The President of the United States took the call from the commander of J-SOC after he showered after his morning fitness session.
“Why do we need them?” was his query after listening to the request.
“The target is one you designated in the spring, sir. The one designated back then simply as the Preacher. He has inspired seven assassinations on U.S. soil, plus the slaughter of the CIA staff on the bus. We now know who he is and where he is. But he will probably light out at dawn.”
“I recall him, Admiral. But dawn is almost twenty-four hours away. We can’t get our own people there in time?”
“It’s not dawn in Somalia, Mr. President. It’s almost sundown. The British team happens to be in the theater. They were on a training mission nearby.”
“We can’t use a missile?”
“There’s an agent from a friendly agency in his entourage.”
“So it’s up close and personal?”
“The only way, sir. So says our man on the spot.”
The President hesitated. As a politician, he knew that a favor creates a marker and markers can later be called in.
“All right,” he said, “I’ll make the call.”
The British Prime Minister was in his office in Downing Street. It was one o’clock. It was his habit to take a light salad lunch before going across Parliament Square to the House of Commons. After that, he would be out of contact. His private secretary took the call from the Downing Street switchboard, put his hand over the receiver and said, “It’s the U.S. President.”
Both men knew each other well and got on at a personal level, which is not vital but extremely useful. Both had stylish wives and young families. There was the usual exchange of greetings and inquiries after the near and dear. Unseen operators in London and Washington recorded every word.
“David, I have a favor to ask.”
“Ask away.”
The President took no more than five sentences. It was a strange request and took the Prime Minister by surprise. The call was on speakerphone; the cabinet secretary, the senior professional civil servant in the country, looked askance at his boss. Bureaucrats hate surprises. There were possible consequences to be thought through. Dropping Pathfinders into a foreign country could be regarded as an act of war. But who governed the Somali wilderness? No one worth the name. He wagged an admonitory finger.
“I’ll have to check with our people. I’ll call you back in twenty minutes. Scout’s honor.”
“This could be very dangerous, Prime Minister,” said the cabinet secretary. He did not mean dangerous for the men involved but for international repercussions.
“Get me, in order, the chief of the defence staff and the chief of Six.”
The professional soldier came on first.
“Yes, I know the problem and I know about the request,” he said. “Will Chamney told me an hour ago.”
He just assumed the Prime Minister would know who the director of Special Forces was.
“Well, can we do it?”
“Of course we can. Providing they get a damn accurate briefing before they go in. That’s down to the Cousins. But if they have a drone overhead, they should be able to see the target clear as day.”
“Where are the Pathfinders now?”
“Over Yemen. Two hours short of the U.S. base at Djibouti. That’s where they’ll land and refuel. Then they’ll be fully briefed. If the young officer in charge is satisfied, he’ll tell Will at Albany Barracks and ask for a green light. That can only come from you, Prime Minister.”
“I can give you that in the next hour. That is, I can give you the political decision. The technical one is up to you professionals. I have two more calls, then I’ll be back in touch.”
The man who came on from the SIS, or MI6, or just 6, was not the Chief but Adrian Herbert.
“The Chief is out of the country, Prime Minister. But I have been handling this case with our friends for some months now. How can I help?”
“You know what the Americans are asking for? To borrow a unit of our Pathfinders?”
“Yes,” said Herbert, “I know.”
“How?”
“We do a lot of listening, Prime Minister.”
“Did you know the Americans cannot use a missile because there is a Western agent inside the bastard’s entourage?”
“Yes.”
“Is he one of ours?”
“No.”
“Anything else I should know?”
“By sundown there will probably be a Swedish merchant marine officer, a hostage, a few yards away as well.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“It’s what we do, Prime Minister,” said Herbert. Mentally, he made a note to put in for a bonus for Mrs. Bulstrode.
“Can it be done? Extraction of both men? Wipeout of the target?”
“That’s a military question. We leave that sort of thing to them.”
The British premier was not a politician without having a keen eye for benefit. If British Pathfinders could pull the Swedish officer out of there, the Swedes would be rather grateful. The appreciation might go right up to King Carl Gustaf, who might mention it to Queen Elizabeth. No harm done, no harm at all.
“I’m giving the green light, subject to the military’s overriding judgment on feasibility,” he told the chief of the defence staff ten minutes later. Then he called the Oval Office back.
“You got it,” he told the President. “If the military say it can be done, the Pathfinders are yours.”
“Thanks, I won’t forget it,” said the man in the White House.
As the phones went down in London and Washington, the Grumman twin jet entered Egyptian airspace. Egypt, Sudan, then the descent toward Djibouti.
Outside, at 33,000 feet, the sky was still blue, but the sun was a blazing red ball above the western horizon. In Somalia, and at ground level, it would be about to set. Through the Tracker’s headphones, a voice came from Tampa.
“They’ve stopped, Colonel. The technical has pulled into a tiny hamlet miles from anywhere, on a track between the coast and the Ethiopian border. It’s just a cluster of a dozen, maybe twenty, mud-brick houses, with some scrubby trees and a goat pen. We don’t even have a name for it.”
“Are you sure they are not moving on?”
“Looks like no. They are climbing out and stretching. I am zooming in close. I can see one of the target party, talking with a couple of villagers. And the guy with the red baseball cap. He’s taking it off. Wait, there are two more technicals approaching from the north. And the sun’s about to go down.”
“Get the GPS fix on the village. Before you go to infrared, get me a series of vari-scaled pictures by last daylight from as many angles as possible. Then patch them through to the comms room at Djibouti base.”
“You got it, sir. Will do.”
The copilot came through from the flight deck.
“Colonel, we just had a call from Djibouti control. A British C-130 Hercules in RAF livery just landed from Oman.”
“Tell Djibouti take good care of them and refuel the Herc. Tell the Brits I’ll be there momentarily. By the by, how long to ETA?”
“Just cleared Cairo, sir. About ninety minutes to runway threshold.”
And, outside, the sun went down. Within minutes, South Sudan, eastern Ethiopia and all Somalia were enveloped in moonless night.
Chapter 14
Deserts can be furnace hot by day yet freezing at night, but Djibouti is on the warm Gulf of Aden and remains balmy. The Tracker was met at the foot of the steps of the parked Grumman by a USAF colonel sent by the base commander to welcome him to the command. He was in light, tropical-weight desert camouflage, and the Tracker was surprised by the balminess of the night as he followed the colonel across the tarmac to the two rooms in the operations block that had been set aside for him.