Plausible Deniability: The explosive Lex Harper novella

by Stephen Leather

  ‘But we can’t expect the Iranians to just lie back and accept it,’ Harper said. ‘So we’ll need to keep a close eye on them in case they try to pull anything before the hand-over or when we’re doing it.’ He gave a brisk nod. ‘Right, I’ll be leaving you for 24 hours. My surveillance team has identified a number of potential places for the hand-over, so I need to go and check them out. I’ll give you the co-ordinates as soon as we’ve decided on the place and then you can finalise the arrangements with the Serbs. Tell them the rules of the hand-over will be One - everyone attending will be unarmed. Two - we will arrive first, followed by the Serbs, who will bring the device with them. Three - we will check that it is genuine and then, and only then, will the money be delivered. Four, the cash will be dropped from our helicopter, and once the Serbs have checked it and are happy. Five - they will depart the hand-over place first and we will follow. If the Serbs try to alter any of these details, be prepared to walk. If you’re hard-nosed about it, they will fall into line, but if we deviate from the plan, we could end up coming to serious harm.’

  She gave him a sceptical look. ‘Do you really think the Serbs will turn up unarmed?’

  ‘No, of course not, but we need to give them a false sense of security, while still doing things our way.’

  Harper returned to the hotel briefly and was then able to slip out again, hefting a heavy sports bag. After carrying out intricate anti-surveillance manoeuvres, he rendezvoused with the rest of his team. They were driving a rented 4 x 4 and after further anti-surveillance drills, they were soon in rural south-west Serbia, a sparsely populated area of low, round-shouldered mountains and broad valleys.

  With infinite patience, they checked out each of the locations identified by Hansfree from Google Earth and then evaluated by the rest of the surveillance team. Harper found flaws with either the location or the lay-out of each of the first four selected areas but finally, he pronounced himself happy with the fifth site they visited. It was a disused and overgrown quarry, with a vertical wall on one side and steep but negotiable scrubby slopes on the other sides, a bit reminiscent of the Roman amphitheatres which dotted the Adriatic coast. Around the top of the quarry there was a tangle of brambles and other thorn bushes, and over the whole area neither Harper nor the others could find any trace of recent human activity, just the tracks of animals.

  Harper, Barry Big, Barry Whisper and Annie Laurie then had an intense discussion on the various scenarios that might play out and the best means of dealing with each of them. They then spent a long time measuring angles, ranges and distances before Harper pronounced himself satisfied. He offered to take them back to Belgrade until nearer the time of the hand-over but was not surprised when Annie Laurie shook her head. ‘No, we’ll stick it out here, won’t we guys? We need to be absolutely one hundred per cent certain that we are not going to be disturbed by dog walkers or bird-watchers when the hand-over is taking place. That way we’ll be ready to go whenever you pull the pin.’

  ‘All right,’ Harper said. ‘Now we’ve specified to the Serbs that they must come unarmed. They’ll ignore that, of course, and when this kicks off, I reckon they will come armed with Makarov semi-automatics. The later Russian SF weapons are based on the AK family and are too big to conceal, but the Makarovs are easy to hide. But I would bet the farm that some of them will also be bringing Skorpion VZ-61 machine pistols. They are readily available on the black market here, are not much bigger than the Makarov and so just as easy to hide but, firing 850 rounds a minute on fully automatic, they pack a whole lot more punch.’

  He unzipped the hefty sports bag he had brought with him and showed them the contents. ‘To counter those, I’ve brought you each an M-16 with an Alpha Charlie Oscar Golf: the US Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight. The Saudis like them but with the short ranges we’re going to be working over you’ll need to decide for yourselves whether to use them or not. There will be no opportunity to zero the weapons so if you do fire, go for a body shot.’

