‘Two and a half hours of moonlight before dawn. Unless the moon’s behind the peaks.’ He hadn’t checked on that kind of detail, hadn’t thought of the moon, or anything like this… ‘Meanwhile, we might run up behind Swale’s bunch. Odds are against it, obviously, but it’s not out of the question. After all, we’re heading for the same place. So — well, if we do, we’ll make a job of it, deploy around them and make sure we get them all — and no shooting, right?’
*
In the mountains, four and a half hours later, he lay hearing men’s snores around him and guessing that somewhere in the hills to the west the Swale team would also be lying-up. Even if they’d come by Syrian invitation they’d still be acting like intruders, maintaining Swale’s belief in them for another day or two.
And they’d be equipped for it, no doubt. Sleeping-bags and proper rations, warm clothing for cold nights in the mountains.
He’d hoped to run into them: for that much luck. He’d deployed his team like bearers spread out to flush game, and before departure from the beach he’d told Hattry, ‘If we did strike lucky, we’d lie-up tomorrow, get back here and shove off tomorrow night. Not likely but they should have a Nimrod airborne just in case.’
Making the most of the final moments of contact with an outside world. Once the boats pushed off and the team moved inland, whatever you’d forgotten would stay forgotten… This thought had given rise to another.
‘If we didn’t show up — well, on Saturday — they might consider sending a Nimrod over to contact us by Sarbe. If they thought it could be risked. So we’ll be ready to switch on if we hear anything coming over. Not bleeper, obviously, it could be Syrian: voice only, OK?’
‘Doubt they’d send one inland, Ben.’
‘So do I. And I’m not asking them to. Contingency, that’s all. If we were stuck, and they’d want to know whether we’d greased Swale?’
‘Right.’
Sticks had said when they’d been moving off — Ben looking back to see the fast-fading white trace of the Sea-Riders withdrawing seaward — ‘Not likely they’d send Crabs over. Not even for you and me.’
‘They’d want us out, though, wouldn’t they. If we got caught ashore here, we’d have put ourselves in Swale’s place, in a way. Even if we’d killed him they’d have us instead — genuine articles, eight for the price of one!’
‘You did think of that, then…’
Dawn blazed behind the mountains, a golden furnace silhouetting that jagged frieze. The sun’s warmth would be welcome when it got over that rock barrier: although the low night temperature hadn’t stopped several of them falling asleep almost instantly after tucking themselves into rock angles and crevices fifteen or twenty minutes ago. Three were on watch: two higher up the slope, right and left, well hidden but with wide fields of view, and Ray Wilkinson fifty yards downslope where he could see over the ridge into a connecting valley. In daylight you’d see how effectively they’d merged themselves into the rockscape; Ben would be checking this before he went to sleep himself.
If he could. His mind was active, restive. The uncertainty, so many unpredictables ahead: and Sticks’ comment a few hours ago, You did think of that, then, and his earlier protest, This is fucking Syria! mentally regurgitated brought a flare-up of anxiety so acute it was almost panic: panic disguised, in that moment, as fresh clarity in his thinking. Himself alone, without authority or sense, leading a team of Royal Marines — armed, and in a sense uniformed — into territory that even he, Ben Ockley, could recognise as politically ultra-sensitive. The quality of outrage shocked him as dawn flamed brighter, spreading up from behind the black rock-masses; he was wet — cold — only sweat-damp at first but now his whole body running wet inside lightweight DPMs, sweat cold as a film of ice. Urging himself — teeth clenched to stop them chattering — Hang on, think this through again…
Like handling a threat of panic under water. One had learnt in the very early days of training to take a grip on the mental processes: to hold the breathing steady and hold the mental breath as well while the false fears faded…
Rather the same procedure now: starting with the basic that his orders were to take out the former SAS guy. Who’d been only a short jump ahead and on his way to a known point on the map, a place which this team could surely reach before he did. Hislop had stressed how vital it was that Swale shouldn’t be left alive in Syria: and it had been obvious, back there on the rocks, that there was still a good chance of ensuring that he was not. So you came down to the general sanction — imperative, in some circumstance — for a decision of the kind they called ‘local initiative’, allowing one to go beyond the limitations of the brief. And it was, clearly, arguable that they’d have been wrong to have given up.
