Zero Option

THREE

Even though I was dog-tired I couldn't sleep. I'd got over my fear of an immediate attack, but there was no way I could stop thinking about Tim and Tracy. After a while I went to lie on Tim's bed, imagining the look of his head on the pillow when we came in to check him last thing at night, the way his flaxen hair lay softly on the back of his neck. Even at four and a bit he was still wedded to Billy, his teddy bear, and usually dropped offsucking one of the damn thing's ears. Now Billy sat forlornly on the window-sill, and I knew that Tim, wherever he was, would be all the more miserable because he hadn't got the little bugger with him. What heartless bastards the PIRA were, to lift a kid as young as that.

In time I began to feel cold, and forced myself to accept that lying in his room wouldn't bring him back.

So I returned to my own bed and tried to shut my mind down. I heard the clock in the hall strike three, then four — but that was all. I must eventually have nodded off, and the next time I came to it was seven o'clock.

Since I was officially on leave I had no need to hurry into camp. So instead I called the incident room to make sure there had been no developments, then made myself breakfast and spent an hour going through Tracy's things. As usual, her desk was in perfect order: there were a couple of unpaid bills, but otherwise she had everything beautifully squared away. A school

34 exercise book contained a record of her expenses, in her neat writing, and she'd collected the drawings Tim had done at school into a folder. Most of them seemed to have violent subjects — tanks exploding, planes being shot down — and it wouldn't have taken a psychologist long to work out where all that came from. But the tidy way in which Tracy operated nearly choked me, because it made me realise how much she'd done for me.

At the time of Kath's death she'd been working as receptionist in the Camp Medical Centre. A week or two before I got posted to Northern Ireland she and her friend Susan had been thrown out of their lodgings in Hereford, so I had suggested they should occupy Keeper's Cottage while I was abroad. Events then speeded up in a direction I hadn't anticipated: Tracy and I fell i-or each other, and she had moved into the cottage for good, taking over Tim as though he were her own son. In a few months she had grown up with incredible speed and developed from a lively, knock about girl into a responsible foster mother. She'd kept on her job for a while, but then, when I went to Colombia, she'd given it up.

Driving away from the cottage wrenched me back to the present. In camp again, I was heading for the Kremlin when I spotted Jimmy Wells, the int officer, coming towards me on a converging path. A scrawny fellow with a narrow face and lank, dark hair brushed sideways over the top of his head, he usually went about with a hunted look, as though he were permanently worried; but his harassed appearance belied him, because he was at heart a cheerful character, always inclined to make the best of things.

'Hi, Geordie,' he called. 'No news yet?'

'Nothing so far.'

'Got time for a natter?'

'Well… sure.'

At the top of the stairs I followed him into his office and sat down in front of his desk. As I quickly found out, he was bang up to speed on the kidnap situation, and I realised that he'd invited me in purely to give some friendly support. He was like that; not being a badged officer — not a member of the SAS, but on attachment to us from Intelligence Corps — he had no hang-ups about regimental priorities or feuds and could afford to be himself with everyone, high or low.

'By the way,' he said in a conspiratorial voice after a pause in the conversation, as though letting fall some tit-bit of local scandal, 'Farrell's on his way back to the UK.'

'What?' I was taken aback. 'Already?'

'Well, more or less — I'm jumping the gun a bit. But the Colombian authorities have agreed to extradite him.' He picked up a sheet of fax paper and scanned it briefly. 'It seems they don't want anything to do with him. Don't blame 'em. He'll be flown out by military transport later today. Apparently he's suffering from gun-shot wounds in the right arm and flank. Flesh only nothing serious. Who shot him? I wonder…'

'No idea.'

I saw Jim smiling. He knew what had happened, of course, because he'd covered the Colombian operation from this end.

'If only I'd aimed a bit bloody straighter,' I said. 'But it was still only half light, and the bastard was running like the clappers.'

I stopped, suddenly remembering something I'd read about a British weight lifter at the opening of the Berlin Olympics in 1936. 'I read once about this bloke who found himself standing right next to Hider in some parade,' I told Jim. 'He realised he could have topped the bugger there and then. And afterwards he said, “What a hell of a lot of time and trouble I would have saved.” I feel like that about Farrell. I could have saved the country millions. What'll they do with him here?'

'Put him in the nick on remand while they sort out a case against him, I imagine.'

