by Chris Ryan
Fraser and Bates were standing back against one wall, both looking shocked by the violence of my outburst.
Fraser was speaking into another phone, and I heard him saying urgently, 'Mobile, moving around in the Ealing area of West London.'
Bates came forward and laid a hand on my shoulder, mutteringe 'Take it easy, Geordie.'
I fought down a wild instinct to belt him one, so furious did I feel. I shook offhis hand and said, 'Ah, get away!' Then I took a grip of myself and apologised.
'That's all right,' Bates said gently. 'I know how you feel.'
When I recovered I found SB much encouraged, as though they'd got a breakthrough. The fact that the call had come from the area they'd been predicting raised everyone's hopes.
People filtered away into the room next door, and as I sat there on a kind of bar-stool in frorit of a counter, still feeling stunned, I became aware that Karen had come up close and was standing right behind me.
'You look creased,' she said quietly. 'Would you like me to come out and cook supper for you? Or you could come to my place…'
I tensed myself, unwilling to believe my ears. The woman was making a proposition. I nearly spun round and belted her away with the back of my hand, but I held myself in check and grunted, 'Thanks, but I'm all right.'
'Sure? I'd really like to. You could stay the night if you wanted. There's a spare room. Or, as I said, I could cook supper at the cottage.' As she spoke she leant forward to pick up the telephone, deliberately brushing her breasts against my shoulder blades.
I should have stood up and walked away; I knew what she was after, and wanted nothing to do with her.
But I was in such a low state that I sat tight and said, 'All right, then. Maybe I would be glad of company. Let's go to the cottage. There's plenty of food in the freezer.'
'I'll get something fresh on the way out of town,' she said. 'Half an hour?'
Everything went fine at first. Karen drove her Fiesta back to her digs and changed into a white frock with blue polka dots on it, which made her look very feminine. Then she dived into the supermarket and came out with a couple of steaks and some stir-fry vegetables. Having showered and changed while she was on the way, I dug out a bottle of red wine from the cupboard under the stairs and sat at the kitchen table chatting while she cooked.
We ate, and it was all harmless enough. She seemed genuinely sympathetic, and when she asked about my family background I found it a relief to describe how, after getting wounded and captured in Iraq, I'd found it impossible to settle back in with Kath, how I'd hit the bottle, and become so difficult to live with that a trial separation seemed the only answer.
'The worst thing of all was that she'd agreed to come back,' I said. 'I was on the up again. When I rang and suggested we got back together it was all she wanted to do. Another week, and she'd have come… Then that bastard Farrell sent his young feller with the bomb.'
'Tough,' Karefi agreed. 'Really tough. But what's so special about Tracy?'
At that point I should have scented danger. But the words weren't said in an aggressive tone, and I took them at face value.
'Well, she was fantastic. She just took over the house and became a foster-mother to Tim.'
'Right away?'
'No… after a decent interval.'
'How did you meet her?'
'She'd been around for ages. She was working as one of the receptionists in the Med Centre.'
'Obviously you fancied her.'
'What d'you mean? Everyone fancied her. Guys positively looked forward to reporting sick with some minor ailment, just so they could chat her up.'
'But what is it about her?'
I wasn't going to say that her gloriously long legs turned me on, or that she did wild things in bed. I just told her, 'She's a gassy person. Always full of jokes.
She's great at making stupid remarks that crack me up.'
'So you're planning to get married?'
'That's on the cards.' I wasn't going to mention the baby to this inquisitive cow.
'You must have made advances,' she said abruptly.
That did jar, and I retorted, 'What's that got to do with you?'
Karen didn't answer but stood up, Walked across to her handbag and brought out a cigarette, which she lit.- That pissed me offas well. I don't like people smoking in my house, especially without asking.
'Is there any more wine?' she asked.
'Sorry, that's it. I just had the one bottle.'
'How about a Scotch, then?'
'You oughtn't to; you've got to drive back.'
'Oh, one won't hurt. Not after all that food.'
