Assassin (John Stratton)

by Falconer, Duncan

  Wheeland forced a grin.

  Stratton noticed a general increase in activity in the centre of the rendezvous point, around Captain Burns. Men were pulling on their heavy backpacks and preparing to move out. He checked his watch. It was time to go.

  ‘Mount up!’ the squadron sergeant major called out.

  Jones pulled on his heavy pack. ‘You happy for Charlie to do point for this stretch?’ he asked Stratton.

  ‘All the way?’

  ‘Why not? He’s keen as mustard. And you love it out in front, don’t you, Charlie? First in the contact and first to find those mines.’

  Charlie, a squat, fresh-faced redhead, smiled as he pulled his pack onto his shoulders, then picked up his rifle, cradling it in his arms.

  ‘OK,’ Stratton said. ‘You happy with the route?’

  ‘Basic,’ Charlie said as he checked the compass that was attached by a line to his jacket breast pocket. ‘I thought I’d take an angle downhill. That way.’ He pointed. ‘Reduce the steepness a bit. Then at the bottom head along the river.’

  ‘We like a point who cares about those who follow,’ Stratton said. He looked over at Wheeland and Spinter. ‘We’re going to take the lead,’ he said to them. ‘If you don’t mind being in front of Jones. Team Bravo will be behind us. The other two teams will fall in behind them. No gaps.’

  ‘Whatever you say, big guy,’ Wheeland said.

  Charlie made his way to the departure point at the edge of the village, three quarters up the side of the mountain. He looked out over the dark expanse that was all his to lead through and took a moment to check the GPS as well as his compass and tightly folded map inside its waterproof sheath. Technology was great but one always had to back it up with the fundamentals. Leading the squadron on an op was a hefty responsibility and he couldn’t afford for anything to go wrong. He was young and this task was very much a part of building his reputation.

  ‘Space it out, Charlie,’ Stratton said.

  Charlie acknowledged the command by setting off down the hill. He paused after thirty or so metres to wait for the rest of the squadron to form up behind him. They were going to move in single file, the safest and easiest way to move through the terrain, especially at night.

  Stratton stepped in directly behind Charlie. He liked to hand down responsibility, but he preferred not to stray far from the sharp end either.

  Jones took up the rear of Stratton’s team. Wheeland and Spinter did as they were asked and lined up in front of him.

  ‘Move when ready,’ Stratton said to Charlie, who set off at an easy walk down the rocky incline.

  2

  In the dark the grey landscape resembled the moon. The jagged mountain the SBS squadron was traversing was part of a range that curved away and around their front. It was like walking on the edge of a massive asteroid crater. Stars were packed into the sky. The men snaked down the slope towards a vast, colourless plain and the parched riverbed that ran through it like an ugly scar. They walked among rocks of every dimension covering the mountainside, from pebbles to boulders the size of cars. Here and there tufts of brittle grass clung to dark crevices, blowing in the light wind.

  Charlie took a meandering path, his aim, other than to get the squadron to its destination, to find a route that reduced the noise of the thirty men – as well as the chances of any of the more heavily loaded of them losing their footing. Among the teams they had four medium-sized machine guns and four thousand rounds of ammunition. Each man carried a couple of HEAT rockets plus his own weapon, ammunition, grenades and field equipment. Two sniper teams carried their complete weapons systems including a heavy half-inch gun, a metre-long silencer, a large scope and wind and distance calibrating accessories. From a long way off they would resemble a heavily laden foot caravan of nomads.

  A couple of hours after leaving the camp Charlie stepped off the foot of the mountain and onto the valley floor. The plain spread out in front of him. In the furthest distance the snow-capped peaks looked like shark’s teeth. As they walked into the plain they left the hard terrain behind. There were fewer obstacles, the larger rocks disappeared and the ground beneath their feet turned powdery.

  A kilometre out from the bottom of the slope Charlie reached the edge of the broad, dry riverbed they had seen from the village. He paused the snaking patrol once again, as he had done several times along the route. It was always wise to stop and listen, even when there was no sign of an enemy. It kept the snake organised and allowed gaps, caused for whatever reason, to close up.

