Call to kill, p.20
Call to Kill, page 20
He checked his watch. If they continued to work through the night, they would have the kits assembled and fitted before the other fishermen woke in their beds. After that, another couple of hours to wait until the first light of the dawn, when they would be ready to make their final prayer. If it was Allah’s will, then he would help them achieve their goal. Immediately afterwards they would push four radio-controlled suicide boats out on to the waves and steer them in the direction of Saudi Arabia and the fishing grounds to the north. With His Divine Will, they would succeed where previous attempts had failed. By tomorrow morning, the House of Saud would be a billion dollars poorer, Yemen’s children would be free from their endless plight, Faisal would have atoned for his previous errors of judgement and Iran would take its rightful place as the beating heart of the region’s power.
Thirty-Five
The pair of Puma helicopters nosed their way through the warm desert night air like a pair of lions on the hunt. Although their destination was the port of Midi almost due north, they were flying west, following a route that had been preloaded on to their navigation systems to ensure they avoided flying over any Houthi-controlled towns, villages or military positions. Staying close to the ground, a little under 200 feet, they blasted along within a few hundred feet of each other at over 100 mph towards the Red Sea. On reaching the shore, the Pumas jackknifed right and banked low along the coast.
In the back of the leading chopper, Matt Mason tried to relax his mind. While they were in the air, there was nothing he could do to affect the outcome of the task, so it was better to leave the job of getting there to the experts. He looked at the gunner, Donny Mac, a strong, wiry Welshman, hanging out of the side of the Puma, clutching his 7.62mm mini-gun, night-vision goggles on, eyes glued to the ground below, ready to tear into any unfriendlies that they might accidentally encounter. Woe betide them if they did. Donny had a deadeye and being blasted by him from above was like encountering a fire-breathing dragon.
As they hit the coast, the air cooled and Mason could smell the sea on the draught that blew in from the open hatches. The feeling of the breeze on his face afforded him a moment’s relief from the tension in his gut. The memory of his last time leading a team on a task was playing on his mind. He could almost see Andy sitting right there opposite him, his gun pimped out with all the ‘ally’ gear, making cheeky wisecracks in his Scouse drawl. Mason felt a pang of regret for having been so harsh with the lad.
The helicopter banked hard left and right, twisting its way through the air, staying low to the sea while hugging the coastline. Mason quietly cursed the pilot, Charles Wise, a bit of a legend in the RAF because he flew faster and harder than anyone else. It was a gut-churning experience being in Charles’s chopper, like being on a fairground ride, but a rollercoaster only lasts a couple of minutes for a reason—that’s all most people can stomach. The journey from the LZ to Midi had already taken over an hour. Mason closed down his urge to vomit again, he’d never quite grown used to having his guts thrown around, even after all these years. He focused instead on the task, mentally going over his to-do list one last time.
Sitting opposite him he had his core team back on board. He knew that Mad Jack, Pommy, Briggs and Carl were all in the same boat as him. None of them ever needed to say it, but he understood that they all felt the same way about what had happened to Andy and that they’d all rather die than let it He. Whatever happened next, Ruak Shahlai was going to pay for what he’d done to their mate. The most important thing that Mason had to do next was get his team into that port, because he knew he could trust them to do the rest.
A few minutes later, Mason felt the helicopter begin to slow, which meant they were getting close to the LZ. Suddenly, Charles banked again to port and the back end dropped, lowering them fast towards the ground. The force of it didn’t bother Mason this time, nor any of the other guys, they were too busy preparing for what was coming next, gathering their gear, getting ready to hit the ground running.
The second Puma landed less than a hundred feet away while the five men unloaded their equipment from the lead chopper. Just like the other men, Mason had his own 5.56 Diemaco rifle, a laser and night scopes, and eight magazines of thirty armour-piercing rounds. In his leg holster he wore a 9mm pistol with three spare mags of fifteen rounds. Lastly, he had half a dozen L2 fragmentation grenades in a quick access pouch.
He helped Mad Jack lug the massive M72 LAW, a portable one-shot 66mm unguided anti-tank gun, up off the ground and then watched as he slung it over his broad shoulders like it was a scarf. The man was an ox. Once they had eyes on exactly where Faisal was launching from, the LAW warhead could be dispatched to take him out along with everything else within a thirty-metre radius.
Pommy and Briggs discarded their Diemacos, preferring instead to use the Belgian FN Minimi 5.56-calibre light machine gun. Each man packed his sack with eight hundred rounds in link. As far as Mason was concerned, the Minimi was the absolute best weapon in the world for reliability and firepower. And in the hands of Pom and Briggsy, it turned them into a two-man infantry division.
Waiting for them all, Craig Bell stood patiently, ready to move. Despite the darkness, he had already assembled his bolt-action sniper rifle in seconds, equipping it with a 25x scope and suppressor, giving him the ability to take out a target from over half a mile away without making a sound.
Mason nodded to all of his men, satisfied that they were ready to move out. He turned and watched Hopkins and his team unloading the equipment from the second bird. The captain and four men would bring up the rear, operating an 81mm mortar. If things got hairy, their orders were to lay the whole fucking port flatter than a Shrove Tuesday pancake.
