Plausible Deniability: The explosive Lex Harper novella

by Stephen Leather

  Laiya pursed her lips in a gesture of annoyance but having thought about it for a few moments, she acknowledged the wisdom of what he was saying. ‘Okay. We’ll be heading north through the Red Sea and transiting the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean. The Canal consists of a series of lakes linked by manmade cuttings and although, as you all know, it has been dredged and widened to allow two-way traffic over part of its length in recent years, a long stretch of it is still one-way, with ships travelling in convoys and waiting in the lakes while vessels coming the other way pass through - all except the US military, of course, who use their alliance with Egypt as an excuse to jump the queue. It’s typical American bullying - what is it they say “My way or the highway”?’

  ‘Any way that we can also jump the queue?’ Harper said.

  ‘Of course, but we’ll do it without threat and bluster, though with equally good results.’

  ‘Bribery, in other words.’

  She shrugged. ‘We are Saudis and Saudi money talks, especially when people are desperately poor. The area is very heavily patrolled by the military because the Suez Canal is Egypt’s main source of revenue, but the soldiers are poorly trained, poorly paid conscripts who have no real motivation to risk losing their lives for the sake of the elite in Cairo. A few dinars go a long way in such a situation.’

  ‘And are there any speed restrictions?’

  ‘None that need apply to us. We will travel at whatever speed we choose and when necessary our money will remove any bureaucratic or other obstacles that might hinder our passage. That is our usual way.’

  Harper smiled. ‘So that takes care of one problem but there is another: the Sinai Peninsula and North Sinai in particular, is a hotbed of fundamentalism. Many of the armed groups there are in the Iranian camp, and so have no reason to look kindly on any Saudi ship within range of their weapons. If they have wind that we will be passing through the Suez Canal they will have a field day unless we are prepared for it. So tell me that you’ve been monitoring comms traffic in the Peninsula for any suspicious chatter between the fundamentalists.’

  He was met only by silence and blank looks, and shook his head in disbelief. ‘Then you need to get on to it straight away. Get an AWACS plane up over the Red Sea and keep it airborne until this is sorted out. We may yet have to fight our way through, but even so, it’s better than the alternative of a twelve-day trip around Africa to Gibraltar, by which time the Iranians would probably be on their way home with the Tac Nuke in their cabin baggage. We may have an entirely trouble-free transit of the Canal, but we can’t rely on that and I think we need a “just in case” plan to cover the risk of fundamentalist attack. So I suggest we take four desert buggies on board the Al Shaheen and use them as a screen on land, two on each side of the vessel, while it is moving through the Canal. We can arm the buggies with anti-tank missiles such as Milans or the Soviet AT range of missiles, whichever you have on inventory, and we’ll have our personal weapons of course. The weapons of choice for these bastards are vehicle-mounted SU 23 cannon, RCL recoilless rifles and 12.7 machine guns that are all usually carried on Toyota pick-ups. It is useless to think we can fly the heli against them, because the SUs will blast it out of the sky, so it’ll be best to keep it in the hangar until we need it later. Instead we should deploy a couple of unmanned drones to give us over the horizon viewing as we travel along. The SUs aren’t a significant threat to the ship but the RCL recoilless rifle is another order of difficulty altogether. It fires a shell that was designed for use against armoured vehicles, but the ship is just a large armoured vehicle and the bad news is that the RCL’s projectile will blow a hole in pretty much anything and then inject gases and molten metal into the target, killing and destroying everything inside. The good news is that the round flies low and slow and is not easy to aim off on a moving target - even one as big as a ship - providing it is moving fast enough, so that’s a very good reason to bribe whoever we need to make sure the ship is moving fast through the Canal and is not left as a sitting duck in a queue of waiting vessels in the Great Bitter Lake or anywhere else. Now although we’ll have our buggies as out-runners, they will be heavily out-ranged and out-gunned by the fundamentalists, so if trouble is brewing we will have to get close enough to see the whites of their eyes if we are going to prevail. Questions? Okay, thanks Laiya, now you can take us through the rest of the work-up to the op and the actions on target.’

