by Geoff Wolak
‘I’ll deal with them, looks like that decision was taken by a captain.’
‘A very bad precedent, sir, leaving the battlefield without mentioning it to anyone. In most armies that would be a court martial and hanging offence!’
‘Yes, true. I’ll get to the bottom of it.’
We set down at the back of Horseguards, the Colonel to be on foot with an escort for his short walk, but the streets were quiet anyhow. I was escorted to the back of No.10 and in, the Director and David waiting for me in a side room, shown straight in to the PM in a cabinet meeting room, but the PM had no aides with him today.
Sat, he took a moment to regard me. ‘We had a concern about the President of Sierra Leone, a few rumours, and your information confirms our worst fears. The UK taxpayer will be out of pocket, our soldiers in harm’s way, our peacekeeping operation in Liberia withdrawn.
‘I appreciate that this comes close on the heels of our chat about you stretching the law, but if you have a solution that somehow ... discredits our friend, then we’d all be grateful.’
I began, ‘There is very little risk for me here, Prime Minister, this job would not have witnesses, unlike in France. And, we can kill two birds with one stone.
‘The man bribing the President of Sierra Leone has a new oil plant about to go online in Niger, but suffers bomb attacks at the hands of disgruntled local groups. He’s stretched, and if his plant suffered more ... he would not have much cash left to bribe anyone.
‘But, that squeeze could take weeks, or a month or two, and perhaps we need to move faster.’ I glanced at the Director. ‘If we knew who he owed money too, perhaps some pressure could be brought to bear quicker.’
‘A good idea,’ she agreed, David taking notes. ‘We can check with friendly banks, and maybe get lucky. But I suspect that he borrows from shady figures.’
‘Funnily enough, I know some shady figures, so I’ll make some calls,’ I told her. I faced the PM. ‘I know what our objectives are, Prime Minister, and how not to be caught, so ... leave it with us, and this meeting never took place.’
‘Keep me informed of any developments or problems that may affect our troops down there.’
‘I will do, sir.’ I stood, and he shook my hand.
Out the back, we boarded a minivan with tinted windows and set off with an escort, nothing said for the short trip over the bridge, soon in the elevator and going up, coats off in the Director’s office.
I took out my phone as tea was ordered. ‘Step One.’ I called Monrovia as I peered out at the snow.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s Papa Victor.’
‘Ah, how are you?’
‘Busy, not least with your neighbour in Sierra Leone.’
‘There is a problem with him?’
‘He has taken money to sell oil concessions, from several parties at the same time, and plans on flying off to Nigeria with the money,’ I lied.
‘Ah, I had heard a rumour or two, but nothing solid.’
‘He’s taken money from the Nigerian, Izillien.’
‘Ah, him. His name was mentioned, but they say he is short of cash.’
‘Not short of false promises, so it seems.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Do you think you could contact your neighbour, arrange a meeting inside Liberia, talk of you wanting joint oil projects and concessions.’
‘I had a visit from one of his ministers, who I doubt speaks for anyone but himself, and this man likes his vices and he likes money. He came to talk of mines and joint ventures, but I doubted his sincerity since he talked about after the British left.’
‘Contact that man, arrange a meeting with your neighbour very soon, mention large sums of money.’
‘And when he comes?’
‘Accidents happen.’
‘They do, yes. And afterwards?’
‘The British and French stay, they spend money, Tomsk spends money, business as usual.’
‘Business as usual is desirable, yes. I don’t want the north of my country lawless again. I will make a call today.’
‘Get back to me.’
‘I will do, yes.’
‘Papa Victor out.’ I turned to face them as they observed me. ‘The dictator in Monrovia is now very keen to see that his neighbour ... meets with an accident. They’ll meet soon, some of the Sierra Leone ministers already sounding him out on dodgy deals and suggesting that the British will leave.’
‘Snakes ... come to mind,’ David put in. He shook his head. ‘How does the world produce such people?’
I added, ‘Step two will be that plant in Niger suffering a few mishaps, a small select team, a few days. Step three will be finding Izillien.’ I raised a finger, and called Gorskov.
