by Chris Ryan
In the afternoon I went out for an eight-mile run through the lanes, but although I kept pushing myself I couldn't settle into any rhythm. I just had too much on my mind. My anxiety about Tim and Tracy prevented me from concentrating on the exercise. The result was I wasn't looking at the ground properly and I kept stumbling and jarring myself, so that running, instead of being a pleasure, became hard, uncomfortable work.
It was the same when I went to the gym and got on the weights. Nothing would go right. From my own experience - and from watching other guys who were into big lifts - I knew how essential full concentration is; without it, you're at only half strength, and liable to do yourself damage. Now I just couldn't get my timing.
After half an hour I thought, Ah, fuck it! and gave up.
As I came into camp next morning - the second day after the kidnap - I went up to the Squadron Interest loom and found a note in my pigeon-hole. I was on the point of reading it when the clerk forestalled me by saying, 'Hey, Geordie. You're to report to the ops officer, soonest.' I went upstairs wondering what this could be about.
Mac Macpherson was in his usual gracious mood.
'Lucky sod, Geordie,' he said. 'Looks like you're in for more action already.'
'What d'you mean, Boss?'
'You're to report to the OC, SAW - immediately.'
'What's on, then?'
'Don't ask me. Ask him.'
'Christ! This isn't a great moment for me to go away anywhere.'
'See what he says before you start worrying.'
Before I'd even reached the bottom of the stairs I had made the connection: this had to do with the int officer's photo.
The Subversive Action Wing was the most secret part of our organisation, the unit that took on the most sensitive jobs, often working in cahoots with MI5 or MI6. Just as the two Government agencies were known as the 'Firm', so the SAW was known simply as the 'Wing', and its operations were the most highly classified of any the SAS undertook. People trying to be clever described it as the cutting edge of the organisation - and in fact that wasn't a bad description.
Because of its connections outside the legiment, it was almost a national force.
To gain entry to the SAW's area, one had to punch
a series of numbers into the pad beside the door. Not knowing the combination, I had to bang on the steel door and wait for someone to let me in.
I found the OC sitting at his desk. In his day Major Yorky lose had been a fearsome boxer and front-row
forward. On his way up through the ranks he'd never bothered to shed his Yorkshire accent or drop his native expressions like 'ee bah gum' and 'you'll not get owt for nowt', and similarly he'd never given a bugger what people thought about his ferocious training regimes.
Whenever strange noises were heard emanating from his office, it was said that Yorky was practicing walking on all fours: toes and knuckles.
Now in his late thirties, he'd lost most of his dark hair, and kept what was left shaved so short that at first glance you might miss the fuzz on his scalp and think he was totally bald. He had a high, domed forehead that made his head egg-shaped, and his thick, arching eyebrows seemed to accentuate the length of his face.
Guys in the Regiment tend to age prematurely, due to the amount of effort they put into life; by the time they're thirty-five, they look like they're pushing fifty.
Yorky was no exception: he already had deep lines across his forehead and down his cheeks.
'Well, Geordie,' he began, 'I'm sorry to hear about
your kid and Tracy. Any news of them?'
'Not a whisper, Yorky.'
'That's tough. I hope you get sorted soon. Mean while, I need your help. Take a seat there a minute.'
I perched on the chair at one side of his desk, pretty certain what his next step would be - and sure enough, he opened a folder, brought out a photograph, and turned it round for me to look at.
'You know this gent, I gather.'
I nodded. 'You're telling me.'
'How would you like to top him?'
'Top him?' For a second I was taken aback. But a moment later I said, 'Try and stop me.'
Yorky smiled briefly. 'As I thought.'
'Where is the bastard?'
'Last seen in Piccadilly Circus . . . No, you'll know soon enough. You've been selected to lead an operation to take him out. We want you to command one of the SAW patrols.'
'Jesus!'
'The timing of it, you mean?'
'Exactly. This isn't a good moment for me to piss off abroad.'
'I know that.' Yorky pushed back his chair and went walkabout, throwing a pencil in the air and catching it as he spoke. 'All the same, it could work out all right.
I've talked it through with the CO and the ops officer.
Also I had a word with the SB guy, Fraser, about the way he thinks things may go here. I've come to the conclusion that it's on for you.'
Missing a catch, he had to crawl under the desk to retrieve the pencil from the floor. 'The point is,' he continued as he stood again, 'this is going to be a quick job: in and out. You'll not be abroad for more than six days. Two weeks' training here, then less than a week away. To get the hostages back may take a couple of months.'
He saw me grimace, and went on, 'If anything breaks on the hostage front during the training phase you'll be here to deal with it. Your personal problem may well be cracked before the operation goes down. But even if it ain't, we can hold the fort for you while you're out of the country. Besides, you'll have Satcoms as usual, so that you won't ever be out of touch.'
I sat holding my forehead in my hands. My head felt as if it were bursting. Already, with this new deployment barely announced, the stress was piling on.