'There's any amount of things they can get him for: drugs, kidnapping the rupert, murder…'

We'd been chatting for several more minutes when my eye strayed to a photograph in the in-tray: a blown- up black-and-white mug-shot of a man with a moustache wearing a dark beret. Although the picture was upside-down I felt the hair on my neck crawling, because I was certain I recognised the subject.

It wasn't long before Jim noticed my attention was distracted. 'What's the matter?' he asked, following the direction of my eyes. Then he shot out a hand to cover the 10hoto and said, 'Ah. That's strictly need-to- know…'

'I know it's none of my business,' I said, 'but could I have a proper shufti?'

'You're not supposed to. Why?'

'I think I know the guy.'

'You can't possibly…'

'Let's have a look anyway.'

'Well… I'm not showing it you. You haven't seen it.' Watching me curiously, Jim picked up the photo and flicked it across the desk. The moment I saw it straight, all doubt vanished.

'It's him.'

'Who?'

'Shitface. I don't know his name. But this is the bastard that gave us a hard time in Baghdad. An Iraqi, isn't he?'

'That's right.' Now Jim was looking at me in a yet more peculiar way, as if he was seeing a ghost. 'Geordie, are you certain?'

'Absolutely. He came to the gaol three or four times to interrogate us. There was always a big palaver when he arrived — the guards shouting and saluting as though he was some high-ranking officer. It was this fucker who used to hit the plaster cast on my broken arm with his swagger-stick. That was bloody agonising. But it wasn't the pain that got to me, so much as his attitude.

He started saying that if I didn't give him the information he wanted, he'd open up the plaster, infect my wounds with bugs, and plaster it over again, so that I'd get gangrene and lose my arm. Sadistic bugger! I'll not forget him in a hurry. Luckily for me, the war ended before he could carry out his threat.'

'He sounds a sweetie,' said Jim.

'He is.' I shuddered as I remembered the screams that came from other parts of the gaol. 'He likes to see prisoners jump. To be more specific, he likes to see them convulsed. He's a specialist at administering electric shocks, and favours giving them through wet sponges, so that the prisoner gets high charge but isn't left with tell-tale burns. We called him Shitface because he was always frowning, like here. What's his real name?'

'I can't tell you that.'

'So what's his picture doing on your desk?'

'Classified, I'm afraid. But look: this identification's very important. Can you be absolutely sure you know the man?'

'One hundred per cent.' I saw doubt in the in the officer's face. 'You don't believe me?'

'Well, a lot may depend on it.'

'I tell you what. There's another guy here in camp who was in that gaol with me: Tony Lopez, the American. He'll remember the sod as well as I do.'

Suddenly Jim was all lit up. 'Where is he now?'

'He's on leave, after Colombia. But he'll be around the Lines somewhere. I saw him last evening. If you like I'll go find him…'

'No. I'll ring round and see where he is.'

A flurry of telephone calls ran Tony to earth in the gym, and he said he'd come right up. As we waited, I saw that Jim was in a state of excitement. I realised why he hadn't let me go looking for the Yank myself.“ he wanted to confront him with the photograph before I'd had time to give any briefing.

In came Tony, looking big and brawny in his ash- grey tracksuit, sweat still trickling down his temples.

'Apologies for showing up like this,' he began. 'I was half-way through my weights, but this sounded urgent.'

'No sweat,' said the int officer — and then, grinning at the unfortunate pun, Td just like you to answer a simple question.' He flipped over the mug-shot, which he had turned face-down. 'Do you recognize this man?'

'Goddamn it!' Tony cried. 'It's Shitface, the son of a bitch who gave us third degree in Iraq.'

'There you are!' I said. 'What did I tell you?'

'Yeah!' Tony went on, his voice loud with indignation, jabbing a forefinger at the portrait. 'We used to think he looked like Saddam Hussein, with the moustache and the beret. But then, all Iraqi officers do.

This one always seemed to be scowling. A big guy, shambling, a bit like a bear. Boy, what wouldn't I do to get my hands on that bastard!'

Jim nodded. 'OK,' he conceded. 'That does it. Now you'd better forget I asked you.'

'Wait a minute,' said Tony. 'What's he got to do with us now?'

'Nothing.' Jim stared straight at me. 'As I say, forget it. And don't mention it outside this office. You never saw the picture, and I never asked you anything.'

Of course we couldn't forget it. Tony and I obeyed orders and didn't mention the matter to anyone else, but we talked to each other about it at lunch that day, then again in the evening. Obviously the Iraqi was up to something that involved the SAS, but we couldn't figure out what it might be. We guessed Saddam Hussein might be using him to suppress the Kurds in the north of the country; but at that time the regiment had no presence in Iraq — at least, none that we knew of- and a couple of veiled enquiries drew blank. On the other hand, secret operations were our bread and butter, and when guys got involved in something really hot they were generally tight as gnats' arseholes about it.