‘Da!’
‘It’s Petrov.’
‘And yet I figured you owed me, and I would call you with a favour...’
‘You can do, there is no time limit. Listen, I was busy in Senegal recently, a few bombs set off to stop a coup attempt -’
‘That was you? You know who funded that..?’
‘Izillien.’
‘Yes, so he will not be pleased with you.’
‘And your relationship with him?’
‘There is no relationship, but I’d like to see him in the ground.’
‘Why?’
‘He has a nightclub, I went once, and just to show off he had me thrown out and worked over. What made it even worse was that he did not even ask who I was.’
‘They say that he is financially stretched...’
‘I heard that also.’
‘And you’d be happy if I put a bullet between his eyes.’
‘I would, yes.’
‘What is the name of his club?’ I wrote it down on the Director’s desk, and the address.
‘They say he lives above it sometimes, drugs and hookers. Tall man, like two metre ten, very black skin.’
‘If you can, make delicate enquiries, you may find out when he’ll be in a certain place at a given time.’
‘Be a pleasure. I’ll call you in a few days. Oh, why does Tomsk want him dead?’
‘Izillien is screwing around in Liberia, trying to fuck over Mr Tomsk’s oil platform.’
‘Ah, yes.’
Phone away, I pocketed the address as they waited. I finally accepted the tea and sat. ‘Gorskov hates Izillien. I got the man’s nightclub, but should get more about his movements. And he confirms that Izillien is financially stretched. Question is ... if the President of Sierra Leone crashes his car, do we still want Izillien?’
The Director sipped her tea. ‘He is a criminal, and the file suggests he has played at terrorist to cause problems for his competitors, so we’d like him out of the way, yes. Behind bars would be best, but I suspect that we’d be short on evidence, and that we’d not get close enough to arrest him.’
‘The Nigerians not about to move on him?’ I nudged.
‘Hardly, they all take money.’
‘In the short term, the idiot in Monrovia may assist, or I visit that plant in Niger. If the damage is extensive, and publicized, Izillien’s debtors will foreclose.’
‘Hitting that plant is a great risk,’ David floated.
‘It’s a bunch of metal valves, people all scared off first, no casualties, some burnt twisted metal afterwards – a clean-up bill, locals blamed. And by its very nature it’s isolated. Can you find out where it is?’
David made a note. ‘Can’t be too many big projects like that.’
‘We need to go back into Niger on the pretext of hostage rescue, and Niger is a hotbed of kidnapping so not a problem. Make up a story, issue the orders, get us flights, we go back to that army base we were at before, and ... soon.
‘I’ll need explosives, which are not normally needed on hostage rescue, not in the quantities I want, so label up a box wrongly to come with us, plus half hour fuses and phone detonators. Apparently, an oil refinery is vulnerable at one key point, Mutch was telling me. Open just one v
alve, spark, and that’s it.’
‘Be guarded,’ David noted.
‘Yes, but I have some experience of getting in unseen.’
He shot me a look.
The Director coolly noted, ‘So it can all be done, and quickly, and we don’t lose Sierra Leone and Liberia, and Izillien stops rampaging across west Africa. And the risks?’
‘My men being spotted at the refinery, but they’ll have face masks on, and we won’t leave dead men behind. If we can take on six hundred soldiers, we can take a few sleepy old guards.’ I stood. ‘Get me a ride back to GL4, and a flight to Niger, alert them we’re coming.’
She stood. ‘You don’t have reservations about this ... given your recent concerns.’
‘As I said before, it’s not the work that bothers me, it’s sitting and answering questions about it that bothers me.’
‘We’re already muddying the waters, and the French will cooperate as far as the Paris job goes.’
I smiled. ‘I told the CIA to explain Petrov as being an Israeli.’
‘Israeli?’ David repeated, wide-eyed. He faced the Director. ‘Senate hearing would be in a tizzy about what to do.’