  But this stop was slightly different.

  Charlie knelt and gave a signal to Stratton, who dropped down onto a knee several metres behind him. Stratton passed the signal back to the man behind him, a twirling motion with his hand above his head, before getting up and moving to the riverbank a few metres from his point man. The next man came to the opposite side to Charlie, the next to Stratton’s side, but a few metres back from the edge of the bank. Jones guided Wheeland and Spinter in. The rest of the men continued the process until the squadron had formed a large circle, their backs to its centre. Some chose to remain on one knee while others lay down.

  The tail-end operative reached the circle and turned around to face the way he’d come before lowering himself onto a knee. In the centre of the circle, with the sergeant major and signaller, Captain Burns crouched on a single knee, quietly looking over the riverbed.

  The radio operator leaned close to him. ‘Ops is acknowledging our location, sir.’

  The operations HQ in Bastion had seen the satellite transponder markers carried by the team leaders come to a halt on their map monitors.

  ‘Tell them all’s good here and we’re moving out in fifteen,’ Burns said.

  They were entering enemy territory. From this point on, the chances of running into the enemy was greater. So it was always wise to pause. Have a long listen. Get into the right frame of mind. Make any adjustments to weapons and equipment that were needed before pressing on.

  The men remained like statues. The wind blew gently between them. A fine dust was constantly in the air and most had their scarves over their mouths. Afghanistan’s dust was infamous. It got everywhere. A gentle cough broke the silence, followed by another.

  The minutes clicked by. It seemed like they had been there an age. Several times Wheeland fidgeted with something in his pocket or adjusted his position. Stratton looked around at him. The spook looked over his shoulder towards Burns. Stratton had no doubt that if things were up to Wheeland they’d all be on their way by now. He wondered how long ago it was since he’d been in the SEALs. He’d certainly lost his field edge. Being a spook would do that to a person.

  Burns got to his feet alone and made his way to the riverbank between Charlie and Stratton. ‘All good, Stratton?’ he said softly.

  ‘All good, sir,’ Stratton replied.

  ‘Move off when you’re ready then,’ Burns said before stepping back to his radio operator.

  Stratton figured they’d waited long enough. He gave Charlie a nod.

  The soldier got to his feet and headed down a gentle slope onto the riverbed. When he reached the middle he turned upstream and headed along at an easy pace.

  The river was bone dry as per usual for the time of year. On one side, to the left of the squadron as they walked, in the direction they had come from, the ground seemed to rise more steeply than it had felt while they walked down it. The peaks were ice-covered. On their right stretched the vast expanse of open land. Low, smooth rolling hills occupied the middle ground before the distant mountains. Clouds had begun to move in from the south, threatening to cover the night sky. Stratton hoped so. They would block out the moon and stars and reduce the light. Complete dark was good.

  The going was rocky and treacherous underfoot. It would have been a smoother walk on either of the banks. But the riverbed was several metres lower. Anyone in the distance on either side would not see the silhouettes of the line of men.

  The concealed approach
was also important because that night’s target was a hamlet on the open plain just a couple of hundred metres from the right side of the river. The attack was planned for an hour before dawn. That gave the teams ample time to move into position.

  After another two hours of easy marching, Charlie went down on one knee and gave a signal. The entire squadron halted in its line and most of the operators went to ground. Everyone knew precisely where they were. They all had the coordinates on their GPS. After a minute of watching and listening, Stratton and Jones got up and broke from the line towards the right bank. Another pair left the snake and went to the opposite bank, where they would remain and observe the approaches to what would soon become the rear of the fighting patrol.

  Stratton and Jones eased their way up the bank just enough to look onto the plain. In front of them, a few hundred metres away, they saw a line of buildings. The two of them observed the area carefully using thermal imagers. They saw no movement around the buildings. But some figures had gathered near a vehicle, one that had recently arrived or had been running for some reason. Most importantly, the movement they saw was concentrated around the hamlet and not anywhere near the river.