'Help yourself, then.'
'What about you?'
'No, thanks.'
She moved across to the dresser, took down a glass and the bottle of Haig, and poured herself a measure. I wasn't chuffed with that, either. She did it with her back to me, trying to conceal the amount she was taking, but I sneaked a glimpse and saw that it was three fingers at least. Then she ran some water into the glass and came back to the table.
Instead of livening her up, the spirit made her morose. I tried to draw her out about her own background, but she seemed reluctant to discuss it and, beyond the facts that she was twenty-six and came from Norwich, I learnt practically nothing. It sounded as though she had no steady boyfriend, and never kept one for long. 'My career,' she kept saying. 'It's all down to my career.'
By eleven o'clock she wasn't making much sense, but still she needled away about my relationship with Tracy. I kept my cool and fended her off with non committal remarks, until suddenly I'd had enough. At that point I stood up and said, 'Look, Karen, thanks for coming. I'm grateful to you for keeping me company, but it's time to break up the party. You can't drive back in that state. You'd better get your head down in Susan's room and go back to town in the morning.'
'Shushan?' she said. 'Who's that?'
'The friend who's been sharing the house with Tracy.'
'Another of these smashing red-heads, I suppose.'
'Don't be stupid. Come on, now.'
'Washing up,' she slurred.
'It can wait. Leave it. I'll find you a towel.'
I ran up the stairs three at a time, and saw her clawing at the banisters as she came up behind me. On the landing I switched on the light in the spare room and said, 'Here you are. The bed's made up. The bath room's next door — there. It's all yours.'
I half expected her to make a grab at me because she'd previously shown such obvious signs of sexual frustration. But she simply said, 'Good night then, and thanks,' and went into the room, closing the door behind her.
Five minutes later I locked my own bedroom door and crashed out, so exhausted that I went straight to sleep. The next thing I knew, somebody was knocking on the door. For a moment I couldn't think who the hell it was. Then I struggled up on one elbow and called, 'What's the matter?'
'It's me — Karen.'
'What's the problem?'
'Thero: s water dripping.'
'For Christ's sake! Forget it. I expect the roof tank's filling up.'
'No, this is coming through the ceiling somewhere.'
Ah, hell, I thought. But I said, 'OK. Wait one, I'll have a look.'
I pulled on a bath-robe and opened the door. As I went to step out on to the landing I walked straight into Karen. She was standing in the doorway stark naked. In an instant one arm was round my neck and the other hand going for my crotch. Instinctively I brought up a knee and bumped her in the groin, whereupon she gave a scream and threw herself at me like a lunatic. I don't know if you've ever been attacked in the dark by a naked, sex-starved female — but it's quite an experience, I can tell you. Half the time I was trying not to get myself ripped and scratched, and the rest I was trying not to hurt her; but inevitably, as we wrestled, I kept getting a handful of this and that, with the result that she became still more desperate.
On me, the effect was anything but arousing. All I could think of were thos
e terrible women brought into escape and evasion exercises to humiliate students who get captured, stripped and interrogated. When a guy's naked and at his lowest ebb, one of these old slappers comes in and starts insulting him with remarks like, 'Is that an acorn you've got stuck between your legs? I can hardly see it.' That was how I felt when I was pushing Karen around. She had a firm, meaty body, and in easier circumstances might have been a great lay — I could feel that all right — but she turned me on about as much as did the idea of Farrell and the IILA.
Things finished up with me getting her in a double half-Nelson and giving her a couple of slaps on the rump, whereupon she burst into tears.
'For Christ's sake!' I said. 'Go back to bed or go home, I don't care which. If the cops get you on the way, that's your lookout. But just stop bothering me.'
Those were the last words we had. I re-locked my door and eventually fell asleep again, and at about half- past six I heard her car start up outside. When I went to shave and looked at myself in the mirror, I saw I had a couple of scratches down one temple, and straight away I began to think of a way of explaining them to the lads.
