THE FOLLOWER: SAS hero turns Manchester hitman (A Rick Fuller Thriller Book 4)

by Robert White

Four M16A3’s with extended 30 round mags, and four Browning L9A1 Hi-Power SLP’s finished the picture for weaponry.

  Some would say the Browning was outdated by 1987, but I’d fired it all my army career, as had the other lads in the patrol.

  Better the devil you know.

  Also finding their way into our Bergens were eight HG 85 fragmentation hand grenades each containing 155g TNT and around 1800 fragments, great for fighting in built-up areas.

  As our plan didn’t involve us firing a single round, you might say this mass of armaments was over the top, but if we were forced to fight our way out of Tiji and back over the border with half the Libyan army on our tails, well…

  Of course, each of us would be taking those little things that made us comfortable.

  Frankie Green had the most important job as our explosives expert, and he was busy sourcing C-4, reels of cable, tremble switches, detonators and the like.

  Frankie actually enjoyed blowing things up.

  He hailed from Barnsley, South Yorkshire. They breed them tough down there and Frankie was no exception. The son of a Yorkshire coal miner, he spoke with a thick accent, using ‘thee’ and ‘tha’ rather than ‘you’ and ‘you’re’. He’d been married from the age of seventeen and had three kids. His wife Karen, was a big girl in every way, whereas Frankie was as skinny as a rake. A wiry little tough fucker who you would have to kill to beat in a scrap.

  If anyone ever dared mention the size of his missus, Frankie would say something like, ‘Tha don’t know what tha missing thee. Tha needs summat t’ get hold of at neet tha knows.’

  He was also a steady Eddie. We nicknamed him Captain Sensible after the singer. He was always so calm and collected, spoke when he had something worth saying, and was an all -round good bloke.

  When I look back at my career in the Army, I reckon Frankie was one of the few blokes I met that had a really solid home life.

  Butch was another matter altogether. Dave ‘The Butcher’ Stanley, got his nickname after he cut off Argentinian soldier’s ears as wee mementos during the battle for Goose Green. Fuckin’ weird if you ask me, pal, but anyway, Butch was also a dab hand in a scrap, especially at close quarters. Having a bloke like Butch at your disposal was all well and good, but, if we found we needed his particular brand of expertise on this job, we’d be in the shit big time.

  Butch packed his own personal Kukri, the knife the Gurkhas used in battle. Once he had that in his hand, blood would be spilled one way or the other, even if it was his own.

  Where Frankie was easy going, Butch had a temper. Luckily, Rick always seemed to be able to keep him in hand.

  I hoped that remained the case, as I had a feeling this job was going to need cool calm heads.

  Rick had a thing about flashes and bangs, and he’d packed half a dozen stun grenades to make him feel better.

  Me? I took me pipe and a good pair of binos.

  Sunday 15th November 1987

  Rick Fuller’s Story:

  It had been lashing it down when we took off from Hereford, but by the time we were loading out kit onto the boat that would take us to Jarjis, the Maltese sun shone warm on our backs. None of our patrol had shaved since we’d got the nod for the trip. Every fucker seemed to have a beard in the Arab world. We thought it may help us mingle.

  As I watched the lads humping Bergens onto the deck, I considered we looked a right rough bunch.

  We wore boots and desert cargos, but after that, I’d left it up to the individual. I just made sure each of the crew had some warm clothes, as it gets terribly cold after dark in that part of the world.

  Also, we all had the traditional Arab headgear in our kit. Once we got on the road at the other end, with a bit of luck, the beards and the kufiyah would give us a chance at passing for locals on first glance.

  Our boat was an old fishing vessel, all brightly painted. The type you take pictures of when you’re on your holidays. However, it was manned and skippered by a crew made up of 1st Battalion, AFM. They were all from C Company, the Maltese Quick Reaction Force, used for high-risk operations, based at Hal-Far. They didn’t say much or ask any questions. Just the way I liked it.

  The nine-hour trip meant we could eat and get some essential kip.

