SAS Para-Ops: MEGA SET - SAS Para-Ops Books #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 & #6

by Casey Christie

  Ali’s grin vanished and he looked disappointed. He blurted out: “Like the pretty lady who had the florist shop? Was she special?”

  Abdul had to swallow hard to contain his anger. Then he said, quietly: “We get our orders, Ali, and we have to obey them even if we don’t like them. We are in an army. And if you don’t follow orders young man you will find yourself out on the street, without any rifle and without any friends.”

  Ali looked shocked. “I’m sorry Uncle. I didn’t mean…”

  Abdul managed to find a smile for him. “That’s all right. Now you have a new chance to use your talent. I know what this man looks like because I have met him. I have even been in his apartment. He has a nice little balcony and he likes to sit out there and watch the sunset. He even drinks alcohol out there. He is a Latin man and they like to drink a lot of wine.”

  “That sounds good Uncle. I look forward to striking him down.”

  xxxxx

  Bomb-damaged structures stood like occasional rotted teeth all through the suburb, the residue of previous conflicts between Turks and Kurds. Abdul chose an old building from which they could see Pedro Yimenez’s small balcony about three quarters of a mile away. And some distance beyond they could just see the rear entrance to the Palace of Pleasure.

  From a broken window on the second floor Abdul focused his powerful scope and the open balcony on the first floor came sharply into view. There was a small table and three fold-up chairs. He had sat there with Pedro discussing football. Surprisingly, Pedro was a Manchester United fan.

  Near Abdul sat Ali, lovingly tending to his own gun, a Chinese made M99, direct gas, rotating bolt, sniper rifle. His previous rifle, the latest German weapon, had proved efficient but temperamental and he had abandoned it.

  Abdul shifted his attention to the door leading to the interior of the flat. It was mid-afternoon and no light was on in the apartment. He knew that their prey was a man of habit and he usually got back from the Turkish government department where he worked as a translator, soon after five pm. He was sure of this because Jimenez had told him so, explaining that after a day spent among Turkish bureaucrats and their boring conversation he couldn’t wait to escape to his own sanctuary, have a few “snorts” and good red wine and then play some music from his home country, listening on his ear-plugs so he would not annoy his neighbours.

  Abdul felt a pang of conscience which annoyed him because he had trained himself to be oblivious to these emotions. And yet, again he felt a surge of pity for the South American. He had warmed to the man.

  He cursed to himself. That was the trouble with this kind of situation. Better not to know the target. Just an anonymous figure in the distance, removed with a solitary bullet. Take your gun and bugger off. Don’t give it another thought.

  Abdul spent a few minutes helping Ali to zero in on the balcony. Then he sat on the wooden floor and leaned against the wall. They would have to wait until their target came into sight.

  After a while he heard, surprisingly, a chuckle from the young sniper who was peering through the scope of his rifle.

  “What’s so funny?” he said.

  “I’ve got an American officer in my cross hairs. He’s just come out of Auntie’s place. And he is laughing. I could wipe that smile off that face…”

  “In the name of Allah!” cried Abdul. “What is the matter with you? Have you gone mad?” He got up and wrenched the rifle from the boy’s hands. Then he crouched with it and searched for what the boy had been seeing. He found the Palace and then saw two officers talking together outside the rear entrance. He tightened the focus and got their faces in the cross hairs. He did not recognise either of them.

  Abdul gave the rifle a quick inspection. It was gleaming clean. Ali had fitted the new suppressor he had got for both of them. Without them the high velocity ammunition created a deafening bang which not only gave away their position but could damage one’s hearing. Abdul kept the gun and sat back against the wall.

  Silence reigned between them while Ali sat sulking for another hour, staring out of the window. Then Abdul checked his watch and said: “He should be home soon.” They both went to the window and arranged themselves behind the sill and lightly taped their weapons’ barrels to the sill to limit lateral movement.

