by Geoff Wolak
‘Ah...’
‘Go group to group, headcount the teams, just in case someone is still back there having a shit.’
The Legion’s trucks eventually passed us as I asked Captain Harris to send the Hercules, and we finally met up with the RAF Regiment and the last Seal team – all told to pack up ready. I had the teams move east off the road and to spread out.
A distant echo of a screech, almost like a violin being tuned, and the blast registered with us many seconds later, people turning their heads. The dust cloud could soon be seen climbing high. Another screech, a blast, and the blasts kept coming, Max taking snaps; I couldn’t see the other two journalists.
‘Which way is the wind blowing?’ I asked a Seal team.
‘West to east,’ they said.
‘Good, we’re upwind.’
‘Why’d we need to be upwind?’ the Captain pressed.
‘That bunker had some nasty nerve agent.’
A loud chorus of indignation came from the Seals.
‘We slept there!’
‘Lid was on the tin, relax.’
‘We need to be checked out?’ the Captain asked.
‘Eyes bleeding yet?’ I asked with a grin. ‘It wasn’t nerve agent, it was an old pesticide, but the scientists said that after thirty years is was dangerous, so we blew it. Relax.’
The Seal captain told me, ‘Buddy, some day we’re gunna have words, loud words.’
My lads got a brew on as we waited, two USAF Hercules touching down first, the Americans boarding with French Echo and Robby’s troop, plus our medics. When the RAF Hercules touched down I had the Wolves put aboard with their instructors, and it blew up a sand storm as it departed. Moran reminded me, so I called in Ginger and his team – told not to go within a mile of the bombed building.
Unplanned, two C160 touched down in sequence, 1st Battalion put aboard, the RAF Regiment on the second C160, and that just left Echo – minus Ginger’s group, Max still with us. That group finally appeared over the ridge, and they had gotten themselves a great view of the building being hit.
An unshaven and dusty Ginger reported, ‘The first bomb went into the dirt, under the building, lifted it and cracked it. After the smoke cleared we could just see it, split in half down the middle almost. Second bomb lifted the mid-section and broke the walls further, then we couldn’t see much for the dust.’
I chatted to Captain Harris on the phone, and our RAF Hercules returned two hours later, a headcount performed again, weapons made safe, and we finally boarded, soon in the air. From my seat I could see the building, and it was just a pile of rubble, our former happy home, and I would miss the place. We turned northwest, into the setting sun.
Swifty sniffed his armpits, Moran copied, I copied, and we all nodded.
Touching down in the dark, we were met by the Squadron Leader, the apron now floodlit, the ground crew fussing.
Captain Harris was waiting. ‘They’re all back safe, we did a count. Your lot OK?’
‘Fine.’
The canteen was open late - we were informed, so after a quick shower - the sand washed out and left on the floor of the barracks, we ambled over to the canteen, a few of the ground crew and support staff in and eating still.
From the canteen, most of us headed straight to the bar, my rabble all in need of a shave. I had dollars, so the drinks were on me, and we found a busy bar. It seemed that a few of the others needed a cold beer as well.
I handed the French bar staff a thousand dollars, and told them to lay out beer, lots of beers. To the Americans I shouted, ‘Drinks are on me!’ getting a cheer.
With a cold beer in hand I stepped outside, Crab and Duffy chatting to the American NCOs. ‘How’re the Wolves?’ I asked.
An NCO replied, ‘Washed, fed, and in bed - just like my kids back home.’ They laughed.
‘Give them a day off tomorrow, check feet. Let them get a tan.’
Crab said, ‘That tasty lady captain is down tomorrow.’
‘Tasty?’ I teased. ‘Sergeant, she’s an officer.’
‘She got a great pair, for a captain,’ came an American accent.
‘She certainly does,’ I agreed.
‘What’s next?’ Crab asked.
‘Sierra Leone, and some danger.’
‘Had the fucking danger, sir!’ they protested, but with smiles.
I told Crab, ‘I want more drops here, and HALO, then we go. I think they’ve learnt how to shit in the sand.’