  ‘This is Stratton,’ he said into his throat mike. ‘You’re good to move in.’

  Burns acknowledged receipt of the message. A signal went down the line in both directions to move into position. Every man turned to his right as he got to his feet and the extended line moved slowly out of the bottom of the riverbed to the bank where Stratton and Jones lay. The men didn’t look above the sides and made themselves comfortable below the bank, while the team leaders climbed up to take a look at the target.

  Stratton noted most of the lighting was electrical, coming from inside the houses. They obviously had a generator since the buildings were a few hundred kilometres from the nearest power lines. It would account for the distant droning they could all hear. But the wind was moving across his front, following the river, making it difficult to interpret the sounds coming from the hamlet.

  The houses appeared to be joined together to form one long complex. There were no lights outside that he could see. The figures continued to move around the vehicle. A pick-up truck, Stratton decided. The thermal patterns around the wheels and engine compartment remained almost white in their intensity. The men appeared to be unloading something from the back. They carried the items around the other side of the building and out of sight. It seemed the side of the complex they couldn’t see was the front.

  ‘A couple more hours and these buggers are going to get well and truly battered,’ Jones said.

  Stratton checked the ground to the left and right beyond the ends of the complex. It looked to be clear of life. Nothing seemed to live out in the huge open spaces. He guessed the hamlet had originally been a farm. Perhaps it still was. But it was no longer occupied by the farmer and his family. They must have been booted out by the Taliban.

  ‘The eye would pick up anything that was out there,’ Jones said.

  He was referring to the eye in the sky running surveillance for the operation. There were in fact two ‘eyes’ covering the task, although the British were aware of only one of them. That was a Royal Air Force Raptor, an unmanned aircraft circling 4500 metres or so above them. The other surveillance unit was operated by the CIA, a manned craft flying at twelve thousand metres. It was employed to observe many other aspects of the regional conflict. But it had been assigned to the task at the hamlet.

  ‘The eyes don’t see everything,’ Stratton said. He’d had one experience in particular in Iraq that had served to remind him of the shortfalls of hi-tech surveillance. It was in the desert north of Ramadi, inside the Sunni Triangle. He’d been preparing to move to the edge of the town across country with three other members of his team and had been waiting for the all-clear from a Raptor. When it finally came the team moved off, across a stretch of parched farmland. They were exposed. Out in the open. But because the eye had given the all-clear to move, their confidence was high that they would not be seen.

  They got halfway across the field when a dozen men appeared in front. It turned out they were insurgents living in a series of tunnels and underground habitats that they used primarily for ammunition storage. The meeting was purely coincidental. The insurgents had been waiting for nightfall before moving out on a mission of their own. The eye in the sky hadn’t picked up any clues to their existence.

  Stratton’s men went to ground. But not quickly enough. The insurgents saw them in the darkness and opened fire immediately. Stratton and his team scattered. Two of them were quickly wounded, one seriously, but they managed to get to cover and defend their position until support arrived. The task wasn’t the only thing aborted because of the incident. One of the men’s careers was ended that night due to his injuries. Another was off ops for several months.

  Needless to say, from that day on, whenever Stratton heard the ‘all-clear to proceed’ from an eye-in-the-sky operator, he proceeded, but with great caution.

  ‘Have you been given a time to hit these guys?’ Wheeland asked Stratton from below.

  Stratton looked down the side of the bank to see the American standing there, cool as you like, smoking a cigar.

  ‘That’s going to be up to your Spooky,’ Stratton replied, going back to searching the horizon. ‘They’re calling the shots on this operation. They want daylight visibility.’

  ‘That’s because I asked for a daylight hit,’ Wheeland said. ‘We’ve got night eyes. But I don’t want anyone getting away for whatever reason.’

  Stratton could see the point. Things could get lost in the dark despite the use of sophisticated night optics.

