The Operative s-3

by Falconer, Duncan

  Stratton breathed heavily as adrenalin coursed through his body, his gaze darting to the man in the sidecar before scanning the immediate area. The only human in sight was the boy who had taken to his heels the moment Stratton had begun the fight and was now watching from behind the corner of a mud hut.

  Stratton dropped the bar, went to his bike, reached down under the tank, turned the small fuel-cock lever, straddled the seat, placed his foot on the crank pedal and pushed it down firmly. The engine didn’t start and Stratton rose up and dropped all his weight onto the crank once again. By the third attempt fuel had passed through the system into the carburettor and the engine burst into life with a throaty rumble. Stratton reached down the other side, removed a heavy metal pin, took a firm hold of the handlebars and placed a foot on the sidecar, yanking the handlebars fiercely to one side while at the same time pushing hard with his foot. The sidecar, now disconnected from the bike, rolled over, the limp Iraqi inside it hitting the dirt, pinned beneath its weight.

  Stratton moved his satchel comfortably in front of him, revved the engine, and was about to put it into gear when the boy ran up to him, holding out his hands.

  ‘Aatini flus,’ he said, more hopeful, demanding money. ‘Aatini flus.’

  Stratton looked at the raggedy youngster who, although he had failed to fulfil his task, had at least remained with the motorbike. Stratton reached inside his pocket, pulled out several US currency notes and handed a five-dollar bill to him, enough to feed the boy and his family for a week if they were careful.

  ‘Shakran,’ the boy said. Then, as an afterthought, he reached into his pocket and removed an object which he held out in front of Stratton. It was a small, crude wooden carving of a camel that was wearing a probably unintentional wry smile. ‘Ishteri,’ the boy said, asking him to buy it.

  Stratton took the carving and inspected it. Then he looked at the boy who could not have been much older than Josh. He had large brown eyes and, judging by his matted hair, had not had a wash in a long time.

  ‘Khemsa dollar,’ the boy said, looking hopeful, aware that he was asking a hundred times its value though a good price to begin negotiations.

  ‘Ante sewete?’ Stratton asked, suspecting that the boy had indeed made it himself since he had a small rustic knife sticking from his pocket and had been whittling a piece of wood with it when they’d first met.

  ‘Nam.’ The boy nodded. ‘Ha thihe. Lel haz,’ he said, describing it as a good-luck charm.

  Stratton inspected the camel once again, decided that it did have a kind of charm about it and handed the kid another five-dollar bill. He placed the camel in his pocket, put the bike in gear and revved the engine.

  ‘Thank you,’ the boy said in heavily accented English, a broad smile on his face.

  Stratton looked back at him, unable to stop his own smile forming. ‘Some master of disguise I am,’ he said as he revved the engine once again. Then he released the clutch and roared away as the boy watched him go.

  3

  Stratton manoeuvred the heavy bike along a dusty track for a short distance to the main road that headed south from Mosul towards Tikrit. Over his left shoulder he caught a glimpse of the train between the eucalyptus trees and dilapidated buildings that lined the road as it chugged out of the station. Stratton opened the throttle fully, made his way up through the gears and roared down the two-lane highway, which was moderately busy.

  After several miles, he reached into an inside pocket, pulled out a GPS and switched it on. Seconds later a detailed coloured map of Iraq appeared on the screen showing his position on the road as heading for Baiji, the next major town before Tikrit. It also showed the railway line paralleling east of the road. The Tigris river crossed his path halfway to Tikrit to parallel the road’s west side.

  Stratton weaved around a battered orange and white taxi that was hogging the outside lane and overtook a line of oil tankers. Then, seeing the road clear ahead for half a mile, he toggled the GPS control panel until he found a specific waypoint – a preprogrammed location – which was a deserted spot west of Baiji, far out in the desert, the rail track clearly indicated less than a kilometre from it. He hit the ‘go to’ button and the information panel instantly indicated that it was a hundred and twenty kilometres away as the crow flew – more like a hundred and forty by road. The GPS also calculated that at his present speed he would arrive at the waypoint in an hour and thirty-nine minutes and he added another fifteen to allow for the road curvature which was ample time to get into position before the train arrived. That did not, of course, allow for any hold-ups.