  They sailed at dawn the next day. Their stocks of fuel, food and ammunition had been replenished, the ship’s crew and the black ops personnel had all been fully briefed and were ready for whatever might be thrown at them. They entered the southern end of the Suez Canal the following day. The Al Shaheen was once more operating under its protective camouflage, decked out from stem to stern with flags and bunting, with the crew dressed in an assortment of Middle Eastern and western clothing and blaring music through the ship’s loudspeakers just like a billionaire’s guests partying like there was no tomorrow.

  As they motored into the Canal, watching from the bridge, Harper could see massive Egyptian military installations on both banks and he knew that as they transited through it, there would be dozens of others dotted along both banks. In bulldozer scrapes in the ground he could see a mixture of Russian and US armoured vehicles. There were Russian SA-6 mobile surface-to-air missile launchers, equipped with optical sights and radar with a continuous wave illuminator, and the successor to the SA-6, the SA-11 “Buk” self-propelled SAM launchers that could counter Cruise missiles, smart bombs, rotary wing aircraft and attack drones like Predators. He could also see SA-13s, very mobile, fast-reaction SAMs, aimed using optical and infra-red guidance, making them immune to jamming of radio-frequencies.

  The Egyptians also had eight-wheeled Russian BTR personnel carriers, equipped with 14.5mm and 7.62 machine guns that could be elevated to very steep angles, making them equally effective against targets on mountain slopes, in city high-rise buildings, or against slow, low-flying air targets like helicopters. There were also the even more formidable BMPs, tracked vehicles known as “battle taxis” that were a combination of an armoured personnel carrier and a light tank. The interior was armoured and radiation-shielded and they were armed with a 73mm gun and a launcher for wire-guided, anti-tank missiles.

  Although most of the equipment was Russian, Harper could also see American M-113s, the most widely used armoured vehicles in Vietnam that were called “The Green Dragons” by the Viet Cong, because they could smash through dense jungle to launch an attack. Last but by no means least in this impressive armoury was the Russian ZSU-23-4, easily identifiable by the prominent radar dish it carried. It was equipped with four 23mm auto-cannon with a rate of fire that had earned it the nickname of “the sewing machine” in Afghanistan. Well-named, Harper thought, because it could certainly stitch you up. Combining mobility, accuracy and fire power, it was the battlefield destroyer of low-flying aircraft, launching a blizzard of shells into the sky.

  The drones had now been launched from the Al Shaheen to overfly the ship and survey the ground on either side of the Canal. The images they sent back made it possible to see the military positions and the pathways between them, indicating sentry locations, feeding and rest areas. The impression the installations gave to a casual glance was of a formidable concentration of power and menace, but when Harper ranged over them with his high-powered binoculars, he formed a different view.

  He handed Laiya the binoculars. ‘Take a look through those,’ he said. ‘You’ll see that many of those military vehicles are unserviceable - they’ve got sand blown up around the drive-wheels, so they won’t be going anywhere in a hurry and there’s a general air of decay and dilapidation hanging over the whole area. My guess would be that much of the weaponry and equipment will be similarly poorly maintained and I’m not sure how much appetite the soldiers manning them would actually have for a fight if it came to it. Most of them look overweight and out of condition, their uniforms are tatty and quite a few of them ar
e asleep.’

  There were many civilians also loitering on the banks at the entrance to the Canal. Most would have been innocent enough, but among them, Harper knew, there would be eyes closely watching the comings and goings of ships. Some might only be there to alert the vendors of souvenirs that flocked around likely ships, shouting up at the decks and brandishing their goods for the tourists. Others could be spotting vessels for criminal gangs, looking for vulnerable vessels that might be boarded and robbed, or rich passengers who could be kidnapped and ransomed, but still others might be spies and look-outs for the fundamentalists operating in the deep desert where Egyptian army patrols rarely ventured and if they did, were often out-gunned.