  The AFM lads really looked after us in the grub department too. They made us a traditional Maltese meal starting with a dish called Caponata - a vegetable salad made from chopped fried eggplant and celery, with capers olives and peppers.

  After that came Suffat-Tal-Fenek, a spiced rabbit stew with piles of fresh bread, all washed down with Te Fit-Tazza, a Maltese version of builder’s tea, made with condensed milk and served in a glass.

  It was the best meal I’d had in ages.

  As the old boat pushed lazily through the water and the sun set over the bow, Des, Butch and Frankie sat cross-legged on the deck playing cards. They looked like they hadn’t a care in the world.

  Me? I lay back against the boat’s bulkhead, stretched out my legs, crossed them at the ankles and closed my eyes. The rhythmical chug of the old diesel engine and the warmth of the evening sent me off in an instant.

  I slept like a baby.

  It would be my last for a while.

  * * *

  We were met in Jarjis by a ‘Man from the Ministry.’

  He was a posh boy, with good taste in clothes. He did his job to the letter, and made sure that all our kit was unloaded into a jeep, without a customs guy in sight. I got the impression, he was destined for the Security Services. He had that quiet, unruffled confidence about him.

  Within forty minutes of docking, we were on the road, sporting our new beards and headgear, ready for the two and a half hour drive to Libya.

  The plan was to dump the jeep about ten kilometres from the actual border and then tab the rest of the way, over rough ground to Tiji.

  The Head Shed had given me a hand held GPS unit to play with. One of the first I’d ever seen. I viewed it with some suspicion and decided not to rely on it. The Americans had developed the system, but back in the late eighties there were only ten satellites up in the sky for the units to feed off, making them less reliable than the modern units of today.

  Even so, I was told in no uncertain terms, not to lose it. Apparently, they were very expensive.

  Unusually, the tab across the border went like clockwork without the faintest sign of bother. The only thing I would say, is that if you ever doubted the cold in the desert at night, I’ll tell you this, it’s colder than a witch’s tit.

  We all carried personal shortwave comms should we need to talk to each other.

  I, as patrol leader, had a satellite phone should we get in the shit.

  Just who yours truly would ring to get us out of the proverbial brown stuff, would be another matter. Air support was never going to be an option with a medical facility and a mosque so close to the target premises.

  Tiji, Libya. Thursday 19th November 1987.

  Des Cogan’s Story:

  We’d found our LUP (Lying up point,) just after 0700hrs. The sun was just about up and began to warm our frozen bones.

  Sometime around 1600hrs, we knew it would drop like a stone again, plunge Tiji into darkness and the temperature would plummet into minus figures.

  We were hunched in a dried-out wadi that ran north to south, some five hundred metres from our target. Deep enough to conceal us from any nosy locals but close enough for me to get eyes on Al-Mufti’s premises with the binos. We dropped our Bergens - got some much needed rations down our necks and a brew on.

  Feeling a little warmer, we then sorted out our kit, checking and re-checking our weapons. Freddy was already setting up his own personal bomb making factory as he hummed a little tune.

  “What’s that you’re singing?” I asked.

  “On Ilkley Moor baht hat,” he said.

  I shook my head.
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  “It’s a tale about this lad like,” he explained. “He goes up on t’moors we no hat on, and he catches his death o’ cold.”

  I laughed. “Yer a fuckin’ alien, pal. Nobody can understand that shite.”

  Freddy rolled C-4 in his palms to warm and shape it. “It’s a good Yorkshire tune Desmond. Tha wouldn’t understand.”

  I left him to it.

  Tiji was bigger and more modern than I imagined and contemporary buildings were visible in the far distance.

  That said, the area around our target was stock poor.

  Sand-rendered, low-rise, flat roofed dwellings sat opposite each other, divided by tight alleyways. Narrow potholed streets were home to skinny wild dogs prowling around sniffing for scraps. Local women carried baskets of vegetables on their heads as they trudged to the local market, and men in national dress drove the odd goat in the same direction hoping for a sale.

