by Ray Carole
Decker already knew where this brief was going and he welcomed it. A Cell that had its own informants, combined with a team that could strike undercover or lead in a huge strike force was bombproof. No possibility of bad intelligence or false disinformation to throw them off the trail. Complete insulation from exterior influence.
‘This new Cell is about to launch operations at an unprecedented level that will involve your current undercover work following terrorists, combined with Larnaka and Mohammed’s dangerous work to identify new key players and develop existing networks. They will work on the streets with us, and only come here under darkness or meet us at out safe house in town. It’s the speed and direct intelligence reporting that will require us to act by ourselves to capture individuals or lead in the strike squadron assaults.’
Decker smiled, knowing his assumption was correct. It sounded awesome, proper black ops without the white noise of dealing with multiple intelligence agency analysis or ‘it’s bigger picture stuff’. ‘All this equipment you see here’ The Boss pointed to some Pelli cases behind him. ‘Are the latest phones and communications equipment to prevent any unwanted eavesdroppers intercepting any of our conversations or operations. It’s not a lot, just a few special ear pieces, small jamming adaptors and the phones are modified too, in order to give us a small bubble of security.’
A blindsided blow almost knocked him completely off balance, breaking his train of thought. Bracing himself hard to fend off a screaming 75mph gust of wind that thundered across the Antarctic plateau, he focused hard to stay on his battered feet. For eleven solid days he’d been battling through a white-out with close to zero visibility, telling himself that at some point he would burst through it, imagining it to be a thin wallpaper barrier. Nearing exhaustion from skiing nonstop, his pulk, twice his own body weight, containing all his food and kit, now felt as though he was pulling a cast iron bath which was spilling over with freezing cold water.
‘This place is hell,’ he whispered to himself. Zero visibility, terrain underfoot that would be flat one second, then ten-foot jagged drops the next. Yet through all of the physical pains, he welcomed the fact that he was slowly starting to figure out a few things piece by piece. This journey that originally set out as a journey to find his former greatness, was now simply a matter of physical survival, with a monumental fight for sanity thrown in for good measure.
Perfect.
He paused for a moment. ‘What the fuck are you doing here? What is this all about Harry? What is this really all about? Not them, forget them, you. It’s you mate we are talking about?’ Blowing out hard he stood in silence.
Talking to yourself isn’t strange in Antarctica, especially when you are on your own. Ironically he’d been the one to tell himself that. It’s exactly the same as thinking but just out loud, and when you are the only solo occupant on this 14 million square mile continent, it wasn’t embarrassing, just plain acceptable behaviour. Only his thoughts were beginning to scare him, and that fact alone amused him at some moments to the point of laughter.
That really scared him.
Sharply looking up to his front, then snapping himself into a posture designed to attack, he looked on with menace. But he could see nothing, no one, just the spindrift kicking up across the jagged landscape. Slowly looking behind, the same scene was present.
Nothing.
Breathing out heavily again, moments like these were getting more common. A paranoid feeling that they would pop up out of nowhere, finally coming to collect was a feeling he couldn’t shake off. Though he laughed it off because he still couldn’t prove exactly what he was thinking, it always came back, always, especially when he began drinking heavily over this last year.
Thinking about drink made him furious, it was his Achilles heel, a poison that had fuelled his downfall, yet even in the evil of alcohol there had been a moment of clarity. That one moment of brilliance that could be mistaken for a madman simply looking for answers to theories that don’t exist, or equally a coward creating the biggest lie in his own mind to excuse his own weaknesses and failure.
One thing that didn’t lie was his Global Positioning System (GPS). Looking at the display screen he excitedly looked at how many miles he had covered. This was a daily guessing game and something he looked forward to.
‘14.3 Nautical miles?’ He allowed himself to acknowledge that it was actually good going for today, with hardly any visibility again and his blister being worse than normal. He was on a direct bearing of 127 degrees to Waypoint 5. Waypoint 5 was the South Pole station, not many GPSs in the world ever get to enter those coordinates. The fact he was still 189 miles away didn’t faze him. He’d been telling people on his blogs that every day he was simply eating the elephant. The phrase he’d made up years ago. To eat an elephant you take one small bite a day and eventually after 85 days, 1400 miles he would have ‘eaten the fat fucker’ also in his words.
550 miles done. Doing the calculations in his head he knew he had just over three degrees left, and would be approaching the 87-degree line tomorrow.
He’d been dropped off at Hercules Inlet on the coastal edge of Antarctica, a route to the South Pole which took all of 715 miles as the crow flies. A path only travelled by a handful before him.
But this wasn’t a good enough test for him as he easily pissed a 500 mile challenge to the North Pole years ago. 715 miles wasn’t a challenge to someone who knew nothing but elitism and daring. He needed to do what no other human in history had ever attempted. Skiing to the South Pole and back alone with no support or assistance was a 1430-mile round trip, with an estimated time frame of 85-100 days on the ice. It was all still possible too.
