Special Deception

by Special Deception (retail) (epub)

  ‘No.’ Leila fielded the question. Guiding him to the after deck where Charlie was. It was a wide, open space with seating — plastic cushion-tops on wooden lockers — around the curve of the ship’s stern. She said, ‘We have a larger boat for you, with a sixty-horsepower engine. You wouldn’t make a secret landing in that bright yellow one, would you.’

  ‘Exactly why I asked… Listen — you’ve had word, we’re to sail at sunrise?’

  Charlie left them to it, went inside for a look at what was, as he’d guessed, the wheelhouse. But it was also the galley and messing space. The wheel and the engine controls were in the port forward corner, high up and with a stool for the helmsman to sit on, and the windows at that level extended across the width of the compartment. On his left as he entered was a bar — or counter — with a narrow working—space the other side of it, between it and the ship’s side where there was a stove, sink, lockers. The starboard part had a cushioned bench around three sides of a low table. Dining area, Charlie noted. And right ahead of him in the centre of the forward bulkhead, on the helmsman’s right when he was up on his stool, double doors were latched open above steps leading down into what had to be the accommodation space — cabins, whatever.

  He looked round at the others crowding in. Bob introducing Tait and Denham: Pete clearly fascinated by Leila. Four litres of booze were now on the table in their plastic bags; Charlie said, retrieving his cigars, ‘If this is how the SBS deploys, I was in the wrong racket.’ Looking at the girl again, in the light now, and confirming that she was quite stunning, in a savage sort of way. Reminiscent of photographs one had seen of Israeli girl soldiers, some of them very eye—catching and sexy as well as commando-trained. They’d have put the best-looking ones nearest to the camera, of course; but Leila could well be one of those. He thought this placed her fairly accurately, that he’d hit the nail on the head as far as that one was concerned; a rider to the thought was that either in battle or in bed she’d take some handling.

  A scrawny guy appeared now, edging his way through. Smiley Tait backing to let him by. A man of forty-plus, three-quarters bald and with a yellowish complexion, he was wearing a filthy vest and ragged pants striped like pyjamas. Leila said, ‘This is Max. Engineer, also cook.’ She switched into French. ‘This one’s their officer — Bob, his name’s Bob. The big one there’s called — oh—’

  ‘Charlie.’ He nodded to them. ‘Bonjour, Max.’ She was introducing the other two: Denham still unable to take his eyes off Leila, and Max nodding, licking his thin lips — like a lizard when it’s swallowed a fly, Charlie thought, having watched lizards doing so on hot rocks in the Dhofar. Max looked sick, but his arms and shoulders were roped with muscle. Leila told them, ‘Four cabins are down there. The nearest on the left is mine. Two of you must share — each cabin has two bunks. You can sleep late, no reason you should wake when we pull up anchor… Lavatories also down there — one each side, and each has a hand-shower… Anything else you want to know?’

  ‘No jacuzzi?’

  She didn’t seem to have much sense of humour. Charlie tried again: ‘Where do the other crew bunk? Or are there more than we’ve met?’

  ‘Only those two. Mostly they sleep on deck.’

  ‘Joseph’s the capitain — right?’

  ‘For sailing the ship — sure. But for telling him where to sail it and what to do when we get there, that’s me.’

  ‘Except this is my operation, Leila.’

  ‘When you leave us, Bob, then it’s your operation.’ She smiled: the first time Charlie had seen her do it. Wide mouth full lips. In that peculiar way, very attractive. But the smile was telling Bob Let’s not fight this, you won’t win it… ‘Midnight day after tomorrow.’ She glanced at her watch, and corrected this: ‘Midnight tomorrow, since we are now into Monday. Midnight Tuesday.’

  ‘Tuesday — the night after this next one.’ Bob nodded. ‘All right. But leaving at daybreak?’

  She nodded. ‘Senseless to be in such a place as this when there is no need. We will start a little before daybreak, be away from land before light. I’ve let it be known on shore we go to Fetiye.’

  ‘Turkish mainland…’

  ‘A mainland port of entry, a place a cruise would go to. But this is my business, Bob, you leave it to me, you’ll be put ashore right place, right time, OK?’

