by Geoff Wolak
‘What about the rebels over the strip?’ I asked.
‘They all fucked off I think, but we still hear some shots fired.’
‘Read out the IDs.’
He read them out and I noted them down. One seemed to be Ukrainian, not Russian. I called SIS and detailed the names, for them to run the names, asking that they update the CIA.
I called Libintov as I paced up and down in the white dust. ‘You know any of these men?’ I listed the names.
‘Soporov I know. He’s dead?’
‘Blown to pieces by the Americans when they bombed his airfield.’
‘I was hoping to kill him myself. He’s Ukrainian, a smuggler of anything, but also guns. He lived here for a while, Cyprus. Disappeared a year or two ago. Stupid, to hang out in Africa, dangerous place. Oh, that fat man, Leon, was reported last night to be in Turkey, Marmaris.’
‘Great, thanks. Oh, back in 1978 and 1979, did you move heavy boxes from that long strip in northern Liberia?’
‘Yes, I was there for a while, one flight a week.’
‘Where did the flights go?’
‘Egypt.’
‘Egypt? That’s … odd.’
‘What was in the boxes?’ he asked.
‘Not sure,’ I lied.Call ended, I took in the mine. ‘Egypt,’ I repeated. I called David Finch. ‘Our uranium ore went to Egypt.’
‘Egypt? They wanted a nuclear bomb of their own to combat Israel’s nuclear programme, from the 1950s onwards, but they never refined ore or had a work nuclear programme. Oh, wait, there was rumour of a secret programme, in the deserts in the south, hidden from the IAEA. Rumour has it that an Israeli agent stole the ore.’
‘Did the men here recognise the fingerprint?’ I asked.
‘No, I was going to mention that, don’t skip ahead. It’s unknown, but the Israeli’s never detonated a bomb above ground, so we would not know their bomb signatures.’
‘So the Israelis got the ore back then. Is there a chance that they want to keep that quiet?’
‘I don’t see why, it’s old Cold War history, everyone knows the Israelis have nuclear weapons, hardly a great secret. And the source of the ore is irrelevant, Soviets mined it and shipped it, Israelis pinched it away.’
‘But this place could put a fingerprint on Israeli bombs, if they were ever used…’
‘Yes, if they were used for no good, but uranium is the poor man’s bomb, plutonium is better, and most bombs are plutonium.’
‘And back in 1979, could the Israelis have considered a bomb, or dirty bomb, set of in Cairo or Damascus, blame falling elsewhere?’
‘Back then it might have been a plan, never implemented. Today it wouldn’t work, we know the signatures. Questions would be asked.’
I called Leon, the real Leon. ‘It’s Wilco. Ludwig is in Marmaris as we speak.’
‘They have drugs and prostitutes and bars, so yes – his kind of place. I’ll have my team move there. They’ll probably find him on drugs and asleep, yet somewhat heavy to lift.’
‘If you can get him back to Northern Cyprus I’ll get a plane for him.’
‘I’ll try, yes.’
When the Chinooks hit the runway, much less white dust being blown up now, Echo trekked off, no one shouting for the medics. In the middle came Salome. I greeted the lads, smiles and jokes exchanged, a word with Monster, then I pointed her to one side.
‘There were no problems,’ she insisted, before I could speak. ‘We get on well.’
‘Sergio Callus.’
She straightened. ‘What … what about him?’
‘His body is inside, they … threw him from a plane to the trees over there.’
She stood stoically for a few seconds, then welled up but controlled it, looking away. ‘He was … in my team when I started out.’
‘I need you to make a call and find out why someone would kill him and drop him on my head as a message. I know that he warned me about the Paris truck bomb and the thermite, and I’d guess that he did it with your bosses consent, and I doubt you kill your own.
‘So someone found out something and dropped him here. Perhaps they thought he was CIA or British, and dropped him when they stopped trusting him, or maybe … maybe it’s something far worse.
‘So make a call. And tell your boss that we know the ore was shipped from here to Egypt, for their secret nuclear programme in 1979, but that your people stole the ore.’
