Recovering Commando Box Set

by Finn Óg

  “Just like all Arabs are filthy?” Sam retorted.

  She snapped him a stare until she realised he was being ironic.

  “Anchor,” she said absently.

  “Excuse me?”

  “In movies. British navy men have anchor tattoo on arm and hand. Like Popeye.”

  Sam laughed and she almost smiled.

  “You think I should look like Popeye?”

  “No, I thinking you do look like Popeye.” She tried to suppress a curl at the edge of her lips and looked away.

  “It was a while ago,” he said, “that I was in the navy.”

  “Did you come to my country,” she rounded, the smile replaced by seriousness, “when you were in navy?”

  Her question was suddenly laden with suspicion. Sam was reminded there was deep damage and he would need to tread softly.

  “Once,” he said.

  “What to do?”

  “It was to do with my country. With Ireland, with Northern Ireland. There was a man – an informer, who had information, and I was sent to get him. I was never involved in any airstrikes, and I was never on a carrier where an airstrike was launched. I was gone before all that happened.”

  “It happen many times,” she said. “It happen when I was same age as Sadiqah. They come in night-time. They kill my mother.”

  “They bombed your house?”

  “They bomb neighbourhood. Many house. Many dead.”

  “The Americans?”

  “You all the same – Americans, British, French. Same thing. Someone pull trigger, thousands are dead. You have fight with one man – Gaddafi. You kill everyone except Gaddafi.”

  Sam thought about that for a moment but had no way to counter her assessment.

  “You grew up without a mother,” he muttered eventually – not as a question but as a kind of explanation. He thought of Isla, then of Sadiqah and understood the risk Alea had taken to make the migrant journey.

  “Ronald Reagan kill her.”

  “I was a child then too.”

  “You not child when Britain bomb Libya.”

  “So I am to blame for you going into hiding?”

  “Your country is blame.”

  “I am Irish.”

  “Does Ireland have special soldier? I have read your books. Ireland is neutral country.”

  The books. The reading. The children. Sam reflected on how much was going on aboard this small boat under his nose without him noticing. Alea had obviously been vetting him, silently, working out who she was at sea with. He imagined she had probably been priming Sadiqah to extract answers from Isla.

  “We’re back to me being an SAS trooper, are we?”

  “You are not simple Irish sailor,” she stated, “and you are more than navy man,” she said snorting. “Informer. Navy does not send simple navy man to Libya to get man out of country.”

  Sam knew he couldn’t fool this woman. She was arguing and beating him and she wasn’t even speaking her first language. “Well, do you want to have this out?”

  “Have this out?”

  “Cards on the table. You tell me who you are, I tell you who I am. All that stuff.”

  She gripped the vertical wires that held up the mast, elbows bent and pushed against them like a bow. She arched her back and allowed the sun to pour down her neck as if she were showering in the glow for the first time. Then she stood at ease, turned and walked slowly towards the cockpit.

  “Very well,” she said. “We put card on tables.”

  Shannon would have gone ballistic if she’d seen Sam swimming with the sharks. He’d been ‘released’ for the day, like a good boy who’d done something nice, to mess around with his new friend. Sam didn’t tell his wife he and Dyer had known one another in a way that welds men to secrecy. As far as Shannon was concerned they’d bumped into one another at the party, got a bit pissed and re-rigged the consulate’s irrigation system. The pipes were now pouring drinkable water through a hose they’d diverted outside the fence of the protected property. Nice work, she’d said. You can go and play today.

  Not with sharks though. Not that it was any more dangerous than his day job, but extra risks were frowned upon regardless. He and Shannon were trying to start a family and she had no desire to be a single parent.

  Dyer was as chilled as the beer in the boat above them. Sam hadn’t managed to acquire a sailing yacht or even any diving apparatus. The two men were flicking around in flippers and snorkels in a place they’d been told to avoid. The sharks there were a variety that could easily eat both men as if sucking steak through a straw. The key was in the calm: if the sharks felt as though the men were supposed to be there and sensed no fear from their presence, then they stood a good chance of leaving the sea with their limbs.

