Fuelling the Fire

by Roland Ladley

  But it is the same weapon. Therefore—it was the same man. Tick.

  This assumed that the same man kept the same weapon. Sam was sure that would be the case. In any army, that’s what you did. You loved your rifle, cleaned it, oiled it, and zeroed it, so it shot things you were aiming at and not something else. And you often slept with it. Why? Because when the balloon went up, you were asking it to save your life and the lives of those around you. You never let it go. It was yours.

  If she were right, then the man in the SRR video was the same man opening the door at the Daesh safe house in Sana’a and again in the propaganda video shot earlier in the year. And if that were so, then she could only recommend two of the three original Yemeni locations where the SRR might be being held hostage: the Daesh safe house in Sana’a or Sahef’s headquarters at Hajjah, one of the remotest villages in Yemen. She had put all of that in her report.

  Sam had also picked up one other interesting thing. The Daesh flag in the video, a cartoonlike black sheet with a white blob at its centre that framed words in Arabic—“There is no god, but God. Mohammed is the messenger of God”—had a small rip on its bottom-right corner. She’d looked for other identifying marks and found none. Sam knew where all the clips and photos showing Daesh flags—or, as she remembered, “Black Banners”—were on the cloud, both in Yemen and Saudi. Sitting in Bertie, she found twenty-seven. Sam studied all of them to see if she could find a match. Some photos were grainy and hopeless, but for the majority she could see that the flags were different from the one in the SRR clip. The videos were more difficult because she had to pause the clip at exactly the right time, often reducing clarity. But she did her best. From what she could tell, none of them seemed to match the flag in the SRR video. A flag she would definitely remember.

  Disappointed, Sam pushed the tablet to one side, picked up her secure phone to check if she had any e-mails, and was surprised, and delighted—it made her stomach lurch—that something was back from Interpol.

  She was so excited that she almost opened the e-mail straight away. But, she needed a pee, and, with the same intensity, she desperately wanted a cup of tea. The e-mail would wait for a minute or two.

  Sam opened Bertie’s sliding door and hopped out into the ambient light of the media village. Just down the way, the thoughtful French had put up some Portaloos. They were hardly porcelain, but they were slightly better for her dignity than squatting over the tiny Porta Potti that she carried around in her van. Needs must.

  Back in Bertie, feeling infinitely more comfortable, she put the kettle on one of the two gas rings and lit the burner.

  Unable to restrain her excitement—actually it was now more nerves than excitement—she opened the single new e-mail. It had been remotely generated by an Interpol computer. It gave details of Franz the Austrian’s hire car information.

  Before she’d left for the Continent, Jane had afforded her three levels of remote security, which granted her access to the cloud and all its images. It also enabled her to read the secret reports distributed among the Op Glasshouse team. What Sam didn’t know, until she checked, was that her clearance also allowed her to interrogate Interpol data.

  It had taken her half an hour, but once she had it all sussed, she was able to find the portal for real-time hire car information from across Europe. Earlier in the afternoon she had quickly typed in the registration of the Europcar Golf and sent off the request.

  The return e-mail gave the hirer’s name as Wolfgang Neuenburg. OK, so not Franz, but I was close. Mr. Neuenburg lived in Berlin. Sam Googled the address, but it didn’t exist. That closed that lead. Which was odd.

  Who are you, Mr. Mysterious Neuenburg? And why are you hiding your address?

  The Interpol e-mail did give his Visa card details. Sam used these details and interrogated the system further. It came straight back with an additional set of data—and a different address. One that did exist. Not in Berlin, but in Dresden.

  So it wasn’t so easy to cover your tracks, eh, Mr. Not Quite So Mysterious Neuenburg?

  The kettle was boiling angrily. Sam switched off the gas and, from where she was sitting, poured the scalding hot water into a mug—which bore the caption “I’d rather be in my Camper.” The fruit-infusion tea bag rose to the surface and bobbed about like a yellow plastic duck in a bath. She’d let it cool for a while.