‘And the Israelis would never care,’ she noted, hiding a grin. She stood straight, facing me squarely. ‘There are some that would like Petrov to retire and disappear, but this current episode is proof that we need him out there, ear to the ground – regardless of what the JIC might think.’
About to leave, I spun around. ‘Oh, ask the French if I can borrow one of their men, a Foreign Legion sergeant, black fella by the name of Sambo.’
‘Sambo?’ they queried.
I smiled. ‘Sambonville, they call him Sambo. Have him meet us in Niger.’
‘If you need a black face, what about that lady, Sandra?’ David asked.
‘Yes, her as well, we need black faces seen at the refinery.’
Before I flew back I called O’Leary. ‘Get everyone back if they’re not there, desert browns, emergency deployment, probably in the morning. Off to Niger. Have the Intel team look at hostages in Niger, but I have a line on some bad boys.’
I landed back outside the hangars, a lonely flight aboard the Regimental Agusta helicopter – but a very comfy one, the snow here having been trodden down to mulch by recent activity. I waved the pilots off and ducked through the man-sized doors, finding it warm – and a hive of activity, men in the browns, a few in civvy clothes still, crates open on the rubber mats, shouts exchanged and echoing a little.
I closed in on Robby. ‘How many warm bodies you got?’
‘Four.’
‘It’ll do, we don’t need many men on this job.’ I turned my head. ‘Dicky! How many men you got?’
‘Me and Mouri.’
‘It’ll do, we don’t need a big team. And if there are lots of bad boys we send Sergeant Crab at them.’ The men laughed loudly at Crab. ‘Call him Mad Dog Crab from now on.’
Moran said, ‘Not Butch and Sundance, but Crab and Duffy.’
‘How about Drab and Scruffy,’ Rocko suggested, the lads laughing.
‘Fuck off,’ Crab told him, no doubt enjoying the attention. ‘I was protecting the nurses, as ordered.’
‘Nurses were six hundred yards behind you,’ Moran pointed out. ‘Behind a concrete wall.’
I ran up the metal steps and into the Intel team. I found Mutch, and led him out, our huge fat oil man wondering what I wanted. I closed the door in the training room. ‘You know all about oil rigs and oil refineries.’
‘Should do, spent twenty years around them.’
I took a moment. ‘I have a job, and ... it would benefit from someone taking a sneak peak around an oil refinery without raising suspicion.’
He made a face as he considered that. ‘I could say I work for Globaltech down in Bournemouth, they’d get me a fake ID no problem.’
‘What pretext would you use to get in?’
‘Risk assessment, quite normal. Where is it?’
‘If you’re on this job you need to appreciate that it’s secret, and that if found out you get a prison term from the authorities back here.’
‘Ah. Well ... how’ll they find out, and I’m not doing anything wrong?’
‘Others ... will be breaking a few laws, and you’ll be an accessory to murder. And if you blabbed about it back here a shallow grave awaits you.’
‘I’ve done things for Mi6 before, that’s why I’m here. I might be a big fat lump, but I’m good at what I do,’ he proudly stated. ‘No blabbing.’
‘Are you up to it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Get to Bournemouth – somehow – get that ID, warn them to report you working for them, then have them pay for your return flight to Niger, plus hotels – modest hotels – and tell them they get cash from Mi6 afterwards. Get down there as soon as you can, wait my call, or call Tinker here, no one else – not Major Sanderson. Say you have a family emergency and you’ve cleared it with me and the Major.’
‘And the reason we’re interested in this place?’
‘The man funding it was behind the coup attempt in Liberia, and bomb attacks on our soldiers. He’s now working hard at trying to bribe the Sierra Leone Government to kick us out.’
‘What a little shit. Nigerian?’
I nodded.
‘I might just leave a valve open.’
‘Don’t get caught,’ I warned.
With Mutch heading out, I called David. ‘I need phone detonators, amateur ones.’
‘I’ll send the right man to Niger, meet you there.’
‘Do you have small ones as well?’
‘Yes, but they’d not look like they came from the local gang.’
‘I want some anyway, just a few.’
‘Leave it with me.’
