Cobra 405

by Damien Lewis

  If this mission and his pending court martial were ever going to make any sense to him, Kilbride would have to return to fetch that gold. For only by doing so could he possibly make amends.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Present Day: Kigamboni Beach, Tanzania, East Africa

  KILBRIDE CURLED HIS toes in the hot tropical sand, settled further into his deck chair, reached across for a chilled beer from the picnic table and glanced across at Berger. The big Yank was standing in the shade of the lush forest that backed onto the beach. He was doing his best to chat up Kilbride’s maid, who was preparing a lunch of fresh-caught fish. Typical: Berger never had been able to keep his hands off the ladies.

  Kilbride drained his beer and gave Berger a shout. Twenty minutes later the two men were ploughing through the brilliant blue of the sea on their fibreglass long boards, scanning the gently undulating horizon for the next big swell. There was always a lull like this, and then the strongest waves tended to come in sets of four. The trick was to wait for the right moment to catch the big one.

  Behind the blinding white sands of the Tanzanian coastline lay a green swathe of jungle, rolling onwards towards a distant range of hills. The squat silvery trunks of baobab trees dotted the forest, broad of beam and implacable. For Kilbride, the baobab had come to symbolise Africa, and Africa had come to mean home. There was a sense of space and freedom here that Europe had long ago lost. It was awesomely beautiful country – apart from the sharks that lurked in the waters. But they came with the territory.

  Kilbride and Berger were in their fifties now, and they both needed something to keep the juices flowing. Surfing was the thing, and the sharks just gave an added touch of adrenalin-boosting risk. Neither Berger nor Kilbride had ever completely lost their fitness from the years spent in The Regiment (and, in Berger’s case, Delta Force). They could just about hold their own with some of the younger surfers.

  The American spotted a big swell. ‘What d’you reckon, buddy?’

  Kilbride glanced at the blinding blue horizon, shading his eyes. ‘The second one? Yeah, let’s do it.’

  As the big wave approached, both men turned and began paddling furiously towards the beach. For a second Kilbride heard the roar of the water over his shoulder, and then he felt the powerful thrust of it lifting the tail of his board. He paddled faster, trying to catch the wave and become part of it as it raced in towards the thin sliver of silver that marked the distant shoreline. His board accelerated and in one swift movement he sprang into a standing position, his legs bent at the knees.

  Moments later Kilbride executed a quick roller turn, swivelling his shoulders to face the wave and riding up the front of the wall of water. He reached the foaming white of the wave crest and went to flip the board around. But he was no longer as flexible as he had once been. As he shifted his weight to his front Kilbride lost his footing, and in an instant he had wiped out. The wave swallowed him, sucking him under and trapping him in its roaring, throaty depths.

  Kilbride felt its raw power bending him over and arching his back, the individual vertebrae popping as it did so. It was a horrible feeling. He held his breath and tried to relax. Twenty seconds later the wave spat him out of its rear side. Kilbride took a massive gulp of air and floundered around for the smooth fibreglass of his board, heaving his body onto it again. He lay there, gasping for breath and scanning the horizon for the next wave. The last thing he wanted was to be hit again and go under for a second time.

  He glanced towards the beach, but Bill Berger was nowhere to be seen. He must have caught the wave well and surfed in towards the shallows. Kilbride did a quick mental inventory of his body to check if there was any damage. Fifteen years in the SAS had left its mark on him, but there were no new or unusual pains and he seemed to be okay. He rested his head on his forearms, breathed deeply, and stared out to sea.

  Kilbride’s mind wandered to thoughts of the Lebanon. Bill Berger reckoned the time was right to go and fetch their gold, and Kilbride was tempted to agree with him. At the time of the bank raid Kilbride had thought the Lebanese civil war might last a couple more years at most. But it had dragged on for a decade, the killings and counter-killings sparing no one. Dozens of ceasefires had come and gone, and each time the hatred had proved incurable. Christians, Muslims, Palestinians, Lebanese – all of them had innocent blood on their hands. It had looked as if nothing could bring about an end to the killing.