  While Harper double-checked the co-ordinates of the site and then set off back to Belgrade, Annie Laurie, Barry Big and Barry Whisper began setting up their OPs. Building an OP was something that came as naturally as breathing to ex-members of 14 Int. In urban areas, they would choose a room in an abandoned building, a skip, a pile of rubble or even a roof-void in an occupied house. While the house-owners, completely unaware of the intruders in their midst, blithely carried on with their normal lives, over their heads the surveillance team would have moved in, removed a slate from the roof to give them a view of the target building and then they would remain there for as long as it took to gather the necessary intelligence - sometimes weeks. They would then leave as discreetly as they arrived, and everything that they had brought in with them, food and water containers, even urine and excrement, would be taken away with them in sealed plastic bags, leaving no visible trace behind that they had ever been there.

  Rural OPs, like the ones they were setting up in the quarry in south-west Serbia, required a different approach. They began by selecting a suitable bush or a patch of undergrowth. Thorn bushes were preferred because these were routinely avoided by humans and animals. Before starting to build the OP, the operator would check for animal tracks surrounding it. Badgers were always best avoided because they could be aggressive, especially when protecting young, and nesting birds were also bad news because they would make a prodigious racket to try to get the operator to move, possibly alerting hostile forces in the area.

  Having found the right bush, the operator began by making a single vertical cut on the outside of the bush on the opposite side to the target. He then wriggled into the bush, cutting further stems and branches as he went. Once he was fully inside the bush, still lying prone, he turned over and, lying on his back, he began to cut upwards and sideways to achieve the desired dome shape right in the heart of the bush.

  Once he had cut the inside to the desired dimensions, if necessary he would support the bush by using chicken wire to hold it in its original shape, and inside this he tied pieces of camouflage netting to prevent light from penetrating into the centre of the bush. The severed vegetation would die but it would take a few days before it became obvious - long enough for the job in hand.

  Once the operator was happy with his angles of view to the target, he brought in all his operational gear, and then sealed the entrance to his hide by tying the branches flanking the entrance cut together with wire. Finally, he got a third party - sometimes one of the other operators and sometimes a person brought in specifically to do that task - to view the OP from a distance to make absolutely sure that nothing had been missed that might give the OP away.

  Very good operators would not leave their OP at all during daylight, taking small sips of water and eating hard rations, until night-time when they might leave the OP and move a short distance away to relieve themselves, do some exercises and possibly have a warm drink before returning to the OP well before first light. Excellent operators - and Barry Big, Barry Whisper and Annie Laurie were the best you could get - would not leave their OP at all, taking minimum liquid and solid refreshment, and relieving themselves when necessary into plastic bags which they would take back to base for disposal at the end of the operation. To prevent cramp, these operators had their own programmes of calisthenics, usually the clenching and unclenching of muscles in various parts of the body.

  The day before the hand-over was due to take place, Harper and Laiya held a final briefing on the op. ‘We can expect the Serbs to turn up a couple of hours ahead of the scheduled time,’ Harper said. ‘So I’ll make sure that I and the team are in place several hours before that.’

  ‘I?’ Laiya said. ‘You mean we don’t you? I’ve not come along on this operation just to sit in the background doing my needlework like a demure housewife, while the men go out and do the real work. This is my operation and my men, so I will be leading them.’

  ‘With respect, Laiya, you’ve done a great job getting us to this point but
this is where the shot and shell might start flying if anything goes wrong,’ said Harper. ‘And if it does, I need a team of people who are combat-ready.’

  ‘And I’m as combat-ready as any of my men. I need to be part of this operation.’

  ‘And you are,’ said Harper.

  ‘No, I need to be at the cutting edge, not sitting back at base.’ She glared at him. ‘You don’t respect me and nor do my men.’

  From the corner of his eye, Harper could see Saif, responding to her anger, half-rising to his feet, as his hand inevitably strayed to the silk rope at his waist.

  ‘I’m as skilled as any of my men,’ Laiya said. ‘I’m as good a shot as any of them, and I’m as fit and as fast as them, but it’s still not enough. I need to show them - to show you - that I’m not just their equal but I’m better than them. I know I can do it but I want my men to know it too. I see the way some of them look at me and talk behind their hands. They think I’m a princess in every sense, and only got this job because of who I am and who I’m related to, not what I can do. If they said it to my face, I’d stuff their words down their throats, but they never do, though I know they’re thinking it.’