  Then they settled down and kept watch. The powerful viewing instruments gave them a crisp clear picture. After ten minutes the door of the flat opened and a man came out onto the balcony, followed by a young woman in a Turkish uniform. She was attractive and vivacious and she took off her cap and loosened her hair and it fell in curls to her shoulders. The man said something to her and she laughed, her eyes sparkling.

  Abdul glanced at Ali and saw his knuckles go white as they tensed on his weapon.

  “Wait for the word from me Ali” he said. “Centre chest not head.”

  “Yes Uncle.”

  The girl reached under the table and produced some binoculars and she began to scan the area. Pedro went inside.

  Abdul tensed. If the girl looks over here and sees us she will have to die. But the binoculars are quite small…

  But the girl put down the binoculars as the man came back out of the flat carrying a tray with two coffees and two glasses and a bottle of wine. He sat down next to the girl, facing toward the assassins. The girl said something to him and he smiled and stood up and Abdul said: “Now Ali.”

  Ali breathed out and a thought passed lightly across his mind Die and be tortured in Hell you foreign demon and he squeezed the trigger.

  The round punched the South American in the chest and hurled him against the railing and he nearly tipped over but fell back and across the chair, his body gouting blood onto the floor. The girl stood up and turned away from the corpse and they saw her face, screaming silently in horror, her mouth like an open wound.

  “Good shot” said Abdul. “Hurry.” He knew that the boy liked to study his handiwork but he could not permit it. They got their few things together and hurried down and out of the abandoned building the back way, into the gathering gloom.

  xxxxx

  In their rooms that evening Abdul noticed that the young assassin was not displaying the talkative attitude that usually came over him after a successful mission. He was always moody but tonight his mood was dark. They drank tea together and Ali had not uttered a word for more than an hour, when normally he would have a few things to say, especially about music he had heard on his radio. But tonight he was withdrawn, his expression almost mournful.

  Abdul said: “What’s worrying you, young Ali. Tell me. Perhaps I can help.”

  Ali looked at him for a moment before he replied, hesitantly at first but then the dam broke and the words came in a torrent: “Nobody can help me Uncle. What it is…..that girl, with the man…she looked like my mother, before my mother got so sick. Just like my mother…” and he gagged on the words, “my mother used to come and sit by my bed when I was asleep and I could hear her crying…” He began to sob and Abdul went to him and put his arm around his shoulders and the boy grasped his arm.

  “I didn’t let her know I was awake because she would go away. I heard her say that my father was wrong and I was not useless and worthless because I was too small and thin and always frightened. She said ‘I love you my son. You will always be my son.’”

  Ali took deep gasping breaths and said: “Then. then she…she went away and I never saw her again. And now my father is dead as well.”

  Abdul said firmly: “You are not on your own Ali. I am your Mother’s brother and I am your family.”

  They sat together in silence. Their fragile bond had tightened.

  Chapter Seven – Pleasure Palace

  General Yusuf Kahn of the Iraqi National Army—simply Bull to practically everyone---came out of the shadows in front of the Palace of Pleasure but he did not approach the front entrance. He went around the three storey edifice to the back of the building and paused there and looked about him. It was a spacious area. There were tall, full g
rown encircling trees with rich green foliage and their spreading branches created a protective canopy over much of the area. There was the rustle of birds flitting about in the upper branches and the occasional trill of bird song. It was a full moon, and its beams came through the branches like soft spotlights, throwing into relief the warm colours of the many flowers along the borders of the space.

  This was Fayha’s pride, Bull knew. One night she had told him that the garden was her saviour in a sense. “I do this work because of the money and partly because of your requirements but the things that go on here are in the bottom spectrum of human life.” Then she paused and looked a little embarrassed and said: “I admit I have my moments of passive enjoyment but I don’t let that part of my personality have free rein.”

  “You were going to tell me about your garden,” Bull had reminded her.

  “Yes, yes. I spend at least an hour every day there, making sure that everything flourishes. After working there I feel not only refreshed but cleansed. I am lost in Nature for that period and it is good for me.”