  Eighty kilometres further on, near where the railway line crossed the road, the traffic had slowed considerably and become denser. As Stratton made his way down the outside of the traffic he saw that the lead vehicles half a mile ahead had halted. That meant either a checkpoint, an IED (Improvised Explosive Device), exploded or not, or a traffic accident of which there were many in this country due to the terrible condition of the majority of vehicles combined with the atrocious standard of Iraqi driving. They had scant regard for highway codes, driving regulations and sensible speeds.

  As Stratton closed on the tail end of the halted traffic he could see that it was an American military checkpoint. He slowed to cut in between the vehicles to get to the outside where he could head for the front of the line. To avoid the countless potholes and piles of trash on the verges he sometimes had to leave the road completely.

  Two M111 armoured vehicles provided the main protection for the checkpoint, their 25mm heavy machine guns covering north and south of the road. There were half a dozen armoured Humvees, some a fair distance into the desert, their roof-turret M60 and .50 machine guns pointed at the line of traffic, and a couple of dozen soldiers on foot manning the vehicle funnel and supporting positions in various nearby locations.

  As Stratton slowly made his way to the front of the line two soldiers reacted to his queue-jumping arrival by raising their M4 assault rifles and aiming directly at him.

  ‘Hey, asshole,’ one of them shouted as he moved forward. ‘Stop where you are.’

  Stratton stopped immediately, took the bike’s engine out of gear and raised his hands. American soldiers were not famous for their politeness, tolerance or diplomacy. As far as persons or vehicles approaching their space were concerned, even the remotest suggestion of the presence of a weapon or a suicide bomber meant that an immediate response of the bullet kind could be expected.

  ‘Where you goin’ in such a hurry, ass-wipe?’ the soldier shouted as he closed in, keeping his rifle aimed at Stratton’s head. Stratton noted his shoulder flashes designating him a member of the 4th Infantry Division, based in Tikrit, that controlled this area.

  The Arab occupants of the vehicles close by watched the proceedings with some interest, not that it was anything new to them. But it was of some concern to Stratton as he had a few miles to go after the checkpoint and did not want to take the chance of any local suspecting that he was a westerner. If they were to pass through the checkpoint soon after him they might be a threat and he was vulnerable on a motorbike. He decided to keep his mouth shut until the soldier got closer – although that too had its dangers.

  ‘I’m talkin’ to you, asshole,’ the soldier yelled as he approached, his buddy staying back to cover him. It was not unheard of for Coalition forces to be attacked by a lone fanatic carrying a concealed weapon or explosive charge and, having lost a great number of fellow countrymen during the past couple of years, the soldier’s aggressive reaction was understandable. However, things were not made any easier when soldiers assumed that every Arab could understand English.

  ‘Salam alycom,’ Stratton said as the soldier stopped a couple of metres in front of him, the rifle still aimed at his face.

  ‘Yeah, fuck you too,’ the soldier said. ‘Shut the engine and get off the bike.’ He gestured with the barrel of his gun, his finger curled warily around the trigger. ‘Off !’

  Stratton slowly lowered
one hand to kill the engine, then the other to grip the handlebars so that he could climb off the bike. He dropped the stand with his foot and as soon as the bike was balanced upright he raised his hands again.

  ‘What you got in the bag?’ the soldier asked.

  Stratton wasn’t concerned so much about the explosives he was carrying. They were most uncommon and would only be recognisable to a special-forces operative. Even an army explosives engineer would have to study them carefully before becoming suspicious. Stratton remained quiet.

  ‘Search the motherfucker,’ the soldier shouted to his buddy who walked briskly over, slung his weapon over his shoulder and reached out to pat Stratton down.

  ‘I’m a British soldier,’ Stratton said, quietly but firmly.

  ‘What?’ the soldier said, continuing with his task, his hands patting Stratton’s shoulders and down the front of his chest.

