Fuelling the Fire

by Roland Ladley

  This information would never be disclosed publicly by the West—well, not anytime soon. But now that they had concrete proof of coordinated Russian military presence on the ground, the politicians and senior military staff could use this to help plan strategies. At the highest level, they could also bend the Russian leader’s ear, when the time was right.

  It was good work. But it wasn’t finished yet.

  Jane had taken off her jacket, put her small rucksack beside her desk, and fired up her computer. She tried to walk to work every day, but sometimes time pressures prevented that—she almost called it a “luxury.” It was much more to do with keeping herself in shape than taking in the views. Since her promotion two years ago after the Ebola affair, her enhanced pay packet had allowed her to buy a small property in Manningtree, Essex, which she had let out. Her SIS lodging allowance enabled her to rent a bijouer-than-bijou studio apartment in Brixton. Her walking route, which was just over two miles, took her twenty-five minutes. By bus, she was a little quicker—and a whole lot drier—and by tube, she could get to the office within twelve minutes—if she had to.

  Today was a walking day. It was getting light as she closed her front door. By 7.20 she was through both the Headquarters’ biometric airlocks and had shown her pass to Barry, the main porter—who always seemed much friendlier than his reputation. Barry was, according to legend, an ex-sergeant from 22 SAS with numerous unmentionable accolades to his name. In the week prior to Remembrance, he wore a chest full of medals, including a bar to his Military Cross. And, most surprisingly, he also wore a George Medal, a civilian valour award of the highest level. No one had any idea what that was for. But it was impressive and frightening at the same time.

  What also surprised Jane was that he never seemed to take a day off. Barry was always at the front desk looking charmingly menacing whenever she entered Babylon.

  She typed in her password and waited the few seconds it took for her computer to work its own way through a cryptographic labyrinth. As she paused, ready to access last night’s e-mail traffic, she put her chin in her hand and drummed her fingers. If she were completely honest with herself, she hadn’t maintained the tempo of her work just because she loved it. Nor solely because what she and her team were doing was of national importance. A part of her drive was that her boss, David Jennings, had four months left in the chair before retirement, and she sensed an opportunity. He was an exceptional man, one of the best in the building, and a fabulous boss who had taught her a great deal. His leaving would create a bow wave of movement within SIS midlevel staff. Although she knew she was too young and inexperienced to take on his role, there might be other opportunities to emerge from the imminent reshuffle. She wanted to be part of that.

  Come on, look lively. Her fingers were poised above the keyboard.

  Jane opened up her secure e-mail and glanced through the list of eight that were highlighted in bold.

  “GCHQ—knew that was coming. Two from the team—they can wait. One flagged from the SRR—stuff in the cloud.” Jane whispered her thoughts as she scrolled through the list.

  Oh, hang on. She double-clicked on the e-mail from the SRR. SIS rarely received e-mails directly from the Special Reconnaissance Regiment, unless they had found something very unusual.

  She opened it up:

  Thought you should look at images SRR1245—1270 that we posted last night. The two non-Arab men look out of place and are new to us. Against protocol, we have tasked the troop on the ground to remain in situ for a further 24 hrs to see if they can get additional images.

  Pse let us know if you recognise the two targets so we can make a decision as to how long they remain exposed at that location. We would like to extricate them asp.

  Answer req by 10.00 Local.

  Regards

  Jane expanded a new tab that accessed the UK security forces’ secure cloud. She opened the top drawer of her desk and took out her SIS passkey, which unnervingly looked the same as the one she used to access her Internet banking—although the SIS version was a lovely vermilion colour. She tapped in her four-digit password, pressed a yellow button, and was given a six-digit code. She then typed that into the computer, and, within a few seconds, the cloud was open.

  Jane navigated her way through various layers of folders until she got to the one titled “Images, RSS, Oct 15.” She opened it and saw immediately that there were about a hundred new shots that her team would need to negotiate.

  She scrolled down until she found image SRR1245 and, with a tap on her screen, expanded it.

  My God!

  She took a deep breath as her eyes widened in disbelief. She held that breath and clicked for the next image in the sequence to appear. And the next. And the next.

  She was breathing again now, but her heart rate was up, and her hands felt clammy. She continued to flick the images back and forth until the reality of it all sunk in.

  Jane came to. She shook her head and glanced at her watch. It was 7.45. Would Sam Green be in? Possibly, possibly not. She highlighted the photos, and, using the authority invested in her position, she right-clicked and pressed “Hide.” The photos disappeared.

  For now.

  She needed to see David straight away. What she had just seen was a hugely significant event in terms of what was happening on the ground in Yemen. But it also had much deeper, much more sinister ramifications for the whole operation. And particularly for members of her team.

  She picked up the phone and pressed “*3.”

  “Hi, Claire, it’s Jane. Is David in?” There was a pause at the other end of the line and then Claire came back to say that he was.

  “Good. I need to see him now. Could you make that happen?”

  The line went on hold for a second, and then Claire called Jane forward.

