by Chris Ryan
'On this first leg there shouldn't be anything ahead of us for fifteen ks. Then there'll be a road across our front.
After that, nothing till we come in sight of the high- ground feature. Skirt that fight-handed, then start looking for the big wadi. Once we're through that it should be only half an hour to the area of the LUP. OK?
Let's go.'
Pat led off, with me next and the others following.
The combination of moonlight and PNGs gave a good view - I reckoned I could see some detail at nearly three hundred metres - but of course, in those conditions anyone on the move is at a big disadvantage versus anyone stationai'y. It's always movement that takes the eye, whereas men lying or kneeling on the deck can easily pass for stones.., until it's too late. Thus we were all well aware that we could ride into an ambush at any moment.
All the same it was great to be moving, the warm air flowing past my face. R.iding in second place I had a chance to relax and think while the lead scout carried the biggest load. He had to keep his eyes skinned for dips, hollows and rocks - to say nothing of possible nomad encampments or even Libyan army positions. It was also down to him to hold the right course and keep the speed up. All this put him under heavy stress, and I'd planned in advance to switch the lead every half hour.
Pat looked like a solid black blob bobbing on ahead of me. His wheels raised a small dust-cloud, which a breath of wind from the west was carrying off to our fight. At first the going was good: the terrain was flat, with outcrops of rock here and there, and the quads ran easily over the turn sand. I'd taped over all the lights on my handlebar panel, but the needle of the speedometer was still visible, and from its angle I could see that we were maintaining a steady thirty k.p.h. Every now and then I pushed the light button on the Magellan to check our heading, and kept finding that Pat was sP0t-on.
We were running through shallow sand, and inevitably leaving tracks. Behind the trailer, which was last in line, we'd rigged up a primitive sweeper-rake some hessian sacks lashed to a cross-bar - to obliterate our individual wheel-marks so that, even if the Libyans did spot the trail during daylight, they wouldn't be able to tell what sort of vehicles had made it. Even so, it would be easy enough for the pilot of a jet or hdicopter to follow the trail and see where we'd gone. I just hoped that a strong wind would blast all our traces into eternity - or else that, in the immensity of the desert, nobody would fly over or come past until we had done our business.
Twenty minutes into our first run, Pat came up on the chatter net. 'Geordie, I'm stopping. There's something ahead of us. I can't make it out.'
'All stations stop,' I replied. 'Switch offand wait out.
OK, Pat, I'm coming up to have a look.'
I cruised up beside him and shut down my engine.
'There,' he whispered, pointing ahead and to the right.
'Something black. I thought I saw it move.'
Peering through my PNGs I irrimediatdy spotted what he meant: a black shape, possibly two hundred metres off, with an irregular outline, its left side low and its right taller and pointed. It could have been two men close together, one kneeling or sitting, the other standing.
'Can't get it,' I murmured.
'It's the right-hand bit that I thought I saw move.'
I pushed the PNGs up on to my forehead and
brought out my binoculars, but the ambient light was so faint that they were no help. With the PNGs back on I watched again. It was quite eerie, sitting there in the great silence of the desert, the gentle puffs of wind coming in over our left shoulders and I felt myself getting jumpy.
'Chill out,' I said under my breath. 'You're doing fine.' I knew from past experience that when you're out at night, almost anything will move in the end - or seem to - if you watch it for long enough. Whether your eyes deceive your mind or vice versa I'm not sure, but if your nerves are on edge even rocks appear to take on a life of their own and start shifting stealthily about.
'Anyone back there make it out?' I asked over the net. 'Two o'clock to our line of advance.'
'Thorns,' said Whinger. 'Couple of thorn bushes.'
'You sure?'
'Reckon so. The right-hand one/s moving. The top of it's blowing in the wind.'
'OK,' I said. 'I think you're right. We'll carry on.
Head left, Pat, and give it some room. I'll cover you until we're past.'
I unslung my AK-47 and sat with it at the ready as Pat set offleft-handed. Whinger had been right. The clump of thorns waved in the wind as we passed, and we left it to its own devices in the dark.
After another twenty minutes without incident I decided to bring Pat back. I knew he wouldn't want to give up lead scout - being mustard keen, he'd carry on all night if I let him - but I also knew that he'd inevitably get tired, and that the edge would go off his vigilance.
'Tbin out,' I told him over the radio. 'Norm, move up front.'
'It's no sweat,' Pat called back. 'I'm fine here. D'you want me to go faster or something?'
'Not at all. Y6u've done a great job. I just want everyone to rotate.'
'OK, then.' As he fell back past me and Norm went forward, I gave them both thumbs up.
Soon the sand seemed to grow deeper; I could feel it dragging at my wheels. The quad started to slew about, the steering grew heavier, and I needed more power to maintain speed. Then Stew, at the back, called to say that he was falling behind; the trailer wheels were digging in, and even on full power he was losing us.
