Stinger

by Stinger (retail) (epub)

  Dave smiled. ‘Glad to see they managed to drag you away from the golf course for this op, Boon. The answer is no, though it may be some time before forensics can actually prove that. It took long enough to prove that Lockerbie was caused by a bomb, and that happened over land, not the sea.’

  ‘What makes you so sure that it couldn’t have been a bomb?’ Boon said. ‘An explosive device fitted with a timer or a barometric pressure trigger could have done it.’

  ‘In theory, yes, and the fact that the jet’s previous call was Athens, the airport of choice for all Middle Eastern terrorists, gave us pause for thought, but radar screens showed a smaller second blip closing with the plane just before it exploded, and the other evidence pointing to a missile – including the film you’ve just seen – is too strong to ignore.’ He paused. ‘The altimeter of the jet stopped at 13,740 feet, comfortably below a Stinger missile’s operational ceiling. We believe that BZ flight 169 was brought down by a US-made Stinger.’

  ‘But you’re not suggesting it was friendly fire?’ Boon said.

  Dave shook his head. ‘No organisation has claimed direct responsibility for the attack but we have little doubt that it was the work of the Movement for Islamic Jihad. It’s a storefront organisation with no base and no permanent members – a flag of convenience for a shifting alliance of Muslim extremists.

  ‘Cadres from the Middle East, Sudan, Pakistan, Kashmir, Afghanistan, the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union and the western provinces of China are assembled and trained for specific terrorist attacks – like the bombs used against our bases in Saudi Arabia – and then dispersed. However, virtually all the MIJ’s recruits fought with the Mujahedeen against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and the organisation is funded by a Saudi exile sheltered there by the Taliban.

  ‘A London-based Arab newspaper received a fax from the MIJ on the thirtieth of June. It read: “The forces of the infidels contaminate the soil of the holy places. They must leave at once or we shall turn the weapons of the Americans against them.”

  ‘On the fifth of July, the paper received another fax: “The sentence of death has been carried out. We shall strike every month from now until the time when the guardians of the holy places expel the infidels.”

  ‘That fax was received just after 01.30 London time, one hour before the shooting down of the jet, but no other terrorist incidents were reported that day and it’s probable that the sender had miscalculated the time difference between the point of origin of the fax – a hotel in Athens – and New York.

  ‘As soon as the cause of the disaster was suspected, all field agents were alerted and the NSA and GCHQ began running checks on all intercepted communications over the previous four weeks. We have established that six terrorist suspects were in New York on the day of the missile attack.

  ‘Two Arabs travelling on Jordanian passports checked out of their hotel at noon that day. At eleven that night – ninety minutes after the jet went down – they caught a tram to Baltimore, then took a cab to Washington International and boarded a flight for Paris. They flew on from there to Islamabad in Pakistan and then disappeared.

  ‘Two other men of Middle Eastern appearance, using Saudi Arabian passports and staying at a different hotel, also checked out that day. They drove to Niagara, crossed into Canada and caught a flight to London from Toronto the next morning. There is no record of their onward movements, but two men of similar appearance, by now travelling on Egyptian passports, flew to Cairo from London later that day.

  ‘A third pair, apparently Indonesian businessmen, caught a shuttle to Boston and then flew on via Tokyo to Jakarta. Once more, they disappeared without trace, but we are certain that some, if not all of them, have made their way to Afghanistan.’ He paused and sipped a glass of water.

  ‘Where the hell did the Stinger come from?’ Jeff said.

  Dave shrugged. ‘We supplied them to the Mujahedeen during the war with the Soviet Union.’

  ‘How many were they given?’

  ‘A thousand.’

  I waited, but nobody else seemed to want to ask the obvious question. ‘And how many have they got left?’

  He took another sip of water before replying. ‘The Taliban and their Fundamentalist allies could hold as many as two hundred Stingers, giving them the capability to shoot down a jumbo jet every day for the next six months if they so choose. We have to find and destroy those Stingers. That is the mission for which you have been chosen.’

  He signalled for the lights to be dimmed and a 1:1,000,000 air-navigation map of Afghanistan was projected on to the wall.

