Masters of War Read online

  ‘Where do they get hardware like that from?’

  ‘We probably sold it to the gobshites, Snapper.’

  Danny didn’t have time to reply. Boydie was already on the radio back to the George Bush ops room. ‘Zero, this is Charlie Alpha Five.’

  Five seconds.

  ‘Go ahead, Charlie Alpha Five.’

  ‘We’ve got a visual on five tangos. Heavily armed. No sign of locals. Awaiting instructions.’

  ‘Roger that, Charlie Alpha Five. Wait out, figures five.’

  The radio fell silent. Danny and Boydie kept the militants in their sights. The technical stopped almost directly to their twelve o’clock. Two of the guys climbed down and the vehicle continued back round the opposite side of the village and disappeared from sight. The men lit cigarettes and stood there, looking out across the desert. Even from a kilometre away, Danny could discern their arrogant slouch. One of them put binoculars to his eyes and scanned round. Danny felt himself tense up slightly as the binoculars aligned with their location, but the militant didn’t even pause before moving on. Their cover was good.

  Activity on the radio. ‘Charlie Alpha Five, this is Zero. We have a green light. Repeat, we have a green light.’

  ‘OK, Snapper,’ Boydie said. ‘Lase the target.’

  Danny focused the cross hairs of the LTD on to the closest building, a single-storey breeze-block house against which the second Libyan militant was leaning. Moments later the device was firing an invisible beam directly at the building. When the ordnance came in, it would follow that beam to make a direct hit.

  ‘Done,’ Danny said.

  ‘Target lit,’ Boydie confirmed over his headset. ‘Repeat, target lit.’

  A pause. A crackle. Then: ‘Fast air on target at 06.25. Wait out, Charlie Alpha Five. Over.’

  Silence. Danny checked his watch. 05.32 hrs. The two militants lit fresh cigarettes, unaware that they were getting a wake-up call, RAF style, in fifty-three minutes.

  They waited. Somewhere above the Mediterranean, Danny knew, an RAF Tornado squadron would be thundering towards the North African coast. The Libyan skies were no stranger to fast air, of course, but the average local probably wouldn’t know a Tornado from a twin-prop. Not that they’d have much chance to check these aircraft out. By the time the boom of their jets hit anybody’s ears, the Tornados themselves would be out of sight. And the militants in the Bedouin village probably wouldn’t hear a thing anyway: by the time the sonic boom hit their location, the Tornados would be gone and their bombs would have hit.

  ‘Looks like Dumb and Dumber got bored,’ Boydie said. Danny took a look on target. The two militants had disappeared.

  ‘With half of NATO after them, you’d think they’d at least keep stag.’

  ‘Don’t get cocky, Snapper,’ Boyd said in his frustratingly patronising way. ‘No telling what we can’t see. They might have covert OPs.’

  Before Danny could reply, the radio crackled again. ‘Fast air, fifteen minutes out.’

  ‘Gonna get noisy,’ Boydie warned. Danny felt a flash of irritation. Boyd was a good guy, but he sure had a way about him sometimes. I might be young, Danny thought, but I’m not some wet-behind-the-ears newbie fresh out of jungle training . . . Keep your pie-hole shut, he told himself. Now wasn’t the time to give Boydie a rundown of his character failings. Instead he just grunted in agreement and went back to watching.

  And waiting.

  ‘Fast air, five minutes from target.’

  Danny sipped water from his CamelBak. His multicam was soaked with sweat. It would be good to get the hell out of this sweltering OP.

  ‘Fast air, two minutes from target.’

  Through the scope Danny saw the technical return, this time along the western perimeter of the village. It stopped in almost exactly the same position as earlier, but this time the make-up of its passengers had changed. There were now three militants standing round the .50-cal, while two others sat along the side of the vehicle, the backs of their heads facing the OP. Unlike the others, these two weren’t wearing keffiyehs.

  ‘Fast air, one minute from target.’

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ Danny said.

  ‘What’s up?’

  Before Danny could answer, the two new arrivals stood up. In an instant he saw that their jackets bore the UN’s blue armband.

  ‘Call it off,’ he said, his voice terse.

