At the farmhouse two men were posted to keep a lookout for unwanted attention which might have been drawn by the gunfire and arrival of the helicopter. But so far all was quiet. Inside the house there was a mission debriefing to sum up the action and its consequence.
xxxxx
On the hilltop, Sergeant Henry Lee cleaned his rifle. After a kill shot his emotions were always a puzzle for him. At the beginning he had been elated. As the number of corpses grew, his gut response changed, at first to numb disinterest and then to a subtle kind of regret. Now he managed to retain a sense of patriotic pride in his expertise.
Mark Andrews, next to him, was also packing up his gear. He sensed his comrade’s mood and said: “Cheer up chum. Another job well done.”
Lee was silent for a moment then stood up with his weapon slung over his shoulder and announced: “I could murder a cup of tea” without a trace of irony and they set off to join the others.
xxxxx
Colonel Brow’s first action was to search the terrorists for mobile phones and documents which would be examined as possibly useful to intelligence. Brow handed the half dozen phones to Captain Bhutin to examine.
At the barbecue Lance Corporal Danny Jones was making tea and coffee. In the lounge Captain Taylor was speaking to the couple they had rescued. They had both regained their customary composure and Therese Duplessis had even managed a smile. Lieutenant Ayla had stayed with the woman, taking her to the bedroom where she spent some time at the dressing table mirror, restoring her equanimity. Now Duplessis was sitting upright on a settee and Walters was in an armchair, colour restored to his face.
They were both brimming with questions and were greatly pleased to realise how swiftly their governments had moved to get them back and how the Americans and the British had stepped up without hesitation.
Captain Taylor took Ayla aside and asked her if she would be willing to stay with Duplessis until they were able to deliver her safely. “You are the only other woman with us. She still seems very highly strung and I’m sure she would appreciate having a woman’s company.”
Ayla agreed. Apart from her natural sympathy for a woman wrenched from the jaws of death, she liked the politician’s demeanour which was without arrogance.
Duplessis was saying that she would indeed be grateful for Ayla’s companionship when Sniper Lee walked in, holding a cup of tea, followed by Andrews. Taylor waved them over and introduced them to the two EU politicos.
“These are the men who eliminated your would-be executioner,” he said --- “in the nick of time, I might say. Sergeant Lee is our marksman, and Andrews is his observer.”
Claus Walters stood to shake hands with both men.
“Thank you gentlemen,” he said. “What can I say? We were seconds from death and you blew that lunatic away. Killing insane monsters like that is like putting down a rabid dog.”
Duplessis also rose and moved to the two men and kissed them on the cheek, Henry Lee flushing at the unexpected intimacy.
“You were both heaven-sent,” she said with deep sincerity. She was a picture of feminine dignity, her hair newly tidied and her minimal makeup restored. She had large eyes with golden specks and a cultured voice with a beguiling French intonation. “Strangely enough, and you may find this hard to believe, but I was told by an angel, I believe, that I would be saved. I heard a voice say clearly in my mind that I must not despair. ‘We are coming to save you,’ it said.”
“How remarkable” said Mark Andrews with a big smile and a twinkle in his eyes. “Strange things do occur at moments of great human crisis, do they not?”
Therese regarded him for a moment, puzzled by the humour of his expression, then said: “Please don’t scoff, Mr Andrews. That voice in my mind was vibrant and real.”
Andrews moved closer to her and said: “I don’t doubt your veracity at all, Madame Duplessis. That was not my intention. I am quite psychic myself, so I know that there is a level of human awareness which can rise to another plane.”
She smiled broadly and nodded and said: “Yes, I’m sure that is what happened for me. And you and your friend were the instruments of Destiny to rescue us.”
Henry Lee said, with a quick grin: “That is the first time that I have been called that, Ma’am.” And they all laughed.
Chapter Eleven – Intel
Bull sat listening quietly as the members of Col Walter Brow’s task force spoke about their foray into the hinterland of Syria to rescue two politicians. He had been finishing his lunch in the canteen with Captain Sam Collins, the 2IC, when they all came trooping in. They had the drawn look of men who had not slept and yet their mood was buoyant and cheerful.
Col. Brow joined their table with Captain Taylor, Sergeant Henry Lee and Mark Andrews while the other SAS men sat elsewhere with the Marines. Gradually he heard all about it.
“Goddammit, I wish I was there” said Sam.
“Never mind Sam” said Brow. “You’ll enjoy the movie we made. It has what the guys in the trade call a Big Finish” and he laughed. “In fact after we’ve eaten we can watch it. Pride and his team are polishing it right now. After that it goes to the CIA and various other points.”
