by Ray Carole
It had been a while since they’d worked together. During his career Sully had developed the knack of taking catastrophe after catastrophe and using each as an opportunity to shine and promote his ability to install action across tactical teams. The brain that occupied Sully’s cranium vault was one that had been cultivated and groomed by years of unrelenting pressure. In that time he’d achieved spectacular yet often controversial results.
Sully had started off as a young officer in the Parachute Regiment, the elite British airborne unit, where he’d learnt fast about mental and physical resilience. As a leader, he’d been naturally exposed to all of the physical and mental pressures of a battle. He had learnt to lead his subordinates and how to make timely decisions that would potentially dictate the future lives of those serving with him. In the same amount of time he’d always been able to reshape a battlefield, form a strategy on global terrorism or simply decide what he was eating next. With his decision-making being all about dealing with the facts and not the emotions surrounding them, Sully’s internal processing system, to his colleagues, appeared to be that of a high-tech computer.
His next calling was obvious. The British Special Air Service (SAS) regarded, and equally resented by foreign contemporaries as the toughest Special Forces selection in the world. Having passed the process, Sully moved fast through the ranks and won over the respect of the extraordinarily high calibre men he commanded. Earmarked for the top, Sully’s capacity to strategically out-think, outmanoeuvre and forecast enemy actions was mind-blowing. Yet, like every man, Gerry mused, he had a weakness. His insatiable appetite for action on the ground became his addiction. This failing jeopardised his potential to reach the highest levels within the British Army.
Upon becoming the Commanding Officer (CO) of the SAS, his remit was to lead the organisation in a strategic fashion.He considered leading from the strategic rear as untenable, Sully could not leave the intimacy of the power-crazy world he had come to know. He craved it. The respect he once had from the men started to subside as a CO, never a pen-pusher, he found the chore of riding a desk and handling the day-to-day admin issues soul-destroying. He began to exercise his authority directly from operation centres in Baghdad and Afghanistan, instead – places he should not have been full time.
Opinions were diverse though cutting; many knew he was all about himself, hell-bent on creating his legacy at the expense of the men he commanded and treated as expendable. His compulsion to be in the thick of it set a gruelling operational tempo; he committed guys on the ground to operations that were not worth the paper they were signed off on, costing many elite lives to an enemy that was not strategically important. His credibility faded fast.
Obsessed with gathering enough information to mount numerous operations and taking personally the numbers of enemy killed, he lost direction. Gerry recalled cringing inwardly at his downfall. He became completely narrow-minded about showing off to the Americans, bragging about ‘his’ SAS’s ability to mount sustained, unrelenting pressure on Al Qaeda Iraq (AQI) in Central Baghdad. The SAS’s war on AQI had become his war, his legacy.
Sully had been living on borrowed time and he knew it; the furious glances from all ranks he received across the bar at the funeral wakes he attended solidified his belief that he did not have a future at the higher command levels of the British Special Forces community. Sully resigned, attracting national headline news, the ones that Gerry and Bob had read about.
He’d heard nothing ofSully for years until he’d received a random message from an unknown number to meet at his local Starbucks for a grande latte at 1300 hrs. He had to admit that he did feel the familiar wave of excitement rush through him when he clocked the empty table with a grande latte on it, knowing full well the instructions were on the napkin. He instantly realised it was Sully from a past personal joke and not a serious attempt at 1970s covert tradecraft. He also knew he’d probably have tapped his phone months ago and knew his life before he even breathed it, as the latte was on the table he always sat at.
The door opened somewhat tentatively breaking Gerry’s thought pattern. Maybe Alex had cursed himself in the urinals. Either way he sloped back in and quietly retook his seat.Gerry grinned inwardly, Alex had a lot to learn. He turned his focus back on to Sully once more, wondering what the former CO of the SAS had up his sleeve the time.
*****
Sully trained his gaze on to Gerry and Bob, giving them the respect that they deserved for not disrupting his flow.
‘So let me just give you my spin on the last three years of how we’re attacking this problem in the UK. That’s Al Qaeda of course, Islamic State? Fuck them for now, we can’t cure the cancer in one fell swoop so let’s get specific.
‘Asymmetric Threat? Ring a bell guys along with the New World Order? All buzzwords from post 9/11, about how terrorists operate, and how we live in a new world because of them. That’s all wrong for starters. Politicians recognising terrorists change our world? Exactly the same as naming that toilet trash Jihadi John before he got smacked. Celebrity status for scum – exposing their success in papers is marketing. AQ or ISIS are companies, they are run like businesses, marketing equals recruitment and celebrity status equals idolisations. I have to have a rant about the papers and social media as this drives public opinion.’ He paused for dramatic effect, looking at each of them.
‘Yet in six months’ time however we will be creating headlines but with a difference, there will be a story alright, lacking in facts, but exploding with theories and conspiracy that will shock these scumbags. Anyway I’m digressing…’
Gerry and Bob had both nodded at the mention of asymmetric threat. Sully liked that. Years ago it was a buzzword recognising that terrorists didn’t just show up and plant a bomb, or hijack a plane and use it as one in a physical sense. They were sophisticated at every level of their organisation now and their attacks came in numerous guises at diverse targets, not just human ones.
