Zero Option gs-2

by Chris Ryan

  'As fucking mutton, Boss,' I told him. 'He had two rounds through the head, one from the front, one from the side. His brains are spattered half-way across Libya.

  We've got photos to prove it.'

  'Good work,' he conceded. 'And nobody got a good look at you?'

  'Only the target. No one else.'

  'Brilliant. We'll see you back here presently.'

  EIGHT

  When I heard that Tracy had been on the phone the night before my heart leapt, but the surge of hope lasted only a few seconds.

  'I'm afraid she made the call under duress,' Foxy Fraser told me. 'The message was very downbeat. Listen for yourself.' He switched on a tape deck, and when Tracy's voice came loud and clear out of the speakers it nearly cracked me up. I had to get hold of myself before I could grasp what she was saying. Apart from the emotional shock of hearing her apparently so near, there was something odd about the rhythm of her speech; it didn't sound natural, and I had to run through the tape twice before I realised she'd been reading out a prepared script.

  'Geordie, listen,' she said. 'You have to come and get us. You have to make the arrangement very soon. We can't wait any longer. If you haven't made the arrangement by midday on the first of June they are going to kill Tim. Tim first, then me. Geordie, I love you. You can't let us die. For God's sake send a message through Sinn Fein in Belfast.'

  I clenched my fists under the table, took a deep breath and looked across at Fraser.

  He twitched his head quickly to one side, chin out and back, as if to say, 'I'm feeling for you, mate.'

  'What do we do?' I asked. 'We've got to move now.'

  Fraser cleared his throat. 'We had one false alarm,' he said. 'Not sure;what it was — whether the tout was trying to make a quick buck, or what. We got a tip that the hostages were being held in a flat in Earl's Court not one of the known addresses. We put the place under surveillance immediately. That night three men came out at ten o'clock. Nobody we knew. While they were in the pub a lock-picking specialist slipped in and took a look round.'

  'And?'

  'Nothing. There was nobody else at home, no sign there ever had been. Our operator left a microphone in the ceiling light, but it's yielded nothing. The men are just Paddies working on building sites. All they talk about is prostitutes and race-horses. It was a bum steer.'

  'This call…' I gestured at the tape, 'was it a bluff?'

  'With the PIRA you can never tell. They're so blasted ecratic. Obviously they're trying to crank up the pressure. Somebody in Belfast is probably putting the screws on the London boys. We need to take the threat seriously, whatever.'

  'What's this about Sinn Fein?'

  'We do sometimes send messages through their office in Belfast.'

  'Well, can you do that now?'

  'Of course — when we've decided what to say.'

  'In that case I'm going to make a move.'

  Fraser glanced at me sharply. 'What are you proposing?'

  'You know that scheme I told them about the last time?'

  'For springing Farrell from a police convoy?'

  'Exactly. I'm going ahead with it.'

  'Geordie!' Fraser stood up and moved towards me with an anxious expression on his face. 'There are some things you can do, and some you can't. This is '

  'Listen!' I cut him off. 'It's my kid's life that's at stake.

  I'm not going to sit around and let him get killed.

  We've got to get off our arses and act.'

  'I wouldn't say we're sitting around, exactly. We've got a big operation going on out there.'

  'Yes — and what's it producing? Two thirds of three fifths of fuck-all.' Seeing Fraser colour up, I added, 'I didn't mean that personally. I'm not trying to criticise; I know how cunning these bastards are. But they're not getting away with this one.'

  I found I was pacing about the room: something I don't usually do. I made myself sit down again and said, Tve thought it through, and it's perfectly possible.'

  'I don't see it,' Fraser replied. 'Apart from anything else, you'll get yourself kicked out of the Regiment.'

  'No, no — I 'haven't explained properly. 1 changed my mind. We'll do it with the Regiment. Their support will be essential.'

  Fraser looked blank. 'I still don't get it. Don't tell me your commanding officer's going to sanction your breaking the law of the land, setting a dangerous criminal free.'

  'Maybe he will, maybe he won't. Everyone's got to agree, of course.'

  'Who's everyone?'

  'The Regiment. Yourselves. The prison authorities.

