The four hundred pounds bomb had been found in the kitchen of the property, the house had been carefully searched for any booby traps before the bomb disposal team could tackle the device.
It then took the disposal team thirty minutes to make it safe with twelve minutes to spare before detonation.
The senior police officer on the scene was now relaying the information to Commissioner Dawson.
“So Inspector; any idea of the devastation a device of this size would cause?”
“The bomb disposal has advised me that the device had been placed right next to the gas mains system in the house and estimates a blast radius of three to four hundred feet, sir.”
“Any news on the search for the other device Inspector?”
“Nothing sir.”
“How much time do we have?”
The inspector looked at his watch, “less than five minutes sir.”
“I have implemented the forces major incident plan, all we can do now; is to wait and pray, God help us inspector.”
Three miles to the east, Greenland road looked like any other street in the area of Camden; people were going about their daily business when the earth shook violently as the bomb in number seven Greenland road detonated.
As he building exploded from the blast, it caused the vaporisation of surrounding materials resulting in its rapid expansion forming the shockwave blast that exceeded four hundred miles per hour carrying within it, debris and flames.
The surrounding buildings at a radius of four hundred feet were completely destroyed by the blast; this took in part of the A 503 Camden road to the north, Camden street to the east, Carol street to the south and Bayham street to the west.
As the speed of this process was very fast; pedestrians in the surrounding streets saw the explosion and then heard the boom; the intense pressure in the air made it feel like an earthquake had hit them.
Flames rose twenty feet high from the ruptured gas supplies; water was spurting from the destroyed underground utilities pipes, within a minute a rising plume of smoke had appeared above the detonation zone.
The people in the immediate area did not stand a chance.
The blast was felt up to eight miles away.
When everything had settled there was a crater over nine feet deep where number seven Greenland road had been, the surrounding area looked like a demolition site, a few survivors with cloths ripped from them staggered around blindly, the growing screams of terror gradually growing louder.
Airspace Above Border Of Algeria
Airspace above border Of Algeria and Niger
Air to Air refuelling
Lat = 21 degrees, 22.3 minutes North
Long = 9 degrees, 13.7 minutes East
The Handley Page Victor call sign XH-678 from fifty-five squadron was cruising at forty thousand feet when they received a call from the Hercules.
“XH-678 this Ascot-530, I have you on radar one hundred and fifty nautical miles south of us at forty thousand feet, permission to commence approach for refuelling over.”
“Ascot-530 I have you on radar; maintain your altitude of twenty-three thousand feet, I will descend to allow coupling over.”
Roger that XH-678, out.”
Several minutes later, the pilot of Ascot-530 had a visual of the Victor XH-678.
“XH-678, I have visual on you over.”
“Roger Ascot-530, I am deploying the drogue.”
The refuelling drogue extended from the fuselage of the Victor, and began to trail out, the optimal approach is from behind and below the drogue, the pilot of the Hercules aircraft began to fly in the pre-contact position, a position directly below and approximately 50 feet behind the boom nozzle.
The Hercules pilot kept the closure rate at two knots in order to establish solid probe to drogue coupling.
As the probe on the Hercules made contact with the drogue the drogue hose was reeled slowly back onto its hose drum unit (HDU) in the Victor.
This then opened the tanker’s main refueling valve allowing fuel to flow to the drogue under the appropriate pressure.
Tension on the hose was aerodynamically “balanced” by a motor in the HDU so that as the receiver aircraft moves fore and aft, the hose retracts and extends, thus preventing bends in the hose that would cause undue side loads on the probe.
The pilot of Ascot 530 monitored the fuel gauge to the maximum, “Ascot-530 to XH-678 requesting disconnection.”
“Roger that Ascot 530, I am disconnecting now.”
The drogue and probe separated and the drogue began its retraction back onto the HDU.
The Hercules backed away from the recoiling drogue, “Ascot-530 to XH-678, disconnection complete over.”
“Roger that Ascot-530, good hunting out”.
The Handley Page Victor began to climb eventually reaching forty-nine thousand feet.
Ascot-530 continued on it flight path towards Angola.
Pressroom MOD
Pressroom
MOD Whitehall London SW1A 2HB
Lat = 51 degrees, 30.3 minutes North
Long = 0 degrees, 7.6 minutes West
The press conference had been hastily called following the bombing in Greenland Road Camden town.
Ruth Nelson was again at the podium, “ladies and gentlemen as you are aware two-hours ago an explosion occurred in Greenland Road Camden town, this resulted in the destruction of a large number of properties in the surrounding area, latest casualty figures are thirty-three dead and one-hundred and seventy-three injured.” Ruth paused, before opening the floor to questions.
A male reporter was first to open the questions, “Miss Nelson, was this an accident or a deliberate act?”
“We know that this was a deliberate act, following the discovery of two other devices in the capital.”
