Zero Option

by Chris Ryan

  'So you're confident this environment is sand?' I gestured at the screen.

  'One hundred per cent. Look at the'soft curves on these dunes. They couldn't be made of rock. Apart from anything else, they change shape with the seasons as the winds shift their surface. There's another thing, too: it's the loose texture of the ground that stops the Libyans using this sector for manoeuvres. As I said, they've got enormous infantry training areas, but those are all further north where the desert's harder and more stable.'

  He paused and added, 'You're going in on ATVs, I think?'

  'That's right.'

  'They'll be fine. Roll over the sand no problem.'

  That reassured me. At least this info was coming straight from a guy who knew what he was talking about, rather than through a range of filters and competing intelligence agencies hundreds of miles apart.

  Gus moved on to show us more detail of the terrain

  on our run-in. The large wadi was almost two miles wide. 'In winter that can be some river,' he told us. 'But right now it's dry, and likely to remain so. Could be the odd pool still lying in the bed, but my bet is you'll cross, dry-shod.'

  He then gave us a ran-down of temperatures at first and last light. Here again I was on my guard, because in Iraq we'd been totally misinformed. Nobody had warned us that on the plateau in winter we would encounter snow, ice and vicious winds, with daytime temperatures barely above freezing, and night-times well below. The result was that we went in with nothing like enough clothes, and two of our guys died from hypotherrnia. Now in Libya we were promised a night-time minimum of eighteen Celsius and a daytime maximum of thirty-six. From the magic laptop came three-day weather charts giving temperatures, humidity, moon state, and first and last light. When I challenged the temperatures, mentioning our Iraq experience, the answer was, 'Yeah - but that was winter, and on the plateau you were a thousand feet above sea level. This time it's early summer, and even on those goddamn dunes you'll be at sea-level or maybe even below it.'

  Again I relaxed.

  Gus continued with an analysis of vehicle movements up and down the approach road to the camp, but these were of less interest to us. I couldn't see us getting up round that side of the establishment at all.

  We'd come in from the south or south-east, find a lying-up point a kilometre or so short of the fence, and build an OP on one of the dunes. Mine's a steak, as Whinger would say: piece of cake.

  Having made sketches and taken some notes, I felt reasonably confident. But one point that still worried me was the sheer number ofjundis likely to be on site.

  Gus reckoned that there might be two or three hundred troops on the camp at night. If the alarm went up and that lot got deployed into the desert, they could form a hell of a cordon, through which we'd just have to blast our way.

  All the more reason for us to operate discreetly: we'd need to be. in and out before anyone became aware of our presence.

  Back in Hereford, the knowledge we'd gained focused our training effort. Now we knew that we needed practice at building OPs in a sandy environment, so we loaded the quads into another four-tonner and made away to the dunes near Borth on the Welsh coast. There we had a couple of good days riding the bikes on the loose, steep slopes and making OPs by digging into banks, building walls with bags of sand, and roofing over the hollows we'd made with extending aluminium rods covered with scrim netting and marram grass. The second day turned out fine and warm, so when we'd finished work two of the guys stripped off and rushed into the sea; but the water was so cold that they were out again in short order, cursing wildly and covered in purple-red patches.

  After a few hours riding the quads I'd thought of a couple of modifications that might prove useful. One was a bracket mounted above the handlebar panel to hold a Magellan GPS kit, so that we could keep an eye on our little displays while driving with both hands on; the other was a speedometer (as delivered, the bikes had nothing to tell you how fast they were going). So I got the MT Section to give us all Magellan-holders, and to cobble up two of the quads with speedos.

  Weapons and weapon-training were another major preoccupation. From the SAW's own closed-offsection of the armoury we drew brand-new AK-47s, silenced Browning 9ram pistols, and one Soviet-made Dragunov 7.62 sniper rifle - a semi-automatic, bolt- action weapon fitted with a telescopic sight. The AK- 47s were Chinese-made Type 5611s, with skeleton stocks that folded under for easier transportation, and Chinese characters stamped into the metal. It was obvious they'd never been fired because the working parts were still coated in their original grease; they could well have been part of the shipment seized off the Irish coast which Gilbert had mentioned.

  After stripping the rifles and giving them a good clean-up, we took them out to an isolated range and began getting to know them. The AK-47 is a primitive beast, coarsely made and finished, but it's a robust enough weapon, and at normal distances reasonably accurate. The safety-catch, on the right-hand side above the pistol-grip, is dead simple - one click down for fully automatic, two down for semi-automatic - and pro vided rounds don't jam in the magazine you're laughing.

  To free up the working parts we loaded magazines fully with thirty rounds apiece, and fired a few initial bursts, four or five rounds at a time. Three of the mags proved sticky, if not downright defective, so we binned them on the spot. Then we got down to zero the rifles, and found that at a hundred yards we could achieve three-inch groups, firing at plain white aiming marks on a buff background. At two hundred the rounds were falling four or five inches, but an adjustment of the battle-sight, half-way up the barrel, soon put the point of impact back in the bull. Nevertheless we decided that our best policy would be to keep the sight in its normal position and, if necessary, aim a bit high.

