by Geoff Wolak
‘Naughty boy,’ Swifty told him.
‘We can release you quietly, but the FCO will want a word about the kidnap,’ I told him.
‘Well, yes, to be expected I suppose.’
I dispatched Rizzo back to the landing site, and he would use his torch when the teams dropped, then lead them here. The rest of us got a brew on.
With brew in hand I climbed familiar rough concrete stairs, and I stood with Sasha and Casper on the edge of the roof, peering towards the hills southeast.
‘Easy job,’ Casper noted.
‘Not finished yet,’ I told him. ‘We’ll hit the camp over those hills, make sure any gunmen around are not causing problems.’
I could hear the Hercules, a faint drone, so anyone paying attention in that camp might hear them as well. But figuring the Hercules to be dropping paras would be a bit of a leap in the imagination.
Rizzo reported chutes open, and fifteen minutes later he reported teams formed up, some heading in, some to hold the road.
‘Sasha, take your team, and the French team, up to the hills like before, get eyes on. Be a miracle if you find that cave again in the dark.’
‘We look,’ he suggested, and led the two teams off through the dark, Casper keen for some action.
Inside, we had several large fires going, not visible from outside, and when Castille finally walked in he quipped, ‘Home from home, and with solid walls!’
His team made themselves comfy, the Seals against the opposite wall, one man limping, the remaining men OK. French Echo were OK, no injuries, told to rest, Robby’s troop all fine – as reported by a keen Ginger, many of the men puzzling our released hostage.
At 4am, the Wolves on their way, I got a call from Mutch. ‘You up early?’ I asked.
‘I was rudely woken, a call about that idiot, Peter Bowles. Seems he was not kidnapped, but up to no good, meeting with some bad people. He’s now under investigation by his company, a few irregularities showing up.’
‘He was nervous about the UK press reporting his release.’
‘I can imagine, yes, he’s a little shit. His oil company found calls on a phone he had used, to their rivals – people he should never have been talking to.’
‘Was he looking to go work for them, sell some oil secrets and make a million?’
‘He had access to the company’s unreleased surveys, and they affect the share price greatly. He could have made a million yes, but I asked for the phone to be tracked by GCHQ half an hour ago, more, and it links him to some very bad boys, guns and bombs.’
‘So ... what was he up to?’
‘Sell the survey information, buy shares in rivals, bet the fall of stock, help set off a bomb somewhere it will hurt – make a mint!’
‘What a little shit, eh. No wonder he was nervous. But what was he doing around here?’
‘No idea, no oil where you are, no mines, he should not have been within a hundred miles of that place.’
‘He said he was kidnapped near Gambia.’
‘No, he used his company credit card in a hotel halfway to you, and hired a jeep, paid fuel sixty miles south of you – he was on his way there under his own steam.’
‘To do what – meet with a bunch of half-arsed drugged-up gunmen?’
‘Or someone else, deal went wrong maybe.’
‘Keep digging, get back to me if you find something.’ I called London.
‘Duty Officer.’
‘It’s Wilco. Our would-be hostage, Peter Bowles, is actually a bad boy; extortion and bombs and stock market manipulation.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘I want a police team at his house right away, his story gone through, and fast, real fast. GCHQ has his phone and half an investigation already. Call me back when you have a clue as to what he was up to out here.’
Inside, I walked to our would-be hostage, a swift kick to the face delivered, his head hitting the wall. Grabbing him, I threw him down as startled men looked on. ‘Gentlemen, we have a Red Herring here, name of Peter Bowles, who told us he was kidnapped near The Gambia. Turns out he had stolen his oil company’s inner secrets ready to sell, and was meeting with people who would set-off bombs to screw over his old company.’
All eyes were now on our would-be hostage as he held his bloody nose.
Ginger closed in, his face orange from the fires. ‘Well let’s castrate him to start with.’
‘What, no, wait, you can’t!’ our hostage pleaded.
‘Cut his eyes out,’ a Seal suggested.
‘Hand him to the FBI,’ Castille suggested.
‘I like that idea,’ I loudly told Castille. ‘International terrorism, they get a show trial, he gets the electric chair.’
