Cold Black

by Alex Shaw

  Time seemed to stop, as the other Arabs looked on astonished. Kennington was the first to speak babbling faster than ever in Arabic. The Arab grabbed the rifle and pulled the trigger – but the safety was on. Snow felt himself move forward, ready to run at the group…a single shot rang out – fired skywards and all eyes turned to the Bedouin by the side of the road. He held a pistol aloft and spoke softly. The Arab nodded his ascent and hit Lermitte in the chest with the rifle butt knocking him back. The remainder of the Bedouin and the kidnappers then herded the Brits out of the van and marshalled them in the desert at the side of the road.

  Snow took a deep breath and relaxed. He sipped the water from the half empty bottle slowly, savouring the warm plastic tasting liquid in his mouth. It was no way enough to re-hydrate him but was better than nothing. From Snow’s viewpoint, crouching at the back of the truck, he saw the hostages being led onto a track that stretched away towards the mountains. It was hard to estimate the distance in the glittering desert heat but he gauged that although the peaks were still far the actual range started no more than three miles or so away, where the sand started to give way to rocky outcrops. Even that relatively short distance would be torturous to all but the locals. The Bedouin with the pistol, exchanged hugs once more with the driver of the livestock truck and gave a signal that his men should move off. The Arabs shut the van doors and climbed back in, Snow scrabbled off of the road and lay in the burning desert sand just below the berm as the engines of van, then pick-up started and the vehicles moved off.

  Snow crawled up the berm and looked over the road. The Bedouin were frogmarching the Brits along the track at a speed which caused them to stumble and trip. Snow pulled out his phone and hoped against hope that there would be a signal but before he had even focused his tired eyes on the screen he knew he was wasting his time. With his GPS signal gone and the satellite probably lost too by now Snow was on his own until the promised Regiment team arrived. If they arrived and could find the hostages, he mused bitterly. He let his face fall forward into the burning sand, he was exhausted, dizzy, his head still throbbed and his back was impossible. But his mind was clear. He had no idea of when the satellite feed had been lost and whether Patchem would drop a team onto an unconfirmed target. He raised his head. He had no choice he had to follow the column, track them and then try to rescue the missioners.

  Embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, London, United Kingdom

  Prince Umar rose from behind his desk and raised his right arm to greet the British Foreign Secretary.

  “Robert, my dear friend. What can I do for you today?”

  Holmcroft noted that the Prince was dressed in an impeccably tailored suit but today wore an expensive silk replica of their old school tie. The school which they had both attended as boys forty years before.

  “We have a lead on the men who kidnapped your niece.”

  Umar kept hold of Holmcroft’s hand. “You have?”

  “We believe they have now kidnapped a group of British citizens in Riyadh.”

  Umar released the hand and waved the his visitor towards the settee, he had a faraway look in his eye Holmcroft noted, almost as though he was trying to calculate something. The men sat. Umar took several seconds then spoke.

  “Tell me what has happened?”

  Holmcroft recounted how first the three employees of The Al Kabir Group were taken and then the next day the British Trade Mission. “We have no concrete proof that both of these abductions are the work of the same group but it would seem to be too much of a coincidence to be otherwise.”

  Umar waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “It is not a coincidence of that I am certain. And the lead is?”

  “We have been tracking one of our men, an SIS officer who was with the Trade Mission but who was not captured. We know where the hostages are and we, HM Government, want the approval of you, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to take them back.”

  Umar leant back and folded his arms. The British Foreign Secretary had not only confirmed the fact that, British Intelligence had been working covertly in the Kingdom, but now also wanted to use their forces on his Sovereign Soil. It was a very blunt and shocking request for the Saudi.

  “You have not been honest with me Robert, regarding this agent. Who is he and why is he there? Of the Al Kabir employees I have been told one man is dead, two are missing. One of these is Mr Fox. Am I to presume that he too is an SIS agent? Has he then been ‘sent’ to spy on my own family?” Umar paused, the nostrils of the usually composed Saudi Prince flared.

  Holmcroft tensed, tried to speak. “I know that…”

  “Don’t.” Umar held up his hand, took a deep breath. “Stop. Robert we are old friends which is why I am listening to you. You wish to seek my agreement to use British Special Forces in a hostage rescue capacity on Saudi soil? Correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “This I will consent to. “

  “Thank you. We would, of course, want Saudi Arabia to take full responsibility for any successful rescue operation.”

  “Do not try to appease me Robert. It is not I who needs his ego stroked, although I am certain that the Crown Prince would be most pleased with any praise the Royal Saudi Army were to receive.”

  Holmcroft was silent.

  Umar stared at him. “I will make a call to the Saudi Ministry of Defence; they will in turn expect a call from whoever is running your operation. I do not need to know the details. I just need to know that, if these really are the same group responsible for abducting my niece, they are eliminated.”

  Umar rose and returned to his desk. Holmcroft paused for a moment before he headed for the door.

  “Robert.”

  Holmcroft turned to face his childhood friend.

  “We will talk more of the implications of what you have told me today at a later date. You have greatly disappointed me.”

  Before Holmcroft could apologise an aide opened the door. Holmcroft exited.