  That was a reprimand, of sorts. Charlie cut in, ‘You talk good English.’

  ‘Also Yiddish, French, small bit Arabic. Only a few words German.’

  She’d taken his comment as a statement, not as a compliment. Gesturing towards the cabins: ‘Why don’t you change your clothes, take showers if you want. Max will fix a meal now.’

  *

  The Hercules thundered eastward. Well into its six-hour flight: over the Adriatic or thereabouts, Ben Ockley guessed.

  He worked his arms and shoulders out of the sleeping bag, pushed himself up on an elbow in the very cold rush of air — reaching for his thermos flask, for coffee. Looking round for anyone who’d like some: but only Froggie Clark was nearby, and he was asleep, his bag jammed between the seats and the stack of cargo and only the top of his head visible. Ben set his mug down on the jumpy, resonant steel plating, and reached again, this time to dip one-handed into the white cake-box with which he’d been issued by the Crabs, this being the standard packaging for their in-flight snacks. Breakfast in bed: with a choice of a ham sandwich, an apple and a chocolate biscuit bar, also some kind of chemical cold drink in a plastic container. Sandwich in one hand, hunched on the other elbow, he stared around at the cavernous, noisy hold.

  There was a short line of nylon-web seats against the side of the fuselage, but nobody was using them now. The cargo, only a very small part of which was SBS gear — which was at the back end anyway — was stacked centrally on the bed of steel rollers and securing clamps, leaving only just room for a man to squeeze by between it and any seated men’s knees. Now, on this side, there wouldn’t be room: anyone wanting to go aft, Crab crew heading for the tented Elsan-type WC for instance, would have to mountaineer over seats or cargo. In fact the SBS men, all experienced C130 customers, were up on top of the stack, having found themselves places where they could spread their bags — on ledges or in hammock-like nests in the covering that shrouded the outlines of crates, cartons and weirder shapes. Within seconds of being allowed out of their seats and seatbelts after takeoff they’d swarmed up the stack in competition for the best spots, dragging their sleeping-bags with them; it had looked like a kind of mass levitation, that swift and apparently effortless upward swarm of men who were ultra-fit.

  The Sea-Riders were at the after end of the hold; Ben had seen them loaded. Their side blisters were deflated, of course, but the rigid, deeply V-shaped hulls took up a lot of space. With them were their outboards, 140-horsepower, bulky as well as heavy, extra gas-tanks (empty now) and the containers of weaponry and other gear.

  As soon as they touched down at Akrotiri that lot would be transferred to the C130 which would be standing by for the para-drop interception. Before anything else was done, it would all be moved over and put in its right place in the other plane, and the boats would be prepared — inflated, their outboards and radios fitted, containers secured inside them, parachutes attached on the special harness that would float them down to hit the sea even-keeled. Drysuits would be unpacked: everything would be set ready and in place for instant takeoff.

  Then the team could indulge themselves in breakfast, showers, whatever home comforts Akrotiri base might be offering. Shifting into DPMs before breakfasting, Ben noted mentally. Then there’d be no hold-up at all when the whistle blew.

  He hoped there wouldn’t be long to wait. As far as the waiting period and the reconnaissance operation were concerned there were basically two stages foreseeable. One, a Nimrod would take to the air at first light to patrol the waters on the east side of the island and watch for any small craft — specially high-speed craft — making for the Syrian coast. (The approxim
ate landing zone was known, through an Intelligence report which had supplied the coordinates of Swale and company’s inland destination.) Two, ground reconnaissance was in progress with the object of identifying the boat or ship, so that the surveillance aircraft would then have a specific target to locate and track. From the SBS point of view this would be a great advance: you’d know what you were doing then, wouldn’t be running any risk of dropping on the wrong target.

  At night, that could be a problem; by day the likelihood of any such fiasco would be much reduced. For other reasons as well, technical ones, it would be far easier to do the job in daylight.