  “You are a fascinating woman, Fayha” Bull had said. “But don’t get too besotted with Nature. I need you focused here, at least for the foreseeable future, until things settle down. If they ever do?”

  Studying the scene before him, Bull felt he could identify with what she had said. The beauty and stillness of this environment were a spiritual contrast to the gross behaviour she dealt with every day.

  But he was here for a reason. He went up to a small unobtrusive door and produced a fob from his pocket and held it against a protrusion and the door slid silently sideways and he went in. This entrance was for very special guests only.

  He went up stairs and through another door where he was greeted by a burly man at a desk.

  “Good evening Sir” he said. “How can I help you?”

  “Tell Fayha that Bull is here.”

  “Yes, she is expecting you Sir. Please go right through.”

  He found Fayha waiting for him at the entrance to a room just before he would have entered the reception area. She ushered him inside. This building is full of little rooms in surprising places, he thought. It was comfortably furnished but without a bed. This was a place for talking.

  Fayha embraced her cousin and kissed him on the cheek and said: “Are you drinking? Can I help you?”

  “A Scotch on the rocks.”

  She busied herself at the drinks cabinet. “I gave my regular report to your assistant two days ago Bull. Do you want particular information?”

  “Yes. Tell me exactly what happened with that boy who went berserk.”

  She told him in detail, explaining how the boy’s mentor had warned that he had a hair-trigger temper and the first they knew of the atrocity was when her assistant, who had been watching, came running out to say that the Russian girl had been butchered.

  “We ran to the room and the poor child was lying in pieces on the floor. A bloodbath. And the boy was calmly washing her blood off his hands and body.”

  Bull sat forward and asked: “Did he show any remorse?”

  “The opposite. He said she was Russian and deserved to die. Good riddance!” she said.

  “Yes, the people are angry about the Russians now.” He finished his whisky and she offered him another but he refused.

  “Tell me Fayha, now that you have had time to think about it, what is your opinion of this young man. Is he not all there? Does his lift go to the top floor?”

  She thought for a moment. “After saying good riddance he suddenly burst out with what sounded like a war cry. Very odd.”

  “Oh. What did he say?”

  “I think it was I am the sword of justice or something like that.” She was silent, thinking. “But after that he was rational, cool, polite. He even called me Auntie Fayha! But his eyes can be very cold.”

  Bull got up and said “Thank you Fayha. You are invaluable.”

  “Before you go, Bull, would you like to watch some action?”

  “Thank you but No. I do not enjoy watching human beings rutting like animals in heat. Although I know that you do. It takes all sorts to make this complicated world we live in.”

  “You can say that again!” said the plump Madame, the fragrant and clever one. And she let out a giggle.

  General Khan went back through the special door and found a spot under a tree and lit a cigarette and stood there in the soft moonlight, thinking. So this young sniper was a loose cannon. He was also a remarkably gifted sniper, especially for one so young. If what he had heard was true this Ali had taken out at least one target at a range of almost one mile. That American sniper Kyle boasted that he had killed at 1.2 miles. But then, Kyle was American and the Americans always exaggerated. They spoke about their World Series in baseball but it was only played in North America.

  He is only 15 and he might stabilise quickly. On the other hand he might be a serial berserker and go on a murderous rampage – which would be a good thing if it was among his own people. We’ll have to keep an eye on him. It’s a pity Fayha won’t have him back there so we could watch him. Perhaps I can find a way to disturb his mental balance and tip him over the edge and make him turn on his own people.

  Bull thought once more, as he often did, about the very act of sniping. It was a cowardly act. You killed an unsuspecting person whom you had probably never met, and you did it anonymously from a long distance so that you would be safe from retaliation.

  But the act of sniping became more acceptable when used against gangsters like IS whose monstrous actions made them fair game.

