I didn’t wait for her to agree, but set off after Madar. Pryce followed, but she wasn’t a happy trooper.
We covered about half a click, heading over a rise in the terrain and through a clump of bushes and rocks. It was a natural fault in the landscape, and had thrown up debris like giant molehills. Madar had eyes like a cat and avoided the worst of them, so I told Pryce to follow him closely while I dropped back a few metres to cover our backs.
We eventually reached another line of trees where I called another halt. I was worried about Tober. If he’d been caught, we were a good man down and vulnerable. I couldn’t see Musa giving up too easily on his plans, and if he thought we were close enough to catch he’d come after us for as long as it took. There was a lot of empty space here, and he probably knew that the chances of his men being compromised in Kenyan territory were fairly low, especially with the army stretched thin chasing down al-Shabaab fighters.
I dialled Piet’s number and heard it buzzing at the other end. Four times, six times, then he answered.
‘What did you do, man – start that war?’ He sounded remarkably cheerful, letting go of a chuckle through an early-morning throat. ‘Where are you?’
It had been clear since hearing of Musa’s planned execution that the one person to get out of here was Angela Pryce. She was his most valued trophy, whereas Tober was a soldier, a victim of his job. And Piet could only carry one passenger at a time. I told him where we were and he replied that he was ten minutes away, where he’d been camping out waiting for a call.
‘What about you?’ he queried. ‘And the muscle. Is he there, too?’
‘He’s coming up behind, plus one other – a boy. He helped us out.’
‘Christ, man, you should’ve warned me – I’d have arranged a combi and a picnic basket.’ He coughed and said, ‘Sunrise is about twenty minutes off. I can’t take off in the dark, but once I’m up, I’ll spot you if you’re out in the open. Just try not to draw too much of a welcome party, right?’
He cut the connection and I put the phone away and checked my weapon. Pryce was doing the same, closely watched by Madar. I don’t think he’d ever seen a white woman up close before – and certainly not one who knew how to handle an AK-47.
I left them to it. The more Pryce was occupied, the less time she’d have to dwell on what had happened or to pepper me with questions I was in no position to answer.
I hadn’t gone into it much with Vale about what to do if I did come face to face with his two people. The plan was to stay remote and unseen, and come out of the shadows only if they got into trouble. This part had been unforeseen, and was something I would have to ask him.
A few minutes later I heard a brief whistle coming out of the gloom.
Tober.
I told Pryce to stay put. ‘Piet’s on his way in. If I’m not back by the time he arrives, don’t wait. Get on board and tell Madar to make his way back to the coast and find a boat out. He’ll know what to do.’ I wasn’t going far, but if this turned out to be Musa’s men playing cute, I had to intercept them before they got too close.
I worked my way back until I reached a spread of open ground, and stopped on the near side, checking out the lay of the land. It wasn’t clear enough to see far, but anyone stepping across it would show up. Then I caught a movement directly in front of me, about a hundred metres out.
It was Tober. He was walking easily enough, his rifle slung over his shoulder as if he was on a Sunday afternoon stroll.
I whistled and he raised a hand and broke into a trot to join me.
‘They coming?’ I asked him.
He grinned. ‘They were. I discouraged them.’ He hefted the AK and said, ‘These things may look like shit but they work fine. Ironic, giving them back their own ammunition.’
I nodded and we set off to join Pryce and Madar.
As soon as we arrived back at their position and Pryce had made sure Tober was OK, she was all over me with questions. I batted away each query with vague responses until Tober sensed I wasn’t going to play ball and chipped in with the only question really worth asking.
‘What’s the plan?’ He’d been scanning the horizon as dawn filtered through the sparse trees. Like me, he’d come to the same conclusion based on long experience: it wasn’t much in the way of cover, but the one advantage we had was that we could see anyone coming from a long way off. ‘Do we have backup on the way?’
I nodded towards the west. ‘He’s on his way in now.’
He did a double take. ‘He? One man?’
