TURKISH DELIGHT

by Barry Faulkner

‘Very clever.’

  I was getting the picture of where this conversation was going. ‘I just need to take out Eve Rambart. Woodward said to stop the missiles getting to their destination and I’ve done that, the warehouse isn’t my concern. I’ll text Woodward, give him the co-ordinates and he can call in a missile strike on it.’

  ‘Too late, can’t be done – Erdoğan bought the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile defence system from Putin in 2018 and secured Turkey’s airspace. The missiles and ordnance in that warehouse will be going forward to various terrorist groups and have to be stopped. Any hit has to be done over ground.’

  ‘Which means us,’ I said, with a degree of resignation.

  ‘No, not us – you.’

  How did I know that was coming?

  She continued, ‘If I get caught they know my history, and being ex-Mossad I’d be hung in an hour.’

  ‘And me?’

  ‘They’d negotiate, a prisoner swap or something.’ She dismissed the conversation with a wave of her hand. ‘Anyway, we won’t get caught because we don’t have to go in ourselves; we can’t call an air strike but we can get a drone in there – two drones, in fact.’

  ‘Two? Why two?’ So this was the plan.

  ‘The warehouse we need to hit has large glass roof skylights; frosted glass so satellites can’t see inside, but just plain glass – no reinforcing steel fibres, just plain glass. It’s an old building, built in the fifties so security wasn’t paramount then. The first drone we send over it is loaded with weights and smashes through the skylight; the second one drops in with an explosive incendiary bomb attached. Our information is that there’s enough explosive in that warehouse to blow the place sky high.’

  ‘Sounds good, you got the gear in place?’ If it was she had certainly worked hard in the two days she’d been in Turkey.

  ‘All in the back of the van, two drones and a box of explosive. We hit the warehouse tonight.’

  ‘Tonight? What about Rambart? I’ve unfinished business there.’

  ‘You can catch up with her later – what’s important is that those missiles in the warehouse don’t move anywhere else. If they go underground to some terrorist organisation we’ve lost them.’ She gave me a hard look. ‘Lost them until they rain down on some civilian town or hospital somewhere.’

  I didn’t argue – she was right, I could kill Rambart at some other time. She picked up a rucksack she’d brought in with her and emptied out the onesies.

  We put them on. Showtime!

  Showtime was interrupted by the door flying open and two Turkish soldiers with rifles raised rushing in. Taken by surprise, there was nothing we could do except raise our hands as their officer followed them in holding a pistol. He spoke in broken English.

  ‘What have we here then – English spies? Do you think we don’t know you are here, eh? You think we Turkish are stupid, eh? You think people don’t talk, walls have ears as you English say? People here know what side their bread is buttered, eh Ajdin?’ He smiled at Ajdin who lowered his arms.

  Gold said the words slowly with a lot of venom in her voice. ‘You bastard, Ajdin. You fucking bastard.’

  The officer laughed, ‘A bastard to you, but a patriot to me. But he also gives me a problem – I am thinking that if a man changes sides once, maybe he will do it again, eh?’ He raised his pistol and shot Ajdin in the forehead.

  One of the first lessons you are taught in the security services is that when placed in a situation where the odds are stacked heavily against you, act at the first opportunity. The first opportunity is the first time people’s attention is taken off you. The officer’s action certainly took the soldiers’ attention off us as Ajdin slumped to the floor; they were as surprised as we were, but we had the training and seized the opportunity.

  I ducked and launched myself into the first soldier bringing up my right arm forcing his rifle to shoot into the ceiling as I punched with all my force into his stomach with my left fist. Gold had taken out the officer by pushing his elbow against the joint so he couldn’t aim his pistol and kicking his legs from under him with a sweep of her right leg, sending him to the floor and releasing his grip on the pistol which she took and shot him in the back of the head in one move. I turned my attention to the second soldier, who wasn’t sure what to do and was bringing his rifle round to bear on Gold as my straight hand chop hit the back of his neck with such force it broke with an audible crack and both he and his rifle fell to the floor.

  We stood and looked at each other.

  ‘Time we were out of here,’ I said. We gathered our own guns and I looked carefully outside. At the far side of the compound two security men were hurrying toward us.

  ‘You drive,’ said Gold as we ran out to the van. ‘Same way out as we came in, there’s no other exit.’

  I turned the key and thankfully she started first time. We moved off and I turned towards the main house. The security men were now in front of us and although well-armed they waved us through; thankfully they hadn’t ‘turned’.

  ******************************

  CHAPTER 15

  We left the compound and took the road back into the city; odds were the military would think we had fled the other way, away from the city, and concentrate any search that way. The main city of Antakya is a very built-up modern place – the capital of Hatay province – and very busy on its own accord as well as a busy tourist centre in the season. It was busy with the evening social traffic building up as Gold directed me to a multilevel car park near the centre, I took a ticket from the machine and drove to the top deck.

  ‘Reverse into the parking space,’ Gold said.

  I was beginning to see her plan.

  ‘You’re going to launch the drones from here.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did Ajdin know the plan? They might be expecting drones.’