She cocked an eyebrow at me, and stared back. Finally, she dug out her sat phone and stepped away, being observed by the RAF team.
When the “D” Squadron troop sergeant wandered past I told him he could reclaim his huts.
He shot me a look. ‘Was nice down there till you filled the fucking river with bodies! Now the bodies float down, get stuck in the reeds, then we see fish chomping on them. We ain’t washing in that fucking river, that’s for sure!’ He shook his head as he walked off.
The IAEA team walked up to me. ‘We can’t figure out where they took the ore to. I mean, no rail tracks or decent road.’
‘Road or track down there could be covered after twenty years of mud and rain.’
‘That river is not good enough to float a barge, so we’re looking for a track.’
‘There was the runway,’ I pointed out.
‘Expensive way to ship ore,’ he noted. ‘Damn expensive.’
‘The Soviets did not pay high wages,’ I told him. ‘Men did as they were told.’
‘Well, yeah, I suppose. Still, it would have been a lot of flying, and I doubt they’d reach Moscow from here.’
Inside, Robby said, ‘What you done to upset Salome now, eh?’
Faces turned towards me. ‘One of her team was killed, not here.’
Robby placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed before we returned to his own room, and I was surprised by that gesture. It caused me to pause and think. Sasha passed his brew across and sat near her.
When my phone trilled it was Captain Harris. ‘Mission Hard Rock Café has been successful,’ he said with a lilt. ‘That large barracks the Americans hit, after they flooded it with mud, got a storm overnight so it was very wet, the Hercules crew said it was glistening.’
‘And the payload?’
‘Forty-five bags of cement from 1,000ft. They were seen to explode on landing, even when they hit mud. Second flyby saw jeeps and trucks covered, men covered, buildings. As we speak they’re slowly getting stiff – if you know what I mean.’
‘I hope I know what you mean, yes. Good work, and the teams are mostly back safe, not many wounds to report.’
He informed me, ‘French soldier lost an arm, two French with through-and-throughs, and as we speak the French infantry are in a battle with APC and armoured vehicles, twenty miles in from the border. But they say they’ve pushed back the rebels and scattered them. French had 105mm on jeeps and pasted the rebels at 500yards out.’
‘Some progress today then. All quiet back there?’
‘It is when you’re away. My wife asked that you live down there.’
I smiled. ‘And O’Leary’s wife?’
‘Some nagging, but she has a new baby to keep her occupied. She has her hands full.’
The French returned to us, wounded grabbed and carried inside, but I had all the able-bodied men stock up and return to the Chinook as it was refuelled. I dispatched them to the action with the French Infantry, Sambo kept back.
With IAEA Doctor Williams walking past, I grabbed him. ‘How do you they turn uranium ore into something dangerous?’
‘First they crush the rocks and make a powder, then it’s treated with acid to make yellowcake, and then turned into gas and separated. Terrorists couldn’t do it, you’d need a factory a mile long and costing a billion pounds to set-up.’
I nodded. ‘What would they have done on-site here?’
‘I was thinking about what you said, about aircraft. They could use a small rock crusher, followed by a good quality second-stage crusher, then a vibration method.
You vibrate a drum of the stuff, and lighter material is at the top. That way you could get rid of 75% of the ore waste.
‘These days, they’re looking at pumping oxygen-enriched water into the rocks to bleach out the ore and then pump the water up -’
‘Could that have been done here?’ I asked.
‘No, new method, that mine was hammer and chisel. But if they removed 75% of the waste they could have flown it out.’
‘How many tonnes?’
‘We calculated three thousand tonnes, so … might have got that down to five hundred tonnes.’
‘An AN12 will fly out ten tonnes a week,’ I told him.
‘So over two years that would account for all the ore. They’d only need a small rock crusher. Industrial crushers deal with a tonne a minute, but that would be too much for this place.’
‘So the ore would have to go to a large facility…’
‘Very large, and there are few of them out there. This is not something you can do on a small scale.’
‘Would that ore make people sick?’ I asked.