‘You can’t,’ the man pleaded.
Ginger knelt. ‘Why the fuck not? Who you working with?’
Our hostage clammed up.
‘Interesting,’ a Seal captain stated. ‘He’s afraid of them, and what they’ll do to him.’
‘We’ll send him back on the planes,’ I suggested. ‘FBI can have him. Ginger, tie him up, make sure he’s uncomfortable.’
Moran caught my eye, and I followed him outside into the dark. His black outline hissed, ‘One fucking hostage, and he turns out to be a wanted criminal!’
‘Like I said, a big live-fire exercise. The bad boys are dead, so it’ll be quiet. We’ll have a look at the town, might be no one there.’
‘This was listed as a live mission!’
‘And we’ll list faulty intel and no hostages found, no story for Max. Relax.’
‘Relax? A large number of the best soldiers in the world just HALO’d into a remote area to rescue someone we should have shot on sight!’
I laughed. ‘Let’s keep this out the press, eh.’
‘Would be fucking embarrassing, yes! What’ll we do next, rescue a cat from a tree?’
I laughed as I led him back inside. ‘I’d rescue a cat from a tree. Would you?’
‘No I fucking wouldn’t!’
An American voice said, ‘You’d not rescue a cat from a tree, sir? What a mean son of a bitch.’
Moran huffed. ‘I’d not risk a broken leg for a fucking cat!’
‘Bad example from an officer,’ came another American voice.
Smiling, I called, ‘Show of hands – who would rescue a cat from a tree?’
Most raised hands, a few did not.
A Seal turned to his buddy, mock offended, ‘You’d not rescue a cat?’
‘I’d shoot the damn thing and throw it to my dogs!’
‘You cruel son of a-’
A mock fight broke out, men held back as my lot laughed at them.
As the dawn came up I was on the roof in the grey half-light, Swifty and my team asleep, Mitch and Robby discussing the Wolves and their training as we enjoyed a brew. We sat on old bags of concrete that were now hard as stone, the roof displaying numerous concrete supports stretching skyward but with nothing to support, rusted metal supports exposed.
Smitty pissed off the side of the roof. ‘My favourite time of day; dawn. All calm like.’
‘Get a job as a postman then,’ Robby told him.
‘My uncle was a posty,’ Smitty told us. ‘Finished by 9am, then he went fishing for a few hours on the canal, meal in the pub, a few beers, hour of TV and to bed at 7pm.’
‘That don’t sound too bad,’ I told him.
My watch checked, I dispatched Rizzo with the team of Seals, and they moved off down the concrete road, to then head north to meet the team already on the north road. An hour later I got a call from Rizzo as the desert adopted brown hues: planes spotted. I caught a slight drone on the breeze, but could not see the planes, Robby thinking he saw one.
Casper called. ‘You are awake, eh?’ he asked.
‘Was tucked up with my teddy bear.’
‘There are men in the camp below, maybe thirty, some jeeps, no white faces so far.’
‘Keep an eye on them, plan a quiet way in.’
‘
We found the cave very comfortable – no TV!’
Rizzo called ten minutes later, Wolves and instructors down, no broken legs witnessed so far, chutes packed together for later retrieval.
Fifteen minutes later he was back on, and in panic, ‘We just shot up a convoy of jeeps, three jeeps full of blacks!’
‘Any wounded?’
‘Don’t think so, we hit them hard, and there was a Seal team off the road, closer like, and they pasted them from the side.’
‘Go police-up the bodies, I want papers and phones, and fast. Where are the Wolves?’
‘Face down in the dirt!’
‘Have them form up, double time down to me.’ I negotiated a few steps down. ‘Stand to! Get ready! Spread out in teams! Get some men up here ready! Snipers up here!’
Men clattered up the concrete steps, webbing done up in a hurry, positions taken behind concrete pillars.
‘Where are they?’ Moran asked as he reached me.
‘Up the north road.’
‘The north road? The Wolves are up there!’
‘Seals just shot up a three-jeep convoy, so I’m thinking that they were linked to the group we killed here.’
‘No one hurt?’