The last man out of the chopper was Agent Redford.
‘Sure you got enough kit for nine guys?’ she said sarcastically, releasing the safety on her Glock and cocking it to put a bullet in the chamber.
‘If we hadn’t brought you, we’d have had ten,’ Mason said.
‘Yeah, but if you hadn’t brought me, you’d have fucked up again.’
The laughter coming from behind him stopped Mason in his tracks, but he decided to let it slide. It was probably for the best to keep quiet. She had a point.
‘Let’s just hope you don’t need to use that,’ he said.
Mason looked again at the gun in her hand and then scanned the enormous arsenal of weapons laid out before them. If she had to use a Glock, he thought, then they really were in trouble. He saw Redford glance up to the mountains above. The sun was not yet up but its light was already peeking over the ridge. The port was still three miles from the LZ, at a point deliberately selected to ensure that Faisal would not see nor hear the birds landing. If they moved fast and unhindered, they should be there in an hour.
‘You’d better get going,’ said Redford.
The plan was for the American to accompany Hopkins and the fire support team, while Mason led the asssault team directly on to the primary target. But as Redford turned away from him to walk back towards Hopkins and the others, he reached out to stop her.
‘Hang on,’ he said, picking up Briggsy’s discarded Diemaco. He threw the rifle to her, and she caught it in one hand.
‘You know how to use that?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Sergeant,’ she said.
‘Well you better fucking had,’ he said. Then with a wave of his arm, he gestured for his team to move.
One by one the men filed out, Jack, Briggs, Pommy and Craig set off, moving quietly and quickly over the rough ground. Mason motioned for Redford to follow behind them and she fell in with Mason bringing up the rear.
An hour from now they would be in the port of Midi, where a man from Coventry and a team of Iranian jihadists were diligently preparing to create the largest man-made disaster that the world had ever seen.
Thirty-Six
The sky to the east of Midi was still dark, but the tips of the mountain peaks along the highest ridge were gradually appearing as dim silhouettes. The dawn light had begun to bleed into the blackness, turning everything a shade of inky blue. The day was coming and there was nothing anyone could do now to stop it.
On the beach below, four men lined up along the sand. They were already deep in their third devotion of the day, the ṣalāt al-Fajr, or morning prayer. Faisal Ahadi led his comrades, quietly recanting the two rakats of the Fajr, kneeling on the sand with only their palms, knees, toes, foreheads and noses touching the ground. ‘Glory be to God, the highest,’ they repeated three times before they rose into a more comfortable seated pose, feet tucked in underneath, eyes closed, hands on laps, taking a moment to reflect on their own prayer.
Faisal recited aloud his favourite verses from the Koran, ‘We have awoken, and all of creation has awoken, for Allah, Lord of all the Worlds. Allah, I ask You for the best the day has to offer, victory, support, light, blessings and guidance; and I seek refuge in You from the evil in it, and the evil to come after it.’
The men either side of him silently nodded their approval before they raised their right index fingers to the sky and privately asked Allah for His forgiveness and mercy Then the men stood and turned first to their right, then to their left, offering their neighbour the greeting of peace. ‘Peace be upon you, and the mercy and blessings of Allah.’
With their souls cleansed, it was time to get on with the important business of completing the last stages of their work. The men returned to the hut to collect the last pieces of the gear while Faisal walked along the line of boats, making final checks to the automated rigs and the explosives they had modified on board. He looked out to sea and felt relieved to see that the waters were as calm as a Coventry canal. The last thing he needed to contend with today were choppy seas.
On the road to the far end of the beach he heard the high-pitched buzz of a cheap Chinese scooter and saw the dim beam from its headlights cast across the sand. The first of the local fishermen had arrived. Pretty soon the whole beach would come alive with men from the town, preparing for the day’s work. Faisal and the others had deliberately set themselves up at the southern end of the beach, some distance away from the other boats, so as not to draw attention to themselves. But in the event that any nosey parkers had questions to ask, then zero tolerance would be the policy of the day.
The sight of the bike focused his mind. He was in no doubt about the path he had chosen. Indeed, he felt that his life finally made sense now that he better understood his role in it. He had been bestowed with a great honour and as long as he performed as he knew he was capable, then he would get his reward. He felt a flush of pride in his heart, and for the first time in a long time, a longing for his parents. He wished that his father could see how what he was doing would bring honour to their family. Maybe even what he was going to achieve here in Midi would enable his family to return to Iran one day as celebrated patriots. He imagined the joy that his father would feel, walking again through the streets of Tehran. How proud he would be of his son; the soldier, the fighter, the hero.
When the last pieces of kit had been loaded on to the boat and he had satisfied himself that they were ready to launch, Faisal whistled to the hut where they had spent the night preparing. With a tilt of his head, he signalled to the men inside that everything was ready for the launch. There was only one more detail he had to attend to.
