The Devil's Handshake

Prologue

“What’s the crack, Stevie?” asked the Commander of Charlie Three Zero, who at first glance, looked more like a local Bedouin tribesman with his dark long matted hair and scraggy long beard rather than an officer of the British Army.

“The fucking RSM wants to call a staff meeting at the pickup point!” said the Liverpudlian Corporal shaking his head as he disconnected the call from the encrypted radio.

The man smiled at the statement, the RSM who apart from being the Special Air Services (SAS) Regimental Sergeant Major also doubled as the Commander of Alpha One Zero always had a dry sense of humor.

The young officer was just twenty-seven, well-built and possessing a set of deep brown eyes that could look into one’s soul, was in the second year of his secondment as a language expert to the SAS from the Royal Gurkhas Rifles asked what the RSM wanted to discuss. Figuring it was more than likely something to do with the new intelligence from the Yanks that they had received on their prime objective—the location and destruction of Scud missiles in the western corridor of Iraq.

“Boss, you don’t want to know,” answered the young Trooper, a title given to enlisted men of British Army elite fighting force that is comparable in status to the United States Navy ‘SEAL’ or ‘Operator’ in its DELTA force.

The young officer’s look told him otherwise.

“The fucking new furniture for the dining room in Hereford!” replied Stevie, rolling his eyes.

“Typical,” the old sage of the unit a Staff Sergeant called Richard “Taffy” Jones muttered in his rich Welsh accent before continuing, “I’m telling you!”

“Tommy,” he said to the young officer, using his first name as rank titles were never used in the Regiment when it’s members spoke to one another. “The RSM is fucking cracked!”

Thomas smiled at the Trooper. He took the request for what it was: a morale booster, something the Regiment certainly needed having just got the news they had lost four of their own men on a mission last week.

“I think you might find, Stevie,” Thomas replied. “That’s the RSM’s way of sticking two fingers up at Saddam,” he continued in an attempt to support a man who wasn’t present to defend himself as he looked at his Casio G-SHOCK watch on his wrist.

“FUCK THAT!” answered the Staff Sergeant who wasn’t the RSM’s greatest fan even at the best of times.

Ignoring the banter of his No. 2 for the moment, Thomas refocused his mind on the mission they had been given: The location and destruction of a very special Scud Al-Hussein missile launcher and its payload.

It wasn’t going to be easy. The terrain was rugged and flat and after being dropped in by a Chinook helicopter, it had taken them a day to make their Lay Up Point (LUP) as they were overloaded with the equipment they needed to destroy the rocket launcher. Nevertheless, Thomas tried to make his mind relax as he lay in a depression in the ground.

The American Intelligence officer who had operational command of this mission wanted a “hit and run” night raid that echoed the days of the North African campaign of World War II. This was in order to make it look as if a routine patrol had stumbled onto the launcher in spite of the mission being anything but that.

When Thomas had asked the man in front of RSM and the Colonel as to why they were sure that the square building with a massive antenna and satellite dishes surrounding it was housing the missile launcher and why didn’t they just call in an air strike and destroy it all, he was given an answer that had shocked him.

“Captain, we understand the Scud missiles are carrying Anthrax,” the man, whom Thomas had ascertained was of Pakistani origin despite his New York accent, had said.

“Is this a school?” the RSM had asked while pointing at the map to a small building by the side of the one that intelligence had assumed contained the hidden missile. Grimly, it had dawned on Thomas and those around the table why an air strike wasn’t possible. If an air strike hit its intended target, then the most likely collateral damage would be the deaths of the children the Iraqis were using as a human shield. The ensuing propaganda generated for Saddam would be: a) the Americans had destroyed a school and b) they had used chemical weapons—a spurious claim that, although it would be denied by the coalition, would gain useful political capital in striking a wedge between the fragile partnership of the Western and Arab nations. Worse still and the most likely result was something the Colonel had confirmed to all around the table in his stiff tone as “It would be impossible to keep Israel out of the conflict as they would argue that the missile could be the first of many that be directed in the direction of Tel Aviv.”

“How many of these blighters are in operation?” the Colonel had asked, referring to the missile launcher.

“Our intelligence informs us so far this is the only one,” the American-Pakistani had responded. Thomas had looked at him disbelievingly for a second but didn’t comment further. It wasn’t his job to question the intelligence.

“I understand,” Thomas had answered.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have any confirmed intelligence on the number of troops guarding the Scud,” the American had continued. “But intelligence points to them as almost certainly being members of the Brigade of Mukhabarat, an elite group from the Iraq Intelligence Services (IIS) that reports directly to Saddam,” the man had explained

“Don’t worry. I am sure we be able to handle them!” Thomas had answered proudly.

