by Geoff Wolak
‘Keep looking, might be something of value. Look for places that are very hard to get to, walk up a few streams.’
‘We can trust these guys?’
‘Yes.’
Saturday afternoon Rizzo was back on. ‘Found a big lump of gold, can hardly lift it,’ he enthused.
‘Keep it with you, I'll arrange a helo to pick up the gold.’
I called Bob Staines, and he would call Tomsk and get a helo in, to get the gold to the President down in Monrovia.
Monday afternoon we made ready for Germany, Rizzo calling at 3pm. ‘Got a shit load of gold now, and they keep finding more and more, in this one place. Found a body as well.’
‘I want that body, and any ID!' I emphasised.
‘Hang on, he has something … plastic card with … Martin Jason, 11/9/1944. British.’
‘Great, but get that body to Freetown double fast and back to the UK.’ I called SIS and detailed the name.
‘British, nuclear scientist.’
‘Ah hell. Update David Finch straight away, we just found his body in Liberia.’
David called back half an hour later. ‘Martin Jason, he died in a car crash in Luton, so should not be in Liberia.’
‘Another body double?’
‘Hardly, when the other him is dead.’
‘Maybe he was switched, then died in a car crash.’
‘That's possible, we're looking into it. And worried, since he was a top nuclear scientist, top security clearance.’
‘It was twenty years ago,’ I pointed out.
‘Yes, but we still need to know if he passed secrets over.’
‘What if the clue I got was not about the gold, but about our nuclear scientist?’
‘Then there's something else, something we won't like, something we definitely won't like.’
Tuesday we flew across to Bremen civil airport, a short flight, soon heading east to Saltau and to a small camp that had been abandoned a few years earlier, 1994, the camp on the southern edge of the Luneberger Forest. The British Army had given back the land, but we were not about to fire any mortars or artillery and upset the locals.
MPs were seen to be patrolling the cold damp camp under a leaden grey sky, electricity working, a long parallel line of old Nissen huts and a few brick buildings. With Swifty and the team we grabbed the first hut, finding dated old metal beds but with new-ish mattresses rolled up, bedding available – not that we would use it, we had sleeping bags.
Mattresses rolled down, bedding put to one side, crates opened, and we got comfy, men put on stag straight away.
A captain came and found me, and saluted. ‘Captain Bakerson, RCT. I'm your liaison and supplies chap, sir.’
‘There a canteen?’
‘There's a mess tent set-up, sir, cooks ready, a few of my team here, and a dozen MPs patrolling around. And just to say, no loud bangs allowed here now.’
‘We have paintball guns,’ I told him.
‘Ah, in which case no loud bangs.’
‘Are civilians allowed into the forest?’ I asked.
‘Yes, certain areas, but most of it is still out of bounds, some unexploded ordnance, and they're cleaning it up, even things like blank rounds need safe disposal. Your designated area is three miles square, all tight trees, ridges and streams, no roads.’
‘How far from here?’
‘A mile walk, sir.’
I had all the British Wolves turn on their GPS trackers and fix them to webbing or belts, soon calling Major Harris back at GL4 and asking that he check their positions.
He came back on as we found the mess tent. ‘One lad is listed as being in Antarctica, but the rest are where they should be, south end of the forest, at the camp.’
‘OK, good. Nothing happening till tomorrow.’
With some food down us, the cold dark night taking hold, trucks arrived, the American Wolves down and shown into huts.
I greeted familiar NCOs, then the captain. ‘Any quit?’
‘We're down to a hundred and six. More than was expected still with us.’
‘And the attitude after Liberia?’
‘They have a swagger, some of them, they think of themselves are veterans.’
‘They are veterans compared to most soldiers – who never see any action.’
‘And the exercise here..?’
‘Dark woods, difficult navigation, stealth, and nasty packs of dogs hunting them down.’