‘It’s all I could arrange at short notice.’ I went on to explain that the transport was a microlight and if things got sticky he, Madar and I would have to find another way out. His eyebrows went walkabout, but I could see he understood.
Pryce wasn’t so easy to convince.
‘That’s crazy. I’m not leaving Doug here. We came in together and that’s how we’ll leave. Anyway, you could call the embassy in Mombasa on your phone. The SIS liaison there will arrange a pickup.’
‘It’s not as simple as that.’ I didn’t need to explain to her how most countries were sensitive about cross-border incursions, and that she and Tober were effectively operating in Kenyan territory without the authorities knowing about their presence. But I said, ‘With the Kenyans having trouble with extremists in southern Somalia right now, if they find out you’ve been here without their say-so – and talking to al-Shabaab – they’ll probably lock you up out of spite and forget where they put the key.’
‘Our embassy won’t let them do that.’
I recalled the man with the camera at Malindi airport. ‘Maybe not. But it won’t end there and you know it. Do you want to take a chance on having your photos spread all over the world’s media by tonight?’
They were both staring at me now, and I had their full attention. I guessed that they had been so bound up in the proposed ‘negotiations’ to free hostages, and convinced by their bosses that everything was above board, neither of them had been suspicious about what Musa’s real intentions might have been, nor that there had been no real thoughts given to an exit strategy.
‘Musa’s hard-core al-Shabaab,’ I continued. ‘If he can’t get you back, he’ll do what he can to make trouble for SIS. He’ll blow your cover far and wide. I don’t know about you, but I’m guessing your bosses won’t want that.’
‘But he wanted to talk,’ Pryce insisted hotly. ‘You’ve gone and blown that right out of the water!’
‘There weren’t going to be any talks,’ I said bluntly. ‘It was a ploy by Musa to get you here. And you weren’t meant to be going home again, either. Ever.’
Fifty-Two
Pryce wasn’t having it. I could feel the scepticism coming off her in waves. But when she saw that Tober wasn’t reacting she lost a bit of her bite.
There was only one way to convince her. I called Madar over from where he’d been keeping watch. He scooted close and looked at me for instructions. ‘Tell them,’ I said. ‘Tell them about the room you prepared. Tell them what the tall man was going to do. Everything.’
He didn’t want to do it and I could understand why. It was pretty traumatic for anybody, the idea of beheading a live human being. But he told them, anyway. There was no flowery language, either. He laid it out for them in straight, innocent terms, and by his tone of voice they knew he was telling the unvarnished truth.
There was a long silence while they digested the idea. Pryce looked like she wanted to throw up but held it together, eyes going tight. The imagery of what had nearly befallen her was clearly flashing through her mind, but she had the strength of character and training to deal with it.
Tober was more pragmatic. Or maybe he was better at hiding his fears. He shook his head like he’d been told he couldn’t go on a weekend pass. ‘Would’ve saved me paying for a haircut, at least,’ he said. ‘So back to the plan: we get your flyer mate to take her out of here. Then he comes back?’
‘No. It’s too risky. After th
e first approach he’ll be an easy target. They’ll wait for him to come in on another pass and take him out. When he leaves here, that’s it.’ I looked at Pryce. ‘Piet will take you to Mombasa or Nairobi – I’ll let him decide. You can go through your embassy or head out on the first available flight.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ Tober agreed. ‘What about us?’
‘I hope you’re good at walking.’
He scowled. ‘Where I come from we call it yomping. And I’m ready when you are.’
‘Glad to hear it.’ I was familiar with the term, first brought to public ears during Britain’s war against Argentina in the Falkland Islands. Yomping was the Royal Marine term for a route march, usually and often over the worst possible terrain carrying full fighting equipment and supplies.
Tober was looking sideways at Madar, who had drifted back to his post. ‘I’m not so sure about the kid; he took a battering.’
‘He wants to go home to Mogadishu. All he needs is a friendly boat out of here heading north.’