  The Al Shaheen’s captain had turned down the services of a pilot as they entered the Canal. He and his crew had made many transits through it before and neither they nor the black ops team had any desire to have a sharp-eyed Egyptian pilot on board, in case he caught sight of something he wasn’t supposed to see, such as heavily-armed soldiers on what was purporting to be a pleasure cruise.

  Shortly after passing through the entrance to the Canal, they used the on-board crane to offload a couple of dune buggies on either bank of the Canal. To maintain the cover of a pleasure cruise, the dune buggies were gaudily painted and the crew of two in each one were dressed in shirts and shorts and acting the role of spoilt rich kids on a day out. However, under their brightly coloured environmental covers, the buggies were armed with either a .50 Browning machine gun or a Milan wire-guided anti-tank missile. Harper, wrapped in voluminous Arab robes to conceal his pale, north European skin, was in one of the buggies on the north bank of the Canal, the area which he considered posed the greatest threat.

  The reports received from the Saudi AWACs overflying the region, just as Harper and the other buggy crews were disembarking, had indicated suspicious communications activity in the area they were approaching. He at once thumbed the button to communicate with the other buggies. ‘We need to be ready for anything and if something does happen, we will need to deal with it pretty damn quick, because the Israeli air force will be aware of the same radio signals our AWACs is intercepting and they will be ready to react to any unusual activity or loud detonation in the area, in case it is a SCUD missile or something similar targeting Israeli territory. And as you all know, the Israelis tend to shoot first and say “Halt, who goes there?” afterwards.’

  There was a profusion of vehicle tracks but only the occasional paved road as the buggies began patrolling the area between the Canal and the foothills in the far distance, returning to the Al Shaheen occasionally to refuel the vehicles and rehydrate the crews. Even from as little as a hundred yards away, the Canal itself was lost to sight, giving them the surreal impression that the yacht was cruising through an ocean of desert sand, rather than a channel of water. The terrain was a mixture of exposed rock outcrops, hard-packed gritty sand, and soft, shifting dunes.

  Harper, driving the buggy, with his crewmate sitting behind him, had just returned to the yacht to take on more fuel and water and was driving away from it again when in front of him at a distance of a couple of kilometres he saw a large cloud of dust erupt into the air. Almost at the same moment there was the shatteringly loud bang of a shell landing on the canal bank close to the Al Shaheen, followed by the sound of the smaller bang reaching them from the area of the dust cloud.

  ‘Clear the Browning for action!’ Harper shouted to his crewman. ‘They’ve made the classic mistake of not damping down the area behind the gun to prevent a dust cloud, so they’ve given themselves away. But keep your eyes peeled for others, because they won’t be hunting alone.’

  The other buggy, patrolling the same bank a mile behind Harper, was also turning towards the threat. Driving at full speed to where he now knew the enemy were and laying a dust trail behind them that stretched for half a mile, Harper ordered his gunner to put down covering fire while the buggy jumped and crashed its way across the uneven ground towards the target.

  Glancing over his shoulder he saw that the yacht was taking hits. Some of the bunting and flags were ablaze but it had increased speed to get out of the danger area, with the Kevlar plates in position to minimise any damage.

  Looking ahead he found they were closing rapidly on what he thought were three Toyota pick-ups, one armed with a recoilless rifle, either an American M-106 or a Soviet B-10. The other two pick-ups were each armed with single ZU-23s, originally designed as anti-aircraft cannon, but which could do serious damage to ground targets too.

  ‘Spray the general area with the ’50,’ Harper shouted above the roar of the engine, ‘just make sure they keep their bloody heads down!’

  Increasing speed still more, the buggy bucked even harder across the broken ground as they closed rapidly on their target. The crews of the pick-ups became aware too late of the buggy closing upon them. Their gunners made frantic efforts to bring their weapons to bear but they were slow to adjust and their aim was further hampered by the way the buggy was jumping around as it jolted and lurched its way towards them. Shells burst either side of the buggy, raising columns of sand and dust while shrapnel and rock splinters knifed through the air.