SIX
As at the start of any operation, the guys were tense and quiet, exchanging the odd bit of chit-chat while we waited for the off, but thinking all the time of what lay ahead and wondering what they might have failed to pack.
Whinger was dragging on one of his filthy, home- rolled fags. He'd had an amazing haircut that left his head covered.with short, tow-coloured fuzz and made him look like a coconut. To everyone's amazement Norm had shaved off his moustache, on the grounds that a Mexican appearance might not do him much good if the Libyans caught him. ('You never know,' said Tony, who'd picked up the vibes of the team very quickly, 'it may loosen his tongue. By the time we make it into the desert he'll be talking his head off.') Stew, also, had had a fancy haircut — a flat-top.job, in imitation of Tony and was taking stick from everyone about his girlfriend.
'Managed to slip her a length, did you?' sneered Whinger.
'Bollocks, mate.'
'You mean she wouldn't have it? Must be your technique that's at fault. Puts the wind up her something chronic.'
'Take her by surprise,' said Norm — and I thought, By God, Tony's right!
'Belay her to the bed-head,' I suggested. 'Then she wouldn't have much option.'
Poor Stew had gone red as a beetroot, and I lifted my chin at Whinger to say, 'Hey, leave him alone.' As for me, I kept thinking uneasily of my best-ofthree-falls with Karen, and hoping she wouldn't try to take it out on me while I was away. But to have mentioned that episode to the lads would have made my life not worth living, so I kept mum.
Now it was operational details that mattered. I'd already made one last check to ensure that everyone was properly sterilised — that is, not carrying anything, however insignificant, which might betray our origins if any of us was killed or captured. One box of matches, a chocolate-bar wrapper, a bank note or coin, an envelope, a label on a shirt-collar or the tongue of a boot — any of these would be enough to give us away. In keeping with Regimental practice, preparation had been left to individuals, and nobody had done anything so old-fashioned as line the team up for inspection: I'd just asked everyone to make doubly sure he was clean.
As for me, I made yet another mental check of my possessions: AK-47, spare magazines, Browning, spare mags, Semtex, detonators, det cord, clackers, Magellan, covert radio, torch, spare batteries, camera, binos, Commando knife, PNGs, ski goggles, medical kit, water-bottles, food, extra fuel, cam-net, poles, shovel, sand-bags, shamag. My only personal item was a tiny silver St Christopher, given me by Tracy, which I wore on a chain round my neck. Seeing it one evening in the shower, Tony had suggested I'd do well to leave it behind; but I pointed out that no Arab would know what it was, except some kind of good-luck charm, and therefore it wasn't a risk. By then I was really attached to the little figure, which seemed to have protected me in Colombia, and with things being how they were I wanted to preserve any possible connection with Tracy and Tim.
Our departur6 from Hereford was by no means routine. Except for a few small items in day-sacks, all our kit, including weapons and ammunition, was packed and strapped down on to the quads or in the trailer, and we didn't intend to touch it again until we were over Libya, about to come out of the chopper and start driving towards our target. We were wearing desert DPM fatigues with Parachute Regiment berets, so that as we staged through Cyprus we could pass as umpires taking part in Exercise Bright Star; but we carried no money, no passports, and no means of identification. Our desert clothes had been packed up in one large bundle, and we planned to change into them once we'd taken off from Akrotiri on the last leg of the flight. We all had shamags to wrap around our heads, and our shirts and trousers were the kind of cheap cotton, drab olive or grey or brown, that low-grade Arabs wear to work.
An intelligence update during the past few hours had reduced our window of opportunity to a dangerously narrow span. Some bright int guy had belatedly realised that the Arab weekend consists of Thursday and Friday, rather than Friday and Saturday as our briefing had laid down. This meant that our target might well leave the camp on Wednesday afternoon or evening. Since we weren't going to reach our location until very late on Monday night we'd have only Tuesday night on which to get him.
We'd just taken this news aboard w'hen yet another update came in, emanating from the sleeper-agent within Ajdabiya itself. This last message said that al- Khadduri had a very important visitor coming to see him for secret discussions on Thursday morning, so that he'd definitely be around on the Wednesday night.