  Umar sat motionless for a moment as he tried to form the words in his head that he needed to say to his younger cousin, the Head of the Saudi Ministry of Defence. He felt anger that his family were under surveillance, supreme anger that his family were being targeted by terrorists, resentment that HM Special Forces were the best to rescue the hostages and humiliation that he had to order his own ‘Regiment’ to step aside. A thought flickered across his mind. Had Jinan’s abduction been staged in order to insert Paddy Fox? He dismissed it. No. Fox was a man of honour and Umar still owed him a ‘debt of honour’. Umar would allow the rescue to go ahead if that would mean that Fox would be rescued and his debt to the man be repaid.

  Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

  In the Riyadh hotel room Khalid read the text message. All was in place. He closed the flip phone and looked across at the Chechen. “The Bedouin have the hostages. Now can I have my money?”

  Voloshin nodded and spoke in accented Arabic. “Of course my brother. I too am a man of my word.” He picked a pilot case up from the floor and placed it on the wooden desk. “Please.”

  Khalid stood and opened the bag. Inside bundles of $100 bills filled it to the brim. He was astonished. “And you had no problem bringing this into the Kingdom?”

  Voloshin waved away the question; it had been in a diplomatic bag. “Such things do not concern me.”

  Khalid stood. “Until we need you again my brother, I must take your leave.”

  Voloshin bowed and Khalid left the room. He was booked on an internal flight to Dammam where he had unfinished business.

  Voloshin waited until the Arab had walked away from the door before putting the chain across. He did not trust the man any further than he could spit. He opened the drinks cabinet and swore again at the lack of alcohol, he desperately needed vodka but instead opened a coke. As the noisy air conditioning unit broke the otherwise silent hotel room he shut his eyes and visualised the next step of the operation in his mind. This he would undertake on his own, this would be the most dangerous
. It was an act of potential suicide.

  COBRA, Whitehall, London, United Kingdom

  “The team are ready to go.” Innes announced with a tone of determination.

  “And we’ve lost the target.” Patchem folded his arms in exasperation and leant back heavily. “The satellite feed has gone and Snow’s phone is still dead.”

  Knight sipped her Green tea and thought. “General what would be the likelihood of us finding the target based on starting at their last known location?”

  Innes frowned. “Not high. If they are still on the road, then we could follow. If not then they could have moved off in any direction. We need a definite target for a rescue mission for a recon mission things are different.”

  Knight nodded. Even moving as fast as they had HM Government had not been fast enough. “Options?”

  “We go ahead send in the team then extract them if they can’t find the hostages.” Patchem did not want this to stop here.

  “How long do they search for? A day? Two?” Knight shook her head. “We do need a target otherwise we will have to change our plan.”

  “Involve the Saudis?” Innes didn’t like the sound of that.

  “If need be.” Knight took another sip. “Or, the Americans, this impacts them too.”

  “If we want more satellite coverage I can’t see any other alternative.” Patchem leant forward. “So ‘C’ you need to call the PM”.

  Knight nodded. Much as she hated the idea she knew that to involve either the Americans or the Saudis would need number ten’s permission. She just hoped that the PM would make his own decision and not be swayed by the Home Secretary.

  Patchem’s Blackberry vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out. “Patchem. What? Yes send it to me.”

  Knight raised her left eyebrow.

  “That was a technician from the Arab Desk. We have some footage taken by Fox’s sunglasses.”

  “I don’t understand?” Innes waited for an explanation.

  As Patchem hastily connected his Blackberry to the nearest computer and uploaded the file, he explained the device to both Innes and Knight. They waited as the footage was opened on the computer screen. The image was jumpy but showed a desert road, the outskirts of a town and then more desert. The last few seconds showed three concrete single story buildings and then tantalisingly the inside of a minivan and two figures slumped on the floor between the rows of seats. The footage stopped as the corner of a beard appeared in the frame.

  Knight spoke first. “We need to know where that is. Get the tape analysed frame by frame.”

  “That is already underway.”

  “Why did it stop?” Innes asked. “The recording?”

  “Presumably the wearer took the glasses off. Also remember we only get an upload when they are placed in the case.”

  “Hm, I normally leave mine on the dashboard.”

  Patchem nodded. “No piece of equipment is perfect.”

  Doha, United Arab Emirates

  The courier sat and drank his sweet coffee. As requested he had dropped off the tape at the head office of the Al-Jazeera television channel. However contrary to instructions he had unwittingly picked up a tail and was at this precise moment being watched by an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency.

  From their headquarters in Langley Virginia, the CIA had kept tabs on Al-Jazeera for the past nine years, ever since it had shown the first tape from Osama Bin Laden. Al-Jazeera knew they were being watched but as an independent broadcaster claimed they had nothing to hide but were, conspicuously, highly protective of their sources. On numerous occasions the CIA had attempted to either infiltrate or close the station but somehow it had never happened. Routine surveillance however of anyone entering or leaving the building was kept up, especially when packages were delivered.

