The quartermaster returned with fatigues, Kevlar gloves, a black Kevlar helmet, and black Kevlar knee and elbow protectors. ‘Underwear? Socks?’ he asked Shepherd.
Shepherd shook his head. ‘I’m good. Boots too. I could do with a decent vest with ceramic plates front, back and groin.’
The quartermaster grunted and headed back among the racks.
Shepherd grinned at Kassar. ‘Better safe than sorry. What about radios and headsets?’
‘I’ll get one for you just before we leave,’ said the captain.
The quartermaster returned with the Kevlar vest. The plates were already in place. Shepherd tapped them with his knuckles though there was no way of knowing for sure whether they would stop a bullet. ‘We buy them from America,’ said Kassar, as if reading his mind.
‘Just so long as they work,’ said Shepherd.
‘Have you ever been shot?’
Shepherd nodded. ‘My shoulder, a while back,’ he said. ‘In Afghanistan.’
‘AK-47?’ The quartermaster handed his clipboard and pen to Kassar and the captain signed with a flourish.
‘AK-74. What about you?’
‘I’ve been lucky.’
‘Luck’s important,’ said Shepherd. ‘Luck and ceramic plates.’
The captain took the jacket while Shepherd picked up the rest of the equipment. They took it out to the Land Rover, loaded it into the back, and climbed in. The SSG officers’ mess was in a separate compound, a two-storey building with bedrooms on the top floor and a recreation room, dining room, gym and administration centre on the ground floor. There were a dozen or so officers in fatigues sprawled on sofas watching football on a large flatscreen television. They all turned to watch as Shepherd and Kassar carried the gear upstairs. His room was the size of a prison cell and about as welcoming. There was a single bed, a cheap wooden wardrobe and a table and chair. There were marks on the wall where there had once been posters, and cobwebs in the corners that suggested that cleaning wasn’t a regular occurrence. Kassar dropped the vest on the bed. ‘I’ll wait downstairs while you get ready,’ he said. ‘Do you need to sleep?’
‘I’m fine,’ said Shepherd. ‘What I need is a gun and the opportunity to fire a few rounds.’
‘Soon as you’re ready, I’ll take you to the armoury,’ said Kassar.
He went downstairs. Shepherd shaved and showered and changed into the fatigues, then sat on the bed, laced up his boots and switched on the sat phone. He called Button and she answered on the third ring. ‘I’m here, at the SSG base in Cherat,’ he said.
‘Any problems?’
‘One big one,’ said Shepherd. ‘They’re all geared up to go in tomorrow morning.’
‘That seems a bit sudden.’
‘You’re telling me,’ said Shepherd. ‘And the guy in charge isn’t even here. There doesn’t seem to be a game plan, or if there is he isn’t telling anyone.’
‘When will you know what they’re going to do?’
‘There’s a briefing from some Brigadier Khan later tonight. Have you heard of him?’
‘No, but I’ll see what I can find out. Do you have any idea what’s planned?’
‘They’re going to use helicopters. And they have already earmarked the guys. Six strike teams of four men, which is fair enough. But there’s to be no army back-up, it’s a straightforward in and out.’
‘It’s Taliban-controlled territory, right?’
‘Sounds like it. I think they’re scared of a full-on battle.’
‘Understandable,’ said Button.
‘I’ll know after the briefing, I’ll call you then,’ said Shepherd. He ended the call and went downstairs. Kassar was watching the football. He had acquired a transceiver that was clipped to his belt, and he had a Glock in a leather holster. He stood up and introduced Shepherd to his companions. They were all under thirty, lean and fit, and almost all were wearing impenetrable sunglasses and sporting Rolex Submariner watches.
Shepherd could tell from the way they were looking at him they had questions but none of them said anything other than to tell him their names. Introductions done, Kassar took him outside, where the Land Rover was waiting.
The armoury was outside the SSG compound, a single-storey windowless building surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Two guards cradling MP5s saluted and opened a gate for the Land Rover to drive up to the building. Two more armed guards stood aside to allow them inside.
‘What weapon are you most comfortable with?’ asked the captain, as they approached a counter behind which stood two uniformed armourers, both men in their forties.
