We’re the second team of the night to be on duty. There’s plenty of depth to the backup but we’re the most exposed to anything that comes along, which is why they call it early warning and we call it shit duty. The sky’s just beginning to lighten and my night vision glasses have compensated by dimming somewhat. I detect movement, nudge Scottie, and point. I’ve spotted two figures on the other side of the street. They’re moving slowly, staying close to the walls and backing into doorways wherever they can. Automatically we reach for our sidearms. As they get nearer I can see it’s an old guy and a woman. The old guy has a long beard and he’s wearing a djellabah. She’s all wrapped up in some sort of shawl with another one over her head, and she’s carrying what looks like a wicker basket. We don’t holster the sidearms: there’s enough room in the basket for a serious amount of explosive. There haven’t been that many suicide bombings yet, and normally they wouldn’t waste two people on one attack, but we’re on our guard all the same; there’s the basket, and the old guy could be wearing belts. Some of these groups aren’t averse to giving such people a choice: “Do this. If you refuse we kill you and your whole family. If you accept, we spare your family.”
I speak into my helmet microphone. “Open Channel Blue.”
“Channel Blue is open.” A pleasant female voice. It doesn’t belong to anyone here, more’s the pity.
“Blue, this is Red.”
“Yes, Red, we are receiving you.” The Germans are on. It sounds like Dieter.
“Two civilians approaching.”
“Hostiles?”
“I don’t think so, but stand by.”
We watch them carefully but they don’t look at us, just work their way further down the road. Maybe they’re simply two people who need to be somewhere else and figure it’s safer to travel in the dark. Which is a mistake.
When they’re just about level with us they look around them and start to cross the street. A shot rings out and the woman drops. The old man steps towards her and there’s another shot and he seems to leap sideways, landing in a heap of angles. Neither one moves. The basket rolls slowly across the road with a curious up and down motion, teeters, then tips up just yards from us. The contents spread out on the road: olives, vegetables, fruit, tajeen-bread, now spattered with blood and brains. We have our answer. Just an old couple taking a meal home. We’ve seen bodies like that in the streets before but it’s different when it happens right in front of your eyes. The black puddle of blood around each head thickens.
We’re both breathing hard.
“Fuck,” Scottie says. “That can’t be right.”
“Bastards,” I murmur.
He switches off his helmet comms and pulls up the mask of his low-emission outfit. “Back soon.”
I nod. All our communications are recorded. That one won’t be.
Ten minutes pass. The sky lightens some more and the sides of the buildings to my left start to glow a pleasant peachy colour.
There’s a flash followed by a bang coming from the sixth floor of that building. Stun grenade. Something dark appears at the empty window and drops to the street with a long, wailing howl. Then another one appears and goes the same way.
Five minutes later Scottie strolls up and joins me.
I say nothing.
*
I was looking out of the window at a cotton-wool cloud landscape. Above it the sky was a clear blue. It reminded me of a lovely Spring day back in England. Well, I’d be experiencing that at first hand soon enough.
The engine note dropped. I checked my watch. It wasn't a long flight and we were already starting on the descent. It was odd but I couldn’t even remember taking off. I'd been thinking about Scottie. Libya was the first of many tours I did with him. Whatever the deployment was, Scottie and I would always team up – it went without saying. And although we were still Lieutenants, Scottie was already showing the leadership qualities of a Captain. Like that time in North Waziristan.
North Waziristan 2044
We’ve had reports of insurgents holed out in a village and we have to do a house-to-house. We’re working in two-man teams but staying close enough to provide support if there’s trouble. It’s tense, dangerous work, but doing it with Scottie makes me feel more confident, and I think he feels the same way. Jim Forbes and Scottie Hayward – we’re invincible, aren’t we? I can see the others strung out along the street behind us. Each of us is carrying a multi-rifle, the under-barrel loaded with a grenade.
