Wilco- Lone Wolf 11

by Geoff Wolak

  ‘Well, an odd policeman perspective for a soldier. I would wait on suitable orders.’

  ‘But we are global policemen, and in a place like Liberia life is dirt cheap. No police, no courts, just the gun in your hand to decide things. My team do act like policemen in those circumstances, and you are allowed to think on your feet.’

  ‘Not something I’ve considered so far, in the Marines.’

  I nodded. ‘Not long ago ... I took a bunch of young officers to Sierra Leone, some on-the-job training, and I posed legal and ethical puzzles for them. Sat on a ridge, a young officer was getting stressed, because as I was calmly chatting away he could see a family about to be executed below. When he could wait no longer he ignored me ... and he opened up.’

  ‘Well ... right thing to do.’

  ‘Why?’ I posed. ‘Wasn’t our remit.’

  ‘Well ... no, but if you trip across something like that you have a moral obligation.’

  ‘Ah, morals. A moment ago you would have waited orders before dealing with the kidnappers.’

  ‘Bit of a grey area. Do you have a manual?’ he cheekily asked.

  I smiled. ‘No manual, you have to judge it as you go, based on our fine British morals, our military regulations, and what the job is. If the job is stealthy observation ... shooting the gunmen would be against mission orders.’

  ‘I guess it’s something I would learn as I go, but I would have probably asked for clarification about the hostage job and probably shot the gunmen executing villagers.’

  I nodded. ‘Correct answer is ... as far as the lone surviving hostage goes, that I would not risk men killed for one hostage, but I would be keen to kill the kidnappers to prevent them continuing as kidnappers. I might have opened up from distance and killed many, never mind about the last hostage. It would be a close call.

  ‘Now, if you were with us four years, how do you think you’d fit back into normal military life?’

  ‘I’d think it would be fucking hard to fit back in, but I’m not desperate to make general or to sit behind a desk. This last year I have had doubts about my commission.’

  ‘Don’t like paperwork?’ the Major asked.

  ‘Would rather be active, sir.’

  The Major continued, ‘As troop captain, you’d lead the troop in the field, but when they’re resting back here you’d have paperwork to sort out, maybe a lot of bloody paperwork.’

  ‘That doesn’t bother me, sir, but sitting and hearing about it might. I’d like to be on the job, not reading about it.’

  ‘That sounds oddly familiar,’ I quipped. ‘The Major would love to be on the job as well, but his wife would kill him.’

  ‘That she would,’ the Major agreed. ‘I did my bit, and I survived.’

  I asked our guest, ‘What do you do on your day off?’

  He made a face. ‘Keep fit, study some. Would rather be busy, liked Sierra Leone; 24hr job.’

  ‘I told a certain Lieutenant Mahoney that if he hated his day off he’d fit in well with us. And he did, now leading his own team, a crap social life like the rest of us.’

  Lancaster made a face, a glance at Jackman. ‘I have nothing waiting for me, nothing to get back for.’

  ‘And if an enlisted man is giving you some shit, drunk on duty..?’

  ‘I’d kick the shit out of him ... if no one was around.’

  I smiled. ‘Me too. But as a rule us officer types are not allowed to do that. And if the best man in your troop gets drunk and crashes his car in to the base armoury..?’

  ‘I’d try and cover it up probably. Good men are hard to find.’

  I turned my head to our facemask friend. ‘Thank you, dismissed.’

  Jackman stepped out, the others puzzling him.

  I stood. Facing the Major, I said, ‘I’d give him a shot, sir, see how he does.’

  The Major nodded. ‘He seems suited, yes.’

  ‘Sign him up, please. Oh, what do they call you? Bomber ... perhaps, after the Lancaster Bomber aircraft?’

  He smiled. ‘Ginger. Or Ging-ga.’

  That evening, Jackman went through his lines and I corrected his speech, the emphasis, and I added in some appropriate British Army slang – and some suitable swear words.

  In the morning, the crew set to leave us, my visitors arrived. In the briefing room I had the actors and the senior studio staff sit with the lady from Bosnia and her husband, toddler in tow, the young Serb I wounded now with his own family. The visitors were in awe of the actors, but as they gave the story the tears flowed.

