‘Over you go.’ Jones indicated I should climb over the railing and go down the rope. It looked a long way down, about eighty feet on a wet swinging rope to a small boat bouncing in the propeller wake on a stormy sea – nice. I climbed over, took hold of the rope with both hands, twisted my right foot round it and using my left as a brake I abseiled down in fits and starts until Williams’s welcoming hands pulled me onboard the bouncing skiff.
‘Get down and put a safety belt on,’ he shouted above the noise of the churning water. In the well of the boat Taylor was handling the big double engines at the back, keeping her tight against the ship’s hull as Jones clambered over and started down. Taylor tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to a safety harness, basically a belt attached to the inside of the boat that went round my waist and clicked together. Jones joined us and fell beside me, clicking on his belt as Taylor swung the boat to the right and we sped away from the ship at warp speed. I looked at my watch and pointed at the face, showing it to Jones.
‘Three minutes!’
Jones nodded and shouted above the noise to Taylor. ‘Give it all you’ve you got, she goes up in three.’
The big engines sounded a deep roar as Taylor hit the fuel injector and opened them up full. I found myself holding onto the safety belt as the boat bumped across the stormy waves that were getting bigger by the minute as the storm set in.
We were about a quarter of a mile from the ship when we saw it first and then heard it – a sheet of red flame like a giant Roman candle shot up into the air from the rear half of the ship, and a dull thud followed it.
‘That’s the fuel tanks,’ Jones shouted.
Taylor cut the engines and we watched as the rest of the ship was engulfed in flame, and the air filled with the noise of continuing explosions as the armaments in the crates exploded. The missiles wouldn’t explode as modern missiles are triggered by what’s called a proximity fuse, which is programmed to detonate the payload when the missile reaches a pre-determined distance from the target; the ones on the freighter wouldn’t have been programmed and they would be bent and battered by the explosions around them, dropping to the sea floor with the remains of the freighter as it sank as it surely would. Time to send Woodward an update, I took out his phone and sent a picture, probably out of focus through the storm but he should realise what it was and be happy.
Williams was watching the freighter through night vision binoculars.
‘Somebody’s made it away,’ he said, passing the glasses to Jones. ‘Do we go after them and finish the job?’
Jones looked and then turned to me. ‘It’s the lady you recognised at the dock and one other. Here, take a look.’
He was right – Eve Rambart was sitting in a lifeboat speeding away from the burning ship; I could only see one other person with her and he was at the back steering it. They were going away from us, heading towards the Turkish coast.
‘You want to chase them?’ shouted Taylor, starting the engines again.
Jones had taken the glasses back and was looking towards the coast.
‘If we do we’ll have company – there’s a small flotilla of naval craft on their way.’ He passed the glasses back to me and I could see what he was talking about. Fast small boats were bouncing over the waves towards the stricken ship, blue lights flashing, and every now and again the sound of sirens could be heard filtering through the storm to us. It would be suicidal to get mixed up in a firefight with them – we’d be well outnumbered. I swung the glasses right and looked towards the shore which was dark, overgrown with scrub and looked forbidding, then further right where the lights of Latakia could be seen. One thing was for sure, I had to go after Eve Rambart – had she been fooling us all along? She was only on the ship for one reason, delivering the missiles, and she wouldn’t have been there if they were a shipment from her husband. Putting two and two together was easy: she was the arms dealer putting these deadly weapons into Turkey and Iran, not Nicholas. Could be she’d been doing it for years, and the previous two husbands had found out and had to be killed? Had Nicholas found out too and was that why he wanted her killed and vice versa why she wanted him killed? She was stepping on his toes, threatening his business with her own, she had to go. Could be, but there was only one way to find out.
‘Put me ashore over there.’ I pointed to the nearest land which was to the left of Latakia.
‘Syrian territory,’ shouted Jones. ‘No way, Nevis – they have patrols all along that shore and the sea and beaches are mined. You’d be lucky to last five minutes.’