“Of that, I have no doubt Captain,” the American had replied. With Thomas’s mind finally starting to shut down for a couple of hours, he was about to find out if his bold statement was going to be true or not.

“David, I have briefed the SAS team who is going to be handling the operation,” The CIA Officer had said to his line officer, on the encrypted telephone link to Riyadh just two days before the team had gone in.

“Your assessment of them?” the Virginian had asked.

“The Captain is young and capable,” the officer had answered. “He speaks Arabic like a native and moreover looks like one,” he had added, with a hint of admiration. “Mackintosh calls him one of his best,” he had further added, referring to the colonel of the regiment.

“Good.”

“We can’t allow that missile to be missed,” the voice at the end of the phone had declared.

The CIA Officer, an American-Pakistani called Ali Mansoor, did not need his boss to tell him that. If that missile landed anywhere in Israel, then the President would not be able to keep the Coalition together. He knew the risks better than anybody.

This intelligence was as good as it got. It had come from a source deep inside the PLO who had visited the site with Yasser Arafat earlier in the year and just four months before Saddam had invaded Kuwait. As was usual in human intelligence, the information was treated with skepticism because up to that point it was believed that the Iraqis hadn’t mastered the fuse technology and trigger mechanism that would be needed to detonate a warhead. That had quickly changed though when the Scuds started their reign of terror.

“Come on Walid,” Ali had said to the asset in the small Tunis café over a cup of sweet coffee. “Why would Saddam show Yasser such an important place and risk operational security?” “Because he is desperate, Habib,” Walid had replied before going on to explain to Ali that the Iraqi leader needed Arafat to join him politically when he made his move against the Kuwaitis, who, as Iraq’s biggest creditor, had begun putting international pressure on Iraq to pay back the eighty billion dollars he had borrowed from Kuwait to act as a security buffer against Iran.

“Okay, I can just about buy that,” Ali had answered at the time. The President of Iraq was always one for grand gestures designed to show his military power even to the point of comparing himself as a modern day reincarnation of Nebuchadnezzar, a sixth century B.C. Babylonian king who had built his kingdom into the most powerful nation in the world by ruthlessly annexing the neighboring countries around his own.

“But an invasion!” he had said, not quite believing even Saddam would go that far. “Listen to these, then make up your mind,” the source had answered, handing over to Ali the set of tapes that Arafat had asked him to transcribe from the small personal tape recorder he had carried on him throughout his meetings and visits to the facilities with Saddam. That meant this intelligence alone was pure gold.

Yet it was only when Ali had returned to Langley from Tunis with the tape recordings and had heard the voices on the tapes that the asset had bravely copied, did both David and he change their minds; Leaving them in no doubt that it was just a question of when the invasion was going to happen, not if!

“Iraq has the chemical weapons it successfully used against the Iranians during the eight-year War, and I promise you, my dear, I won’t hesitate to use them against Tel Aviv,” Saddam’s voice had said on the tape. “This missile enables us to strike at Israel.”

“You mean military targets?” Arafat had asked. “No, my dear, we consider every city within Israel a target!”

“When will you use such a weapon, my friend?” the Leader of the PLO had fawningly replied.

“It will be kept in reserve so as to deter the Americans or the Israelis from using their chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons on the homeland and to prevent any invader from ever marching on Baghdad,” the President of Iraq had said proudly and with authority.

“Ali,” David had said, pausing the tape for a moment. “We need to confirm where and how many of these missiles Saddam has!” he had instructed.

“Walid indicated that this was the only one so far.”

“How is he so sure?” David had asked.

“According to Arafat?”

“Yes!” Answered Ali, “It seemed Saddam indicated to Yasser that he had been experiencing problems getting the necessary software microchip for the missile,” He then continued in an effort try to put his superior at ease before they completed the review of the rest of the transcripts from Yasser’s visit. “And You believe that?” David had doubtfully questioned at the time.

“It isn’t exactly the sort of chip you can buy off the back of the bus!” continued Ali, “However, we are aware that IIS agents have been in Japan trying to purchase chips via the Yazuka and have made visits to North Korea over the last three months, so for once evidence suggest that Saddam is telling Yasser the truth.”

Yet despite this, it was only when Saddam invaded Kuwait did the “powers that be” at the Agency finally begin to take the Middle East and Near East desk’s intelligence seriously.

The direct benefit of which for Ali had been a promotion and a career boost for David as it had caused the instant firing of his immediate superior he reported to because he had chosen not to pass the information up the line to the President’s National Security Council via the Director.

“Amazing,” Ali had said as the pair had continued to plough through the tapes.

