Soft Target 02 - Tank

by Conrad Jones

  “Bring your vehicle into the courtyard and I will bring her to you,” Pete nodded to the two frightened skinheads. “Go up and bring down the girl. It’s all right lads stay where you are,” he shouted to the Brigade members that were still hammering on the barroom door.

  The Russians ushered Pete Dodge to the rear fire escape and waited for the unconscious Arabian girl to be carried down the old wooden stairs. The girl was placed into the back of a black Ford Navigator and the two Russians kept their guns pointed at the brigade leader until the wheels were spinning and the vehicle lurched forward out of the courtyard and away.

  Pete Dodge stood in silence for a long moment wondering what the next move should be. He had the men and the muscle to destroy and burn every Russian Mafia owned brothel and casino in Britain, but his drug supply would stop if he went to war. The British police did not take kindly to gun battles in the streets either, which made his men vulnerable. They could not carry guns when they were going about their legitimate security business, so they would be sitting ducks. The Russians had taken the piss out of him twice in two days. There would not be a third time; he would make sure of that.

  Chapter 4

  Terrorist Task Force/ Liverpool

  The headquarters of the Merseyside Police Force was situated on the banks of the River Mersey in the city centre of Liverpool. The building serviced two thousand six hundred uniformed officers, a plainclothes force of detectives that numbered one hundred and fifty, and occupying the top floor was the Terrorist Task Force. The TTF was a mixed counter-terrorist force that worked independently of MI5 and MI6. They were tasked with dealing with counter-intelligence information that could not be dealt with by more legitimate law enforcement agencies. They were based at the huge red brick building, which resembles a fortress on the River Mersey. The police station was built in the seventies when civil unrest was commonplace, so police stations were designed with a siege mentality top of mind. Trade unions were powerful associations that commanded the loyalty and respect of millions of nationalised-industry employees. Strikes were often used as a tool for negotiation frequently ending in violence on the country’s streets. The race riots in the late seventies, which started in Brixton, London but soon spread to every major town and city in the country further influenced the architectural design of government buildings. The headquarters in Liverpool looked like a concrete castle with tall narrow windows like arrow slits, in the event of public unrest the building would be easy to defend by armed officers. Across the road were the River Mersey and the Albert Docks. The port of Liverpool is hundreds of years old and was for centuries the most important docklands in the world. The port was a key stopping point for boats, which serviced the slave trade. Now the Albert Docks were a tourist hub transformed from derelict five storey dark brick warehouses, into art galleries and restaurants. The buildings formed a large rectangular promontory, which protruded out into the river. The interior of the rectangle was a marina once used by slave galleys and cotton trade ships to resupply on their long voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. Now the marina was home to beautiful tall wooden sailing ships, which were modern replicas of ancient vessels. The Terrorist Task Force offices were situated on the top floor of the Canning Place building, which afforded a stunning view across the docks and the river to the opposite banks, two miles away.

  Tank sat in a leather chair opposite Major Stanley Timms; their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of two senior task force agents, Grace Farrington, Faz to her colleagues and Chen. Chen was of Chinese origin and was fluent in English and Cantonese as well as several other Chinese dialects. He was slightly built but was a Kung-fu exponent of some considerable talent. His father was a restaurant owner by day and a Wing-Chun teacher by night. Chen was brought up learning the finer skills of both cooking and Kung Fu. He joined the Merseyside police force immediately after graduating from Liverpool University, and progressed quickly from a uniformed position into the intelligence-gathering unit. He was a natural selection for the new Terrorist Task Force when it was formed. Now he stood next to Grace Farrington with a computer disk in his hand ready to start the team briefing about the riverboat bomb.

