by Ray Carole
With each film he would rewind, readjust, pause or delete. When he paused he would zoom in and take a closer look to analyse the points that needed sharpening with his clinically concice attention to detail always present. Anything less than a blockbuster was not acceptable and like any true blockbuster, it had many different endings planned as he knew the scenes before the striking finish did not always pan out as expected.
He twitched suddenly in his seat, the tension running through his veins causing sporadic movements in his muscles. ‘Fuck,’ he muttered softly. He was under the pump and would have to step up and deliver a complex solution to a very complex problem. ‘Two weeks to put this to bed can’t go quickly enough for me,’ he muttered under his breath.
He forced himself to think of the facts: The Clinic was about to go live with every covert asset and worldwide connection that it had. A deniable operation was to be launched in the frozen depths of Antarctica. When he pulled it off it would demonstrate the global reach of The Clinic, and prove it could pull all the international levers in the underworld of covert operations. The inaugural operation would probably be its toughest he mused.
Sully rose from his chair and raised his glass in honour of his next target. Even though WHITEOUT was cut from the same cloth and maybe barking mad, he had put Sully in a position where only one outcome would guarantee closure.
Fumbling around in his tight chinos pocket he felt the dictaphone.
What was on it was the sole reason he had chosen ICARUS and not the Verganno team.
It was also the reason Gerry and Bob never got to listen to it after Decker sent the intercepted video to Mohammed. If he had played it an hour before to the guys, getting them on board may have been difficult. In fact, he knew he may have had huge resistance.
Looking at his whisky he knew it may be his only true source of comfort for a few weeks. The decisions he would make wouldn’t get questioned, though he knew he had already rolled the dice once tonight already.
Ironic for a man who always told his SAS men ‘We are in the business of risk, high risk, but we’re not in the business of gambling’. He had just broken his own rules.
Holding his glass high, ‘The one thing in my control is that I can assure you Harry Decker. You will die with the respect and dignity you deserve. I owe you that much.’ He cleared the tumbler, glanced at the empty base and slammed it back down on the desk with a resounding crack.
That was the signal.
It was time for business.
Time for action.
Time that they all decided how they were going to give Decker the legacy he was obviously searching for, and the activation that The Clinic was destined to live out.
Chapter 13
‘The FEAR, The FEAR – what the hell am I missing?’ He shouted at himself knowing that he had just broadcast his last video diary to Mohammed.
‘The FEAR? I know it makes sense,’ he repeated.
‘The FEAR, what else? Come on Decker!’
Donning his jacket and soft snow boots the claustrophobic tent was suffocating him. He wanted space so he crawled outside. Antarctica, being the changeable beauty and beast that she was, had got through her mood swing and was allowing her land some time to breathe. The weather was easing off, the wind retreating to a calm light breeze. Even the mist was lifting to expose the sun’s rays, sending a glimmering light, seemingly of hope, across the ice.
It was stunning. Captivating really. He’d travelled to some incredible places in his life but never had the time or inclination to stop and take it in. Decker paused now and, as he took in the overwhelming beauty of the place, a serene calmness flooded his mind. In his own quiet way, he suddenly felt at one with this vast continent.
Feeling the sun on his face, he closed his eyes and bathed in this moment of brief quiet, not letting himself contaminate the moment with thoughts and feelings.
It had been the first time in a long while that he could push aside the devil’s advocate in his conscious mind and let it all flow uninterrupted.
A year or so ago he recalled himself saying ‘I know you are not me, you will pass through me.’ It was true. The state of mind had passed through, but not without leaving its legacy. And suddenly in the silence he knew.
He barely breathed in his silent state of shock. The silence you experience when something catastrophic has happened because there are simply no words to communicate what you have just borne witness to.
Decker started taking off his goggles, exposing his now bloodshot eyes that had just welled up in an instant. His arms hung dejectedly at his sides, letting his diary slip out from his grip. He was a broken man.
Defeat was etched into his weathered face, his bloodshot eyes started to fill with full-blown tears, which cut fresh paths down his frosting cheeks.
Ripping back his hood, inhaling what he wished was his last breath, he started his final conclusion, a conclusion that was the opposite of his last. No defiance, no promise of uncontrolled physical violence in the search for retribution, just the truth.
Decker nervously sniggered at himself, before letting out a brief burst of laughter.
‘The FEAR, Jesus NO! How stupid could you be when you thought you were being so smart. Talk about out-thinking yourself. This tops them all: you are a complete train wreck.’
In all his searching for psychological mastery, and becoming a leading authority on thought control and perception, the irony was that he had completely misinterpreted perception control.
‘FEAR. Why did you call it the FEAR, Harry? Why?’
He paused in his self-bollocking. ‘Because FEAR is an acronym for something that you knew would protect you from the truth. FEAR would let you blame someone else as you normally do when you can’t handle the truth. Your downfall and demise into the hell that is this shit life, is all you. And you thought the FEAR would cover all this up?’