Contrary to Sticks Kelso’s reactions. But the team leader was Ockley, not Kelso. Kelso had sounded his warning out of a sense of duty, also concern for Ben as much as for the issue itself, and he’d have had in mind Ben Ockley’s reputation as a man who faced complex challenges with his head down and hooves pounding. Ben himself was fully aware of this image of him in some of his brother Bootneck’s eyes. He’d had it in mind when he’s been down there on the beach. But he’d also registered the thought — as he did now — that you couldn’t let yourself be pushed into making a wrong decision just because making the right one might seem to reflect some of the damn-fool yarns they’d put around.
*
Six or seven kilometres northwest, land a few hundred feet lower, Charlie unrolled his sleeping-bag into a deeper shadow of overhanging rock. Any danger of being spotted here, he guessed, would be from aircraft or helicopters. There’d been one helicopter — a Gazelle, and too close for comfort, particularly so soon after the close pass by that plane which he still thought had been a Nimrod, not long after they’d left the beach… He squirmed out from under the rock. The sun was showing now, not just the brilliant fire surrounding it but the crimson ball itself, its rim pushing up in a cleft of the mountain range, flushing the surrounding peaks and ridges with colour that was only slightly less intense.
Smiley was brewing tea on the portable, Israeli-made naphta stove which Leila had provided. Safe enough now for that dim blue glow on the brightening hillside.
They’d trekked a long way from where they’d landed, staying parallel to the coast but inland of the road, and making diversions around villages, until Bob had concluded that they were on the line of march which they would have been on if Leila had landed them where she’d been told to land them. Bob hadn’t liked the change of plan at all, had considered it unnecessary, being sure that the low-flying jet could have had nothing to do with them or with their objective.
Charlie had asked him, ‘Why should the Syrians be so slack about watching their own coast?’
‘Watching a small timber sailboat, on a coast that’s dotted with fishing villages?’ He’d glanced critically at Charlie, as if wondering about his ignorance… ‘Syria’s enemy is Israel, and Israelis come in Fast Attack Craft or even destroyers. They don’t come here, anyway, they attack PLO bases in Syrian-controlled areas of the Lebanon, don’t they.’
The gear Leila had provided was all Israeli Army stuff. Not uniform as such — she’d equipped them with greenish-coloured cotton fatigues and heavier camouflage-pattern smocks and caps, the sort of gear you could buy in army surplus stores — but it was Israeli-made, as were the Uzi submachine-guns, ration-packs, sleeping-bags, and that naphtha stove. She’d told Charlie, ‘My government gives all this for nothing. Israel is generous to her friends, you see.’
‘Even to the extent of buying the inflatable for us in Marseilles.’
‘As I told you, it’s what we were asked to do.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe not so stupid. A little confusion?’
It might have the reverse effect, though; a French team would not leave a French-made boat around. In that sense, you might be putting a British signature on that beach. And why any Syrian should (a) find the boat or (b) believe Frenchmen would risk their
necks to extract a British hostage — if you believed that, he thought, what wouldn’t you believe?
Tait poured tea into Israeli mugs. There was adequate cover here, broken rock all over, and no reason for anyone to pass this way. Animals wouldn’t graze on rock, and here was a perfectly good track winding through the valley, skirting the bottom of this hill and continuing west through a densely cultivated area where the river widened in its approach to the sea.
He lay back, resting an elbow on a bunched-up end of his sleeping-bag and sipping the hot tea.
‘What’s the form from here on? Do we get to where they’re holding this guy tonight? Village, whatever?’
‘The rendezvous is at an old castle — a qal’at. This country’s littered with such relics.’
‘In a dungeon, is he, real Crusader stuff?’
‘I doubt it. Not so easy to dig dungeons out of solid rock. It’s one of hundreds of such places, just an ancient ruin: and he’s not necessarily in it, just near it.‘
‘Day after tomorrow, you said.’