An American asked, ‘That guy, Tomo, did he really have sex with your Prime Minister’s secretary while on bodyguard duty?’
I spent ten minutes with Sasha’s team, spoke to some of the 1st Battalion officers, spent fifteen minutes chatting with Castille about tactics – and dodging large bombs, ten minutes with the RAF Regiment lads – the men complaining about things exploding, some time with French Echo as they chatted to Moran.
At the bar, the Seal captain asked, ‘Where’d you get the money for free drinks? You were buying when we first got here.’
‘I have a slush fund for bribing locals, buying local supplies.’
‘Handy that. Do they check?’
‘Hell no. So drink up.’
‘So what comes next?’
‘As always, we wait some intel. Could have nothing to do for a few weeks, or a mad panic tomorrow.’
‘How many missions a year do your boys go on?’
‘Twenty or so.’
‘Shit, don’t you get tired? I’m drained.’
‘You get used to it, and when you’re used it you don’t burn the adrenalin. It’s all in the mind. More relaxed you air, less energy you burn.’
‘Your guys were cracking jokes out there, I thought that was bad discipline, but this is their day-in day-out job I guess.’
‘If they manifested any bad discipline they’d be gone. They joke around, but when I say run ... they go. Your men were slow, could have been killed, so mention that to them. If I say incoming or run, it’s time to panic.’
‘Building took that hit, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be in it at the time.’
‘Pressure wave would have killed a few, rest would have been walking around like zombies, middle ear damage. To be avoided. Square buildings create odd pressure wave patterns; one guy is killed, guy next to him not affected.’
He tapped my sat phone as it sat in my chest pocket. ‘That go everywhere with you?’
I smiled and nodded. ‘Day and night.’
‘And your day off?’
‘No day off from this phone, I get intel calls.’ It trilled. ‘See what I mean.’ I stepped out and onto the scrub land and into the dark, away from the light of the bar. ‘Hello.’
‘It’s No.1.’
‘Hey No.1, how goes the empire?’
‘It’s a sinister organisation, not an empire!’
I laughed. ‘What you been up to?’
‘Following your exploits with a keen interest. The Banker has a man close to this Dupree chap, so I paid a bribe, got a feel for his operation.’
‘Money well spent, yes.’
‘Can you get London to run the name, Nathan Williams?’
‘Already did, nothing found. He drove towards me a few days back, but we shot him full of holes. He was on his way to meet a Peter Bowles, oil guy selling his company secrets to someone working for The Banker, but not to profit The Banker.
‘This Peter knew about the underground Soviet bunker - I’m sure he knew that the nuke was a dud, but I’m also sure he knew there were some deadly chemicals and wanted to sell them – or use them.’
Bob explained, ‘Well this Nathan Williams chap was close to Dupree, both attended the same school somewhere in your part of the world, a desk shared. Dupree sent Nathan to do something near that Soviet bunker.’
‘So Dupree is not just about planes, he’s mixing with bad people and up to no good. Try and find out what you can about Dupree, he’s on our radar now, bribe some people, threaten others.’
‘Will do.’
I called London.
‘Duty officer.’
‘It’s Wilco. There’s a French black man called Dupree, hires planes for dodgy cargos around West Africa, but now he’s moving into terrorism. I want him and all his activities red-flagged.’
‘I’ll pass it over.’
Ginger caught my attention as I headed back in. ‘I wanted to ask, if ... everything was OK with what I’ve done so far.’
‘You’re keen to do it, and that’s the first requisite, and you seem to enjoy being here and doing the job.’
‘Love it,’ he said with a smile.
‘The experience and the training will come, we just need keen men at the start.’
I stepped to the Pathfinders as they stood chatting. ‘What did you lot get up to back here?’
‘A few static line, long walk back, a few HALO – long walk back, and we had a go at that scenario out in the desert, made sketches for Captain Harris, got back this morning.’
‘Didn’t just sit around getting a tan then,’ I noted.
‘Any wounded?’ they asked me.
