Tracker glanced at the giant towering over him. He did not fancy plunging five miles through freezing blackness harnessed to this human mastodon.
“David, I am not a passenger. I am a U.S. Recon Marine. I have seen combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have done deep-dive scuba and free falling. You can put me where you like in the stick, but I’ll go in with my own canopy. Are we clear?”
“Clear.”
“How high do you want to exit the plane?”
“Twenty-five thousand.”
It made sense. At that height, the four roaring Allison turboprops would be almost inaudible, and to any alert listener it would still sound like a passing airliner. Half that height might sound alarm bells. He had only ever dived from 15,000 feet, and there was a difference. At fifteen, you do not need thermal clothing or an oxygen bottle; at twenty-five, you do.
“Well, that’s all right, then,” he said.
David asked the youngest, Tim, to go to the Hercules outside and come back with various pieces of extra kit. They always carried spare equipment, and because they were returning home from a fortnight in Oman, the hull of the Hercules was stacked with things that might otherwise remain on the ground. A few minutes later, Tim came back with three extra men in army fatigue overalls; one of them was carrying a spare BT80, the French-made canopy the Pathfinders always insisted on using. Like all British Special Forces, they had the privilege of picking their own stuff on a worldwide spectrum.
In this manner, apart from a French chute, they chose the American M4 assault rifle, the Belgian Browning thirteen-shot sidearm and the British SAS combat knife, the K-bar.
Dai, the comms man, would be packing the American PRC-152 TacSat (tactical satellite) handheld radio and the British FireStorm video-downlink optical sensor.
Two hours to wheels up. In the operations room, the seven men dressed themselves, piece by piece, in the equipment that would finally leave them, like medieval knights in armor, hardly able to move unaided.
A pair of jump boots were found for the Tracker. Fortunately, he was of medium build, and the rest of the clothing fit without a problem. Then came the Bergen haversack that would contain night vision goggles, water, ammunition, sidearm and more.
They were assisted in this, and most of all the Tracker, by the three new men, the PDs, or parachute dispatchers. These, like squires in the days of old, would escort their Pathfinders to the very edge of the ramp, locked to tether lines in case they slipped, and see them launch into the void.
In dummy runs, they pulled on both BT80 and Bergen, one on the back side, the other on the chest, and tightened the straps of both until they hurt. Then the carbines, muzzle pointing downward, gloves, oxygen bottles and helmets. The Tracker was surprised to see how similar to his motorcycle helmet was the Pathfinder’s, except that this version had a black rubber oxygen mask dangling beneath it, and the goggles were more like the scuba version. Then they undressed again.
It was ten-thirty. Wheels up could be no later than midnight, for there were almost exactly five hundred miles to cover between Djibouti and the speck in the Somali desert that they intended to attack. Two hours’ flying time, the Tracker had calculated, and two hours’ tab to target. Going in at four a.m. ought to catch their enemies at the deepest depth of sleep and at slowest reaction time. He gave his six companions the last mission briefing.
“This man is the target,” he said and handed around a postcard-sized portrait. They all studied the face, memorizing it, aware that in six hours it might show up in the glow of their night vision goggles inside a stinking Somali shack. The face staring out of the postcard was that of Tony Suárez, presumably enjoying the Californian sun eleven time zones to the west. But it was as good as they were going to get.
“He is a very high-value al-Qaeda target, a practiced murderer with a passionate hatred of both our countries.”
He moved over to the photos on the wall.
“He arrived from Marka in the south, al-Shabaab territory, in a single pickup truck, or technical. This one. He had with him seven men, including a guide who went off to rejoin his own group — of that, more later. That leaves seven in the target’s party. But one won’t fight. Inside the bastard’s group is a foreign agent working for us. He looks like this.”
He produced another photo, bigger, a blowup, of the face of Opal in the Marka compound, gazing up at the sky, straight into the Hawk’s camera lens. He wore the red baseball cap.
“With luck, he will hear the shooting and dive for cover, and, hopefully, he will think to pull on the red cap you see here. He will not fight us. Under no circumstances shoot him. That leaves six in all and they will fight.”
The Pathfinders stared at the black Ethiopian face and memorized it.
“What about the other group, boss?” asked the shaven Curly, the motor vehicles man.
“Right. The drone watched our target and his team billeted in this house here, on the south side of the village square. Across the square is the group they came to meet. These are pirates from the north. They are all of the Sacad clan and fight like hell. They have brought with them a hostage in the person of a young Swedish merchant marine cadet. This one.”
The Tracker produced his last photo. He had got it from Adrian Herbert of the SIS, who had obtained it from Mrs. Bulstrode. It was taken from his merchant marine ID card application form, delivered by his father Harry Andersson. It showed a handsome blond boy in a company uniform, staring innocently at the camera.
“What’s he doing there?” asked David.
“He is the bait that lured the target to this spot. He wants to buy the kid and has brought with him a million dollars for the purchase. They may have made the swap already, in which case the boy will be in the target’s house and the million dollars across the square. Or the swap may be scheduled for the morning before departure. Whatever, keep all eyes peeled for a blond head and do not shoot.”
“What does the target want with a Swedish cadet?” It was Barry, the giant. The Tracker framed his answer carefully. No need to lie, just observe the rule of need to know.
“The Sacads from the north who captured him at sea some weeks ago have been told the target intends to hack his head off on camera. A treat for us in the West.”
The room went very quiet.
“And these pirates, they’ll fight as well?” David, the captain, again.
“Absolutely. But I figure when they are woken by shooting, they will be bleary from the aftereffects of a gut full of khat. We know it makes them dopey or ultra-violent.
“If we can put a long stream of bullets through their windows, they will presume not that some free fallers have arrived from the West but that they are under attack from their business partners, trying to get the boy for free or their money back. I would like them to charge across the open square.”
“How many, boss? The pirates?”
“We counted eight climbing out of these two technicals just before sundown.”
“So fourteen hostiles in all?”
“Yes, and I’d like half of them dead before they are vertical. And no prisoners.”
The six Brits gathered around the photos and maps. There was a murmured conference. The Tracker heard phrases like “shaped charge” and “frag.” He knew enough to know the first referred to a device to blow off a stout door lock and the second to a high-fragmentation grenade. Fingers tapped various points on the blown-up photo of the village by last daylight. After ten minutes, they broke up, and the young captain came over with a grin.
“It’s a go,” he said. “Let’s kit up.”
The Tracker realized they had been agreeing to proceed with an operation that had been requested by the President of the United States and authorized by their own Prime Minister.