  ‘As you can imagine, intelligence from inside Afghanistan has been a little thin on the ground since the Taliban took over, although we do have a couple of active agents there, one of whom has been brought out to brief you. She’ll be doing so in a moment.’

  Jeff cocked an eyebrow at me. ‘She?’

  I nodded.

  Dave’s gaze picked us out. ‘Did you have a question?’

  Jeff flushed and shook his head.

  Dave touched the pointer to three marks on the map, forming a crescent almost two hundred miles in length, with its centre in the heart of the mountains of the Hindu Kush and its arms extending in an arc north and east of Konarlan. ‘Despite the difficulties, we have been able to form a strong opinion that Stingers are being stored at these three sites.

  ‘We will be providing you with detailed intelligence on your respective targets after you have separated into your assault teams, but for obvious reasons, all three must be attacked simultaneously. We believe that, although well protected, sites A and B are both vulnerable to attack by raiding parties inserted by heli at low-level. They can make the assaults and be on the helis out of there before the Taliban know what has hit them.

  ‘Target C poses different problems, however. There is no safe approach route by helicopter, even at low-level, and the nature of the terrain also rules out the possibility of a free-fall insertion.’

  One of the SAS men cleared his throat. ‘So how will we be inserting?’

  ‘We’ll be discussing that once you’ve separated into your attack groups. Need to know applies; if you don’t, you won’t get told.’

  ‘How long have we got?’

  ‘The warning phoned to the Arab newspaper threatened “to strike every month”. We must assume that another attack is planned on or soon after the first of August. For an operation of this complexity, that leaves us with precious little planning and training time, but realistically, that’s all we’ve got.

  ‘Right – intelligence brief.’

  Amica stood up and walked to the podium, drawing appreciative looks from most of the guys.

  Boon was an exception. ‘Just a minute,’ he said. ‘We’re talking about an operation in a country where women aren’t even allowed out of the house.’

  Amica silenced him with a look. ‘A clean-shaven Anglo-Saxon man like you would be stopped before you’d gone twenty yards, a woman in a burka is just a woman in a burka, and since women are practically non-beings in Afghanistan you would be amazed how much we learn by eavesdropping as we turn our faces respectfully to the wall, or wait submissively near the table for the scraps left over from the men’s meal.

  ‘I haven’t found my gender too much of an obstacle to my work there, but in any case, since I’m the only active agent in that area, it’s me or nothing, I’m afraid. Now, unless there are any more questions?’ She glanced around the room, daring anyone else to challenge her expertise. ‘No? Then perhaps I can get on with my briefing.’

  She gestured towards Dexy, Jeff and me. ‘Some of us have already been working inside Afghanistan and speak enough of the language to get by. Our cover is our work for the Afghan Mine Clearance Organisation. AMCO will also provide cover for the rest of you. The AMCO headquarters is in Geneva, and its staff there and in Afghanistan are of course unaware of my – or your – double role. They would be most unlikely to countenance the employment of a dozen additional pe
ople on my recommendation, and your insertion into Afghanistan will therefore be covert. You will arrive at our base in Konarlan as official members of the AMCO team, however – at least as far as the Taliban are concerned.’

  My mind wandered a little as she briefed the new guys on conditions inside Afghanistan, but I was jerked back to attention by her closing words.

  ‘Captured Soviet troops were routinely castrated and then the skin was flayed from their bodies while they were still alive.’ She gave a sardonic smile. ‘Welcome to Afghanistan. I look forward to working with you.’

  I stared after her as she returned to her seat.

  Dave walked back to centre stage. ‘Just two more points. First, it is vitally important that the Movement for Islamic Jihad and its Taliban backers are given no inkling that attention is focusing on them or that military action is planned.

  ‘The mountains of Afghanistan are riddled with tens of thousands of caves, some natural, some drilled out of the rock by the Mujahedeen during the war against the Soviet Union. If they see the slightest indication of a threat, those Stingers will be dispersed to a hundred different caves and store places, and your already difficult task will be rendered impossible.