Cyber was the new threat. How they communicated, how they recruited, how they indoctrinated from grass roots all the way up to convert people to extremism, even people they never have human contact with. It was no longer a physical war but one where the battle lines merged between online and offline activity. Intelligence communities were constantly fighting a horrific threat that was orchestrated globally, courtesy of the World Wide Web. Conventional tradecraft and guerrilla tactics were being replaced daily by a species that was always evolving and generally ahead of the game. Terrorists had to adapt and overcome with limited resources and limited equipment. Yet, as the evidence showed, they still managed to pull off what was known in the business as ‘spectaculars’.
Sully snapped back into gear. ‘The question I used to ask myself twenty years ago was: if we know who the IRA are, why aren’t we going in and killing them all? I know my lot had a good few goes but all in the acts of carrying out terrorism. At the current moment we know who most of our key players are, where they live, what mosques they preach at or discuss operations, yet the question still remains the same: why aren’t they dead? The obvious answers are the usual intelligence community classics: bigger intelligence picture, growing their network of informers, taking out individuals can compromise years of work and put lives at risk, and so forth…’
Sully noticed that Gerry’s nodding was somewhat half-arsed, knowing him well enough from the past to know that yes he agreed but that didn’t mean he agreed with not taking out certain known terrorists if the opportunity arose.
‘The greatest obstacle we have is political backlash. The government fear a Muslim uprising on the streets of Britain if the boys are sent in to collect. It’s the minority we know, and the majority condemn their actions, but the government killing them is off limits, but…’
The three heads jerked awaiting what would befall their ears after that caveat word was uttered from Sully’s lips.
‘…Us killing them isn’t.’
The room was silent, even Alex was all ears for this last four-worded sentence.
Walking to the far end of the table Sully turned and faced everyone. Placing his hands on the seat in front of him he leant in, like he was about to tell a secret. Unconsciously everyone else leant in too.
‘Now we’re not just going to turn up and put a few holes in people’s heads. It’s way more complicated than that. It’s way more technical than that. What we are going to do has never been attempted before because it’s never been invented before. What Alex is going to talk to you about is the inception of how we are going to use a technology that was being designed for something else, however, I came across it and as usual I saw the beauty in the beast, and the agenda I talked about changing earlier is our new Modus Operandi. Basically gentlemen this organisation here is going to revolutionise the way we fight modern day terrorism and it is solely us four and my paymaster that are aware of this.’
He looked at Bob, it was clear from the spark in his eyes that he had a question.
‘Boss,’ Bob piped up.
‘Shoot.’
‘Who exactly the fuck are we then?‘
All four of them chuckled at the obvious question and the blunt manner in which it was asked. The tension broken in the room, Sully squeezed the chair padding between his two hands and leant further in.
‘Gents,’ all three looked directly at him like excited school boys. Sully could see he had their attention 100 per cent and sensed his rhetoric had pressed the right buttons. They were ready for their first assignment. He made them wait another second before uttering:
‘Gents, we’re The Clinic.’
Chapter 4
Skiing like a man possessed, Larnaka dissipated into a distant memory as Decker squinted his eyes to try and glimpse his path through the small scratch on his frozen ice-matted ski mask. ‘Christ,’ he breathed stopping dead in his tracks. After skiing 600 punishing miles across a continent where the temperature was cold enough to crack teeth, he was rattled by his instinct. It had taken thirty days to finally kick in but now it was there, irking him, and with a solid urgency he noted.
Instinct he knew was designed solely for one purpose, to keep you alive. He had always acted on it without hesitation, so the fact that it was present now told him that he wasn’t alone anymore. The next person he saw if any, meant that he was somehow back in the mix, his footprint live again without his knowledge, consent or enthusiasm. If they saw him first his instinctive moment wouldn’t matter, his body would simply be another frozen explorer who perished on the Antarctic plateau.
Thinking someone could slide up behind him and end the psychological trauma of the past three years without him feeling a thing scared him. Not having an opportunity to ask questions or understand exactly what had happened to his life freaked him out, so much so this thought made him swing his body around to take a quick look over his shoulder, pausing, scanning hard into the distance.
‘Nothing,’ he muttered into his ice-covered mouth protector. ‘What the hell were you expecting anyway? Nutter.’
‘So much for instinct,’ he grumbled.
He focussed himself back on reality. Painfully shifting his body and the 150kg sled across the barren wasteland was an absolute chore. He had had enough of this daily grind. Twelve hours a day with nothing to occupy his mind except a world of white nothing. No horizons, no backdrops, no wildlife, just plain nothingness. A black mask hid his piercing blue eyes and facial features that had landed him many an essence bird on a late or early night out. He possessed the chiselled body you would expect a man that is attempting to walk 1400 miles to have. He had never been one to hang on to a woman, he was too complex, far too smart and preferred arguing with himself than over a jealous bird that didn’t understand how he fears loneliness, but craves solitude.
No one understood him, least himself but he never complained about not understanding, well not until this journey that was starting to break his balls now.
