He told me about joining the Royal Marines, then applying for selection to the Special Boat Service.
‘And I asked you if you could handle a boat.’ I pulled a wry smile. ‘Consider me suitably embarrassed.’
‘Well, it is a sort of entry-level requirement for the job. If you don’t do boats, you should join one of the other lot. You weren’t to know.’ He went on to explain that after spending some years in the SBS, he did a couple of black jobs for SIS and was posted to them on a two-year attachment, working in a team called the Basement.
‘Why do they call it that?’ I asked, although I figured I knew. Part of getting to know and trust someone you’re going to depend on in hostile circumstances is breaking the ice any way you can, even with obvious questions. At times like this, even the trivial stuff counts.
‘It’s where we operate from: the basement of Vauxhall Cross.’ He grinned. ‘Just occasionally, they let us out into the daylight to play with stuff.’
‘Like this time.’
His face went serious. ‘Yeah, well. This was something else. Somebody screwed up. Shit happens, though, right?’ He shrugged, although I got the feeling he wasn’t going to forget this mission anytime soon. ‘You got family?’
‘No.’ More personal stuff, although I didn’t mind him asking. ‘Never got round to it. Got close once, but it didn’t work out. You?’
‘Married, divorced, currently seeing a girl. She’d be royally pissed off if she knew where I was right now. I told her I was in Norway on a training exercise.’ He scrubbed at his face. ‘Good job I was cooped up in that villa and not getting a suntan, eh? I’d have some real explaining to do.’
‘You might have to yet,’ I reminded him. ‘They do get sun in Norway. Reflects off the snow.’
He gave me a look, no doubt full of questions, but now wasn’t the time.
Just then Madar gave a soft whistle. We moved over to join him and scanned the horizon where he was pointing. Trees, shrubs, rocks and … movement.
‘Two men,’ he said quietly, and used the AK to point them out. ‘They have guns and are coming this way.’
I took the rifle from him and checked through the scope. Sure enough, two figures were walking towards us. They were a good kilometre away, easily visible in the clear morning air. One of them was looking down at the ground, while his companion had his head up, watching for trouble. They looked like they had done this before.
‘Trackers,’ I said, and checked the area behind them. I couldn’t see anybody else but they were probably out there somewhere. Musa had sent men ahead who knew how to read the ground, and by the way they were moving they weren’t having any trouble reading our trail. I gave it another fifteen minutes at most before they were right here where we were standing. Piet’s machine landing and taking off had been a dead giveaway.
We set off at a good clip directly east, keeping between the two men and the sun in case we had to turn and blindside them. My plan was to make for Kamboni and liberate a boat. It would mean walking a little further rather than heading directly for the town, but it was a safer way of approaching the beach and seeing what was on offer.
It was thirsty work and getting hotter with each step as the sun crawled higher. I kept a close eye on Madar, although he seemed to have the resilience of youth on his side, in spite of his injuries. But I knew that with youth, when tiredness comes it does so suddenly. I didn’t want him collapsing on us.
I also kept watch on the cloud cover. Just before taking off, Piet had mentioned rain coming. I wasn’t seeing any signs of it yet but I knew that rain in this region arrived with little warning.
‘It’ll be short and heavy,’ he’d warned, handing over a bottle of water and some energy bars. ‘Not monsoon, but enough to get you soaked through. It’ll also make your tracks easier to follow on soil, so stick with grass or rocky ground wherever you can. Whatever you do, don’t stop, because the guys following you won’t.’
‘Thanks.’ I didn’t mind the rain. If it was enough to provide cover, but not stop us moving, we could use it to get further away from the men tracking us, who would be slowed down by having to read the ground for signs once they found we’d changed direction.
‘Call Vale as soon as you can,’ I told him. ‘I’ll be in touch later.’ I backed off to let him taxi ready for take-off, and with a brief wave, they were gone.