  Al-Mufti’s house was located on the corner of a narrow lane and a wider tarmac road that ran between the oilfield and the town proper. This meant we had a good view from our wadi, but would make getting in close difficult in the daylight hours. The land between our position and the target was flat as a pancake, with no cover at all other than the odd telegraph pole. If we got caught out there, we’d all be slotted in an instant.

  Our plan had been simple enough. Ensure Abdallah Al-Mufti was all tucked up in bed, get in close to the house under cover of darkness, attach enough C-4 to blow the thing sky high, and fuck off quick sharp.

  Simple eh?

  Not so.

  The gaff was not only bigger than we first thought, maybe five bedrooms, but also under armed guard.

  Two men with AK-47’s slung across their chests patrolled the perimeter. They looked tired or bored, or both, but they or their replacements would have to be dealt with before we could plant our charges.

  In addition to the two sleepy heads, a crew of other faces, mostly dressed in typical Arab terrorist garb wandered about the street, smoking and carrying everything from AK’s to GPMG’s. They didn’t appear to have a purpose, they were just… there.

  The building opposite our target was a larger structure with a high walled rear yard. It wasnea a dwelling, more of a storage facility. One eighteen-ton six-wheeler had already trundled around to the back gates early doors. The truck was on its axles, fully laden, and the wandering terrorist types, slipped in and out of this building at regular intervals to help with the unloading of whatever its cargo was.

  Whitehall’s estimate of thirty guys supporting Al-Mufti was conservative to say the least, and as the morning wore on, our head count continued to rise. We stopped bothering at fifty.

  Parked directly outside the front door of our target’s house, were three vehicles. The first was a Toyota pickup. It had the suspension jacked up and big fat tyres fitted to enable it to negotiate the desert terrain. Experienced desert drivers are a Godsend. They know exactly how much air to have in the tyres to get you where you need to go. In some conditions, they run them almost flat and carry a small compressor in the back to re-inflate them when the ground changes.

  This wee model also boasted some kit you wouldn’t get offered as an optional extra in the Toyota showroom. It had an M2, bolted to the roof. The heavy machine gun, designed by John Browning had a full belt of .50 BMG cartridges sitting next to it, all ready to be fed into the weapon. Even though the M2 was an old weapon, first deployed in WW1, in the right hands, it was devastating.

  Behind the Toyota was a Mitsubishi Shogun. It had the same wheel treatment, but was all clean and shiny with privacy glass to the rear. Obviously, Al-Mufti liked to ride in air-conditioned comfort, rather than in the dust filled open air with his troops.

  The final vehicle was another pick-up truck of indeterminate make that looked like it had been in a war or two.

  Just before 1000hrs we had movement from the house.

  “Heads up,” said Rick sharply.

  The tired patrolling guards perked up no end, and the seemingly random set of faces that wandered the street between the house and the storage facility suddenly became an organised, drilled cordon, all taking their previously agreed positions, weapons at the ready.

  If Ronnie Reagan himself had been an overnight guest, he couldn’t have been happier with the security.

  It was only once that this team had got their shit together, that the close protection crew who all appeared to have been sleeping in the main house appeared. First, the three drivers stepped out and started the engines of their respective vehicles. Next came the guy in charge of the M2. He clambered up onto the lead pickup, fed the belt of cartridges into the weapon and cocked it. He looked a big musclebound mean fucker and scanned the horizon in our direction.

  Then, four more guys exited and jumped in the back of the second pick-up - all had AK’s, seemed switched on and well drilled.

  I focused my binos on the front door and held my breath.

  Two massive faces stepped out. They were black, of African origin. Nigerian? Sudanese maybe?

  No flowing robes for these boys. It was all tight black t-shirts, Levis and Ray Bans. Both sported tan leather shoulder holsters with big calibre chrome SLP’s sitting in them. They stood either side of the door scanning the street which seemed to have cleared completely of any locals. Even the scabby dogs had fucked off. Everyone was waiting, including us.

  Then, there he was.