Bull asked why Brow’s orders had been changed at the last minute so that they had to capture the DAESH team instead of eliminating them.
“British intel is that one of the team is a top ISIL man. They were not sure which one. But he has a son who is number two in the present ISIL hierarchy and is the man behind their sophisticated use of social media and their propaganda in general. The Brits think that he is clued up about what various strikes they are planning. It is obvious that they realise their strength lies in small team activity, six to ten men with guns and explosives who can disrupt a city and spread hysteria” said Brow.
“So do you have him?”
“They are a very ordinary gang, except for one man, who is much older and clearly in charge and did not carry a weapon. He must be the one. They are all Syrian, as far as we can tell.”
He looked hard at Bull: “Perhaps you can interrogate him for me. You speak the language and know their mindset. But no rough stuff Bull.”
“You don’t need to say it Walter,” said Bull with a touch of irritation. “I’ll leave that to you Americans who have refined the art of torture. But I can play with his ego, which is always over developed in these freaks of humanity. Yes, I’ll enjoy that. DAESH are wilting under the Allied assault and their supply lines have been cut so that’s why they’ll want to hit the headlines in London and New York and Washington and Rome and Moscow, just like they did in Paris.”
“I have to grab some shut-eye but we’ll talk at 6pm and I’ll take you to him” said Brow.
As they were leaving the table Sam Collins came to Bull and said: “Later tonight, perhaps you can take me to that joint you were talking about? One of the canteen staff has been telling me just how… enjoyable it is..”
“The Palace?” Bull smiled understandingly. “Yes, I have to go there in fact.”
“I’m off till 6 pm tomorrow and I’d like to blow off some steam, you know?”
“Sure Sam. Meet me in the ops room later.”
xxxxx
Mark Andrews came out of the canteen to find Lieutenant Ayla waiting for him.
“Can I talk to you please?” she said.
“Of course.”
“Let us sit there under that tree. It is my favourite spot in this big military place.”
They sat on a lonely green bench in the shade.
She looked at him in her full dark beauty, her hair loose and resting on her shoulders, her gentle eyes questioning, eager to know. He reached out to her mentally and her expression changed to surprise and she sat back a little.
“What did you just do?” she asked.
“I was just testing something. It confirmed that you are what is known as a sensitive,” he said. “You should not be in the army as a combatant.”
Ayla looked a little alarmed. “What do y
ou mean? I am a good officer. I have proved myself. Do you know how difficult it is for a Kurdish woman to become an officer?”
Mark took her hand in his and she gave it to him and then put her other hand on his as well.
“I think you have latent abilities, like me. I am a special consultant and I use my psychic powers to help our cause. I make a very real contribution otherwise I would not last.”
Ayla drew in her breath and then said: “I wondered how you could know those things. What happens, do you leave your body? But that is not what happens, is it. I saw you all the time and you were just standing there and saying what was happening.”
Mark moved closer, right next to her and thought how he should explain himself – and even whether he should. And at that second he had a flash into the future and he knew with a deep unshakeable knowing that their destinies were interlinked.
He said: “Let me try and explain how it works. I think I have unusual receptors which are sensitive to the spiritual and mental thought waves from other people. If people are very excited or very angry or sad or afraid I kind of tune in to that transmission. A connection happens. And sometimes it becomes a two-way communication.”
Ayla looked at him, the picture of total concentration. “I think I know that,” she said.
“That is what happened today,” said Mark, “with the woman hostage.”
He went on: “I was with our sniper, Henry, and I tried to reach out to the farmhouse. And then I picked up this terrible heart-rending fear. It was the Frenchwoman, and she was reliving the moment when she had a desperate phone call from her younger sister who was in the concert hall in Paris when DAESH invaded it and started murdering everyone.”
Ayla’s eyes filled with tears.
“She heard as her sister was shot to death.”
Mark seized Ayla by the shoulders and shook her, for she was beginning to quiver in a paroxysm of fear. “Get out of it!” he commanded and she stopped shivering and reached for her handkerchief to dry her eyes.
“Ayla. You are too open, too vulnerable. You are building on my words, on the image I create with those words and then you treat it as reality. This is very dangerous.”
Ayla spoke tremulously: “But what can I do?”
“I will teach you how to protect yourself. I must teach you a lot otherwise you are not going to last. I struggled for many years and turned to alcohol.”
“But it is your fault, not mine? I seem to get drawn right into your mind and
everything becomes real. I was so frightened, and so sad.”
“You can shield yourself. I’ll teach you how to do that.”
“Thank you so much” said the Kurdish officer and squeezed his hand. And then she said so softly that he almost could not hear her: “I have come to look after you.”
