Now Captain John Taylor called them all to attention. In front of him stood Sergeant Henry Lee, nicknamed the Shadow, Sergeant Vincent White, Corporal William West, Lance Corporal Danny Jones and Mark Andrews the resident psychic, officially their Mission Specialist.
Slightly apart stood Abdul, his head tightly bandaged, and the teenager.
“I want you all to be clear about what the purpose of this mission is” said Taylor. “We want to find out exactly where this mysterious DAESH HQ is. That is all. When we find it we pass that information on and our air assets will destroy it. But this is not going to be a walk in the park. In the last 24 hours there has been a lot of activity about 30 miles from here. The area we are investigating is just over 20 miles from here. The Russians are believed to be approaching as well. So we have to do our job but stay out of trouble.”
He added: “We should be back here within 24 hours. Now there are two vans coming for us. Let’s move.”
Andrews went to the side of Ali. He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and focused his mind. “Sit with me. I teach you English” he said and Ali nodded and grinned.
Abdul looked questioningly at Andrews who said: “The better his English, the better we communicate.”
“But surely you are working on telepathic contact?”
Mark smiled. “Yes, but that’s where people get the wrong idea. How can you convey a meaning, or an abstract concept, without the use of language? It is not practical to conjure up images of things all the time, especially when you need to explain the context. Language is essential. And in any case we really don’t know the extent of Ali’s ability. It might stay minimal.”
“Well” said Abdul, “I hadn’t thought of that. One thinks of telepathy as a sort of special skill.”
“It is that. But with complications.”
Two vans drove into the square and the men entered them. The drivers were both Syrians who had been employed frequently by the Americans and who now lived on the base.
“Where to, Sir?” asked the driver of the first van. Captain Taylor showed him a detailed map, and pointed to a spot.
“Yes I know it. I have a friend who is from that village. But there has been fighting around there—two days ago. The freedom fighters, the rebels, have moved in there and I hear that they shot down a Russian plane. It is not a good road. Do I just drop you off and come back Sir?” he asked hopefully.
“No. You wait. But we don’t expect action. We’ll watch and listen.”
Mark sat next to Ali and Abdul and began to impart elementary English to the lad. Abdul listened and occasionally interrupted with Arabic to enhance the boy’s understanding. The boy absorbed the information like a thirsty man given a jug of water.
The area was hilly and wooded and the road was rough and pot-holed.
Sergeant Vincent White who was handling comms, handed the earpiece to Captain Taylor. “For you Captain.”
Taylor listened and spoke briefly and passed it back. He said to White and Lee, seated with him: “American drones have picked up some movement in the vicinity of our target. There are three heavy duty Russian rocket launchers with two supporting troop carriers about ten miles from our target area. It is not yet clear where they are heading.”
There was silence. They all knew very well what that meant. Russian missiles were deadly. Why were they deployed in this area?
Taylor went to speak to the driver. “You say you know this area. I want to find a place where we can watch and not be seen, for example among trees on a hillside with a good view of everything.”
“Yes. I know a place.” He sounded relieved.
“You said they shot down a Russian plane. When was that?”
“I heard it was three days ago. Yes, three days. They say the men there got new supplies from the Americans, what did they say? I think it was some kind of rockets or missiles.”
“Surface to air missiles?”
“Yes Sir I think that was it.”
“Okay, concentrate on finding a safe place for us where we won’t be seen.”
“I know just the spot Sir. I used to take a girl-friend there. It’s very shady, right at the top of the hill but under tall trees. We have to drive among the trees but one can do it. I used to take my uncle’s bike late at night and pick up this girl…”
“Yes, yes, just take us there.”
ONE HOUR LATER:
The two vans were parked deep within tall overhanging trees against the side of the hill and it had taken the patrol ten minutes to climb to the top and find the best vantage point. Now Ali and Abdul were lying prone behind a rock ledge with their rifles and a few feet further along it lay Henry Lee and Andrews looking through their optics. The other SAS men were among the foliage, with their binoculars.
Andrews put down his weapon and moved closer to Ali. He said: “Put the gun down. We have to get to work.” Abdul translated but it wasn’t necessary. On the journey Andrews had explained as best he could what their task would be. They had to both send out their minds to search the surrounding area for unusual vibrations, anything which could indicate a hidden source of mental activity.
The two crouched together, eyes closed, focusing their minds.
Henry Lee’s scope was on a village nestled between two hillocks. A small stream ran past it. There were about twenty homes, some quite sturdy but others cobbled together with bits and pieces of corrugated iron and plastic sheeting. People could live comfortably in minimal housing in this temperate climate.
As he moved the scope from side to side, looking for any unusual activity, he noticed an approaching thunderstorm, dark clouds lanced by forked lightning. Then he heard a rumble. Thunder.
Another sound came to him, an aircraft. He looked up from his scope and saw a low-flying jet with Russian markings come swooping down between the hilltops. It veered off to the right towards the village and dropped three bombs which exploded among the dwellings and a dense cloud of smoke swept up and at that moment there was a dull report and from the hill to the left of the SAS patrol a rocket came hurtling upwards in pursuit of the Russian plane. It locked on to its target and overtook it as the plane banked for a return sweep and the aircraft became a ball of flame and fell in fragments to the ground.