  Abdallah Al- Mufti.

  He was a tall handsome man, lithe and long limbed. The full beard he’d sported in his photograph, was now no more than designer stubble and his jet black hair, was slicked back and tied into a ponytail. Those light eyes on the black and white shot we’d seen, were the sharpest blue. He stood on the doorstep wearing a pale linen suit and white open necked shirt, king of all he surveyed.

  Butch cocked the AW50, but Rick placed his hand on top of the sight and shook his head.

  Not now.

  Al-Mufti turned.

  Standing behind him was a stunningly beautiful woman in a long yellow dress that hugged every curve of her figure. At her side was a boy of about nine. He was a serous child and wore the traditional Arabic white dishdasha and crocheted skull cap. He carried a brightly coloured plastic toy in this left hand. Resting in the crook of the woman’s olive-skinned arm was a baby of about six months.

  Al-Mufti kissed his children and then the woman, who we could only presume to be his wife.

  She smiled as they exchanged a few words. Then he turned to his two bodyguards, gave them the slightest nod and they escorted him to the Shogun.

  I could see why Butch had been tempted to let go a couple of rounds and try and take out our boy as he stepped out into the morning sunshine. But the chances of a clean shot and us living to tell the tale would be minimal. Escaping back through the desert at night gave us a chance. In the daylight, and with the firepower at Al-Mufti’s disposal, we would be picked off like ducks in a gallery.

  The three vehicle convoy did a U-turn at the junction and headed slowly back up the narrow street past the house and away from our position, kicking up a cloud of dust behind it.

  “Just another fuckin’ day at the office,” said Butch.

  I turned to Rick. There was no way on God’s green earth any of our patrol were going to blow up that house with two kiddies inside.

  “We need a new plan,” I said.

  Rick Fuller’s Story:

  Al-Mufti was in control of a small militia that seemed well trained and switched on. They weren’t all Arabic either. There were white faces mixed in there, Slavic or Russian, and the two Africans closest to him were not the only black faces. I counted at least another five, and they all worked alongside each other with no issue.

  The building opposite the main house both worried and intrigued me.

  After Al-Mufti’s convoy left, the remaining guys were in
and out of the place constantly and the sounds of trucks being loaded and unloaded echoed from the rear yard towards our position.

  I turned to the lads. “I’ll bet a pound to a pinch of shit that gaff is Al -Mufti’s arms dump.”

  “Two points,” said Butch.

  Des lit his ghastly pipe and took the briefest drag.

  “Aye, I’m with ye on that, pal.”

  “Tha can’t do nowt w’it though,” said Frankie. “Not wi bairns in t’house opposite like. Light that place up an’ it’s likely to take out half the fuckin village.”

  Frankie was a family man, the only one of the patrol with children, but his judgement wasn’t flawed. He was right.

  I wasn’t a fool either, and I’d never buried my head in the sand. Collateral damage was a fact of war. Men women and children died in conflicts. It was horrible and distressing, but sometimes, unavoidable.

  However, killing Al-Mufti’s wife and children to get to him, was not an option. Even blowing up the building opposite was a last chance saloon moment.

  I nodded. “So, we have to take him in his vehicle.”

  “What if he doesn’t come back anytime soon?” asked Butch.

  “He’ll be back,” said Des, stowing his tobacco. “No luggage, not even a briefcase.”

  “I agree,” I said. “This is where his operation and his family are. He won’t be gone long.”

  Frankie gripped a grey box with a retractable antenna in his left hand, and a smaller device with protruding wires in his right. He held them up in turn as he spoke. “Here we have a radio transmitter… and receiver. Just like the ones used to drive my lad’s toy car back home. The transmitter sends a control signal to the receiver via radio waves, and the receiver, using a tiny circuit board carries out that command. In this case, opening or closing a simple circuit. If I can get underneath his Shogun, I can plant a charge, big enough t’slot the fucker and take out the lead and following vehicles. Even detonate it from here.”

  I looked at him. “And the house… the kids?”