  15° 23' 51″ N, 44° 15' 01″ E, Northern Yemen

  Colour Sergeant Jock Mills brushed the sand from his nose with his left hand and turned away from the laptop screen, which was laid on the back seat of the twin-cab Toyota Hilux. He stood up straight and squinted his eyes against the sun. He stared out across Yemen’s Barat Mountains in the direction of where his boss’s team was currently in its OP position. He reached for the top left pocket of his light blue cotton shirt and pulled out his Ray-Ban Navigators, plonking them on his nose.

  Around him the noise of the pneumatic drill was unavoidable, as was the low hum of the diesel generator that was providing for all of the camp’s electrical needs. There were eight of them in the small camp, a mock survey team from the imaginary Rayfgo Engineering. They had driven to the end of the wadi in three white Toyota Hiluxes and a Mercedes ML SUV. He was getting used to the scenery. They had been at the camp, which was just off Route 11 and chosen to be within a two-day trek of the target, for four days. And now they had been tasked by RHQ to stay for a further twenty-four hours. This was to allow the reconnaissance team, which his boss had taken up-country, to gather some more images. The last time they had spoken, Tony’s boss hadn’t been pleased about staying longer. Every second in the OP was a second closer to being compromised. And this was by far the most exposed position they had ever worked in.

  Jock had briefed his team about the delay. They had agreed to continue with the same daily routine, a sort of engineering Groundhog Day of drilling, cataloguing, and then drilling some more. It was all for effect. Only Trooper Nigel Field had any civil engineering background, having worked on a building site before he joined the army. Under instruction from the Royal Engineers, he had spent four weeks perfecting the process of extracting and examining ore from seams of rock. The rest of them were all dressed and equipped according to role, but they were picking it up on the job. By day three they were looking half-competent, but not anywhere near good enough to fool an expert.

  “Hey, Jock. Vehicle cloud coming down the wadi.” It was one of his team who, as well as putting dirt into a glass vial and adding coloured water, was also on point lookout.

  Jock took off his sunglass
es and reached into the front seat of the cab for his binos.

  He nodded as he looked. They hadn’t seen anyone since leaving Saudi and entering Yemen. They had crossed the thousand-mile-long, metal-fenced border with the help of some Saudi Special Forces, who had disabled the alarms. The only living things they had seen so far were a couple of camels. And a snake.

  This is going to be interesting.

  Looking through the binos, it seemed that the approaching vehicle was in Yemeni police livery. The police drove around in a variety of vehicles—mostly old Toyotas—painted light blue and white. By all accounts they were not well trained, but heavily armed—not the perfect combination. Jock would be able to confirm his suspicions when he could make out their uniforms. He’d be looking for a blue disruptive pattern with plenty of badges.

  The building block of British Special Forces is a team of four. When deployed to the Middle East, one trooper would be a fluent Arabic speaker. The others were experts in either signals, medicine, or explosives. Jock’s boys were no different. In addition, they were all proficient in the use of the weapons they had with them—currently hidden away from view but within reach. And all of them had been trained to be good in a tight spot. Jock was an explosives expert, as well as being the 3IC of the troop. He was particularly good in a tight spot.

  The sun flashed off the approaching vehicle’s windscreen—belching sand and dust its backdrop.

  It was definitely an old Toyota Land Cruiser—the kind that looks like a World War Two US Army Willis Jeep. It was now about a kilometre away. He ducked into the back seat of the Hilux and reached for his satellite phone. He checked he had a signal and then speed-dialled Squadron HQ. It rang twice.

  “Hi, Jock, wassup?”

  “We’ve got company. Looks like Yemeni police, just one vehicle at the moment. I’ll leave this on transmit so, hopefully, you can pick up what’s going on. And, Steve . . .”

  “Yeah, what?” Clear as a bell. Not even any satellite lag.

  “If anything happens to me . . . you can have my trainers.”

  The SHQ operator sitting in Riyadh suppressed a laugh. And then he came straight back down to earth.

  “Got it, Jock. Good luck. We’ll let Tony know, so you don’t have to.”

  Jock put the phone on the roof of the Hilux, and, after checking that the seven of his boys were all looking like busy but alert engineers, he stood and waited for the Yemeni police to arrive.

  It took a further minute or so for the old light blue and white Toyota to bounce its way to their location. They could only be coming to see them. Beyond where they were, the wadi closed in. What you might call the valley’s main track ran out just before the dried riverbed off to his right. In that respect, they couldn’t be in a worse place to escape from—by vehicle. There was only one way out on wheels, and that was back down the valley. Similarly, it was the only way in. Anyone who wanted to get to see them would be spotted well before they arrived.

  That was the point.

  “It’s the perfect anti-mother-in-law spot,” one of his team had said on arrival.

  Indeed it was.

  The old Land Cruiser eventually pulled up in a plume of dust. One of the policemen, sporting an AK-47 slung at his side and wearing a belt festooned with clip-on grenades, got out. He stood still as the dust settled, looking around, taking it all in. The drilling stopped. The scene reminded Jock of when he and his girlfriend had walked into a bar in deepest Wales—the place had gone silent and everybody turned to stare at them, nobody knowing who would make the first move. Then he imaged that someone in the depths of the pub, overcome with surprise, had missed the dart board.