Even though he had lost two stone in the last month his 5’9” frame was holding out well. Gritting his teeth underneath his balaclava his square jaw matted by 30 days’ growth was clenched and tucked into his chest, like he was poised to defend and strike.
*****
The dark fly-eye lenses of his mask concealed a set of eyes that were full of rage again. If looks could kill, he was about to start a killing spree with no visible end, but right now, he was still contemplating… Was his current mind that of a former madman, a delusional individual or a coherent professional who had finally worked it all out, as instinct indicated. Was he in control? Or was he still the victim of a torturous three-year mental onslaught?
‘Control control, you have control,’ he whispered through gritted teeth.
‘Switch on, stay focused,’ he snarled to himself. Knowing a novice lapse of concentration could be fatal.
If his theory was true he knew that his discovery had just made him the smartest man in the room.In any room. However, as he knew from tactical experience, the smartest man in the room immediately became an asset that any company would want to retain. It made him a wanted man, even a dead man he noted, in fact definitely a dead man.
If his theory was true he must now be a walking nightmare for the people that thought his discovery would never be possible. Thinking they had got away with destroying the last three years of his life, they now had a reason to be as paranoid as he was now acting. He stared hard to his front, posturing himself to defend against an imminent threat on his life again, he felt certain that they were coming to collect.
Instinct.
That instinct took him back to an air-con room in Baghdad, listening to The Boss he recalled the woman sitting quietly at the back of the room. This did make him laugh nervously now, but he brushed it aside as he recalled him introducing the slim, pale looking brunette, sporting glasses that indicated a doctor or intelligence officer.
‘Let me introduce you to Anna. With this new remit comes sacrifices, from you that is. Our work load will be 18-20 hours a day, requiring focus to deal with stress and physical strains of the onslaught. This new Cell’, the Boss pointed at the two Iraqi’s, ‘if successful will set the tone of future ope
rations in the Middle East. Even the CIA will want a piece of this when they see the results clock up in the next few months.’
Decker recalled again the glee in his eyes, indicating it was obviously his concept he had managed to get signed off at Whitehall, somehow.
‘So Anna will make sure you are in tip-top condition to operate without ramming unprescribed drugs down you. We want to make sure you sleep on your down time, and during your up time you perform at optimal levels. Anna’ The Boss introduced her as she walked forward looking nervous.
‘Hello, I am Anna, an expert in Sports Science so have been working with athletes for years to enhance functions across a wide range of spectrums. I look forward to assisting you people as the strain takes hold in the next few months. That’s all.’
Looking intimidated by her audience, she turned quickly and walked towards the door, clearly outside her zone of comfort. Her white cloak flailed as she turned. That whiteness turned to fog as Decker again returned to the discomfort of Antarctica, not a warm room receiving the opening brief of The new Cell.
The military had like all other organisations looked into new ways to enhance performance so did he really have a case for being suspicious back then?
As he quickly reflected on the 18 hr days they started working, he could see it was actually due care for the Cell. A few check ups, some sleeping tablets and pills that were like caffeine on steroids wasn’t a conspiracy. In fact, he recalled enjoying talking to her, and Anna just didn’t seem the ruthless type. He actually recalled it being the best years of his life. ‘That Cell was a masterclass, Mohammed and Larnaka were amazing people’ he thought to himself. ‘Until we had a few tragedies on the job. With that he felt the knots grind away in his stomach. Yet again he was debating his conspiracy versus a broken mind, but it was how he had mended his broken mind that had become his biggest problem, even though the technique had saved his life. Trying to explain it to an outsider without coming across as a psychopath was the tricky part.
Closing his eyes to blank his mind, he wondered if escaping a person he had grown to hate over the previous years was working. Though he was an alpha male, crying wasn’t completely off limits, but then, he did think of how it could have been different if he had used professional help instead of self-help. He wouldn’t be freezing cold, exhausted and paranoid checking his back, five times a day.
Instead he clocked an unexpected break in the weather which gave him a view for once. Being able to observe the ice boulder fields as they stretched out for 4-5 km immediately released the tension from his aching body. Forgetting the physical pain he absorbed himself in the moment. It was breathtakingly beautiful. For a brief moment he appreciated how fortunate he was to be experiencing this.
Collecting his thoughts before he skied on, his theory felt tantamount to breaking the Enigma code, all the hours of thinking and scribbling away relentlessly in his diaries now held some weight.
There was another pain also, and one that he even knows took him to breaking point because the finger of blame could only point at him. This pain had no cure, no theories could solve it. It was simply dealing with the facts not wild assumptions. Because he didn’t want to face these facts he never let himself release the heart-wrenching pain, protecting it always through denial, smart enough to know that one day he had to let go.
As the halo effect of the sun started to break through the lifting cloud base he had one final sobering moment.
Not giving a damn about anything was for a reason, he hadn’t been born with that attitude, it was an attitude cultivated by events.
As he took in a deep breath, he thought about the image of one person.
As his eyes began to well up, he sat down and slumped against his sled.
For the man that craved solitude but couldn’t bear being alone, this thought had killed and buried him long ago.