  Later they sat on deck with the buzz of having done something edgy and the tingle brought about by heart-pounding exercise. They chugged a few beers and nibbled the fat. Unexpectedly, it was Dyer who raised it first.

  “D’ye ever wonder what that was all about?”

  “What?” said Sam, knowing full well.

  “Libya.”

  “There were loads of Libyas,” said Sam.

  Dyer looked put out, as if what had happened was of no consequence to his … friend? Person he liked, certainly, respected – for sure.

  Sam caught the creasing of his colleague’s eyebrow. “I don’t mean what happened. I mean operations that we were told next to nothing of the background. If you dig too deep, you end up going mad.”

  “So … you don’t care?”

  Sam had to concede Libya had been different, so he made an admission. “I care. I care about that one because of what happened. So, well, I made it my business to find out what had been going on.”

  “Oh?” said Dyer, probing without probing.

  Sam didn’t care enough to be on his guard, and suspicious as he had become in recent years he didn’t suspect that Dyer had been sent to find out how much he knew. The oddities of their reunion were too random.

  “I asked a man about a year after the op. He hooked me up with another bloke who knew what was going on.”

  “Where?”

  “Back home. Sure the whole thing was about Northern Ireland. I know that much for certain.” Sam was letting Dyer know not to blow smoke about.

  “Just so you know, Sam, I didn’t have all the details back then either – and to be honest, I’m still not sure I have them all.”

  “Sure that’s how they like us, isn’t it? They tell us just enough to get the job done, and the rest they keep to themselves and their Machiavellian plotting.”

  “My agency is excellent at that.”

  “No shit.”

  “So what do you know?”

  “Tell you what,” said Sam, “for a change, why doesn’t the spook go first and then you can hear from the oily rag.”

  “You’re no oily rag,” said Dyer grunting. “You were an officer, the one special forces chose to lead the thing. You also got us out of there.”

  “Was pretty messy though.”

  “Aye.” Dyer glazed over a little, and then after a while, “Ok, Sam, I’ll tell you what I knew.”

  “Oooh, MI6 secrets,” said Sam, and pinged a few more lids off the local brew.

  Dyer ignored the goading. “It was about home. I was told that a high-level asset had been discovered by the ESO.”

  “Libya’sMI6?”

  “The External Security Organisation – so pretty much. Thing is, though, they were friends of ours at that stage.”

  “I’d believe almost anything of your crowd,” said Sam.

  “It was after 9/11 and the Yanks and Tony Blair had decided that Gaddafi was of great value in finding out about the jihadists, so they cuddled up to him.”

  “Right. You needn’t go into the geopolitics, just tell me how that ended up in a bloodbath.”

  Dyer breathed deep and sucked on his beer. “Well, as you know, the asset was in jail and my bosses were worried that the interr
ogation would lead to him talking too much.”

  “About what?”

  “About Ireland, Northern Ireland and his contacts there.”

  “Sure, what did that matter? I’ve never understood that bit.”

  Dyer regarded Sam curiously. “Well, why don’t you tell me what you know and then I’ll see if I can fill in the blanks.”

  Sam was impatient and a little looser after four beers. “The man I met was from West DET.”

  “A detachment – a military detachment?”

  “Yeah, in the south-west.”

  “Of Northern Ireland?”

  “Yes, where else?”

  “Right.” Dyer was clearly surprised.

  The DET was a specialist surveillance unit deployed in largely autonomous teams around the country and made up of a mixture of special forces, intelligence agents, highly trained troops, mechanics and technical signals experts. Some of them had proved incredibly adept at gathering information. Sam neglected to mention that he himself had been seconded to the DET in the past.