We clear two houses, both strangely empty, and go to the next one. We move slowly and quietly, listening at doors, trying to snatch a peek through windows. Scottie nods and points. He’ll take this one from the front, me from the back. I get in position, my heart thudding inside my chest. This is the moment you could meet nothing or a hail of bullets. I crouch low on the hinge side of the door, level the rifle, and burst in. Scottie and I have worked together so long we have a knack for gauging each other’s moves, and sure enough he comes in from the front at the same instant. No bullets, just an old man, two old women, three young women, and eight young children – boys and girls. The women have their arms tight around the children and they’re all huddled in a corner, fourteen pairs of dark eyes, all fixed on us, all wide with terror. We make placatory signals with our hands but it doesn’t seem to help. We go back outside.
Scottie speaks out of the corner of his mouth, although his eyes never stop roving.
“I don’t like this, Jim. Word must have got out.”
“You think so?”
“That looked like more than one family, got together for protection. How did they know to do that?”
“True.”
He’s still looking around, and now he narrows his eyes. “And where are the young men?”
“Run to the mountains, probably. Afraid they’ll be killed – or recruited.”
“Or with the insurgents waiting to jump us.”
“Maybe we should get our Pashto speaker in here. Ask them what they know.”
He scowls. “They’ll be too terrified to say anything. He should be following us up, all the same. Those people need reassuring. You see their faces? Poor sods think we’re going to kill them or rape the women or carry them off or something. Where’s our glorious leader? I’ll tell him.”
He uses the helmet comms to speak to the Captain. The rest of the troop is mustering because we’ve finished this street. Up there among the mountains the air is fresh and cold, but all of us are sweating bricks. That’s what it does to you. It’s coming to the end of the afternoon and the Captain looks like he’s ready to call it a day, but there’s one more street to clear. If you can call it a street: it’s just a dusty open area at the end of the village, with a few houses on one side.
Scottie and I are patrolling in our usual fashion, one walking forwards in front, the other walking backwards behind, both fanning our rifles. This time it’s Scottie in front and he stops so suddenly I bang into him. I open my mouth but he puts his fingers to his lips and stabs a forefinger at the house at the end.
“I’ll go round the back,” he murmurs. “Wait for the flash-bang, then use your grenade launcher. Target that window.”
Following his example I keep my voice low, but I’ve got to say it. “Scottie, there could be civilians in there!”
He just shakes his head and moves off between the houses, doubled over. I take up my position.
A minute later the windows all light up and there’s a loud bang. I fire and the grenade smashes through the window and explodes. I rush in at the front and Scottie meets me coming in at the back. Smoke hangs in the air in layers, barely disturbed by the thin rain of plaster that’s still falling from the ceiling. The walls are pockmarked by the shrapnel, and the tang of Celonite explosive stings my nostrils. There are five bloody and mangled bodies lying under the windows. A grenade at close quarters does a lot of damage to the human body, especially in a confined space. This is even worse, because the fragments of glass from the window were still
airborne when it detonated and they’ve been driven by the blast. Shards of it are sticking out of the wall and up from the floorboards and you can bet that plenty sliced through those bodies. An automatic rifle lies close to each of them. Treading carefully to avoid the glass, we turn the bodies over with the muzzles of our rifles. Heavy ammunition belts sag to one side. On the floor nearby there are two wooden boxes of hand grenades, open, ready to throw. We check the other rooms. Empty.
When we go outside the rest of the troop are running up. The Captain goes into the house and comes out again. He nods to us. “Well, done, lads.” Then to the others, “All right, go in and collect up the munitions; we don’t want them falling into the wrong hands, do we? Then we can pull out.”
“Watch out for the glass,” Scottie calls after them.
Our armoured vehicle is a couple of klicks to the east and we strike off in that direction. Scottie looks very calm. I feel anything but calm. I’m gripping my multi-rifle hard, trying to stop the shaking. I’m thinking how easy it would have been for me to walk right into that trap. I’d be stone dead now if it weren’t for Scottie.
I lean towards him and say quietly, “How did you know they were in there?”
He gives me his lop-sided smile. “Heard them breathing.”
