by Geoff Wolak
Wilco:
Lone Wolf
Book 16
Copyright © Geoff Wolak
Started January, 2014
This book is historically very accurate in places, technically correct for the most part, yet it is fiction, really fiction, definitely fiction, and any similarity to real people or real events – although accidental - is probably intentional. Some characters in this book may be based on some of the wankers I have either worked with or unfortunately met over the years.
Email the author: [email protected]
www.geoffwolak-writing.com
A new world order
Stood in the dim lights of the FOB, tree frogs serenading me whilst men rushed around, I called SIS London. ‘It’s Wilco, in Sierra Leone at the FOB. Our Chinook was shot down, heat-seeking missile, but it landed OK and everyone got off.’
‘Jesus...’
‘Update GL4 and all interested parties, update the Army in Freetown about the use of missiles here, update the French and the US Navy. Oh, and the RAF I guess. Wilco out.’
A young RAF officer came striding over out of the dark, a Pilot Officer, but not one I knew. ‘We got the fire out, sir.’
‘You did?’ I puzzled, looking towards the stricken helo.
‘Fuel line was hit, not much damage to anything else, she’s a tough old bird.’
‘What were you doing here?’
‘Been here with parachute instructors plus the Hercules, touch and go exercises. We had men and equipment at the side of the strip luckily.’
‘Can it be salvaged?’
‘I would think so, sir.’
‘You from aircraft engineering?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Can you identify the type of missile used?’
He dug out a ball bearing. ‘Russian.’
I lifted my phone and called Libintov as the officer headed inside. ‘It’s Petrov. Have you heard of any deliveries of Russian shoulder-launched heat-seeking missiles into West Africa?’
‘I heard a rumour, yes.’
‘Get me the details please, before they bring down one of your aircraft.’
‘I’ll get back to you.’
‘Oh. You got any planes in Ivory Coast at the moment?’
‘Yes, some.’
‘Get them out, the Americans are going to bomb some runway someplace,’ I lied.
‘My god. I’ll move my planes, yes.’
I called Tomsk and nudged him to ask around for me about missiles, Tomsk now worried about his commercial airline aircraft, very worried. Next call was Mike Papa as people came and went, Seals wandering past to have a look at my stricken Chinook.
‘Mister President, it’s Petrov.’
‘Ah, Tomsk said you would visit soon.’
‘Yes, but we have a problem. A British helicopter in Sierra Leone was shot down by a heat-seeking missile, and such a missile could bring down an airliner here – bad for business.’
‘Very bad for business. I will ask if anyone has heard anything.’
‘Get men searching your border area for strangers, especially white men, straight away.’
‘I will do so tonight, yes.’
My phone trilled, a Gloucester number. I sighed heavily. ‘Hey mum.’
‘He’s morbid again, says he’s going to jump off the Severn Bridge.’
‘What did the new doctor say?’
‘Same, cancer, maybe a year, maybe less, could be more.’
‘I have money for you, for when he … goes.’
‘Fat lot of good that will do, I’ll be sat here alone.’
‘I could have someone take you down to Benidorm again…’
‘Well, yes, I like it down there, nice and warm, plenty of old people. He never liked it down there.’
‘I’ll arrange for someone to look in on you, someone for a chat.’
‘Social worker? Not bloody likely.’
‘Not a social worker, no. I’ll sort something soon.’
Inside, I found the same tall thin Army officer who had been here a few weeks back. ‘Get hold of HQ in Freetown, I want roadblocks everywhere – and tonight, looking for missiles, and suspicious men – especially white men. Tell them not to just trust an ID card for a mine worker, double check everyone, even if they’re UN or fucking doctors.’
He stepped out.
Moran handed me a brew, Ginger sat eating.
Ginger noted, ‘You’ve been back an hour.’ He shook his head.
I waved Moran to the map board. ‘I want the border sealed, roadblocks and searches, and the northern border. Use all available men, we might get lucky, but we only have 24hrs to catch them.’