‘No, thankfully, but it was close. They fired rockets at us, dropped a large bomb. And 1 Para?’
‘Had some range time, some static line and a long walk back.’
I hit my bed at 1am, a bit drunk, most of the lads asleep already, Rizzo snoring.
In the morning I sent word to say that there would be no morning briefing, and that most everyone should take a day off. I had just got out the shower when Captain Harris appeared in the stairwell. ‘Wilco, US Navy officers here, asking for you.’
With a puzzled frown, and thinking about F18 pilots, I put on a pair of green lightweight trousers and walked barefoot outside, but I should have glanced out of the window first. Too late, they saw me, so I walked along the concrete path and to the road, an Admiral flanked a dozen officers, two of them being fit-looking ladies, Captain Harris looking sheepish, and embarrassed – embarrassed by me.
‘Admiral,’ I offered.
He stared wide-eyed at me for a moment, the man short and squat, wide shoulders and hairy forearms. ‘Would it be too much trouble if you put some damn clothes on?’ he gruffly began.
‘Sorry, sir, my day off, just got out the shower, and being a member of the British Empire ... I don’t actually come under your jurisdiction.’
‘I’m aware of that, Captain, but if you could tear yourself away for ten minutes we’d like to chat. I may even throw in a coffee.’
‘I’ll ... get dressed, sir.’
‘Meet us at the base commander’s office,’ Captain Harris cut in.
I forced a smile and a nod, and turned, plodding back in. Dressed in a hurry, Tomo asking who the ‘birds’ were, I grabbed my bandolier, webbing and rifle, and headed out.
I was soon to the HQ building, finding Franks. ‘What you doing here?’ I teased. ‘Action is over.’
‘Admiral is waiting,’ he nudged.He turned and led me into the ready room, no ready teams present, the room big enough for the US Navy team, the Seal team captains to one side, Castille hiding his grin.
Since I had a cap on my head I stopped and saluted the Admiral as he sat behind a table.
‘You expecting trouble?’ he asked me.
‘Always, sir, I sleep like this much of the time.’
He took a moment, a hand run over his grey hair. ‘I’m Admiral Jacobs, in charge of our task force for Africa and the Red Sea, counter terrorism, covert ops. I was in charge of your insert to Eritrea, Somalia, and ... unfortunately, overseeing the Desert Sands insert, one of our worst losses. I know you felt that loss personally, you trained them, worked with them, had Captain Mahoney placed with you for two years.
‘I’ve had several long chats to Colonel Mathews, and I think we see eye-to-eye on most things, and his projects are of great interest to me. He briefed me on you, at least he hinted at things and warned about other things.
‘And seeing you earlier, well ... you fit the damn description well enough; they said you piss napalm and eat your steak raw.’ He eased back a little. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like a candid appraisal of what you see happening here - if the various groups play nicely?’
‘If they play nice, sir, and if things develop, then the interested parties hope to see US boots on the ground in places where there’ve never been US boots on the ground before, a good newspaper headline the result. Of course, the newspapers can make a career, or end it.’
He stiffened, cocking an eyebrow.
I continued, ‘In my case, I had a run of luck, good newspaper coverage, an embedded reporter who left out a few screw-ups, embellished a few mediocre jobs, and that got me the fame with the politicians and the military, it got me my own team, the selection of men, the planning of missions.
‘That selection and planning strengthened my arm, to a point where I more or less have a free rein on British and French covert ops. That way I avoid the screw-ups and the painful newspaper stories.
‘Some in Washington are jealous of what I’ve done, and can see that a carefully selected team, and carefully selected jobs - carefully planned missions, can result in good press coverage, and that press coverage is currency – currency to do more.
‘Unfortunately, sir, most of your senior officers point towards a rigid structure ... where the idiots at the top interfere and screw up the missions – or cancel the missions.’
He cocked an eyebrow again. ‘Are your missions cleared with the British Prime Minister?’
‘Not usually, no, sir.’
‘Do your Joint Chiefs interfere?’