‘If you ate enough of it you may get a higher risk of cancer down the line. It’s not much use as a weapon in ore format. Danger is the rogue states, Pakistan, Iran. They could refine it in secret.’
‘Why is Pakistan a rogue state?’ I puzzled, not letting on about Egypt.
‘They developed nuclear weapons in secret, as did the Indians, and tried to buy ore from questionable sources without declaring the tonnage. IAEA listed them as a rogue state because of it.’
I nodded. ‘Thanks.’
Our Mr Fix It delivered a water tank for the roof, and a small pump, and as I observed with others it was fitted and tested, the existing pipes down from the roof being still suitable and not blocked. We flushed a toilet to some cheering as Engineers carried inside ten tonnes of paint, bored soldiers enlisted into scrubbing, wiping and then painting walls, empty rooms first – I was wary of letting the locals inside the building.
Salome came and found me, and led me out to a quiet spot. ‘Sergio had infiltrated a Ukrainian gang.’
‘Soropov,’ I told her, surprising her.
‘Yes,’ she admitted.
‘Soropov and his men are dead, blown to bits at the airfield you were at. It must have been Soropov that assisted with weapons and aircraft here to attack us, working with a Russian called Ludwig. Ludwig will soon be … in custody. How did Soropov know about Sergio? Some slip-up?’
‘We don’t know, we’re looking into it.’
‘Why infiltrate the Ukrainian gang?’ I waited.
‘They ship weapons, some to Lebanon.’
I nodded. ‘And what did your boss say about the ore from here.’
‘He said to tell you to look west for your answer to the missing ore – whatever that means.’
I turned to the treeline and considered that. The ore had been stolen by the CIA, not Mossad. Still, it was a dead end that needed no investigation. Facing Salome, I said, ‘Your people will achieve more by cooperating with me; don’t keep secrets. Your man was working down here, and I should have known that or we risked killing him.’
She shrugged, not forthcoming.
‘If you have anyone in Guinea, remove them quickly, because there’ll be no white men left alive up there soon.’
After dark, men eating well with fresh supplies, Admiral Jacobs called. ‘We just got a thirty minute slot on CNN!’ he enthused. ‘Got the helo approach, the bombed runway, we got F18 camera footage, then the Marines landing, searches made, documents found, drugs and cash, boxes of weapons opened. It runs like a damn movie!’
‘Makes a change, to have the folks back home on your side.’
‘Shit, yeah, and Somalia still pisses me off. What comes next?’
‘We still have a few places to check out, so I could get your Marines back in. I’ll be running recon patrols tomorrow, they might turn up something.’
‘Guinea TV says that thousands of rebel soldiers and their families are fleeing west, away from you.’
‘That was what I wanted, because those men could be hired cheap to come shoot at us here.’
When a Puma set down in the dark I was called, five British Wolves with one trussed-up prisoner in a white shirt, now a dirty and bloody white shirt. I had told them to stay put in their OP, but the prisoner was a handful – they reported, giving away their position.
I lifted the man. In Russian I began, ‘We captured a friend of yours yesterday. He gave me answers, I gave him money and we dropped him in the town. You can speak to me or we hand you to the President in Monrovia, and he will castrate you and cut out your eyes, then bury you alive.’ I waited.
‘I have nothing to do with weapons, I move blood diamonds.’
‘Where do you move them to?’
‘By plane to Ivory Coast.’
‘And who do you hand them to?’
‘Kruger’s man, Sebastian.’
‘Ah,’ I let out. ‘Hold him.’ I stepped away and called Admiral Jacobs. ‘I have a prisoner, Russian blood diamond smuggler. Send a helo and hand him to the FBI, make a big show of it, sir. He works for a Tutger Kruger.’ I spelt it.
‘I’ll send a helo now.’
I went and found Max. ‘Put a story on Reuters, a Russian blood diamond smuggler captured by us, to stand trial in the States, working for a Tutger Kruger in Ivory Coast. He’s outside, so clean him up and photograph him, get his ID.’
Max and our man from The Telegraph keenly rushed outside.
Forty minutes later a Seahawk set down, our prisoner – now cleaned up – grabbed by Marines and taken away to some loud protesting. Apparently, I could not be trusted, and I was a lying, cheating...