  ‘Easy, Snapper . . .’

  ‘There’s two UN personnel in that vehicle. Call off the strike!’

  ‘Fast air, thirty seconds from target.’

  ‘The peacekeepers are dead,’ Boydie said. He was angry now. ‘The militants were wearing their fucking jackets, remember?’

  ‘We don’t know for sure all the peacekeepers are dead. They’ve only recovered two out of four bodies. What if two of them are still alive? Call it off!’

  ‘Fast air, fifteen seconds from target.’

  Boydie had lowered his optic and was hunkering down ready for the blast. Danny, however, kept his eyes on the target. Was his mate right? Maybe the figures in the UN jackets were just more militants. He watched carefully as they dismounted from the back of the technical. Two of the armed militants joined them.

  ‘Fast air, ten seconds from target.’

  ‘Turn around,’ Danny willed the figures. ‘Turn—’

  He took a sharp intake of breath. A militant had just raised his fist and dealt one of the jacketed figures a massive blow to the stomach. The figure bent double and collapsed to the ground.

  ‘Fast air, five seconds from target.’

  Danny quickly shifted himself closer to Boydie’s side of the OP. With his right hand he forcibly grabbed his mate’s boom mike and twisted it round. ‘ABORT! ABORT! ABORT!’ he shouted. From somewhere behind them, Danny heard the distant roar of jets. It faded as soon he’d heard it, and in his mind he saw Tornados pulling away at the last moment. The militants clearly heard it too. A couple of them looked up into the air, but then made dismissive gestures as they evidently decided that the distant fast air was nothing to do with them. Danny’s earpiece burst into life. ‘Strike aborted. Strike aborted. Charlie Alpha Five, you’d better have a damn good reason for this.’

  Boydie was staring at Danny with a mixture of fury and shock. Danny was breathing heavily. He jabbed a finger in the direction of the village. ‘Look!’ he hissed.

  Boydie looked.

  The two figures in UN jackets were both on the ground now, being kicked and beaten by the three militants. One of them produced two hoods, knelt down and slipped them over the hostages’ heads. Danny felt Boydie readying his weapon and was about to do the same when another militant fired a shot in the air. The three militants laughed, removed the hoods and started kicking their captives again. Boydie lowered his optic and twisted his boom mike back into position.

  ‘Zero, this is Charlie Alpha Five. We have eyes on two UN hostages. Awaiting instructions. Out.’

  The silence in the OP was as oppressive as the increasing heat as Danny and Boydie waited for further instructions from base. They watched from a distance as the militants laid into the hostages – more, Danny sensed, out of boredom than for any strategic reason.

  ‘Good call, fella,’ Boydie said finally. There was reluctance in his voice, but respect too. Boydie was a big enough man to admit that he’d been wrong.

  ‘Charlie Alpha Five, this is Zero. We have a green light for a hostage rescue. All militants to be killed or captured. Over.’

  Boydie and Danny exchanged a glance. ‘Wilco,’ Boydie replied, before turning back to his mate. His eyes were searching. Testing. ‘So, Snapper,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a klick of open ground and an enemy armed with AKs and a .50-cal. If those poor sods whose bellies they’re using for footy practice die, they die badly. Ready to get them out?’

  Danny looked towards the village again. The militants had had their fun and were loading the hostages back on to the technical, which then started up and soon disappeared from vi
ew. All that was left was the barren desert, the low buildings of the Bedouin village and the Land Rover.

  ‘Ready,’ he said.

  FOUR

  The plan was simple. Wait for nightfall, when darkness gave them a good chance of approaching the village unseen. Cause a diversion to draw out as many militants as possible – that was Danny’s job, and he had it all worked out. Then go in hard and fast to take out the remainder and release the hostages. The headshed wanted to send in reinforcements, but Boydie stamped on that idea with a curt radio communication. If the militants had any idea they were being watched, there was a strong possibility they’d drive away and the whole thing would be over. The team were the ones who were on the ground, and the ops room were letting them call the shots.