‘Addy, no offence, but that depends on what we’re going to be doing, doesn’t it? If it’s a close-quarter battle situation then I’d be happy with an MP5, but if we’re outside blasting away then a G3 or even a heavy machine gun.’
‘I like the G3,’ said the captain.
‘So do I, but if we’re inside, the round is a bit on the large side, you get less of a ricochet with the nine-mill.’
‘So which do you prefer?’
Shepherd sighed. The choice of weapon came down to horses for courses but clearly no one was going to tell him what the course was. The one thing he did know was that it was a hostage rescue so the MP5 made more sense. ‘I’ll take an MP5,’ he said.
‘And as a sidearm. We have Glocks, the Beretta 92F and the SIG Sauer P226.’
Shepherd’s face brightened. The SIG was his favourite handgun. ‘The P226 will do fine,’ he said.
Kassar spoke to one of the armourers and he went over to a cage full of MP5s on racks. He took a carbine and gave it to the captain, who in turn passed it to Shepherd. Shepherd quickly field-stripped, reassembled and dry-fired it. It appeared to be almost new and he nodded his approval. The quartermaster returned with a P226 in a nylon holster. Shepherd checked the weapon. Like the MP5, it was pristine.
‘OK?’ asked Kassar.
‘All good,’ said Shepherd. ‘Can I get in some target practice, get the sights sorted?’
‘Sure,’ said the captain. He said something to the quartermaster, who disappeared into the back of the armoury and reappeared with two boxes of 9mm cartridges. Kassar signed for the guns and ammunition and they went back outside to the Land Rover. The shooting range was a short drive away, an outdoor area surrounded by another chain-link fence. There were free-standing targets in front of a mound of earth and a line of wooden tables from where the guns could be fired. Kassar watched as Shepherd loaded the clips and fired away, calibrating the sights until his grouping was as tight as it had been in Credenhill. ‘You have a good eye,’ said Kassar, nodding approvingly.
‘It’s always easy to hit targets when they’re not shooting back,’ said Shepherd, making both the weapons safe.
The radio on Kassar’s hip crackled and he put it to his ear. He listened and then nodded at Shepherd. ‘The brigadier’s here and the briefing’s in ten minutes.’
Brigadier Khan was in his fifties, a barrel-chested man with swept-back hair that was greying at the temples. He had a line of multicoloured medals on his chest and an ebony swagger stick that looked as if it belonged in colonial times. His uniform was spotless and neatly pressed and his boots gleamed. From the look of the man’s immaculately manicured nails he hadn’t polished the boots himself.
The briefing was in a long windowless room close to the officers’ mess. There were a dozen rows of plastic chairs facing a small podium on which there was a lectern decorated with the Pakistan flag. On the wall behind the lectern was a whiteboard and to the left of it was a large-scale map of the north-west of Pakistan.
There were fifteen men already sitting in the room when the brigadier walked in and made his way to the podium, an aide-de-camp hard on his heels carrying two metal briefcases. The seated men sprang to their feet and saluted. The brigadier threw them back a half-hearted salute but avoided eye contact.
The aide-de-camp opened one of the briefcases and began attaching photographs to the wh
iteboard, including pictures of a desert fort along with a head-and-shoulder shot of Raj and another of an Arab man that Shepherd didn’t recognise.
Kassar nodded at Shepherd and took him up to the podium, where he introduced him to the brigadier. ‘This is Dan Shepherd, from England,’ said Kassar. Shepherd wasn’t sure how to acknowledge the brigadier but decided to go with a salute and not a handshake. The brigadier returned the salute, again half-heartedly. Shepherd could smell the man’s cologne, sickly sweet with an orangey undertone.
‘You are SAS, I gather,’ said the brigadier. He had a clipped upper-class accent that suggested a spell at Sandhurst, the Royal Military Academy.
‘Former SAS,’ said Shepherd. He pointed at the photograph of Raj. ‘I worked with Manraj Chaudhry two years ago.’
‘Well, I hope we can get him back for you,’ said the brigadier. ‘You are familiar with the area where he is being held?’
‘I have looked at the geography but I have never been there,’ said Shepherd. ‘I was in Afghanistan for several tours.’