“He’s likening the situation with Kuwait to fighting in the playground!” Ali had continued while shaking his head in disbelief at one of Saddam’s comments during one of his dinners with Arafat. Where he had claimed that if it wasn’t for him, Ayatollah Khomeini and Iran would have occupied the entire Arab world and as such, he expected the Arab world to support them during and after the war. Before launching into another venomous tirade with regard to Kuwait, whom he felt had been keeping the price of their oil at $7 U.S. dollars per barrel to stop Iraq from rebuilding its infrastructure.

“You know what those dogs said to Hammadi,” Saddam had said in disgust, referring to his Minister of Foreign Affairs. “We’ll make the economy in Iraq so bad, one would be able to sleep with an Iraqi woman for ten dinars.”

“They steal our oil using the practice of slant drilling!” Saddam ranted.

“Then laugh at us by saying they have only taken two and a half billion barrels!” He continued,

“And then tell OPEC that they will not abide by its decision!” he had ranted on, referring to Kuwait’s veto when the other members of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries had agreed to appease Iraq by fixing the price between sixteen and seventeen U.S. dollars per barrel.

“It was them, I tell you, Yasser, who convinced our brothers to call in their loans instead of what it was supposed to be ‘free aid’ in order not to upset the dogs at Iraq’s door” Saddam had said, spitting on the floor, or so it had sounded to both Ali and David.

“And why? Yasser,” Saddam’s voice had ranted on, “Do they do this? I will tell you why! Because it is a conspiracy! A conspiracy against Iraq, the Iraqi leadership, and our economy, all led by our mutual enemy via their conduit: the Great Satan - America! Zionist power and influence in the United States dictates its foreign policy. Any country viewed as a threat to Israel, such as Iraq, becomes a target of the conspiracy.”

“Look,” he had said making his gambit in effort to garner Arafat’s support by referring to Israel’s latest official statement saying any peace agreement with Arab countries must include Iraq. “They aren’t hoping for peace. Only other countries to abide by their wishes.”

“The Soviet Union is weak,” Saddam had rambled on. “Recent agreements between the two shows this,” he had said referring to America and the Soviet Union. “Therefore it is easier for the two powers to agree rather than attempt to get many to agree.”

“So what does this mean?” Saddam announced. “I will tell you what! We are left with economics led by certain Zionist entities within the United States, including the weapons manufacturers and elements in the military all of who favor war due to the financial profit which can be reaped.”

“With the Soviet Union falling apart,” he had continued now in full flow, “We represent a suitable new enemy to replace them. So we must defend by attacking! History dictates that Kuwait is part of Iraq. If Qasim wanted to make a Kuwait a district of Iraq in sixty-one,” he had said referring to the former President of Iraq, “Then this my friend, gives me the justification to act and make my people and brothers ready for the fight that one day would come to Iraq’s shores, and force those dogs of Al Sabahs to heel,” Saddam had said referring to the ruling family of Kuwait.

By the end of the tapes, both men had looked at one another. David made a comment that at the time had surprised Ali.

“Well, he’s right about one thing,” David had said, chuckling, something Ali found inappropriate but kept his own council.

“What’s that?” Ali had asked instead.

“America does need an enemy once the Soviet Union falls.”

“You think the Soviets are going to fall?”

David had laughed. “Ali, they can’t afford a bath plug, let alone a foreign policy. Unfortunately America does need an enemy to justify its Energy Security position.”

Ali mentally shook his head. David scared him sometimes. Everything to him was a game of chess. Assets were merely pieces on the board to be moved or sacrificed as when needed. Yet the fact remained because he was so politically connected and by definition going places, with his next posting most likely to be Moscow as a Station Chief at just thirty-five years of age, it made sense to remain close and stay friends with him so not make him an enemy within the Agency.

“Still for the moment we need to make sure that this gets passed up the line,” David had said, changing the subject. “The last thing we need is getting caught with our pants down, and we get the blame!” he had said with a smile.

“By that statement, you don’t think anybody is going to listen to us.”

David had continued to smile at him, but didn’t say anything. Instead, he had replied, “A great piece of work, Ali.”

Six hours later, having reached their primary target and unaware of the global politics and instead focused on the mission, Thomas and the team approached the buildings. Immediately they encountered a large long truck with a canopy around it. Using his night vision goggles he quickly spotted only two men guarding it, and everything was very, very quiet.

The young Captain was pleased. The mission was going without a hitch so far.

Giving the silent order to advance by way of fist pumps and points, the eight man assault team quickly went in, killing the two guards with their knives and then setting the explosives on the truck.

Suddenly, Thomas sensed movement to his right side, coming from the door opening in the building.

He didn’t have time to think. The instincts of one of his troopers reacted for him as the magazine was emptied into the person at the door.

The whole place erupted. The patrol was compromised.

