Or worse, call the dogs down on him.
TWENTY-EIGHT
It was Jordan Conway’s draw to fetch water. The day promised to be a long one. It wasn’t fully light yet, but he knew the feel of the air enough now to be able to judge the conditions. They had picked up a satellite reading of the weather forecast in the last radio burst at midnight. It promised a brief spell of humidity before turning colder. This close to water, they would be at the mercy of the last of the midges, flies and mosquitoes, all vying for a final bite of human skin.
This time tomorrow, they’d probably be freezing their asses off.
He gently cleared a gummy throat and relished being down by the water, where it would be cooler. He edged forward until he drew level with Doug Rausing, who was on watch.
‘OK, boss,’ he breathed. ‘We good to go?’
Rausing nodded without taking his eye away from the monocular’s padded eyecup. ‘We’re clear. Nothing moving bigger than a fox, no change to the terrain. You set?’
‘Yep. You want anything from the deli?’
‘Some popcorn would be good,’ replied Rausing, with a dark smile. ‘If they don’t have any, bring me some chips.’
‘You got it. Pay me when I get back.’ Conway secured the collapsible water container to his belt and slid away to the edge of their hide.
He studied the ground for a full five minutes before moving out, checking for wildlife. Animals were the best indicators of intruders; when someone alien moved in, the wildlife moved out or went quiet. Like they would when he began moving, although not, he hoped, at the same time. A few birds were skimming over the rough grass, and a couple of hares squatted a hundred yards off, heads down and munching. Some crows were in the trees by the lake, arguing the toss as usual. Apart from that, it looked good. He wondered whether Bronson and Capel, the other two Delta men, were watching. Maybe he’d see one of them down by the lake on water duty. They could have a chat, catch up on old times.
He looked up to where a few late stars showed between the clouds, and wondered briefly about the sky cover that was supposed to be up there, watching over them. They were probably brewing coffee and having breakfast about now, changing shift in their long hours spent patrolling while the cameras sent back images to base. And above them would be the satellites, forever circling, taking pictures of the aircraft taking pictures.
Seconds later he was moving, belly down and making his way carefully towards the lake. It was a 250-yard trip, mostly downhill, a gentle slope over undulating grass. There were a couple of gullies he could use, dead ground forged by decades of water coursing down to the lake, and some low scrub where he could take a look around without standing out. As long as he didn’t run into trouble, it would take about an hour to complete the trip there and back. But there was no hurry.
TWENTY-NINE
To the west, the British Special Reconnaissance team was also on the move. But their objectives were different. ‘Hunt’ Wallis was scanning the ground in front of him through his glasses, fighting a rising sense of panic. He was desperate to see signs of Jocko Wardle, his colleague. Wardle had gone out on a recce after hearing noises in the trees. They had agreed it was better for Wardle, a former poacher, to do it, using the dark to move rather than waiting for daylight.
That had been an hour ago.
So far, there had been no sign of him coming back, no contact on the tiny radios they were each carrying. The sets had a short range of a few hundred yards, but were sufficient for communicating between OPs without disturbing the airwaves. Wardle should have been on by now, signalling the all-clear, or back in the basha, looking for something to eat.
‘Anything?’ Mike Wilson slid alongside Wallis, bringing an aroma of damp clothing and chocolate, and the familiar tang of oiled weapons.
‘Fuck all. Something’s up.’
Wilson nodded. ‘He’s run into trouble, daft bastard.’
‘Unless he stopped for a crap. Or tripped over and broke his silly fuckin’ neck.’
The dark humour hid a genuine concern for their colleague. But both men knew that if he hadn’t come back by now, he probably wasn’t going to.
He was either captive. Or dead.
Yet they had seen no sign of enemy forces.
Either way, he was beyond their reach. Their orders were not to engage with local forces under any circumstances unless their lives were at extreme risk. Agonizing over the rights and wrongs of leaving Wardle out there would only lead to negative thinking. And that was counter-productive. If there was an opportunity to take a look later, they would do it. For now, they could only watch and wait.
‘Better call it in,’ Wilson said soberly. ‘I’ll get on the net.’
Wallis nodded and continued scouring the darkness while Wilson went back to make the call. If Wardle turned up safe and well, they could cancel the alert. He’d get a beasting for causing them grief, but that was part of the job.
Until then, they had to figure out what kind of trouble had overtaken him . . . and whether they were next in line.
Wilson made his way carefully into deeper cover, wary of setting off the birds in the trees overhead. The comms equipment, a lightweight electronic pack which fired messages in split-second bursts, was concealed along with their rations and backpacks in a hollow beneath a fallen tree, and covered with camouflage netting spotted with leaves and twigs. Anyone coming through here would practically have to trip over it to see it.
He paused to gently brush aside a spider’s web. Jocko’s non-appearance was the worst kind of news; he wasn’t the type to get lost, and would have found some way to contact them if he’d been compromised. A brilliant birdsong mimic, he’d have sent up a warning, to give them a heads up.
Wilson reached the hollow and checked the area. Just as they’d left it. No sign of intruders. He slipped under the camouflage netting and reached for the radio pack, mentally composing his message. It would have to be short, sharp and without embellishment. Ten seconds and London would know what had happened.