Another mentally twisted piece to this already jaded puzzle. That’s the remorse and regret kicking in to his self-prescribed rehabilitation programme.
His groundbreaking expedition had seen his iPod die on day one, his DSLR camera get smashed on day three, and his first blisters appear on day four. He cursed himself, they were now the size of shark bites and bleeding more each day. His own mantra of ‘you’d better make friends with pain, so you’ll never be alone again’ was now deemed absolute bullshit beyond belief.
‘Jesus Christ,’ as his left ski twisted causing his left boot to jitter sharply. ‘Fucking boots.’ Laughing at pain was something he could manage only on some days, other days, like today, it was pure vindictive rage.
Uncontrolled outbursts of shouting or screaming, throwing his poles, smashing the ice with his gloved fists, after he had finished slapping his own face.
This journey wasn’t disappointing him physically, world record attempts aren’t handed out on plates, and this one wasn’t even breaking one, it was simply creating history, a world first. The price of that was evident on every inch of his body. He had dropped two stone in weight from the exertion. Ending up with a bloodshot right eye that had got infected and was only really just beginning to clear up after he put his own ski pole in his face. Winner.
Yet he knew he could take that punishment all day long. What he was struggling with was the mental punishment this endeavour was having on his mind. It wasn’t a case of how mentally battered he was, how low, depressed or lonely he was getting, that stuff was point of entry to solo expeditions. ‘Suck it up’ he always thought when these thoughts came to view. No. He breathed in hard, it was what was whirring behind the ski mask and balaclava that protected his head from freezing everyday that was the crux. Paradoxically he felt like freezing his brain would be the only way to calm the intensity of his over-thinking. Some days it felt like a car engine overheating, all he wanted to do was pop the bonnet and add some coolant.
Decker sighed. He’d come this far from home to search for clarity and answers in his mind. To test himself and yet he hadn’t realised the huge toll, the trauma and energy it would sap from him trying to find the answers, that’s if they were even there of course.
‘What mettle do I still possess, what has the last three years all been about?’ A mind loaded with a million and one facts and figures, theories and conspiracies, and not to mention guilt, shame and remorse.
He knew he’d either stumbled upon something unimaginable and brilliant.
Or he had lost the plot.
This was the same question that irked him.
That unexpected scene that had unfolded in the last room of the hostage rescue with Johnny, was the single point that triggered his web of suspicion. It was this piece that had borne a conspiracy that was tormenting him, his torment took him back to where he thought it all started. It had been nearly 3 years ago, roughly a year before he and Johnny had shared their moment in that last room.
Leaning on his poles he peered through the fog to his front. He blinked, moments later he was back in the room, a porta-cabin office in Balad or Camp Victory, a military installation in Baghdad.
In a small dusty corner of the huge coalition Forward Operating Base (FOB), housed the British and American covert operations offensive. Hidden behind huge blast walls, all sorts of competing agencies on the intelligence gathering front had filled it. Whether they were running Iraqi agents, eavesdropping on cellular activity or carrying out surveillance operations, their one objective being to produce targets for Special Forces from Delta Force and the SAS to assault, in order to capture wanted terrorists.
The war had now evolved into a quagmire of sectarian fuelled violence. Added to the mix was a load of foreign fighters supporting the newly designated Al Queada Iraq or AQI for short. Abu Musab al Zaqawi was the proclaimed leader of this brutal insurgency, that was demon
strating ruthless violence in the form of suicide bombings, mass killing sprees and beheading’s of western contractors.
‘Coalition war effort’ was a futile description, the team effort had gradually eroded. Competition within inter-agencies and inter-countries had led to some not sharing, or destroying vital intelligence to aid each other’s own war effort. High value terrorists like Zaqawi needed taking out fast, and everyone wanted the trophy, but the Americans wanted it desperately.
Too many recent successes from the Brits was unnerving them. The SAS didn’t have huge assets but this always encouraged initiative and ingenuity, like terrorists, they made it happen with what they had.
But in their race for Zaqawi, the Brits were getting fucked over and denied access to vital agents and sources. Well, it had been Decker’s opinion of the scene anyway.
Squinting his eyes and fending off the wind, Decker could see his team sat next to him, with two new members, both Iraqi who were sat on the next table a few metres away. They were all about to receive the solution to a fractured intelligence system.
Decker pictured his CO standing tall in front of them all, unshaven with a menacing grin on his face as he spoke:
Today we are going to shift up a few gears in covert operations. Firstly, men I want to introduce you to Mohammed and Larnaka your new team members. Both trained in covert ops, they have been working undercover for the last few years. Larnaka and Mohammed are also high grain informants. This is the new breed guys.’
The CO was grinning as he said this, like he had just pulled the ace card out. Which of course he had.
‘Her uncle is Abu Masab al Gharadi. I won’t go into the specifics of why Larnaka is working with us, but her track record and information to date has been spot on.’ Looking at Mohammed, the CO nodded. ‘As is Mohammed’s. These guys want their country back, and their sense of duty to accept our invite into this Cell is heartfelt. Thank you.’