We made good time before the clouds scudded over and the rain fell. It was like walking into a warm shower. At first it was enjoyable; it was my first soaking for days and I relished the feel of water on my skin, which felt cracked and dry. But after twenty minutes non-stop, I was beginning to worry about the men behind us. If they had reached our last position, and worked out our direction of travel, they might be pushing on at a faster pace and not bothering to look for tracks that might have been obliterated by the rain in the hopes of catching up with us.
I put on speed. Tober matched it easily but Madar was struggling until the former Royal Marine hustled him along with one hand on his arm. It was tough on the kid but nothing like what he’d experience if Musa’s men caught us.
Most of the going was fairly flat, the harsh soil dotted with brush and coarse grass littered with spiky thorns. I used the occasional elevations in the terrain as cover by going around them, then putting them squarely at our backs, and splitting up for short distances. It was a messy way to travel, but if it messed with the trackers’ minds and had them scouting for our trail, it might give us a brief head start.
When we reached a track running north-south, we stopped just long enough to check for traffic, then ran across and into the bush on the other side.
I now knew where we were, even through the curtain of rain. We had angled further south than I’d planned and were uncomfortably close to the villa.
I called a brief halt and explained our location to the other two. Madar looked ready to freak out, eyes rolling at the thought of running into Musa again. I didn’t blame him; some of the men had given him a hard time and Musa had a zero-option policy on those who displeased him. I patted his arm to reassure him and explained that neither of us would allow him to get caught. Tober joined in and this seemed to work. Madar looked doubtful but managed a sickly grin.
The next problem was what to do now. We couldn’t exactly walk into town and take a boat – we’d be spotted immediately. And I doubted all of Musa’s men would have left the area. But finding a place to bury ourselves until darkness fell wasn’t going to be easy.
Tober solved the problem with cool logic.
‘They won’t expect us to go back to the villa. It’s not far from there to where the fishermen beach their boats, and it’s easy enough to hold for a while if they do find us.’ He smiled easily. ‘Not great, I grant you, but we don’t have a lot of choice.’
I agreed. The idea was sound; going back to the villa was the last thing Musa would expect us to do. The last he or his men had seen of us was hightailing it into the bush, heading due west. And Tober was spot on with the boats: our fastest way out of here was finding a skiff with an engine to carry us south down the coast to Kenyan territory. As long as we got a good head start on any pursuit, we didn’t have too far to go.
The only question was, how much of the villa had survived the double blast of the C-4?
Fifty-Five
‘You what?’
Vale thought Moresby was going to explode. He’d just informed the operations director of Angela Pryce’s escape from Somalia. As soon as he’d received confirmation of her arrival with Piet in Mombasa, he’d made arrangements for her onward journey to Nairobi accompanied by two embassy security officials. Then he had made his way upstairs.
He had no clear plan on how he was going to handle the revelation, but given the circumstances the direct approach seemed best. With an SIS officer coming in out of the field under close escort, and reports of the mysterious explosions on the coast already out there, news would soon filter out among embassy staff. The wires to London would be
buzzing as the dots were joined up and speculation increased.
‘She was lifted out of the area near Kamboni by light aircraft at daybreak and is now on her way back to the UK,’ he explained ‘What could have been an unmitigated disaster has been averted – at least in part.’ He sat down without being invited and waited for the storm to sweep over him.
It wasn’t long in coming.
‘This is outrageous!’ Moresby’s face was swollen with rage. He jumped up from his desk and kneed a drawer closed with a bang, sending a bundle of Top Secret papers sliding to the floor. ‘What the hell have you done, Vale? If you’ve compromised these talks I’ll have you charged with violation of protocol and abuse of office. You’ll be lucky to walk the streets when I’m finished with you!’
‘Sit down, Colin.’ Vale’s voice was as sharp as a whip, and stopped Moresby in his tracks. ‘Listen to me and I might manage to save your career. As it is, there’s no guarantee that you haven’t already lost a fine support specialist with this idiotic plan of yours. I’d stay away from the Basement for a while until it blows over; they might tie weights to your ankles and drop you in the river.’