‘Hell no.’
‘Then maybe you can sympathise with those of us who feel constrained by a rigid system.’
‘I do, sir – I went through it all.’
‘And these Lone Wolves? What’s so different about them?’
‘They’re modelled on my men, sir, and on our selection process. I’ll give you an example. I have a lad called Tomo. He’s tried to convince your Seals here that he fucked Pamela Anderson, crashed the Space Shuttle, and swam the Atlantic...’
The Seal captain smiled and glanced at the Admiral.
‘That lad is better with a rifle than all of your men, better with a pistol, and would probably beat them in a foot race. He has no family to go back to, his family is here ... in the next bed in the barracks.
‘On a job, getting shot at and bombed, he’s cooking his favourite mix, and he has a bad habit of shooting enemy officers in the balls ... from a thousand yards out. He’s getting to be good at it. But he has one distinct advantage over your Seals.
‘There’s nowhere else he’d rather be than with us on a job, a shit jungle to sleep in, people shooting at him day and night. If I tell him we’ll go patrol Liberia for six weeks he’ll be arguing over whose turn it is to cook; the danger and the hardships won’t even register for a second.
‘Unlike conventional soldiers, unlike your special forces, he’s got nowhere else to be, sir, and neither do the Lone Wolves.’
Jacobs considered that. ‘A guy at home in the dirt. Back in Vietnam they had men volunteer to go back, ten times if they could. Vietnam made sense, the streets of the States did not. And what will a trained Lone Wolf do?’
‘Parachute into a bad spot, alone or in a small team, spend a week or two looking at a place, maybe blow it up, walk out. They’ll specialise in deserts and jungle, North Africa.’
‘My area. So I could get some good recon work done, a few small surgical raids.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘How long till they earn their keep?’
‘Six months, sir.’
‘Not long..?’
‘Attitude is key, sir, ability second. First, they must want to do the job, then they must like it when they do it.’
‘And our Seals..?’
‘Are very capable, but are thinking of wives and children when they leave the aircraft. To be good at this work ... you don’t need distractions, sir. If this was
a war it would be different, but this is peacetime covert ops, it’s volunteer work, not D-Day 1945.’
I pointed at the Seal captain. ‘He was worried about the lives of his men when compared to what he considered the worth of this latest mission. If this was D-Day he wouldn’t stop to consider their lives.’
‘You consider the lives of your men?’
‘Not in the same way, sir. I won’t hold them back, they know what they’re doing and the risks that go with it. We’ve lost a lot of men, but we smile and crack jokes and move on, we don’t have morbid men. Your Seals are excellent men, well trained, but they don’t love being in the dirt.’
He nodded. ‘So that’s the key, as well as some skills, same as it was in Vietnam, a guy that loves the damn steaming jungle, not one that complains about it. But would you say Desert Sands was like that?’
‘Captain Mahoney never once wanted to be somewhere else. I can’t speak for all of his men, but they seemed to like being in the dirt. And as for your Seals, there are some jobs that will suit them, short-term inserts, surgical strikes. Wolves will be better tasked with other jobs.’
‘And how many will there be?’
‘You don’t need many, sir, they’ll not fight like an army, they’ll sneak about in pairs. Fifty is all you’ll ever need around North Africa.’
He eased up and came around. ‘The cutting edge.’ He nodded. ‘It’s been good to finally meet you, I have all your missions detailed, and some worry me just reading them, so they must have worried your superiors when you were launching the missions.’
‘They have faith in me, sir, I have faith in my team.’
He nodded. Thumbing at an officer, he said, ‘He read a book about you, about Bosnia. That’s how you got the scars?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Do you get flashbacks?’
‘No, sir, never. And since Bosnia I’ve met twice with a woman I saved, and her kid; she was pregnant at the time the Serbs were nudging her towards a shallow grave. Get’s it all in focus, sir.’
He nodded. ‘What do you need to make this work, and work quickly?’
‘Colonel Mathews has it all worked out, sir, so you need to be asking him that more than me.’