  It meant waiting out in the OP for the rest of the day. Danny and Boydie took it in turns to sleep, two hours on, two hours off. Danny’s sleep was fitful. Whenever Boydie started to doze, he would sort of whistle, a gentle buzzing between his tongue and the roof of his mouth that he probably wasn’t even aware of. The tune sounded mournful. Strangely familiar, though Danny couldn’t put his finger on it. An old Irish song maybe? He didn’t know. He distracted himself by recalling everything he knew about the village from the aerial photography they’d studied back at base. It was about fifty metres by fifty. In addition to the four domed buildings at the front, and the single-storey structures that surrounded them, there was a central square, about ten metres by ten. The photography had shown this square surrounded by tents. Whether these were still there, or the Bedouin had taken them with them when they left, the unit couldn’t say. Nor did they know where the hostages were being kept. They’d have to work that out on the job.

  Around midday the weather suddenly, and unexpectedly, changed. Cloud cover rolled in, but the heat was still dry and intense. Covered by the hessian camouflage, Danny felt like he was lying in a puddle of sweat. His muscles ached from lack of movement, and the pressure points where his flesh pressed against the ground throbbed. It was a relief when the light started to fail. They had seen no movement during all that time. Danny realised he was anxious – not on his own behalf, but for the hostages.

  ‘You don’t curse much, eh, Snapper?’ Boydie said out of the blue.

  Danny said nothing.

  ‘I noticed it, that’s all. Don’t know how you manage it. All those gaps in talking where you have to put a “fuck” in.’ He sniffed. ‘Or a “cunt”.’

  Danny ignored this and asked, ‘Why do you think they pretended they’d killed all four UN guys?’

  Boydie thought for a moment. ‘They’ll be pumping these two survivors for intel. My guess is they thought that, if we had them all down as dead, we wouldn’t send in a rescue mission.’ A pause. ‘I reckon our UN friends are having a pretty ugly day. That little mock execution we saw was a way of shitting them up. The PIRA boys used to do it back home. Nothing like the prospect of a bit of lead in your skull to get the old tongue wagging.’ Danny felt Boydie giving him a piercing look. ‘I heard you had a bit of family history in the Province.’

  ‘Aye,’ Danny said. It wasn’t something he liked to talk about. But Boydie kept up his gaze. ‘My dad was 1 Para,’ Danny said. ‘Took an IRA round to the side of the head during the Troubles. Total amnesia. Forgot everything.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Boydie sighed.

  ‘I was just a baby.’

  ‘How’d your ma take it?’

  Danny stared resolutely through the optic. ‘She didn’t have to,’ he said. ‘She died just after I was born.’

  Silence in the OP. Danny didn’t feel like discussing it any more. He checked his watch. ‘Seventeen hundred hours. It’ll be dark in a couple of hours,’ he said.

  And that ended the conversation.

  It was 22.00 hrs before they emerged gingerly from the OP. Keeping low, they collected up their Claymores before ducking back down into the wadi. The cloud cover rendered it darker than the previous night, so Danny engaged his NV as they picked their way back to the lying-up point to RV with Tommo and Five Bellies. Having kept radio contact to a minimum during the day, they filled their patrol mates in on the events of that morning. ‘We’ve counted five militants, all armed, plus the two hostages,’ Boydie explained. ‘But there may be more. We’re going to take out as many as we can in one hit.’ He looked over at the packs. ‘Only take what you need,’ he said. ‘We don’t know what to expect up there. We don’t want anything slowing us down.’

  It took them five minutes to prep. Each man checked his personal weapon and the contents of his belt kit: spare ammo, frags, flashbangs. Danny carried the Claymores as well as a small, hand-held cutting tool. Then, on a word of instruction from Boydie, they commenced their sortie. The patrol reassumed single-file formation. But this time Danny, weighed down by the Claymores, ceded the role of lead scout to Tommo, and instead took third position in the line-up. The four tabbed along the wadi back towards the OP, climbed up on to the desert plain and started to jog across open ground.

  Three hundred metres from the village, Tommo held up one hand and the patrol came to a halt and went to ground. Danny scanned the area ahead, preparing to cause his diversion. No sign of the militants. The parked Land Rover was to his eleven o’clock, approximately twenty metres shy of the village. At a thumbs up from Boydie, Danny pushed himself to his feet again and trod quietly towards the vehicle. He didn’t look back. He didn’t need to. He knew the others would be stealthily putting themselves into position, surrounding the village, ready to strike at the given moment.