That evened the score a bit — it gave us two possible chances — but the tightening of our schedule naturally made my adrenalin flow all the faster. And of course, the sooner we got through our business in the desert, the sooner I'd be back to sort out the mess at home.
The quads went on ahead by four-tonner, and a minibus collected us at 1530. For me, leaving camp seemed like an echo of the recurrent dream in which my left arm kept getting caught and dragged backwards; although I was departing in the general direction of North Africa, part of my mind was stuck fast in Hereford, anchored there by the fact that Tim and Tracy were in enemy hands. As we drove offeastwards, I felt as if the knowledge was tearing me apart.
At 1KAF Lyneham, Hercs were lumbering off the runway every few minutes, and a whole line of them was drawn up on the pan, but one aircraft stood apart from the rest in a distant corner of the field. We drove straight out to it, and found that our bikes had already been loaded. The trailer had been backed in first, and the quads had been strapped down to rings in the steel deck, facing the tail-gate in a zig-zag line so that we could ride them straight out when the time came.
The flight crew greeted us like old pals. Pineapple Pete was his imperturbable self, and All the head loadie — a huge guy with arms covered in tattoos — gave me a run-down of all the units taking part in the exercise.
'You lot are never part of it,' he said teasingly.
'Of course we are. Can't miss out on the chance of getting ourselves some decent suntans.'
Although All didn't say any more he winked, and I saw that he knew we were up to some special villainy.
In spite of the high level of activity everyone seemed relaxed and happy. Our take-of[was scheduled for 1830, and at 1810, as Pete and his co-pilot walked out, I fell in with them.
'Once we're airborne you're welcome up front any time,' Pete said. 'Make yourself at home.'
I thanked him and climbed into the back, where the lads hadn't waited for any invitation but had been busy slinging para-silk hammocks from the cargo nets on the sides of the fuselage.
Soon the engines were turning and burning, but we could tell at once that something was wrong: one of the motors kept back-firing, and ran so rough that after a while the crew shut all four down. A few minutes later they tried again, but the result was the same: one explosion after another shook the aircraft. Eventually, after a
second shut-down, word came over the intercom that we were to abandon ship.
'This fucker's no better than a heap of scrap metal,' said Pete contemptuously as he stood on the tarmac and kicked one of the aircraft's tyres. 'I'm not flying the bastard anywhere, least of all to the middle of bloody Egypt.'
To the consternation of the movements officer he demanded another Here immediately — and so forcefully did he state the importance of our deployment that after only half an hour he got one taken off the main exercise rota and seconded to us. Naturally that left someone else in the shit, but it was no business of ours.
Then, of course, all the paperwork had to be redone and the load transferred. Among our own guys there was a good deal of honking as they dismantled their sleeping accommodation and bundled it away — but after a delay of two hours we were at last airborne and on our way.
The noise in the back of a Here — a high, ringing scream — is so punishing that talking requires a major effort. The result was that nobody bothered to make conversation. Anyone who wanted could pull on one of the head-sets dangling from the sides of the fuselage and listen in to the crew, but that soon palled and we generally preferred to get our heads down, aiming to doze or sleep the seven-hour flight away.
A couple of hours out I started worrying about our late take-off, because our timings on the following night were going to be critical. I suspected that after the long haul to Cyprus the crew would have to have a regulation break. Then there'd be a three-hour flight to Siwa, the Egyptian military base — and we needed to be there by early evening, so that we could do a quick transfer to the chopper and be on the ground within reach of our objective while there were still several hours of darkness ahead.
Sweating about it, I headed for the flight deck to ask the skipper what the drill was. Up there, everything seemed pleasantly relaxed; the atmosphere was less claustrophobic than in the back, the noise level much lower. With the plane on autopilot, Pete and his co pilot sat chatting over their head-sets, and through the windshield a vast array of stars was visible above us, with the lights of some German town twinkling far below.
