‘Tober’s a good man,’ Moresby replied sombrely. ‘He saw a lot of action in Sangin Province and he’s got a very cool head. It’s why he was selected for this operation.’
Vale kept his face impassive, although he wanted to jump up and rage at Moresby’s posturing. The man was making it sound as if he had personally selected Tober to ride shotgun on a picnic. The former SBS man was indeed one of the best specialist support operatives they had. But he’d been placed in a hideous situation.
‘What about the Mogadishu office?’ Colonel Ventura suggested. ‘They’ve got a military attaché. Can’t he investigate?’ A new British embassy had just been opened, heralded by the British Foreign Secretary as a testament to the bilateral agreement between the two countries, especially on the issues of sexual violence — and the worsening growth of piracy.
‘It’s not fully functional yet,’ Moresby replied. ‘And our man’s being watched too closely. It’s making travel beyond the capital very difficult without a fleet of government minders watching his every move, and he’s getting little reaction from the Somali government without lots of delays.’
Vale waited for the briefing to end and said nothing, eager to get back to his office. Dramatic gestures or statements right now wouldn’t do a thing to help Portman, Pryce or Tober. It was already going to take a small miracle to get any of them out in one piece, and throwing what he knew into the mix, when it was clear little was going to be done to help them, would not improve matters.
He just hoped and prayed that Portman could deliver … or follow through on his final instructions.
Fifty
‘Follow me and stay close.’ I handed Tober the dead guard’s AK-47. He stripped out the magazine with barely a pause and fed in a replacement taped to the stock. Angela Pryce followed him out into the light, with Madar stumbling up the steps in her wake. He looked badly bruised but good to go.
Tober had come out of the basement like a bull from a gate, ready to kill. Luckily for me, I’d stepped back and let him see me. He’d looked surprised, then nodded.
‘Good to see you, whoever you are.’
‘Portman. We have to move fast. Are you all mobile?’
‘Yes.’
It wasn’t Stanley meeting Livingstone, but we didn’t have time for lengthy introductions. Any minute now Musa and his men would come charging along the track from town, alerted by the explosions. Things were about to get seriously hot and we had to get out of here.
Tober found a canvas bag containing spare magazines near the door. He grabbed it and I led the way outside, stopping to pick up another AK. I tossed it to Pryce. She snatched it out of the air without blinking and checked the magazine, then nodded that she was ready.
We almost made it. We were halfway up the slope with Tober hustling Madar along, when the flash of headlights and the roar of engines coming along the track signalled the arrival of Musa’s men.
I pointed beyond the hide and shouted to Tober, ‘Head that way and keep going until you hit a track. Wait there until I join you.’
He didn’t waste time asking questions or voicing what ifs, but gestured to the other two to follow him and set off up the slope at an easy trot.
I made my way to the hide and kicked aside the branches, scooping up my backpack, then moved to where I’d left the last three triggers and the AK. The approaching vehicles were now less than three hundred metres off and coming in fast, the headlights flickering wildly as they bounced over the rough terrain. One or two shots were already coming my way, and I ducked down and waited. The condition of the track wasn’t helping their aim any, but a random hit can kill just as easily as a precision shot.
There were two vehicles, the lead one a pickup. I couldn’t make out any detail but I guessed they were the same two from before, come to see what the fireworks were all about. From the position of their lights, one was about thirty metres behind the other. Both were travelling fast and eager to get in on the action. Luckily for me, the track was too narrow for them to come in abreast or to split up. But that suited me fine. I waited until the lead vehicle reached a point about eighty metres away, then pressed one of the triggers.
It was guesswork as to whether I’d timed it right, but it worked. The pickup lifted off the ground, the force of the explosion combined with the vehicle’s forward speed flipping it sideways and on to its nose, tipping out the armed men in the back. I was hoping Musa was one of them, but instinct told me he’d have opted for the more stately and probably air-conditioned SUV, leaving the lead vehicle to take the first hit.
The driver of the SUV reacted fast. He stamped on the brakes and steered away to avoid running into the wreck of the other vehicle. In the flicker of flames I saw men leaping out of the back and heading for the sides of the track.
I hit the second trigger. The flash was vivid and lit them up nicely, but they were too far away to be badly affected by the blast. Even so, they all hit the deck fast, rolling into whatever cover they could find. If it disorientated them enough to fear further explosions, it would give me time to get clear.
I turned towards the villa and pressed the last trigger. This was the one that was going to seriously piss off Musa.
The two charges I’d wired together were right underneath the boxes containing the remaining C-4 and detonators. The double blast was spectacular, battering the air even where I was standing. Part of the garden immediately in front of the beach disintegrated, rising for a second in the air, then dispersed all over the surrounding area, debris clattering down like hard rain. If it blew out some windows and brought down the front wall of the house, I wouldn’t have been surprised, but I didn’t wait to admire my handiwork.
I grabbed the AK and got out of there, heading for higher ground, with shouts from Musa’s men echoing in the background.
The problem with fighting at night is that your own eyes are as vulnerable to the flash of gunfire and explosives as those of the opposition. I had blank spots in my vision, adding further to the blackness all around me. If confronted by one of the Somalis, it would be bad enough to get me killed, so I majored on getting as far away as I could rather than staying to fight an enemy I couldn’t see clearly.
The ground was as rough as I remembered from the other night, but I had the advantage of having been here before; I had an idea what the main obstacles were. I headed back towards my insertion point across the border, hoping Tober wouldn’t open fire when he heard me coming.
But he was better than that. I heard a sharp whistle, brief enough to almost miss, and slowed down until I caught a movement off to one side.
I stopped and caught my breath, sucking in air and checking my AK to make sure I hadn’t stabbed the end of the suppressor into the dirt, and waited until he showed himself.
‘Where are the others?’ I asked.
‘Up ahead. The kid’s struggling so I called a halt. You OK?’
‘I’m good.’
‘What happened back there?’
‘One vehicle and passengers down, another one stopped but the men are out and on the loose. We have to keep moving.’
He grunted and turned away, and we jogged side by side until we saw a pale flash in the dark. It was Pryce’s white blouse. She had taken off her jacket.
‘You might want to put that back on,’ I told her. ‘The guys behind us have good night vision.’
She slipped the jacket on without saying a word. I don’t think I’d made another friend, but better that than a dead body.
I checked Madar was OK to move, and he said, ‘Yes, Mr Marc. I am sorry to slow you down.’ He was a gutsy kid and sounded perky enough, so I clapped him on the shoulder and led the way, leaving Tober to bring up the rear.