  Before the visitors left, I closed in on Jackman as he stood with the baby. ‘Worth risking your life for?’I asked.

  He glanced at the baby as she pulled at his chin, and he lost his smile. ‘Yeah, worth risking my life for.’

  ‘Soldiers don’t suffer stress when they know what they’re fighting for, and when they believe in it. When they’re ordered to do something and don’t understand why ... then stress is an issue.’

  ‘I’m getting a good feel for it all now, and they’re altering the script.’

  The families hugged me and thanked me before they left, the actors thanking me but not hugging me, the studio staff just plain miserable as they left.

  They had been gone an hour when a screech followed by calls and shouts had me running out of the canteen, two cars oddly parked, Tomo on the floor, O’Leary over him. I ran in, the lads moving back, all unsure of what happened or what to do.

  Tomo eased up, a bloody nose held.

  ‘Captain O’Leary..?’ I calmly called.

  ‘Fucking idiot drove at me at fifty miles an hour, I had to swerve.’

  ‘And you figured you’d pull over and hit him..?’

  ‘Not the first time I’ve swerved for that idiot!’

  ‘Tomo, you’ve been warned about your driving several times, and it seems that some on this base have lost patience with you. You are hereby fined two hundred quid.’ I turned my head a notch. In a threatening voice, I began, ‘Staff Sergeant Rocko, if his driving doesn’t improve then you’ll get no fucking wages till it does.’

  Rocko grabbed a terrified Tomo and dragged him off with Slider.

  I led Moran, Hunt and O’Leary to the grass. ‘Mister O’Leary. You’re normally a very calm man, and you could have come to me, so there’s something more going on here, more than just Tomo’s bad driving...’

  He stared back, angered, breathing hard. I waited. He finally sighed. ‘Wife is pregnant, fourth kid, unplanned, and we can’t afford it. We’ve been ... having words.’

  ‘Ah ... that would explain it. But your judgement is now in question, so you need to get a grip, and you need to let me deal with people like Tomo. Go home, and come back tomorrow with a better attitude, and leave home life at home, or London may want you kicked out the door or re-assigned, and then you’d have more than just the baby bump to worry about.’

  He nodded, his head low, and drove off – but at a respectable speed. We stood and watched him go, the lads near the canteen whispering about the drama.

  ‘He a liability now?’ Hunt asked.

  ‘He’s a good man, so we’ll help. Plenty of cash in the safe, so we can balance up his worth to us against some drug dealer’s lost cash.’

  ‘And Tomo?’ Hunt nudged.

  ‘Is one of our best men, and he risks his life for us every week, and I don’t want to lose him. He’s an asset, just as O’Leary is, a valuable asset. Just wish he’d fucking mature a bit.’

  Moran said, ‘I’ll give Tomo some shit in the morning.’

  I nodded, and we headed back to the canteen, drama over.

  Baker came and found me in the canteen at 6pm, odd since he normally disappeared around 4pm. We moved to a quieter spot. ‘Any views on Somalia, and the fellas on the border?’

  ‘Did your lot bomb a certain mountain road?’

  ‘They did, and then we witnessed the Ethiopians very keenly starting to fix it in a hurry.’

  I made a face. ‘Odd, unless the E
thiopians have an agenda here.’

  ‘We think they do, and we don’t like it.’

  ‘Well, you now have back-channels to Aideed, loan in place, so I can understand why. You thinking that we hit that border base? Why not have the Mi24s hit it?’

  ‘They were flown out, CIA a bit wary now that people know about them. They are ... to be used sparingly.’

  ‘Aideed will wonder where they went...’

  ‘Team just flew off, not answering the phone, so he’s sat scratching his head right about now.’

  ‘The ship they hide on..?’ I nudged.

  ‘Appears to be a mercenary operation, a bunch of bad boys, none of our staff aboard, some Mossad, some of our intermediaries on board, but they don’t know who’s calling the shots.’

  ‘You knew about it beforehand?’

  ‘No, I got the brief when you found out. I was surprised as well, that ship comes with risks. But Mossad set it up for an operation that was cancelled, and we inherited it.’

  I nodded. ‘And at this border camp is..?’