  Grace Farrington pulled up the chair next to Tank and nudged him purposely as she sat down. She didn’t think the Major had noticed but he had, and he eyed her coolly. Faz was a stunning black woman who looked more like a pop star than a counter-terrorism agent. She was tall and lean, muscular around the thighs and arms but slim around the waist and hips. Faz kept her body hard and toned training in the gym with Tank and Chen. Her two male colleagues were mixed martial art experts and she loved to spar with them. Tank had handpicked her for her position from a group of prospective Task Force applicants that represented regiments from all three armed services, and the police force. Competition to be selected was fierce and only the best had even a slim chance of being a successful candidate. Faz scored higher on the fitness test and combat shooting sections than every other female applicant. She had also beaten all bar four of the men. Faz was born to Jamaican parents in a suburb of Liverpool called Toxteth. The area was infamous because of its large black community, poverty and high unemployment. Tensions in the community simmered for years and finally exploded during the national race riots of the late seventies. Grace Farrington’s father had joined the army in his mid twenties in an attempt to seek out a long term career, and to escape the desperation felt by many of his friends, who were the same age. Unemployment was the highest it was for decades, and gaining useful employment was difficult enough for white people. It was almost impossible for the black population. He had made a success of his army career becoming one of the first black Regimental Sergeant Majors in his regiment’s illustrious history. Faz knew she would follow in her father’s footsteps by joining the military, but she had surpassed all her wildest ambitions by being selected for the elite Terrorist Task Force.

  When the Task Force was created Tank was offered the job of heading up the agency, reporting directly to Major Timms. They had worked together briefly during their military service. Tank and the Major were sent to Afghanistan to complete a Special Forces raid on a compound in the Helmand Province. Tank was the commander of a force, which combined American Delta Force members, and British SAS men. The mission was to extract or assassinate a Taliban warlord who was known to be operating from a heavily defended compound in the area. Major Timms had a gut feeling from the start of the mission, on which he was just an observer, that Tank had no intention of extracting anybody. He was correct in his assumption. The warlord and his men were terminated without the loss of a single allied soldier. During the mission a Taliban soldier took aim at the Major, but Tank killed him with single punch to the throat, which shattered his larynx. Timms had noticed the expression on Tank’s face. He barley registered the incident. The Major knew that the leader of the new Terrorist Task Force would need to be able to command the respect of Special Forces and Intelligence agents on a domestic and international level. He would also need to operate outside of the usual rules of engagement that applied to high profile government agencies. The first name he thought of for the job was ‘Tank’.

  “What have intelligence got for us Chen?” Tank asked starting the meeting off.

  “You all have the list of casualties from the explosion. There is nothing of great interest to note, apart from the Saudi girl Jeannie Kellesh. The list is a normal mixture of the different races, creeds and colours that we would expect at any British University. The Saudi girl is the daughter of a senior member of their Royal Family. He has been positioned as a diplomat here for three years, working from the Saudi embassy in London. His daughter was two years into a three-year course in English law. He has apparently been earmarked for the job of Interior Minister back at home, which he planned to start on his return to Saudi next year,” Chen placed the computer disk into the digital projector and a series of photographs of the Saudi minister appeared on the digital screen.

  “Now these two men are t
he dead girl’s body guards, they are members of Saudi Secret Service. They have been making a lot of noise trying to gather information about who we think is responsible for the explosion. Counter-intelligence is telling us that the Saudis believe it was an extremist act carried out by Shia Muslim followers, probably sanctioned by our friend Yasser Ahmed, the leader of the Axe group,” Chen paused. It was only twelve months since the team had tracked Yasser Ahmed from America to the UK. He had attempted to carry out a number of suicide bombings using his affiliates across Britain. The team had foiled several attacks but Ahmed had succeeded in the bombing of York Minster, and the giant Liverpool Anglican Cathedral. Tank had nearly lost his life in a bomb blast planned by Ahmed and the mention of his name made pulses race.

