‘Trust me, Spider, I worked with the guy for three years back in the eighties. I’ll personally vouch for him. He’ll not go rogue on you and he’s got local knowledge that it would take you and me a lifetime to acquire.’
Shepherd nodded thoughtfully. ‘OK, let’s see what the Head Shed says.’
Their CO was Major Allan Gannon, well over six feet tall with wide shoulders, a strong chin and a nose that had been broken at least twice. He was a good ten years older than Shepherd but was one of the fittest men in the Regiment, regularly running the SAS’s selection course in the Brecon Beacons for the fun of it. He clapped Shepherd on the back when he saw him and congratulated him on his work in the Gulf state. ‘You’d be up for a medal if it wasn’t for the fact that it never happened,’ he said.
‘Can we have a word, boss?’ asked Spud. ‘We’ve just been given some intel that might make your day.’
Spud quickly outlined what Taj had told him. The Major listened in silence until Spud had finished. ‘And this guy is trustworthy?’ he said at last.
‘No question,’ Spud said.
‘We need to be sure,’ said the Major. ‘This is big, but if he’s setting you up a lot of people could get hurt. Or worse.’
‘I’m happy to go, boss,’ said Spud. ‘I’d trust him with my life, no question.’
The Major looked across at Shepherd. Shepherd nodded. ‘I’m up for it,’ he said.
The Major nodded thoughtfully. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Then let’s use some of our drone time and see what’s going on there. I’ll give you a shout when I get the intel. Until then, mum’s the word, obviously.’
Spud left but Shepherd stayed put. ‘Boss, I need a favour.’
‘You want to phone the missus?’ Shepherd’s jaw dropped and the Major grinned. ‘I’m not psychic, Spud mentioned it earlier.’ He went over to a metal chest, opened it and took out a bulky sat-phone. ‘Take it outside, try to keep it below ten minutes, any longer than that and I have to do a memo. Crazy as it sounds, if you end the call at nine minutes and redial it counts as separate calls.’
‘Cheers, Boss,’ said Shepherd. He took the sat-phone outside and called his wife. ‘Hi honey,’ he said.
‘Where are you?’ asked Sue.
‘I can’t tell you,’ he said. ‘Sorry. It’s classified.’
‘You’re still coming back this week, aren’t you?’
‘That’s looking unlikely,’ said Shepherd.
‘Dan….’ sighed Sue.
He could hear the disappointment in her voice. ‘I’m sorry, honey. There’s a lot going on at the moment.’
‘It’s Afghanistan, isn’t it?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘That bloody Blair. What’s he doing sending our troops to that God-forsaken place? We need you here, Dan. Not in some bloody desert.’
‘It won’t be long,’ said Shepherd.
‘You’re always saying that. And then I get the phone call saying that you’ll be another week and another. And one day I’ll get a phone call that says you won’t be coming back.’
‘Sue!’
She sighed. ‘Okay, I’m sorry. But this isn’t fair on Liam and me. You know that?’
‘I’ll make it up to you,’ he said, A Chinook helicopter flew overhead, its twin rotors kicking up dust around him and Shepherd shielded his mouth with his left hand. ‘Is Liam there?’
‘Of course he’s here. Where else would he be?’
‘Can I speak to him?’
He heard Sue talking to Liam and then she came back on. ‘He says he doesn’t want to.’
‘What?’
‘He just shakes his head and says he doesn’t want to talk to you.’
‘That’s stupid.’
‘That’s as may be, but I can’t force him.’
‘He’s okay?’
‘He’s fine. But he keeps asking when you’re coming home.’
‘Tell him, soon.’
‘I’ll tell him, Dan. But you’d better mean it.’
‘Honey, I’m sorry. Truly.’
‘You’d better be here for his birthday, Dan.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘You need to do more than try. You’ve missed his last two birthdays. And last Christmas. Last night he took one of your old sweatshirts and stuffed it with a pillow and slept holding it. He said it felt like he was hugging you.’
Shepherd felt as if he’d been punched in the chest. ‘I’m sorry, Sue. Really. I’ll make this up to you.’