  I never saw the AK-47 as our assassination weapon.

  It would be our main armament if we got involved in a contact, but it was too crude and cumbersome for the close-quarter job which I envisaged. Our aim was to take Khadduri out with maximum precision and minimum disturbance: a surgical strike at pointblank range, for which a silenced pistol would be ideal. I therefore paid close attention to my 9 mm Browning.

  Like the rifles, the Browning is a basic weapon, but this customised version had a thick cylinder of sound- baffle wrapped round the barrel. Another silencing device is the button Which locks the top slide of the pistol forward after a shot, keeping most of the noise inside - the penalty being that you have to knock the lever off to re-cock the mechanism. After a few warmup shots I fired at a Hun's-head target from close range - between ten and twenty feet. Although the pistol was accurate enough I didn't like the trigger-pull, which was too heavy, and I wasn't happy with the sluggish action. So in the afternoon I took the weapon back to the armourer and got him to polish up all its working surfaces, and next time out on the range I found a big improvement. At twelve feet I could put every round not just into the Hun's head but into a two-inch circle in the middle of the forehead.

  I knew that, if I could get close enough to the target, I would nail him.

  Our joker weapon was the sniper rifle, which proved deadly accurate. We set the telescopic sight at 300 yards, and worked out how much to aim up or down at other ranges without altering the zero. Already a plan of campaign was forming in my mind: when the assault party of two or three went in to penetrate the building and engage the target, the rest of the guys would be on the perimeter fence, ready to put down rounds if anyone came after us. In this last role the Dragunov could prove a big asset; if it dropped a sentry, for example, three or four hundred yards from the real scene of activity, it would create a useful diversion.

  As for the secondary target - that would have to take its chance.

  Explosives I left mainly to Fred Parry. After some discussion we decided to bin the idea of taking bar mines, Chinese or otherwise, as they weighed about forty pounds each and we already had too much kit to carry. Instead we indented for a supply of Semtex, with which we could blow the fence, a door or a window, or mak
e diversionary booby-traps that would delay any attempt at follow-up. We could also use it to destroy a quad, if one was disabled, or - in extremis - to vaporise, a body. A further joker in our pack was a clutch of Claymore anti-personnel mines, which are easy to transport. These curious-looking things - like little green bars in the shape of crescents, only an inch and a half thick, with a leg at each end - pack a nasty punch in the form of ball bearings, which fly out like grape shot when the mine is detonated. American-made Claymores have TOWARDS ENEMY stamped on the business side. Ours, which were Soviet-made, bore no such legend; but as we were all familiar with the weapon, we knew well enough that the outside of the crescent was the face to show the Libyans.

  A trickier subject was rations. We were going in on hard routine - no cooking, no fires, no heating of brews, even - and this meant that for three days at least all our food would be cold. That didn't worry the guys, especially as we would be in a hot climate; all the same, it was a drag having to transfer every boil-in-a-bag meal from its silver pack, which had writing on it, into an anonymous, clear plastic bag with a zipper-lock fastener. By the time we'd cut offone end of each pack and squeezed sausage and beans or steak and kidney into another container, the meal was even more featureless and gunged-up than before. Yet nobody cared much: on an operation, people accept that they're not at the Ritz; they eat only to shove the necessary amount of calories down their necks, and look forward to proper meals when they get home. Besides, the plastic bags would have a useful secondary role: after we'd eaten their contents we could crap into them.

  You'd be surprised how dangerous body wastes can be. Not only do piss and shit stink, and attract flies and wandering dogs, but one turd may give away a mountain of secrets. Laboratory analysis can show not only what type of food the guy who laid it has been eating, but also his age and the physical state he's in.

  Whether or not the Libyans had the techniques for that sort of work we couldn't tell, but it was perfectly possible that undisciplined crapping might reveal that we were a bunch of fit young westerners.

  We also devoted time to working out our loads. The maximum weights given in the manual were 60lb. for the rear rack on each quad, and 50lb. for the front; but it was clear that such puny limits were no'good to us. We decided, for a start, that each of us must take one jerrican of spare petrol and one of water - these two alone would add up to nearly 100lb. - and on top of that we had weapons, ammunition, explosives, cam-nets and poles for OPs, shovels, other tools, food, spare clothes and other personal kit. I told the guys to cut down to the absolute minimum compatible with safety, and everybody kept packing and repacking to see what they could leave out. Another necessity was to ensure that the kit was properly secured to the bikes. I wasn't happy with the straps I already had, so I went down to Meg, the camp seamstress, who ran me up some webbing straps with ratcheted buckles to my own design.

  After discussing what we needed and what we didn't in various Chinese parliaments, with all the team sitting round for a general discussion, we decided to take a single trailer, in which a good load of the heavier, bulkier items like jerricans, spare tyres and cam-nets could travel. One of the quads would have to pull it, but we could take turns - and, as somebody pointed out, if we did get a casualty, the wounded man or dead body could be transported in it. So the MT section obtained a trailer, and put it through the same process of removing all its identification marks.