  ‘Dozen villages and towns linked in, dozen small camps. We think it could be a land grab by Ethiopia, hence them funding it. And if they did grab a border area there’s no group big enough to push them out, or that would care too much; Somalia is a waste ground right now. And the bad boys on the border are linked to a group up against the Kenyan border, and linked to al-Qa’eda, or to anyone that will chuck them a few dollars.’

  ‘If we hit this group - and we’ll need a sizeable force, does Aideed then get worried about our presence, and do certain western countries get accused of empire building?’

  ‘Washington is wary, yes,’ he agreed. ‘Your lot as well. We need to make this look like hostages and terrorists.’

  ‘Easy enough, given that these idiots are involved in all sorts of headline-grabbing illegal operations,’ I told him. ‘We don’t even need to exaggerate it.’

  ‘Will the Brit government spend money on this?’

  ‘No need, Kenya is full of British servicemen and hardware.’

  Outside, I called the Air Commodore.

  ‘Ah, Wilco my lad, finished torturing the SME staff?’

  ‘Did they complain, sir?’

  ‘They said it was tough, but they’re in uniform so they can lump it.’

  ‘Damn right. Listen, sir, I have a job in Somalia again, hostages and terrorists, but I doubt there’s a big budget for it, so ... you mention to the relevant people that you’ll organise a few exercises for those units already in Kenya, and they move a few hundred miles to the border and provide me with backup, no extra budget needed from London.’

  ‘Easy, very easy, don’t even need the Cabinet Office rubber-stamping it.’

  ‘Pick out an FOB close to the border, think up a training scenario, sir, RAF assets and protection, helicopters, medics, and I’ll be going over the border if we get the go ahead.’

  ‘Leave it with me, it’s straight forward. But what are the risks here?’

  ‘None, unless your lot go wandering to the local pub alone at night and meet a bored Somali kidnapper.’

  ‘I should damn well hope they don’t do that – and if they did they deserve all they get!’

  ‘Risk to helos if they go over the border, but the FOB is only at risk from wandering gunmen, and your lads are good enough to deal with wandering gunmen.’

  ‘I should damn well hope so by now! 2 Squadron think they’re SAS these days.’

  I smiled. ‘Talk soon, sir.’

  At breakfast, MP Pete stepped in, rifle in hand, and he sought out Tomo as faces turned up. ‘I know what happened last night, and just for the record – all MPs have been told to shoot your fucking tyres out if you drive around like an idiot!’

  He nodded at me and left, men staring after him.

  At the morning briefing I detailed the potential job in Somalia, the lads keen for some warmer weather. Intel were tasked with finding hostages, as well as a wandering groups of terrorists, and I had the Major chase-up Valmet about the new weapons.

  Lunchtime, and David called. ‘We have a problem, potentially a very serious problem. Police in your local area are handling a rape case, a man in a combat jacket – who spoke Russian.’

  I closed my eyes for a moment. ‘They have DNA?’

  ‘No, and that’s the odd part, since the young girl – fifteen – seems to have been raped by a man wearing a condom.’

  ‘A condom? On a rapist? Hardly spur of the moment! Could this be a set-up, to make us look bad?’

  ‘The thought had crossed my mind, so we are looking into it carefully, and if the girl could be lying, but her father is an ex-copper.’

  ‘How does she know Russian words?’ I pressed.

  ‘The man used a phrase more than once, and she remembered it, and the local police translators identified it as Russian: sweet little chicken.’

  ‘Could be a Russian man, yes. You suspect Casper? Because he doesn’t go outside alone, he doesn’t know the area well enough.’

  ‘No one is a suspect yet, but it does point towards one of your Russian speakers -’

  ‘Four of them are yours, so I hope they weren’t involved!’

  ‘We will be giving them the Q&A.’

  ‘Don’t give Casper and Sasha a hard time unless you have solid evidence, they may leave us. Sasha I trust completely, and he’s in love with a girl, nice girl. Casper has no reputation as a monster.’

  ‘We know little about Casper’s hobbies and pastimes.’

  ‘Are the local police looking at my men?’

  ‘Yes, because the ex-copper drinks in that pub sometimes, and he knows about the Russian speakers.’