  But then a force of fifty thousand Syrian troops had invaded the Lebanon, and under Syria’s iron fist the fighting finally stopped. But a new form of terror took its place, with Syrian-sponsored assassinations and killings becoming the norm. With Syria’s blessing, and backed by Iranian money and arms, thousands of Palestinian refugees formed armed militias to wage war on Israel on the Lebanon’s southern border. Israel countered by invading and occupying the south of the country.

  The militias took their fight to the world stage: the Lebanon became the number one sponsor of global terrorism. Armed factions hijacked aircraft, blew up embassies and kidnapped like there was no tomorrow. By the early 1990s Hezbollah alone was said to have thirty thousand men under arms. These armed groups worked in close cooperation with the Syrian secret police as a shadow – and shadowy – paramilitary force. And for twenty years the Lebanon had remained a closed – and terrorised – nation.

  Kilbride had returned to the Lebanon twice to try and assess the chances of retrieving their gold. The first time had been in 1987, a year after the end of the civil war. He had travelled alone, posing as a journalist. But at every turn he had been followed and harassed by the notorious Syrian secret police, complete with their 1970s-style leather jackets and huge mirror-shades. It had quickly become clear to him that there was little hope of returning with his men to salvage their 17.5 tons of hidden treasure.

  Ten years later he was back again, flying into Beirut in the company of Bill Berger. This time the Syrian secret police had intercepted him upon arrival at the airport. One look at his and Bill Berger’s passports – a Brit and an American who together had stamps covering most of the world’s war zones – and hours of questioning followed. Eventually, the Syrians had convinced themselves that Berger and Kilbride were Israeli spies, and they were frogmarched onto a return flight home.

  But now all that had changed. Under the threat of international sanctions Syria had been forced to withdraw. In the power vacuum that followed, Hezbollah and Israel had gone to war. But faced with a barrage of international outrage both sides had rapidly tired of the fighting, and peace had been restored. Kilbride could hardly believe it, but Beirut city was being rebuilt as a thriving business and social centre, and the economy was on the up. Most importantly of all, foreign tourists were returning to the Lebanon in their droves.

  European and American visitors were rediscovering the fabulous sun and sea of the Lebanon’s Mediterranean coastline, and this provided the perfect cover for Kilbride and his team to return and recover their loot. In between partying, sunning themselves and doing a touch of scuba diving they could sneak off to the Palm Islands and quietly salvage their 17.5 tons of gold. Or at least, that was what Bill Berger had argued over a couple of beers the previous evening.

  Kilbride could find few reasons not to go along with this, apart from the obvious one: of his original team Kilbride himself now had the most to lose. A decade ago there had been a private diamond security operation in West Africa, and Kilbride had got lucky. He had saved his client’s life. In return, the grateful diamond dealer had ensured that Kilbride walked away a relatively rich man. It was nothing compared to the sort of treasure hidden in that cave in the Lebanon. But it was enough to have bought him a slice of idyllic Tanzanian beach, to have built him his dream home, and to have set up his dive-tour business.

  Kilbride glanced across the water at the big wooden dhow, moored at the jetty off the beach. She was a graceful Al Sambuq vessel, of Arabian design and build, and she was part of what the diamond money had
paid for. Originally, she had been built as a cargo vessel and a pearl diver, but now she was used exclusively for carrying dive tourists. The 2D logo – the Diving Dhow – was plastered across her bow, in yard-high lettering, alongside her name, the Marie-Claire. He wondered how the first Marie-Claire, his wife, would react if he told her he was going back to the Lebanon.

  He pushed that thought to the back of his mind as a breaker rolled in towards him. Deciding to let it pass, he turned to face the wave, rose up on one knee, pushed the nose of his board underwater, and then dropped down flat as the wave hit. Man and board sliced through the base of the wave, coming to the surface on the other side. Kilbride was about to congratulate himself on a classic surfer’s duck dive when he felt a painful twinge in his lower back. It was in exactly the same spot as an old war wound from his final days in the SAS.