I chatted to several of the Wolves, and they seemed confident, keenly asking questions of the exercise here. ‘You'll have to navigate a course through thick forest in a set time, but there'll be dog handlers after you – who are allowed to let the dogs bite you.’
They now looked less confident.
‘We have gloves and facemasks for you, you'll need to be well camouflaged.’
In the morning I gave the American Wolves a lecture on dog evasion, small plastic bottles handed out, as well as fishing line.
Lecture done, I drove up to the area housing the MPs and their cold-nosed dogs, a briefing given to the captain in charge. He had enough men for 24hr coverage in eight-hour shifts with breaks.
Midday, and the Echo and British Wolf members were placed in pairs in teams of four as it started to rain, the day dark already. Setting off at staggered intervals, they had a zig-zag course to navigate, dogs and patrols to avoid, other teams to avoid, and they would be timed as well. Swifty, Crab and Duffy were waiting with RCT men and jeeps at the final RV.
That RV was only three miles away, but the terrain was difficult, and the dogs had to be avoided – or teams would get bitten. And teams were forbidden from shooting dogs with paint.
Doc Willy was put in charge of his team, Greenie, Mitch and Ginger. Stickler was leading Tomo, Nicholson and Swan. Parker was leading Monster, Mouri and Dicky. Tiller and Brace were leading two of Sasha's boys, and Murphy and Terry were leading Henri and Sambo. Salome had three British Wolves to lead. Our regulars were split into two teams.
The teams each had differing courses, and the reason they carried paintball guns was so that they could ambush other Echo teams, or the British or American Wolves. A few of my lot had sinister smiles on their faces before they donned masks.
With Echo teams having been dispatched at intervals, different directions taken, the first few American Wolf teams got ready, the remaining men sat playing cards and waiting their turn.
By 6pm, and now dark, six American Wolf teams had set off after Echo, one wet foot in front of the other.
I called Major Harris, and he reported the positions of the Echo teams. Most were roughly on the courses they were supposed to be on. None were lost. Besides, if they were lost they would hit a road – and they were not allowed to cross any roads.
David called at 8pm, so I stepped out into the cold and wet. ‘We're now worried, about our nuclear scientist. We have his body back, and it's radioactive.’
‘Were my men in danger, being close to it?’ I worried.
‘No, there's a steep rate of decay, and we've calculated that he would have died in agony if he had not been shot three times in the back.’
‘He got access to the uranium mine down there?’
‘That's ore, and that wouldn't make him glow in the dark, so he was exposed to something else, and somewhere else. Nearest nuclear reactor would have been in Europe, or South Africa, and such reactors don't leak and kill the staff - we'd notice.’
‘So he had a hobby which involved processed uranium or plutonium.’
‘The signature is uranium, the poor man's choice for a bomb.’
‘And which side was he on?’ I posed. ‘I'm thinking he was reporting back to Deep State but thinking that he was reporting to the CIA; we got a clue passed to us in a garden gnome remember.’
‘That would make sense, I mean him thinking it was the CIA – not the garden gnome making sense. So we need to find out what they were up to twenty years ago.’
‘Only place is the old records, cross-matched to the doppelgängers we u
ncovered.’
‘I have a large team on it, and we're worried that fissile material is out there.’
‘If it is out there then it's been sat buried twenty years, like that Soviet bunker in Senegal. No one is trying to blackmail The West with it.’
‘You got the clue recently...’
‘That was because the gold-panners were about to go discover our radioactive body. Maybe...’
‘Maybe … what?’
‘Maybe the gold-panners were still reporting back to Deep State, and our mystery man didn't want Deep State getting the fissile material. Maybe, gold-panning was a cover, a reason to be out there. Work on that assumption, go all out on our gold-panners. And if someone is beyond you, let me know and I'll go get him and have a quiet chat.’
I called Bob Staines. ‘Got a problem. Work on the assumption that Preston and Hammish were reporting back to Deep State, or at least being actively monitored, and that Deep State know or suspect where some stolen fissile material is.’