So it seemed quite possible that some operation was brewing and nobody was talking.

Nor did the day produce any information about Tim and Tracy. Telephone engineers had re-routed the lines so that anyone calling my old number in the cottage went straight through to the incident room, where the phones were manned twenty-four hours a day, and the line was bugged, so any conversation on it would be “automatically recorded. Foxy Fraser of Special Branch, who was there in person for much of the time, decreed that the phone must be answered by men only, with instructions to be as non-committal as possible. That way, if the PltkA did come through, they might think it was me on the other end.

For several hours I sat in on the control room, listening to the check calls that came through from Special Branch in London, Birmingham, Holyhead and other places, fervently hoping that one of them would bring news of a positive lead. At first I was on edge, jumping around whenever a phone rang; but after a while boredom began to kill hope and I settled into a resigned torpor, crushed by the realisation that we were probably in for a grinding marathon of a wait.

Hanging around, flicking through old magazines, I couldn't help being aware of the Streisand look alike, Karen Terraine, with her swept-back blonde hair and big nose. There she sat, all neat and tidy in a pale blue blouse and grey skirt, taking the odd call, making notes, checking things, going through to the SB central computer for specialised information, and bringing up one list of names after another on her screen. Most of the time she looked totally demure, but twice I caught her giving me the eyeball, and I began to get irritated by her presence.

Fraser saw I was less than chuffed, but he naturally attributed my unease to the general situation and tried to cheer me up by saying, 'Don't worry, Geordie, the touts are out there. The touts are about. They're all hungry, and they're all listening. Our eyes and ears are open.' A search was on in Ulster as well, in case the party had-somehow managed to cross the water undetected; but the presumption still was that the hostages had been taken to London.

In the afternoon I went out for an eight-mile run through the lanes, but although I kept pushing myself I couldn't settle into any rhythm. I just had too much on my mind. My anxiety about Tim and Tracy prevented me from concentrating on the exercise. The result was I wasn't looking at the ground properly and I kept stumbling and jarring myself, so that running, instead of being a pleasure, became hard, uncomfortable work.

It was the same when I went to the gym and got on the weights. Nothing would go right. From my own experience — and from watching other guys who were into big lifts — I knew how essential full concentration is; without it, you're at only half strength, and liable to do yourself damage. Now I just couldn't get my timing.

After half an hour I thought, Ah, fuck it! and gave up.

As I came into camp next morning — the second day after the kidnap — I went up to the Squadron Interest loom and found a note in my pigeon-hole. I was on the point of reading it when the clerk forestalled me by saying, 'Hey, Geordie. You're to report to the ops officer, soonest.' I went upstairs wondering what this could be about.

Mac Macpherson was in his usual gracious mood.

'Lucky sod, Geordie,' he said. 'Looks like you're in for more action already.'

'What d'you mean, Boss?'

'You're to report to the OC, SAW — immediately.'

'What's on, then?'

'Don't ask me. Ask him.'

'Christ! This isn't a great moment for me to go away anywhere.'

'See what he says before you start worrying.'

Before I'd even reached the bottom of the stairs I had made the connection: this had to do with the int officer's photo.

The Subversive Action Wing was the most secret part of our organisation, the unit that took on the most sensitive jobs, often working in cahoots with MI5 or MI6. Just as the two Government agencies were known as the 'Firm', so the SAW was known simply as the 'Wing', and its operations were the most highly classified of any the SAS undertook. People trying to be clever described it as the cutting edge of the organisation — and in fact that wasn't a bad description.

Because of its connections outside the legiment, it was almost a national force.

To gain entry to the SAW's area, one had to punch a series of numbers into the pad beside the door. Not knowing the combination, I had to bang on the steel door and wait for someone to let me in.

I found the OC sitting at his desk. In his day Major Yorky lose had been a fearsome boxer and front-row forward. On his way up through the ranks he'd never bothered to shed his Yorkshire accent or drop his native expressions like 'ee bah gum' and 'you'll not get owt for nowt', and similarly he'd never given a bugger what people thought about his ferocious training regimes.

Whenever strange noises were heard emanating from his office, it was said that Yorky was practicing walking on all fours: toes and knuckles.