  ‘I don’t do requests, Laiya,’ Harper said. ‘And I choose my teams on merit. The aim is to get the result so we need the people who are best-qualified, trained and equipped to achieve that result. Is that you?’

  ‘Yes it is. I’m as fit as any of my men, I’m in the top ten per cent of every firing test and I’m a woman and that alone might make a Serbian gangster hesitate for half a second before pulling the trigger - long enough for me to make the killing shot myself. So, I’m not some princess who needs a man to protect her.’

  ‘All right, calm down, I surrender, you’ve convinced me. You’re on the team for the hand-over but if the shooting starts, there can be no favours, and god help me if you get hit and I have to explain that to Saif, let alone Anwar.’

  ‘It’s my decision and my responsibility,’ she said.

  When the briefing was over, Harper slipped away from the others and placed a call on a secure phone Hansfree had given him. He spoke swiftly and urgently, his voice low. If the Saudis were up to their jobs, they would detect that a call had been made but they would not be able to decipher its content, and if they traced it to Harper and chose to interrogate him about it, he had a plausible cover story in place.

  In the half-light of dawn the next morning, Harper, Laiya, Saif and the other Saudis made their way by torchlight from the lip of the quarry down the slope to the foot of the cliff.

  ‘I didn’t see your surveillance team,’ Laiya said.

  ‘You weren’t supposed to. They’re doing what they are being paid to do. I intended to do this part on my own but you invited yourself along. However, you have got to do things my way. If I tell you to do something, I don’t want a discussion, I just want action, all right?’

  She nodded but couldn’t hide a smile. ‘Of course, I will be as demure as a Muslim bride.’

  ‘That I don’t believe. Now, when the Serbs come, with or without their Russian allies, I expect them to be armed and I also expect them to be followed by the Iranians, because they have been following them ever since this began. I don’t think the Serbs have the wit to realise that, nor do I think the Iranians will just pack up and go home without an attempt to hijack the proceedings and grab the Tac Nuke for themselves.’

  At his direction, the majority of the Saudis spread themselves around the quarry, going to ground in positions from where they could give cover to Harper, Laiya and Saif, but also return fire if an attack was launched from any part of the quarry.

  As Harper had predicted, over ninety minutes before the scheduled hand-over time, they heard the sound of approaching vehicles and shortly afterwards there was a crashing in the bushes above them as a group of eight Serbs stumbled down the slope towards them, with a couple of them carrying large back packs which they dropped on the ground in front of Laiya.

  ‘There is the device, check it, bring the money and then we can get out of here,’ the Serbian leader said.

  ‘I thought we agreed that there would only be three of you,’ Laiya said. ‘But now we are here, we may as well continue. Lex, check it out.’

  Harper opened up the back packs and quickly examined the contents. ‘They look genuine, so by all means go ahead and pay the man.’

  Laiya thumbed her radio and moments later they heard the thunder of helicopter rotors, rapidly growing louder as it approached. Under the cover of the noise and the clouds of dust caused by the heli as it descended towards the quarry floor, a further group of armed men - the Iranians who had been tracking the Serbs for days - had appeared on the rim of the quarry. When the heli was about ten feet from the ground, a crewman kicked out a wooden box which hit the ground with a thump as the helicopter climbed steeply away. It was only then that the groups at the bottom of the quarry became aware of the armed men at the top.

  Immediately the Serbs and Russians pulled out their concealed pistols and Skorpions and began shooting at the men on the rim of the quarry, but their rounds were falling short because of the range, whereas the AK-47 rounds of the Iranians were now smacking into the dust around them and striking sparks and splinters from the rocks. Rounds and ricochets filled the air for a moment but then there was a fresh burst of firing, this time from the M-16s of Barry Big, Barry Whisper and Annie Laurie, hidden in their OPs and unseen by anyone until they opened fire. A split-second later Laiya’s black ops team members began opening up from their positions as well and the Iranians were cut apart in the crossfire. One by one they plummeted down the quarry face or tumbled down into the scrub, dead before they hit the ground.