‘Great. Where do we …?’ He stopped. ‘You’re saying we go back to Kamboni?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘It’ll be quicker by sea. We can’t hang around here in the hopes that your embassy can arrange a pickup; my guess is, they won’t be able to, not without causing an international shit-storm. Musa’s men will be expecting us to head overland to Mombasa in a direct line from here.’
‘I agree.’
‘So we do the opposite: we steal a boat and head south down the coast.’
‘You’re crazy!’ Pryce stared at me, then at Tober, who was nodding as if the idea had real merit. ‘And you agree with him?’
‘Yeah. He’s right. Going cross-country would take too long, and I don’t much fancy our luck in the bush with no food or water. By sea we’d have more than a fighting chance.’ He looked at me. ‘I’m with you.’
‘Great. Can you handle a boat?’ I regretted the question the moment I asked. I’d forgotten his background in the SBS.
Tober merely grinned, saying, ‘If it floats I can sail it. If it’s got a motor, I can drive it.’
I excused myself to cut short further questions and walked a short distance away to call Vale. I needed to know what we were planning.
He answered quickly and I brought him up to date. His relief that we were all out was palpable. I was right about any extraction plan; he wasn’t going to be able to do much to help us out without the Kenyans and Somalis kicking up an international storm in protest when they discovered we were here.
‘Getting Pryce out is my prime concern,’ he said briskly. ‘From what you’ve said it’s clear she’s too valuable a target to fall back into Musa’s hands.’
‘I agree.’
‘What about you and Tober?’
‘We’ll make our own moves,’ I said. ‘Tober knows what he’s doing so we’ll figure something out between us.’
‘Good. What have you told them?’
‘Nothing. But they’re asking questions I can’t answer. And Pryce isn’t going to stop when she gets home.’
‘And about the op so far?’
‘Only why I had to pull them out, but nothing about who put me here. They have to have something.’
‘Fine. Keep it short, tell them you were sub-contracted to keep an eye on them and they’ll be briefed fully when they get back. I’m probably going to have to reveal what I’ve done soon, anyway, but that was always on the cards. I’ll keep your name out of it, of course.’
I didn’t argue the point. Having my name splashed all over the world of British Intelligence and possibly further afield was something I wanted to avoid. The more I stayed in the background, the better I liked it.
‘Listen, Portman,’ he continued, ‘what I said before – my instructions regarding Pryce?’ He sounded strained, even with the delay in transmission, and I could tell he was feeling bad about what he had asked me to do if things had gotten nasty.
‘Forget it. It didn’t happen.’
‘Thank you. I won’t forget this.’
Fifty-Three
I re-joined the others, who looked full of questions but said nothing. I sent Madar off a short way with my AK minus the magazine, to keep an eye out through the scope for Musa’s men. He didn’t need to hear any of this. Then I squatted down so we could talk.
I kept it simple. I told them my name, that I’d been sub-contracted by an officer in SIS to keep an eye on them, and that once I’d heard what Musa intended for them, I’d had no choice but to bust them out.
‘You can’t talk to anyone about me or what I’ve just told you,’ I added.
‘Who says?’ Pryce sounded bullish.
‘Orders from the man who hired me. You’ll be fully briefed when you get home.’
They didn’t say much to that. I suppose hearing that their backs had been covered all along, on the grounds that one of their colleagues thought the mission was a bust, was a little hard to take in. Unfortunately Pryce didn’t want to let it go. I could see she’d been working through the possibilities. ‘If it was somebody in SIS … there’s only one man it could have been,’ she murmured. ‘Tom Vale?’
‘Yes.’
She tossed her head. ‘What the bloody hell did he think he was doing? He thought I needed babysitting, is that it?’ She turned on Tober. ‘I know that’s the only reason you were sent along, to hold my hand. But this?’ Her eyes were bright sparks in an angry face. She had recovered well from the exit and the forced march, and I figured that one day she would make a very good senior intelligence officer. Right now, though, she was midway between being relieved to have escaped with her head and pissed for having been, as she seemed to feel, doubted by a colleague.