  Realising that they were themselves now the target, the drivers of the pick-ups tried to flee, speeding off along a narrow wadi, hoping to escape into the mass of valleys in the foothills. But Harper sent his buggy roaring along the rim of the wadi, allowing his gunner to spray the fleeing convoy. As the first vehicle was hit, the Browning’s shells ripped through the flimsy bodywork, even punching holes in the engine block, and sending the bloodied bodies of the driver and gunner catapulting into the desert sand. The pick-up slewed to a halt in a cloud of dust and thick oily smoke. Harper was rapidly closing on the others when there was a sudden, bowel-loosening “Crump!” sound and one of the pick-ups disappeared, vaporised in an instant, in an inferno of fire and smoke.

  ‘What the fuck was that?’ he said, his gaze raking the surroundings for the source of that destruction. He glanced up in time to see an Israeli F-15 Strike Eagle clawing its way back into the sky. ‘Stop! Stop! Stop!’ he shouted into his radio mic. ‘Abandon the buggies and get well away from them because when the Israelis have finished dealing with the other toe-rags, I can guarantee they will sort us out as well. Repeat! Abandon the buggies, and get well away from them!’

  He stamped on the brakes, bringing the buggy to a juddering halt, undid his safety harness and with his crew man alongside him, they sprinted as fast as their legs would carry them to what he hoped would be the safety of a shallow depression in the ground.

  He rolled on his back but kept his face covered, because he knew from experience that even in a fast jet travelling at Mach 2 - over 1500 miles an hour - a pilot could pick up a white face from several thousand feet. After what he had already witnessed, he didn’t want to become the target of the next strike. He watched a second Strike Eagle roll down and drop a couple of bombs into the wadi where the remaining pick-ups were blown to smithereens.

  Everything was silent for a few seconds, and his crewman was starting to scramble to his feet when Harper shouted. ‘Get down! Get down! The bastards aren’t finished yet.’ His words were drowned by the roar of returning fast jets and the ground-shaking blasts as the Strike Eagles used their wing mounted cannon pods to destroy Harper’s buggy, reducing it to tiny shreds of metal in micro-seconds. They then turned their attention to the other buggy and after that too was destroyed, the aircraft climbed vertically back up into the clear blue sky and disappeared from sight, leaving behind them only wreckage, blood and bodies and the stench of jet fuel and cordite.

  Making the after-action checks, Harper discovered that his crewman had sustained a flesh wound on his lower leg, and though he could walk, it was with great difficulty. The crew from the other buggy made their way to RV with him, and he reviewed the situation. ‘We’ve no comms,’ he said. ‘They went with the buggies and we have no food and very little water. Water is probably not such a bi
g deal to you guys, but it will be to me. We have a long hike back to the mother-ship and we have a guy with an injured leg. However, the only way out of this alive is to move at our fastest towards where we hope the Al Shaheen will be. The wounded guy will have to be carried because if he tries to walk, his wound will be constantly re-opening. So to summarise, we need to get a move on. I’ll carry the wounded guy, because I got us into this, so it’s my responsibility to get us out of it.’

  They began to trek across the desert, trying to pick a way across the stonier ground where the going underfoot was easier than on the soft, shifting sand dunes. The heat was ferocious, rising in shimmering waves from the desert floor. They had only the water bottles at their belts, for the rest of their water supplies had been destroyed by the jets. Harper rationed his water, taking only a couple of sips at a time, and then forcing himself to walk at least a mile before another sip. The water did little more than briefly moisten his mouth and his thirst grew more and more intense, while the pounding headache that was increasing as he became ever more dehydrated only added to his discomfort. He forced himself to focus only on the ground ahead, ignoring the weight of his crewman, carried in a fireman’s lift across his shoulder.

  After a gut-busting few hours, plodding through the desert, Harper thought he glimpsed movement ahead, but he could not be sure, afraid it was just another of the wavering images and mirages created by the heat. However after trudging a little further, he heard the sound of an engine note and a moment later a buggy came into view and sped towards them. One of the other two buggies had been trans-shipped across the canal from the other bank and had been patrolling, looking for Harper and his group. ‘We’d almost given up hope of finding you,’ the driver said.