  Ayman Qasim (real surname Johnson), the son of a Sudanese mother and a Black American father stood across the road, leaning against his taxi lazily reading a paper. The CIA field officer spoke Arabic as a native speaker, which worked for his cover as a migrant worker. Keeping his eye line just above the paper he watched the man wearing the red Saudi headscarf who had visited the broadcast office. The man had seemed tense on entering the building but his body language had changed as soon as he had remerged. Sitting at the café, not more that fifty meters away, he looked as though he hadn’t a care in the world. Johnson had a photographic memory for faces and was certain that he had not seen this one before. His cell phone rang via a Bluetooth headset.

  “Nam?” He answered in Arabic, using the word for ‘Yes’.

  The caller spoke English with a southern drawl. “Our friends just aired some breaking news. Footage of a group of Brits, taken hostage in Saudi Arabia.”

  Ayman’s heart beat a little faster as the caller asked. “Have there been any deliveries in the last hour?”

  “Nam.” Ayman was looking at the only person to enter the building that morning who did not work there.

  “You got it covered?” The voice knew that Johnson was watching the entrance.

  “Nam.”

  “Good. Don’t lose him.”

  Johnson ended the call.

  The way footage was delivered to Al-Jazeera differed none from any other television station. It could be sent electronically via email, the internet or physically in the form of a DVD or memory card either in person or by courier. Thanks mainly to the belief that the United States could see all and hear all online, terror organisations such as Al Qaeda had now switched back to the low tech delivery methods, such as the one sitting opposite drinking sweet coffee.

  There was of course no proof that the man under surveillance had delivered the hostage footage, that may have come from any number of other sources or the branch office in Dubai but Ayman had a gut feeling. The same feeling that had got him through the Academy. As he watched the man stood and hailed a cab. Ayman had no choice but to let his ‘colleague’, a real taxi driver higher in the rank take the fare. As they pulled off Ayman followed, being sure that he switched his light to ‘in use’. The courier was returning to the airport, the journey barely a few miles away from downtown Doha. Ayman let the passenger pay and leave before he opened his own door and spoke to his fellow driver.

  “Good tipper?”

  The older man shook his head. “Awful. He didn’t give me one.”

  “Where was he going?”

  “Riyadh, he called his wife. Why are you interested?”

  Ayman shrugged. “We live on tips; I don’t want him in my cab that’s all.”

  “Huh.” The man grunted and pulled away.

  Ayman removed his headset and put his phone to his ear, this way his face was partly obscured and swiftly walked into the airport. The suspect had joined a line for the Qatar Airways flight to Riyadh. He made a note of the flight number.

  “Yo?” The voice with the Southern Drawl picked up.

  “He’s getting on Qatar flight number 720 to Riyadh.”

  “Understood.”

  Ayman lingered until he saw the suspect enter passport control then returned to his taxi; luckily it had not been ticketed.

  In Riyadh a cell phone rang. “Hello?”

  “Got one coming your way.” The voice said. “Qatar Airways flight 720 arriving at 17:20. I’m sending you a photo now.”

  The phone bleeped to advise the user a multi-media message had arrived.

  “OK.” Muhammad Khan closed the phone. A CIA field officer of Pakistani descent he would continue surveillance in Saudi Arabia.

  Embassy of the United States of America. Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

  “This is Vince Casey.” The lazy sounding Southern Drawl hid an agent who was far from it.

  “Vince. What can I do for you?” At the other end, Harry Slinger-Thompson cradled the phone between his neck and right shoulder as he typed an e-mail.

  “That’s a strange question Harry. I was wondering what we could do for you?”

  Slinger-Thompson paused mid keystroke.

 
Casey continued. “It seems to me you got a problem there with some of your nationals.”

  There was no point denying it, the footage was all over the 24 hour news channels and he himself was personally shaken by it. “Yes a problem indeed Vince. A trade mission was attacked this morning and twelve British citizens have been taken hostage.”

  “I know. MI6 called Langley, so that’s why I’m calling you, Harry.” There was silence except for the sound of breathing at the end of the line. “Do you have any idea where they are?”

  “Yes.” He replied too quickly and immediately realised. “No. We had a GPS location but then we lost the satellite.”

  “Harry, you wouldn’t be planning anything that would worry our beloved hosts would you?”

  Slinger-Thompson side stepped the question. “Vince, finding the hostages is my main priority, so anything you have is greatly appreciated.”

  “OK email me the last known fix. Also I may have something, may be nothing. We have a man under surveillance who visited the Doha office of Al-Jazeera this morning. We’re going to follow him and see what we get. This so far Harry, as the French say, is ‘entre nous’.”

  Given far greater budgets that the SIS, the CIA amazed Slinger-Thompson with the sheer number of agents and other assets they seemed to have.

  “That’s all I wanted to say to ya Harry. I’ll keep you in the loop.”

  Casey brought up a file on his desk top and traced the coverage circles of all US satellites covering Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific Rim. Unless he tasked one of the birds there would be a six hour gap between passes. He brought up another file and entered a password. A further three birds appeared – these showed up on no other chart or record. Bird number two was stationed in a geo-stationary orbit above the Middle East. At its southernmost reach lay the Yemeni coastline. He shook his head, even with this classified CIA spy-bird it was like looking for a needle in a haystack, blindfold.