  As always in the Regiment, physical fitness was left to individuals. All the guys knew that they had to be in really good nick; if we hit trouble, our lives might depend on our ability to cover big distances at speed in *alien conditions, possibly with little food or water. So there was no need for organized runs or training sessions; people just went on with their own fitness routines whenever they had time. It was the same with inoculations, l:(ight at the start I had told everyone to make sure his jabs were up to date, and, if any were missing, to get his arse down to the Med Centre pronto.

  The two RAF crews who would be flying us came down to give us briefings and discuss our requirements.

  Both were dedicated to special forces support, so that they were old friends, and I recognised Pineapple Pete, the Here captain, from several earlier missions. (Why he was called that history did not relate; I suppose some Petes just are pineapples.)

  'Off for a nice little drive in the desert, are you Geordie?' he asked. 'Just the job for the time of year,' of sightseeing. Nothing dramatic.'

  The Here crew were on a need-to-know basis. All that mattered was that they took us to Cyprus, and on to Siwa, according to. the schedule that the Kremlin had devised. What we were doing was another matter and something about which they didn't even ask. The crew of the Chinook had to have more information: they knew that we were on a non-attributable operation, and they knew to within a few miles the area in which it would take place. But they, too, were in the dark about our target, and Steve Tanner, the skipper, was no more inquisitive than Pete. Of far greater importance to him was the state of the moon on the night we went in, and he was glad to find that it would be three-quarters full.

  Together with him, his co-pilot and his head loadie, we worked out distances, timings, weights and so on.

  But we never breathed a word about our target. At the back of my mind I kept thinking: there's always a chance that the hell will go down in the desert, and if it does, the less the crew know about us, the better- the less they can give away. All the same we had to plan emergency drills with them, in case the chopper's navigation systems went u/s, or it was shot down or forced down by engine failure. There were emergency rendezvous points to be memorised and procedures to be worked out. In the last resort, we might have to destroy the aircraft with explosives to make sure that no Libyans got their hands on it.

  The crew also needed a cover stoW, to account for why they were in Libya at all. We decided they would say that they'd been taking part in Exercise Bright Star, that their navigation systems had gone down, and that they'd flown into Libyan air space by mistake. That might not sound very convincing but it was the best that could be devised.

  FIVE

  My own trouble was that I couldn't seem to shake off the tension which still built steadily. Normally I find the best answer to mental stress is hard physical exercise, but this time the remedy wasn't working. I was forcing myself to run and work out every day, yet still I was unable to relax, and sometimes I thought my head was going to burst with the pressure.

  My days were packed with activity; not so the nights.

  Back at the cottage I had far too much time to brood.

  Several times I had asked the SB guys if there was any future in making some initiative on the hostage situation ourselves, trying to put out feelers, but the answer was always, 'No. The PIRA have got to move first. Unless, one of these days, a tout picks something up, or we get an intercept that gives us a line.'

  Tired as I was, I found it hard to sleep - and the nightmares started again, similar to the one I'd had after the Gulf. Usually I was travelling fast through the dark, on a strange kind of roller-coaster or maybe a bike, until suddenly something grabbed me by the left arm, so that terrific forces threatened to tear me in half, setting up the most horrendous pain, and I'd wake up in a muck sweat, yelling with fright.

  Soon there were only five days left before takeoff.

  So far, everything had gone well. Then we had a setback which caused aggravation and distress at the time but almost immediately bounced back to our advantage.

  We'd gone on into one of our nearby training areas to try the quads fully loaded on rough terrain at night; our aim was to run through the main moves of the operation, using a range-hut as the target building.

  Having ridden to within walking distance we all tabbed forward to a wire fence. Pat and I then cut our way through, leaving the rest of the guys on the barrier, two to guard the opening we'd made, two to lay diversionary charges four hundred metres to the east, in roughly the position occupied by the south gates of the
Libyan camp.

  The first stages all went according to plan. Pat and I made a covert approach to the building, broke in through a window, fired a couple of rounds through a Hun's-head target in one of the rooms, and then let off a stun grenade outside to indicate that things had gone noisy. As e were moving back to the fence, a big bang went off down the llne, simulating the diversionary explosion, and we all legged it to the spot designated as our ERV.

  So far, so good. But by then heavy rain had come on, and as we rode away in the dark the bikes began to slither around like snakes on the greasy grass. We were only using bags of sand as weights, but we'd measured them out and made sure that we had eighty pounds on the front rack and a hundred on the back, well strapped on. The loads certainly pushed the quads down on their suspension and made the steering heavier.

  Coming downhill close to the lip of a ravine, Fred Parry, our lanky explosives star, hit a rock and skidded towards the edge. The crust of heathery peat broke away beneath his left-hand rear wheel, and a second later he and the bike were rolling over and over down the steep bank towards the stream.