Fuelling the Fire

by Roland Ladley

  Finally, and not without her stomach tightening and the feeling of rising rage making Sam clench her fists, she spent a good while looking at the two hostages’ ordeal. They were positioned ready for their deaths before the video started. Their faces were looking into the camera with their bodies side-on to the viewer. They both looked completely lifeless, escape beaten out of them—if they were alive at all. Even though they faced the camera, it was difficult to make out the soldiers’ features.

  Having said that, she recognised Corporal Ted Groves after just a little investigation; he was executed first. Groves was the less beaten of the two. How she pictured his face from the original video—then it was partially obscured, resting on Tony James’s shoulder—matched the new clip. His lifeless body appeared very similar to the way she remembered it. Without further inspection, she put Ted Groves to one side.

  Captain Tony James was a completely different story. His face was almost unrecognisable, disguised by very heavy beating. There was literally nothing on the latest video that she could easily compare with how she recalled the previous one. It was a mess.

  Poor bastard.

  Sam decided to open the original clip and, at an opportune moment, paused the screen so she had the two men, James and Groves, in the best possible focus.

  Sam looked at James’s face in the new video and then in the previous clip; she eventually saw some similarity, but it wasn’t an instant recognition. She pulled her head back as far as her chair would allow and looked again, needing only the slightest flick of the eye to move between the two screens. Then she leaned forward and stared hard at both faces, left then right, one after the other. Yes, it was the same man. Probably.

  Was probably good enough? Why am I even questioning it?

  If it wasn’t Tony James, then who was it?

  She was chewing her knuckles again. Come on, this doesn’t make any sense. It’s Tony James.

  If it’s not James . . .

  Trooper Sandy Jarman? The fourth soldier. The one who Trooper Steve Bliss had seen shot. Nobody had any idea where his body was. It had not been on public display. The assumption was that so-called IS had just tossed it away; they had Groves and James, who were alive; why would they need a third body?

  She had to rule him out.

  Did she? Did she really? Sam scrunched her face up, which she knew wasn’t a good look. This was mad. But she had to do it. She knew she had to.

  Using a simple paint programme, she drew straight lines down the lower legs of James and Groves on both video shots: previous and now. On the original video, the thighs were pretty much out of shot, so Sam could only compare lower legs. She was very careful to start at exactly the same place on both knees and finish at exactly the same place on both ankles. She then measured all four, putting them into the ratio—James:Groves. On the original shot the numbers were 41:36—Groves was shorter. On the new video, the ratio was 25:24—no discernible difference, but the perspective was slightly askew. You could lose some length in the angles.

  She checked again. Her first set of readings was correct.

  Sam then compared their lifeless arms, albeit the left arm for Groves and the right arm for James, as that’s what she could see in the latest shots. She used the same ratio technique comparing the original shot video and the execution. Groves’s arm was shorter than James’s on the first shot. On the second, they were comparable.

  Arms and legs. She had come to the same conclusion. Either James had shrunk between the first video clip and the second, or one of the men wasn’t who he was supposed to be. Or, her calculations were wrong. The latter option was possible, especially with the perspective issues on the images.

  “Frank!”

  He stood up and peered over the small partition into Sam’s space.

  “Yes? You rang?”

  “Do we have any images of Trooper Sandy Jarman? You know, the fourth soldier? I don’t remember seeing any.”

  Frank laughed. “If you don’t remember seeing any, then we don’t have one. Why would we need one?”

  Sam thought about sharing her current work with Frank, but wanted to be sure first.

  “No worries. Thanks.”

  “OK. If you need me, I’m just next door.” He made a gesture, pointing to his desk, before he sat down again.

  Sam opened up her e-mail account and typed in the address of her contact in Defence Intelligence. She really needed some photos of Sandy Jarman. And the height and weight of all three men. And she needed them now.

  Sam pressed “Send.”

  She looked back at the recent video clip. The more she looked at it, the more she thought that whilst one of the men was definitely Ted Groves, she wouldn’t bet a month’s wages that the second was Tony James.

  Which asked so many questions.

  JIC, Whitehall, London

  “Thanks everyone. The only outstanding question is, why was Op Glasshouse compromised?”

  That was Jon Trent the chairman. Jane had studied the list of attendees and their photos before she had arrived. He was a career civil servant, his previous post was Second Permanent Under-Secretary in the MoD. Intelligence wasn’t necessarily his area of expertise, but he had a wealth of contacts and huge experience in the upper echelons of the civil service and the MoD. His job wasn’t to delve into the details—he corralled and balanced opinion, sorted disputes, and then made decisions. From what Jane had seen so far, he looked to be very good at it.

  “Thoughts? Anyone?”

  “Jane. These two Westerners? David attached some import, but not a great deal, to their existence. What’s your view?”

  That was Brigadier Buckle, DSO, CBE, MC, director of Special Forces and all-around action man. Jane had read about him; he was the most interesting of the bunch. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for leading his SF squadron during a torrid, but highly successful, tour of Afghanistan at the height of the fighting in Helmand. He was the youngest recipient of the DSO since the Second World War.

  Jane gathered her thoughts.

  Here goes.