  “This bloke told me about an IRA man who was shagging some DET agent out Fermanagh direction. I’m guessing late 80s or early 90s. She was a right hard nut and had a key to this RA man’s house. Anyway, she was lifting his post before he got it and giving it to her DET handler who was reading it and feeding it up the chain.”

  “She was a good get for the DET.”

  “Aye. And some of his post was coming from Tripoli.”

  “Right,” sniggered Dyer, clearly impressed.

  “So this RA man turns out to be the point of contact for the Libyan arms that Gaddafi sent to Ireland.”

  “Bloody hell,” said Dyer.

  “I don’t know a lot more than that except that the Libyan who was writing to this IRA man was the same fella we lifted out of that prison.”

  “You sure?”

  “No,” said Sam firmly, “but I’m not an idiot. My DET contact reckons the same bloke knew who the high-level informers in the IRA were – who was really working for the Brits, and that worried your lot.”

  “Well, it would, wouldn’t it? That was the start of the talks that led to the peace process. If the IRA found out that some of its senior people were working for the Brits, then the whole thing would have fallen apart.”

  Sam pushed his friend. “What I can’t figure out was how a Libyan found out who MI5’s agents within the IRA were.”

  “Sure, that’s simple enough,” said Dyer. “If he was making arms deals and British Intelligence found out, they’d have done two things.” Dyer counted on his fingers. “One – they’d have turned him, and two – they’d have directed him to deal with their own agent within the IRA – wouldn’t they?”

  That made sense to Sam. “But wouldn’t the IRA would get suspicious if he started dealing with someone else?”

  “Not if his original contact got lifted.”

  “Ah.” Daylight dawned. “Funny enough …”

  “That’s what happened, aye?”

  “That’s exactly what happened. He was arrested and got nine years.”

  “Then a senior IRA member – who is also working for the Brits, suggests he takes up the Libyan contact himself. The Brits know the arms route, the secret silos within the IRA’s quartermaster operation are exposed, MI6 is seen to help MI5 and we have a happy outfit.”

  “So,” said Sam, reasoning it out. “It is possible that this Libyan – the bloke we were sent to get – knew who the top British agents in the RA were?”

  “Or one of them, I reckon.”

  “And that was enough to send us in like that?”

  “Yes, Sam, if he’d been caught by his own and was interrogated by the ESO, there would have been a problem cos of Bush and Blair and their cosy relationship with Gaddafi’s intelligence services. All of that information was being fed to the CIA. Now, seriously, we might be friends but there’s no way MI5 or MI6 wants the CIA to know who their high-level assets in the IRA are.”

  “Ok,” said Sam, prepared to accept that as fact. “So we extract him under the noses of the CIA?”

  “Sure, Sam,” said Dyer, “that’s why they fought so fucking hard. That’s why it became such a bloodbath. And that’s why the informant never made it to your boat.”

  “Right,” nodded Sam, realising that they hadn’t been sent to retrieve him. They’d been sent to execute him.

  14

  Plucking dollars from the air. That was what he’d done as he leapt around the exercise yard, undignified, inglorious, greedy and ridiculous. Years had passed since Gaddafi had been ousted, yet it seemed like weeks. And still the information had currency.

  Habid often thought of what now led him to slither down that ladder. It had been forged into the wall of a Banghazi quay and largely forgotten for almost three quarters of a century. Its rust had left it vulnerable to knocks and thumps – various vessels had taken the top of the rungs with them as they’d arrived and departed. Habid had found it through due diligence and a pair of field glasses during his meticulous research. He’d scoured harbours hunting for an undercut after being inspired by the scrolls, and thinking of Judaism it occurred to him to find a gap in the stones. In his head was Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall into which he’d watched Jews place papers – prayers he imagined, but he hadn’t cared enough to clarify. Could he hide his papers in such a wall?