The brigadier pointed his swagger stick at the map. ‘Waziristan,’ he said, in clipped tones. ‘Just under twelve thousand square kilometres consisting of the area west and south-west of Peshawar between the Tochi river to the north and the Gomal river to the south. I don’t know how aware you are of the political situation in the area but it is an area within what we call FATA, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.’
‘I’ve heard of FATA, of course,’ said Shepherd. He had also heard that the Taliban pretty much controlled the territory and that the Pakistan army pretty much treated it as a no-go area.
The brigadier tapped the point of his swagger stick at a place called Parachinar, which was at the apex of a triangle of Pakistani territory sticking into Afghanistan. ‘There is a fort here, very close to the border,’ he said.
‘What sort of assault is planned?’ asked Shepherd.
The brigadier’s eyes narrowed. ‘I will explain that during the briefing,’ he said, and turned his back on Shepherd to watch his aide-de-camp affix more photographs to the whiteboard.
Kassar nodded for Shepherd to move away and they went to sit down in the front row. More troopers were filing into the room and sitting down. ‘He seems a bit prickly,’ said Shepherd.
‘Officers are not used to being questioned by their men,’ said Kassar. ‘There are no Chinese parliaments here. Any discussion would sound like criticism and soldiers are not allowed to be critical of officers.’
‘I wasn’t being critical, Addy, I was just asking for information.’
‘I understand that, but he probably won’t see it that way,’ whispered Kassar.
There was a rumble as chairs were pushed back and men got to their feet again. Shepherd turned around to see that a colonel had entered the room, flanked by two captains.
‘Colonel Jamali,’ whispered Kassar.
The colonel was a short man, a good two inches shorter than the captains either side of him. All three were wearing desert camouflage fatigues with the sleeves rolled up, had Oakley sunglasses and had their maroon berets at the same jaunty angle. The colonel had a thick rope-like scar running from his right elbow down to his wrist. Shepherd noticed a big difference between the way the men in the room were saluting the colonel compared with the reception they had given Brigadier Khan. The salutes for the brigadier had been perfunctory at best, but for the colonel they snapped to attention and made eye contact, holding their position with ramrod-straight backs until he returned the salute. The men stayed standing while the colonel and the two captains took their seats at the front, just along from where Shepherd and Kassar were sitting.
The brigadier continued to watch his aide-de-camp place photographs on the whiteboard. Shepherd had the feeling that the brigadier had deliberately ignored the arrival of the colonel. Eventually the brigadier turned and walked to the podium, tapping it with his swagger stick to get everyone’s attention.
‘We will have six teams of four,’ said the brigadier. ‘Captain Ali will be in charge of teams Alpha and Bravo, Captain Sipra will be in charge of Charlie and Delta, and Captain Kassar will be in charge of Echo and Foxtrot. Colonel Jamali will be officer in command on the ground. The situation at the moment is that we have an al-Qaeda cell holding at least one hostage in a fort on the outskirts of Parachinar, close to the border with Afghanistan. We will be leaving at first light on three helicopters, designated Red, Blue and Green. Alpha and Bravo will be in red, Charlie and Delta will be in Blue and Echo and Foxtrot will be in Green. The flight time from Cherat to Parachinar is just over thirty minutes. Sunrise tomorrow is at 0658 hours so we expect to be arriving at the airfield at 0730 hours.’ The brigadier tapped the map with his swagger stick. ‘From the airport to the target is just under six miles. Transport will be taken on the helicopters and the teams will drive to a range of hills behind the fort. The teams will cross the range on foot. It should take less than fifteen minutes to reach the fort, which gives us an ETA of 0745. The mission is to take control of the fort and to rescue a British citizen who is being held captive there.’ He tapped his swagger stick on Raj’s photograph. ‘Manraj Chaudhry. A British citizen of Pakistani descent. He will almost certainly have been tortured and will be in weakened condition. Mr Shepherd, if you will be so good as to stand. Thank you.’
Shepherd got to his feet and turned to face the assembled men.