‘Fissile material!'
‘We found a body in Liberia, a British nuclear scientist, shot three times in the back before he started to glow in the dark. London is worried. They're looking at Preston and Hammish now, but you do a better job of it. Get Tiny on it, drop everything else. Bribe people, or torture them, just get some answers quickly. Get Leon on it, ask Tomsk for help or money, just work fast.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘And go back through the Belgian bank, the body doubles in Liberia, there's a clue in there somewhere.’
Phone down, I was worried, staring down at a cold wet road. After a minute I called Langley.
The Deputy Chief called me back. ‘Wilco, you after me, they said it was urgent.’
‘Twenty years ago, at the mine in Liberia, a man died from high level exposure to radiation.’
‘Radiation? It was just ore, it would need processing.’
‘Yes, so the question is how he got himself exposed. And … his body double died later in a car crash.’
‘Oh … fuck. It's never good news with you, is it.’
‘You have a 747 fitted with sensitive Geiger counters.’
‘Yes, several. Few people know about them, all top secret since the Cold War.’
‘I need one in West Africa, tomorrow, or someone is going to spoil your day in a way that will keep you awake for a month.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Make some calls. And yes, you should be worried. If you want an excuse to move the plane, mention the uranium ore mine, and missing material.’
Phone down, he was not the only one that was worried. Whatever radiation source had contaminated our dead body was linked to the Belgian bank and Deep State, enough to lose me some quality sleep.
At midnight I was still awake, and chatting to the nice lady captain back at GL4, the teams' positions relayed. The Echo teams, having neared the end of the course had decided to go static, which meant they were setting traps, British Wolves seen on the computer screen walking towards those traps.
Two MPs had been slightly hurt by traps laid by Echo teams, two cold wet dogs displaying coloured paint and an unhappy snarl, and one American Wolf had been caught, bitten and caught, a painful lesson for him.
At 1am an American Wolf team walked into an Echo trap, all splattered with paint and cursing. They were picked up by jeep, the MPs smiling when they dropped off the four, bright green paint splattered over the men.
I lined them up, all cold and damp. ‘Listen up, fuckwits! If this was Kosovo you'd all be dead, so think about what you did, and how you did it, and switch your brains on. You're here to practise, so practise and get it right and stay alive. Go wash the paint off.’
A second American Wolf team walked into a tripwire flare, soon spattered with paint from behind, and cursing. Unfortunately they timed it badly, the dogs close by and let loose, Echo up trees and hiding as the Wolves were chased and bitten.
A second batch of cold, wet and unhappy Wolves returned to me, to be lined up and shouted at – at length, legs and arms sore from being bitten.
We dispatched the next group of Wolves north, those still waiting to leave now nervous, which was what I wanted, I wanted them moving through the woods as if their lives depended on it.
At 7am I was nudged awake, having got four hours sleep. At the mess tent I got a plate of grub and scoffed it down quickly, a hot cup of tea much appreciated.
Teams were still being sent out, most of Echo back now and sleeping, Slider out there and having fun with the Wolves.
My phone trilled at 11am. ‘Major Wilco, this is Miller's boss, can you talk?’
‘Yes, just torturing your Lone Wolves in a deep dark wood.’
‘You requested a Nuke Sniffer plane, so we're worried, beyond fucking worried, a step away from being completely fucking mortified. So what do you know?’
‘That you'll get the blame.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Twenty years ago, at the mine in Liberia, they discovered the oil and the uranium. We just found a body at the mine, and he died from high levels of radiation exposure, and not from the ore in the mine. He got it from processed uranium.’
‘There are a very limited number of places he could have been exposed, none in Africa, so how did he get there – he would have been in great pain and they would never have let him on an aircraft with red boils on his skin!’
‘We have more questions than answers at the moment. One thing that struck us was the old Soviet bunker in Senegal. What if there are more, and one has fissile material?’