His tears dripped onto his jacket uncontrollably. Taking his mitts off to rub them, he cradled his head, which felt as though it was about to explode. The last few years had been so tough. He was ready to face his truth.
‘FEAR equals Fantasy Experienced As Reality.’
In his search for answers to blame people for his downfall he had subliminally chosen The FEAR to act as his adversaries. What even he had failed to see was that he had chosen ‘The FEAR’ because he already knew what FEAR stood for. If there is anything in life that scares you, it’s all in your head. A ‘FEAR’ is not real, you make it real, and he’d made it real in his head to protect himself from all of his negative thoughts.Nothing in that video were true, they were just the deluded ramblings of a desperate man.
In all of his madness, he had failed to live by his own rules and lost sight of what was actually happening to him. Wiping his last tears away and sniffing, he looked across Antarctica, it was truly breathtaking, the sastrugi ice formations were glittering like diamonds and he felt the heat from the rare sun across his cheeks.
‘Well, this is it then, Decker. This is your return to former greatness. This was the journey to find the truth, and you’ve found it. It’s your fault. Everything is your doing. It’s time to move on and get on with life.’
As he quietly muttered the words to himself, he knew his fight was over.
‘Let’s go, mate, let’s get to the Pole and get back home; it’s time to start over again, and it’s time to stop running.’
Without warning, the beauty before him started to blur, he suddenly struggled to maintain his balance, he didn’t even register what was happening behind him, as the wind started to pick up again. A weather front only a few miles away was gathering pace as the dark grey skies moved in closer, being pushed rapidly by 100mph-plus katabatic winds that were not going to take any prisoners this time around.
Instinct had long gone. He was alone in Antarctica again and knew he would n
ever have to suddenly look behind him or ball his eyes to the horizons ahead.
He was broken not resurrected.
‘You idiot,’ he yelled. Thinking how foolish he had been to send the video.
Shaking his head he knew he had to stop this self-sabatoge. It was done, his fantasy world had to end here and now.
‘This was the answer,’ he told himself. ‘It was just crazy paranoia, I’m a fucking idiot but at least I’m a sane idiot now.’ He knew he was right about this. Antarctica had given him his sanity back and the key objective now wasn’t breaking under this latest development, but finishing the job against all odds.
He dug the photo out to look at Larnaka. It was time to lay another fantasy to rest, she was gone, they all were except Mo, maybe. Taking a last look at the photo he smiled, recollecting the great times, but each was their own victim of war, and the war within each of them.
He always felt responsible for killing her. The short journey he had taken with her should have changed his world in the way he wanted it to, and not in the way it had panned out.
A love affair that saw her removed from insurgency to counter-insurgency, battling for the opposing side completed the circle. A full circle from a ruthless killer, maiming coalition troops in Baghdad, to killing her own, with the final irony of her own killing her. It was a story that would never be told and the love story that had never had a happy ending.
‘Goodbye my love.’ He touched her face once more before ripping it to shreds, tossing it into the wind as though it were her ashes. Watching the pieces fly away in to the distance he stood. Building himself back up again for the fight.
‘First man to the South and back is what I’m here for. That’s all I’m here for. So let’s show them all that my former greatness is about to enter the big stage once again I owe it to the memory of The Cell.’
Chapter 14
Twelve hours had elapsed since Sully had slammed back his Whisky in respects to Harry Decker receiving a dignified departure.
Burning the midnight oil to produce a coherent plan in such a short timeframe had been excruciating.
Yet in between a few pizza drops and Starbucks take-outs, the team had joined some huge dots. From organising a surveillance team to carry out a sting operation in Punta Arenas, or booking a two day training package in Norway for ICARUS with Conrad Dickinson, Decker’s mentor, the guys had dug deep and delivered.
Contingencies were now in place for team members to disguise themselves as journalists in Antarctica, a last degree or 60 mile stag do party had been organised. Ingenuity to react to what was going on in Antarctica had now been factored in.
Bribing a Russian pilot was yet to be executed, and the next few days would be interesting and critical to setting up this play immaculately.
Sully hung his head, letting his eyes rest for a while.
‘Boss’ Bob shouted sharply through the open door. Sully was comatose in his chair, feet on the desk with his head cranked to one side with a slight bit of dribble tracking down his chin. His left hand was flayed across the leather armrest that had previously held his glass tumbler. The tumbler was now on the floor with it’s contents staining the once pristine oak floorboards.
‘Boss, time for action,’ Bob barked as an order this time as he walked over to his chair. No response. He adopted the old military habit of waking someone by shaking the feet. Knowing full well that if Sully was in a deep sleep and being a military professional his reaction may be mixed if he shook his shoulder. Bob remembered this novice mistake 300km behind enemy lines, after his boys had been fighting hard without sleep for 72 hours. Finally getting some shut-eye he grabbed a mate’s shoulder and shook it, to let him know he was on watch. A second later Bob was on his back getting choked out on the desert floor by a delirious mate clearly still primed to react on instinct before his eyes opened. The feet it is, Bob thought as he rubbed his own neck quashing the memory. Luckily their enemy was over 10,000 miles away fighting his own demons from the confines of his sleeping bag, but Bob wasn’t taking any chances of being right-hooked by Sully, especially seeing the tumbler on the deck and an empty bottle of whiskey broadside on the table.