‘I’ve got to find out who’s shipping those missiles in for definite. Can you get me ashore anywhere along there?’
Jones looked at Taylor who shrugged. ‘Yes, I can get in to the shore on the Turkish side down from Antakya, but whether I’d get out again without being seen is doubtful – there are lots of patrols in that area. It’s near to the Turkey-Syria border, and both are a bit trigger-happy since Idlib was bombed and half a million refugees stormed the border. There is a sand bank – the sea is fairly shallow for about two hundred metres out from the beach, but there’s no cover. I’ve landed ops there before ’
‘Good.’ That gave me a lift.
‘But none of them ever made the return pick-up time.’ Taylor gave me a smile and raised his eyebrows, asking the unspoken question ‘are you sure?’.
I didn’t have a choice; I had to confirm it was Eve Rambart shipping the missiles. ‘Well, there’s always a first time.’
Taylor looked at Jones for orders.
Jones nodded. ‘Let’s go for it.’
Taylor swung the boat round towards the shore and we headed in, keeping an eye on the boats heading for the burning ship which was now just a very big flaming superstructure floating on the sea, with the occasional explosion of gas bottles and onboard armaments adding to the display.
As we got to within two hundred yards of the shore, myself Jones and Williams scanned it with night vision binoculars, looking for military patrols or any other movement. It seemed all quiet. Taylor brought us in on idle speed to keep the noise down and we all kept low in the boat; Williams had his AK-47 on night vision mode trained on the dark undergrowth above the beach. The dark storm and lashing rain whipping up the waves gave us good cover in such a low profile boat, and I doubt whether anybody would be able to hear us even at full throttle above the noise of the storm. The waves got smaller as we neared the beach until they flattened out over the sandbank.
‘Right – listen, Nevis.’ Jones eased next to me and shouted above the storm into my ear. ‘We will be back for you here at one o’clock in the morning every night for the next seven, okay? After that, you’re on your own. Flash a light – three short and one long.’ He patted my back. ‘Good luck, off you go.’
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CHAPTER 14
I swung myself over the side and dropped into the sea, hoping Taylor had got the depth right; he had, my feet touched the bottom with the water up to my chest. I let go of the boat and pushed against the sea towards the shore. Taylor waited until I was a good twenty metres away before I heard him increase the throttle slightly, and looking back I could see the FB intermittently between the waves making its way back out to sea, heading left to give the activity around the blazing ship a wide berth. I took no chances, stooping down so only my head was above the water and waited, counting to sixty just in case there was any activity on the shore or coming down from the scrub it led up to. Nothing – no Turkish Special Services Marines appearing out of the scrub to turn me into fish food.
I waded forward and left the water onto the beach where I knelt to get my bearings and relax for a moment – all good so far. That was until I saw headlights moving behind the scrub a good quarter mile away in front of me. The land sloped slightly upwards and the lights were going right to left – there must be a road; they stopped briefly and then continued out of sight along the road. Good, a road would make travel a lot easier than stumbling thro
ugh thick undergrowth.
I got to my feet and moved up off the beach into the scrub, finding a tree to stand behind and drip dry. I checked my rifle and pistol; they were SBS issue, well-greased so the salt-laden sea water wouldn’t stop them operating, but I took no chances with the bullets, emptying out the ones in the magazines and replacing them with dry ones from my rucksack. The black onesie was not only stab-proof but waterproof as well, with tight Velcro seals around the neck, wrists, ankles and pockets that had kept my undergarments dry, so when it was fairly drip dry I felt comfortable inside it. I needed to be able to pinpoint this place if I was going to get back here and rendezvous with Jones for the journey back to Cyprus so I used the location app on my mobile and took a reading before making my way slowly up towards the road, fighting against the thick scrub and undergrowth tendrils which had other ideas.
