Crisis Four

by Andy McNab

  A CTR has to answer every conceivable question that might be asked by a third party who’s been tasked with making entry. Are the windows locked? What is the area of clear glass? Of frosted glass? What are the main access routes to and from the target? Is the target overlooked by any buildings? Are there any garages or outbuildings or carparking spaces? How many doors are secured, how many are loose? Do they make a noise when they open? They would need to know to take in some oil, to stop any creaking.

  Are there any good approach routes? Any major obstacles? Is there lighting? What are the weather conditions like? What are the routes to the target? What’s the general condition of those routes? What would you need to get to the target? What type of ground – ploughed, pasture, boggy? What sort of natural obstacles are there? What is the time and distance from the DOP (drop off point)? Where is the DOP? Are there any animals about? Dogs, horses, geese? And that was assuming I could get onto the target at all, past the proximity lights.

  The list of questions can seem endless, especially when you’re two hours into a CTR, first light is approaching and you only seem to be a third of the way down the list. Where are the best places to put OPs in? In this particular case, that was easy: I was in it. Where would be the best place to put long-range technical devices in for a video soak? That would be somewhere over the other side of the lake. Could we have a helicopter trigger? Could we have a helicopter that just flies around maybe three or four Ks out?

  Once I’d gathered all that information on the exterior, I would have to CTR inside the house. For that I’d need to take in an infra-red camera, or buy commercially available infra-red filters to fit my camera, so that I could take pictures without disturbing the people in residence. They’d want to know the full estate agent’s monty. What are the dimensions and layouts of every room? Where is the electrical supply? If you’re putting listening or picture devices in, batteries only last so long, so you might have to tap into the mains. Where is the best place to put a listening device? And that might entail looking at the direction of the floorboards, because if you’re trying to hide an antenna, you’d put it in the gaps between them; but that also means taking a compass bearing of the floorboards, so the scaleys (communications personnel) can work out their antenna theory.

  Stuff like this takes days and days to organize, and it would be my job to stay and wait with eyes on target while everything was prepared. If my stores ran out I would have to be resupplied via a dead letterbox and outside help – and even that would be a pain in the arse to sort out.

  As far as I was concerned, my job was now finished. I’d found Sarah and confirmed it with photography. I didn’t want to be a part of anything that happened next.

  I cut away from it by thinking about a job I’d done in the jungle once. We’d got to our report line, it was pouring down with rain and we were gagging for a hot brew, which we couldn’t sort out because we were on hard routine. We transmitted our sit rep, something to the effect of, ‘We are at the river head, what now?’

  We were told, ‘Wait out.’

  About four hours later they came back to us and said, ‘OP any track.’

  What the fuck did they mean, OP any track? What good would that do us? We asked, ‘What track?’

  They came back, ‘OP any track that runs west to east.’

  They had to be mad. We sent back: ‘We can’t find one running west to east. However, we’ve found one running east to west and we’re going to OP that one.’

  All we got back was, ‘East-west is good, out.’ Either they were taking the piss, or the world’s most useless officer was manning the desk that night. We never found out which. You never do.

  Nothing was happening. Even the fishermen had gone back to their tents for lunch.

  I’d just decided it was pizza time, and was about to reach for one of my wraps when I heard movement on the ground, and soon afterwards, rapid, heavy breathing.

  The distinctive, metallic tinkle of a name tag on a collar became louder as the dog got nearer. I hadn’t seen anything around the target that identified it as having a dog, so it probably wasn’t from the house. But the name tag meant the animal was domestic, and that meant there would probably be people with it.

  I began to hear aggressive sniffing; seconds later, a wet, dirty nose was nudging the hide. Maybe he was a fan of WalMart’s Four Seasons.

  I moved my hand slowly to my pocket, easing out the Tazer and the pepper spray. I didn’t know if the pepper would work on dogs; they can be immune to some of this shit. One thing I knew for sure: he wouldn’t enjoy the Tazer. But then again, the yelping would alert everybody – and what if the shock killed him stone dead? I would have to drag him in with me and have a smelly, wet and very dead dog as my new best mate.

  The sniffing seemed just inches from my ear. This dog was excited; it knew it could be din-dins time.

  A young woman called, ‘Bob! Where are you? Here, Bob!’ I recognized the voice.

  Bob carried on sniffing around the OP. Straight away I thought, I’m a British journalist working for a tabloid newspaper. I’m doing a story on the famous people hiding in the house, and I want to get pictures of their illicit affair. I’ll jump straight in with questions before they can ask any. Do you know anything about them? Do you live round here? You could make a lot of money if you tell us what you know about them . . .

  The brain has two orbs. One side processes numbers and analyses information, the other is the creative bit, where we visualize things – and if you visualize situations, you can usually work out in advance how to deal with them. The more you visualize, the better you will deal with them. It might sound like something from a tree huggers’ workshop, but it does the business.