A few more vigorous tugs at his right foot did the trick.
‘Uh, oh what’s the time?’ Sully managed to garble out, similar to someone who had just awoken from a general anaesthetic.
‘Icarus have landed, wheels down Boss and it’s 0740hrs.’
Sully nodded and took the steaming black coffee from Bob to stop him slipping back into the short-term coma of the last fifty minutes.
As promised the last 12 hours had been brutal on everyone. The team had seriously burnt the midnight oil, super-charged on steroidal coffee and full to the brim with Domino’s pizza. Yet the hard work had paid dividends.
Sully was content, hence he had polished off the last quarter bottle of whiskey, once he knew the masterpiece was almost tuned. The team had managed to hit the promised 90% completion OPS for the Icarus brief, the brief that would take place in 90 minutes. The last 10 per cent would develop dynamically over the course of the operation as things went wrong, or things went too well.
*****
‘Fucking raining, always fucking rains in this shit hole,’ Sean concluded as the wheels of the Airbus 380 stopped screeching and started transiting smoothly along the waterlogged runway at London Heathrow.
‘Not wrong. Bloody England or good old Blighty as this lot would say – I knew it wouldn’t disappoint us,’ Mick added who was sitting next to Sean knowing full well he had just committed a cardinal sin of talking about British weather, for which the UK receives worldwide recognition. Looking at each other, Sean rolled his eyes back at Mick’s comment before being interrupted by a request for everyone to leave mobiles off, until the plane has stopped taxiing. This went unheeded as the familiar iPhone tunes filled the cabin with a bombardment of really popular people receiving text message alerts.
‘Well we could be on that job still sat in that hole watching that prick I suppose, so it’s not all bad,’ Mick whispered to Sean. They both let out a quiet snigger as they recaptured a scene that struck a chord, before Sean added: ‘That man will live a little longer to enjoy those coke-fuelled whore parties we enjoyed watching so much, lucky bastard.’
‘Yeah,’ Mick added, ‘let’s hope this fast move was worth it. I hate unfinished business, especially two days before we were going to take him down.’
Raising his voice to a normal level and ending the schoolboy whispering, Mick looked at Sean with a serious streak that cut through the whining phones.
‘So this Sully guy, to pull us off that job so fast without a replacement team must mean we’re getting teed up for something pretty urgent hey?’
‘As I said before Sully is unpredictable but he must be reacting to something critical I reckon. He’s not one for closing an operation down like this, but then this might just be a debrief for that job, maybe he had been given orders to back off and re-task us,’ Sean reasoned.
‘Saying that, maybe this is the final hurdle for us. I know Sully has been stress testing us for the last few months globally and we have always delivered. This could finally be our in to whatever he’s into now.’ Looking at Mick with raised eyebrows he could be right. Had Icarus achieved number one asset status in Sully’s eyes?
Both men quickly digested that thought knowing the difference it would make to their lives finally entering the major league.
The final braking of the aircraft wheels, followed by the universal bing-bong tone signalling that the plane has stopped, broke their thought.
As per the standard protocol everyone rose before instructed to do so, pissing off the senior trolley dolly who probably couldn’t give a shit really, as she now had a few days off to party, get laid and sightsee.
Standing and looking ten rows back to the port side of the
plane Sean glanced at Robby. Not acknowledging each other the non-verbal communication was clear between them, though interrupted by a small Indian lady barging past pushing forward for a fast exit.
Who could blame her after a 12-hour flight crammed in cattle class with a bunch of loud Brits five seats back, inebriated since the departures lounge.
Mick and Robby started to retrieve their hand luggage before enduring the painfully slow process of leaving an Airbus 380. Over 500 passengers, most of them not frequent flyers have mastered the art of pissing off the frequent flying club. Their sheer slowness and natural ability to continually forget stuff just before exiting the plane, was enough to test anyone’s patience, let alone Icarus, a three-man deadly assassination team, high on adrenalin, and curious to find out what the hell was next on the agenda.
*****
The Clinic sat around the briefing room table once more. Summoning up the energy to pull together one last time, before Icarus were briefed. Sully rose, forcing himself to look as spritely as he could, a splash of water on the face, a few eye drops plus a couple of mints to detain the whiskey fumes. Old school.
‘Well done team. Thank you for another monster session and where we have got to just short of a miracle. I am confident this…’ he held a small USB drive up for all to see ‘…is the answer to this unique set of circumstances. The research about ALE has changed things again for us but as always, we will up our game and make it happen. Researching the Russian-owned Ilyushin airframe has been top drawer guys, this could be another game changer, our way in and out, without detection. Also the discovery of the Moon-Regan Trans-Antarctica mobility expedition is also another fast move bought to the board by you Beast. That team could solve our extraction plan tied in with Ilyushin airframe depending on how rich the Russian pilots want to be in a short period of time.’