  ‘In a moment you will be separating into your attack groupings, Raiders One, Two and Three, but first I want to say one more thing. A British jet was shot down over US territorial waters, which makes it appropriate that this is a joint US–British operation. There is also another very valid reason for British participation.

  ‘Six of the SAS men in this room have already operated inside Afghanistan. They went there to train the Mujahedeen and fight alongside them during the war against the Soviet Union. Their knowledge of conditions in Afghanistan and their experience there are crucial.

  ‘We’ve worked together on plenty of exchanges and joint exercises before, and there is no room for any petty national rivalries or cliques within each team. You are not American or British forces. You are one unit, with one common purpose: to destroy those Stingers before more innocent people are shot from the sky. Good luck. That is all.’

  Chapter Six

  As Dave stepped away from the podium, a grey-haired, crew-cutted warrant officer stood up and began reading names from a sheet. Jeff and I were assigned to Raider Three. I had an uneasy feeling that our objective would prove to be Target C, so I was relieved to see Dexy among our group.

  The other SAS men stood up. There were no jokes or wisecracks. They were grim-faced and silent. The look on his face suggested that Jeff felt the same way.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ I said.

  ‘The same as you – not much.’ He studied me in silence for a moment. ‘But you’re going to do it, aren’t you? Is it because of what Amica said to you?’

  I felt uncomfortable. ‘No, but she was right.’

  He gave a slow shake of his head. ‘A few hours ago I was celebrating getting out of Afghanistan in one piece and dreaming about getting home for a few days, eating beans on toast and wondering how many pints I could get down my neck before watching the United match on TV. Now I’m stuck in the middle of Nowheresville, Arabia, being invited to volunteer to go back and get my balls cut off in one of the most lawless and Godforsaken countries on the face of the planet.’

  He didn’t get any further because Dave appeared and led us outside. We strolled across the deserted tarmac towards a huge hangar.

  ‘Are you on the mission?’ I said.

  ‘I hope so. But at the moment I’m just here to co-ordinate the training. Dexy and Rami will be co-leaders on the ground.’

  ‘Rami?’

  A figure materialised out of the darkness. He was black-haired and so swarthy that it was difficult to make out his features in the moonlight. ‘I’m Rami. I look forward to working with you.’ His English was faintly accented.

  ‘An unusual name.’

  ‘I’m Iranian by birth.’

  He left the sentence hanging in the air and Dave supplied the rest of the explanation. ‘We have three native Farsi speakers on the team, all Iranian. Rami’s father was head of Savak under the Shah. He still works for us too.’

  ‘Who’s us?’

  Dave smiled, but didn’t answer. He opened a door in the side of the hangar and led us inside. ‘This is it.’

  The helicopter had already been winched off the low-loader. The ground crewmen had removed the tarpaulin and were masking off sections of the fuselage, ready to respray it. The rotors were folded back, like an insect’s closed wings, but I recognised it even before Dave spoke. ‘The Soviet Hydra, Mark V. A combined attack helicopter and troop carri—’

  Jeff interrupted him. ‘We know what a Hydra is, for God’s sake. We’ve been flying the Mark I for four weeks. Why all the secrecy? The Cold War’s over, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

  Dave glanced at me. ‘Is he always like this?’

  ‘Only when he isn’t getting his beauty sleep.’

  ‘I would have thought the reasons were obvious,’ he said. ‘You’ll be flying this aircraft, suitably repainted, back into Afghanistan.’

  ‘What was wrong with the other one?’

  ‘Apart from being too old, too slow, too unreliable and only having one engine, you mean? With the assault team and all their equipment on board, you’d never get it airborne. This one will get you there and – God willing – back again once the job is done.

  ‘The Taliban will undoubtedly suspect US and British involvement in the attack, but they won’t be able to prove it. Should anything go wrong, they will find only a former Soviet helicopter and a lot of ex-Warsaw Pact equipment. You and the assault team won’t be wearing dog tags, and even your underwear will be untraceable to the West. There will be nothing to link the attack to the US and Britain.’

  I was staring at the helicopter. ‘This still has Soviet markings. Where did it come from?’