Now in his late thirties, he'd lost most of his dark hair, and kept what was left shaved so short that at first glance you might miss the fuzz on his scalp and think he was totally bald. He had a high, domed forehead that made his head egg-shaped, and his thick, arching eyebrows seemed to accentuate the length of his face.

Guys in the Regiment tend to age prematurely, due to the amount of effort they put into life; by the time they're thirty-five, they look like they're pushing fifty.

Yorky was no exception: he already had deep lines across his forehead and down his cheeks.

'Well, Geordie,' he began, 'I'm sorry to hear about your kid and Tracy. Any news of them?'

'Not a whisper, Yorky.'

'That's tough. I hope you get sorted soon. Mean while, I need your help. Take a seat there a minute.'

I perched on the chair at one side of his desk, pretty certain what his next step would be — and sure enough, he opened a folder, brought out a photograph, and turned it round for me to look at.

'You know this gent, I gather.'

I nodded. 'You're telling me.'

'How would you like to top him?'

'Top him?' For a second I was taken aback. But a moment later I said, 'Try and stop me.'

Yorky smiled briefly. 'As I thought.'

'Where is the bastard?'

'Last seen in Piccadilly Circus… No, you'll know soon enough. You've been selected to lead an operation to take him out. We want you to command one of the SAW patrols.'

'Jesus!'

'The timing of it, you mean?'

'Exactly. This isn't a good moment for me to piss off abroad.'

'I know that.' Yorky pushed back his chair and went walkabout, throwing a pencil in the air and catching it as he spoke. 'All the same, it could work out all right.

I've talked it through with the CO and the ops officer.

Also I had a word with the SB guy, Fraser, about the way he thinks things may go here. I've come to the conclusion that it's on for you.'

Missing a catch, he had to crawl under the desk to retrieve the pencil from the floor. 'The point is,' he continued as he stood again, 'this is going to be a quick job: in and out. You'll not be abroad for more than six days. Two weeks' training here, then less than a week away. To get the hostages back may take a couple of months.'

He saw me grimace, and went on, 'If anything breaks on the hostage front during the training phase you'll be here to deal with it. Your personal problem may well be cracked before the operation goes down. But even if it ain't, we can hold the fort for you while you're out of the country. Besides, you'll have Satcoms as usual, so that you won't ever be out of touch.'

I sat holding my forehead in my hands. My head felt as if it were bursting. Already, with this new deployment barely announced, the stress was piling on.

This was going to be a high-risk operation, fraught with danger — could I stand the strain of another episode likely to be as traumatic as the one in the Gulf? Could I handle it on top of my acute personal troubles?

My instinct was to stay home at all costs, to be there when the PIRA dalled. I couldn't take the thought of somebody else making a cock-up that might lead to the hostages' death. But I knew perfectly well I had no option but to go; if I refused I'd be kicked out — not only from the Regiment, but out of the Army.

At moments of this kind it's easy to let resentment build up. The Regiment is notorious for pushing its members to the limit, putting them under intense pressure without regard to their mental state. The head- shed simply assumes that all the guys are fit, physically and mentally, all the time, and ready to go.

Now, for a few seconds, I thought, Ah, sod them.

Why can't they make a few allowances? Why can't they send someone else to do their dirty work? I looked up at Yorky and said, 'Does it have to be me?'

He stopped pacing and stood beside my chair. 'You know what the Regiment's like, Geordie. They'll talk sympathetically about your family, blah, blah, blah. But in fact they couldn't give a flying monkey's, especially when a job like this comes down from Whitehall. If the Government's ordered it, it's got to happen. It doesn't matter what you do — you can go in and spout Army regulations at the adjutant if you like — but I can tell you, it won't wash. Sorry, old mate, but it's got to be you.' His tone wasn't unkind, just matter of fact.

I took a deep breath and said, 'Fair enough. I suppose it might even take my mind off my home problems, having a fastball job to do.'

'Gradely, lad. And you're not just our number-one choice for the job; you're the only choice.'

'Why's that?'

'Because you alone will recognise the target without fail.'

'You could show other guys the mug-shot.' I pointed at the photo. 'They could memorise what he looks like.'

'It's not the same thing. You've seen him several times. You know him.'

'The thing is, this mug-shot's well out of date. Even when I saw him two years ago he'd aged a good bit over what you can see here. His face had got a lot heavier and more lined.'

'All the more reason for you to be in command.'

'OK. But Tony Lopez saw him just as much.'

'I realise that. I'm hoping I can get Tony on the operation with you for that very reason. But the whole thing's so sensitive that we're waiting on clearance from the Pentagon before we can include him in the team.'