  ‘I’m a Brit,’ Stratton repeated quietly. ‘A British soldier.’

  The soldier’s hand touched something solid under Stratton’s left arm and stopped dead.

  ‘What he say?’ asked the soldier doing the covering.

  ‘Says he’s a Brit,’ the searcher said, his hand still on the metal object that he was certain was a pistol.

  ‘That is a gun you can feel,’ Stratton said, looking the searcher in the eye in case the man was unsure.

  The soldier was going through his own possible scenarios that included Stratton being a fanatic who could speak English and waiting for his chance to strike. He had just a couple more weeks left out of a year-long tour of duty and wasn’t about to end up in a body-bag after all that time. If that meant blowing away even a remote suspect, so be it. All he had to do was roll away while yelling ‘Bad guy!’ and his partner would empty his magazine into Stratton.

  ‘I have ID in my jacket,’ Stratton said.

  The soldier looked into Stratton’s pale eyes and knew they were not those of an Arab. ‘Let’s see it,’ he said. ‘Nice and easy.’

  Stratton slowly reached inside his jacket, into the breast pocket of his shirt, and pulled out the plastic ID card that bore a hologram image of the Union Jack across its front, a gold information chip in a corner, and his picture. The soldier inspected the card, then looked at Stratton, only able to see his eyes. As if Stratton had read his mind, he slowly took hold of the shamagh where it covered his nose and pulled it down to reveal most of his face.

  ‘You SF?’ the soldier asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  The soldier took a moment to compare the ID thoroughly with Stratton’s face, then his tension visibly lowered. ‘Wait here,’ he said, before stepping back and walking away to leave his buddy to watch Stratton.

  He was conscious of the minutes ticking away but there was no point in pushing these guys. They would let him get on his way in their own time once they were satisfied that he was kosher and nothing he could say would change that. Pushing them would only make it worse.

  Stratton turned his head slowly and looked into the distance to where he expected the train to come from eventually. There was no sign of it.

  The traffic slowly moved through the checkpoint, each car searched for weapons and other devices. A military interpreter, an Iraqi dressed the same as the soldiers and wearing body armour but not carrying a weapon, questioned the occupants. Some vehicles were allowed to proceed while others were directed off the road to an area where they were searched more thoroughly by soldiers using dogs.

  Stratton watched the soldier with his ID show it to his commanding officer who inspected it, glanced over at Stratton, said something to the soldier, then handed it back.

  The soldier returned and gave the ID back to Stratton. ‘You’re outta here,’ he said dryly, unimpressed.

  ‘Thanks,’ Stratton said as he pocketed the card and climbed onto his bike.

  ‘So, what are you, Lawrence a’ fucken’ ’Rabia?’ the soldier asked.

  Stratton started up the bike. ‘You take care of yourselves,’ he said, meaning it.

  ‘You too, Lawrence,’ the soldier said in his dry country accent, a smirk on his face.

  Stratton cruised through the checkpoint. When he was clear of it he opened up the throttle and sped away.

  Half an hour later he slowed to consult his GPS. He checked the lie of the land ahead, pulled off the road and steered along a track that led past a dilapidated village – a collection of mud huts, several battered vehicles, starved-looking dogs, ducks and goats, with raggedly dressed children playing amongst it all.

  The uneven rock-solid ground that would be impassable mud for a bike in a couple of months’ time when the rains arrived prevented a speedy passage. He had little choice but to bump slowly along, avoiding the deeper ruts as best he could.

  A mile further on, as the track became smoother, Stratton stopped to check his GPS once again, comparing its information to the desert ahead that was flat as a billiard table. Across his front as far as the eye could see in either direction were electricity pylons, all bent over as if some great storm had tried to blow them down. The clue that the damage was man-made was provided by the missing cables and terminals, which had been stripped clean by criminals to be sold as scrap metal. Behind him he could just about make out the clump of trees that surrounded the village he had passed through while ahead the orange-yellow earth with its sporadic bumps and clusters of brittle vegetation ran on for ever.