  ‘We got it during the Afghan war. Mark Vs were brand new then and they were having a big impact on the fighting – the Mujahedeen were shit-scared of them, with good reason.’ Dave handed us both a thick file. ‘There’s no crew manual but this is a total spec of the chopper’s capabilities and limitations – maximum load, range, speed, angle of bank, flight envelope and so on – plus the technical stuff and some briefing notes on its handling characteristics.’

  ‘Who wrote this?’ Jeff said.

  ‘One of our guys who test flew it soon after we acquired it.’

  ‘Maybe you should have let him fly the mission.’

  ‘We would but for two small problems: he’s now forty-nine years old and recognisably Jewish, which might have made life a little hot for him in Afghanistan.’

  ‘Hotter than Sean’s blond beard and locks?’

  ‘You can dye hair. You can’t sew a foreskin back on. Not if it was chopped off forty-nine years ago anyway. There’s some hair dye on the shelf by the tap, Sean. When you’ve used it, take the rest of the bottle with you in your kit; you’ll need to do the roots every few days.’

  ‘Were you a hairdresser in a former life, by any chance?’

  ‘Just do it.’

  I shrugged, walked back over to the tap and stripped off my T-shirt. Peering into the cracked mirror, I began to smear the oily brown liquid on to my hair.

  ‘Don’t get any on your forehead, it’ll stain that too.’

  ‘Now you tell me.’

  ‘Here.’ He picked up a grease gun and squeezed some into his palm, then rubbed it across my forehead.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘It’s so good for the complexion. Any ideas about what to do about my baby blue eyes? Coloured contacts perhaps?’

  ‘We’re trying to get you to pass in a crowd, not stand up to close scrutiny, and anyway, contacts would be no use in Afghanistan – too much sand and dust and too little clean water.’ He paused. ‘Now, if we’ve finished the beauty consultation, perhaps we could get to work.’

  I studied the file for over an hour, skimming some of the technical data but memorising the key sections cov
ering its handling characteristics, climb rates and the other information that might keep us alive in a crisis.

  Finally I closed the file with a snap and walked over to the Hydra. I checked it externally, then clambered into the cockpit and settled myself in the seat. I spent some time studying the layout of the instruments and dry flying it on the ground. I tested the movement of the controls and rehearsed the checks on fuel levels, oil and hydraulics pressures, and the thousand and one other things every pilot of every aircraft has to cover, in the knowledge that one missed, one day, might cost you your life.

  I connected the oxygen, intercom and radio cables to my helmet, then reached for the starting switch on the left engine. There was a high-pitched whine as the turbine began to rotate and a crackling noise like distant small-arms fire as the igniters fired to burn the fuel.

  Jeff kept checking the instruments as the revs built up, then I slid the lever from stop to ground idle and he released the rotor brake. I felt the heli begin to move and paddled the right rudder gently, easing clear of the tail of a parked Jaguar. We rolled out of the shade of the hangar and into the fierce heat.

  I checked in with the tower and was cleared for take-off. We made the final set of preflight checks. ‘This should be a piece of piss,’ Jeff said.

  ‘Oh, sure. Apart from twin engines, an airframe that’s twice the size, a completely remodelled interior and half a ton of additional kit, it couldn’t be more similar to the Mark I.’

  ‘Stop moaning and let’s get airborne.’

  We taxied around the tarmac for several minutes, while I accustomed myself to the play of the controls. The movement was far more positive than the Mark I; the least touch on the cyclic or collective produced an instant response. ‘It’s going to be a bumpy ride,’ I said. ‘I’ll be oversteering and overcompensating like crazy until I get used to this. Anyway, here goes.’

  I checked the sky above us, then pulled the collective lever slowly upwards, using the cyclic to adjust the trim. The engines bellowed as we rose into the air, but within seconds I had overcooked the cyclic and we crashed down again, rocking on the springs, then bouncing back into the air. I did it again and again. We progressed around the airfield in a series of kangaroo hops, testing the resilience of the springs and Jeff’s patience to the limits as his helmet repeatedly banged against the roof of the cockpit.