'For Christ's sake!' I exclaimed. 'Is the target in fucking Moscow or somewhere?'

'Yer daft bat! Listen, Geordie. This is a black operation. You know what that means. Nobody has heard about it — nobody. It's not to be discussed with anyone — not even your closest mates. Outside these walls, it doesn't exist. And when it does go down, it will be completely unattributable: nothing you do must leave any trace to show that the legiment was involved.'

'Yeah, yeah. OK.' I'd been given all this shit many times before. I knew Yorky had to bring it out, but even so I didn't like having it rammed down my throat.

'There's to be a team briefing here at 1600 hours,' he was saying. 'All will be revealed then.'

In the afternoon, on my way across, I checked into the incident room again. Fraser and Bates were both intent:.i on a computer monitor, which I saw was carrying …. details of the player called Danny Aherne who liked sitting down to eyeball his victims. He was thirty-two, fair-haired, unemployed, and had a weakness for the drink. He was known to have been active in London earlier in the year, but had recently gone AWOL from his last known place of residence, a bed-and-breakfast room in Acton.

'He's involved,' said Fraser with some conviction.

'I'm damn sure of that. But I don't know why he's shifted. That may mean something or it may not. But those fibres… I'll bet my boots he was there.'

In Yorky's den I found five other guys assembled.

They'd been on the Wing for some time already, and constituted one of its two standing teams. The only one I knew well was Pat Newman, a big, dark, ruddy-faced lad with snow-white teeth, one of the heaviest eaters in the business, but very quick on his feet and a useful fellow to have around if things got physical. There was an obvious reason for him being on this new job: he'd done a course in Arabic, and spoke enough of the language to communicate about everyday matters.

A less acquaintance was Billy Walker, a little Londoner known as 'Whinger' on account of the fact that he was always moaning or making snide remarks in his own debased form of Cockney rhyming slang. He had peculiarly coloured hair — very light brown, like tow — which looked so artificial that strangers suspected him of dyeing it or wearing a wig; but anyone who lived and worked with him knew that it was his own, and never changed. He also had a horrible habit of rolling his own gaspers, which stank out any room he was in. But he was a good operator nevertheless: small, skinny and tough.

Of the other three, the tallest was Fred Parry, a fair- haired beanpole from A Squadron who'd had a great time blowing up fibre-optic comms towers in Iraq during the Gulf War. Then there was Stew Stewart, a gingery fellow from Merseyside who'd come into the P,egiment from the Cheshires. Stew, sometimes known as 'Turnip', wasn't exactly a figure of fun, because he was a good, willing lad, but he did take a lot of stick because of the trouble he had keeping girlfriends. With his broad, ruddy face, he looked exactly what he was a farmer's boy — and he was perpetually worried that his head was the wrong shape, a deficiency which he tried to remedy by resorting to fancy haircuts. That left only Norman Paxford, a stocky, dark Glaswegian whose aim in life seemed to be to talk as little as possible. He might easily have been nicknamed 'Jock' because of his hellish accent, but — maybe because he spoke so rarely — he was known simply as 'Norm'. People said that it was his Mexican-style moustache, neatly clipped into an upside-down U, that clamped his mouth shut and made it difficult for him to utter. But he was never rude, and if you asked him something he'd always answer, only in the fewest possible words. If you said, 'Everything all right, then, Norm?' he'd just go, 'Aye, thanks,' and leave it at that. In spite of his taciturnity he was a terrific worker, and utterly dependable.

We had a couple of minutes' chit-chat, and I noticed that the mug-shot of our Iraqi friend was up on one of the wall-boards, with several lines of writing beneath it.

Then the ops officer and Jimmy Wells came in towing a middle-aged guy in a shiny grey suit.

'I know this feller,' said Pat under his breath. 'He's been here before. We all know him from the Firm.

Gilbert the Filbert.'

Before we sat down on the chairs facing Yorky's desk, Mac introduced me briefly to the man from London: 'Geordie, meet Gilbert Dauncey. Gilbert — Geordie Sharp, commander of the team.' Then he led off, cautioning us yet again about the need for total security.

'Operation Ostrich,' he began. 'As you know, this is a black operation. That means there's to be absolutely no word of it outside your own team. If anyone drops the slightest hint about it, he'll be lkTU'd immediately.

OK?'

I saw Whinger bend his head to the left and flip the fingers of his right hand upwards past the back of his ear.

He could have been scratching at an itch or knocking away a fly; he could also have been saying 'Fucking roll on!' in sign language..