‘Not so far,’ I sighed. I called Captain Harris as men got ready. ‘It’s Wilco. Shots fired, we’re in contact with gunmen, no wounded so far, Seals shot up a three-jeep convoy on the north road, Wolves are moving down to me. Still OK to land the Hercules at noon. End of report.’
Moran turned his head, ‘Could get the Wolves out on those Hercules.’
‘If the Wolves are behind us, then the local gunmen have to kill us first to get to the Wolves. Planning on getting killed today, Captain?’
‘No,’ he firmly stated.
‘Then the Wolves are safe behind you. And there’s no large force around here.’
Fifteen minutes later Rizzo called. ‘We got the bodies off the jeeps, searched them, got two phones and some ID cards. And one of these jeeps works OK.’
‘Have the phones and ID driven down to me. Rest of you stay there and protect the road for when the Hercules land. Dig in.’
When the jeep arrived, driven by two Seals, I was handed the phones and IDs. I had four of Robby’s team mount up and return with the Seals, one man carrying a box-fed.
With each phone in turn I called London for a trace, and I detailed the names. One name caused me to pause; Nathan Williams. I read his DOB and asked they check him out quickly.
I called Rizzo. ‘Listen, the blacks were all ... black Africans, yes?’
‘Yeah.’
‘One had a British name. They all looked like locals?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Odd. All quiet there?’
‘So far, and we have about a thousand yards before the road bends. Behind us it’s straight for like a mile.’
‘Any way someone could flank you?’
‘Low ridges six hundred yards east, a few ditches, clear and flat to the west.’
‘Put two men up on that ridge.’
‘OK.’
When my phone trilled it was Mutch.
‘Hey Scorpio.’
‘That’s better.’
‘What you got, Fat Bastard?’
He sighed. ‘What we have ... is a puzzle. Police raided the home of Peter Bowles in Epsom, bank statements found, large deposits made last month, and a rental agreement for a nice beach front property in non-extradition Panama.’
‘Trust me, if he ended up in Panama I’d have him. What else?’
‘He called a man in Brussels, a mercenary company with a bad reputation, so the plot thickens, and one of the numbers you gave to London has calls to the rival oil company, who are Nigerian.’
‘Ah, Nigerians, what a shocker.’
‘But here’s the thing, the Nigerian company is 60% owned by a French/Swiss consortium, and they don’t break the law.’
‘Swiss banks not breaking the law is a bit of a misnomer,’ I quipped.
‘I know this company, and they’re squeaky clean, London agrees.’
‘Yet they’re talking to a gunman with an AK47...’
‘Someone is, but maybe the board don’t know, so I’m going to call them,’ he pompously stated.
‘Our hostage refuses to talk, he’s afraid of someone, so what was he up to here, because there’s no way these local boys could have done something clever?’
‘Still a work in progress.’
‘Get the coffee on, Fat Boy.’
The Wolves eventually appeared, two neat blocks as they jogged towards us, NCOs either side of them, almost as many NCOs as recruits. They halted near me, faces shining.
‘At ease,’ I called as Crab and Duffy drew near. I shouted, ‘Have a drink of water, get inside the building and find a patch of sand, sit and rest for a bit – it’s nice and cool inside.’
The Wolves were led inside, many of the American NCOs coming up to me. ‘No need to exaggerate the dangers, sir,’ a man unhappily stated.
‘I told you, maybe a lone jeep of gunmen. There was a lone jeep or three of gunmen, we killed them, job done.’
‘Are those bodies?’ an NCO asked, pointing off towards to the north, sweaty faces wiped, drinks taken.
‘Yes, we found a dozen local gunmen here last night – as well as a hostage.’
‘A hostage?’
‘Turns out it was some dodgy deal gone wrong, and he’s a real bad boy, now our prisoner.’
‘What are our orders, sir?’
‘Rest the Wolves for an hour or so, food and a cup of coffee, then they dig in on the perimeter in pairs. Place them where you see fit, when ready.’
‘And this rebel camp?’
‘Over those hills and on half a mile, thirty men seen.’
They moved inside.