  After the Lebanon bank raid Kilbride had been placed on a court martial, at the insistence of Major Thistlethwaite. But Kilbride’s overall boss at The Regiment had done little to hide his opposition to this. Citing reasons of ‘operational secrecy’ he had kept getting Kilbride’s hearing date pushed backwards, keeping Kilbride deployed on classified operations overseas. In 1981 he had been sent to Afghanistan, as part of a small clandestine force training the Mujahedin to fight the Soviet Red Army. But three months into the mission he’d taken a fall down a cliff and smashed several vertebrae in his lower back.

  With the court martial still hanging over him, Kilbride had taken this as his cue to get out of The Regiment. In the spring of 1983 he had cut his losses and resigned – but not before Major Thistlethwaite had got his comeuppance. Three years previously the SAS had been involved in its most high-profile mission ever – the breaking of the Iranian Embassy siege, in London. Millions of viewers had watched the assault live on TV. In an instant the SAS had become a household name and The Regiment’s most persistent critics had been silenced. And Major Thistlethwaite had been quietly transferred into a different line of business.

  Kilbride had gone on to work in the private military sector. He’d spent the next ten years doing security jobs for oil companies and mining operations in remote corners of Africa. There had been one or two small wars, but nothing to write home about. And like several other ex-SAS men Kilbride had agreed to be kept ‘on call’ by Her Majesty’s Government, just in case his specialist services were ever required. In due course he’d taken on half a dozen jobs, all of which were ultra-secret deniable operations – highly paid, but with a high degree of risk involved.

  After each of those clandestine ops, Kilbride had found himself returning to work in Africa. Over time, he started to feel more and more at home there. It was a raw, untamed continent, with wide-open spaces and a lawlessness and freedom that suited his maverick ways. In Africa, Kilbride could be a free spirit with few ties. And whilst there had been many women over the years, there were none who had managed to pin him down.

  A fling in his early thirties with Sarah, an English girl, had resulted in a son, Mick. But the relationship hadn’t lasted, and they’d gone their separate ways. Kilbride remained close to Mick, who was a chip off the old block. He’d been chuffed as nuts when Mick followed his dad into UK special forces – joining the Special Boat Service. Mick had spent a year on exchange with the SEALs – the US military’s equivalent of the SBS. He’d loved every minute of it, especially the American girls’ fondness for his ‘cute English accent’.

  But when Kilbride was in his late forties he’d fallen for Marie-Claire, a Tanzanian air hostess. He’d met her on a British Airways flight from London to Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania’s former capital city. She was the most beautiful, gentle woman he’d ever dated, and he figured that if she’d have him, then it was time to hang up the gloves. Over several months he’d persuaded her to stop working the long-haul flights – BA, thrice weekly to London. As her parents were keen to see them married, Kilbride had obliged. They’d built their dream home on the paradise beach plot and had set up the diving business.

  Two sons had followed, and together with their dog Sally that made up Kilbride’s happy family. A daughter would be good, he figured, but there was time enough for that. His big son, Mick, had just left the military and gone into private security work – which left him plenty of time to drop by The Homestead each Christmas to share some beers and some war stories with his dad. All in all it was a good life and Kilbride was happy with it – that was until Bill Berger had started banging on about the Lebanon gold again.

  Bill Berger was typical of the breed, Kilbride reflected. After a career in Delta Force distinguished far more by heroic actions than by advancement in rank, Bill Berger had joined Kilbride on the private-security circuit. A wild adventurer at heart, he’d made and lost a bundle of money and had burned his way through two marriages. It was the nature of the work that there were a lot of foreign locations and a lot of foreign women. Each time Bill Berger’s wife of the moment had found out what he’d been up to she’d taken him for all he was worth.

  From what Kilbride knew of the other lads from the original Beirut bank job, few of them were faring a great deal better. Only Boerke seemed to be doing all right: he’d returned to South Africa and was running a bar that doubled as a brothel.

  Kilbride flicked his gaze towards the horizon. The tide was turning, and with it the swell had died. He glanced towards the beach. Bill Berger was standing in the shallows, waving him in. Kilbride kicked out for the shore. Nixon, his Tanzanian cook, would have lunch ready by now – hopefully some fresh-caught red snapper, grilled over an open fire on the beach. Life was good, Kilbride reflected. But he could feel a change coming, feel the irresistible draw of that gold bullion hidden in that cave in the Lebanon.

