by Chris Ryan
'Frank Anderson's the most experienced,' said Elliott, interrupting Will's thoughts. He recognised the name and a face vaguely popped into his mind. 'Thirty-one years old. Frankly, I don't think he'll be thrilled taking orders from someone who's not currently in the Regiment, but he'll do it.'
'Are you sure?' Will demanded. 'I haven't got time to start breaking people in.'
'If I give him an order, he'll follow it,' Elliott said, confidently. 'And you could do with his experience. He's led a number of expeditions into the mountain regions of Afghanistan, so he knows the country and what you might be up against.'
Will nodded. 'OK. Good.'
'Mark Drew's a bit of a Regiment golden boy. Fucking quiet, fucking fit - endurance levels like I've never seen. Good behind the wheel of a car - not that you'll have much time for sightseeing.'
'Has he been deployed in Afghanistan?'
'No. But several operations in southern Iraq and South America. Trust me, he'll be an asset.'
'And the third one - what did you say his name was?'
'Kennedy. Nathan Kennedy. Popular, bit of a smart-arse. Geordie lad. Got a mouth on him and likes the sound of his own voice, but fucking sharp. He's been in and out of the Congo several times in the last couple of years.'
'The Congo? I didn't know the SAS was there.'
'There's a lot of things you don't know about the SAS, Will,' Elliott said pointedly. 'You've been otherwise engaged, remember? Anyway, Kennedy's very good - at least as good as the other two.'
'Anderson has a family, doesn't he?' Will asked, as nonchalantly as he could. He was hotly aware that two years ago he would never have asked that question. You go in, you do the job and you look after your mates, no matter what their personal situation.
'Does it matter?'
Will sniffed. 'No,' he lied. Truth was, his attitude towards such things had changed. The idea of taking a family man into the field of war was one that he suddenly had difficulty with.
'A young daughter. He wouldn't want me to know that I told you that, and he certainly doesn't expect any special treatment because of it. It's a strong team. For my money, there's just one thing about it that doesn't add up.'
Will raised an eyebrow. 'What's that?'
The CO stopped walking. 'You, Will,' he said bluntly. 'You've been out of it for two years. God only knows what your fitness levels are. You've been part of the Regiment for long enough to know that if you don't keep yourself sharp -'
'Don't worry about me, boss. I'll be fine. 'Will tried to sound confident, but he knew there was truth in what the Colonel was saying. He'd kept in shape, but there was nothing to guarantee that this would be enough. Christ, he hadn't even held a gun for two years. All the more reason to have a good team around him - he hoped that Anderson, Drew and Kennedy were as good as they sounded.
Elliott led them to a briefing room at the far end of the administrative building, one of several secure areas where operational details were discussed. Will knew that these rooms were padded with a soundproofing material and they had no windows to ensure that there was no line of sight into the room. Elliott nodded at the soldiers standing guard outside as they approached and the doors were immediately held open.
There were four men waiting inside. One was in camouflage trousers and shirt; the other three wore civvies. They were sitting around a large table, but all stood up as Elliott and Will walked in.
'At ease,' Elliott said, before turning to the man in military uniform. 'Major Hughes, this is Will Jackson. Will, Major Hughes has been briefed by Five to put your team together.'
Hughes shook Will's hand, before introducing the three men. He was a tall man - taller even than Will - with heavily greased hair combed over in a side parting. He looked almost old-fashioned, like a soldier in a black and white photograph from the First World War. 'Frank Anderson, Mark Drew and Nathan Kennedy.'
Will nodded at each of them in turn. It would have been surprising if he hadn't recognised three members of the Increment by sight and sure enough now that he was in the room with them, their faces were familiar. None of them were clean-shaven and Will understood why: a lot of the Regiment boys had taken to growing beards, as it helped them blend in to those parts of the Middle East where they were regularly deployed. Frank Anderson was broad-shouldered and square-chinned. His hair, clearly balding, was cropped short. No one could say he was a good-looking man. Mark Drew was smaller but just as stocky, with blond hair and flat, blue eyes. Nathan Kennedy was the most severe-looking of the three. His skin was tanned, his eyes brown and he had a gleam in his eyes that would have been cheeky had Will not known that he was a trained killer. Will had a vague recollection of a night a few years back when a few Hereford locals had been riling Kennedy in one of the town's pubs. Nathan Kennedy wasn't the type to let it pass and the civvies - four or five of them - had ended the evening with broken noses. Not exactly a guy with a long fuse, but useful in a fight.
'Can't get enough of the old place, eh, Jackson?' Kennedy asked, laconically. 'What's wrong - not getting enough skirt on civvy street? Thought you'd come and spend a bit of time with some real men, see if the pheromones rub off?'