  My eyes were glued to the target, but my ears were with the dog. It’s nearly always this sort of third-party shit that compromises you, and dogs can be the worst of all. They can detect your every breath and movement from as much as a mile away under favourable conditions – which it seemed I had given him. Dogs have very poor eyesight, only half as good as man’s, but their hearing is twice as good. The wind was blowing from the lake towards the dog. He might have heard me, but I was sure it was an odour that was attracting him. It’s not just food smells that provide a target; so does body odour, or clothing, especially if it’s wet. Soap, deodorant, leather, tobacco, polish, petrol and many others are all a giveaway – you name it. Who knows what it was in this case.

  The more Bob sniffed, the more I came to the conclusion that he was after the pizza. No matter how much I’d wrapped it up, his nose wasn’t fooled. Cannabis smugglers wrap eucalyptus leaves around their stuff to put off sniffer dogs, but it doesn’t work: the mutts can smell both at the same time and know they’re going to get a nice chocolate drop as a reward.

  I heard a man’s voice no more than twenty metres behind me, but I hoped he was in one of the dips. ‘Bob! Where are you? Come . . .’

  I recognized his voice as well. I’d tripped over these guys last night, and now they were going to return the favour.

  The girl said, ‘Where is he, Jimmy?’

  Jimmy was angry. ‘I told you we should keep the dog on a fucking leash, man, or back in the car.’

  She sounded as if she’d started to cry a little. ‘My parents will kill me.’

  He started to creep. ‘It’s OK, Bob will be OK. I’m sorry.’

  I hoped they were more interested in making up than they were in following Bob into my bush. But I was ready, I’d just stick with my tabloid story; they’d be able to see the camera. Besides, if I was a reporter I wouldn’t have told him last night. I’d just have to keep the bow hidden.

  They obviously had no idea that I was there yet, but Bob did, the nosey little fucker. The girl was still fretting. ‘I gotta go back. My parents will freak if I’m late with the car and I’ve lost Bob.’

  He wasn’t impressed. ‘OK, OK, I told you I’d get you home on time.’ He sounded pissed off; he could see all hope of a midday knee-trembler in th
e woods evaporating.

  I heard giggling; he was giving it one last try. ‘Jimbo, not here! I gotta get home. Bob, come on, boy, let’s go!’

  Bob was having none of it. He was sniffing big time at the OP. Next thing I knew, the dog’s face was straight in front of me, demanding his share of the pizza. I gently scooped up a handful of earth and flicked it at his eyes. Bob now thought the pizza man was putting up a fight. He backed off, but not as much as I’d hoped, and started barking. I had fucked up but I’d had no choice. As soon as he barked, they knew where he was.

  The girl must have come over the brow. Her voice was much clearer. ‘Bob! Oh, look, Jimmy, he’s found something. What have you found, Bob?’

  I got myself ready.

  ‘What have you found, boy?’

  The moment she saw me, I would launch into my reporter’s spiel.

  ‘What’s going on, Bob?’

  Bob’s arse was in the air, his shoulders more or less on the ground with his front legs splayed, and he was jumping back and then coming forward and barking. I kept my eyes on target and now my ears on her as she started to walk directly towards the hide.

  I heard the guy shout from somewhere behind me, very pissed off: ‘Come on, let’s go. Bob . . . come!’

  I saw the first-floor curtains twitch.

  Bob was still leaping around with excitement, and on top of that I heard a vehicle. The tyres rumbled along on the dirt track.

  As Bob’s nose once again came up to the cam net I decided to give him the good news with the pepper spray. He jumped back, whelped and ran to Mommy.

  I heard the girl: ‘Bob, see, serves you right! Stop messing around!’ She probably thought he’d got his nose bitten by something.

  I listened as they shuffled through the sand. Jimmy was still behind somewhere, complaining. Next time they slipped into the woods he’d lock Bob in the car again to steam up the windows, like last night.

  I got my head back on the ground, watching and listening, just waiting for shit to happen.

  The Explorer had come back. Two up. I looked up just before it turned left off the track and downhill towards the garage.

  It came down the hill and headed away from me, towards the garage. Too Thin To Win was still in the driver’s seat. I couldn’t make out his new playmate in the passenger seat.

  The wagon stopped just short of the garage and the side door of the house opened. Sarah again. She was looking at the woods behind me, keeping a wary eye out for Bob and his friends. I watched her and tried to keep contact with her eyes. I would know if she suspected anything. I watched her scan the tree line, uphill and then back down again, towards me. As her eyes approached my OP I moved mine out of contact. I couldn’t look at her. A sixth sense can sometimes let you know when you’re being looked at, and I didn’t want to take the chance.

  I knew I was doing the wrong thing. Even if her plan was not to react to anything she saw, but to go back into the house, then return with an automatic weapon to hose down the area, I knew her well enough to see it in her eyes. I could feel sweat running around the back of my legs and neck. I waited three or four seconds more, then moved my eyes up again.

  She was finishing off her scan, past me and down to the lake. Once there, she quickly turned her head to the wagon and walked up to the passenger door.

  A white guy clambered out. By his style of dress I would say he was American. He was wearing a black nylon bomber jacket, tight blue jeans and white trainers. He was above-average height and build, about mid-thirties with black, fairly long, curly hair, and a moustache like the sheriff’s in the Bugs Bunny cartoons. He looked good enough to be the hunky lumberjack in any soap.

