Sword of Allah

Australian Defence Force HQ, Russell Offices, Canberra, Australia

The transmission was cut, freezing the frame on Warrant Officer Wilkes for an instant, leaving Niven, Griffin, Greenway, Mortimer and Hardcastle to consider the operation they’d just approved on the fly. If it went wrong, Wilkes and Monroe were dead men walking. And all their careers would be finished. ‘If you go with this plan you could be sending these people to their deaths,’ said Mortimer, stating the obvious. He got up off the couch in Niven’s office and poured himself a glass of water. ‘And what about the legal implications?’

The Australian defence force commander nodded slowly. There was no time and therefore few other options. Revise that, he said to himself — there were no other options.

Griffin had already considered the legals. ‘There’s no way we’d be able to get any cooperation from Myanmar or Thailand within the time frame.’

‘So you’re saying we have to go, and worry about the consequences afterwards?’ asked Greenway.

‘Minister, I’m just saying that if we are going to go through with this, we’ll have to toss all niceties out the window.’

‘What about the plan itself, Spike? Do you think it has a snowball’s chance in hell of coming off?’ Greenway asked.

‘It’s risky and the timing is critical but, yes, Hugh, I think it has a good chance. And at the moment, it’s not like we’re besieged with alternatives,’ said Niven. The strategy had largely come from Hardcastle with some interesting refinements from Wilkes. ‘Colonel?’

‘Wilkes’s choice of ordnance is a touch of class, but the problem, as with any mission planned in five minutes with people who don’t have the appropriate training, is that the risk of failure compounds. Bottom line? Despite a crucial part of the plan coming from Wilkes, his lack of experience in this kind of warfare again makes him the weak link.’ The colonel massaged his chin. After a moment he added, ‘But with a lot of luck and good timing?’ A shrug finished his view on the matter.

‘Is anyone else available?’ asked Niven.

‘No, sir.’

‘Well it’s academic then, isn’t it, because the alternative is turning our backs on the one solid lead to Duat.’

‘Then we’d better get onto the Americans PDQ,’ said Hardcastle. ‘Last time I checked we didn’t have any AGM-154Ds in our inventory.’

Greenway turned to Mortimer. ‘What are your thoughts on that, Felix? The Americans? What do you think their response will be?’

‘I think they’ll play ball, Minister. We all heard the president’s recent state of the union address. It fits with the bit about the front line of freedom being wherever evildoers ply their trade and all that. General Trip is one mother of an evildoer and, as you say, he’s our only potential lead to the whereabouts of the WMD.’

Greenway nodded.

‘And we know we have the support of the CIA,’ added Griffin.

‘That leaves Tadzic,’ said Mortimer. ‘What about her?’ The AFP federal agent had submitted a separate report on the Myanmar drug lord on issues unconnected with Duat. Or maybe they were related at a level they hadn’t even considered. Mortimer didn’t believe in coincidences, only connections. One just had to root them out.

‘We could consider letting her go in on the second phase,’ said Griffin. ‘But we’d be putting her in harm’s way.’

‘Tadzic’s a big girl, Graeme,’ said the air marshal. ‘She’s on the team because we value her experience.’

‘With respect, sir, before you make a final decision, I think you should put it to Wilkes first,’ Hardcastle said.

‘Yep,’ said the CDF. That went without saying.

Griffin wasn’t so sure that letting Tadzic accompany Wilkes and Monroe was the right decision, and he had an uncomfortable churn in the pit of his stomach. General Trip was a study in infamy, wanted all over the world, a drug lord and a murderer, responsible for countless deaths and a universe of misery. There was nothing sexist about his reluctance to let her go. Why put people at risk unnecessarily?

‘Anyone turned up anything on those numbers Kadar Al-Jahani kept babbling about?’ asked Mortimer.

‘No,’ said Niven. ‘We’re banking on them not being significant.’

Perhaps that wasn’t so smart, thought Mortimer. They had to mean something. He’d read the interrogation transcripts and they featured often enough throughout. He knew the series off by heart now: 1511472723. Everyone had hoped the numbers were some kind of code for the whereabouts of the Babu Islam encampment, but Mortimer considered that unlikely. And indeed it proved to be a dead end. The sequence remained a mystery. He’d even pulled out his Scrabble set one evening and played with the letters till dawn to see what he could come up with. But, of course, it was a ridiculous idea: were the first two digits one and five or fifteen? If the numbers represented scores for letters then the one could be an a, e, i, l, n, o, r, s, t or u. It couldn’t be fifteen unless the value was five and the letter — which would have to be a k — was sitting on a triple word score. And what language would Kadar Al-Jahani use? Arabic or English? He apparently spoke French and a smattering of Bahasa too. The sequence mightn’t even be a word but something infinitely more obscure — like a part number or something. The Scrabble thing was a pointless exercise. A whole bunch of nothing there, as he knew it would be before he started. Yet on some level, he believed he was getting close. Even just raising it again with Niven brought the answer nearer in a way he couldn’t put his finger on. And then there was the Sword of Allah guy, the general Khalid bin Al-Waleed mentioned through Kadar’s interrogation transcripts. He’d done a little research and knew a lot about the general’s deeds now, and again he felt this was significant but in a way his conscious mind couldn’t identify. And was the significance of the general connected to the number sequence or to something else?

Yes, the sequence had troubled everyone, but it had led nowhere — at least, nowhere that meant anything to anyone. And yet, Mortimer believed it was the key to this madness.

‘What do you think, Hugh?’ asked Niven. The Minister for Defence, Hugh Greenway, was a farmer with no military experience; despite that, the CDFs’ confidence in the man’s judgment was growing by the day. And, of course, the prime minister relied heavily on his views when it came to military matters.

‘I think it’s time I briefed the PM,’ Greenway said, standing. ‘My recommendation? We go. He may need to speak to the governor-general.’