‘We won’t make it in one night, Charlie.’
‘Twenty-five kilometres?’
‘Mountains. How many mountains have you climbed in in the dark?’
‘Since you ask — three or four.’ He shrugged. ‘But OK, we get there tomorrow night, not tonight. In time to recce before sunrise?’
‘Yes. But we don’t recce, I do. The easy way, as it happens, I have someone to men there, an agent.’
‘Agent…’ Tait and Denham were staring at him too; evidently they hadn’t heard about this either. Charlie asked, ‘What kind of agent?’
‘Syrian, maybe on the SIS payroll. I don’t need that kind of information, any more than you do. But he’ll point me to where they’ve got Stillgoe, I’ll have a look around and then rejoin you three, and we’ll decide how we’re going to do it.’
‘Spring him after dark, presumably.‘ Charlie was less presuming it than querying it. Some of the SBS arrangements puzzled him. Two nights just to cover twenty-five kilometres, for instance. OK, with some rock-climbing included: but they’d be passing through the range, surely, not over it, and they’d have some moonlight too… He added, ‘So we’ll have some dark hours left for the move out. And if we can get him out really quietly—’
‘Exactly, Charlie. That’s more or less how I’m hoping this guy will have set it up for us.’
‘Never mentioned him before, did you.’
‘D’you think I should have?’
Charlie gulped tea. ‘I said this before, or something like it. We could be left holding the baby, if you broke your neck. Suppose your agent wasn’t there and they had the place staked out, you all alone doing your prima donna bit—’
‘If he let us down, we’d make our own recce, that’s all. And if they had it staked out I hope I’d be smart enough not to walk into it. But suppose I did: OK, you three’d do the recce, find our man and get him out. You know where we put the boat — and about the offshore R/V with the gulet — what the hell else d’you want?’
*
Charles Hislop was woken at a few minutes after 0330 by a messenger from the Special Forces Adviser. Still in a dream-state, or only half out of it, he was off the camp-bed and reaching for his shoes before the petty officer had finished telling him, ‘Nimrod’s established comms with Sea-Riders, sir, fifty miles off Cape Greco.’
‘Right. Great.’ Awake now more or less; sitting on the camp-bed, looking up at the naval man who, well trained, wasn’t going to leave until he was sure the guy he’d shaken wouldn’t just fall back again and start snoring. Hislop assured him, ‘I’ll be along in a minute.’
Thinking, Thank God for small mercies. Even more, for big ones. And it was a big one: fifty miles off Cape Greco meant they’d come out of Syrian territorial waters. Bacon saved — at least to that extent: and with that primary anxiety lulled, the big question looming was what about Swale?
He’d have expected them to have come farther west, actually, by this time. They must have spent longer on shore than Ockley could have intended: and presumably in that gap of time they’d caught up with the Swale party and done the job. Touch wood… He had the scene in his mind’s eye as he hurried into the JOC, letting the soundproof door thump shut behind him: the sun lifting over that Levantine coast — two hours east of the Greenwich meridian, two light-hours ahead of London — the sea still dark but with the gleam of dawn on it, the Nimrod overhead catching the sun’s first rays and with the Sea-Riders as small blips on its searchwater screen, voice communications crackly over the Sarbe link.
He and the admiral, the Duty Operations Director, arrived at the door of the SF cell together, from opposite directions. Each noticing that the other was in need of a shave… The admiral, who was wearing a white submarine sweater instead of a collar and tie, told him, ‘Our lord and master is ware and waking and yearning for reassurance, Charles.’
‘The Minister — he’s up?’
‘Well, he’s awake. And — articulate.’ The DOD pushed into the room with Hislop close behind him. ‘What’s happening, or happened?’ Focussing on the SF Adviser: ‘Do we know yet?’
‘Not — all that clearly, sir.’ The Marine major looked troubled. ‘Comms so far are somewhat garbled, and — well, Akrotiri’s trying to make sense of it, but—’
‘What have you got, Joe?’