  ‘No, he didn’t know anything about the drones until we picked them up this morning – and I’ve been with him since then.’

  That was good news. The car park was quite busy with people parking up before going out for a meal or social event. We slipped into the back of the van and squeezed between the two drones and their payloads; the two of us sitting in the front on full view might raise somebody’s suspicions, so better off in the back out of sight. The car parks have security patrols and the last thing we wanted was a tap on the window from them. The drones were not military, I’d worked with enough military drones in the past to see that, but they looked substantial; they’d better be to fly with the payload they’d be carrying.

  ‘How are you getting out of here?’I asked.

  ‘Going to book into a cheap hotel for a day and then get a flight back to Cyprus.’

  ‘I’ve got an SBS boat coming in for me on the shore at one o’clock if you want to join me?’

  ‘No, my Cypriot passport would have been registered when I flew in and if I don’t fly back out at some time my cover would be blown. You never know when I might want to come back.’

  I don’t think I’d ever want to come back, but I could see the sense in what she was saying. Looked like I was going to make the journey to meet Jones alone.

  We snoozed and relaxed until the car park had been quiet for a while; one patrol had driven slowly by but the lone occupant seemed more interested in singing along with his radio; loudly and out of tune. It was now just past nine and getting quite dark. Looking from the back through the front windscreen I could see the city lit up like all major cities at night, twinkling lights stretching away into the distance.

  Gold checked her watch. ‘Right let’s get this done then.’

  I pushed open the back doors – not totally open as I’d parked about two feet from the car park side wall; any further and I’d be out into the narrow access road between the parking bays and be noticed.

  Gold lifted one of the drones to the back of the van by the doors and hooked on a heavy solid steel tube; this, she hoped, would be enough to smash through the warehouse sk
ylight. I just hoped the drone was powerful enough to lift it. It was, and soon Gold had the four blades whirring and the drone lifting from the van out over the car park wall and away. We looked at the controller screen that showed view from the drone camera, the city beneath it.

  ‘Does it know where the warehouse is?’ I asked, thinking it might be programmed.

  ‘No, I have to guide it.’

  ‘Do you know where the warehouse is from here?’ I asked, knowing full well that Gold doesn’t leave things to chance.

  She nodded her head. ‘Look towards two o’clock about a mile and half away.’

  I did so.

  ‘See the red flashing lights?’

  I could just about see them through the brown polluted air that hung over the city; they were on top of a tall building that stood out above most of the others around it, I couldn’t make out much detail from this distance except the red flashing lights on its roof.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s the warehouse.’

  It took a minute or so for the drone to get there and the control screen gave a clear picture of the military compound below that circled round the warehouse. Figures that looked like ants were moving around, and rectangle shapes that I took to be lorries were parked beside it. I watched the screen as Gold moved the drone over the warehouse. The roof was a single slanting one and had three wide skylight windows. She positioned the drone over the middle one about twenty feet above it, which should let gravity accelerate the falling drone and its steel payload enough for it to smash through. We wouldn’t know until the second drone was in position whether it had worked, as Gold had to cut the power to let the first drone fall and hit the skylight.

  ‘Fingers crossed,’ she said and cut the radio signal to the drone.

  As she did so the control screen blanked out. Quickly I passed the second controller to her and moved the second drone to the rear doors. Then I carefully moved the shoe box-sized incendiary and explosive bomb and waited until Gold had switched on the controller and taken the drone up to about two feet above the car park wall before jumping out and hooking on the box and very carefully pressing in a button that primed the explosive charge to explode on impact. And then it was flying away as I got back into the van and pulled the rear doors closed. We watched the controller screen and saw the city pass beneath the drone camera until it reached the military compound. By now the smashing of the window and the drone falling inside the warehouse must have caused a bit of panic. It had. We could see soldiers running around; most seemed to be running away from the warehouse.

  ‘It must have got through and fallen on the warehouse floor – they think the steel tube is a bomb, which is why they are running away,’ explained Gold, even though I hadn’t asked the question.

  The second drone was spotted, and several flashes from rifles being shot could be seen, but she moved it out of sight over the warehouse before any AK-47s or similar carbine could pump lead into the sky. I watched the controller screen as Gold moved it over the smashed window and lowered it slowly down and through into the warehouse. The camera showed the warehouse lights on and stacks of wooden crates of all sizes in rows; crates similar to those in the Purley warehouse. Part of the floor was covered in upright standing warheads and shells of all sizes.

  I was taken aback. ‘My God, you could equip an army with that lot.’

  ‘Yes, but which army – Assad’s, the Houthis, ISIS, al-Qaeda? I don’t think we want that lot getting in any of their hands.’ She exaggeratedly raised a finger and switched off the drone’s power.

  We looked expectantly through the night towards the red flashing lights on the warehouse roof. Nothing happened. Had the explosive failed? Then the red lights went out, and we waited with baited breath; surely we’d see some flames?

  The one flame we did see was massive, absolutely massive! It took the roof with it way up into the night sky and behind it flame continued to pour out of the warehouse upwards, accelerated by explosions we could plainly hear from our position a mile and a half away. We must have hit a dynamite stockpile, and a big one at that.