  Still in cover, the Saudi black ops team had now trained their weapons on the Serbs, but held their fire for fear of hitting Laiya, Harper and Saif. Harper saw the Serb leader exchange a glance with one of his men, and then began to swing his gun barrel towards Laiya. She had spotted the movement as well and made a grab for the weapon, but he side-stepped her, and then pistol-whipped her across the jaw. With a scream of rage, Saif hurled himself at him but was taken down by a single shot to the chest from one of the Serb’s henchmen.

  The firing had triggered a small rockfall on the cliffs behind them, and that momentary distraction was all Harper needed. He smashed the heel of his hand upwards at the nearest Serb’s nose, driving a splinter of bone up into the brain and killing him instantly. Even as the Serb was falling, Harper had snatched the Skorpion machine pistol from his lifeless hand, brought it to bear on the others and began taking them down, the rounds punching holes in their chests and exiting through their backs, taking most of their heart and lungs with them. However, even in semi-automatic mode, the Scorpion had such a high rate of fire that he found it difficult to restrict his shots to double-taps and was increasingly conscious that he had at most twenty rounds in the magazine to deal with all the Serbs.

  Still on the ground, Laiya squirmed across the quarry floor and snatched up a Makarov that one of the Serbs had let fall as Harper shot him. In one movement, she swung the Makarov up and shot the Serb leader in the throat, a heartbeat before he fired his own weapon at her. Harper put two more rounds into him while the sound of the first was still reverberating and the Serb fell stone dead. The rest of the Serbs were scrambling for cover, but Harper’s team and the Saudis were now able to isolate targets, and the remaining Serbs were all soon dead or dying.

  Yelling to the Saudis to put a double-tap into each of the fallen Serbs to make sure they were dead, Harper dropped to his knees alongside Saif and made a rapid check of his wound. He snatched a shell dressing from his belt and pressed it onto Saif’s chest, slowing the blood flow. ‘Saif!’ he shouted, then raised his voice as he saw Saif’s eyes flickering shut. ‘Saif, stay with me! You need to keep up the pressure on the dressing while I call for a casevac. You’re all right. You are going to make it. And you did good, Laiya is OK.’

  He hit his comms and called the chopper bac
k in. It had been lurking out of sight and earshot, just over the horizon, and within two minutes it was settling on the quarry floor in a cloud of dust. The pilot kept the rotors turning as Harper carried Saif to the chopper and then shouted at Laiya, who was sitting up with a dazed look on her face and an ugly gash on her jaw and cheek where the Serb’s pistol had whipped her. ‘Get on the chopper! You need treatment, pronto,’ Harper said. ‘And Saif will bleed out if we don’t get him back to the Al Shaheen at once. Go back with him, then send the chopper back for the rest of us.’

  She hesitated a moment, looking as if she might argue, but Harper simply grabbed her arm, dragged her to the chopper and pushed her aboard, shouting ‘Go! Go! Go!’ to the loadmaster as he did so.

  The noise of the rotors increased to a scream as the chopper rose from the ground. It cleared the rim of the quarry within seconds, and then swung away to the west, heading for the sea where the Al Shaheen was waiting with the medical team already on standby.

  The heli returned an hour later and Harper ordered the rest of the Saudis to go back on it, telling the pilot to return once more for him and his own team. As soon as the noise of the heli faded, they sprang into action. He took his secure phone inside his jacket, made a two second call and then, with the help of Barry Big, he began removing a part from each of the two halves of the Tac Nuke device. The two men then carried the parts of the Tac Nuke they had removed up the steep slope to the rim of the quarry.

  Breathing heavily from the exertion, they were waiting for no more than five minutes before a truck appeared, bouncing and jolting along the rough track the Serb and Iranian vehicles had taken. The truck driver and his mate jumped down and then they swung the rear doors open. The truck was already almost fully loaded with disassembled steel machinery, but a narrow walkway had been left at one side. The truck driver and his mate carried the parts of the Tac Nuke that Harper and Barry Big had given him to the end of the truck and then rearranged the rest of the load as they moved slowly back, blocking the walkway they’d used. They then handed Harper and Barry Big two apparently identical parts to the ones they’d stripped from the Tac Nuke.