  Fifty metres to the Land Rover. Danny went to ground again. Waited. No sound. No movement. He pushed on. Now that he was close to the Land Rover, Danny flipped up his NV goggles. It was old, creamy beige in colour and had certainly seen better days. The bodywork was dented and rusted. The rear windscreen had a jagged crack along the centre and it stank of oil and petrol. Bizarrely, one of the side windows had a peeling Arsenal sticker on the inside. The vehicle was facing away from the village. Danny positioned himself at its front, where he kneeled down and unfurled the detonation wire from each Claymore. The mines were about twenty centimetres by ten and slightly curved at one end. This convex face was embossed with the words ‘Front Toward Enemy’. Claymores being directional, you wanted to be very sure you were orientating them correctly, hence the kindergarten-style instruction. As every training officer he’d ever come across was so keen on saying: keep it simple, stupid. Not that this was a guarantee of success. Danny had heard stories of American troops in Vietnam laying Claymores to snare the enemy, only for the Vietcong to creep out under cover of night and reverse the direction of the mines. Being peppered by 700 steel balls moving at 1200 metres per second was a bad way to go.

  Danny placed the Claymores two metres in front of the Land Rover, their convex sides facing it. He unwound each detonation wire, held the clacker at each end and moved these into position 100 metres to the north-east of the village. After laying them carefully on the ground, he returned to the vehicle.

  Moment of truth.

  Danny removed his cutting tool from his belt kit and crouched down to feel under the Land Rover’s engine. It took him less than ten seconds to locate the fuel line. The tool cut through the metal tube like it wasn’t even there. Danny felt petrol drip on to his hand and the fumes immediately hit his nose. He returned the cutting tool to his belt kit and swapped it for his dad’s old Zippo. He sparked it up and touched the flame to the dripping fuel. And then he ran.

  Danny followed the Claymores’ det wires. He’d run fifty metres by the time he heard an explosion behind him. He glanced once over his shoulder – flames were already licking from the Land Rover’s engine – before reaching the clackers ten seconds later and throwing himself to the ground. He pulled his spotting scope from his belt kit and quickly got a visual on his diversion.

  It took half a minute for the militants to emerge. Two of them, to start with. They looked perplexed and loitered for a moment some five metres from the
blazing vehicle, their AKs strapped across their bodies, before one of them turned towards the village, put his hand to his mouth and shouted something. Thirty seconds later three more men emerged. Although Danny couldn’t hear them, he could tell they were shouting at each other. Arguing.

  And all the time moving closer to the Land Rover.

  With one hand he felt for the clackers. The militant closest to the vehicle was two metres from it. The furthest about seven, and getting nearer.

  Just a little closer, Danny thought.

  Five metres.

  They were bunched up.

  One of them pushed another in the chest. They were definitely arguing. No point waiting for the row to split them up. If he could take out all five in one hit, the rest of the job would be a lot more straightforward.

  He squeezed the clackers.

  The sound of the Claymores erupting echoed across the desert. The Land Rover exploded and a flurry of body parts showered around it, but Danny had already panned his scope to the right. It took just a few seconds for him to see three hunched silhouettes, about thirty metres from the edge of the village, sprinting towards it now that the signal to advance – the detonation of the Claymores – had been given. Danny got to his feet, flicked the selector switch of his M4 to automatic and sprinted towards the village to join his mates.

  They had to move fast. As soon as the militants realised they were under attack, the hostages would be in even greater danger than they were already. When he was twenty-five metres from the main building, Danny saw a figure at the entrance. He raised his weapon and lined up the scope. AK-47. Bandolier. Danny lined the weapon up with the militant’s chest and squeezed a short burst. The target hit the ground and Danny picked up pace again.

  He reached the building ten seconds later. Boydie was waiting for him, standing to the right of the entrance, his back against the wall, a flashbang in his hand. Danny took up position on the opposite side of the open door and held up three fingers.