He admitted, grudgingly, ‘A first report from the Nimrod that one Sea-Rider’s in tow from the other and that there are only four men on board. On board the two of them, that is. Making about fifteen knots, in worsening sea conditions. Then something about one of the outboards having failed.’
‘Where on earth—’
The admiral checked himself, choking back what would have been a silly question, since it was obviously in the minds of everyone else in the room. He sat down in the red chair, his eyes moving down the line of computer monitors, their bright faces as bare of relevant information as the teletext at the room’s far end. Static hummed from a speaker: a red-headed girl — a WRNS PO — pushed a switch, invited, ‘Go ahead, Akrotiri.’
The humming became a high whine which broke off suddenly, replaced by a male voice: ‘Nimrod 8 Kilo 6 confirms Sea-Riders have only four crewmen on board. Report from Sergeant Hattry Royal Marines relayed as follows. One outboard failed, major damage not reparable at sea, arrival onshore was thus delayed and enemy group had left the beach. SB team leader decided to remain onshore with intention of reaching target location inland ahead of enemy, to complete task as ordered then withdraw, using boats now located at recent landing-point to make ETA international waters sunrise Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Team leader requests helo lift from boats at time of withdrawal if such helos available. Message ends but further message coming.’
The admiral said in a clear, high tone, ‘Jesus Christ Almighty.’
Both his hands were raised: his pipe, ready-loaded with tobacco, was in the left one and a ‘storm-lighter in the other. He seemed to be stuck in that position, like a Tussaud wax-work. The SF Adviser looked from him to Charles Hislop: saying nothing, not needing to, his expression saying it all. Hislop, frowning, wasn’t focussing; he was back into his own visual imagination again, seeing a dark beach, an unfamiliar coastline, a distant light’s triple flashes above the surfline in the north. a group of dark figures moving inland… He was in Ockley’s place, then, concentrating in an effort to usurp the younger man’s thoughts: and hearing his own words — as Ockley too would have recalled them — the issue is tremendously important…
The Satcom link from Cyprus burst into electronic life again, and a variety of supplementary information began arriving in staccato bursts, same voice as before. The boats were making for Dhekelia, ETA 0630 Zulu, 0830 local. In the view of Corporal Clark Royal Marines, Clark being a qualified mechanic, either a piston had seized up or the crankshaft had gone. Captain Ockley had said that if he completed the task during the past night his intention would be to lie-up until dark and be offshore (in the
se other, unspecified boats, Hislop supposed) at sunrise tomorrow Friday. He didn’t consider this early completion was likely but requested a Nimrod be airborne at dawn Friday, against that possibility. Alternatively he’d go directly to the target area, and from time of arrival there also through subsequent withdrawal to the beach for embarkation, he’d be ready for overflying aircraft to contact him by Sarbe voice link, if required.
‘Expecting we’d send one of those Nimrods over Syria?’
A wing commander in blazer, sweater and flannels had murmured this to his neighbour in a tone of incredulity. Hislop glanced at him, but having eight of his own Marines inside Syria already he didn’t comment. The Akrotiri Satcom operator was signing off again, and the SF Adviser murmured quietly to Hislop, ‘They won’t be equipped for an overland penetration, I’d imagine?’
‘No.’ Not that this was a major consideration… ‘Look, I’d like to get those four and their boats back to Akrotiri rather smartly. They’ve a long haul into Dhekelia, you say the first report mentioned sea conditions getting worse, and anyway I want to talk to Sergeant Hattry. What chance of a helo lift for them right away?’
The wing commander queried, ‘Boats as well? Hislop nodded. ‘Well, I don’t know…’
‘Saratoga—’ the SF Adviser chipped in — ‘might lend us a Super Stallion?’
‘Now that’s a thought!’
‘They might feel they owed us one.’ A glance at the wing commander. ‘After that cock-up with the Nimrod being allowed to stay over-time?’
‘Try it.’ The rear-admiral agreed. ‘Washington approved the loan of an E-2, if they could have spared one. In fact it didn’t happen, but I’ve not the least doubt they’ll help if they can.’
‘Yes.’ Hislop nodded. ‘That was good thinking. Joe.’
Special Deception Page 25