  I don’t know why, but we both started to laugh – relief of the tension? We gave a high five. Sirens were beginning to be heard, growing in number, and blue flashing lights lit up the sky from the streets.

  ‘Time to go,’ I said. I had a long journey back to the rendezvous point and wanted plenty of time, as I didn’t fancy missing the one o’clock deadline and hanging around that beach for twenty-four hours until the next one.

  ‘Okay.’ Gold took out a tunic from the rucksack and put it on over her onesie before wrapping the hijab around her head. She clasped her hands together and gave me a slight bow.

  ‘See you in Cyprus. Take care.’ And with that she turned and made her way to the car park staircase.

  ***************************

  CHAPTER 16

  I gave her five minutes, sitting and watching the inferno in the distance and hearing muffled explosions before driving out of the car park and turning towards the Syrian border road, the one we had come in on. I kept checking my mirror but I suppose every patrol had been called to the compound. Except one, and that one had set up a roadblock half a mile in front of me, probably because of the happenings with Ajdin and the soldiers at the big house; it was too soon for the warehouse attack to have gotten through to those in charge and roadblocks to have been ordered.

  It was only one patrol, three soldiers and a jeep; the jeep was parked sideways on but wasn’t long enough to block the whole road. I thought about winging it, hitting its front corner and disabling a wheel so they couldn’t chase me, but that could disable the van as well - no, best to take advantage of the element of surprise and put some distance between them and me. I opened the driver’s side window and pulled out my Sig. Flicking the headlights full on I floored the accelerator; they wouldn’t realise the speed I was doing until I was nearly on them. Surprise is a great element in warfare, and even in a small scenario like this one it works. At about fifty yards from them the soldiers started to think that maybe I wasn’t going to stop, but before they could unsling their rifles I was firing the Sig from outside the side window which had them running for cover, and then I was past and well away into the darkness, lights out, before they started to fire after me.

  I kept my foot hard to the floor. I could see the ocean a half mile on my right shimmering in the moonlight beyond the woods. It wouldn’t be long before the jeep would catch me up, so time to play games. I pulled up on the right-hand side of the road and moved into the bushes on the left side. I found a fallen tree and lay behind it, my CF8 aimed at the road. Right on cue, the jeep arrived. They stopped fifty yards down the road as soon as they saw the van and two of the three soldiers got out and walked, half hidden behind it with their rifles up as it moved slowly forward – at least they had some training! I’d left the van driver’s door open to look like I’d made a quick escape; they approached it slowly and after some chat spread out twenty feet apart and started to enter the undergrowth towards the sea. I gave them five minutes and then crept over the road, and keeping to the side of the jeep they wouldn’t be able to see I took my knife and punctured the two tyres; then I was back into the van and away.

  I took out my mobile, turned it on and brought up the location app; the red dot where I had set it on the beach was flashing, but it was still quite a way to go and reinforcements for the soldiers would be on their way as soon as they got back to the jeep and radioed in. At least the moonlight gave me the option of driving without lights which would keep my position a bit more secure. I checked the time – shit! Quarter to one and I still had to cross half a mile of thick undergrowth on foot to get to the shore after reaching the right place on the road. The bloody accelerator wouldn’t go down any further. I hoped Jones would be a bit lax with his clock; stupid thing was I should have put the comms in my rucksack and then I’d be able to contact him, I but I hadn’t as any transmission between us could easily be picked up
and give the location away.

  I pulled up at the roadside a hundred metres before I got parallel with the beach where the app was flashing. I couldn’t hide the van so I drove it as far as I could into the scrub on the other side of the road; that might give me a bit more time and confuse whoever was going to come after me that I’d gone inland. I ran the final hundred metres and turned into the sloping scrub and forest, trying hard to pick my feet up and take long steps rather than push through and leave an obvious trail. Mind you, if my chasers had dogs then I’d better get into the water as soon as I could.

  I made it the beach without hearing or seeing any activity up on the road. I went to the water’s edge and strained my eyes looking for a boat shape in the dark waves offshore; nothing, but at least there wasn’t a storm to contend with. Taking out my torch I started with the three short and one long signal Jones had said to use. Checking the time on my mobile it was one ten – had they been and gone? I carried on flashing, forming a plan in my mind of what to do if I got no response. No doubt the Turkish Military would launch a full scale search for me at daybreak, so the best plan would be for me go back to the road and away the other side of it, or maybe take the van and drive further along the road towards the Syrian border and hide up there. I wouldn’t think the Turks wanted to do anything military near that border which could be used as provocation by the Syrians and their Russian masters.

  I thought I saw a light between the waves. I did, I saw it again. I kept flashing my signal and soon the dark outline of the FB was visible between the waves coming towards me. My elation was killed as the sounds of sirens and motor engines filtered down from the road, I looked back and it seemed the whole of the road was filling up with headlights and vehicles pulling up. Voices echoed through the trees – Christ! It seemed the whole Turkish army were coming for me. I waded out as fast as I could to meet the FB, which was making its way towards me bouncing through the waves.