  To get a chance at all, though — day or night — that was the gamble, just to be in time. Charles Hislop had pointed out in his briefing at Lyneham that they might already be too late, that the other side could have been on their way then: by now, could in Syria…

  ‘It’s up to you.’ He’d looked round the circle of faces. ‘If we’re there too late — well, won’t be your fault or mine, we couldn’t have moved any faster than we have. But if luck’s with us and we’re out there with a fighting chance, there’ll be a hell of a lot resting on your shoulders. The issue is tremendously important. I’ll say it again now: we want them all — however many, which as yet we’ve no way of knowing. We want them stopped, arrested and brought into Dhekelia with their boat. And that’s your objective if all goes perfectly… But — the key to the whole thing is this fellow Swale. If he’s removed, the bomb’s defused, as it were. Obviously the best result would be to snatch him — and any other Brits there may be on board — and bring him back in one piece. But if for any reason that’s not on, then you’re to kill him.’ Hislop had added, ‘That’s an order, Ben.’

  *

  Charlie took a long time getting to sleep. Maybe his system wasn’t accustomed to being laid to rest cold sober. His mind was still active anyway. And with sobriety was even a touch of hangover, from the steady intake of alcohol throughout the day, both airborne and on the ground in Istanbul. To which oddly enough Bob Knox raised no objection, although in London a week ago he’d warned that there’d be no drinking once they’d started.

  Maybe this didn’t count as having started. Maybe now, having embarked. Nobody had touched any of those Duty-Free bottles tonight, or suggested doing so.

  Knox was an odd character, though. In some ways, out of character. One recollection which still irritated had been his condescending to have a drink in the flat last night, last night before departure, because he’d wanted to toast ‘happy landings’. It had been so phoney that Charlie had gagged on it mentally even though he’d been three parts pissed at the time. It might have come out of some TV drama — intrepid hero posturing — but in real life the sort of people who were involved in this kind of thing tended not to pose in front of mirrors.

  Charlie assured himself, not for the first time, He’ll be all right on the night…

  Touch wood. Rapping the side of the bunk. Thinking for some reason of Leila about six feet away in hers, and stirred by the visual imagery… Smiley Tait had growled — in the passageway outside these cabins — ‘Some hard lady, that one!’ Charlie had concurred, adding quietly, ‘Israeli army, Smiley. I’d bet on it. And most likely commando-trained.’

  ‘Could be.’ Tait had pushed open the door of the cabin he sharing with Denham, and tossed his gear on to the lower bunk. ‘She’d break either your neck or your balls, soon as look at you.’

  Meatballs, Max had offered them for their late snack, and with them an oily mixture of aubergines and tomatoes. Leila had sat with them while they ate, and Charlie had asked her whether she’d been born in Israel. She’d glanced at him sharply, her look asking What’s it to you? before relaxing, nodding.

  ‘And would I be right in guessing you…’ he‘d hesitated, not wanting to have her think he was suggesting she was all that butch — ‘well, all Israelis of military age, men and women do time in your armed forces, don’t they?’

  ‘It’s necessary, for our survival as a nation.’ Then she’d changed the subject, before he could pin her down as a commando, prove to himself and Tait that his hunch was right: she’d said to Bob, ‘When we’re out at sea, we can get the stores up. Check out your weapons and so forth. Rations, all that… And the boat, you’ll want to have it in the water, give it a trial, huh?’

  Bob agreed, he’d like to do all those things. She assured him, ‘The motor is excellent, no problems, we had it running last week and Max did a servicing routine on it after. The boat is French, purchased recently in Marseilles.’

  ‘So if the Syrians found it—’ Pete Denham chipped in — ‘they’d be looking for Frogs.’

  ‘They might.’ Leila shrugged. ‘If they’re simple-minded. It’s what we were told you wanted, that’s all.’

  ‘As the French tried to do to us in New Zealand.’ Charlie recalled this. ‘When they sank the Greenpeace ship. They’d bought their inflatable in London.’

  ‘So anyone would know this was the Brits getting back at their old friends.’ A glance at Charlie. Huge eyes, golden-brown and the whites very bright and clear. ‘So smart.’

  ‘Israelis would be smarter, no doubt.’

  ‘Don’t you know it?’

  ‘The answer is—’ Charlie admired her arrogance — ‘not to let it be found.’ He looked at Bob. ‘If it was, how’d we get off the beach?’