The gesture wasn't lost on Mac, who said sharply, 'Don't piss about, anybody. Just listen. The aim of the operation is to take out this man.' He indicated the mug-shot. 'You'll all have a chance to memorise the face. The guy in question is General Mohammed al- Khadduri, a top-ranking Iraqi who's defected to Libya.

Our colleague here' — he indicated Gilbert — 'will brief you on his background in a moment.

'First, though, the location. Al-Khadduri is now working from a military camp on the outskirts of Ajdabiya. That's a town about a hundred and fifty kilometre, s south of Benghazi, the Libyan capital.'

Mac turned to face a map of north-eastern Africa, with the Mediterranean spread across the upper half and the Bay of Sirte taking a shallow scoop out of the Libyan coastline top-centre. 'Here's Benghazi,' he pointed with a broken-off billiard cue, 'at two o'clock on the coast of the bay, and here's Ajdabiya thirty ks inland, at five-thirty on the bay. The military complex is about here, ten ks beyond the southern outskirts of the town on the edge of the desert. All this ground immediately to the east is a training area.

'Cross-border insertion will be by”heli from the military airfield at Siwa, just inside Egypt.'

He placed the tip of his pointer to the right of a thick purple line running north to south, which marked the frontier between Egypt and Libya. 'A Chinook will put you down as close as possible to the target, but to avoid any chance of your being compromised the LZ will have to be at least fifty ks short of the camp. The run- in will be by quad bike.

'Now… timing. We have a strict timeframe, imposed on us by external constraints. The operation has to go down under cover of Exercise Bright Star, which is scheduled for May seventeenth to twenty- second. Bright Star is a major international deployment involving US and NATO forces. The aim is to establish and reinforce a simulated front line at a location in the Egyptian desert, against a threat from baddies to the south. If you like, it's a re-enactment of the start of the Gulf build-up of 1990. The exercise will involve all the NATO airforces as well as the USAF, and a considerable number of army units. That means there'll be a large number of air-movements, many of them from Cyprus, in the middle of which ours will get nicely lost.

'You'll stage through Akrotiri dressed as pathfinders — desert cam clothes, maroon Para berets and belts. As far as Cyprus, anybody who sees you will think you're umpires taking part in the exercise. Then, during the last phase of the flight, you'll change into rough civilian gear. Any questions so far?'

I glanced round the semicircle of faces. Everyone was looking hard at the map, thinking things over, but at that stage nobody had anything to say.

'All right, then. I'll ask for a few words about the target from our colleague from the Firm. Most of you know him anyway: Gilbert Dauncey.'

Gilbert stood up and began talking in a crisp, educated voice, public school but not lahdidah.

'General Mohammed al-Khadduri. You've seen his photo, and one of you I know has seen him. A big, burly fellow, we guess six feet, and powerfully built. A bit like a bear, but he's going to seed a bit now: we think he's put on a good deal of weight lately.

'His record wouldn't stand him in very good stead at the Court of Human 1Kights. For several years he was responsible for eliminating the political factions that threatened Saddam Hussein's government — and when I say “eliminating”, I mean “eliminating”. He didn't disband the dissident parties; he rubbed them out with wholesale executions, families and all. Another feather in his cap: it was he who directed the campaign of extermination against the Kurds in the north during the late eighties. The use of chemical weapons is his specialty, particularly against his own people.

'By the time of the Gulf War, Khadduri had risen to become Saddam's chief of military intelligence. At that time he enjoyed the President's full confidence, and spent much of the run-up to war with him in Baghdad.

In the first days of the air-war he had a narrow escape from an incoming Cruise missile, which hit a building when he was in the basement, but he came through the conflict unscathed.

'Afterwards, however, he and his boss fell out. We're not clear what caused the rift, but subsequent events suggest it was a basic disagreement over policy. Saddam wanted to soft-pedal things while he rebuilt his army and kept the Western powers in play, but Khadduri developed more and more extreme right-wing views. It seems that he took Iraq's defeat by the Coalition as a personal insult, and as time went on he became ever more eager to avenge it. Things reached the point at which he was going behind Saddam's back and privately inciting other Arab states to prepare for a joint assault on Israel, as a kind of reprisal. He was for a'n all-out attack using chemical and biological weapons.

'In the end, of course, word reached Saddam — and that was too much. Early last year, in February, Khadduri was arrested. It looked like he was for the chop, but then he was let out of prison on parole. He did a runner and pitched up with his friend Moammer Gadaffi, President of Libya. There, he's continued to promote the idea of an attack on Israel. In particular, he's tried to win support from Mubarak, President of Egypt, luckily without success. Worse, from our point of view, he's become a red-hot champion of the IRA.