  Following the GPS he left the track and drove out over the hard-packed ground. After a mile he stopped again but this time he turned off the engine. The sudden silence was like a loud shout.

  Stratton climbed off the bike, laid it down on its side with some care, removed his bag from around his neck and walked on into the desert towards several sandy mounds. It was not until he was a few metres from one that he spotted the tell-tale signs of a milit ary hide: a whip antenna and a patch of camouflage net covering one side of the mound.

  Stratton climbed under the back of the net and joined Jack who was looking out at the desert through a pair of high-powered binoculars.

  ‘Watch out for the memorabilia,’ Jack said, indic ating an anti-personnel mine a few feet away.

  Stratton glanced at the small Russian-made Pog that resembled a cast-iron corn on the cob half buried on the edge of the hide.

  ‘The place is festering with mines,’ Jack added. ‘That one’s probably from the Iraq–Iran war. Everything go okay?’

  ‘Pretty much,’ Stratton said as he put down his bag, grabbed a bottle of water from a six-litre pack and drained most of it in one go. ‘One locomotive,’ he said, taking a breath, ‘three passenger carriages, and a dozen or so trucks … Forouf is in the centre carriage.’

  ‘Complicated?’

  ‘Interesting,’ Stratton decided as he finished off the bottle. Then he opened what appeared to be a small laptop inside a protective plastic jacket. He checked the power leads, plugged in the whip antenna that protruded through the cam net and turned the computer on.

  ‘The junction is 500 metres ahead,’ Jack informed him. ‘I’ve rigged the charge and programmed it in as device zero one zero.’

  Stratton flicked through several data screens on the laptop, stopped at a page labelled ‘device queue’ and studied it.

  Jack picked up a radio handset. ‘Alpha one, this is Mike four zero, the deck is loaded.’

  A moment later the radio speaker crackled. ‘Alpha one, roger that. We have a visual that gives you an ETA in approximately three minutes.’

  ‘Roger that,’ Jack replied.

  ‘How did you rig the track change in the end?’ Stratton asked.

  ‘Well, I played with the two choices we discussed. I first went for the lever-throw option but then it started to look too complicated and so I ended up going for the push charge to shove the exchange rod directly across.’

  ‘Good choice.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘I would’ve gone for that.’

  Jack nodded, privately pleased. ‘How about th
e carriages? How’d you rig ’em?’

  ‘Some interesting combinations,’ Stratton mused as he typed commands into the data queue. ‘Gave myself a few options.’

  Jack glanced at him, then back to the open desert. ‘I’m looking forward to this.’

  Stratton remembered something. He reached into his pocket, took out the small carving and placed it on a stone beside Jack. ‘Here,’ he said.

  Jack looked at Stratton, then at the carving. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘What does it look like?’

  Jack stared at it. ‘A camel with a harelip.’

  ‘It’s a present for Josh … he still collects animals, doesn’t he?’

  ‘He doesn’t play with them as much since you started giving him all that military crap,’ Jack said as he picked up the camel and inspected it. ‘I hope you didn’t pay for this.’

  ‘It’s a present from you.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Dad comes home with the penny camel and what do you have for him? No, let me guess. A glistening scimitar you wrested from Saddam himself just before you single-handedly destroyed all his bodyguards and brought him in.’

  ‘No more military crap, I promise … Since we’re not going to have a chance to go ashore and do some shopping other than at the PX on the airbase, which only sells military crap, I didn’t want you going home empty-handed.’

  ‘That’s nice of you,’ Jack said with unguarded sincerity.

  ‘He’ll love it.’

  ‘Yeah. He probably will,’ Jack agreed, placing it in his pocket and going back to his binoculars. ‘Thanks.’

  Stratton highlighted a list of eight device codes on his data queue with marginally different signal frequencies beside each.

  ‘Here she comes,’ Jack said, picking up the handset. ‘Alpha one, Mike four zero has the obvious visual,’ he said into the radio.

  Stratton looked through his own binoculars and found the train beneath a black trail of smoke issuing from its nose. ‘That’s it,’ he said as he went back to his laptop. ‘Give me a nod at a thousand metres?’