There was an ear-splitting burst of thunder and the storm came roaring between the hills. Lightning speared a tall tree and its trunk burst apart and caught fire.
Ali burst out laughing with delight and jumped to his feet and Mark Andrews grabbed him and threw him to the ground. “Don’t be stupid” he said and the boy was about to retort but Abdul gave him a burst of Arabic and he lay back down.
Sergeant Vincent White shouted over the noise of the storm: “Russians to the north-east!”
From his slightly higher vantage point at the edge of the hill White had noticed movement about half a mile away and when he adjusted his binoculars he saw what looked like a tank but as it came closer he saw it was the first of three missile launching vehicles, followed by several smaller troop carriers.
The three leading vehicles formed up in a row as the black clouds of the storm raged overhead, lightning strokes burning into the ground and slicing tree trunks. The claps of thunder were deafening now amid the acrid smell of sulphur.
“It’s like the end of the world!” said Ali cheerfully to Abdul who smiled and said: “Don’t joke.”
The three rocket launchers slowly raised their deadly tubes upwards and then a US Stinger missile came streaking from the trees in the next hill and struck the central launcher which was wrenched upwards by the force of the explosion.
But now the other two launchers were firing, their new deadly S.400 missiles whistling and shrieking out of their launch tubes, their exhausts leaving a fiery trail to the neighbouring hillside from where the surface to air missiles were fired by the rebels.
There was a cluster of massive explosions wreaking utter devastation. Trees were scythed down in flaming splinters, great gouts of earth were thrown into the air.
The hills shook for a mile around.
The many successive explosions combined with the angry roar of the passing thunderstorm created an atmosphere of catastrophe and death and the two drivers on the floors of their vehicles were shuddering with abject terror as their vehicles were rocked by the explosions.
As Andrews lay flat behind the rocky outcrop he sensed utter howling fear from a group of people in the village and from somewhere just beyond it. He focused his scope and saw men, women and children running from their homes and in among the trees. That particular wave of fear dissipated as the villagers dispersed but another sharply focused pulse of fear was coming from 500 yards further one. He focused more closely. There was an opening of a cave. He gathered all his mental energy together to probe within and he was suddenly deep inside, among a web of tunnels, feeling the fearful thoughts. There were about 25 men there, all terrified that the explosions might block the only entrance and they would never get out. But they were under orders to stay hidden.
Mark withdrew his awareness and looked at Ali. The boy looked frightened and showed no sign of picking up that strong current of fear. His talent was still very primitive, Mark realised, and it might never develop into an actual ability. Still, he was helpful to the cause through his practical abilities with his weapon.
Mark crawled to Captain Taylor as a deluge of heavy rain added to the general chaos and confusion.
“I know where they are, Boss.” He explained exactly where it was and Taylor checked his map and instrumentation to pinpoint the location’s exact coordinates.
Then he signalled to Corporal Danny Jones and told him to take the written Global Positioning to Sergeant White to convey it to the American Command.
Jones crawled through the torrential rain to where White was crouched higher up but the Sergeant did not respond when he spoke to him. Jones leaned forward and saw a red stain in the rain and he pushed White and he turned on his side and Jones saw that his jugular had been slashed by a fragment of shrapnel imbedded in the earth and blood was flowing from his neck. As Jones looked at his comrade, his brother-in-arms, he noticed that the pulse of blood suddenly stopped. His heart was no longer beating and Sergeant White was gone.
Jones took the comms equipment from the body and went back to Taylor and told him that the Sergeant was dead.
“Send the message Jones” Taylor said. “Top priority.”
Meanwhile the Russian missile battery had moved forward and the two remaining vehicles raised their launchers and began to fire. The missiles streamed forth from their tubes and streaked through the rain and descended on the humble village, destroying it utterly in an eruption of flame and smoke and hurtling debris.
“What absolute bastards” said Captain Taylor to Andrews. “This isn’t warfare this is brutish revenge.”
The Russian battery turned and withdrew, retracing its steps until it disappeared between the rolling hills. The SAS men fetched their comrade’s corpse and Corporal West cleaned the body of his close friend. They carried the corpse to the nearest van where the driver was nervously smoking a cigarette.
Captain Taylor and Mark Andrews and Henry Lee sat together under a tree as the big storm rolled away, much of its vigour spent.
Lee said: “So you tracked them, Mark?”
“Yeah.”
“Did the kid help you?”
“No. I don’t think he’s got what it takes. He is just a very sensitive young soul. His background is very strange, he’s neurotic, extremely lonely and since he has been a sniper he has really known no one except his mentor, that man Abdul.”
Corporal Jones said: “For you Boss” and handed him the comms. Taylor spoke briefly and handed it back.
“They are on the way” he said. They all moved to the lip of the hill so that they could get eyes on the target.
“Those poor sods” said Henry Lee. “What a horrible way to die. Trapped inside a mountain.”
The three men were silent, thinking of what was going to happen to the Islamic State thugs, plotting mass murder from their hole in the ground where they were hiding like rats.
