hacked up with machetes and set on fire. Walk around it, don’t walk through it, don’t linger.
‘North of us here, three miles, was a village, till one day Liberian men came over the border and paid a visit. Mothers were shot dead, babies kicked away and shot with high velocity rifles, few were spared. That kind of shit happens here a lot. Over the border ... anything goes.
‘There are no police, no courts, and the rebels do whatever they like ... till they meet people like us, and we shoot the fuckers. There are no hospitals over there, no ambulances, few working phones. If you’re planning some heroics, just remember where you are.
‘And don’t get captured. If you do, they’ll hack you up and set fire to you, or worse. If this was the Falklands you might stop and give first aid, take prisoners. If you do take prisoners they’ll be handed over to the Sierra Leone government, who will hang them or shoot them. It is a crime for any British Army officer to hand over prisoners to a country like the one you’re stood in, so no prisoners.
‘But let’s take a moment to talk about the law, and military law, something I’m expert in, and I lecture on the subject. If you shoot a man and he falls to his knees, you may shoot again. If he falls to floor, but still loo
ks alive, you may shoot again. The law says that you keep shooting so long as you feel in danger.
‘But ... if you go back ten minutes later, and the man has a pulse and you finish him off, that’s a crime, and you could get a very long prison sentence. Always keep in mind that the law is on your side in the heat of the moment, not an hour later.
‘As for the legality of engaging rebels, let the Prime Minister worry about that; you shoot any black man with a gun. And if you come across a village, a man with a machete about to do some harm – you’re quite within your rights to shoot him.
‘If you shout a warning and he puts down the machete, leave him alone, then expect ten men to appear with guns and kill you stone dead. Over there, only a fucking idiot would shout a warning, soon to be a very dead idiot.’
The Lt Col asked, from the back, ‘What about the President’s army?’
‘Intel in London has back channels to the man, and he’s pulled all his men south to protect Monrovia. None of his men are left out there, sir.’
‘Well, that helps I suppose, but we’re sending men into hell itself, no rules.’
‘Very few rules, sir, yes. Any questions?’
‘Re-supply?’
‘Will come across the bridge,’ I told them. ‘Brought up by truck each day.’
‘Do they have heavy weapons, sir?’
‘You may see armoured personnel carriers, some with fifty cal turrets. We also saw mounted 105mm and mounted fifty cal. They have RPGs and Russian machine guns.’
‘So they’re well armed then.’
‘They are, take no chances. We have 66mm for you, so you hide above the road and fire down. We also have Gurkhas with RPG, so take some along if you like. There are also 105mm belonging to the Sierra Leone Government, and a few we liberated last year. Ask for them if you want them.
‘But do not simply walk down a road, you’ll be ambushed. Have men in the trees each side, clearing the way. Never forget, in the jungle the static position wins.’
‘Their fighting spirit?’ an officer asked.
‘They run away most of the time, but they have some determined men – determined to rob, steal, and rape the nine year old girls. For many of them ... this will be a great outing, a rape fest, a robbery extravaganza. Don’t feel bad about shooting them.’