Moresby sat down, his mouth slack. ‘What do you mean? I don’t understand. How did you—’
‘I ran a black op. Off the books.’ There. It was out in the open. The shocked expression on Moresby’s face told its own picture. There was no going back now; it was full disclosure and wait for the fall-out. But he wasn’t going to wait for Moresby to pick up the phone and call the dogs on him. ‘I had no confidence in your plan from the start, not once I heard you’d provided no backup for the two officers going in, nor any workable exit strategy. As soon as I heard who was involved at the other end, I had a feeling it would end badly. So I took steps to protect our personnel.’ He brushed a speck of lint from his knee. ‘Would you like to hear how before you turn me in?’
Moresby’s eyes were like flint. ‘This had better be good, Vale. Not that it makes any difference. You’re still finished.’ He reached out a hand and tapped a button on his desk console, a sign that he intended recording every detail.
‘Because I had no faith in the safe conclusion of your plan,’ Vale continued, ignoring the threat, ‘I hired a specialist of my own. One man to keep tabs on Pryce and Tober and monitor their progress. He remained in the background and reported back to me. He had orders to step in if things went bad … which didn’t take long, as it happened, thanks to your misplaced confidence in Xasan and Musa.’
‘What man? One of ours?’
‘His name doesn’t matter and no, he’s not from the Basement.’
‘Who is he? He’ll be arrested for conspiracy.’
‘His name doesn’t matter and you’ll never find out who he is from me, so don’t bother asking. Off the books means just that. He put himself in extreme danger to protect two of our officers, one of whom I tried to warn you was not yet ready for this kind of assignment. As it turned out, I was wrong about Pryce; she came through it remarkably well – but no thanks to you.’
He stood up and crossed to the window, glad to be on the move. He wasn’t concerned about his voice being lost on the recording; the machines in these offices were state-of-the-art and capable of picking up a whisper. ‘Xasan was lying all along. There was no intention of negotiating for the release of UN or any other hostages.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Really? Think about it. Why should they negotiate when they can play the long game? And did you never wonder why Musa insisted on a woman officer being sent out to negotiate? It’s a little odd, don’t you think, in a part of the world where talking to women is unheard of?’
‘So what?’
Vale turned and faced Moresby. ‘Do you know what the term adrabu fawq al-’anaq means?’
Moresby’s brow wrinkled with distaste. ‘Of course. What of it?’
‘It’s what Musa was planning for Pryce and Tober – complete with cameras.’
He watched Moresby’s face go through the process of translation and imagery. When it finally hit home, Moresby looked horrified. ‘No.’ His voice sounded choked.
‘An execution, no less.’ Vale continued brutally. ‘A double beheading – and all for propaganda. Think how that would have played out in the media: two SIS personnel, one a woman, beheaded in Somalia because we sent them into certain danger with no backup and no guarantees. The press would have had a field day.’
‘I don’t believe it. Where did you get such a ridiculous notion? Musa was ready to talk about the release of hostages, including unbeknown to him, two key UN personnel. If we hadn’t followed that offer, we could have seen them fall into the hands of al-Qaeda. Would you have preferred that? OK, so it was for money. But don’t be so bloody naïve, Vale, thinking we can’t use money if that’s what it takes to get people free. That was my decision and I stand by it.’
‘Good for you. But if Musa was offering to sell hostages, why did he arrive at the villa with a boat of armed men and a heavy supply of explosives? And why did he meet up with more armed men in the town of Kamboni if all he was planning was a talk? What he was planning, quite apart from the cold-blooded execution of two SIS officers, was to supply his men with the means to attach remotely detonated bombs to the hulls of ships as they sailed into the Gulf. You’ve studied military history; you’ll know all about the ST Grenade, or sticky bomb.’