  The regular police. Then, I suppose, the Home Office and the Home Secretary. Maybe ultimately the Prime Minister.'

  'I think you're getting a bit carried away.' Fraser was staring at me as if I'd gone round the twist. 'So what exactly do you propose doing?'

  'I'm calling it Plan Zulu. In training or on operations we always start off with Plan A and Plan B — Alpha and Bravo. This is the ultimate plan, the last resort.

  Therefore it's Plan Z for Zulu.'

  I started pacing around again. 'We have a big O- group — collect tbgether all the people I've mentioned, and explain the scheme to them. Then, at an agreed time on an agreed day, the prison authorities move Farrell from Birmingham to somewhere else — it doesn't matter what the destination is supposed to be, as they don't have to tell him. The prisoner'll be in a closed van, and won't know where he's going.'

  'He could be going down the road to Long Lartin,' said Fraser.

  'Where's that?'

  'The nick near Evesham where quite a few IRA prisoners are held.'

  I stared at the Special Branch man, amazed that he seemed to be entering into my plan.

  'Great!' I went. 'Presumably they don't have any obligation to tell him where he's going.'

  'No. When they ship people like that and don't give a destination, it's known as putting them on the ghost train.'

  'Got it. So they bring him out. We get guys from the Regiment to drive the police cars and the prison van the meat wagon, you call it, don't you? — and at a predetermined spot we ambush the convoy, ram the van, force it off the road and stage a realistic battle, with plenty of bangs and rounds going down. We — myself and two or three of the lads — grab Farrell and take him to a safe house. As far as he'll know we're renegades from the army, doing this on our own initiative. I'll tell him I'm so desperate I've taken leave and brought in some civilian friends to help.'

  Fraser had his eyebrows raised in a sceptical arch. 'Go.'

  'Then, from the safe house, we'll contact the PIRA and tell them to set a rendezvous for an exchange. But we'll also put a bug into one of Farrell's shoes, or his belt, and make certain that he can be trailed. Then we'll hand him over, do the swap, secure Tim and Tracy, let Farrell think he's got clear, and have the police nab him again.'

  'And throw a bridge across the Irish Sea at the same time, just so you can go after him quicker.'

  I glared at Fraser. He seemed to have lost heart again.

  'Look,' I said, 'you don't appear to realise that all this is shit simple. We're trained to the eyeballs in ambush techniques. We have the cars to do an intercept, we have the weapons to stage a battle, and we can set up a safe house in our sleep. Apart from back-up on the ground, we'll have a helicopter airborne but standing well offout of sight, so that Farrell won't stand a cat in hell's chance of getting away. Nobody else has to do anything except put him in a van and let us drive him a few miles out of Birmingham into the country. All we need is the co-operation of the authorities.'

  'And your commanding officer,' Fraser prompted.

  'And the CO, of course. I'm due to see him in a minute, for a wash-up on our operation. Once that's over, maybe you and he can get together.'

  'You're going to propose Plan Zulu to him, then?'

  'Most certainly.'

  'Well… I wish you luck.'

  'Thanks.'

  I got up to go, feeling that Fraser was still with me and willing
to have a go — but only just. 'By the way, what's become of your assistant? Karen whatever?'

  'Oh.' The Commander looked suddenly uncom fortable. 'She's… she's gone on a couple of days' leave.'

  At the time I didn't challenge his statement, but there was something about Fraser's manner which made me doubt if it was tree.

  On the flight back from Cyprus Pat had been given priority and put on board a TriStar, so that within an hour of touch-down at Lyneham he was in the operating theatre of the tri-service hospital at RAF Wroughton, south of Swindon. The rest of us had lumbered back in a Here, but because our departure was delayed we'd come in so late at night that our debrief had to be postponed until the morning.

  Now, in Yorky Rose's office in the Subversive Action Wing, members of the head-shed had gathered to welcome us back.

  Apart from Yorky himself there was Mac, the ops officer, the int officer, Gilbert the Filbert from the Firm, and above all the CO, Lieutenant Colonel Bob Brampton — commonly known as 'Wingnut', because of his ears, but liked and respected none the less. A fitness fanatic, he was glowing with good health; he looked like he'd been for a ten-mile run (which he probably Had) and then had a big breakfast of vitamins.