A female reporter was next, “Miss Nelson is it known who is responsible for the bombing?”
“We have intelligence that we are following up, I hope you appreciate that at this delicate stage; it would be unwise of me to comment further on this, I will take one more question.”
A sea of hands immediately were raised, Ruth identified her former boss, Mike Plimmer, “yes Mike.”
“Ruth, I appreciate that you cannot comment on the on-going operation to apprehend the culprits, but there are a lot of Londoner’s out there that are quite frankly scarred, have you any words of comfort for them?”
Ruth paused for a few moments, “Ladies and gentlemen people of England, we have had pain and devastation inflicted on us, we are not unaccustomed to this and our history reflects that we do not submit to violence. I would like to quote that famous man Sir Winston Churchill whom guided us through the dark times of the forty’s, We sleep soundly in our beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on our behalf. I would like you to put your faith in the men of the OSC; who will see this through to the end.”
Ruth turned and exited the room.
Drop Zone
Drop zone near Muxima fort
Lat = 9 degrees, 30.8 minutes South
Long = 14 degrees, 1.6 minutes East
The Hercules Ascot-530 had arrived at the drop zone twenty minutes ahead of schedule, local time twenty- forty-four hours.
Max had been called to the flight deck and was being given a brief.
Squadron leader Benjamin the navigator was speaking, “sir the current air temperature is eighty-four degrees Fahrenheit with passing clouds, wind speed nine miles per hour from south, southwest and sunrise is at O-six ten hours.”
“Thank you Squadron leader, how long until we arrive at the drop zone?”
“Seventeen minutes to DZ sir.”
“What’s our drop altitude?”
“You will have a six thousand feet DA sir; I have also just
had an update on the location, no changes on site.”
“Excellent; I will return aft and have my men ready up.”
“The flight engineer and loadmaster will service your drop; good luck sir.”
“Thank you Squadron leader, I’ll see you on the return rendezvous.”
Max returned to the cargo area and gave the signal to ready up for the drop.
Ten minutes later the flight engineer had lowered the rear loading bay door, bringing in a gust of cold air, the loadmaster was secured with a safety line and had assembled the OSC troops up ready for deployment; all watched the red light.
Moments later the red light turned Green, the loadmaster shouted, “Go, go.”
The troops walked forward in tandem stepping out into the air, for a few seconds they continued to travel forward as well as down. Due to the momentum created by the plane’s speed this is known as forward throw.
During these few moments each man completed a turn so that he was now facing the rear of the Hercules watching it disappear away, but also able to see the deploying troops behind him, minimising the potential for a human aerial collision.
The troops began to free-fall maintaining a stable belly to earth or arch position, very quickly reaching terminal velocity of one hundred and twenty miles per hour.
Each man constantly monitored his altimeter, as the altimeter indicated two thousand feet each man quickly checked his surrounding area for clearance before pulling on his toggle deploying a drogue chute that extended catching the air pulling the main canopy out.
Each man had a torch and quickly shone it up to check their canopy had properly deployed.
During the deployment, each man experienced a few seconds of intense deceleration, in the realm of three to four G while the parachute slowed the descent from one hundred and twenty miles per hour to approximately twelve miles per hour.
Above one hundred feet during night jumps, jumpers flying their canopy have a good view of the landing zone normally because of reflected ambient light/moon light. Once they get close to the ground, this ambient light source is lost, because of the low angle of reflection.
So the lower they descended the darker the ground looks, this is often referred to as the dark zone or seemingly landing in a dark hole.
The OSC continual training programme included many night-time jumps, giving each man the skills and confidence to perform this drop.
The troops quickly assembled within the DZ, a quick head count was made to ensure no one was missing all were present.
Max was examining a map with a compass of the local area to get their bearings to plot the route to the fort, he checked the time twenty-one sixteen hours.
The group split into their six four man units and began the six-mile yomp west; keeping a seven-yard spread between them.
The terrain was mainly flat open veldt with pockets of trees scattered around making the yomp seem like a walk through Regents Park in London for the troops, thirty-five minutes later they could see the white painted fort reflected from the moons rays half a mile away.
Max scoped the area south of the fort with binoculars quickly locating the bridge with two guards on the fort side; he looked back at the fort and picked out the small church that was in darkness.
Max looked at his watch twenty-one fifty-one hour’s, Max signalled each of the teams to take up their respective positions.
Teams one, three, four, five and six headed for the east side of the bridge, finding suitable cover two hundred yards away, the four man sniper team from team two split fanning out either side of the bridge to scope the area and provide cover.
Max and Roy moved to a position one hundred yards south of the bridge with excellent coverage of it and with their binoculars affording a good view of the fort.
The immediate plan was to eyeball the location for sixty minutes, each group relaying reports over their Comm’s every ten minutes.