From the side of the road I could see the lights of Antakya further down it – a long way further down it – and started a slow run towards them; run a hundred yards and then take a breather, then another hundred, take a breather, and so on. I had to dive into the bushes a few times when a car came past either way; I could see their lights a good way off and was well-hidden as they passed. They were all military vehicles, which was to be expected being so close to the border. Despite the breathers every hundred yards the fatigue still built up in my legs, and after about a mile I sat down and rested.
That was a mistake.
‘Hareket etmeyi!’
A voice shouted at me from close by.
‘Ellerini kaldır!’
I looked to my right from where I was sitting and in the gloom a Turkish soldier had me covered with his rifle; he was in camouflage clothing and his face was blacked out. I don’t speak Turkish but guessed what he was telling me to do and raised my arms. He moved his rifle barrel up and down, signifying I was to stand, which I did; he kicked my rifle which was on the ground away from me, and waved his rifle sideways for me to go out of the scrub onto the road with him behind me. How long had he been on my trail? I thought back to when I was on the beach and had seen vehicle lights stop on the road and then move off again. Had they spotted me then and dropped him off to track me? Why wait until now? Probably because I was getting near the town. I waited, expecting to hear him make a radio call for a jeep to come and collect me. My mind was now concentrating on turning the tables on him before that jeep arrived; if not, then incarceration in a filthy Turkish prison compound looked very likely.
I heard a moan behind me and turned to see the soldier drop his rifle and sink to the ground, blood spurting from his neck where his throat was cut. Behind him a figure in much the same gear as me stood holding a large knife which glinted in the moonlight.
‘He’s been following you since you landed,’ Gold said in a matter of fact way, turning up her balaclava. ‘Give me a hand to put him out of sight.’
She bent and grabbed the soldier’s legs. I thought it best to just do as she said and ask questions afterwards. We lifted the body through the scrub and trees for fifty yards off the road and dumped it. She unfastened his radio from his belt, took the batteries out and threw them far into the woods. I threw the rifle even further in, swinging it round me and away like an Olympic hammer thrower.
‘How did you know?’ I asked.
‘You’ve a radio button in your heel, or have you forgotten that?’ she laughed.
I had forgotten that.
‘We picked you up about half a mile offshore and tracked you to the beach. Luckily I was already waiting for you in the woods beside the road when his patrol came through and saw you, and he started following.’
‘What about the rest of his patrol?’
‘They’ll be further down the road at the outskirts of the city waiting, hoping you were meeting some insurgents and then they’d get the lot. Anyway, enough about him – let’s get you sorted out.’ She spoke Turkish into a radio which was answered also in Turkish.
A few minutes later a van pulled up – an old battered van, no lights and just a driver; he was late middle-age, in rough clothing and an old peaked cap, and didn’t speak. Gold opened the rear doors and pulled out a change of clothing for both of us. She had it all planned – why was I not surprised? Because it’s Gold; nothing left to chance, ever. I noticed some building materials inside, so that was our cover; in a few minutes we were both just ordinary Turkish construction workers. Our onesies disappeared into the rucksack and Gold wrapped on a hijab. We both crammed onto the one threadbare passenger seat and started on our way towards the city of Antakya.
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The early morning light was filtering through the dawn mist as we drove into Antakya; the streetlights were still on and early traffic starting to move around. I looked out to the bay, a good ten miles away on our left now – no activity – and looking out further I expected to see a smouldering skeleton of the ship, but there was nothing; she must have sunk – well, that was the plan after all. Woodward said not to let the missiles reach Turkey, and they hadn’t. But seeing Eve Rambart board the ship and escape the inferno had added a chapter to the plan; now I had to find and kill her, seeing as she was obviously the one organising the illegal arms sales. And, of course, I also had my eyes on a million quid bounty from hubby. Mercenary, me? But of course.
We were in the old part of Antakya and pulled up outside a cafe half full of workers having their breakfast. A rickety table at the back had a scrawled note on it: Saklı –dır. Gold saw me look at it and provided the answer to my unasked question. ‘Reserved.’