I was on the roof when the Wolves started to disperse, pairs given positions fifty yards out all around as the day started to warm up. Unlike the Americans, Crab and Duffy grabbed sticks and handed them out to the British Wolves, who rigged ponchos to keep the sun off later. Seeing that, the other NCOs copied.
The senior NCO came up to me on the roof and took in the surroundings, webbing on and M16 ready. ‘Bleak spot, sir, but good to defend, solid walls here, some high ground. We’d see them coming.’
I pointed southeast. ‘In those hill are lots of caves, some big enough to park a truck in, and from them we could see the rebel camp below last year, got a good nights kip and protection from rockets and mortars.’
‘Who were they, sir?’
‘They had a rich paymaster, intent on toppling the idiot in power in Senegal, typical African coup. And we had a small plane with rockets on the wings that came at us, demolished those huts you see burnt out. Then they dropped RPG heads on this building, wounded a few men, so we packed a large bomb in a bag and the French flew over the camp and dropped it, killed like two hundred of them.’
‘Shit, talk about unconventional warfare...’
‘We then had a Hercules drop cement bags from altitude, on the camp, and they were shrouded in cement dust. Man in charge thought we were moving in and he blew the place – and some of his own people with it.’
‘Cement bags?’
I pointed at the hardened cement bags on the roof. ‘Imagine a bag of cement dropped from 1500ft...’
‘Would look like a bomb, sir, big cloud of dust.’
‘In Western Sahara we used it to simulate an airstrike during an exercise, but then used it on a real job. Pilots accidentally hit the target building, demolished the roof, choked the gunmen inside, did our jobs for us.’
‘You hit a building ... with cement bags?’
I nodded and smiled. ‘I figured the bags would land nearby, as a distraction.’
‘Jesus. And the plan here, sir?’
‘We’ll study the camp, sneak up and have a look, then decide. Never make a tight plan, because things are always different on the ground.’
He nodded. ‘That ain’t much of a river, si
r.’
‘Dried out most of the year.’
‘Map has a blue line, and it’s just a pile of dried mud.’
‘Once a year it’s a raging torrent for a week.’
At noon we heard a slight drone, and soon glimpsed the distant aircraft, Rizzo calling to say that men and kit were down.
‘Use the jeep to move the spare kit, keep the teams in place to protect that road for casevac landings, make sure you have some water.’
‘I’ll grab a Jerry can.’
‘Send the RAF Regiment and 1st Battalion to me. No, scrub that. Have the RAF Regiment hold that road where you are, they have GPMG and Elephant Guns, rest sent down to me. Leave one four-man Seal team there.’
We heard the Hercules depart, a faint drone.
‘What about the prisoner?’ Robby asked.
‘Shit, I forgot about him.’ I shrugged. ‘Let the bastard suffer here a while longer. Might peg him out in the sand.’
Ten minutes later the jeep turned up, supplies offloaded by many hands and stacked up inside.
Half an hour later the lines of men appeared, twenty-five 1st Battalion, some of the Seals, Rizzo’s team, Robby’s four lads.
I pointed 1st Battalion inside, and to Moran as the dusty and sweaty Seals gathered near me. ‘No more armed visitors?’ I asked.
‘Not so far, Boss, but the day ain’t over yet.’
They wiped brows, many wearing sunglasses.
‘We allowed to just open fire like that?’ a man asked.
‘We have a remit from the government of Mauritania, and that’s where you’re stood. Step across that muddy trench of a river and you’re in Senegal. Those gunmen came from Senegal, so they crossed a border illegally -’
‘So we shoot the fuckers.’
‘You do, yes, and since the government of Senegal – elected or not – wants them dead, we do the same over the raging river.’
‘We might need canoes and rope to cross it,’ a man joked.
‘That’s a blue line on the damn map,’ another Seal noted. ‘I was thinking we might top up our water, take a cool dip.’
Smiling, I said, ‘Get up on the roof, have a look at the lay of the land, chill out till we have intel on someone worth shooting. Stairs are inside.’
As they moved off I welcomed four medics, two of them ladies. ‘You two were here before,’ I noted, pointing at the ladies as they stood weighed down, faces shiny.