Straight away, heavy machine gunfire rained down on the patrol as they attempted to make their escape.

Sensing they were in danger of being overwhelmed, Thomas gave the order to withdraw with a hand signal. As he did so, a tracer round whizzed past his ear, and the patrol moved back quickly to a place of cover. His heart pumped faster. Adrenaline pumped through his veins.

Being well trained, he didn’t need to give the order for the team to stop, turn, and return fire to stall the retreat. Three hundred yards out on cue, they did it automatically, immediately unleashing a barrage of covering fire in the direction of the Iraqi guards.

Screams erupted.

Yet still not one word had been said by the men of Thomas’s assault team only a group hand signals between one another to signal where to aim their fire.

Suddenly the Iraqi night sky lit up!

“Bigwig this is Hawkbit,” over the radio’s loudspeaker quickly caught the attention of Ali Mansoor, the Colonel and the RSM. He was using the codenames of characters from the famous story of Watership Down. Another of the RSM’s witty ideas!

“Objective successful,” confirmed the crackling voice.

“Woundwort destroyed,” came the confirmation. “Under heavy fire. Requesting immediately air support and EXFIL ASAP at original drop-in!” squawked Thomas’s voice, referring to the Standard Operation Procedure (SOP) of returning to your original drop in point to wait for a helicopter that once every twenty-four hours would return to pick up a comprised patrol.

The relieved looking Colonel immediately went to pick up the radio. The hand of the man belonging to a CIA Intelligence officer who had flown in the afternoon from Riyadh stopped him.

“Sorry, Colonel,” the Virginian said. “No, Air support or emergency Air Vac,” he ordered.

“WHAT!”

“This mission is off-book,” the Virginian calmly stated. “Emergency Air support requires logs and confirmation and gets journalists who hang around the base very interested as to why,” he said coolly and without emotion.

The fury in the face of the Colonel said it all. “Those are my bloody men out there! I am NOT leaving them to FUCKING DIE.”

The Senior CIA officer looked at him impassively, calmly pulled a letter out of his briefcase, and then offered it towards the Colonel.

The RSM snatched it from the Virginian’s hand, quickly handing it to his commanding officer. He promptly read it.

“RSM,” the Colonel said with sad eyes. “Pass me the radio.”

“Understood Bigwig,” answered Thomas despite his mind thinking anything but as he turned towards the team. “Looks like we on our own,” he said. Nobody said a word. They didn’t have to.

“It’s the back-up plan then,” said Taff Jones. Grimly, Thomas nodded.

“Well at least I don’t have to listen to the fucking RSM talking about tablecloths!” Taff offered in the way of humor.

Split into two teams of four and as had been pre-agreed in their pre-mission briefing if they couldn’t EXFIL. One team led by Taff Jones set off for Saudi Arabia, whilst the other led by Thomas headed for the Syrian border and their secondary pick up point that was about twenty-five miles away from the border, a distance that was at least hundred and twenty miles away from where they were now.

As freezing wind and driving sleet hit their faces, Thomas and his team watched Taff and rest of boys disappear into the night. He had no idea that it would be the last time he ever saw them again.

Forty miles into the trek, as they took a break in the first of the four LUP they had planned to take on water, Thomas and the men had their first contact since they destroyed the missile.

The hand signal of Mickey Ward, a thin and willowy Trooper from Essex, about eight hundred yards in front on point alerted them to the danger.

In the open and with limited cover all knew their options were few. Thomas focused in eyes in front of him. It was an Armored Personnel Carrier and an infantry truck that had spotted them.

He didn’t hesitate and neither did the rest of the three-man team, despite the Standard Operation Procedure (SOP) calling for a soldier to run away from Armor as fast as possible.

Mickey Ward fired the first shot, taking out the man on the top of the Armored Personnel Carrier with the 7.62mm machine gun.

Following the Trooper’s lead, Thomas let off a volley of anti-armor grenades, advancing quickly towards the enemy and Mickey’s position while Stevie provided cover fire with his FN Mimi 5.62mm machine gun in the direction of the truck.

The sounds of screaming Iraqis being hit by the rounds of ammunition rippled across the ground towards them as he closed the gap.

On reaching a position just to the left of Mickey in a matter of seconds, Thomas stopped and knelt on one knee continuing to let off more rounds towards the direction of the troops exiting from the armored personnel carrier. More screams erupted from the Iraqis.

As Thomas began to focus his gaze towards the threat of the truck, his peripheral vision took in the sight of Mickey being hit.

Traveling at speeds exceeding 3,200 feet per second and despite a soldier’s training, he may or may not see a bullet coming. In the end that is pretty much irrelevant, as you’re certainly not going to have time to respond to it.