  The lads in our team were well spruced up, shaved and showered, but it wasn't surprising that we all looked a bit hollow-eyed, and yawns were two a penny.

  If it hadn't been for the death of Norm, the atmosphere would have been positively euphoric. As it was, the CO was on a kind of muted high. He shook each of us by the hand, exclaiming 'Well done!', 'Great effort!', 'Tremendous!' and suchlike, but behind his laughing and joking sadness hung like a dark cloud.

  He addressed us all. 'The Regiment's going to get a lot more work as a result of this. We're going to be run off our feet by the demand for our services.' l knew that our success would increase his own credit rating as well — he might even end up with a gong — yet I could tell that he was feeling our loss as much as we were.

  When the initial hubbub had subsided, the ruperts took a row of chairs behind Yorky's desk and we sat in a semi-circle facing them. The prize exhibits were the mug-shots I'd taken of Khadduri, full-face and profile.

  (The film had been whipped off me the moment we reached base and developed in the middle of the night.) The photos weren't a pretty sight, but they were technically spot-on, and proved that Tony and I hadn't been exaggerating. You could even see the tattoo of an eagle on the back of Tony's left hand as he held the dead man's head up by the hair, with the blood-spattered door of the office in the background.

  The CO led offhis formal spiel by saying a few words about Norm. He confirmed that the families officer was going to contact the next of kin, and said he would let us know the date of the funeral. More cheerful news was that Pat had come through his operation fine, and that the surgeons were pleased by the way things had gone.

  Then the CO asked me to run through Operation Ostrich, which I did, with the int officer's gofer taking notes on a laptop. As I went along, the ruperts asked quite a few questions, and we took it in turns to answer.

  Their main concern was whether the defenders had seen any of us well enough to pick us out at an identity parade. To that the answer was 'Definitely not.' I reassured the int officer in particular that, with the exception of Khadduri, we hadn't met anyone face to face; in fact, I doubted whether the Libyans had actually got eyes on any of us. The fact that Norm and Pat had been hit was purely a fluke: first somebody must have seen the flashes as Pat put bursts into the camp, and sprayed rounds randomly in his direction; then we'd got caught in the searchlight.

  At the end of the debriefing the CO told us again that we'd done exceptionally well, were a credit to the Regiment, had performed a service to humanity, and sundry crap of that kind. Then he added, 'You'll be glad to hear that Gadaffi's blaming the Israelis — off the record, of course. No public announcement has been made — Khadduri wasn't supposed to be in Libya at all — but in private Gadaffi's claiming that one of his own senior officers has been killed, and saying he has evidence that Mossad carried out the assassination.'

  'Maybe somebody dropped something after all,' I said, giving Whinger an exaggerated look.

  'What's that?' The CO turned his long, narrow face in my direction, so that I got his sticking-out ears in profile against the light.

  'It was just a joke we had. Before the operation went down, Whinger suggested we should scatter a few Uzis around — or anything with “Israel” written on it — to lay a false scent.'

  'But you didn't, I hope?'

  'Of course not. As far as I know we didn't leave anything.behind except a few shreds of anonymous metal and… and Whatever remained of poor old Norm.'

  'What about the body?' asked the CO.

  I gestured at Tony.

  'I doubled him up on the ground with five pounds of Semtex in his midriff,' he said. 'There can't have been anything left.'

  Nobody spoke for a moment. Then the CO cleared his throat and said, 'OK. That was the right thing to do.'

  Again there was a moment's silence. Then the CO adroitly changed the subject. 'You'll be glad to hear you have a fan at Number Ten. I found this fax waiting for me when I came in.'

  He handed me a sheet of paper, which had 'FROM THE OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER' embossed at the top, and, in the middle, the brief message:

  Delighted with your ornithological success.

  Congratulations, and my personal thanks.

  'Where's the champagne, then?' I demanded as I handed the note on to Tony. 'I thought the bugger would have sent a few bottles in this direction by now.'

  'We'll have a drink in the mess tonight,' said the CO.

  'Make up for lost time then.'

  The atmosphere was so good that I was tempted to press straight on to the subject of my own predicament.