There was the whine of a jet and an American airplane came past them and missiles shot from under its wings. Mark had his binoculars focused on the entrance to the cave and he saw a rocket sweep inside it and explode and another hit above the entrance and the entire side of the hill collapsed in a cloud of dense smoke and flame.
Another plane arrived and also unloaded its cargo of death on the hillside.
Mark Andrew wrenched his mind away from the scene. He did not want to eavesdrop on the despairing screams and cries of those who had survived the bombing but would now die a torturous death of suffocation and starvation.
TWO DAYS LATER
1000 US Ops Room
Colonel Walter Brow walked briskly into the room and sat down. Waiting for him were Captain Taylor and his team of SAS specialists, minus Sergeant Vincent White, killed in action, whose body had been flown back to his family in Britain for burial with full military honours.
Also present were Abdul and his young sniper, Ali as well as the Iraqi General Yusuf Khan, better known as Bull, Kurdish Captain Royja Bhutin and his aide, Lieutenant Ayla Khana.
“Good morning everyone” said the American. “Well, we have good reason to be pleased with ourselves. IS have been cleaned out of this region by some excellent work,” and he nodded to Abdul and the boy, who smiled in response, “and we have obliterated many of their top planning brains, caught in that nest of tunnels in a hillside where they hid in the dark like cockroaches.
“Progress indeed. But we have no cause for satisfaction. On the contrary.”
He paused and looked at his audience with concern writ large on his features.
“The situation is now more volatile than I have known it for many years. We could to be on the brink of another World War.”
He paused and noted the intensity with which they were watching him.
“You all read the headlines and watch the news. The Russians are really into this conflict now. The deployment of their sophisticated S-400 anti-air missiles at their base in Syria near Latakia, as well as electronic jamming has turned most of Syria into a no-fly zone under Russian control.
“Moscow deployed the missiles right after the Turks downed a Russian Su-24. We and Turkey have suspended our air strikes over Syria. The attacks on ISIS in Iraq continue. Turkey is now extra-careful to avoid flights anywhere near the Syrian border.
“With a man like Vladimir Putin in sabre-rattling mood and the American Presidency in transition, who knows what spark could ignite this bubbling cauldron of violence.”
There was silence in the room.
Captain Taylor said: “Yes Colonel but life goes on. Do you have anything in mind for us?”
“The challenges are many and varied, Captain. Let me tell you about some of them.”
The mood changed, as the conversation turned to the many tasks which awaited them.
The END
SAS Para-Ops #6: Survival
BY
Casey Christie
Chapter One – Heading Home
Mark Andrews, special psychic consultant to the SAS Paranormal Activity Group, was the happiest he could ever remember being. He finally felt part of Captain Taylor’s crack SAS team and their latest mission had been a resounding success.
He yawned, swung his legs out of his bed and stretched his powerful frame. Then got up and looked out of his window, into the gloomy Turkish landscape and deeply inhaled the dry, hot, desert air. In his mind’s eye he saw the hillside where the SAS Para-Ops team had directed the bombing of the nest of tunnels, killing important ISIS targets. Then he thought of his friend, no, his brother, Sergeant Vincent White – killed in action during the operation.
“It was a good death though, brother, an honourable death.” Mark said quietly to himself.
And then he thought of Ayla, the striking Kurdish Lieutenant, and he couldn’t help himself but smile.
&
nbsp; It had been two weeks since their latest mission and Andrews and the team were to fly back home later that evening. Suddenly Andrew’s heart felt heavy once more, for as much as he had tried to convince Ayla to come with him back to England, she would not. She felt it was her duty to stay and fight the filth that is the Islamic State. Andrews admired her resolve as much as he regretted it. He had then even tried to stay behind and work with the Kurds as their consultant or even just as a volunteer but Captain Taylor had in no uncertain terms forbidden Mark from doing so. And Andrews knew his Captain was right – Andrews would be a lame duck out there by himself.
He shook the disappointment from his mind and thought about Ayla and today. In a few hours he would be with her and the team for one last farewell party, for the time being at least.
“Live in the moment! They say!” he thought while feeling his stomach and realising just how hungry he was.
The smell of the “meat free” bacon which Mark had adopted due to its many health benefits – notably its high protein and low saturated fat content, permeated his small one bedroomed flat. Mark was through with being a fat pig even if it meant taking a considerable amount of stick for making his meat-free choice – not just from the Logistics Officer who had brought in the food for him but from his team mates as well.
“It looks a bit odd but how the hell do they get it to taste and smell so good?!” Mark thought to himself.
Just then there was a gentle knock on the door. Mark quickly took the “Fake-on”, as he liked to call it, off the hob and put it on to his plate and went to the door.
“Who the hell could it be? Ah must be little Razi with my tea!”
Mark put his hand out to open the door but suddenly stopped. The energy on the other side of the door certainly was not that of the little local teenager who had come to be Mark’s personal butler of sorts since the team relocated to the building one week ago.
SAS Para-Ops: MEGA SET - SAS Para-Ops Books #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 & #6 Page 35