His head rocked back as he closed his eyes and reminded himself, he would never see the only person he had ever truly loved again. He took a long moment to absorb the fact, as always it travelled to every nerve ending of his body, shattering his skin with an internal agonising pain.
Upon opening his eyes he was relieved that he could still see a full five or so kilometres. That feeling of claustrophobia when you can’t see anything only fuelled his chaotic mind to run riot. Looking to the edge of his visibility he sighed, ‘I know you’re…’ pausing his sentence as he sees something he can’t quite believe. Finishing with ‘out… there… somewhere.’ Standing up and taking a few steps to pick up the solar panel sheet laid over the top of his sled, he grabbed the cable connected to his second sat phone buried underneath the red protective cover. Charging his phones, beacons and PDA whilst skiing was normal everyday. ‘What the f…’
Holding the phone in his hand the cable was hanging limply from it. Severed completely at the junction point. That wasn’t normal.
He furiously pressed the green ‘on’ button there was nothing, no power, not even a slight murmur of previous life.
‘What the fuck?’ Confused and looking around. Because of the temperature he couldn’t make out whether it was the sheer cold that had made a clean snap, or if someone had cut it.
On closer inspection there was no shearing of the internal wiring but this didn’t count out sabotage, and the way he was thinking at the moment, sabotage would never be ruled out.
Without hesitation he reached for his primary phone in his jacket. He knew that he had to stop now for the day and report this to Steve Jones at base camp. This was a showstopper. No power, no safety network, equalled emergency extraction. He couldn’t go home now. He wasn’t ready by a long shot.
Slightly flustered, entering new levels of paranoia, he made the call moving his joints around slowly on the spot.
Chapter 5
No push backs, was a true admission from Sully earlier. The newly converted warehouse in which the four gentlemen were now ensconced, hid itself nicely from the bustling little hub that was Chiswick High Street. Surrounded by a small wasteland, wildly overgrown with foliage eating its way through the rusty perimeter fence, complimented by sycamore trees blinding the view from three aspects it had stood derelict and unnoticed for years. Completely perfect for The Clinic’s operation. Back in the day the building had been used to print papers full of half decent news and not the dross of today’s gossip. It was only estate agents and property developers who paid it any real attention, with one chancer actually tracking down the owner. Making a quick trip to St Tropez to buy it off the ex-pat owner, who’d actually forgotten that it was his, the papers were signed in days. It was a classic example of a place you arrived at after a few wrong turns, or where a drunken couple had stumbled upon it for a quick midnight fondle in the small alleyway to the side of it. The Ox pub was at the source of this side alley, which was no bad thing he thought when he viewed it.
Designed to provide parking spaces on the concrete ground floor and six Manhattan open-style living apartments on the upper levels. Sully captured it after taking a wrong turn on his daily commute to the station. Knowing one day they would need an isolated Operations Centre away from all the spooks at Vauxhall, and prying eyes of Whitehall, he’d naturally made enquiries. Chatting to the man sporting a tweed jacket and hard hat whilst studying plans over the bonnet of his Range Rover HSE Sport, Sully had a price. Shortly after he pitched his proposal to his one point of contact to rent the whole plot for The Clinic, he had an answer. He was left in no doubt as to the seriousness and potential funding available for the project when it was bought for over 10 million pounds.
This responsive, no-nonsense attitude gave Sully a direct insight into how powerful and highly regarded his position was. At that point he had only been working with Alex for six months on drawing up a few blueprints of probable execution of this latest technological development in his power and control. He gave them indications of the potential Modus Op
erandi, the manpower involved and how he would scale the new organisation first domestically, then globally. Feedback, he noted, had been minimal but the autonomy was perfect. Being left to his own devices in a new 10 million quid hangout was a bombproof indication that this project was top of the deck. It was also a quick insight into how they were doing business when the purchase went through days later.
He knew that it was likely there were only one or two decision-makers on this job and that reassured him that hardly anyone knew the real agenda at government level. It was definitely outside the Joint Intelligence Committee’s (JIC) control and no doubt blind to the Home Secretary. A slush fund was hidden somewhere, probably as deeply as the initial White Paper explaining this whole creation. In fact Sully was convinced there was no evidence or paper anywhere relating to this.
Finally in a position he had craved all his career, one that was devoid of red tape and political correctness, he was determined to ensure The Clinic’s operational effectiveness would make a CIA black-operations project look like a load of monkeys playing with a stack of deckchairs.
As that thought brought a smile to his face he clapped his hands together, rubbed them frantically before moving on to the more pressing part of his brief. Picking up a black indelible marker pen that was as brand new as the spotless whiteboard he stood in front of, he pulled the lid off it and faced the board.
It was like watching school kids trying not to expose their avid excitement as they all started to crane their necks sideways to get a preview of what Sully was scribbling.
They were disappointed.
One single black dot had christened the immaculate board. Unless Sully had been paralysed with a sudden onset of amnesia and forgotten to write the sentence that ended with this full stop, then they knew his Psy-Ops were off the charts as usual.