‘You need to think about what you’re doing, Dan,’ she said. ‘I know how important the SAS is to you, but we didn’t sign up for this.’
Shepherd rubbed the bridge of his nose. The Chinook had flown off into the distance and the air around him was still thick with dust but that only half-explained the tears that were pricking his eyes. ‘Honey, I’m sorry.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I will make it up to you. I swear.’
‘Just be careful. And come back in one piece, you hear me?’
‘I hear you.’
‘I love you. We both do.’
‘I love you too, honey.’
There was a lot more he wanted to say but he knew that there was nothing he could tell her that would make her any happier and the longer he stayed on the line the more he risked upsetting her, so he ended the call.
* * *
The Major arranged for a US surveillance drone to be routed over Tora Bora, and later that day he called in Spud and Shepherd to examine the footage on a laptop. Mist and squally snow showers made it hard to decipher much detail but it was clear that Taj was right – something was going on in the mountains. The valley was so steep-sided and narrow it could almost have been a ravine, but there were fresh tracks through the snow, following the river and then cutting away at a steep angle up a narrow, precipitous path. The path, barely wide enough for two men to pass, lead to a series of caves. Geometric shapes that might have been stone-walled defensive sangers were positioned on the ridge above and at intervals along the cliff face overlooking the track.
‘Something’s definitely going on there,’ the Major said, ‘but it’s hard to see exactly what. Someone’s going to have to go in for a look-see.’
‘We’ll need a heli-lift for three two-man teams,’ said Spud.
‘I’m not sure about that,’ said the Major. ‘That terrain and altitude are iffy. The approaches to the valley are crawling with muj and Taliban, so we’re risking compromise, and if they’ve got Stingers...’ He left the rest of the sentence hanging. ‘We’ll go in over land. We can use ex-Sov vehicle, there are enough of them lying around Bagram. The Sov UAZ 469s are just like Land Rovers. I’ll get the mechanics on the case.’
Twenty-four hours later, they had three UAZ 469s fuelled and ready and the Major called everyone in for a final briefing.
Major Gannon went over the map and the satellite imagery together, identifying possible sites for the OPs that the two teams would use to locate enemy sangers and defensive positions.
The dirt-track road leading to the valley where the caves were sited was heavily defended and there was no possibility of approaching that way. The Major traced the line of the dirt-track road running up the valley to the north of the Tora Bora valley, and stabbed his finger at a point where the faint line of a side-track could be seen, ending in a straggling clump of trees by what might have been the ruins of a house or goat pen near the river. ‘You can leave the vehicles there,’ he said, ‘and climb the ridge, though it’ll be a stiff climb. It’s well over then thousand feet.’
‘There is a track,’ Taj said, pointing to a wavering line up the ridge, so faint as to be almost invisible.
‘What’s it used by?’ asked Shepherd. ‘Mountain goats?’
Spud’s team and the other SAS team would be infiltrating the valley from the other side, crossing a lower ridge to reach their OP sites. The Para Support Group with the heavy weapons would move up to a Forward Operating Base near the entrance to the valley, outside the Taliban defences b
ut close enough to make a rapid intervention.
The Major straightened up as he addressed the men. ‘You know the prime target we’re seeking is code name Muj 1, but snipers, if you make positive IDs on targets, make sure you have permission to fire from your Sunray before engaging. This may be highly sensitive and we don’t want any cock-ups.’ Shepherd and Spud exchanged a brief glance, knowing that the cock-ups usually came a lot further up the chain of command than the men in the front line.
‘Comms. The usual call signs: Snipers prefix Sierra, assault troops Alpha, support groups Quebec, and all leaders are Sunray. Snipers, assault groups and the support heavy weapons, all have your own internal nets,’ the Major said. ‘Everything’s encrypted so everyone can talk in real time and the only reason to use codes would be to shorten the time, so “Fetch Sunray” will do it instead of “I want to talk to the Boss”. We’ll keep you separate to stop the net from getting clogged up with traffic, but if you need mortars or other support, tell the Head Shed and we’ll link you in with the other nets if necessary. The Head Shed on the ground will monitor and control, but we also have a link back to Bagram patched through to the UK, so they’ll be exercising tactical control from there.’