Drew and Anderson smiled at Kennedy's comment, but Elliott didn't. 'Shut it, Kennedy,' he instructed.
'Right you are, boss,' Kennedy replied with a twinkle. He settled back in his chair and the three of them sat there, evidently reserving judgement on the man who was supposed to lead them into one of the most dangerous places in the world.
Will looked around. The room was fairly empty, with the exception of the table, a few chairs and an overhead projector pointed at a large whiteboard.
'Has this room been swept for bugs?' he asked Elliott.
The CO raised an eyebrow and Will knew why - he clearly wasn't used to being spoken to like that, especially not in front of his men.
'Of course it's been swept, Will. They all are, regularly. You know that.'
'Good,' Will replied. 'I'll need a different room.'
'I beg your pardon?' Elliott replied, his voice dangerously quiet.
'I said, I'll need a different room. I'm sorry, boss. What I have to say to these men is sensitive and I'm afraid I can't brief them in the first room you lead me to.'
Elliott and Will locked gazes and he was aware of the others eyeing each other uncomfortably.
'Are you suggesting somebody at Credenhill has ordered surveillance on this briefing room, Will?'
Will held his head high. He hated having to embarrass his old friend like this, but security was security. 'I'm not suggesting anything, boss. But I'll need a different place to brief them.'
His demand seemed to echo around the room and Elliott appeared unwilling to answer it. 'OK,Will,' he said finally, quietly. 'We'll ignore the fact that your absence from the Regiment has made you forget your manners.' He looked over at the Major. 'Take them to another briefing room,' he ordered.
'Thank you, boss,' Will said.
'All right,' Elliott replied gruffly. 'I'll have someone open up the foreign-weapons armoury for you.'
'And we'll need transport to Brize Norton in about an hour and a half.'
Elliott nodded, then without another word he strode from the room.
Major Hughes silently led the remaining four of them down the corridor to a second briefing room. 'I'm sorry, Major,' Will told him when they arrived. 'I'm going to have to ask you not to come in.'
The Major narrowed his eyes. 'It's not the way we do things around here, Jackson,' he said, waspishly. 'I've put this team together for you. I want to know what they're doing.'
Will looked about, then indicated with a nod of his head that the Major should step aside with him. The moment they were out of earshot, Will spoke quietly. 'My orders come from the Director General of MI5, Major Hughes,' he said. 'You can call him and check or you can do what I say. The end result will be the same - I'm going to brief these men on my own. I'm sorry if that makes you feel insecure, but I don't have time to fuck around avoidi
ng stepping on people's toes. Now do you have a problem with that?'
Hughes looked back at him with unbridled dislike. 'No problem,' he replied.
'Good. 'Will turned to the three waiting men. 'Get inside,' he told them. They opened the door and disappeared into the room. Will followed.
This briefing room was much like the other - muffled and windowless. Will shut the door behind him, then turned to address the three SAS men, who stood in a line by the table.
'Right,' he said. 'First things first. There seems to be a bit of resistance to the idea of me giving orders around here. If any of you have a problem with it, now's the time to pipe up.'
None of the men gave any reaction.
'Good.' He walked up to Anderson - wasn't he the one Elliott thought he might have trouble with? 'You sure, Anderson?'
'The boss says we're to take our orders from you. That's good enough for me.'
Will nodded. 'Right then. Sit down and listen. We're leaving soon and there's a lot to get through.'
The men took their seats and Will started to speak. It felt weird - as if he had never been away - but he fell into it naturally as he repeated the plan he and Pankhurst had devised before he left Thames House.
'At 17.00 hours a C-5 Galaxy military transport plane will land at Brize Norton. It's an American transport, rerouted through the UK for the express purpose of ferrying us to the NATO base outside Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.' He looked at each of them for any sign of surprise or alarm. There was nothing, so he continued. 'Once we reach the base, we're going to be introduced to an Afghan informer. This man knows the whereabouts of an individual who has been abducted by a Taliban faction in the countryside. Our mission is to locate and extract the target and bring this individual back to the UK. Alive.'
'Do we have any idea of the target's current location?' Anderson asked.
'Nothing specific. The source is nervous about who he gives that information to. He'll be coming with us, so we need to be prepared for that.'
'What's the target's name?' Drew asked.
Will's eyes flicked to the door. 'I'll tell you that once we're on our way.'
The men nodded. Will scanned their faces for any flicker of dissent, ready to stamp on it if he saw it. But there was none.
'OK,' he continued. 'We need to get tooled up. Let's go.'
The foreign-weapons armoury was housed in a small brick building. There were large metal doors at the entrance which were normally locked by chunky padlocks, but as the four of them approached, Will could see that the place had been opened up. They filed quietly inside.