  The meeting with Sarah was intimate: they hugged, kissed each other on the mouth, then held the embrace. They spoke in low voices as Sarah ran her hand across his back. There was something odd going on, though. They looked pleased to see each other, but the talking wasn’t loud and they weren’t going overboard.

  I got two pictures of them during the thirty or so seconds that they were together.

  Too Thin To Win had the tailgate down on the Explorer. He was looking quite smart in jeans and a dark check jacket. He pulled out a brown suit carrier with an airline tag on the handle.

  Sarah had disappeared inside the garage with the white guy, followed by Too Thin To Win, who closed the door behind them. It was time to send another sit rep.

  12

  I had just started to prepare my message when Too Thin To Win emerged from the side door with MIB. He, too, had had a shit, shower and shave, and was dressed a lot smarter in brown trousers and jacket. They both got into the Explorer, Too Thin To Win in the driver’s seat. The wagon backed round to point uphill. They weren’t talking to each other, smiling, or looking at all happy. Something was happening.

  The 4x4 bumped along the track and disappeared from sight. I looked back at the house. All the windows and doors were closed, and so were the curtains. That was strange; if someone was arriving at such a nice spot, surely you would show him the view? Maybe she had better things to do with him. Maybe he was just another sucker that she was using. But for what exactly?

  It was nearly two hours before the Explorer returned. There were bodies in the back, but I couldn’t work out how many as it turned downhill, my eyes flicking between the wagon and the side door of the house, waiting for it to open. When it did, it was the American who appeared. Sarah was nowhere to be seen. He was looking aware, checking the lake and, as MIB had done, playing with worry beads. I watched him, listening to the slow rumble of tyres past my OP. His denim shirt tails were hanging out of his jeans and showing below his bomber jacket. I was right, he and Sarah did have better things to do than look at the scenery.

  The wagon stopped and I counted an additional two heads in the rear seats. All four got out and I pressed the cable release.

  The two newcomers were both dark-skinned. They hugged and kissed the American on both cheeks. It looked as if they knew him pretty well. All the same, there were no loud shouts of welcome or smiles, and everyone spoke in a murmur I couldn’t understand. The meeting also seemed to have an air of relief about it.

  Too Thin To Win and MIB had opened the tailgate and were pulling out two square aluminium boxes which were plastered with what looked like old and torn ‘Fragile’ stickers and airline security tape. They started to move the boxes inside the garage via the side door. The luggage area of the 4x4 was still full of sports bags, another suit carrier and a black plastic cylinder which stretched from the back seat to the gear selector at the front. It was about two metres long and covered at each end. Either it was the world’s biggest poster tube or they had some serious fishing rods with them – I didn’t think. One of the new guys motioned to the other one and the American to give him a hand.

  I snapped some more. This guy looked much older than the others. He was short and bald, with a very neat, black moustache, and he was a bit overweight, mostly around the stomach. He looked like he should be in a film as the gangster boss, the Bossman. The other newcomer was more nondescript, of medium build and height, and looked about twenty years old. He could have done with a few plates of what the bald guy had been eating.

  After a couple of trips, with the boys lifting what seemed to be heavy kit, the 4x4 was empty and everything was stowed inside the garage. The side door closed and the area once more looked as if nothing had happened all day. What was going on here?

  Ever since we’d first met, it had seemed to me that Sarah was sympathetic to the Arabs. She’d been involved with them in one way or another for most of her life. Come to think of it, we’d even had a row once about Yasser Arafat. I said that I thought he’d done a good job; she thought he was selling out to the West. ‘It’s all about homeland, both spiritual and cultural, Nick,’ she’d say every time the subject arose, and nobody who’d been within sight of a Palestinian refugee camp could argue, but I wondered whether there was more to it than that.

  A faint drizzle was start
ing. It hadn’t penetrated my hide yet but could clearly be seen falling on the open ground in front of me. I could hear outboard motors in the distance as the intrepid fishermen set out in pursuit of a six-ounce carp. Lunchtime must be over.

  There’s more to surveillance than just the mechanics. A report that says, ‘Four men get out of vehicle, two men pick up bags and go inside,’ is all very well, but it’s the interpretation of those events that matters. Were they looking aware? Did they seem to know each other well? Were they, perhaps, master and servant? These people were meeting up, in hiding, and with kit. I had seen this before with ASUs (active service units). The boxes looked as if they’d seen a lot of air time during their life, but not on this trip. There were no airline tags on the handles or on the bags. Maybe they’d driven to an RV point and then transferred the kit. If so, why? Whatever was happening here, it wasn’t about the turtles.

  Things were starting to spark up and Lynn and Elizabeth needed to know that there were now four Arabs, one American and Sarah. Maybe London could make sense of what was happening; after all, they would know far more than they had told me. With any luck, Elizabeth would now be at Northolt, poring over my previous message and images, with her tea so strong you could stand the spoon in it.

  It was 15:48, time to switch on the phone. It had been a couple of hours since my last transmission, and they should be calling me back with an acknowledgement and maybe even a reply.