It was such an unexpected and irrational remark that Andrews was genuinely surprised and focused even more intently on her and he knew that the words came from her heart.
“Well,” he said, smiling at her, “that is very kind of you but right now I see it as my duty to look after you!”
“I have so much I want to tell you but I have to go now because Captain Bhutin is expecting me.” She leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek and then she left, hurrying back to the ops room.
Mark Andrews sat quietly for some time, thinking about this new profound turn his life had taken. It was as though Ayla’s presence, her essence, had already become an integral part of his being. This was an entirely new experience for him and he was shaken by it, for not only did it promise high emotion but also immense responsibility.
xxxxx
In the Americans’ ops room Bull was watching the execution of the DAESH butcher for the third time. Brow’s video team had stationed themselves at an elevated point among trees to one side of the recreation area and also at another hidden vantage point on the other side. The footage had been expertly intercut, providing a detailed and very clear view of everything as the murderous mob prepared their food and then anticipated the bloodcurdling drama of their monstrous action. They were chatting and laughing among themselves like a group enjoying a picnic. Bull wondered if they were all impregnated with the kind of cold hatred which he had just encountered in Khaliq (The Creative), the crucial witness among the captured killers.
The elderly man had remained silent, apparently tranquil, when Bull entered the room and sat opposite him. An American soldier was on duty in the doorway.
Bull spoke casually to him: “My greetings to you, Khaliq. I am surprised to find a distinguished man like you, caught up in this kind of inhuman behaviour.”
The man smiled grimly but said nothing, his eyes like chips of ice.
“Why does a man of refined intellect, like you, want to see an elderly lady have her head cut off with a butcher’s knife? Has your brain rotted from sexual disease? Have you been having sex with goats, or perhaps dogs?” He saw the man wince at the word dogs, so Bull smiled triumphantly. “Of course, you have dog disease! You can no longer be regarded as a human.”
The man’s composure evaporated and a stream of richly colourful Arabian invective poured from his mouth. If he had not been firmly trussed to the chair he would have hurled himself at Bull.
The Iraqi General laughed long and loudly. “I think I should hand you over to the Westerners. They like dogs. They might even give you dog food. That would make you happy!”
A soldier came to the door and said: “I have something for you General” and he handed him a sheet of paper.
Bull read it carefully and slowly, looking at the prisoner now and then, smiling knowingly.
Allied Intel had been tracing the man’s fingerprints and had come up with a lot of information.
“So” said Bull. “Your real name is Gilad” and he laughed. “The Camel’s Hump! Your father obviously had a sense of humour. But I suppose you don’t know who your father is. And you have been in jail several times. Not for anything important. Things like stealing food and once a car. But that was a long time ago. And then, I suppose, you graduated to killing defenceless women and children like the coward you are. And here you are on a farm, swaggering around like a big shot, just because your son is a real big shot in DAESH.”
He looked at the man, whose eyes were aflame with hatred and a sudden alarm.
“Yes” said Bull. “We have a film of you all running around on the farm like normal people, members of the human race, instead of the pigs and dogs that you are.”
Bull saw another note of anxiety in Gilad’s eyes. And he knew why.
“Yes, I saw what you did when the shooting started, you fell down and pretended to be dead and then you ran for the house until we shot you with a little dart and then you screamed like a girl and fell down.” He laughed mockingly. “One day we will show this film to your son, before we kill him, so he can see what a warrior his father is.”
Suddenly The Camel’s Hump spoke: “I didn’t have a gun. What could I do?”
He had cracked.
Bull changed tack and looked at the elderly man with some sympathy.
“Of course. I understand. An old man without a gun, what can he do?”
Bull noted how the prisoner had lost just a little of his tension.
“They are telling me that they don’t want to have you killed because that is what you want so you can be a martyr. They are going to put you in a prison for the rest of your life and it will be in an American prison where you will find out what Hell on Earth is.”
The old man’s eyes flickered with fear.
“But there is a way for you to make your life a lot easier.”
“What do you want?”
“Tell me what your plans are, where you plan to strike.”
Gilad looked stubborn and refused to say another word.
Bull left, satisfied. The seed had been planted.
Now, as he was watching the film, he heard Sam Collins’s voice: “Hey! I’m ready when you are.”
The two men wa
lked out of the ops room on differing missions, Sam to get laid, Bull to arrange a meeting with an assassin.
Chapter Twelve – Deadly Temptations
There were three loud raps on the door and Abdul looked at Ali, cleaning his rifle in the corner. The knock of Habab. Ali made a disapproving face and Abdul gestured to him to be silent.
SAS Para-Ops: MEGA SET - SAS Para-Ops Books #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 & #6 Page 32