*
The engines roared out in reverse thrust and the aircraft slowed to taxi to the apron.
Harken was probably right: if I was going to make the move, the sooner I did it the better. If I hung around, the media could pile in before I left and if they were really persistent they might even follow me. I’d start my preparations as soon as I got back to base. In two days’ time I should be on the supersonic, leaving behind Fort Piper and the US of A, heading for England.
11
I’d packed the bare minimum: toiletries, a change of clothes, and my running kit. I took no paperwork, and the contacts I needed were on my phone. If I lacked something I figured the base would provide it or I’d buy it. So when I disembarked at London’s Heathrow Airport my only baggage was a soft carry-on.
They said they’d send a driver to meet me, so I looked for him as I emerged into the Arrivals Hall. There was a crowd waiting eagerly at the barrier. Behind them, at a respectful distance, was a tall guy in MTPs. He was standing feet apart, hands behind his back. He wasn’t holding any identification – he didn’t need to, the sand-coloured beret with the downward-pointing flaming sword said it all. I wasn’t in his chain of command but he saluted me anyway.
“Take your bag, sir?”
“I’ve got it.”
He led me to the car and held open the rear door. I’d have preferred to sit up front with him during the ride to Hereford but it seemed he preferred it this way. Normally protocol was less strict inside The Regiment. But I wasn’t inside The Regiment. I was sitting here in the uniform of a Colonel in the US Army. Once on the base he conducted me straight to the CO’s office, saluted me again, and left me with the aide-de-camp. The ADC took me straight in, then withdrew, and I heard the door close behind him.
Colonel Owen Gracey rose from behind his desk. He looked a bit older, but a good deal heavier, than Harken. If the funding situation was as bad as when I left the outfit he was probably doing the equivalent of my job and Harken’s combined. Which wouldn’t leave much time for running five or ten ks before going to work.
It wasn’t a large office. There were the usual bookshelves and filing cabinets, a map of the Brecon Beacons on one wall, and a venetian blind on the single window. The carpet was an orange-brown cord – cheap and hard-wearing.
Gracey was even taller than me. He leaned forward to shake my hand. “Welcome to the 22 SAS, Jim.”
Very informal, no salutes, first name terms right away. I followed suit. “Thanks, Owen. Sorry about this. I’m sure you’re busy enough here without having to babysit an officer from another force.”
He gestured to a chair in front of the desk and resumed his own. “Not a bit of it. We’re familiar with your outfit – even do combined ops from time to time. We get the news here, too, so I know about your exploits. Congratulations.”
I stiffened. Congratulations on what, exactly?
He’d caught my blank look. “The Africa mission. Major coup. Well done. We should be honoured – you’re quite a hero.”
That was a relief. The African operation was general knowledge; for a moment I thought he was referring to the counterfeit business. I was hoping that particular one would remain my own little secret.
I shrugged. “Like you, we do what we have to do. Usually no one notices; this time the media got wind of it. The publicity blew me for future operations. Bad luck, that’s all.”
He nodded. “I’ll level with you, Colonel. I understand that mission also brought you a fresh round of interest from the media. I haven’t been told any more than that, and I have sense enough not to ask. Anyway, I agreed to look after you until things have died down.”
“Thank you, Owen. I appreciate it.”
There was a glint of something else in his eyes. “Is that the trace of an English accent I hear?”
Harken says I do have a weird transatlantic accent so there’s no point in denying it.
“Yeah, I was from England originally. Emigrated way back.”
“You have any family or friends over here, people you want to visit?”
“No…”
“So there’d be no reason for you to leave the base.”
Ah, that’s where he’s going. “Are you saying I’m confined to barracks?”
He laughed. “No, not exactly. It’s just that, as CO, I need to know where my people are, and as of now you’re one of my people.” I opened my mouth to say something, but he added, “That may seem irregular, even unpalatable, for someone of your rank, but it’s expected of me. Needless to say you’ll have the run of the base. Just that if you go anywhere else I’d like you keep me informed.”