  Whilst she waited, she gently scratched her chin. Should she, or shouldn’t she? Bugger it, I will.

  Sam opened a new e-mail and, looking at a list she had accessed earlier—something else she had managed to unearth with her newfound security clearance—typed in the address of a senior clerk at the German equivalent of MI5, the BfV.

  She wrote:

  Dear Herr Gruber,

  I am looking into an international drugs cartel based in the UK, with suppliers working out of Afghanistan. We are studying a number of leads, most of which we think are irrelevant. In order to remove a German national from our enquiries, I wonder, would you let us know if Dresden-based Wolfgang Neuenburg has a criminal record, or if there is any BfV interest in him?

  Thank you for your time.

  Sam Green. Analyst, SIS/MI6.

  She might well be sacked for penning that e-mail. Whatever, she was expecting a negative outcome to a disciplinary enquiry regarding her beating the living daylights out of a toilet door, as well as her quack confirming her psychological unsuitability for continuing to work at SIS. So, what have I got to lose?

  Sam sipped her tea and checked her watch. It was eleven thirty. Time for bed. She was about to close everything down when she was hit by a “doh!” moment. She pulled her tablet back toward her and opened Google. She typed in Wolfgang Neuenburg. The response was overwhelming.

  Bugger. Bugger, bugger.

  Her friend Wolfgang, now a potential SIS international drug baron, had pages and pages of entries, entries backed up by photos that she instantly recognised. There was only one Count Wolfgang of Neuenburg. The Second. German royalty with more Google pages than a UK soap star. And she had stared into his soul, here in the Abondance valley.

  Sam had no idea what the infatuation was. She knew it had nothing to do with her current job—nor was it helping. In any way. But, from the pit of her stomach, she knew she had to get more details on this guy. David had given her four days to convalesce. She’d taken one. Uncle Pete would want her to find out a little more about this Austrian Franz—who had turned out to be a German count. An enigmatic man who dressed well, but hid his address from the authorities. Yes, she needed to know more.

  Sam changed into her nightdress, pulled down the rock ‘n’ roll bed, and laid out her maggot and a pillow. She’d spend no more than half an hour scrolling through the hundreds of entries for Count Wolfgang.

  Tomorrow she’d drive to Dresden to continue her rehabilitation.

  Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), Whitehall, London

  The JIC had finished deliberations about how to deal with the media fallout from the Daesh video. The Cabinet Office would lead and continue to issue statements along the lines of: “We cannot discuss security matters that have the potential of putting the lives of the soldiers concerned at greater risk. We and our allies are doing all we can to ensure the safe return of Captain James and Corporal Groves, and the body of the late Trooper Jarman.”

  They had also agreed there should be some leaking of early “fictitious” discussions at staff level, held between the UK, the United States, and Russia, about putting a hold on bombing Syrian territory. They’d get the Moscow embassy to release news of these imaginary discussions to a friendly member of the press that evening. The leak would quickly escalate and cross borders. To which the response from the UK would be “no comment.” The hope was that Daesh chiefs would pick the details up on CNN or Al Jazeera and assume that the Brits were doing what they could to meet their demands. It might steal them an extra day or so. Even if it got under the skin of both the Americans and the Russians.

  “So, do
we know where the two soldiers are?” Jon Trent, a senior civil servant and chairman of the JIC, took the meeting forward.

  David looked across at Lieutenant General Jack Downs, the director of Defence Intelligence (DI). He had agreed to lead on giving the JIC the Sitrep.

  “We currently have five possible locations,” he looked left to a screen that showed a map of the Saudi peninsula. “The two marked in blue are within the geographical borders of Saudi Arabia. The other three, marked in red, are in Yemen. Two of the red targets are in the capital Sana’a, and a third is up-country in the relatively inaccessible village named Hajjah. We’ve agreed these targets with MI6, sorry, SIS.” To which David nodded, both agreeing the targets and acknowledging his firm’s proper title: Secret Intelligence Service. Jack was pleasantly old school. He’d never learn.