The radio was gone.
A bird flapped from the tree above his head, and he felt a momentary despair as the netting shifted behind him.
Then something cold and sharp pierced the back of his neck.
THIRTY
Doug Rausing felt his eyes closing and pinched his arm hard. Falling asleep right now wasn’t good. He checked his watch. He was surprised to find that Conway had already been gone forty minutes. Still, that was OK; it took that long to get down to the water and start on the way back. He could take another forty if he had to – and some. Lack of sleep was something you got used to in Delta; that and being thirsty, uncomfortable and wishing you were in a nice bar somewhere, sucking down a cold beer.
He checked through the monocular. It was easier to carry than field glasses and lighter, too. He’d first used it in the Marine sniper section, and had grown to trust it.
The lake looked the same as before; lighter now, but no sign of anything that shouldn’t be there. The surface of the water carried the same glitter he’d noticed on previous mornings, a ghostly sheen as if someone had lit it from underneath. Must be some kind of optical flare, where the coming dawn was feeding early rays across the land and into the tiny wind ripples running from east to west.
A crow rose from the trees to the right, an untidy black shape. He focussed the monocular, tracking the bird’s progress as it lifted into the sky. Must be the early bird he’d heard talk about; keen to be up and out there, like Conway.
Another crow joined the first one, this time with a sound of protest, wings clattering.
Something had disturbed it.
Rausing felt a flicker of alarm. He checked his watch, then tracked along the route Conway should be taking back from the lake. Down one way, back another; it was standard procedure. That way you didn’t run into an ambush. He was tempted to use the radio, but they were under silent conditions unless open warfare broke out.
A third crow lifted out of the tr
ees, and another, the protests louder, and Rausing wonderer if Bronson and Capel had decided to make a move. They were dug in at least three hundred yards further on, and would have no reason to come this way; their orders were to stay apart, to limit possible exposure.
Yet something wasn’t right; he could sense it. Conway could move like a ghost – they all could. But Conway was the best.
A snap echoed up the slope, like a twig breaking. Then silence.
Rausing tracked across the terrain again, looking for the slightest sign of movement. He knew the noise wasn’t Conway; the man didn’t tread on twigs. Then a chilly feeling swept right through him.
Jesus, he thought. What twigs? There are no trees down there!
He swung left again. The lake was empty, same as the grass leading down. Same with the edge of the trees.
Nothing. Not a damn thing.
He swore and toggled his radio. ‘Conway. Come in. You OK?’ His voice was too loud, and he bit down on the temptation to move out. ‘Dammit, Con, come in, man!’ It wasn’t approved comms procedure, but who the hell was there to hear him?
Silence.
He tried the other two again. ‘Capel . . . Bronson. You there? Come in.’ But they weren’t listening . . . or couldn’t. He went back to scouring the landscape. Another two sweeps and he’d bag up and move out.
Then he heard a rustle behind him. Fabric on grass. A faint shift in the air. He grinned with relief and turned his head. Conway, the sneaky bastard, had come round the long way just to freak him out—
It was the last thought he ever had.
THIRTY-ONE
Deep in the belly of the Naval Intelligence monitoring unit in Northwood, London, Lieutenant Commander David Brill was interrupted in the middle of a working desk break by a technician from Communications Support Group.
‘Sir, there’s something you should see.’ The technician, named Tully, looked worried, and was already moving back down the corridor towards the main communications room.
Brill felt an unwelcome flip in his stomach. Tully wouldn’t have interrupted him without good cause. He looked wistfully at the half-eaten cheese sandwich on his blotter and followed the technician out into the corridor.
Through two secure doors and past an array of ID scanners, they finally arrived in the main control centre, a circular room packed with electronic equipment, including large, wall-mounted plasma screens. One of these screens was currently ‘live’, showing a coloured map with two clusters of white lights. It was a pared-down version of a normal country map, devoid of unnecessary information unless called for, in which case it could be there at the press of a button.
The detail now on show was of a stretch of open country, with a large expanse of water representing an inland lake at bottom right. It was fed by a small river and, coming from the north, a run of high ground and further small streams and other lakes in the foothills of what Brill knew was the Caucasus Mountains. Details of roads were sketchy, mostly because there were none.
Brill glanced at the other technicians. They were intent on the map, and he could feel the tension in the room.
Something was wrong.
He checked the bottom of the screen, where a constant loop display gave map coordinates and current local time, with temperature and weather data on the ground, and a group of six-figure numbers with alpha suffixes. Alongside was a small US flag.
Brill knew that the lights and alphanumeric references represented locator markers on the ground, and showed current strength of signals and position. What he wasn’t privy to was why they were there. All he and his staff had to do was watch them. He scanned the map and data, but nothing sprang out at him.
‘OK, Tully, what’s the probl—’ He stopped, a worm of apprehension taking hold in his gut.
One of the lights was blinking.
‘Is that a malfunction?’