  One thought had led to another and to him locating the half ladder and scaling the harbour stone face to reach it. Once on the rusted rungs he clambered down further and further until the water lapped his chin. One deep breath and he pulled himself beneath the surface, his body’s natural buoyancy surprising him and he was forced to propel himself down the ladder deeper into the sea. When there were no more steps to be taken he unfastened a stainless steel chain from his belt and opened his eyes to the salt. The light was poor and his chest began to heave at the lack of air replenishment, but his hands didn’t fumble his invaluable deposit. The steel links and the exterior padlock were clipped tight against the bottom of the ladder, and Habid took extra effort to roll the canister behind the old frame, wedging it tight into the wall. Satisfied with his work, he felt the ladder’s uprights and allowed nature to float him to the surface, too afraid and inexperienced to expel air as he rose for fear of exhausting it before he broke cover. And then with a bellow and a suck he heaved oxygen into his lungs. Smug and soaked he reversed his motions and worked through what he would do with his treasure.

  It had all happened by chance. As a border guard he’d been obliged to interrogate those attempting to leave Libya. That meant he occasionally identified enemies of the state – it wasn’t hard, they were issued new intelligence images of people who had fallen foul of the regime on a daily basis. Never one to miss an opportunity, Habid often accompanied such miscreants to Tripoli or Benghazi for further interrogation and incarceration. That way he stood to exploit the unfortunate by offering to let them go for a fee, which he duly extracted. Then, regardless of the ransom, he betrayed and delivered them as directed to jail. Nobody cared that he had made a pit stop to gather cash. In those troubled times such behaviour had been expected and admired.

  The last such occasion had been different though. As he and his fugitive neared Benghazi, the scale of unrest had become apparent. Never before had he believed it possible that Gaddafi could be deposed. The leader had been too strong and been there too long. Yet the rumours they’d heard in the eastern desert proved true – Benghazi was once again returning to a pockmarked shell of itself, a cratered ruin of Aleppan proportions.

  Habid had driven up to the prison entrance to find the gates ajar. He’d nudged them with the bull bar of his Isuzu truck, driven through the covered alley and out into the open courtyard where once a fortnight prisoners were permitted a solitary stroll. He gazed up from under the sun visor at the curling and fluttering above him and drew the jeep to a halt. His captive was equally mesmerised by the show, as swirls of air caught the leaves and bellowed them upwards, before
the outside breeze lipped the sheets and sent them back to the soil.

  Habid alighted and hopped to catch an A4 page. On it was a photograph and a description – a name and an intelligence assessment. His eyes widened as he realised what was in his hand. He turned to retrieve more of the documents, like a desperate contestant in a ridiculous television show. His sandals flopped and fell off but his energy was boundless as he stuffed the papers under his oxter and began to fill the glove box in the pickup. For an hour Habid ignored the shouts of his prisoner pleading to pee as he skimmed each page before stuffing it in safety. He refused to let so much as one document escape for that could be his passport to wealth.

  Eventually every page was in his possession and he sat in the driver’s seat and read greedily, ignoring the hiss of his prisoner’s piss. What a story he had stumbled upon. What a glorious repository. Habid felt the moisture of the urine beneath his toes and turned to his charge with anger.

  “You will be in here,” he told him, brandishing the papers. “And then I shall know your real crime.”

  The man stared back at him, exhausted, dejected, defeated.

  The Arab Spring was giving up Libya’s secrets and a rat from the eastern desert had managed to obtain most of them.

  “I was in the Special Boat Service when I was in your country. It is a unit that performs missions mostly at sea.”

  She stared at him.

  He waited but had to shake her out of her fix. “Your turn.”

  Alea adapted to the format carefully. “I working in bank. My husband was banker. We had good life. Your turn.”

  “Then why did you leave?”

  “Ah-ah,” she wagged her finger, “you tell about you. I tell about me. No questions.”

  “Ok,” said Sam. “Well … well, what do you want to know?” He was suddenly at a loss. Talking was not his strong suit.

  Alea sighed. “Who you really are.”

  “I am a dad,” he said, “and I am a widower, I suppose,” which was the first time he’d ever acknowledged that in words.