This was going to be a high-risk operation, fraught with danger - could I stand the strain of another episode likely to be as traumatic as the one in the Gulf? Could I handle it on top of my acute personal troubles?
My instinct was to stay home at all costs, to be there when the PIRA dalled. I couldn't take the thought of somebody else making a cock-up that might lead to the hostages' death. But I knew perfectly well I had no option but to go; if I refused I'd be kicked out - not only from the Regiment, but out of the Army.
At moments of this kind it's easy to let resentment build up. The Regiment is notorious for pushing its members to the limit, putting them under intense pressure without regard to their mental state. The head- shed simply assumes that all the guys are fit, physically and mentally, all the time, and ready to go.
Now, for a few seconds, I thought, Ah, sod them.
Why can't they make a few allowances? Why can't they send someone else to do their dirty work? I looked up at Yorky and said, 'Does it have to be me?'
He stopped pacing and stood beside my chair. 'You know what the Regiment's like, Geordie. They'll talk sympathetically about your family, blah, blah, blah. But in fact they couldn't give a flying monkey's, especially when a job like this comes down from Whitehall. If the Government's ordered it, it's got to happen. It doesn't matter what you do - you can go in and spout Army regulations at the adjutant if you like - but I can tell you, it won't wash. Sorry, old mate, but it's got to be you.' His tone wasn't unkind, just matter of fact.
I took a deep breath and said, 'Fair enough. I suppose it might even take my mind off my home problems, having a fastball job to do.'
'Gradely, lad. And you're not just our number-one choice for the job; you're the only choice.'
'Why's that?'
'Because you alone will recognise the target without fail.'
'You could show other guys the mug-shot.' I pointed at the photo. 'They could memorise what he looks like.'
'It's not the same thing. You've seen him several times. You know him.'
'The thing is, this mug-shot's well out of date. Even when I saw him two years ago he'd aged a good bit over what you can see here. His face had got a lot heavier and more lined.'
'All the more reason for you to be in com
mand.'
'OK. But Tony Lopez saw him just as much.'
'I realise that. I'm hoping I can get Tony on the operation with you for that very reason. But the whole thing's so sensitive that we're waiting on clearance from the Pentagon before we can include him in the team.'
'For Christ's sake!' I exclaimed. 'Is the target in fucking Moscow or somewhere?'
'Yer daft bat! Listen, Geordie. This is a black operation. You know what that means. Nobody has heard about it - nobody. It's not to be discussed with anyone - not even your closest mates. Outside these walls, it doesn't exist. And when it does go down, it will be completely unattributable: nothing you do must leave any trace to show that the legiment was involved.'
'Yeah, yeah. OK.' I'd been given all this shit many times before. I knew Yorky had to bring it out, but even so I didn't like having it rammed down my throat.
'There's to be a team briefing here at 1600 hours,' he was saying. 'All will be revealed then.'
In the afternoon, on my way across, I checked into the incident room again. Fraser and Bates were both intent :.i on a computer monitor, which I saw was carrying …. details of the player called Danny Aherne who liked sitting down to eyeball his victims. He was thirty-two, fair-haired, unemployed, and had a weakness for the drink. He was known to have been active in London earlier in the year, but had recently gone AWOL from
his last known place of residence, a bed-and-breakfast room in Acton.
'He's involved,' said Fraser with some conviction.
'I'm damn sure of that. But I don't know why he's shifted. That may mean something or it may not. But those fibres… I'll bet my boots he was there.'
In Yorky's den I found five other guys assembled.
They'd been on the Wing for some time already, and constituted one of its two standing teams. The only one I knew well was Pat Newman, a big, dark, ruddy-faced lad with snow-white teeth, one of the heaviest eaters in the business, but very quick on his feet and a useful fellow to have around if things got physical. There was an obvious reason for him being on this new job: he'd done a course in Arabic, and spoke enough of the language to communicate about everyday matters.
A less acquaintance was Billy Walker, a little Londoner known as 'Whinger' on account of the fact that he was always moaning or making snide remarks in his own debased form of Cockney rhyming slang. He had peculiarly coloured hair - very light brown, like tow - which looked so artificial that strangers suspected him of dyeing it or wearing a wig; but anyone who lived and worked with him knew that it was his own, and never changed. He also had a horrible habit of rolling his own gaspers, which stank out any room he was in. But he was a good operator nevertheless: small, skinny and tough.
Of the other three, the tallest was Fred Parry, a fair- haired beanpole from A Squadron who'd had a great time blowing up fibre-optic comms towers in Iraq during the Gulf War. Then there was Stew Stewart, a gingery fellow from Merseyside who'd come into the P,.egiment from the Cheshires. Stew, sometimes known as 'Turnip', wasn't exactly a figure of fun, because he was a good, willing lad, but he did take a lot of stick because of the trouble he had keeping girlfriends. With his broad, ruddy face, he looked exactly what he was a farmer's boy - and he was perpetually worried that his head was the wrong shape, a deficiency which he tried to remedy by resorting to fancy haircuts. That left only Norman Paxford, a stocky, dark Glaswegian whose aim in life seemed to be to talk as little as possible. He might easily have been nicknamed 'Jock' because of his hellish accent, but - maybe because he spoke so rarely - he was known simply as 'Norm'. People said that it was his Mexican-style moustache, neatly clipped into an upside-down U, that clamped his mouth shut and made it difficult for him to utter. But he was never rude, and if you asked him something he'd always answer, only in the fewest possible words. If you said, 'Everything all right, then, Norm?' he'd just go, 'Aye, thanks,' and leave it at that. In spite of his taciturnity he was a terrific worker, and utterly dependable.