Tober did the right thing: he looked right through her and said nothing. She was being unfair and she probably knew it, but getting into a fight over it was pointless.
‘Vale will likely lose his job when it gets out,’ I said. ‘So you should go easy on him. Of course, you have every right to be sour at the guy for not wanting to see your life get tossed away on a dead-end operation … but you’d be wrong. He made the right call.’
She clamped her mouth shut at that, and I hoped that was the end of it. It didn’t last long.
‘Why do you do this work?’
‘It’s what I’m good at.’ She could have asked Tober the same question and got a similar answer. He gave me a look and a raised eyebrow but said nothing. Wise man.
She didn’t have an answer to that and turned her head away, then came straight back.
‘Who else do you work for? You’re American, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. And I work for anybody within reason. Not terrorists, though; I draw the line at that.’ By the look on her face I doubted she believed me. The world’s full of cynics.
‘You’re a mercenary.’
I rode that one easily enough. There was a time when it would have been an easy label to pin on somebody – a not-so-veiled insult. Coming from Pryce it sounded petty. I couldn’t figure out why she was so hostile, and wondered if it was anything to do with me being an outsider.
‘We all work for money,’ I told her. ‘Me, you, Tober here – and Vale. But some people have the luxury of being able to dress it up in things like duty, honour or patriotism.’
She recoiled a little at that, and I noticed Tober grinning in the background. The bastard was enjoying this.
‘Like me, you mean?’ Her eyes flashed with righteous anger. ‘I don’t make any apologies for being patriotic.’
‘Nor should you. But don’t get carried away with thinking that makes you better than anybody else, or because your boss is the British government. And –’ I held up a hand as she looked ready to fly back at me, but kept my voice low – ‘don’t forget it was you who came here to sit down and talk with terrorists and pirates. Those same people were plotting to take off your head.’
It was a low blow and not a particularly valid point, but I was tired
and irritated by her snitty manner.
Tober nodded in approval, then put his head down and closed his eyes. The soldier’s prime maxim: when you can’t do anything, sleep; because you never know when you might get the next opportunity.
We sat and waited, alone with our thoughts, until I heard the familiar buzz of Piet’s Daisy circling round from the north-west. He needed to see us clearly enough to get an ID, so he knew he wasn’t flying into a trap. I told Tober to keep us covered and stepped out into the open with Pryce and Madar close behind.
I waited. I could hear the engine but couldn’t see him. He was coming in low to avoid being spotted by Musa’s men, but it meant the engine noise was dispersed over a wide area. I realized that there was a chance of him flying right over without seeing us.
Then Madar stepped up and whipped off his shirt, and began waving it frantically in the air.
I think he was just excited at the prospect of seeing an airplane. But it worked.
Seconds later Daisy appeared, the engine howling as Piet cleared the tops of a bunch of trees, scaring up a raggedy group of crows in protest. He banked sharply, his bush-trained eyes probably spotting Madar’s shirt immediately, and set down on a clear stretch of ground about three hundred metres away.
Fifty-Four
‘If you’re not Vauxhall Cross,’ said Tober, ‘what are you?’ We watched as Piet and Pryce disappeared over the trees, while Madar crept around in the bush watching out for signs of Musa’s gunmen. ‘Special Activities Division? One of your black ops units?’
‘None of those. Like I told Pryce, I’m freelance.’
‘But you’re American.’
‘So?’
‘How did Vale find you?’
I looked at him. His brow was furrowed and I knew what he was really asking. Why an American when the Brits had plenty of their own highly skilled private contractors who could have done this?
It was a good question.
‘He heard about some work I did and needed someone unattached. You know the way it goes.’ With all the quiet time I’d had since arriving here, I had privately speculated about who else might have put my name forward to Vale, apart from Beckwith of the DEA. It was obviously somebody in the American intelligence community, but that was a seriously large field to choose from. Whoever they were, they’d been cute; queuing the selection of a freelance operator with no ties and no back-trail gave them clean hands if that operator was picked up. ‘What about you?’
The Watchman Page 21