That was why Ward didn’t duck, yell, or indicate to Thomas he had been hit.

Instead, Thomas relied on the blood spatter with Mickey’s hair, skin, and muscle hitting his face, followed by the acrid smell of powder burning flesh assailing his nostrils to tell him that the Trooper had been hit.

The Iraqi who released the round into Mickey also didn’t have time to respond. The 5.62mm rounds of his and Stevie Wiltshire’s machine guns tore him to pieces.

Seconds after that, Thomas gave the order to cease-fire with a hand pump signal from Thomas.

The early morning wind brought the sound of whimpering soldiers to be added to the smell of burning flesh that filled the air around him.

“Take his tag,” he ordered Stevie without emotion, referring to the bracelet with his name, rank, and serial number on it. The time for mourning would be at the Trooper’s memorial service at Hereford if they made it. Without saying a word, the Trooper did just that.

Stevie and the other remaining Trooper, who also doubled as the team’s Medic, Tony Patterson, calmly made sure there were no survivors in the burning truck and Armored Personnel Carrier. Taking out his binoculars, Thomas focused his gaze on the horizon, ignoring the screams in Arabic of the wounded Iraqis as he did so.

He knew what his men were doing was a war crime. Article 12 of the Geneva Convention states “Wounded and sick soldiers who are out of the battle should be humanely treated, and in particular should not be killed, injured, tortured, or subjected to biological experimentation.” Thomas didn’t care. Those Iraqis made their choice, and in any case they couldn’t very well take prisoners with them.

Instead, the young Captain chose to focus his mind on the billowing black smoke being emitted from the destroyed equipment. He knew the “contact” (the term used to describe a military engagement) would be most likely seen for miles. The direct consequence therefore would be most likely more troops on top of them within a matter of minutes rather than hours. This meant they would have to move out quickly to at least have half a chance of escaping, something they couldn’t do with 200-pound Bergen rucksacks they were carrying on their backs. This meant Thomas and the lads would have to ditch their warm weather clothing, food, and heavy weapons and just keep the water and ammunition for their remaining weapons. In his case, the M72 and an AK-47, a Russian weapon, but one Thomas had chosen as his own personal weapon of choice because it was the weapon most used by the Iraqi army as it didn’t require a lot of tender loving care and rarely jammed. In addition, since he had spent most his time since August pretending to be a tribesman since the invasion and as there were hundred million AK-47s worldwide, he reasoned that if he was ever in a contact he should be able to use ammunition of the dead or buy some from any Bedouin as needed.

At the time, the boys of the regiment had made jokes at his expense nicknaming him “Lawrence.” He doubted they would be now if they were here.

Knowing that they couldn’t engage with another bout of armored weaponry, Thomas took the decision to ditch his M72 anti-tank weapon. Weight was king in a fight for survival.

The wall of sand rolling in from the direction of Saudi Arabian border in the south brought him a sense of relief.

“What’s the plan?” asked Stevie handing him a collection of magazines full of ammo so as to save Thomas the time of picking the bodies of the dead Iraqis for resupplies.

Thomas nodded towards the wall of sand. “That might just be our friend, lads,” he said.

Stevie and Tony looked at each other and then nodded at the suggestion, fully understanding what Thomas meant.

“We will need to ditch our kits though,” offered Thomas. With temperatures of minus ten degrees Centigrade at night, it was, although nobody mentioned it, a prospect that terrified them more than another contact with the Iraqis.

“And we will need to make another fifty miles over the next twenty-four hours, lads, in order to make the back-up drop in,” he added, driving his knife home even more.

“But it’s your choice,” stated Thomas, referring to the one rule of the SAS being that, in the field, all Troopers were entitled to have their say regardless of rank.

Both men looked at the body of Mickey. Neither said anything for a moment.

“Drop the kit,” was Tony’s response.

“I thought fucking selection was hard,” answered Stevie before walking off in the direction of Mickey to say a silent pray for his fallen comrade and say his goodbyes. Thirty minutes later, the sand arrived and engulfed them. The three remaining members of Charlie One Zero set off in the direction of Syria.

During the next day, using the storm initially as a cover, they completed the fifty-mile target they had set for themselves, due partly to the steady pace set by Stevie and because they only took two stops for water. Yet it didn’t take a genius for the three men to realize that with only a couple of bottles of water on each of them, they were burning too much body fat in the cold by maintaining this pace.

Their training told them that losing five percent of body fat in a short amount of time and not replacing it causes the body to seize up as a consequence; the three of them knew the next five hours would be crucial.

As it was Thomas’s turn to set the pace he took the lead. Half way to the second LUP, he stopped and turned, only to find nobody was with him. That in it’s self wasn’t unusual; groups on a romp often separated.