‘I’ll use jeeps, keep the helos down for now,’ he casually remarked. ‘Put men on every road, ambush points up and down the roads, use the Seals and the French, and Pathfinders just got here – a troop.’ Sat phone out, he started making calls as he stood near the boarded-up windows.
The big Welsh Guards sergeant was still here. ‘Sergeant, in the morning I want that Chinook dug out, chop down all the trees near it, tow it out and put it somewhere that doesn’t block the runway.’
‘Right, sir. Plenty of RAF here.’
Our crates turned up by truck an hour later, but I had them isolated, opened and searched first – just in case, the trucks diligently searched using torches. Up in my room I took out my green mat ready and pinched Swifty’s.
My phone trilled, David Finch. ‘Wilco, what the hell happened?’ came an exasperated voice.
I leant against the old poncho covering the window of my bare concrete room. ‘Still some foot soldiers out there, Boss, so I have men out looking, borders to be sealed. We might get lucky, and my friends in low places are investigating.’
‘No one hurt?’
‘No, all got off OK, Chinook can be salvaged, it’s not damaged much.’
‘Well that’s something I suppose. Was just hoping for a quiet week.’
‘What day is it today?’ I wondered.
‘Monday,’ came with a sigh.
‘You got no chance of a quiet week then.’
‘What will you do, about the missile?’ he pressed.
‘Go find them, but they must know that and be setting a trap, so we’ll have to out-fox them. Ask GCHQ for an all-out effort on signals intel here in Sierra Leone, up in Guinea, in Liberia, and Ivory Coast. We have the veteran British Wolves here, they can plant devices.’
‘I’ll send a note now.’
I called Colonel Mathews.
‘Wilco? You in Sierra Leone?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir, just got here.’
‘We just got the detail of a helo being shot down.’
‘Yes, sir, mine, Russian shoulder-launched missile.’
‘That’s serious, they could bring down an airliner or one of our Navy jets again!’
‘Yes, sir, they could, so ask your Navy to be careful, and ask them if they could get me signals intel for Ivory Coast.’
‘A destroyer can do that, all sorts of clever kit on board.’
‘With some haste, sir.’
‘OK, I’ll make the request now, a message for Admiral Jacobs, but I think he’s on a plane heading your way. You need extra men?’
I was about to say no, hesitated, a plan forming in my mind. ‘Yes, sir, got some borders to seal.’
‘I’ll have the men in Mauritania moved there, they were complaining of nothing to do.’
‘They’ll be making other complaints soon enough, sir, we got the game on.’
‘So make sure you have a reporter to hand!’
I went downstairs and asked about Max.
Ginger lifted his head. ‘Sleeping, was on patrol with us, thirty six hours out.’
‘How are
the recruit-Wolves doing?’ I asked Moran.
‘Hard to tell them apart,’ he mock complained. ‘They look like us, move like us, no issues, all good lads.’
‘Would you say they have jungle warfare down?’
‘Yeah, they’ve covered everything, hygiene and map reading, living rough. Some of the Yanks, they catch animals when out on patrol, cook them.’
He smiled. ‘Some were poachers back in Kentucky or someplace. I turned around one day and looked back down the line and a recruit has a big dead animal attached to his backpack. We ate it that night.’
I nodded. ‘We’ll split up and clear this region, after I sort the missiles, because there’ll be hairy-arsed oil workers here soon. We need a quiet country, so anyone with a gun or a machete gets shot dead.’
Ginger noted, ‘Haven’t heard of any trouble around this side of the border - if you ignore the Guinea rebels moving south. Welsh Guards here shop in the town, even had a beer there, no hassle.’
‘Progress,’ I quipped.
Moran updated the map board with bits of paper, teams moved around, roads to be cut, and I stood there thinking about what was on their minds – the bad boys – other than killing me. Were they still getting direction and money from the bank?
A muddy damp Greenie walked in. ‘Heard you were back.’ He took off his cap and wiped his brow with a sleeve before he dug out a damp sat phone. ‘Took that off a black twelve miles north.’