  “Our view is that the pair are almost certainly ‘guns for hire.’ Both have history, and, whilst, on the face of it, it does seem difficult to believe, Daesh were probably paying for their services. They may have been central to the initial capture of the SRR soldiers, say, helping with tactics and maybe even directing the assault. It is unclear whether the pair stayed at the camp overnight. So they might not have been on the ground for the capture.” She had to be a bit careful in case she contradicted anything David may have told them.

  She continued fluently.

  “With the intelligence we have, we think it’s extremely unlikely that they warned Ali Abdullah Sahef about the SF rescue attempt. As I understand it, the Op Boxes were drawn wide enough for neither the Americans nor the French to really have any idea where we intended to operate. So any leak is unlikely to have come from our allies. So, how would Manning or Bell know? It would mean that they had gotten the information from a source close to here.” She opened her hands to signify that she meant the JIC members, or their teams.

  She let that hang.

  Nobody seemed to want to press for more.

  “What do you mean ‘have history’?” This time, from Jon Trent.

  “We came across them three years ago in West Africa: the Ebola incident. They were kicking around Liberia and Sierra Leone. They had links with the CIA,”—no tales out of school there—“and, although it’s never been proven, they were probably involved with the secret US biological clinic in Tubmanburg.”

  “So what are they doing in Yemen now?” Jon Trent pressed.

  That’s a good question, Mr. Chairman.

  “As I said, they are guns for hire. Daesh need advice on everything, from tactics to weaponry. If the price is right, then we guess these two are willing to sacrifice their souls.”

  This is going OK, I think?

  “So, SIS’s view is that the Saudis probably spooked the compound?” A fo
llow-up from Alasdair Buckle.

  “I think so. Please correct me if I’m wrong, Melvin.” Jane leaned forward and looked down the table to Melvin Hoare, the director of GCHQ. “But we’ve now confirmed that there was SMS traffic at about the time of the Saudi assault on targets Blue 1 and Blue 2. And we now believe one of the recipients of the SMS was in, or close to, the IS safe house in Sana’a.”

  Melvin nodded at Jane.

  “That’s correct. We can’t say for certain that the SMS was received by a mobile actually in the safe house, but we can be accurate to, say, fifty metres. That’s as good as we can get.”

  “But not the compound in Hajjah? The text was sent to the Sana’a safe house, not the compound? It was the compound that was spooked.” Jon Trent pressing again.

  Jane stepped in.

  “Looking at the keyhole satellite images, we can confirm that both locations have landlines. The safe house could have phoned the compound—like we used to before we all had mobiles.” Jane unnecessarily lifted her own off the table to make a point.

  “Are we saying we don’t have the landlines bugged?” Brigadier Alasdair was showing signs of impatience.

  Melvin took back control. “We didn’t have the time or resources to make that happen. Although”—he looked casually at his watch—“we should have a tap on the safe house by close of play this evening.”

  Jane helped. “SIS couldn’t get a reliable man on the ground to get eyes on the compound in Hajjah in time for the assault. So the chances of placing a reliable tap were nil.”

  The room went quiet. Jane thought they’d answered the chairman’s question. They’d taken a risk on assaulting the right location—the SRR soldiers had been in the compound at some point. SIS had done a good job there. They just missed the window by a few hours. The likely reason was Daesh got spooked. Probably by the early Saudi attack. But they might never know. These things happen. End of.

  “OK. Anything else?” Jon Trent again.

  Everybody, including Jane, shook their heads.

  “Let’s call it a day.”

  As they all got up to leave, Brigadier Alasdair came over to where Jane was standing.

  “Well done today. It isn’t easy coming into this forum even when, like me, you’ve been around the block a couple of times. But, for a young newbie, it must be daunting. I thought you held yourself together really well. David will be pleased when he finds out.”

  Poor David. Jane hadn’t thought about him all day.

  She cleared her thoughts. Work to be done.

  “Thanks, Brigadier. Maybe I’m older than I look.” She smiled at the senior officer and feigned a slight wink.

  He raised one eyebrow and snorted a laugh.

  “Touché.”

  On reflection, Jane thought it was good of him to come over and say something. But would he have done the same if she had been a man? She hoped so.

  SIS Headquarters, Vauxhall, London

  Sam knocked on Jane’s door. She’d let her get back from the JIC, but only long enough for her to get to her desk. She was still dressed for the inclement weather. It wasn’t quite winter, but it certainly wasn’t an Indian summer.

  “Come in, Sam.” Jane could see who it was. Most of the partition walls in the building were glass, as was Jane’s door.

  Jane was unpacking her rucksack and sorting things out on her desk. She’d managed to take off her coat, but still wore a striped scarf.

  Which university? Something Sam didn’t know. She’d find out.

  “Hi Jane. How was the JIC?”

  Jane stopped what she was doing, looked up at Sam, and smiled.

  “Good. The female Christian returns unharmed from the Colosseum, where all the lions are alpha males. Sorry, that was a poor analogy. I survived.”

  “Great.” Sam wanted to press on. She bobbed a little from foot to foot, not concealing her impatience well.

  “Have you officially closed Glasshouse?”