Despite knowing he was exhausted, he focused on his training. Again following the SOP of the Regiment, Thomas pulled out his personal tactical beacon (or TACBE) as the device is known) so he could alert any planes or helicopters that might be overhead or nearby to his position. Designed primarily as a distress signal, it could also be used as a short-range communications device to nearby aircraft by indicating that someone is in danger and needs help. Five minutes later, having not received any response, he turned off the beacon and waited for his team to turn up. Half an hour later, he was fighting off the urge to sleep, knowing if he did he would most likely die from hypothermia, when they still hadn’t turned up after an hour it started to dawn on Thomas that he was on his own. A Trooper’s training tells to focus on the goal. Use your willpower to drive you on. That, unfortunately, though doesn’t stop you from second guessing yourself.

Thomas’s tired and troubled mind tried to focus. He checked his water can. His lips were cracked and sore. He could feel all the joints in his body and fingers becoming numb. That was a bad sign.

“Half a can,” he muttered as he fought the urge to sip it all, and questioned whether he should try to find his missing colleagues.

Suddenly the face of his dead mother appeared in front of him. He knew his mind was beginning to play tricks. He shook his head in an attempt to break free. He felt his muscles began to cramp up. He knew what that meant. His body was shutting down to reabsorb fluid from his blood and his other body tissues. He was about to go into shock. That meant he had to rehydrate. Yet before he could, the delirium arrived.

“Move darling,” she said.

“I need to wait Mummy,” he said to her out loud as though he was eight and heading off to boarding school.

Then the face of his hated father appeared in front of him.

“Fuck off!” he said as the wind continued to whistle around him. He shook his head to break free. He tried to focus on the waterproof map that he had pulled from the inside of his combat jacket, forgetting in the process about the urgent need to take on more water to stop the delirium playing havoc with his mind.

Then it was the turn of the mythical face of the legend Homer that he had used in his Thesis at Oxford to appear before him.

“Thomas, you must live,” the Greek ordered.

“Do not shrink from it. Have inner strength. Your Kelos will be won later through your great deeds,” the voice whistled, referring to the Greek word meaning “What others hear about you” through accomplishing great deeds, often through death.

“It is not Hades’ time to welcome you yet!” the voice instructed, referring to the Greek god of the underworld. “For the Gods have other plans for you. Your Odyssey is only beginning,”

Thomas’s entire world went black.

The word “Bedouin” is derived from a plural form of the Arabic word Badawi, and literally translates as “nomad” or “wanderer.”

Amongst the Bedouin, there are as many as one hundred and fifty tribes in Iraq. One such Clan is The Dulaym. Today many prominent Iraqis carry the last name “Dulaym,” because it signaled to the other Clans of the country and the area that they belong to the tribal confederation. Since 1968, the Clan had been allied with Saddam Hussein. They supported him throughout his war with Iran with manpower and ruthlessly opposed anyone that had tried to dispose of him. As a consequence, members of their clan held important positions within government, mostly in and around the western province of al-Anbar. Yet that link was severed forever when Saddam, by way of the arrest and removal of individuals that held close ties to Saudi Arabia via family connections, chose to break that bond.

One such man was Hassan Karim Dulaym, a senior chieftain in Albuminr. Charismatic and popular, the former Special Forces commander who had made his reputation during 1984 when he had led a helicopter assault on Iranian troops that were atop a mountain in Kurdistan.

It was because of this popularity Saddam, fearing him to be a rival for the Presidency had tried to have him arrested as soon as Iraq invaded Kuwait. In response, Hassan along with his sons somewhat foolhardily, instead of escaping and leading an opposition, had tried to orchestrate a failed coup attempt against Saddam utilizing former members of his unit that the dictator had disbanded.

“Drink! My dear,” came the voice filtering through the blackness.

Immediately Thomas’s mind switched back on. His eyes tried to open.

The first thing that struck Thomas was his body was covered in wet clothes. He knew instantly this meant he had been captured and the captors were now talking to him as they tried to return moisture back to his body.

“Drink!” came the voice again.

This time Thomas opened his eyes as the firm hand lifted his head and forced the liquid onto his dried lips. His eyes focused. The face of a man of about sixty with a salt and pepper beard with dark eyes and Bedouin smock was staring back at him. Thomas’s eyes moved to left and right quickly. He tried to move his body but because he was still weak, he couldn’t. A searing headache attacked his brain. Then as he swallowed the water, he felt the urge to vomit.

“Slowly,” the man ordered this time.

Thomas’s mind, if not body, was fully alert and answered in Arabic, “Thank you.”

“You are welcome my dear,” came a voice in fluent English.

“I do not understand?” replied Thomas in Arabic, in an attempt to convince his captor that he was local tribesman.