'Ease off, Norm,' I instructed. 'Aim for twenty rather than thirty.'
'Aye, OK,' said Norm. 'I'm throttling back.'
'Good,' I went. 'See if you can hold that, Stew.'
I could feel my adrenalin flowing fast now. At all costs we had to be on target by first light, predicted to be at 0445; by then, we needed to have found a suitable lying-up point and to have built an OP. If we main tained our present speed we'd reach the area of the LUP inside another hour, and we'd be OK. But if we had to start winching our bikes up and down the walls of the wadi our speed of advance could drop from twenty k.p.h, to one, and we could well end up in the shit.
When we'd been running for an hour I called a refuelling halt. I couldn't tell how much petrol we'd used, but it obviously made sense to top up our tanks while nobody was harassing us; also, it took a few kilos off the load on the trailer. Two of the guys assumed defensive positions, twenty-five metres out on either side, while the rest of us tanked up, then two others took over from them while they came in and did the same. Although the desert seemed empty, we couldn't be sure that the Libyans weren't out on night exercises, that a patrol might have heard us coming.
Soon we were rolling again, with Whinger now in the lead, and after only ten minutes we seemed to begin to emerge from the deep-sand belt, the bikes starting to move more easily. But then came a sudden call from the rear.
'Geordie,' said Norm, and from the way he said my name I knew there was something wrong.
'What is it?'
'I've dropped a bollock.'
'How?'
'My fucking Magellan.'
'What's happened to it?'
Tve left it behind.'
'Don't be stupid.'
'I have.'
'Where?', 'At that halt.'
'Bloody hell! All stations stop!' A surge of alarm drove down into my guts. Again and again I'd harped on the importance of not shedding any item of kit, however trivial, in case it betrayed our origins and a Magellan, programmed up with our courses and way- points, was the worst possible object to leave lying in the desert. Norm was usually the most careful member of the whole team. 'What the hell were you doing, taking it off the bike anyway?' I asked.
'I didn't want to risk splashing petrol on it, so I took it out of the holder and put it on the ground while we were gassing up.'
I felt exasperated - but Norm knew he'd screwed up, and I saw no point in mouthing offat him. So I just said, 'You'll have to go back. There's no alternative. We can't risk leaving it. D'you think you can find
the place?'
'Dunno. Have to try. How long is it since we restarted?'
'Eight minutes,' said Stew. 'We were rolling for eight minutes exactly.'
'Time yourself-back,' I told Norm. 'You should be able to see the marks where we did the refueling.
Whinger, go with him. The rest of us will wait for you here. And take it easy - we're still all right for time.'
So we were, but not by much.
Two of us sat in a hollow, with the other two posted out on either flank. It was reassuring to find that the noise of the quads' engines died away quickly into the night, but tension built up as the minutes ticked by.
Feeling restless, I got off my bike and walked away to have a piss.
'Stupid cunt!' Stew muttered as I came back, voicing the anxiety that all of us were feeling.
'Easily done,' I said. 'You might drop the next bollock, Stew. Give him a break.'
Presently in my ear-piece I heard Norm say, 'Back on site.'-Then, a moment later, he exclaimed, 'Got the fucker!' and everyone relaxed.
With the party reunited, we rolled forward again to the north until, from in front, Whinger called, 'Stopping, stopping. There's an obstruction ahead.'
'OK,' I answered. Tm closing on you. Everyone else, wait out.'
I cruised up beside him.
'See it?' he said quietly. 'Like a wall.'
'It's the road, but it's on an embankment. In the desert they're often built like that, to stop sand drifting over them.'
'Yeah, but there's something this side of it.'
'Wait one.' I reached forward to the top flap of my bergen and undid the straps, feeling for my binoculars.
The 10 x 50 lenses, bloomed for light-gathering, instantly revealed the nature of the problem.
'Shit and derision!' I cried. 'It's a fucking pipeline!
Two-deck, each pipe about a metre diameter. There's no way we can ride over that.'
'How in hell didn't that figure on the briefing?' said Tony. 'Didn't the CIA guy mention it?'
'Not a dicky-bird.'
'Jesus Christ!'
'Let's blow the shit out of it,' said Whinger. 'Make a passage.'
'Brilliant!' I told him. 'And attract every son of the Prophet in Libya straight on to us. They'd send out all choppers in the country to sweep up and down until they found out what happened. No thanks. There's only one thing for it. Scout right and left. There must be a culvert under it somewhere for herdsmen to walk through. Tony, you and Pat go right. Norm, you and Whinger left. Move up a bit closer to it first, then keep heading along parallel with the road till you find an underpass. Stew and I'll hold here until one of you calls.'
The two pairs went off, disappearing into the dark like black dots. Nearly ten minutes had passed - ten minutes of steadily increasing tension - before Tony came back on the air.
'OK, guys. Head right. We've found a tunnel.'