My phone trilled, number withheld. ‘Hello?’
‘It’s Miller.’
‘And how’s the paper shuffling going?’
‘I take breaks on the hour, walk around, stretch.’
‘Sounds healthy. How can I help you today?’
‘You got us a shit load of air minutes, so those I work for are very happy, you’ve already helped us today.’
‘I am but a humble servant.’
‘Listen, loose ends; Soropov.’
‘Is dead. He died of being hit by a 2,000lb bomb, his minions also killed.’
‘And Sergio Callus?’
‘Was dropped from a plane on my airstrip, we found him in the treeline. He was Mossad, as I think you know, and he had infiltrated Soropov’s group, but something went wrong.’
‘Any clues as to what went wrong?’
‘Not yet, and they’re all dead. But I aim to pick up a Russian man called Ludwig soon, former disenfranchised partner of The Banker.’
‘We found a link between Ludwig and the bank, which is annoying really, we have told them to cease such operations.’
‘Will killing me achieve anything for them?’
‘No mention of you being the target.’
‘Then … the bank is trying to assist you in getting some good TV minutes, hiring idiots to attack me? I teased.
He laughed. ‘If they were doing that we’d pat them on the back, but no – I don’t think so. They know we have Atlantic in place, and they hope to make a buck. That uranium can be mined by a French-Canadian company, and they have a stake, so they should be happy right about now.’
‘Someone isn’t happy…’
‘That’s what we’re working on, a heart attack to arrange. Someone over there is still being a dick. But what do you have planned for the region?’
It was an odd question, since I was not in command of jack shit, not officially. ‘I’ll clear out rebel pockets north, make the area quiet for the mine workers.’
Captain Harris called later, some movement of UK forces to report. I called Colonel Mathews and we had a long chat, my movement orders discussed – I was informing him and not the other way around, so maybe I was in command of something after all.
In the morning a white commercial Hercules circled and landed, men f
rom the French-Canadian company offloading kit, some heavy kit, some jeeps. That was it, I was leaving.
I transmitted, ‘All Echo men get ready to leave, all Wolves, Americans and French teams stay here. 2 Squadron get ready to leave, 16 Squadron will be here today. You brief them then join us with the medics.’
I found Rizzo teaching 14 Intel. ‘Rizzo, pack up ready to leave. Dicky, Mouri, replenish supplies, then walk this lot back to the FOB in Sierra Leone, and there you’ll train them. Move out inside an hour.’
‘We’re walking?’ came from a man, a loud complaint.
‘Another fucking word from you and you get a plane back to the UK, and I’ll have you kicked out of 14 Intel!’ I waited as eyes were lowered.
‘Right, sir,’ he finally offered.
‘Dicky, if he’s a problem on the way back, tell me, we’ll get rid of him.’
‘Right, Boss.’ Dicky stepped to the man and lifted him by the neck as I walked off shaking my head.
A call into Moran, and two Chinooks were booked as I stood observing our new visitors. How many of those visitors were Deep State, CIA, the bank or DGSE I wondered. A few glanced my way, and I was tempted to shoot them.
Grabbing Colonel Clifford, I told him, ‘Hold the fort, sir. 14 Intel will walk back to the FOB and train there, my lot and the Wolves will go grab an airfield up north. Americans and French will stay, and the Paras, so grab men for the detail to protect the mine and sort out when to rotate them. More men arriving today.’
‘I’ll sort out a rota system, yes.’
‘16 Squadron RAF Regiment will protect this place close-in, 2 Squadron will join me with the medics, this place should be quiet now. And, sir, some of the civilians here may be spies for the bad boys.’
His eyebrows went up.
‘I’d suggest separating military from civilian, and be careful about bombs and security. And … check all IDs carefully.’
Inside, I grabbed Dick and Franks. ‘I’m moving north, airfield to seize.’
‘We’ve been told to hang around here,’ Franks reported, as if there was more to the words than just the words.
I nodded. ‘Be careful around these French-Canadian civvies.’