The face smiled.

“You are a British Solider. Although I must say your Arabic is most excellent, my dear. Now rest,” the man ordered. Being still too weak to fight, Thomas obeyed.

Two hours later, Thomas awoke again. His head was still throbbing. But he was alert.

This time it was the face of a boy of about fourteen with the same eyes of the man who greeted him earlier.

Wearily, Thomas lifted his body. He took in his surroundings. It appeared as though he was in a tent.

“Baba,” cried the boy. Immediately the entrance to the tent opened.

“Good afternoon, my dear,” said the man using the Arabic term of endearment. Thomas eyed him with suspicion. His instincts told him he wasn’t a solider but more likely a tribesman of the area allied to Hussein.

“I am Brigadier-General Hassan Karim Dulaym,” he said offering his hand in friendship. “And like you, I am no friend of Hussein,” he said with narrowed eyes.

“Kismet is a funny thing my dear,” said Hassan to Thomas, referring to the term that means that events are as ordered or “inevitable” and unavoidable as the three of them made their way to the border and the emergency pick up point.

“Just a year ago I would have handed you over to Saddam without a second thought,” he said before explaining why he too was on the run from the IIS and how he had lost his two oldest sons a Major and a Captain, in an attempt to overthrow Saddam just two months previously. After being betrayed by one of his own men he was now trying to save the life of his youngest son, the same boy who that had stumbled across the near lifeless body of Thomas.

“But today our journey finds us on the same path,” he said. “So who am I to refuse the Qadar!” he said, referring to the decree of Allah.

“Hassan,” replied Thomas, making the effort to bond with the man. “Classical and European mythology features Kismet as three goddesses dispensing a fate, known as Moirai in Greek mythology,” he said in Arabic. “They determine the events of the world through the mystic spinning of threads that represent individual human fates.” He continued as the two men watched Saleem walk in front of them so he could act as their spotter.

The man looked at Thomas for a second.

“So that was the language you were speaking in your torment,” he said as he smiled.

In the three days since the General and his son had found him close to death through a mixture of hypothermia and, and while he recovered well enough to make the journey, both men had learnt a lot about each other.

Hassan had even ventured to suggest that he would be a suitable alternative to Saddam and that the United States should support him in his Jihad, despite Thomas trying to tell the General that he doubted the Americans would take him seriously. He had insisted that at he had at least tried.

“Consider it the price of my Dakhala,” said Hassan referring to the law of protection that the tribes of Iraq practiced. That translated meant “Once a person passes the pegs that hold the tent ropes taut, then that person is entitled to the protection of the owner of the tent.”

During this time Thomas had also come to terms with the knowledge that Stevie and Tony had to be dead, a conclusion he reached when the General had told him he had heard on his shortwave radio he was carrying that a patrol had come across the dead bodies of two soldiers, not more than twenty-five miles from where he had been found. Although he had been saddened by the news at the time, he didn’t dwell on it the time for mourning would come later once he made it back to Hereford.

Instead, he focused his thoughts on the CIA man the colonel had told him over the radio that had refused his request to lift him and his team out. Whatever happened, swore Thomas silently, the day would come when he would find and pay that man back in full. “His honor code demanded it!”

Suddenly the movement of Saleem into a crouching position quickly had both men alert and focused on what lay ahead of them instead of their discussion.

At a trot both made their way to the boy. Once reaching him they joined him in kneeling down in the thick grassland so to hide their position. Then they removed their binoculars.

“Looks like we have squatters on our family well,” replied the General in Arabic as both men focused on what looked a troop detail guarding the water well. The last place they planned to stop before the last twenty-five miles to the extraction point.

“They know this is one of my family’s wells,” said the General in disgust. “So I fear, my dear, they are looking for me and not you,” he continued.

“Maybe we can use that to our advantage?” offered Thomas, referring to the fact that he didn’t think Hassan would have a highly trained soldier with him.

The General looked at him for a moment. “What is your idea?”

“There are five of them.”

“What do you suggest?” he asked.

As the first rays of morning light illuminated, Hassan and Thomas moved covertly towards the two sleeping men guarding the tent that contained three remaining guards, while Saleem remained under cover in the thick brush.

In readiness, both men pulled their knives from their belts. In Thomas’s case, his weapon of choice was the fearsome gift he had once received from the men of his platoon known by the Gurkhas as a Khurki.

When the General had asked him why he carried such an unusual weapon earlier, Thomas had responded with the Ghurkha’s motto, “Better to die than live a coward,” and the circumstances behind the gift.

The General with acknowledgement of respect had replied, “I have heard of these fearsome warriors. This explains why the desert didn’t take you.” He had handed it back to him with a smile.

