Tom sat his mobile phone on the bar and pressed the loudspeaker button so that by crowding around the device he, Bernard, Sannie and Sarel could all hear Major Jonathan Fraser’s voice tinnily coming through.
Fraser was dialling in from Hoedspruit, and the Defence Secretary and other senior military officers and bureaucrats were on the secure link-up from the Cabinet Office briefing rooms in Downing Street. Nicknamed COBRA, this was the government’s emergency response nerve centre.
Despite the presence of his superiors on the conference call, the major was running the virtual meeting. ‘Well done for getting eyes-on, Tom, but the FA-18 has already confirmed the same information — in a bit more detail.’
Tom tried to ignore Fraser’s condescending tone and held his tongue as the SAS man continued.
‘The Hornet’s FLIR — that’s Forward Looking Infrared camera to the civilians among us — picked up the heat signatures of four people in the house. One was stationary in a room — presumably, Mr Greeves still chained to his bed — and three X-rays moving about the house, quite briskly, according to the pilot.’
Sannie mouthed the word ‘X-rays’.
‘Bad guys,’ Tom whispered in explanation.
The major continued, ‘My concern is that they may be preparing to leave the house. This calls for a fast direct action. As we speak, the C-17’s engines are warming up and my men are enplaning. We will be in the air within minutes of the end of this briefing, so listen in and keep any further questions until the end.’
19
The plan, such as it was, had more holes in it than a poster of Saddam Hussein on the day after the invasion of Baghdad. Jonathan Fraser had been in the smoking, shell-shocked city that day and had seen a tyrant fall. He’d also been back twice to a war that seemingly had no end. He knew that the best of intentions, the finest of plans, sometimes backfired.
The other old military adage, Fraser recalled as he listened to the pilots of the C-17 chatting through the cans — the headphones he wore in the spare seat on the cockpit deck — was that no plan survived the first shot or the first ten minutes.
Despite his ingrained pessimism, something he proudly attributed to his Scottish heritage, the plan was as sound as anyone could have hoped for in the circumstances.
‘Dagger, this is Gunsmoke,’ came a Texan drawl through the headset. Lieutenant Junior Grade Pete ‘Frenchy’ Dubois was straight out of central casting, Fraser thought. The young American FA-18 pilot had a spiky gelled crew-cut and the chiselled looks of a Hollywood movie star.
‘Gunsmoke, this is Dagger, over,’ Fraser replied, keying his radio switch. Fraser had transferred control of the operation from Hoedspruit to the C-17 as soon as they were airborne. They were now orbiting at fifteen thousand feet over the Indian Ocean, just off the town of Xai Xai on the Mozambican coast, waiting for the last of the assets at Fraser’s disposal to get into position.
‘Dagger, I confirm target is still in position, no change. One soul down and hogtied, the other three moving around like they’re on speed, over.’
Fraser smiled to himself. The American’s laconic patter barely concealed his excitement. Fraser, too, was keyed. If he pulled this one off, it would be the biggest coup in the regiment’s long list of honours since Princes Gate, when counter-terrorist troopers had stormed the Iranian Embassy in London and liberated the hostages held there. Much of the SAS’s wartime and peacetime operations was so secret that few members of the British public knew of the elite force’s exploits — at least, in between sensationalist tell-all books by disaffected former members — but if this op was a success there would be media coverage and analysis of it for months to come. As much as he usually voiced contempt for former soldiers who wrote books about their time in the SAS, Fraser thought he might try his own hand at writing after this one. He hadn’t joined the army for the money but he had a weather eye on retirement. He might get the CO’s slot if they saved Greeves’s life, but if he didn’t a million quid in publishing royalties and newspaper extracts would be a good consolation prize. ‘Roger, Gunsmoke.’
‘Cheetah six, this is Dagger, send locstat, over,’ Fraser said into the radio.
The slowest elements, though potentially the most vital, were his South African National Defence Force Oryx helicopters. There were three of them inbound from across the border and Fraser wanted to know exactly where they were. On board two of them were a dozen of his men, in two teams of six. Each team included a pair of snipers. These teams would be his blocking force. They would rappel from the helicopters a kilometre in from the main sealed road, the EN1, and take up blocking positions in the sand dunes to the west of the target farmhouse. If the terrorists were indeed packing up — his greatest fear at the moment — then the soldiers on those helicopters would stop them from escaping and do their best to free Greeves. If it came to that, Fraser was pessimistic about their chances. His snipers might be able to take out the driver of the getaway vehicle and the front passenger, but that still potentially left one other trigger man who might very well have a pistol at Greeves’s temple. One bullet was all it took to turn historic success into abject failure. The only small consolation was that once those helicopters disgorged his men onto the sand, no X-rays were getting out of Mozambique alive.
‘Dagger, this is Cheetah six,’ came the South African-accented reply. ‘We’ve made good time and are five minutes from the DZ. Your men are keen — already on their ropes, over.’
‘Roger, Cheetah six. Good work. Let me know when they’re on the ground.’
Fraser checked his diver’s watch and allowed himself a small smile. It was almost time for him to leave the C-17. He beckoned to Warrant Officer Class Two Peter ‘Chalky’ White, the squadron sergeant major, and held up both hands to indicate ten minutes’ warning. Fraser switched channels and said to the C-17’s crew, ‘We go in ten, gentlemen.’
He felt the aircraft start to bank. It was a rush, the amount of power at his fingertips, a high Fraser was sure no drug could match. Single malt whisky was the only mind-altering substance he allowed himself, and by god, he would be giving it a nudge when they were back in South Africa later in the day. No matter what happened next.
‘Dagger, this is zero-alpha, over,’ said a Welsh voice through the headphones.
‘Go, Taff.’ Sergeant Hugh Carlisle was one of his signalmen and well known to him after Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, hence the informality in Fraser’s reply. The pug-nosed, tattooed veteran was manning an array of radios, satellite phones and cell phones back at Hoedspruit. Taffy Carlisle was keeping their military and political masters in the UK informed about the progress of the operation, and providing a relay of communications from the two police officers on the beach in Mozambique, who were using the sat-phone Bernard Joyce had stolen from the X-rays.
‘Plod’s in position, Dagger. Vehicle on the beach is ready to turn its headlights on when you need it. Uncle Tom Cobbly and all in London want to know what’s happening.’
Fraser smiled again. Some at regimental HQ would frown on his decision to accompany the assault teams, rather than stay back and direct the operation from Hoedspruit, but he knew that once the shooting started he wanted to be there. If he failed he would be crucified as an irresponsible glory hound. It was, he reckoned, worth the risk. ‘Roger, Taff. Keep up the good work.’ If it did all go to shit in the next hour the policeman on the ground would take the biggest fall. He was the one who lost his man in the first place.
‘Dagger, this is Cheetah six. Your boys need a new stamp in their passports. They are on the ground. Repeat, all are on the ground, safe, over.’
Fraser acknowledged the South African’s call. The two helicopters which had carried the troops in would now rendezvous with the third, which was groaning under the weight of several two-hundred-litre drums of aviation gas and a portable pump. The three birds would land on a village soccer pitch ten kilometres from the target and refuel. No doubt they’d be fending off some curious bystanders. At the end of the operation — whichever way it went — the helicopters were their ride back to South Africa. The whole assault team plus Greeves and Joyce and the police officers wouldn’t fit on the three birds, so there would be more than one wave. ‘Roger, Cheetah. See you in a little while.’