  “But we’re not certain that any of these locations hold the soldiers?”

  David stepped in.

  “No, sir, we’re not. Current satellite imaging discounts the two Saudi locations, pretty much. Target Red Three”—David was using his laser pointer to highlight the Daesh’s deputy headquarters in Hajjah—“Has a white pickup in its compound. One of our analysts believes—thank goodness for Sam Green; she’d turned that round from the satellite photographs in an hour, first thing this morning—it is the same white pickup that was photographed at the Yemeni training camp by Captain James. There doesn’t appear to be a great deal of activity going on in the compound.” The screen threw up a satellite overhead of the Hajjah compound. David circled the buildings with his pointer. “But Daesh will know that we have satellites capable of watching them in near real time. They might be keeping a low profile there.’

  “And is there any SIGINT coming from the compound?” The question was directed at Melvin Hoare, the senior GCHQ rep on the JIC.

  “No sir, nothing unusual from any of the five locations. Although, it is fair to say, we are at the edge of our capabilities this far south without deploying a team on the ground. US teams are helping, but they have their hands full on the Iraqi affair.” Melvin looked down the table at David, who nodded.

  “And what about the other two locations in Yemen?”

  David led again. “We are discounting Target Red Four, although we do have a local agent keeping an eye on its front door—he reports no activity. Target Red Five is interesting.” The map was back on the screen and David’s laser pointer was marking the possible Daesh safe house in Sana’a.

  “There is a link at this location to at least one member of Ali Abdullah Sahef’s staff—Sahef is Daesh’s deputy in Yemen. We believe the terrorist dressed in black in the SRR video clip has been seen here in the last three weeks. Again, we have a local keeping an eye on the place, but with nothing significant to report.”

  He looked across at Brigadier Alasdair Buckle, director of Special Forces. It would be his turn next. David wasn’t expecting an easy ride.

  The chairman led. “So, in summary, we have four locations of interest, two in Saudi and two in Yemen. The rural location seems the most likely, as we have tracked a vehicle from the original training camp to the compound. The second, in Sana’a, is of interest, but not significantly so.” He stopped and looked up at the screen. “Alasdair, what do we do now?”

  Brigadier Alasdair straightened up. David thought he looked grumpier than usual.

  “The thing is, we have very little solid intelligence on which to launch a rescue. We have no significant SIGINT, and we don’t have eyes on the Hajjah, the most likely hostage location. So no HUMINT. Launching without corroboration is, at best, a waste of time; at worst, if we have chosen the wrong location, it will be all over for the two SRR boys.”

  “Point taken, Alasdair. David, any chance of anything else coming in the next twenty-four hours?”

  David gently rocked his head from side to side and scrunched his face; it was all very imponderable. He and Alasdair had already rehearsed the arguments without agreement before the meeting. He took a deep breath.

  “I take Alasdair’s point. But, unless we’re extraordinarily lucky in the next twenty-four hours, we are unlikely to get any further leads. We have eyes on Target Red Five in Sana’a, and we are making best efforts to get eyes on Red Three up-country. But if our man gets too close in Hajjah, the compound could be spooked. So we need to be careful.”

  He paused, just long enough for that to sink in. “The soldiers will be executed in less than four days; Corporal Groves may be dead from his injuries already. Time is not on our side. I am surprised and indebted to my staff that we have any targets at all this early on. Yemen, in its current state, is a hide-and-seek paradise. The soldiers could be in any one of a thousand undiscoverable locations.”

  David closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. He needed to make a point. “SF will need at least twenty-four hours to prepare for an assault. If we agree to assault Target Red Three here, now, SF will not be ready until tomorrow night. That is less than two days before the planned execution of the soldiers. But Groves doesn’t have two days, if he has any time at all.”