'Koger,' I answered. 'We're coming. Norm, did you get that?'
'Aye. I'll close on you. No luck this way.'
We found Tony and Pat on their feet, wielding their short-handled shovels like lunatics. They'd discovered a culvert, but sand had drifted into the mouth of it and left only eighteen inches of headroom. At first glance the task of clearing a passage looked colossal; but, as Tony had appreciated, the drift tapered off rapidly inside the tunnel, and we only had to lower the first few feet.
Again we lost ten minutes, at the end of which we were all sweating like pigs. When we moved off again the wind felt icy as it cooled the moisture on our bodies.
Now we really were up against the clock. It was 0315, and I reckoned we had ninety minutes at most before dawn broke. In that time we had to cross the wadi, find a site for an LUP, ditto for an OP, build the OP and settle down out of sight. I was needled by the multiple uncertainties ahead. The distance we had to travel was relatively small, probably not more than ten kilometres.
What mattered was the nature of the terrain ahead, What would we find in the area of the OP? Would we get a good enough view of the camp? Were the Libyans in the habit of coming out into this part of the desert?
Once more we made good progress, and soon Norm called back to say that he could see the feature hill.
'I have Mont Blanc on my left front, where it should be,' he reported. 'It's quite impressive in the moonlight.
Steep sides, crags on top. Reminds me of Stirling Castle.'
For Norm that.was an epic, the speech of a lifetime.
Boy, I thought, the desert must be really turning him
Having given the hill a wide berth we got back on to our northerly heading and pressed ahead, now with Tony in the lead. The ground became more and more stony, until we were jolting around over loose shale. In one way I was pleased - on this surface we would leave no tracks at all - but on another level I began to worry: if the terrain was like this close to the camp, we'd be screwed when it came to building our OP, and we might find ourselves in another Iraq-type fiasco.
The desert started to undulate, with small, dry valley,, running north-east to south-west across our line of advance. I guessed they were tributaries of the main wadi ahead - and sure enough, Tony presently called back to say that he could see the valley ahead of him.
There we got our first lucky break. It was obvious that over the centuries winter torrents had cut a deep scar through the desert, and in many places the walls of the trench took the form of rocky cliffs, perhaps twenty feet high. But at the point where we arrived the bank had collapsed into a broad tongue of shingle, and, far from having to resort to ropes and winches, we were able to ride straight down it, leaving no trace. Boulders dotted the floor of the dry watercourse, and we wove our way between them easily enough for maybe one kilometre until another sloping bank took us out the far side.
That simple passage boosted morale and put us nearly back on schedule. By 0330 the moon was low on the horizon to our left, but by then I reckoned we were within five or six kilometres of the location for the LUP as one by one the surrounding features fell into place.
First we ran off the shale and back on to sand. Then we ' saw the ground ahead of us rising in dunes.
I called Tony to a halt and put pickets out to ride level with him, right and left.
Less than a minute later Whinger, who was out on the right, called, 'Eh, Geordie. I'm on a road.'
'A road? You can't be.'
'I fucking am. It's brand-new. Just been bulldozed out.'
'Stand by. I'm coming up.'
Whinger was right, of course. I found him parked on a dark-looking strip of track, with the sand scraped off into ridges on either side. The underlying rock felt pretty rough, but it was easily negotiable by vehicles with reasonable clearance.
'This wasn't on the satellite shots,' I said. 'They must have been working on it in the past few days.'
'It's coming down from the north-east,' said Whinger, checking his compass. 'Remember that track the satellite showed, leading out from the camp towards the range? I reckon this is an extension of it.'
'Looks like it. What a bugger!' I sat still for a moment, considering this new development. It meant that, if things went noisy, the Libyans would in theory be able to drive out behind our temporary positions and cut off our retreat.
'I don't like it,' I told Whinger. 'But we can't stop now.'
By ranging up and down, we found a point where sand gave over to rock and no new banks had been heaped up, and we crossed the line of the track there, in single file, leaving no trace of our passage. But the mere existence of'the road made me uneasy.
On we went, slowly now, into the dune-scape, circling the bases of'the hillocks. The sand here was very soft, so that although we were leaving wheel-marks they more or less filled themselves in behind us. Then Norm, who was scouting left, called, 'Watch your selves, lad. I can smell smoke.'
'Everyone stop,' I Went. 'What is it, Norm?'
'It smells oily, like diesel burning. Coming on the wind.'
'Probably some goatherds
camping out,' I said.
'They'll be burning old oil in a drum. Can you see anything?'
'Nothing.'
'Pull off, then. Come back this way. leel your right, everyone. We're going round it.' So we made a detour, and slowly came back on to our heading.
The incident had done nothing to'reassure me. I didn't like the idea there were other people besides us out there in the desert.
Soon afterwards Whinger, who was still on the right, went up on to a rise and suddenly called, 'Geordie!