‘It's been sat there twenty years, could sit there another twenty years.’
‘Two British men were killed a few weeks back, their bodies welded into an oil rig, an ex-CIA contractor killed last week in Gibraltar, and the two British men were both oil workers heading to the Liberian mine on contract. But they were hobby gold-panners in their spare time, and that would have led them straight to the body, so we think they were killed for it.’
‘Ah … shit.’
‘The man who killed them was an ex-CIA contractor, but maybe one of yours. So we have someone out there with an interest in the radioactive body, and an interest in it remaining a secret.’
‘We have no active projects along those lines.’
‘If it's not you, and not the CIA, then it's someone else, and we need to find them.’
‘We do,’ he agreed. ‘And put them all in the ground. Talk soon.’
An hour later, more worried-looking Wolf teams dispatched, the Deputy Chief called. ‘That aircraft has been dispatched, and it's a 135 not a 747. I had to make up a reason, but they will start to ask questions sooner or later.’
‘Put my name on it. If they call me I'll worry them.’
‘What do I need to be worried about?’
‘A third party, unknown to us.’
‘Not you-know-who?’
‘No. At least they say no, and they're worried, worried about getting the blame.’
‘That oil company behind the body doubles?’
‘They've been dealt with as far as I know, no one left out there, all the players rounded up. My best guess would be a Deep State faction that broke off and decided to do its own thing, back then or now. But they were sloppy, and amateurs, because killing Hammish and Preston and the contractor in Gibraltar led us to the body in Liberia. And they could have recovered the body if they were any good.’
‘Limited resources, not good enough to get the body during the civil war, nor inclined to pay a local warlord to do it. Odd, why leave it there? They'd have to be limited in ability and funds.’
‘Maybe the ex-contractor was part of a small group, not a major sinister organisation. They never showed up because they were just a handful of hobby agents working part time.’
After the call, I stood staring down the road, and called Bob. ‘Listen, someone found out that Preston and Hammish had been granted license to work in Liberia. Follow back that process, and put together a l
ist of people that would have seen the detail.’
‘UK government would have seen it,’ he noted. ‘Foreign Office.’
‘Send requests through Tinker. And if you find something, send it back the same way. It's our best hope here, so look at the list of people who would have been informed, and if it was on computer.’
‘If it was on computer then the NSA can keyword search,’ Bob noted.
‘Deep State are worried about getting the blame, they deny it's them.’
‘Someone else?’
‘Could be. Go look, and be the sneaky shit we all know and love.’
By 5pm, and getting dark, all Wolves had been through the course once, and would now get a rest as more MPs and more dogs arrived.
At midnight I lined up the American Wolves in four lines, some kneeling, Echo and the British Wolves having a rest. ‘Listen up, and listen well. The number of dog handlers has been increased, in the hope that they bite you all, and bite hard. Use the techniques you were taught, move quietly but with confidence.
‘You will now be sent out in pairs, varying routes, so you should not bump into each other. If you see someone or hear them, you can either avoid them - or shoot them in the arse with the paintball gun. Don't aim at the face.
‘Because there are just two of you, and more dogs, you may find that you have six dogs biting you at the same time.’ They looked worried. ‘Start using your brains, because if this was for real in a place like Bosnia you'd need those brains to keep you alive.’
The first three pairs were sent off, all looking worried, and pairs were sent off every half hour all night long and past dawn. One man had come back in a jeep at 2am, bad leg bites and cursing, four more joining him – all shouted at. It seemed that the dog handlers were having fun. One pair had shot a second pair in the head with paint, the paint-splattered men not happy bunnies and getting shouted at.
At 10am Miller called.
‘Mister Miller, you must be up early.’
‘I'm at home, got a call. Someone close to the CIA, we believe, leaked the 135 plane deployment and your name. It could make the news here today.’
‘No big deal, no one will panic.’