He seems to think that by promoting revolution in Northern Ireland he can get his own back for the humiliation the Arabs suffered in the Gulf. Also, the CIA are worried that he's started supporting the fundamentalists behind the bombs on the mainland in the States.'

'Fuckin' 'ell,' muttered Whinger, maybe a bit louder than he meant. 'What an arsehole!'

Gilbert heard him and went on without a flicker: 'Precisely. Indications are that during the past year the amount of money reaching the IRA from Libya has more than doubled. Arms the same. Remember the merchant vessel that ran aground off Cork back in October? The Sirius? She was carrying containers that held more than a thousand AK-47s and several million rounds of ammunition. The manifest listed the containers as having been loaded in Amsterdam, but we believe they came all the way from Tripoli, with Khadduri's signature on the docket.

'In other words, this man has become a severe threat to the stability of the Province. He's also a menace in the Middle East as a whole. Now that he has the ear of Gadaffi, there's no telling what he may touch off. Our friends in the CIA agree his time is up.

'Fortunately we have excellent relations with Egypt, and we can use Egyptian territory as a covert staging- post for an operation. Still more fortunate…' Gilbert's face softened into the ghost of a smile. 'As of yesterday we discovered that one of you has the big advantage of being personally acquainted with General al-Khadduri.'

I nodded, aware that the other guys were giving me the eyeball. I glanced along the line and thought I'd better explain. 'When I was in the nick in Baghdad, after the patrol got compromised, this bastard used to come along once a week and give us the third degree.

I'd recognise him a mile off in thick fog.'

'He's your man, then, Geordie,' chirped Whinger.

'Nice little solo venture. Piece of cake.'

'Fuck off, mate,' I replied equably. Then I asked Gilbert, 'What's he doing, exactly? I mean, has Gadaffi given him a job?'

'Officially he's in charge of officer training. That's why he's based at Ajdabiya, which is Libya's answer to Sandhurst. But signal intercepts show he's using the place for every kind of political and revolutionary activity. I repeat: he's regarded as the most dangerous single operator in the Middle East, Saddam Hussein not excepted.'

There was a short silence. 'Gadaffi!' exclaimed Pat contemptuously. 'That guy's mad as twenty fucking hatters.'

'That's the trouble,' Gilbert agreed.

'Can you give us any personal gen on the target?' Pat went on. 'Any clue about his movements or habits?'

'Not much, I'm afraid. He's married, with a family, and he tends to join them at a house on the coast whenever he has days off. But while he's working he lives in the commandant's quarters on the base. One point that may prove relevant: we know he's a night owl, and sits up all hours working, when everyone else has gone to bed and things have quietefied down.'

'How do we know that?' I asked.

Gilbert hesitated, then said, 'You'll find out shortly.

Now, for details of the camp layout we're awaiting satellite intelligence from the CIA. A courier should be in London by tomorrow. I'm afraid some or all of you will have to come to London to see what he brings. The office have judged the material too sensitive for it to go outside, even here. Any more questions? No?'

He sat down, and Mac took over. 'Thanks, Gilbert,' he said. Then he turned to us. 'I don't have to emphasize that your hit team will have to be absolutely clean. You'll wear Arab or some sort of civilian clothes, use Soviet or Chinese weapons and ammunition. None of you must carry any trace of any Western organisation.

Webbing, bergens, boots — everything's got to be checked for names or labels. If the team suffers a fatality, it will be absolutely imperative to bring the body out with you. If that proves impossible, you'll vaporise the body with a bar mine.'

'You mean we're going to take nice British bar mines with us?' Whinger said.

'No, no,' Mac assured him, 'we've got a few Chinese ones that'll come in handy.'

'How alarming,' went Whinger. 'Bloody charming.'

Mac ignored him and continued. 'Back to timing. As I said, Bright Star runs for six days. That means you've got to be in and out within this time bracket, while the cover lasts. And it commences on the seventeenth, which means you've got less than two weeks in which to get prepped up. OK? Any questions?'

'What about weapons?' Pat asked.

'You'll draw non-attributable AK-47s from the SAW section of the main armoury. They're being delivered from London in the morning. Once you've got them you'll store them here.' He gestured to the lockers at the sides of the room. 'Anything else?'

'Why isn't Tony Lopez in on this?' asked Fred Parry.