Over the next hour the camp began settling down, the bridge guards had been relieved, and three other guards on the fort ramparts had been identified and relieved, an old four by four vehicle had entered the fort with several men on board looking worse for wear probably from drink.
Max again checked the time, twenty-two fifty-three hours.
He spoke into his Comm’s “Listen up, synchronize watches to twenty-two hours fifty-four minutes on my mark,” there was a pause for several seconds.
Max spoke again, “Now.”
Each member of the teams synchronized their timepieces.
“We attack at exactly two O-one Zulu time, out.”
‘ICIS’ Saltbox Hill
‘ICIS’ Saltbox Hill Biggin Hill Kent
Lat = 51 degrees, 19.7 minutes North
Long = 0 degrees, 1.2 minutes East
A satellite image was on display and GAIL was giving a briefing, to Strayker and Vince.
“As you can see gentlemen; we are running real time at the Fort,” the image zoomed in and GAIL continued, “Max’s teams are positioned east of the bridge,” GAIL adjusted the image to show infrared clearly picking up Max’s teams, “I have been monitoring their Comms, and Max has scheduled the attack at two O-one Zulu time.”
Strayker looked at his watch twenty-three O-four hours, “am I correct that Angola is on the same time zone as us GAIL?”
“That’s correct Major.”
“Who’s handling the extraction GAIL?”
“The Hercules is thirty-five minutes out from landing at Abuja airport Nigeria for refuelling and should be back in the air at twenty three fifty-nine hours, estimated pick up time is O-three twenty-two Zulu time.”
Strayker turned to Vince, “I need to take a shower and have a kip, call me thirty-minutes before the scheduled attack Vince.”
“Will do; sir.”
Assault on Muxima Fort
Assault on Muxima Fort Angola
Lat = 9 degrees, 33.0 minutes South
Long = 13 degrees, 55.0 minutes East
Early hours of Wednesday 6th July 1988
The three hours wait had seen the camp become quiet; only the local insects broke the silence with their chorus of sounds.
The guards had not been relieved since just over three hours ago, this indicated a four-hour minimum watch, they would probably be at their lowest peak of alertness at this moment, and the OSC troops had been conditioned for this type of waiting game and were still at a high alert level.
Max looked at his watch, the luminous dial showed the time as O-one fifty-seven hours Zulu time.
Max flicked opened his Comms, “sniper’s one and two prepare to take out the bridge guards, over.”
Each sniper assumed the prone position, which is considered the best for steadiness; they were using the brand new single fire bolt action suppressed L96A1 with a ten round 7.62 NATO round magazine propelling the round at three thousand feet per second.
The tripod was supporting the rifle, their bodies were in line with the weapon as much as possible-not at an angle, as this presents less of a target to the enemy and more body mass their bodies were in line with the weapon as much as possible-not at an angle, as this presents less of a target to the enemy and more body mass or as close as possible without causing strain.
Each sniper began the aiming process by aligning the rifle with the target when assuming a firing position. They pointed the rifle naturally at the desired point of aim, by adjusting the weapon and body as a single unit, rechecking, and readjusting as needed, each sniper achieved a true natural point of aim.
Once the position is established, each sniper aimed the weapon at the exact point on the target.
Aiming involves sight alignment, with the 10-x 42-hensoldt telescopic sights; sight alignment is the relationship between the cross and a full field of view as seen by the sniper.
There was a
slight breeze coming from each snipers rear six o’clock giving what is termed as a no value wind effect, Target distance two hundred yards, this would require a slight elevation adjustment on the scope to compensate for the very small trajectory drop caused by gravity.
Each sniper had commenced their breathing control by inhaling and exhaling to achieve the natural respiratory Pause, they had their index fingers low down on the trigger, but clearing the guard.
Max spoke on the Comm’s unit, “ten seconds on my mark.”
Max began the countdown.
Each sniper took a slightly deeper breath and then exhaled; this caused the breathing muscles to relax thus avoiding strain on the diaphragm.
Max’s countdown came down, “mark”.
Both triggers were squeeze uniformly increasing pressure straight to the rear until both the rifles fired simultaneously.
Both bullets found their targets in two-tenths of a second penetrating the skulls at the front and causing large exit wounds to the rear of the skull.
Both snipers kept the trigger fully back only releasing it when the recoil had stopped.
Max had watched the two guards drop through his binoculars; he spoke into his Comms unit, “Guards down, move forward.”
Team one remained at the bridge to cover the rear and secure the bridge for withdrawal.
Teams three and four led the way across the bridge with the remaining men following.
The fort was one hundred and fifty yards from the Bridge.
Teams three and four held their position one hundred yards away, the four-man sniper team took up positions to take out the three wall guards, and one sniper would be used as a backup.
They all found suitable firing positions, some kneeling using the sling supported position some adopted the open legged sitting position, with one of the other OSC troops providing weapon placement on their left shoulder.
The Wrath of Shakira Page 17