Shepherd and Spud exchanged another world-weary glance. Signals traffic was always monitored in Bagram, where they would arrange any air- or heavy weapons support that was called for, but the army - the Green Army as SAS men dismissively termed it - would also be involved. Shepherd was far from happy about it as it smacked of too many cooks, but it was the way that wars were fought and there was no point in saying anything.
‘I know you guys would rather work autonomously but that’s not going to happen here,’ he said as if reading Shepherd’s mind. ‘The Americans are running things so everything has to be run by them and that’s done at a pay grade much higher than mine. So, again, you need permission to fire from Sunray. No excuses.’
‘What if we come under attack, boss?’ asked Spud, at the same moment it had occurred to Shepherd.
‘I’m not going to say no exceptions, Spud. But if you fire without authorization, you’d better have a bloody good reason because you’ll have to justify every round down the line.’
The comms system was secure but it was increasingly complex. Anything Shepherd transmitted in the field would be immediately encrypted. It went up to one satellite, where it was encrypted again, and then a second one, where it was encrypted for a third time, before being sent down to a recipient who might be two hundred yards or two thousand miles away. The Head Shed would consist of a couple of bosses led by the Major, with two or three signallers monitoring Shepherd and the other SAS crews, and a couple more sending back to Bagram. There would also be an overview in COBRA in London, and quite possibly the White House, since politicians tended to treat special ops as a spectator sport. Even if it wasn’t patched through to the USA, since the comms system was licensed from the US and used American satellites, all the SAS troopers knew that anything they said and did could be seen and heard by the US military. So pulling a fast one on the Americans was pretty much out of the question.
As they left the Major’s quarters, Shepherd slapped Lex on the back. ‘Got your own set of Passive Night Goggles yet?’
Lex shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Now’s your chance. They’re very expensive but easy to acquire. If we get in a fire-fight, when we’re on our way out again, stash your PNGs in your grab bag and tell the quartermaster you lost them in the confusion; that way you’ll have your own set in future - it’s how I got mine.’
They headed for the weapons store and armoury, a small concrete bunker buried under a mound of bulldozed earth. Lex filled his bergen with ammunition for his M16, then watched as Shepherd collected his ammo. He held up a bullet for Lex to admire. ‘.50 ammo,’ he said. ‘High tech stuff. The rounds are precision-engineered with a titanium-tipped head. Plus I use two types of mass produced ammo: the ones with red bands around the business end are APTI - Armour Piercing Tracer Incendiary. The ones with yellow bands are APTP - the second “P” is for Phosphorous. I use them for target marking, you get puffs of white smoke where they strike.’
Shepherd had a small personal radio, like a sat-phone, on his right shoulder, so he merely had to take a sideways glance to see what channel and frequency he was on. Like the other old SAS hands, he also had a voice-activated, throat-mic, keeping his hands free. The new guys, still with much to learn, mostly opted for the hand-operated switch that they had to press to talk.
They set out in the early afternoon. All of them wore Afghan clothing and headgear. They were all fresh from tours in the Middle East and, with skin burned by the sun and at least a few days growth of beard, they could just about pass as Afghans to any villagers they passed. Shepherd, Lex, and Taj took the lead vehicle, with Spud in the next with one of the SAS rookies, and the other two-man team bringing up the rear. Taj had an AK74, the updated and smaller calibre version of the ubiquitous AK47, ammunition belts and a pack loaded with even more ammunition. Apart from the weapon and ammo he could have been dressed for a country stroll, with his rations - rice, almonds and raisins - in a small pouch around his waist. ‘Is that all the kit you’ve got, Taj?’ Shepherd said.
The Afghan nodded. ‘It’s all I need.’
‘I’ve heard about traveling light, but you take the biscuit,’ said Shepherd.
‘I have no biscuits,’ said Taj. Shepherd couldn’t tell if the Afghan was joking or not.
They drove out of the base and took the road to the south, soon leaving the city well behind. The road was rough and the only traffic was an occasional vividly-painted, ancient Afghan truck rumbling past in a cloud of diesel fumes.