  As the policeman eyed up the camp, Jock did some quick calculations. Key to a successful extraction—if that was what was required—was knowing what state the police radio was in and whether any of the three men had mobile phones on them. Jock saw two long antennae attached to each of the wings of the Toyota—so that probably meant two radios. He listened, but he didn’t hear any radio traffic. Each man would probably have a mobile. Hmmm—lots of communications.

  With two of the policemen sitting nonchalantly in the vehicle and the other man still looking around, including a long gaze at the Rayfgo logo on the Hilux, Jock decided to break the impasse.

  “Hi there. Do you speak English?” He walked a couple of paces forward, his boots leaving size-eleven prints in the layer of soft light sand that covered the hard red floor of the wadi.

  “Little. Arabic?” the man answered. He had casually brought his right hand around to the trigger guard of the AK-47. It was still hanging loosely by his side, but the intent to use it was clear. Jock, spotting the man’s action, stopped, a small cloud of dust thrown up by his change of pace.

  “No, not me. My engineer friend over there does.” Jock looked up and beckoned to one of his lads who was typing away at a laptop. It also had the Rayfgo logo on its flip lid. “Patrick. Over here, please.”

  Trooper Patrick closed his laptop and half jogged over.

  “Hello, sir. My name is Patrick.” Arabic. He offered his hand. Jock picked up the “Hello.” The rest was lost of him.

  The conversation went on for about a minute. Jock decided that he needed to know what was going on. The policeman had begun to look agitated; his language had quickened.

  Jock put his hand on the trooper’s arm to get his attention.

  Patrick turned to him as the policeman waved at his Land Cruiser and a second man got out. He was obviously of a lesser rank by the way he approached sharply, stood to attention, and then smartly bowed his head. The two policemen had a conversation that in any other language would have sounded like an argument. But, as Jock had learned after a number of tours of the Middle East, Arabs were like Italians: you never get anything done without scattergun words and plenty of gesticulations.

  Patrick looked calm. “Not surprisingly, they know nothing of us. He’s asking his pal to get on the radio and check.”

  “Tell him we have papers.”

  Jock turned and was about to move to the cab and get the papers when the policeman yelled.

  “No move!”

  Jock stopped dead. He intuitively felt seven other team members tense around him—even Steve in the small cooking tent, who, last time Jock looked, was preparing some soup for lunch; he had probably just let go of the ladle. Doubtless, those out of sight had their hands on a weapon. Or two.

  “No move. No move.” A very jumpy policeman. That’s what you get in a country plagued by conflict and ruled by the gun.

  He turned back around and, raising his hands in semisubmission, said, “Papers? Here.” He pointed behind him, over his shoulder, in the direction of the cab.

  “Wait.”

  From the old Toyota, Jock heard the two other policemen trying to contact someone, somewhere, on the radios. There were lots of high-pitched Arabic words and phrases followed by pauses, waiting for a response. Nothing. And then lots more Arabic followed by silent airways. They weren’t getting through.

  Jock softly gave instructions to Patrick. “Tell him who we are again. Tell him I have permission from the Interior Ministry in the cab. Tell him that he could use my Iridium if he wants to phone home.”

  Patrick had a further minute or so of conversation with the policeman whilst his two oppos tried desperately, but fruitlessly, to raise someone at the other end of the ether.

  “Get papers!” Spittle accompanying the order.

  Give a man a peaked hat.

  Still with his hands raised, Jock carefully turned around, took a few steps to the cab, then reached for a see-through plastic folder that had a few papers in it.

  “It’s the second one in. Show it to him.” Jock handed the folder to Patrick.

  As Patrick and the policeman noisily reviewed the paperwork, Jock had a glance around. The Yemenis wouldn’t know, but he picked out four of his team with hands on an automatic weapon. His eyes stopped briefly at the mess tent. A well-disguised, but not completely
, 5.56-mm barrel of a C8 Carbine poked out between a thin gap in canvas. It was trained at the policeman talking to Patrick. It would be over in seconds, if that’s what needed to happen.

  Throughout this, the hapless policemen in the Land Cruiser kept gabbling into the two radios, waiting for a response and getting nothing back in return.

  The senior policeman made a few extra embellishing hand movements whilst talking loudly at Patrick, almost dropping the forged Interior Ministry letter at one point. And then he literally threw it all back at Jock.

  “We go now. I check back at camp.”

  With a further burst of indecipherable, high-pitched words at the two other policemen in the Toyota, he got back into the truck and slammed the door. A few seconds later they were gone, pursued by a cloud of fine dust that rose in the still, hot air like smoke from an Australian barbecue working overtime on a bank holiday.

  SIS Headquarters, Vauxhall, London

  David was musing over the latest from Jane: Kurt Manning and Ralph Bell had turned up at a terrorist training camp in Yemen. How did that happen?

  He paced up and down his office, staring without focus out across the Thames.

  Both men had been at the centre of a conspiracy to release Ebola in a crowded London Underground station. After it was all over, he had been given categorical assurance from the CIA that Manning and Bell, classified as “rogue agents,” were out of action. There were subsequent noises from CIA HQ at Langley that Ralph Bell was dead.