  If anything, the years had been kind to him. His hair was a little whiter, his beard longer and more tangled, his eyes sunken and shadowed by dark, craggy brows. But the sparse frame of the old man belied his general good health. A life of abstinence and devotion to the struggle and the one true God had seen him reach a grand age. The weather was a few degrees colder here in the Syrian mountains, less gentle on his old bones. And there were few of the domestic comforts of Beirut to ease his passage to the other side. But he didn’t seem to be suffering. He had recently been given a full medical by a Syrian doctor: his cholesterol was low, his blood pressure normal and his heart remained strong.

  Paradise still seemed as if it might be a long way off, the old man reflected wryly. Which was a good thing, because he still had a great deal to do in this world. To lead such a glorious resurgence, to walk in the footsteps of the Old Man of the Mountains, the legendary leader of the original Assassins – this was a truly honourable calling. Some of the younger recruits had even started calling him by the same name – ‘the Old Man of the Mountains’. This was something he did not encourage. He was the spiritual figurehead of the Black Assassins, and that alone was enough. He didn’t require a grand title.

  Theirs was a mission that would rock the infidel West like never before, the old man reflected. It would prove once and for all that Islam was the one true faith and that its warriors were on the march. Should they succeed – and he could foresee no reason why they would not – doubtless his reward would be great in Paradise, whenever he might reach it.

  There was a gentle knock at the door. The old man looked up through his tired eyes. Little light filtered into the underground bunker where he kept his office and spartan quarters. They were ill-lit by one bare bulb hanging from the ceiling and a couple of spluttering oil lanterns. No matter. The old man had cataracts, and his eyesight was fading, so the lack of light troubled him little. Most importantly, his mind remained sharp, his concentration focused, his intentions crystal clear and unshakeable.

  ‘Come in,’ he commanded softly.

  The door opened and a figure entered the room. He had a craggy face and close-cropped, sandy hair. His eyes were a piercing cat-like emerald green, and they shone with an unusual level of fervour. The visitor took a seat as indicated
by the old man, and sat cross-legged before him on a rug on the floor. They shook hands, both touching their palm to their chest in a gesture of peace. The visitor looked his age, his features folded and lined with the years, the track of an old scar disfiguring his right cheek. But like the hide of a rhino his was a tough skin, and his expression was now strengthened by a burning religious zeal.

  The Searcher prided himself on having lost little of his prowess over the years. What he now lacked in physical strength he more than made up for in experience, plus the cunning and guile of the veteran warrior. The old man gestured with his eyes to the burns on The Searcher’s forearms and hands, where he had shielded his face from the Viper Strike’s terrible blast. Several weeks ago the bandages had come off, and the wounds appeared to be healing well. This was more than could be said for several dozen of the other brothers, who had been torn to pieces by the Americans’ cowardly air strike. No matter, the old man reflected, the number of recruits to the cause was limitless, or so it seemed.

  ‘You are healing well?’ the old man asked.

  A faint smile curled The Searcher’s lips. ‘Your Holiness, for an old warrior I seem to recover quickly.’ For a foreigner, he spoke almost faultless Arabic.

  ‘It is good,’ the old man murmured. ‘It is the faith that keeps you strong, my brother, healing the body of a true believer.’

  The old man indicated the tea things with a gentle sweep of his hand. He served – the age-old ritual unchanged, the brass pot lifted high to pour a stream of foaming liquid into each glass. He pushed a bowl of sugar towards his visitor. He never had quite worked out whether this foreign warrior, this convert to the One True Faith, did or did not take sugar. Sometimes he seemed to have six lumps; at other times he abstained completely. He was hard to fathom as a man generally, a true enigma. He was the old enemy, yet here he was in their midst behaving as one of the truest believers. Why was it that the converts always seemed to be the most zealous? the old man reflected. Their adherence to the faith seemed more absolute, somehow, their hatred of the infidels more all-consuming.