No sooner had we sat than the waiter, or maybe the owner, was at our side: plump, middle-aged, unshaven and wearing a striped apron that really needed to go in the wash. Gold held up three fingers and he was gone.
‘This is Ajdin.’ She introduced our driver who smiled and nodded. ‘Ajdin and I go back a long way.’
I didn’t ask questions; I knew Gold had been operating inside Turkey when Turkey supported ISIS, and she had probably had some input into the PKK and Armenian Front. But that was none of my business, I don’t ask questions – if you don’t know things then they can’t be forced out of you by torture or drugs. The current Erdoğan regime in Turkey has a lot of internal enemies and had put down a military coup a few years back, so whether Ajdin was still involved wasn’t my concern – not my contact, and in this business you have your own contacts and stay away from other people’s. Although I never had any direct contacts in the Middle East, Gold would have had many in her time with Mossad. Perhaps Ajdin was one of those.
The breakfast was served up quickly and was delicious – a dish of menemem with Turkish bread, sucuk and pastırma, followed by fruit jam, honey and black tea. Most of my English friends think Turks survive on doner kebabs – they don’t, and certainly not on the crap bone scrapings mixed with pulverised offal called doner kebab that we get in the UK. We ate in silence; sometimes you get a meal and just want to take time and fully enjoy it – this was one such meal. Nothing out of the ordinary to a Turkish worker, but after the day and night I’d just had it was a joy.
‘Okay, let’s go,’ Gold gave the order when we had finished. Ajdin paid the bill and as we left the cafe and went back to the van.
‘What’s the plan then?’ I asked as Gold and I crammed back into the passenger seat and Ajdin started the engine and we moved off.
‘Sleep, that’s the plan, Ben – a good long sleep. I’ve done some research and we are going to have to have our wits about us for what’s in store, so first you get some shut-eye.’
I must admit I could fall asleep without much rocking; it had been a mentally and physically exhausting two days since I left the base.
Ajdin drove us out of the town and through a couple of small villages before taking to unmade roads and tracks for a mile or so before pulling up at a very palatial-looking building set in its own compound with several armed guards on patrol.
‘I’m impressed, is this your holiday home?’ I joked at G
old.
‘No, couldn’t afford this – even Turkey has its rich entrepreneurs. The one who owns this also has a dislike for the Erdoğan regime and is only too happy to quietly aid others of the same persuasion. Don’t talk to anybody, and no pictures.’
A housemaid met us at the door, nothing was said as she led us through the marble tiled ground floor and out to an open compound at the back of the house, then across it to a separate building set on its own. It looked like a stable on the outside but inside it was a large single room that reminded me of an American motel: bed, shower, table, chairs and TV. The guest room for guests you can’t acknowledge? Probably.
Gold stood in the doorway as I tried the bed for softness; it was hard, but no matter – it was a bed.
‘Sleep well. There’ll be a man just outside, so don’t wander – just sleep. I have a couple of things to do and then I’ll be back later.’
She shut the door and to be honest I don’t even remember lying on the bed, but the next thing I knew Gold was shaking me awake.
‘Come on, sleeping beauty – time to get planning.’
She had laid out a map of the town on the table. Ajdin had my welfare at heart and had thoughtfully made me a coffee to kick up the adrenalin. I pulled a chair up to the table and sat down.
Gold pointed to an area on the outskirts of the city. ‘Military industrial and warehouse area, the place armaments are stored when in transit, so had that lot of missiles on the ship made it this is where they would be.’
‘They didn’t make it, but by your interest in the place I assume other stuff has?’
‘Tons of it, and all neatly stacked in one warehouse ready to be moved on to whichever terrorist group needs it. It’s a major distribution hub for illegal ordnance, but the trick is that the warehouse is the store for legal ordnance too so it all looks kosher from outside with genuine Turkish military arms orders being delivered and housed there too, all with the correct paperwork.’
TURKISH DELIGHT: Ben Nevis and the Gold Digger book 1 Page 8