  He hoped his tiredness didn’t show. “We need to act with what we have.”

  “Alasdair?” The chairman was looking for an SF counterresponse.

  “We have a squadron on standby at RAF Akrotiri, in Cyprus. They have the images of the Hajjah compound and will have a reasonably effective, life-size model built before dusk this evening. Unless I stop them, they will be rehearsing a night assault tonight. And, with the SF Hercules transporter on the tarmac at Akrotiri, the squadron will be operationally ready for an assault tomorrow night. We would plan H-Hour for two thirty, local, the following morning.”

  David added, “And we hope to have a friendly national in Hajjah by tomorrow lunchtime. And, one of our people will be overlooking Target Red Five in Sana’a to coincide with the assault. Our person will gauge any reaction, should there be any.”

  “And the Saudis?”

  General Jack half raised his hand to speak. Everyone looked at him.

  “We have spoken to the DA in Riyadh. Apparently, the Saudi SF are chomping at the bit to have a go at the blue targets. We have liaison officers in place to assist, but, should you, sorry . . . should the PM give the go-ahead, the aim would be for all attacks to be simultaneous.”

  The chairman was about to speak again, but Jack hadn’t finished.

  “We need to be clear that the Saudis will do an extremely effective job. That is, they will raze both locations.”

  “Even if we don’t think they’re viable targets?” The chairman acknowledged the obvious humanitarian concern that everyone felt.

  General Jack was clearly expecting the question. “The Saudis want to show us and the world what they can do. When our DA shared the targets, they apparently weren’t surprised. I think they were after even the slightest bit of intelligence to have a go.”

  The chairman nodded.

  “OK.” He closed the flap on his tablet. “David, Jack, and Alasdair—I’m guessing you’ll all be at COBR this afternoon?”

  David and the other two nodded.

  “Then that’s what we’ll tell the PM we should do. If any new intelligence comes up in the meantime, if there is just the slightest reason why we shouldn’t go ahead with the assault, then let’s share it as soon as possible.”

  The committee members all murmured acknowledgement and started to gather together their files, laptops, and tablets.

  City Centre, Dresden, Germany

  Sam pulled Bertie over, around the corner from Pillnitzer Strasse. She made sure that no one would park in front of her by stopping just short of a small junction—should she need to make a quick getaway. Using her Satnav, she planned a route out of Dresden, northwest toward Berlin. She had an escape route.

  She waited for a while, aimlessly tapping her fingers on the steering wheel in time to a 1970s tune that was running about in her head.

  What was she playing at? She had a real job. A key job that required her fullest
attention. Yes, she had not missed a thing. Until some more images came in, there was little to add to the report she’d sent to the Op Glasshouse team this morning. The crucial find for her had been the white pickup, the one noted from the original series of photos of the terrorist training camp. She’d discovered the same pickup in the compound at Hajjah, whilst looking over the latest keyhole satellite photos provided by the United States.

  In the terrorist camp she had only been able to see the front end of the cab, a tyre, some of the right wing, and a bumper. The rest was hidden behind a tent. It was a 1990s white Nissan D21 pickup. She had only got a side view from Captain James’s camera angle, but she had identified the make of tyre and spotted a small dent on the wing. It was in remarkably good nick considering its age. The satellite image was taken from above, so she had no way of matching the tyres or the dent. But, and it was a huge but, both images had one feature that could only be original to the same vehicle. They both had a chrome wing mirror on the forward corner of the front right wing. She could see it in both images.

  She checked on Nissan’s own website, under the “Manufacturer’s History” tab. It had confirmed that all D21s were fitted with plastic wing mirrors attached to the front doors—as you’d expect any relatively modern vehicle to have. The chrome mirror must have been retrofitted for some obscure reason. It made matching the pickup dead easy.

  Having looked over all of the images that had come in overnight and found nothing else significant, she’d rushed through her findings to the team. It wasn’t her job to make recommendations—she just reported what she saw.