The door to the hut opened and the largest of his comrades emerged, pushing the hapless, blindfolded EH Drake down the beach. Eli’s hands were tied behind his back and he stumbled as he tried to find his footing. Faisal realised that the priest was mumbling to himself and he recognised the words as familiar. Of course, it was the Christian Lord’s Prayer. He had heard it recited every morning in his British school. His teacher had insisted that, even though Faisal was not of their faith, he learn it along with the rest of his class. How fitting that the priest should be choosing it now as his final words.
When Eli reached the water, Faisal tore off his blindfold, causing the Christian to recoil from the light. It was still only ten minutes since the dawn, but Eli had been blindfolded and kept in darkness for several days. When he could finally make out where he was, he seemed disorientated and unsure of himself.
‘Do you know how to drive a boat, Mr Drake?’ Faisal asked.
Eli shook his head, surprised to hear the question asked in English. By the sound of the accent, he’d say that the speaker came from somewhere in the Midlands.
‘I’m afraid not,’ he replied.
Faisal laughed and translated their exchange into Arabic for the other men, upon which they all laughed too.
‘Well, don’t worry. We’ve thought of everything, so you don’t miss out.’
Eli looked baffled, but before he could say another word, the strongman was pushing him again, this time into the water. He didn’t even try to resist, just did as he was told as he splashed into the shallows.
The two men yanked him up on board the boat and guided him on to the seat at the rear, near to the tiller. One man held him down, while the other strapped his legs to the seat with a length of rope. His legs were bound tightly so that he couldn’t move forwards or backwards, and his hands remained tied behind his back, so that all he could do was slump helplessly against the side of the boat.
When the men had finished, Faisal climbed on and assessed their work.
‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Just one thing missing.’
He took off his own turban and placed it down hard on Eli’s head.
‘Now,’ said Faisal with a smile, ‘that is perfect.’
The three men left Eli and returned to the hut for the final part of their plan—to collect the corpses of the two soldiers they had killed at the checkpoint the previous night. Faisal had seen an opportunity the second their bodies had hit the dirt. They lifted them inside the two remaining boats and tied them in place just as they had done with Eli.
Faisal was happy with the effect. A change of clothes, some careful manipulation and a well-placed turban meant that, at a casual glance, they looked like ordinary fishermen driving their boats. A manned vessel would be a lot less suspicious to a passing Saudi naval ship than an unmanned one. Now he had three registered Saudi fishing boats loaded with enough explosives to take out a tanker, each equipped with a driver.
By now the beach was bustling with activity. Many more fishermen had arrived on the shore and had begun preparing their equipment for the day. They performed their routines, carrying nets and lines from the huts, lugging them up on to their boats. One or two may have glanced quickly towards the other end of the beach where Faisal and the others were pushing their boats into the water, but they said nothing. Interfering got you nowhere good in Yemen. Better to keep your business to yourself.
If they had looked more closely, they would have seen that the four men pushing the boats into the water were not fishermen, they would have seen that not one of them boarded the boats themselves once they were beyond the breakwater. They might even have noticed that instead, the men retreated to their hut and closed the door, while the boats continued on without them, slowly making their way out to deeper water, before turning along the shore, past the old bombed-out harbour, to the open sea.
Thirty-Seven
The road from Midi to the port ran west for half a kilometre and then turned due north, parallel with the shoreline of the Red Sea for another kilometre, before it stopped abruptly at the old harbour. Mason checked his watch. 4.30 a.m. Early for most people in the UK but not for the people of Yemen. Thirty minutes back along the track, just after they’d left Hopkins and the fire support team, he’d heard the muezzin in Midi calling the Fajr. After morning prayers were over, the town’s men had appeared, driving their scooters along the road to the beach to collect their boats and head out to sea. Fishing was the lifeblood of most Yemeni towns along this stretch of coast, but the men of Midi were the fortunate ones who had been given access to the rich fishing waters to the north. The reward for cooperating with the Saudis was that they would have more fish to sell in the markets than their countrymen to the south.
Checking that there were no late stragglers coming from the south, Mason lifted himself up and ran fast across the track. He threw himself down again on the beach’s soft sand and seconds later felt the thud of Mad Jack, Redford and the others landing either side of him. Five men and one woman lifted their heads slowly to take a look at the beach below.
To his north, Mason could see the remains of the destroyed harbour, and then, running south along the beach, a line of seven single-storey mud-brick buildings. There were men milling around, some were dragging nets and equipment to a line of fishing boats pulled up on the water’s edge, others were already heaving their boats off the sand and into the breakwater. Mason could see a few boats in the distance, already on the sea, heading north. Taking care to keep his head low, he fetched his binoculars from his pocket and passed them to Redford.
‘Can you see him?’ he asked.
Redford took the field glasses and scanned along the beach. In total she estimated that she could see around thirty fishermen. The two buildings to the north, nearest to the harbour, seemed quiet except for a group of older men sat around smoking cigarettes. Next, she carefully scrutinised the huts to the south. Every one had men working around it except for the last hut on the beach, the hut right at the end, which seemed to be unoccupied. She shook her head and passed the glasses back to Mason. She couldn’t see Faisal Ahadi.