‘And my oil guy Mutch has been deputised as secret agent, he’s off to Niger whilst posing as a man from that company in Bournemouth.’
‘They send people to Niger all the time, so he’ll blend in, and – looking the way he does – no one will suspect him of being an agent.’
I laughed. ‘He is the perfect spy.’
‘Sandra will be on her way down to you, hope she gets there in this weather, but she’s in a police Land Rover – so fingers crossed. And we requested Sambonville.’
‘Good.’
In with the Intel team, I gathered them, three of the old Intel team now here. ‘OK, this next job is Niger, hostages and bad boys, so concentrate on just Niger. Intel has a lead on a bunch of bad boys that might do something – not sure what – but we have human intel, don’t ask from where.
‘That side of things is down to me, you look for hostages - because my timescale is unknown, and we could sit around for a few weeks. Still, better weather down there than around here. I know you worked hard over Christmas, so if you want leave take it, this next job probably won’t need all of you anyhow.’
Marcel put in, ‘You requested a man, Legionnaire, and Paris agrees it.’ He shrugged. ‘We get some good publicity.’
‘Not on this job, I need him spying on some people – no mention of his role.’
‘Ah.’
‘But if he comes on the hostages rescue you get a mention.’
Sanderson put in, turning to Marcel, ‘The Foreign Legion got a good write up in The Sun newspaper, several days. And French Echo.’
Marcel noted, ‘Our newspapers copied the story. After the poison, such stories are good for newspapers, no.’
Captain Harris stepped in with one of his old Intel team, wrapped up warm, combats on. ‘I cancelled my flight, holiday in Tenerife. Any chance of getting some money back?’
‘I’ll authorise it, yes. Get your desert gear, just you and one other probably, not a full team. We fly in the morning, or when the ride is ready.’
He nodded and headed out.
‘Where’s Mister Hunt?’ I asked.
‘On holiday,’ Tinker told me.
‘Leave him there.’ I faced the team. ‘OK team, do your st
uff, and take time off if you need it, but this next job is all about a key piece of intel from an outside source, other hostages are a bonus, so don’t bust a gut – go home at 5pm.’
‘If we can get out the gate,’ Lesley complained.
‘Borrow a Land Rover,’ I told her. ‘Or a three-toner.’
With Lesley squinting at me, the guys laughing at her, I headed downstairs, Swifty loading and checking our crate, two brown Valmects in it.
To Stretch, I said, ‘Take some fuses, no explosives. Some down there waiting for us.’
‘It any good?’ he complained.
‘You can tell me when you see it.’
O’Leary approached. ‘There’s a shit load of extra browns, just so that you know, and brown jackets.’
I turned to Crab. ‘Mad Dog Crab. Make sure everyone has a brown jacket and cap. Any brown gloves?’
‘No.’
‘Ask for some for next time. And more brown facemasks.’
‘There are some brown facemasks left.’
Bongo appeared, clipboard in hand.
‘Bongo, I want six AK, folding stock, and any AK that’s old.’
‘Fuck all old ones,’ Bongo told me.
‘How old are the folding stock?’
‘Twenty years, Czech.’
‘That’s good enough. You have till the morning to make six of them look old and worn down, they won’t be coming back to us.’
‘What the fuck..?’
‘Just do it, don’t ask questions.’
Mumbling to himself he headed off.
‘We on this job?’ Duffy asked.
‘No, only need a small team,’ I told him. ‘Tell Whisky.’
‘He’s in Cumbria, snowed in,’ Duffy reported. ‘Couldn’t get here unless he’s on a fucking ski-mobile.’
Seeing Mitch, I led him to one side. ‘You can take some holiday time if you want it.’
‘Well, long flight back, would waste four day’s travelling. It would need to be two weeks to make it worthwhile.’
‘Up to you.’
‘This’ll be my third live job in as many weeks. You boys don’t sit still much.’
‘Got some nice desert for you, but ... there’s a naughty job in the offing, and you need to be careful what you repeat outside here. CIA would throw you in a cell.’
‘Oh.’ He considered that. ‘You trust the intel?’