  “Yes. That was the point of the JIC, Sam. You knew that—a post-Op debrief.”

  “Don’t.” Sam had managed to keep herself still long enough so that she didn’t appear like an excited child.

  Jane stopped unpacking her rucksack mid-file.

  “What?” There was confusion in Jane’s voice. No, it was more like frustration than confusion.

  “Don’t. Not yet. Come with me. I’ve got something to show you.” Sam directed Jane with a flick of her head. She didn’t wait for her boss to acknowledge her instruction and set off down the corridor. She assumed Jane would tag along.

  Sam was back at her desk in no time; Jane took a few seconds longer. It had obviously been a long day. She came in, still wearing the scarf. It hung from her neck like an oversized woollen tie.

  “OK, Sam, what is it?” It was definitely frustration now—not confusion.

  “Trust me. Look, I’ve prepared a short presentation.” She nodded to her main screen, her hands hovering over her keyboard.

  Jane sighed. Sam didn’t care; she ploughed on.

  She and Jane, with Frank peering over the partition—he’d wholeheartedly agreed with Sam’s prognosis about an hour earlier—looked over a series of slides that Sam had put together earlier in the afternoon. In essence, they told the story of different-size limbs. Working with a number of images, some measured lines, and her ratio system, Sam showed that Captain Tony James was taller than the second man executed in the Daesh video. Using the information she’d got from Hereford earlier in the day, Sam also demonstrated that the second man was likely to be Jarman—the soldier killed at the start of the firefight. And whose dead body everyone had ignored, as they had been too busy searching for two live people.

  Other than the fact that Jarman was shorter than James, what had given Sam real confidence was that, having accessed an up-to-date photo of Sandy Jarman, the badly beaten second executed man looked much more likely to be Jarman than James.

  “And, look, as I build the stills from the execution of the second man.”

  Sam clicked away, moving the image forward shot by shot. It would have been heartbreaking if you were watching it for the first time. But now, with the possibility that James might still be alive, the three of them were far too engrossed with the detail to be sickened by the event.

  Jane stared open-mouthed at the screen, trying to fathom what Sam was showing them with the latest slides.

  “Yes, Sam. I see that. What’s your point?’

  “No blood.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Look. In the first execution”—Sam replayed the images—“even though we know Corporal Groves is close to death, when his head leaves the body, there is an escape of blood. Here.”

  As gruesome as it was, there was definitely some blood.

  Sam clicked back to the exact point where the head of the second man left his body.

  “Here, look.” She was pointing with her finger. “There’s no blood. The second man has been dead for some time. Now, that could still be Captain Tony James. But, he would have had to have died as a result of his injuries, or have been murdered pretty soon after the initial video. That’s unlikely, don’t you think? However, we all believe that Jarman was probably dead on the day of the assault. It’s Jarman, not James.”

  Sam had been leaning forward, manipulating the screen for the duration of the presentation. Now, she pushed back on her chair, looking up at Jane.

  “Tony James is alive. Or certainly not executed here.”

  She felt some real satisfaction at having pieced this together. First, for identifying the anomaly of the size of the limbs. But, much more importantly, she had discovered it was likely that one of the SRR soldiers might still be alive.

  Jane stood completely still. She displayed no emotion at all. It was as if she had been struck by some mystery force field that held her motionless. She closed her eyes for a split second—that seemed to break the strength of the thing that was holding her.

  “Frank, what do you think?”

/>   “Sam’s right, Jane. The man in the shot isn’t James. It’s somebody else and likely to be Sandy Jarman.”

  Jane raised her hand to her forehead. She slowly rubbed it.

  Sam watched. Time passed.

  “Wow. Right. OK. Fabulous work, Sam.” She looked at her watch. Sam knew it was about five thirty. “I’ll get the team together, but first I’d better go and have a chat with the chief. Sam, send me the presentation, and, if I get summoned, be prepared to brief him with me. OK?”

  “Sure thing, Jane. Eh, before you go”—Sam gently touched Jane’s arm, enough to stop her from moving—“I need to ask you something. Something private.”

  Jane hesitated.

  Sam was on her feet now. She’d just stopped Jane, but was now ushering her out of the analysts’ office. Jane took Sam’s lead and walked ahead, absently commenting, “Come to my office.”

  In Jane’s office, Sam paused and waited in front of her desk while Jane eventually managed to remove her scarf. It lay messily on her desk. Her hair looked ruffled. Her eyes tired. Sam wasn’t sure why the briefing had hit her boss so hard. She knew that Jane had left the office very late the previous night, and she was in early this morning. And the JIC was a big task for anyone—it’s the last thing Sam would have wanted to do.

  She guessed that it all took its toll. And the Tony James discovery, whilst good news across the board, would mean a whole new stack of work for Jane. She was already studying a new file that she’d taken off the top of her in-tray, a pile that looked like it might be about to topple over.

  Jane spoke as she read the paper in her hand.

  “That’s really good work, Sam. I don’t think anyone else would have paid that much attention to the two men. I would have assumed that it was James and Groves. Actually, I would have struggled to watch the video at all for a second time.” She stopped reading.