‘This is Daniel Shepherd, he has worked with Mr Chaudhry and will be a familiar face. He is also an SAS trained special forces soldier, so he will not require babysitting. He will be alongside Captain Kassar. Teams Echo and Foxtrot are tasked with bringing Mr Chaudhry back to the airport. Thank you, Mr Shepherd. You may sit down.’
Shepherd did as he was told.
The brigadier tapped another photograph on the whiteboard, this one a head-and-shoulders shot of a bearded Arab man with a hooked nose and dark patches under his eyes. ‘This is Akram Al-Farouq, a high-ranking al-Qaeda leader. We believe he is in the building, possibly overseeing the interrogation of the British agent. Captain Sipra and teams Charlie and Delta are tasked with capturing Akram Al-Farouq.’
Shepherd looked across at Kassar, wondering whether the captain had been told about Akram Al-Farouq. Kassar was staring at the photograph of the Arab as if trying to commit the features to memory. Shepherd turned to look at the colonel. He was sitting back in his chair, his legs outstretched, nodding enthusiastically.
‘We believe Akram Al-Farouq was involved in a number of attacks on Pakistani soil,’ said the brigadier. ‘In 2007 he was involved in the failed assassination attempt on former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. We believe he arranged the funding for the operation. They tried again two months later and this time they were successful. Again, we were able to show that the funding came from Akram Al-Farouq. He was also the paymaster for the car bomb attack on the Danish embassy in Pakistan in June 2008 and three months later organised the truck bomb attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad that killed more than fifty people.’
He tapped two more photographs, surveillance shots of Akram Al-Farouq taken with a long lens. In one he was getting into a white SUV, in another he was sitting at a café drinking tea with an Arab, both men wearing pristine white ankle-length thawbs. He pointed at Al-Farouq. ‘I need you all to have a clear picture of this man in your head. Under no circumstances is he to be killed. He has incalculable value as an information source – no one knows more about the workings of al-Qaeda in this region.’
‘Is that how you found the location?’ interrupted Shepherd. ‘You were following Al-Farouq?’
The brigadier looked at Shepherd as if he had just broken wind. ‘That is an operational matter that I’m afraid I can’t discuss,’ he said, which Shepherd took as a ‘yes’. It was starting to look as if the operation was more about catching a high-value target and less about rescuing Raj. ‘Your priority is to make sure that he is captured so that he can be interrogated.’
‘With the greatest of
respect, sir, my priority is to rescue Raj,’ said Shepherd. ‘That’s why I’m here.’
The brigadier’s eyes hardened and Shepherd realised that the officer wasn’t used to being questioned. Shepherd averted his eyes, knowing that the best course of action was to avoid a confrontation. The brigadier took a deep breath, then tapped a photograph of a stone-built fort. ‘The building we need to take is a small two-storey fort that used to be a garrison for the Frontier Corps until it was abandoned some ten years ago. It has fallen into disrepair but is now occupied by a small group of Taliban fighters, a dozen at most. The fort is at the bottom of a small range of hills. The teams will come over the range to the rear of the fort. There are two entrances: a main wooden door at the front and at the rear is a smaller door, also made of wood. There are windows on all sides, shuttered all the time so far as we know. Animals are kept inside and taken out during the day to scavenge for food. Teams Alpha and Bravo are to use shaped charges to blow the rear doors. They will move in to secure the rear of the fort. Teams Charlie and Delta will move to the front of the fort and blow those doors immediately after the rear has been accessed. Teams Echo and Foxtrot will follow Alpha and Bravo inside. All six units will clear the ground and upper floor, locate the hostage and Akram Al-Farouq, and then head back to the airfield.’ He looked up and paused for effect, before continuing. ‘This is to be a standard rescue operation. Move in and move out. The fort is not to be held, we are interested only in the rescue of the British agent and the capture of Akram Al-Farouq. There are substantial numbers of Taliban fighters in the area and we are not in a position to take them on.’ He looked at his wristwatch. ‘I suggest you get an early night. All teams are to gather at the helicopter landing pad with their equipment at 0500 hours.’ Shepherd assumed the brigadier was going to ask for questions or comments but he simply nodded, then stepped off the podium and headed for the door. His aide-de-camp began hurriedly pulling the photographs off the whiteboard.
Spider Shepherd 11 - White Lies Page 15