I took out the battery and opened the back, just in case. It looked OK. Battery back in, I switched it on, and waited for the test signal.
The blast had me closing my eyes, my legs burning as shouts went up, the palm of my hand stinging. Hands grabbed me, and I was soon on the floor.
‘Medics!’
‘I’m OK,’ I got out, wincing in agony.
‘Hit your webbing and bandolier,’ Moran told me.
Greenie was hastily undoing my belt and trousers, soon pulling down those trousers. ‘Got some plastic in there,’ he told me. ‘Slight burn, but if you had that phone to your ear...’
Army medics appeared, from their tent outside, a stretcher brought for me as they eased off my webbing and bandolier, pads on my thighs, and I was carried out. Twenty steps in the dark and I was in a bright tent, a man donning a facemask and a blue plastic apron over his combats.
‘You should probably go back,’ he began.
‘Bollocks, dig it out,’ I told him.
‘Anaesthetic?’
‘Local,’ I told him. ‘Double up the stitches, I may need to move around if this place is attacked.’
They exchanged worried looks.
It took an hour, three doctors plus two nurses, but they got the plastic out, a piece of circuit board, and they stitched up three wounds, one wound quite deep.
‘Not your first procedure, is it,’ the man in charge noted.
‘Second,’ I told him. Pads on, antibiotic injection given, and I was eased upright, blood-stained trousers up – they had remained around my ankles throughout.
After they bound my left hand I walked – slowly - back to the building with a male nurse, the stitches tugging and hurting. Inside, faces turning to me, I was handed my bandolier then webbing, my rifle still on the table.
Moran began, ‘I’ve updated all patrols to be wary of booby-traps. They’ll remove batteries from phones. Some are ordnance trained so they’ll examine the phones if we get any more.’
I nodded, a brew handed to me, and sat in a high back chair next to the map board. ‘Right, I’m not moving from this spot for a while, maybe to sleep, so bring me some chow.’
‘There is a wheelchair,’ Ginger noted. ‘I saw it.’
‘Yeah? Go grab it please.’
He was back five minutes later. ‘Medics had it. It folds away small.’
I eased over to it with his help and took out my phone. ‘Sergeant, wheel me outside.’
The big sergeant pushed me outside, and I called SIS London as we hit dirt. ‘This is Wilco in Sierra Leone. Update all parties, I was injured by a booby-trapped sat phone, surgery on my legs, now immobile for a while.’
‘You just bloody got there!’
‘Tell everyone I’m still alive. Wilco out.’
My phone trilled straight away. Libintov. ‘Da!’
‘I have a lead on the missile. Two were shipped to Ivory Coast, to a South African man called Van Den Block, if I say it correctly.’
‘That’s great, thanks.’
‘I don’t need one of my planes in the region brought down. You’ll go after him?’
‘Soon, yes.’
I called SIS again. ‘It’s Wilco again, try and trace a South African man called Van Den Block, or similar, in Ivory Coast. Update Tinker at GL4. Wilco out.’
I called Colonel Mathews. ‘Sir, I just got intel that the missiles, two of them, were delivered into Ivory Coast.’
‘White House has been advised, National Security Advisor, so Ivory Coast is going to get a tonne of shit. Again!’
‘The target airfield you know about, so you could dig up the runway before they get any more deliveries from UPS.’
‘I’ll mention that, White House wants blood.’
Phone down, I waited in the dark, thinking.
My phone trilled ten minutes later, a blank number. ‘It’s Miller.’
‘You up to speed?’ I asked.
‘I got what the CIA and Pentagon got, about the missiles.’
‘Someone planted a sat phone with a small clever bomb in it, surgeons just dug bits of it out of my legs.’
‘Shit … that is clever, for a bunch of blacks in the jungle.’
‘They have some good help.’
‘You gunna be OK?’
‘Rumour has it … it’s not my first injury.’
He laughed. ‘You should be used to it. Listen, reason for the call … hold on … damn.’ It sounded like a curious damn, not an angry damn.