  Cowardly perhaps, but tactically effective. Bull put out the cigarette with his boot and he suddenly thought: I’m a perfect target here in the moonbeams. And he hurried off back to the American farmhouse.

  Chapter Eight - Mission Ready

  Col Brow had called a briefing and he walked into the ops room to find that eight chairs were occupied by people waiting for him.

  They included SAS Para-Ops Unit Captain John Taylor and his team, Sergeant Vincent White, Sergeant Henry Lee the ace sniper known as The Shadow, Corporal William West, Lance Corporal Daniel “Danny" Jones and special consultant Mark Andrews, the psychic whose strange abilities were proving a vital tool in the work of the unit.

  Opposite them at the long table sat the Kurdish Captain Rojya Bhutin and his aide, Lieutenant Ayla (the Shining One) Khana of the Kurdish Women’s Protection Front. She was the only woman in the gathering and the men were very much aware of her because she had a strong feminine presence.

  Colonel Brow seated himself at the head of the table and was about to speak when the door opened behind him and a voice said: “My apologies Colonel but I have just stepped off the chopper. I’m on my own—my men are due in tomorrow night” and in walked a tall, slightly stooped man with the unmistakable look of an English aristocrat. It was Captain Algernon Mann of the SAS. He walked up to the table and made a bee line for a seat—next to the beautiful Kurd.

  “I’m glad you could make it Captain” said Col Brow. He registered that the new officer and Captain John Taylor had not exchanged greetings and he found that a bit odd.

  He said to the table: “This is Captain Algy Mann of the SAS. His unit is about to join us and will share active duty with us in this campaign.” He turned to Mann and said: “I assume you know Captain Taylor and his men?”

  “Of course” said Mann and nodded cursorily at Taylor who ignored him.

  “Next to you, Algy, are Kurdish officers Captain Bhutin and his aide Lieutenant Khana.” They greeted him with a smile and a nod and Mann beamed at Ayla.

  “Now, down to business. I have new orders for you John, initiated from your Prime Minister’s office. The IS project will have to wait for a while because British intel says a unique opportunity is offering itself to strike at the latest figurehead of the Islamic State—the new thug who is seen beheading people on their propaganda videos.”

  “This is the first I have heard of this!” exclaimed C
aptain Mann with a note of indignation.

  “You are clearly not in this Int loop” said Brow and continued: “The Brits say that a small group of European politicians were holding a secret meeting on the West Coast of Syria to discuss Britain’s demands for greater autonomy from the EU as well as the current refugee crisis and when they dispersed two of them were captured by IS. They are a French politician and a German Minister.”

  “Well, DAESH will make a meal of that” said Captain Bhutin. There was a chorus of agreement around the table.

  Brow continued: “The Brits say that IS are sending their new Lord High Executioner, some bum from South London, to behead the two captives and film it all for a propaganda coup. He is a long time pal of Mohamed Emwazi, known as Jihadi John, who our guys took out with an air strike in Raqqa in November. This new guy is another one of the Beatles.”

  “The Beatles?” said Corporal West. “How come the Beatles Captain?” There was a rustle of laughter among the British soldiers.

  “What does he play, Sir?” added West.

  “He likes to play God” said the American and the laughter dried up. “They are known as the Beatles among the IS crowd because there’s a bunch of fanatics who are all British citizens. Let me remind you all that Emwazi starred in the videos showing the murders of US journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley, US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Aylan Henning, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, and several other hostages.”

  “And our job is to save these two European VIPs?” said Taylor.

  “And take out this new SOB who comes on in a fancy mask and waves around his axe, dripping blood, in the latest videos. Your PM wants a record of it, if possible. He wants to make it clear to the world that anyone carrying on this campaign of public beheading won’t make it to old age. And I am going to make that visual record possible.” He grinned across the table. “I am seconding one of my video crews to go with you.”

  “It’s all phoney” said Captain Mann. “He doesn’t actually do it. They behead them off camera and then wave the skulls around.”