‘No, sir.’ Tully’s voice was tight but controlled, professional. ‘We checked it already.’ He tapped at a keyboard and the map changed, along with the time and data read-out at the bottom. ‘This was thirty minutes ago. Same place, same details.’ The light clusters were the same, but firm and unblinking. ‘The monitors pulled this up as usual, and we ran a check of the last fifteen hours. We noticed that the signal strength had changed overnight.’
‘Changed how?’
‘The lights are ground markers, sir, placed by an insert team.’ He looked nervous.
‘I know. So?’
‘They’re markers, all right, sir . . . but not ground-based. When we increased the magnification of the area around the lights, we noticed movement. Not great, but definitely movement – in one case by about three hundred metres. A single light. Then it returned to its original position.’
Brill didn’t bother asking Tully if he was certain. The men and women in this room were a highly-trained team, their combined skills probably unrivalled anywhere in the world of electronic mapping and monitoring. And they all had experience of monitoring Special Operations.
‘Maybe they were changing position . . . or one of them was carrying a marker.’ Even as he said it, he knew that wasn’t the reason. Ground markers or transponders of the type used in this situation were only switched on when in position. The moment they were planted, the man on the ground hit a button to activate the signal. Doing it while on the move was pointless . . . and could be fatally misleading for back-up forces. ‘Go on.’ He sensed there was more.
The technician brought up another screen, this one enhanced, and pointed to a light close to the lake. We got this read-out earlier . . . the mover. We think he went down to the lake – possibly for water. He could have been checking his perimeter. Impossible to tell.’
Brill suppressed a shiver. The use of the word ‘he’ suddenly made this much more personal. No longer were they merely lights on a screen, but people; living, breathing people.
‘We think,’ continued Tully, gathering confidence, ‘that these markers are body locators. We thought they were sewn into the clothing. But I’m not so sure.’ He tapped his keyboard and the screen changed again, this time displaying a read-out tag of numbers against each light.
‘I don’t see your point. What’s the difference?’
Tully glanced at his colleagues, then said, ‘I believe these numbers are body-activated. Thirty minutes ago, an alarm sounded. We weren’t sure where it had come from – it wasn’t part of the technical brief. Then we realized it must have come from the locator frequency. Watch this.’ He changed the screen, and an electronic note echoed round the room. It lasted five seconds, then stopped. At the same time, one of the lights began blinking, then went out.
‘What happened?’ Brill felt panic blossom in his chest. Whatever the hell was going on, this didn’t look good.
‘It’s possible these locators are matched to body temperature,’ Tully replied softly. ‘Life-sign readings. When we did a check after the first one down by the lake, we noticed that the numbers against some of the tags changed during the night. They were lower than the others, even those close by.’ Before Brill could ask, he added, ‘When the body is at rest, the pulse and heartbeat slow down and there are no spikes in body activity or life signs.’ The screen changed. ‘This is the first one.’
The light by the lake began blinking, and the electronic alarm pinged.
The light went out.
Brill’s throat went dry. ‘What . . . ?’
‘The locator has lost all life signs. Sir.’ Tully’s voice was a whisper.
Brill reached for a phone. He felt sick. As a naval officer he knew all about transponders. Some were water-activated, for lifeboats and downed aircraft. But a whole new generation of electronics had ushered in innovations for tracking and locating which had less to do with boats or planes and more to do with humans. ‘You’re sure? No chance of malfunction or loss – a failed power source?’
‘I’m sure, sir.’ Tully coughed. ‘Sir, the Yan— Americans have started using small body trackers than can’t b
e lost or mislaid. They’re powered by body heat and last for approximately twenty-eight days before degrading. Some of our Special Forces are trying them out, too . . . so I hear.’
‘Go on.’
‘There’s only one reason for them to go offline before then.’
Brill didn’t have to ask what that reason was. ‘How do they work?’ He knew he was playing for time; he hadn’t got the slightest interest in how the tracking devices functioned, or what stopped them working. But neither did he want to make this particular phone call until he was absolutely certain of his facts.
‘They’re inserted beneath the skin, sir.’ Tully pointed to his upper arm. ‘Here.’ He held up a hand before Brill could use the phone. ‘There’s more.’ He turned back to his screen and pointed. ‘This came next.’
Brill waited, holding his breath.
One of the three remaining lights began blinking, followed by the electronic alarm. Then another, this one of a pair slightly separate from the first two. No sooner had it gone out than the fourth light in the cluster went the same way.
The last alarm seemed to go on for ever, echoing with haunting finality in the room. One of the operators swore softly and turned down the volume.
Brill began to dial the number, his hand shaking, and wondered about the men on the ground.
‘Why the fuck didn’t someone tell us?’ he said harshly, staring at the screen. But nobody answered.
THIRTY-TWO
Marcella Rudmann received the news and stared at the telephone before replacing it softly on its cradle. The call from Northwood had been routed through the MOD to all desks, and had already been confirmed by GCHQ and the National Security Agency watchers in Fort Meade, Maryland.
The Delta Force team had gone offline.
Across the desk from her, Lieutenant-Colonel Spake, the Deputy Director Special Forces, looked grim.
‘Four undercover personnel disposed of in quick succession,’ she said. ‘How could that happen?’
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