  With everyone in such a genial mood this seemed the ideal moment to broach the idea of Plan Zulu. But then I thought, No — not in front of this crowd. I'd rather get the CO on his own. So, as the meeting broke up, I said to him, 'Could I grab five minutes with you, Boss?'

  'Sure.' He took a quick look at his watch. 'Ten o'clock?'

  'Fine.'

  I was outside his office a couple of minutes early, bolstered by the knowledge that, for the moment at any rate, the sun seemed to be shining out of my arse. I wasn't naive enough to suppose that our success on Ostrich would warp the Boss's judgement or make him any more inclined to take rash decisions, but the fact that I'd just done a good job would at least encourage him to give me a fair hearing. Apart from anything else, he had two boys of his own, and could hopefully understand how I felt about Tim. Also he had a good sense of humour, and a reputation for taking the occasional risk when he thought it was justified.

  Inside, I perched on one of the bog-standard chairs and looked around the room while he closed down his laptop. His bergen sat in one corner, and in another, cuffed up on a dark-blue bean-bag, lay his black Labrador, Ben, fast asleep as usual. No doubt he'd been on the ten-mile run as well, and that was him settled for the day.

  'God's boots!' the Boss exclaimed when I outlined my plar. With his elbows on the desk, he put his face between his hands and dug in his thumbs above his ears, as if to squeeze out the craziness of what he'd just heard. 'Pull the other one, Geordie.'

  'No, no. I'm dead serious. We're up to our necks in shit, and sinking. We desperately need a new initiative — and I'm convinced Plan Zulu's the one. As I told Fraser — the SB guy — there'd be virtually no risk to anyone. OK, a couple of vehicles would get damaged and the guys in the meat wagon might get rattled around a bit, but that would be all.'

  'What about our reputation? Can't you just see it in the tabloids? “SHOCK! TERROR! SAS SINKS TO GANG WARFARE TO FtLEE IP,A CHIEF”. You'd drop the whole

  Regiment in the shit, Geordie.'

  'Not if we handled it properly. Nothing need ever get out. It'll be just one more covert operation on the mainland'. There's dozens of others going on already, af
ter all. Covert ops are bread and butter to Special Branch, just as they are to us.'

  'That's true.' At last the CO looked up, as if seeing some light at the end of a tunnel. 'I have to say, I wouldn't mind if you gave it a go. But how the hell am I going to convince the powers that be? There's the Director, for a start. I can't see him sanctioning your scheme. He'll go bananas. Then there's the Home Office and the Home Secretary, if we want the police to be involved at high level. And what about the governor of the gaol? He'll throw a major wobbly a well.'

  'I don't know,' I said. 'He might be glad to get rid of the bastard. Now that the PIRA know where Farrell is there's a chance that they'll stage a hit on the gaol. The buggers are that mad, you can't tell what they might try.'

  'The thing is, they've already got you as a lever.' The CO looked at me steadily before continuing with his list of objections: 'Ultimately, of course, there's the Prime Minister.'

  Suddenly I spotted an opening. 'In that case, why not go straight to him?' I suggested. 'It's no business of mine, but we do know he's an old friend of the tLegiment. It's not just that we did him a good turn in Libya. He's been on-side for years.' I pointed at a signed, framed photograph hanging on the wall, one of many official portraits presented by Very Important Visitors, among them Prince Charles and Princess Di.

  'Remember the time he came down to the Killing House?'

  'Of course.' The CO smiled, thinking about the day we'd given the PM and a couple of senior parliamentary colleagues a demonstration of lifting a hostage from a room in the special building used for training the counter-terrorist team. The — ,vails were hung with sheets of thick rubber so that live rounds could be fired inside. As bullets had hammered close past the visitors in the confined space one of the sidekicks had hurled himself to the deck and pissed himself; but the PM had remained super-cool, and came away mightily impressed.

  'If he OK'd it, that would be all we'd need,' I said.

  'What about that fax you've just had, after all?'

  I sensed that the CO had become rather taken with my idea, so I continued enthusiastically: 'Word would pass down the chain, and everyone else would have to come on board. With Ostrich having gone down so well he might fancy another unattributable operation.'