  ‘Send him to me, at the base. We don’t need the local hating us.’

  ‘Be breaking a few rules, quite a few,’ David cautioned.

  ‘No one has been arrested yet, or convicted of anything, so send him to me before the locals start talking.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘No fibres, no prints?’

  ‘SOCO are still going through it, but they have boot prints, size ten military boots.’

  ‘Many shops sell them, and many idiots wear them. My lads don’t normally wear boots and jackets over civvy clothes unless it snows, and it was mild last night.’

  I went and grabbed Sasha, leading him to a quiet spot. ‘We have a problem. Local girl was raped last night, man in combat jacket and boots, speaking Russian.’

  ‘My god.’

  ‘Where were your lads?’ I asked.

  ‘We were all together, all night, in the house.’

  ‘Could anyone have slipped out?’

  He made a face. ‘After I went to sleep maybe, if they were very quiet. And Casper is in the cabin, but also some noise I think if he goes out.’

  I called David as I stood there. ‘My lads were all accounted for last night. What time was she raped?’

  ‘10pm.’

  ‘Not Sasha’s team or Casper, they were all together at that time.’

  ‘Some of your other lads speak a few words of Russian..?’

  ‘Yes, and some of the Intel staff, and some of the old “E” Squadron men.’

  ‘Let’s investigate -’

  ‘Send me that ex-copper, we need the villagers on our side.’

  ‘OK, talk soon.’

  I faced Sasha. ‘10pm.’

  ‘We were all sat watching BBC news.’

  I nodded. ‘Say nothing, it could be someone on this base, or someone wanting to make us look bad.’

  I walked to the gatehouse, finding MP Pete on duty with one other, plus two coppers. ‘Listen up, I want a list of all movements in and out last night, target time is 10pm. Check the cameras carefully, and the logs. Someone may have gone out before 10pm, came back after 10pm, and ... broke the law outside. Say nothing to the lads, not to anyone except me, get on it quick.’

  At 5pm they had a list. Most of the Intel staff left around 5pm, most living off base, so they could ha
ve been involved – except for Mutch, whose description would have been very distinct. My snipers drove out to the gym at 7pm and returned together at 11pm, Henri and Jacque drove out together and returned at 10.30pm, MPs drove out, some of the coppers, Crab and Duffy drove out and back. It was a long list, and we had no clues yet.

  At 7pm MP Pete came to the house, a sour-faced grey haired man with him. ‘This is Mister Chesters, it was his daughter that was attacked.’

  I thanked Pete and led the man in, kettle knocked on, Swifty not here at the moment. ‘I know it’s irregular to meet like this, and you being an ex-cop you know the rules, but I want to get this sorted.’ I faced him squarely. ‘If one of mine attacked your daughter I’ll tie him up and give you ten minutes alone with him, followed by a shallow grave.’

  He nodded, being reserved.

  Teas down, we sat at the kitchen table. ‘Was your daughter hurt badly?’

  ‘No, and she’s a tough kid. Kinda glad the man used a condom, no disease or unwanted pregnancy.’

  ‘She likely to suffer emotionally?’

  ‘No, she’s got herself a knife and wants to find him. Tough kid, takes after her mother.’

  ‘Well, that’s something at least. Just for the record, we have spies here from London, and they speak Russian, they pretend to be Russian soldiers in Africa.’

  ‘I read the papers, follow your exploits. Read the book, the Ghost, so odd to meet you, wish it was under better circumstances.’

  I nodded. ‘If we find him ... no trial, he won’t get a comfy cell and three meals a day. Tell me, did he hold her mouth?’

  ‘With a gloved hand.’

  ‘Left or right hand?’

  ‘She said right hand, pulled her head right, a bit sore now.’

  I stared past him. ‘That makes him left-handed, good hand to unzip and to put a condom on.’

  ‘Well ... yes, probably, I’d not unzip with me left hand, come to think about it.’

  ‘I don’t think we have any left handed-men, but I’ll check.’ I studied him. ‘Do local people know, and suspect us?’

  ‘Well, just because he was in a combat jacket don’t mean shit, most idiots wear them, but the Russian words were odd.’

  ‘Could be a Moldovan lorry driver!’ I told him.