  Bob had answered rather testily: ‘Steal some other boat. Or something. Fucking swim off.’ Leaning back almost horizontally from the table, reaching towards Max with his plate, wanting a refill. Charlie meanwhile persevering: ‘We might swim off, if the R/V position’s not too far out.’ That was another question, but he decided it could wait… ‘But the guy we hope we’ll have with us by then may not be in such great shape, eh?’

  ‘Oh, shit, Charlie.’ Bob swung back with his second helping. More salad than balls, this time. ‘One, no reason they’d get our boat. Two, you’re right, we can’t know what shape he’ll be in. That’s one reason for using an inflatable, not canoes. You’re another of the reasons, incidentally…’

  *

  When he woke, it was a major effort to fight through to consciousness, remember where he was and what for, and how he’d got here. Memory rebuilt itself in pieces; and what stuck, like solids left high and dry when the sludge had filtered away, were his doubts about Bob Knox.

  In the half-waking state, it scared him, while remaining out of reach, not clearly definable. An impression, an amalgam of small doubts. The only thing he could say for sure was that he disliked the man.

  Disliked or distrusted. If there was any difference. OK, both.

  But — hold on, now. Think…

  One: you couldn‘t expect to like everyone you worked with. Two: it was a two-way thing, like all relationships. Bob had his doubts, his distrust of Charlie Swale. Because of the drinking: maybe for other reasons too, but it was a mutual wariness.

  So forget it. There wasn’t a bloody thing you could do about it anyway.

  That suggestion of light in the circle of the port-hole could be a reflection of shore lights, he guessed. It still felt like the middle of the night. The air coming in was decidedly cold, chilling a sweat which had sprung out when he’d begun — half-awake — to worry about Knox. He pushed at the brass ring to shut it, wondering at the same time whether that might not be a first suggestion of the dawn. If this ship was still lying the way she had been — this was the starboard side — well, that would be the east, all right… Confirming it, he heard someone on deck — bare feet or soft shoes padding overhead, up the strip of side deck — and remembered Leila saying that the intention was to move off before sunrise, get away from the coast before the light came. Maybe their moving around up there was what had woken him out of his deep sleep. And if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em…

  He groped for the light switch. Then climbed off the bunk, pulled on trousers and a sweater and went up through the wheelhouse on to the stern deck.

  There was a
reddish glow on the horizon; from port—hole level only a high, colourless reflection of it had been visible. The white yacht was still with them, fifty or sixty yards away, two white anchor lights halo’d in the damp salt air. Charlie glanced around, checking to make sure he was alone here, contemplating having a pee over the side — they’d all be up at the sharp end, from where he could hear the rhythmic click-clacking of chain cable being winched in. But at that moment a diminutive, dark figure came hurrying aft, ducked into the wheelhouse and then stopped, turned — doing a double-take, looking back to see who this was lurking in the stern… Joseph. But he didn’t waste time or words; he went inside, got up on the stool and must have pressed a starter button. Right under Charlie’s feet the gulet’s diesel engine rumbled into life.

  *

  Hayward’s Ford Escort rolled into Kyrenia only a neck behind the sunrise. The sun was fresh up out of the sea, blazing like fire in windows at the western end of the waterfront.

  He’d got his call through to Akrotiri — finally, but not easily. Initial delay had resulted from the Greeks advising him to contact the Swedish UN contingent, which had led to a lot of talk, promises of help next day. So then he’d returned to his original intention of contacting the Akrotiri base. Again there’d been delay, he’d had to leave it to some NCO to find Ken Fellows and get him out of bed, to ring him back. Even this had only been possible because by sheer luck Hayward had remembered the name of an individual to whom Ken had had been due to report on arrival; until he’d dredged up this name he’d been having problems convincing the military exchange operator that Ken — or even he himself, for that matter — existed. Admittedly this had been taking place at around 0300, an hour when people tended to be not quite at their sharpest. But Ken had come through eventually, promised to do his best, and after another hour had crawled by — Jimmy Hayward back in the car, despairing, chain-smoking, certain that even if Swale had ever visited Kyrenia he’d be a hundred miles away by now — after this further age a military officer had arrived on foot, spoken at some length to the police sergeant — not the same one, the watch had by this time changed twice — and then approached the Ford.