‘Yes. So what?’
‘Well, it seems Musa must have read some military history, too. He got hold of a supply of C-4 and some very sophisticated detonators with remote triggers. He was planning to house them in waterproof pouches covered in a powerful adhesive and attach them to ships – most likely tankers – close to the waterline. You can probably work out the rest. The threat of detonation alone would have been sufficient to get him what he wanted, which would have been considerably more than any hostages would have brought him.’ He took a breath, then ploughed on. ‘They’re adapting their tactics, can’t you see? And each time they do their methods become more extreme, more dangerous and infinitely more threatening on a global scale.’
He took a slip of paper from his pocket. It held the code numbers Portman had taken from the detonators and triggers. ‘These are the manufacturers’ codes. Somebody somewhere, had been selling the latest equipment to terrorists and pirates. You might care to look into it.’
Moresby was beginning to look sick, Vale noted. He stared at the code numbers and gave a deep sigh. When he spoke, his voice sounded dulled by shock. ‘How do you know all this?’
Vale decided to pile on the pressure. His career was shot now, anyway, so he might as well go down all guns blazing. ‘The explosions picked up on the drone footage Scheider sent you were the result of Musa’s bombs being destroyed.’
‘How?’
‘The man I sent out there saw the explosives being off-loaded; he checked the boxes and made the connections; he saw Musa and Xasan, he saw the armed men. He witnessed Pryce and Tober being taken in as prisoners and managed to speak to one of the people in the villa. They told him what was to happen. He took the only course of action open to him: he neutralized the threat and broke Pryce and Tober out of the cellar where they were being held prisoner. This was at great personal risk to himself, I might add.’
He stopped, wary of over-dramatizing. He had said his piece; now he had to stand back and wait to see what happened.
He left Moresby looking stunned and made his way downstairs. He needed some fresh air and exercise. He knew of one route from the front entrance and back that would take twenty-three minutes, another that would take forty-five. He decided to take the longer route and stop for coffee along the way.
Fifty-Six
The villa looked deserted. But I wasn’t taking any chances. In spite of what we thought, Musa might have left guards in place in case we did the unthinkable and came back.
From a vantage point three hundred metres away, we studied the area carefully until we were certain that nobody was around. Th
e wrecks of the three boats were clearly visible down at the waterline, and the smell of burned wood, fuel and plastic was bitter on the tongue. The two boats on the outside had been stripped of their engines, which meant they had probably escaped the worst of the fire. The one in the centre was little more than a pile of matchwood in the water.
I switched the scope on to the building. The front door was closed. There were no signs of guards anywhere that I could see, no signs of a fire for cooking, and no SUVs loaded with armed men. Maybe Musa and his men had packed up and gone, having decided to cut their losses.
As a final precaution I took out the earpiece and listened. The bug was still active but I got the fuzzy sound of a dying power unit.
To keep Madar’s mind occupied, I handed him the earpiece and told him he was our eyes and ears while we moved closer, impressing on him the responsibility involved.
‘Just listen,’ I told him. ‘You might hear voices instead of the hissing noise. And watch for any men coming from town along the track.’
He nodded seriously and put in the earpiece. ‘What shall I do if someone comes, Mr Marc?’
‘Can you whistle?’ I mimed putting two fingers in my mouth.
He nodded enthusiastically. ‘Of course. Very loud.’ He made a move to demonstrate, but I grabbed his hand to stop him.
‘I believe you. If you see anybody coming, do that – but one time only. We’ll hear you. Then stay right here until we come to get you.’
Tober and I took it in stages, one moving while the other watched. I went first because I knew the lay of the land. I dog-legged down to the garden wall and listened carefully, then on my signal Tober played leap-frog and got to the villa wall. We gave it two minutes, then I took over and covered the door while he ran past to the edge of the garden overlooking the beach to check the dead ground below.
The Watchman Page 22