There was something reassuring about the armoury. It smelled comfortingly of gun oil, and metal racks lined the walls, displaying weapons from all around the world, or copies of them. This place housed every armament you'd ever need on a mission, neatly ordered and well maintained. MP5 sub-machine guns, AK-47s, a smattering of MI6s alongside its more modern replacement, the Diemaco C8 carbine, along with a huge number of handguns and sniper rifles. There was a large selection of suppressed weaponry and Will knew that much of the equipment in this particular armoury would be nonattributable - no serial numbers, nothing to give anyone a clue as to where it came from or, more importantly, who had been using it. On an officially deniable mission, an attributable firearm was like a fingerprint at a crime scene.
The armourer - no doubt a weapons technician attached to the Regiment from the REME - was waiting for them. His job was to keep track of all the weapons, make sure they were signed out properly and keep them clean and in good working order. What he would never do, however, was ask questions: it wasn't important that he knew why the weapons were needed, just that they were needed. A couple of years at Credenhill, maybe less, and he'd be on his way, so none of the SAS men felt any sense of comradeship with him. He was a gruff, no-nonsense kind of man. Serious. Responsible. Just what you wanted in the guy whose job it was to make sure your weapon didn't jam at the crucial moment. He nodded a curt greeting at the fourman unit as they walked in, then they went about selecting their weapons.
It was done with a cool detachment, a professionalism borne of respect for the firearms they were taking that could mean the difference between life and death. They selected four suppressed C8s, along with a number of scopes and a 40 mm grenade-launcher attachment. These were duly packed into a heavy-duty protective case for the journey, while Will picked out a Minimi 5.56 mm light machine gun. He hoped they wouldn't have to use it, but if the situation demanded it, this gun had an effective range of 800 metres and was capable of a thousand rounds a minute. Once the Minimi was packed away, they each selected a Sig 226 pistol. Will also took a Sig 230 - smaller, less conspicuous, it could be hidden under civilian clothing without a noticeable bulge. Boxes of armourpiercing ammo were added to the requisition, as well as a stash of fragmentation grenades and phosphorous grenades, then each man carefully signed the forms the armourer gave them.
Once the weapons had been requisitioned, they needed to gather the rest of their equipment. They would wear civilian clothes as far as the NATO base in Kandahar; once there, they would find themselves some local clothes. Once they got out into the countryside, however, they would need cold-weather gear. Into their rucksacks they carefully folded Goretex jackets and pull-on snow suits. As a matter of routine, they each stowed away a Sat phone that would enable them to make encrypted calls from anywhere in the world. Before he had left Thames House, Pankhurst had told Will the Americans had given a promise of air support once he was on the ground. Nice gesture, but Will knew they couldn't rely on it if things turned nasty. Still, it was a comfort to have them, even though Will knew that if it came to the point where he needed air support, it would probably be too late. Finally, they each stowed a set of night-vision goggles. If they conducted their mission under cover of darkness, NV would be invaluable.
By the time they had gathered their equipment together it was gone two o'clock. It would take a couple of hours to get to Brize Norton and as they walked round to the front of the main building they saw a vehicle pull up and wait. It was a standard white minibus - the sort of thing you might expect a scoutmaster to be in charge of - and the driver was dressed in civilian clothes, although Will knew he was Hereford through and through. Steve Elliott was waiting by the minibus, his face unreadable as they approached. He indicated to Will that he should step aside with him.
'I don't like not knowing what my men are doing, Will,' he said, once they were out of earshot. 'I know we're both following orders and I know I don't need to say it, but be careful, OK?'
Will nodded.
'And good luck. I want to see you all back here very soon.'
'You will, boss,' Will replied, quietly. 'You will.' He turned back to his unit, nodded at them and together they climbed into the back of the minibus.
The case of weapons was already waiting for them on the floor, tucked well out of sight of any casual observer, and as they drove out of the heavily guarded gates to RAF Credenhill, they looked for all the world like a bunch of mates going on a trip together.
Inside the bus, the lads chatted calmly. 'You heard about Stevens?' Drew asked no one in particular.
'Aye,' Kennedy replied. 'Out on his fucking ear. Sounds like he went to the bank one time too many.'
Will's face must have registered his confusion. 'Andy Stevens,' Kennedy explained. 'You know him?'
Will shook his head.
'No, you probably wouldn't. Only been with the Regiment a year or so, silly fucker.'
'What'd he do?'
'He was out in Baghdad. Some of the lads were helping transport fucking great palettes of Yankie dollars, which they were sending out there to help rebuild the ragheads' economy. Course, he couldn't resist helping himself, could he? Would've got away with it, too, if some bird at that bank in Hereford hadn't noticed he was coming in every other day to change several thousand dollars.'