  “Our intelligence teams are telling us that the Saudis are preparing an airstrike against an alleged Ahmed sponsored training camp. The camp is situated across the Syrian border, which will antagonise the Syrian military. We have not confirmed or denied our findings as of today,” Chen pointed to a digital map that had appeared on the screen. He tapped the screen and the satellite picture zoomed in closer. A group of brick built buildings appeared next to what looked like a small runway, carved out of the desert sand. Two civilian private aircraft were stood idle next to the largest building. Groups of armed men could clearly be made out moving around the isolated camp. There was nothing else close to it for one hundred miles.

  “While we can’t see anyone losing sleep if one of Yasser Ahmed’s terror camps is bombed, the fact that the camp is situated in Syrian territory could destabilise the whole region.” Chen sat down and turned off the screen.

  Tank had a dilemma. He could use the disinformation that the Saudis were acting upon to eradicate Yasser Ahmed’s training camp, but that could result in an armed response from Syria. His natural instinct was to let the Saudis blow off steam and take out the Ahmed sponsored terror camp. Tank still suffered from severe headaches as a result of the head injuries, which he had sustained thanks to Yasser Ahmed, during the ‘Soft Target’ campaign the year before. The surgeons had drilled a hole in his skull to release the pressure on his brain, caused by the shock wave of the blast. He also still suffered the recurring nightmares of seeing Yasser Ahmed’s innocent younger brother dead in an autopsy photograph. He was mistakenly tortured to death by a foreign government at the request of an unknown western intelligence agency, using rendition to ascertain information from extremists. They had incorrectly assumed that the innocent sibling was Yasser Ahmed. Tank had promised that he would keep Mustapha safe but he had failed, and he lived with the images, which still haunted him.

  “Forget the Saudis for a minute and think about whom else could have planted a device as sophisticated as the riverboat bomb. It cannot have been a local cell, no matter how determined, they couldn’t have acquired this type of explosive technology,” Tank said trying to lighten his thoughts and think objectively for a minute. Thinking about Yasser Ahmed brought on his headaches, and seriously affected his ability to think rationally.

  “Shaped devices are a special operations tactical weapon; therefore it could be any intelligence agency, or mercenary force from numerous countries. The burnt out transit van was registered to an Asian Muslim from the Bradford area, but he reported it stolen a month ago. The body in the van is proving to be unidentifiable because it is so badly burned,” Faz explained. She was in constant touch with the pathologist department as they identified the victims using DNA and dental records. It was always a very tedious heartbreaking process. The parents of missing students had to surrender their children’s possessions to aid the identification process, hairbrushes were the scientists first choice vehicle for recovering matching tissue samples.

  “We have our intelligence teams cross checking eyewitness statements as they come in. Uniform division is trying to track down every tourist that was in the area at the time. Someone must have photographs or video footage of the River Dee prior to the explosion. An appeal for information is scheduled for the Crime-Watch programme on TV tonight. We still haven’t read all the statements from the people that were in or around the Boathouse pub yet, because everyone ran away from the scene. It’s impossible to trace everyone because the majority of people were day-trippers,” Faz continued, “until we have collated all the information from uniformed division then we are speculating.”

  “I agree with Faz,” Tank said, “Let the Saudis do what they feel is best for now. We can’t influence their thoughts one-way or the other, they could be right about Ahmed’s involvement. We should give it twenty four-hours before we inform anyone about our conclusions.”

  Tank’s eyes met the Majors and a knowing look passed between them. The Major had his suspicions as to why Tank wanted to let the Saudis think that Yasser Ahmed was involved. Tank would grasp any opportunity to strike at Ahmed no matter what the consequences could be.