“Sounds reasonable. I’d probably say the same thing in your position.”
He smiled. “I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to look round yet.”
“No, I thought I’d better report to you first.” It’s protocol, he knows that.
“I’ll get Captain Parry to take you to your billet, show you the facilities, and so on. I have some urgent stuff to cope with right now otherwise I’d do it myself. If you should need to holoconference securely with your people back home, the suite is in this building. Any other problems, just let me know.” He pressed a button on his desk, then spoke to his ADC. “Get hold of Captain Parry, would you? Ask him to come here to meet our new, er, guest, take him to his quarters, and show him round.”
I stood up. “Thanks again, Owen.”
We shook hands, more firmly this time, and our eyes met.
This could work out better than I’d expected.
*
When Captain Parry showed up he took me to my billet first, so I could dump my stuff. The room was adequately furnished: a bed, a chair and table, a wardrobe, and an armchair. The walls and paintwork were white, and looked reasonably fresh. The carpet was navy blue, but otherwise looked like the same government-issue as the one in Gracey’s office. The window looked out across a strip of thin, yellowing grass, a paved pathway, and another strip of undernourished grass, the view ending in the wall of an identical building opposite. There was an en suite bathroom with a toilet, sink, and shower. I opened the wardrobe door and was pleased to see a uniform hanging there. I wasn’t planning to swan around the base in US Army BDUs, and we’d arranged for the UK equivalent to be ready for my arrival.
Parry was waiting outside. I didn’t pause to unpack but went out to accompany him on the grand tour. First, however, he pointed to the office next door to my room.
“Colonel Gracey said you can have the use of this office while you’re here, sir.”
I had a quick look inside. It was about the same size as my room and sparsely furnished, just a desk and a couple of chairs. But there was a computer terminal and it
looked like it was networked, which could be useful. At some point the office had been painted with white plastimulsion, but one wall was covered with grubby marks where things had been posted up and later torn down. I went back outside.
“Who had this office before, Captain?”
“It was Lieutenant-Colonel Heptinstall’s office, sir. He’s moved on to D squadron.”
“Right. Carry on.”
We walked briskly. I could hardly believe the weather. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and although there was some heat in the sun the breeze had a bite to it. After so many years in the heat and humidity of North Carolina I’d forgotten what a fine Spring day in England could be like.
It was nearly ten years since I’d last seen the base and it had expanded in that time. The firing range, parade ground, obstacle course, and the chapel with the SAS dedicated window were unchanged, but the gym and the mess were in totally new buildings. Finally we took a walk through the main building, although at my request he just pointed out the various offices and facilities. We didn’t open doors because I wasn’t ready to meet anyone yet. We ended up outside my room again.
“Thanks, Captain. I’d like to have a shower and change before dinner.”
“Of course, sir.” He consulted his watch, standard issue. “Shall I pick you up in an hour, then? I can come with you to the mess, introduce you to whoever’s around.”
“That would be good. See you then.”
I had a shower and changed into the uniform they'd left for me. I had mixed feelings about coming back. In any other circumstances it would have been great to see Bruce and Scottie again, but the guy they knew was Jim Forbes and his brain inhabited a different body now. Jim Slater didn’t look the same and he didn’t sound the same and they wouldn’t have a clue who he was. I just had to pretend I never knew them. It was surprising how much that hurt.
*
At dinner the Captain and I sat with Lieutenant-Colonel Bruce Harrington and a Major Nigel Greenaway. Bruce’s hair was silvering at the temples now, but he looked fit and he was as suave as ever. He didn’t know me, of course, and we had the same sort of strained conversation that any visiting serviceman might expect. Greenaway looked young to be a Major, but there was something steely in his manner that told me he’d seen a bit of action. There were others at the table, and some regarded me curiously but averted their gaze when I looked up. I realized this wasn’t going to be a comfortable posting unless I did something to break the ice. After we’d eaten I got the training schedule from Captain Parry, read it, and went to bed early.
The Reich Legacy Page 6