‘What?’ I waited.
‘A bomb has gone off in Olso, Norway, in the NordGas offices. It took out the entire board and a dozen staff. Any clues?’
‘Crude, not professional, to involve innocent people, and NordGas are not the decision makers; they take orders and pass them on. I would not have hit NordGas, nor would anyone connected to me. Look at a deal gone bad.’
‘You’re a smart operator. Yes, crude, not professional.’
‘Does that bomb hurt your operation?’
‘In a small way, yes.’
‘Look at all the deals they touched, then legal disputes in Africa. A bomb like that smacks of Nigerians.’
‘Would have been my first guess as well. Listen, Ivory Coast; White House is pissed, but we’ve got no intel on the missile fired at you.’
‘A South African man, Van Den Block, camped out in Ivory Coast.’
‘That was fast,’ he commended. ‘And that name rings a bell. I’ll make a call and get back to you.’
‘I won’t hit that airfield, it’s a trap.’
‘I got no intel on there being a trap, so I’ll make a call, we have a man there.’
‘Kruger in residence?’
‘Kruger, Tutger Kruger? He’d be in a five star hotel. Are you going after him, because he just takes orders?’
‘You can tell me no, and so far I don’t have any intel on him, we’re still investigating, but we’ll soon expand our operations here to make this a very quiet region. Anyone in a loud shirt gets put in the ground before the oil teams get here, and the smoke signals are all coming from Ivory Coast.’
‘I’ll be back to you soon, take it easy and … no jogging, eh.’
‘Not for a while.’
Tiny walked up, concerned etched into her cute face. ‘They said you were hurt. What happened?’ She placed a hand on my wrist.
‘Sat phone off a dead rebel, booby-trap.’
She pointed. ‘That blood?’
‘Yes, I got some shrapnel in the legs.’
‘So I won’t sit on your lap them,’
she teased.
‘Not for a while, no.’
‘If you need a bed bath…’ she said as she walked inside.
The big sergeant stepped closer. ‘Them … er … new lady soldiers, sir…’
‘14 Intel, and my Lone Wolves will be formed into No.1 Field Reconnaissance Company with some 14 Intel lads. And girls.’
‘I thought 14 Intel had been closed down.’
‘Almost, they went off the tracks a bit, underhand dealings.’
‘And the ladies…’
‘Would work undercover some of the time, rest of the time training to sneak up on a place and have a look, plant radio transceivers, take photographs. They’re down here for some training, and to toughen them up, starting with a helicopter crash.’
‘I had some training on the AK47, fired an RPG, and I’ve got time on a few patrols, and the lads as well, sir.’
‘All good experience, Sergeant.’
‘You know about the tents, sir?’
‘The big ones? They were here a few weeks back.’
‘Got four in a row now, the big ones, six of the smaller ones, but the smaller ones are better for the rain, and they have sandbags. Lads spread oil on the big tents, to keep the water out, sir.’
‘Oil? Let’s hope they don’t burn down,’ I quipped.
He wheeled me inside and I had a look at the map. In the northwest of Liberia sat a small town next to a large mine. I asked Moran, and he had patrolled near that mine.
He told me, ‘Big old mine, lots of slag heaps, and the old buildings are up on the ridge above it, river at the bottom.’
‘Those buildings any good as a new FOB?’
‘Fuck yes, like a castle, they overlook the mine and you can see for miles. Room in there for a few hundred men, big sheds, access road, but all the windows are broken.’
I had the sergeant wheel me out and I called Mike Papa. ‘It’s Petrov. Got a paper and pen?’
‘Yes, go ahead.’
‘In the northwest is an abandoned mine, Mjenge. Can you have people repair the buildings quickly, put some glass in, and put concrete bags inside ready for the British Army, and sandbags. Clean out the place, paint the walls, but then leave it.’
‘OK, I sort that quickly, we have many builders now moving north. Oh, I dispatched men to the border, roadblocks to set-up.’