  ‘You ever seen Spooky in all its glory, Stratton?’

  ‘A few times.’

  ‘Beautiful sight, ain’t it?’

  Stratton had to agree. The Spooky the American referred to was not dedicated to the CIA, despite its name.

  ‘Are you joining the primary move or will you be follow-up?’ Stratton asked him, hoping for the latter.

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ Wheeland said, laughing. ‘We’re on the primary move, my man. Hell, we may even be out in front of you.’

  Stratton got the intended bravado but he was bothered by it nonetheless. ‘Do you have something specific you need to find?’

  ‘Yep,’ Wheeland said. And he left it at that.

  Stratton got the feeling he wanted him to mind his own business. He wasn’t offended. He respected the man’s secrecy. He would have preferred to know more precise boundaries, though. Where not to go, for instance, or when to leave Wheeland and his buddy to themselves. He resented the lack of detail. ‘Would you like us to clean any particular structure before you go in or will you clean them yourselves?’ he said.

  ‘I tell you how we’re gonna play it, Stratton,’ Wheeland said, as he thought it through. ‘We’ll take it one step at a time. One building at a time. One room at a time. You go ahead and do your thing. And when I say back off and leave it to me and Spinter, that’s exactly what you’ll do. How about that for a plan?’

  Stratton made his way down the bank. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s see how that works out.’ Wheeland’s attitude was beginning to annoy him but he kept it to himself. He expected the American was feeling the same way about him. He walked past the spook towards Burns and the ops HQ team.

  Spinter came up to his boss as he watched Stratton walk away, ensuring they were out of earshot of anyone. ‘That guy’s trouble,’ he said. ‘He’s too inquisitive.’

  ‘Relax,’ Wheeland said. ‘He’s got his own concerns. He won’t be a problem.’

  The teams settled in and waited for the first sign of light to edge its way over the eastern mountains. Stratton had a brief confab with Burns and settled himself just below the edge of the riverbank. Sunrise was the best time of day for him, in most parts of the world, but definitely in Afghanistan. Out in the wastelands there was no movement anywhere. No animals. Practically no life, just scrub. The
re was the constant chirp of unseen crickets. The wind when it changed pace. But sound was not a great part of the landscape. It wasn’t missed. The drama of the plains and surrounding peaks was enough to keep the senses occupied.

  Stratton raised his head a little above the bank to take another look through the thermal imager. The lights remained on in the windows of the complex. He saw no one moving around. The men had gone and the vehicle engines had grown cold.

  As the daylight gradually increased, he identified several other Hilux pick-ups in the shadows.

  Burns came along the line of men, pausing to have a brief chat with each team leader.

  ‘All good?’ he asked when he got to Stratton.

  ‘We’re all set.’

  ‘Spooky’s on his way in.’ Burns looked around for Wheeland and saw him sitting a few metres away. ‘You all set, Wheeland?’

  ‘Hunky-dory,’ the American said.

  ‘It looks like we have a full house,’ Burns said. ‘Eye in the sky estimates a couple of hundred Taliban all told inside the various structures. Fifty or so arrived during the night before we got eyes on. We can’t see their vehicles from this side.’

  ‘The more the merrier.’

  Burns checked his watch, looked to the skies and walked back to his position.

  Fifteen minutes later the light had grown significantly. It seemed like the sun was going to break over the mountains at any second. They heard a muffled crack from nearby and a flare fired by the sergeant major shot into the air from the riverbank. It gave an audible whoosh, then burst into a bright white light. After a few seconds it went out. It was nothing more than a signal.

  The silence did not return. Before the flare disappeared all of the squadron’s men began to fire short bursts of machine-gun fire at the buildings. The powerful rounds ate through the weak mud brickwork easily. The hand-helds added to the battering. A thundering blast came from the line of men along the bank as a rocket shot from its housing on the shoulder of one of them and tore along a few feet from the ground. It struck one of the pick-ups, which burst into flames instantly. Several more rockets followed in quick succession, exploding holes in the buildings where they struck.