We had a couple of minutes' chit-chat, and I noticed that the mug-shot of our Iraqi friend was up on one of the wall-boards, with several lines of writing beneath it.
Then the ops officer and Jimmy Wells came in towing a middle-aged guy in a shiny grey suit.
'I know this feller,' said Pat under his breath. 'He's been here before. We all know him from the Firm.
Gilbert the Filbert.'
Before we sat down on the chairs facing Yorky's desk, Mac introduced me briefly to the man from London: 'Geordie, meet Gilbert Dauncey. Gilbert - Geordie Sharp, commander of the team.' Then he led off, cautioning us yet again about the need for total security.
'Operation Ostrich,' he began. 'As you know, this is a black operation. That means there's to be absolutely no word of it outside your own team. If anyone drops the slightest hint about it, he'll be lkTU'd immediately.
OK?'
I saw Whinger bend his head to the left and flip the fingers of his right hand upwards past the back of his ear.
He could have been scratching at an itch or knocking away a fly; he could also have been saying 'Fucking roll on!' in sign language..
The gesture wasn't lost on Mac, who said sharply, 'Don't piss about, anybody. Just listen. The aim of the operation is to take out this man.' He indicated the mug-shot. 'You'll all have a chance to memorise the face. The guy in question is General Mohammed al- Khadduri, a top-ranking Iraqi who's defected to Libya.
Our colleague here' - he indicated Gilbert - 'will brief you on his background in a moment.
'First, though, the location. Al-Khadduri is now working from a military camp on the outskirts of Ajdabiya. That's a town about a hundred and fifty kilometre, s south of Benghazi, the Libyan capital.'
Mac turned to face a map of north-eastern Africa, with the Mediterranean spread across the upper half and the Bay of Sirte taking a shallow scoop out of the Libyan coastline top-centre. 'Here's Benghazi,' he pointed with a broken-off billiard cue, 'at two o'clock on the coast of the bay, and here's Ajdabiya thirty ks inland, at five-thirty on the bay. The military complex is about here, ten ks beyond the southern outskirts of the town on the edge of the desert. All this ground immediately to the east is a training area.
'Cross-border insertion will be by”heli from the military airfield at Siwa, just inside Egypt.'
He placed the tip of his pointer to the right of a thick purple line running north to south, which marked the frontier between Egypt and Libya. 'A Chinook will put you down as close as possible to the target, but to avoid any chance of your being compromised the LZ will have to be at least fifty ks short of the camp. The run- in will be by quad bike.
'Now . . . timing. We have a strict timeframe, imposed on us by external constraints. The operation has to go down under cover of Exercise Bright Star, which is scheduled for May seventeenth to twenty- second. Bright Star is a major international deployment involving US and NATO forces. The aim is to establish and reinforce a simulated front line at a location in the Egyptian desert, against a threat from baddies to the south. If you like, it's a re-enactment of the start of the Gulf build-up of 1990. The exercise will involve all the NATO airforces as well as the USAF, and a considerable number of army units. That means there'll be a large number of air-movements, many of them from Cyprus, in the middle of which ours will get nicely lost.
'You'll stage through Akrotiri dressed as pathfinders - desert cam clothes, maroon Para berets and belts. As far as Cyprus, anybody who sees you will think you're umpires taking part in the exercise. Then, during the last phase of the flight, you'll change into rough civilian gear. Any questions so far?'
I glanced round the semicircle of faces. Everyone was looking hard at the map, thinking things over, but at that stage nobody had anything to say.
'All right, then. I'll ask for a few words about the target from our colleague from the Firm. Most of you know him anyway: Gilbert Dauncey.'
Gilbert stood up and began talking in a crisp, educated voice, public school but not lahdidah.
'
General Mohammed al-Khadduri. You've seen his photo, and one of you I know has seen him. A big, burly fellow, we guess six feet, and powerfully built. A bit like a bear, but he's going to seed a bit now: we think he's put on a good deal of weight lately.
'His record wouldn't stand him in very good stead at the Court of Human 1Kights. For several years he was responsible for eliminating the political factions that threatened Saddam Hussein's government - and when I say “eliminating”, I mean “eliminating”. He didn't disband the dissident parties; he rubbed them out with wholesale executions, families and all. Another feather in his cap: it was he who directed the campaign of extermination against the Kurds in the north during the late eighties. The use of chemical weapons is his specialty, particularly against his own people.