  Chapter 5

  Syria/ Saudi Arabia

  The Eurofighter Typhoon is a twin-engine, multi-role, strike fighter-aircraft. The Saudi Air Force had ordered and received seventy-two Typhoons in 2006. The aircraft is capable of sustained supersonic cruising at fifty thousand feet, which makes it difficult to track by radar. It reaches this height from take off, in under a minute. It is an air superiority fighter, which other Middle Eastern countries do not possess. The Saudi Minister for Defence, Abdul Kellesh, was extremely proud of this lethal addition to his air force. The news that his niece was killed in an explosion in England, possibly sponsored by Yasser Ahmed, would give him the opportunity to demonstrate the awesome power of their air force to its’ troublesome Arab neighbours. The countries of the Middle East were constantly flexing muscle as a deterrent against the threat of military force. The introduction of the Typhoon strike aircraft into the region meant that the Saudi government was now holding all the aces from a military capability point of view. Abdul Kellesh had persuaded the Saudi Royal Family, who held all the true political power and ultimately made important decisions, that the chance to show its neighbours the tactical capability of its’ new air force should not be missed. The Saudi leaders had agreed that an airstrike was a just response for the death of Jeannie Kellesh. The Saudis were wary that the airstrike was to encroach on Syrian land; however the Syrians denied the existence of such terror training camps within its borders.

  Previous attacks on Islamic terror training camps had never attracted international condemnation no matter what the scale of the attack. On August 20th 1998, the Americans launched Operation Infinite Reach, in retaliation for al-Qaeda attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The embassy bombs planted by al-Qaeda operatives killed two hundred and twenty four people and wounded five thousand others. In response seventy eight Tomahawk Cruise missiles were launched from US warships in the Red Sea; several destroyed a suspect pharmaceutical factory in the Sudan, which was linked to the production of chemical weapons. In addition seventy five Cruise missiles landed on four insurgent training camps around Khost and Jalalabad, Afghanistan, leaving nothing but smouldering craters. In retaliation a Muslim organisation bombed a Planet Hollywood restaurant in Cape Town, South Africa killing twenty five and injuring twenty six. Protests were held across the Islamic world but international condemnation never materialised. The Saudis were banking on a similar response this time round.

  The Ishmael terror training camp was positioned between the borders of Syria and Jordan. The camp had between two hundred and three hundred men there at any one time, learning the basics of how to shoot and maintain a weapon, and the manufacture of roadside bombs. Yasser Ahmed did not force any of the young men that attended the camp to stay there. Any one that wished to leave could do so. Neither did the religious teachers brainwash any one. The young men that flocked to the camp in Sudan and those similar in Afghanistan and Somalia did so of their own volition. Most of the volunteers were dedicated to Yasser Ahmed and his Islamic Jihad long before they arrived in the camps. Many of them had overcome huge hurdles and great hards
hip to reach the camps. Yasser Ahmed was receiving requests from all over the Islamic world for finance and logistical help with planned bomb attacks and assassinations on a horrific scale. These requests and the recruits that carried them, originated from the increasing number of disaffected young Muslims that were motivated enough to devote substantial parts of their lives to Islamic extremism. The Ishmael camp was isolated from the outside world and conditions were harsh. There was no running water hence the sanitation facilities for two hundred men gave the camp a permanent lingering odour of human sewage. Supplies of food and water were flown in daily in two small aircraft from Damascus. Financial donations from Islamic sympathisers kept the recruits fed and watered. Arms and munitions were delivered monthly on the back of Syrian military vehicles even though the government constantly denied the existence of training camps. The majority of training was carried out at sunrise after morning prayers before the desert sun became too hot. It was still early and the men were resting when the Saudi jets taxied to their runway takeoff positions. The insurgents were drinking mint tea or sleeping.

  Six Eurofighter Typhoons took off from their base near Rhiad, Saudi Arabia. In under a minute they had climbed to their cruising altitude of fifty thousand feet. They were beyond the radar capabilities of Iraq or Iran as they headed over Jordanian air space into Syria. Two of the strike aircraft were armed with MBDA Meteor air to ground missiles, which had bunker busting warheads attached. The missiles would be aimed at the larger hangers next to the runway. The weapons were designed to pierce reinforced concrete structures before detonating massive incendiary devices, which carried napalm like chemicals. The devastating effects of incendiary explosions within the confined environment of a bunker would annihilate any human life within.