Creeping towards the two sleeping guards, Thomas could smell the breath of his sleeping target, he was that close.

The plan of using their knives to kill the two guards was a last resort and not without risk. Without the luxury of silencers on their weapons, they had to be sure at the very least that they could kill the two guards before the others realized. If they used their weapons then there was a good chance the remaining three would be able to escape and out gun them. Thomas was still weak. So physically he was in no shape for long drawn out gunfight. Unfortunately before Thomas could kill the guard, disaster struck. The guard that Hassan was about to kill stirred, mayhem arrived in full force.

“Ali!” The guard shouted just as Hassan was in the process of trying to slice his vocal cords from behind.

Knife combat is one of the most terrifying and primal ways to kill. The rules are simple. Expect to get cut, time is of the essence, and finally, the most important imperative, “Survival is everything.” Don’t hesitate. Lose control of those three rules and you are dead.

Although Thomas had been trained for it, nothing prepares you for the look of a man’s eyes in that situation. Resting his weight on the balls of his feet, Thomas slightly bent his front knee and made sure his elbows were in at the sides, his left hand was up for protection and leading, so to support his cutting hand by controlling the enemy’s weapon. In this case, the young Iraqi’s AK-47.

The young guard suddenly awake and alert to the screams of his fellow guards panicked as he tried to gather his bearings. He tried to pull the trigger to kill Thomas but hadn’t realized he still had his safety on. As he scrambled to find the catch on the weapon, the last thing he saw was Thomas’s Khurki taking his head off all in one movement.

Turning towards Hassan, Thomas dropped the Khurki, then pulled and removed the pin on the M67 grenade containing 6.5 ounces of composition B explosive from his jacket and lobbed the device into the tent just as one of the men attempted to exit it quickly to help the two soldiers outside. Designed to explode just four seconds after release and kill anything within five meters, Thomas threw the device underarm into the tent knowing that the explosive force of the weapon could disburse steel fragments fifteen yards from the center of the explosion.

Aware that Hassan and he were inside that radius, Thomas shouted, “Grenade!” Just as he ducked for cover, a loud and savage bang followed a wall of heat and wind ripped through the air. Hassan and the guard he was fighting with were both thrown into the air while the two remaining guards in the tent and the one who had been trying to exit it were torn to pieces by the blast and wall of flames.

“Hassan!” cried Thomas fearing the worst as he got up and made his way to his new friend who was now lying on the ground on the top of the soldier he had killed just as the blast erupted.

Reaching him within seconds, Thomas ignored the screams of the wounded Iraqi soldier who had exited the tent.

“Hassan,” Thomas whispered knowing that instantly his friend was wounded badly.

“Baba!” came the repeated cry of Saleem running from the high brush outside the camp.

The General looked up at Thomas as he checked him over.

“Fuck!” Thomas said. A piece of fragment was lodged deeply into his gut, and blood was pouring out at an alarming rate. Thomas knew instantly there was no way he could make the twenty-five miles to the extraction point.

“I know it’s bad, Thomas,” whispered the old solider, seeing the guilt on Thomas’s face.

He murmured weakly, “It was the only way, my dear.”

“Do not blame yourself,” he ordered taking Thomas’s arm. “It is my Qadar,” he smiled in an attempt to soothe. “Take Saleem and deliver him to his mother in Syria,” he ordered Thomas just as Saleem arrived at their sides.

“No, Baba,” replied Saleem with tears in his eyes. “I want to stay with you,” cried the son as he cradled his father’s head in his arms.

“Your mother and sisters need you,” said Hassan weakly. “You’re the head of our family now,” he said with fatalistic understanding of his future.

Thomas looked at Saleem then Hassan.

“From this day forward, I promise you that your family is my responsibility,” Thomas said.

When Thomas arrived and stepped on to the back of the Chinook just ten days after the still secret mission, he looked like a modern version of T. E. Lawrence with the smock of an Arabian Sheikh of from the nineteenth century around his head and full beard and child at his side.

Legend goes within Hereford that Thomas had replied somewhat flippantly to the RSM who had picked him up had asked how he had managed to walk out of the desert accompanied by a boy of no more than fourteen at his side and to survive, had killed over a hundred Iraqis along the way.

“Train Hard, Fight easy.” Yet that wasn’t what that the old timers of regiment still to this day talk about long after the young officer had Returned to Unit (RTU) and left the Army. Nor did they talk about the Military Cross he had been awarded when they described his escape to new recruits after their selection. That honor instead always belonged to the look Thomas had on his face when he walked into the Forward Operating Base (FOB) in Saudi, asking to see the Colonel.

“So what was it like?” Troopers would often ask.

“He had the eyes of the fucking devil,” came the reply of the NCOs with just a hint of admiration.