Signs of the country’s perpetual war were everywhere: shell-blasted and bombed buildings, wrecked trucks and rusting military equipment, much of it from the Soviet era. The people they passed paused to stare at them, their expressions neither friendly nor hostile, merely watchful, and everyone they passed carried a weapon. ‘Have you seen that, even the kids have got AK47s,’ said Lex.
Paths at the edge of villages were marked by lines of white stones, showing cleared pathways through the minefields that covered much of the country.
They drove by a roadside stall, roofed with torn sacking, selling sandals cut from used tyres and cooking pots made from beaten, reclaimed metal that still bore traces of camouflage paint and cyrillic lettering, and a collection of wooden limbs, perhaps harvested from the dead for re-use. The only goods that looked new were the racks of Kalashnikovs and the boxes of ammunition. The shopkeeper was an old man, his face the colour of a weathered satchel, a steel hook where his left hand had once been.
There were brief glimpses of the rich, fertile country that had once been known as “The Crossroads of Asia”, but there were few people tilling the fields and almost all of them were old men. ‘This is what three generations of war has done to my country,’ Taj said. ‘The young men are gone either to fight for or against the Taliban or they are already dead. Only the old remain.’
As the valley narrowed, the road passed through an abandoned village, the mud-brick houses already returning to the earth from which they were formed. The crumbling mosque still had remnants of the shimmering blue tiles that must once have covered it, but it was pocked with bullet holes and blackened by fire. The pool for ritual bathing was dry and filled with rubble, and the mulberry and walnut trees that had once shaded it had been shattered by shellfire.
Just beyond the village, a spindly tree had been dragged across the road, and two figures stood behind it, an older man with a long grey beard and a boy who was barely as tall as the AK47 he was holding. ‘What do you think?’ Shepherd said, his hand resting on his rifle.
‘They’re not Taliban,’ Taj said. ‘Just a couple of villagers trying to levy a toll of a few Afghanis for crossing their land.’
‘Then let’s pay them,’ Shepherd said. ‘Why look for trouble before we need to? You do the talking.’
He slowed to a halt and Taj jumped out, walked over to the makeshift barrier and exchanged a few words with the old man. Whatever the old man asked for, Taj greeted it with a roar of laughter. He shook his head, thrust a few crumpled Afghani notes into the old man’s hand, then turned his back without waiting for a reply and strode back to the vehicle. After a momentary hesitation, the two villagers dragged the tree off the road and Shepherd accelerated away.
‘How much did he want?’ asked Shepherd.
‘A hundred dollars.’
‘How much did you give him?’
Taj laughed. ‘A lot less than that.’
The terrain grew ever more bleak and forbidding the farther they drove. The walls of the mountains rose higher around them and the soaring, jagged, snow-capped peaks were thrown into even starker relief by the low sun. Steep scree slopes were punctuated by mountain torrents and waterfalls tumbling down black cliff faces, the wind tossing the spray high into the air.
Just beyond a perilous stone bridge, a rough side-track split from the road. It led around a rocky crag and down towards a ruined house, sheltered by a stand of cedars and larches on the banks of a rushing green river in the valley floor. ‘This is the place,’ Taj said. ‘The valley we want is beyond that ridge.’ He pointed beyond the river at the rocky, scree-strewn slopes, rising to what looked like an almost sheer, snow-covered ridge line. Shepherd checked his GPS and nodded. They swung off the road and bounced and jolted down the track, coming to a halt at a point where they were screened by the trees from the road.
Taj got out, crouched on the banks of the stream and scooped up a few handfuls of water. Shepherd and Lex drank from their water bottles. ‘What now?’ Lex said.
‘We wait for the sun to go down,’ said Shepherd said. He gestured at the bleak mountainside above them, ‘We’d be sitting ducks up there in daylight.’
They set out as soon as night had fallen. Shepherd had his sniper rifle on a sling leaving his hands free for an AK47. The sniping rifle was perfect for long distance but if the fighting got up close and personal he wanted something less fancy in his hands. Taj cradled his AK74 and Lex had the standard Para Support Group M-16.
Spider Shepherd: SAS: #2 Page 14