'He was in the nick with you, Geordie, wasn't he? He must know the guy.'

'That's right, he does.' Mac answered for me.

'Tony's an obvious candidate with his special knowledge. But because of American political sensitivities we haven't yet got clearance for him to join the team. We're still hoping he'll be able to come in.'

For a final word, Mac turned to me and said, 'If there's anything you want to know, Geordie, these guys will fill you in. They're all genned up on the way the Wing works. And if there's anything you need, don't worry about asking for it. What you may not realise is that the SAW has its own budget: within reason, money's no object, and there are no restrictions on equipment. If you need civilian clothes, for instance, go and buy them. Any bits and pieces of extra kit — the same. You're in a different game now.'

With the ruperts gone, I got the lads to gather round for a minute. 'R.ight,' I said, 'we start training proper tomorrow morning. But we can begin sorting out our priorities now. First things first: wills. Have you all made out a will?' I glanced round the team. Pat, who was married, gave a nod, but the other four looked blank.

'Well, even if you don't think you've got anything to leave, I suggest you get organized. There's no guarantee that all of us will come back. Correction: there's no guarantee that any of us will come back. Jabs the same.

Get your arses up to the doc's office: see the clerk in there, and make sure you're up to date. It's no big deal.

'Now — individual responsibilities. I'll be team medic; I've got the training. Fred, you're in charge of explosives. You'll need to check out these Chinese bar mines, make sure you read the instructi6ns, lkight?'

Fred nodded.

'Whinger, signals, OK? We're getting in some special non-attributable kit, and there's a rep coming up from the Firm to run you through it.'

'Yeah. I know most of that stuff, but a refresher wouldn't do any harm.'

'Good. Pat, how's your Arabic?'

'Shit hot!'

'Say something.'

'Aaaarrght.' he went, and then gave a kind of hiccup.

'What did that mean?'

'Fuck off.'

'Don't piss about.'

'Honest, that's what I said.'

'You did the Arabic course?'

'Yonks ago.'

'It'll come back to you. Get on the tapes in the language lab and you'll make it.'

'Allah karim.'

I turned to Stew Stewart and said, 'You're from Mobility Troop, Stew. Go down and speak to the INTO about the quads. Get a mechanic to take you through anything we might need to know.'

'Fair enough.'

Because Norm Paxford was already a competent signaller, I told him to work with Whinger as his backup on the radios. 'Take all the sets along to the signals technician and make sure the frequencies are in line,' I said. 'The other thing is, we'll use throat-mikes rather than booms, because booms would pick up the noise of the wind and the engines.

'And wait a minute,' I went on. 'A bell's ringing.

Covert Method of Entry. Weren't you posted to the CMOE wing, Norm? Didn't you do the specialist lock- picking course?'

'That's right,' he said. 'All two years of it.'

'Great. You're our CMOE expert, then.'

In a moment of black humour I saw all the members of our team in terms of what they didn't have — the areas where, in military jargon, they'd gone deficient. I'd gone deficient in terms of family; Norm couldn't be bothered to talk; Stew was definitely deficient in the legover stakes; Pat couldn't control his appetite; Fred wasn't overburdened with brains; and Whinger didn't know when to stop cracking jokes. Still, I thought, we've all got our own strengths, and even if we're not fucking perfect we'll make out.

Back in the incident room I found Fraser still in occupation. 'Hey, Geordie,' he said. Tve got news for you.'

'What's that?'

'Farrell's back.'

'Christ, that was quick!'

'Yep. He landed at Lyneham after lunch. Maximum security all the way.'

'Where's he been taken?'

'Winson Green, Birmingham.'

He picked up a sheet of fax paper and studied it. 'The prisoner's wounds are infected, and he's suffering from septicaema. He's running quite a high fever, by the look of it.'

'I'm not surprised,' I said, 'the amount of shit there was in that jungle. Some of it's bound to have been sucked into him with the bullets. Does that mean he's in hospital?'

Again Fraser consulted his notes. 'Yep, he's in a single cell in the hospital wing. He's on fifteen-minute watch. That means one of the screws takes a look at him every quarter of an hour.'

'What about visitors?'

'He hasn't had any yet. One guy tried to see him, and a search revealed that he was carrying an escape kit inside a transistor radio. So that was the end of that.

Now the Home Secretary's imposed a ban on visitors until further notice.'

'How long can that be maintained?'

'Only a few days. You can bet that a fellow like Farrell will know his rights down to the last letter.'

'And if the ban's lifted?'

'He'll be able to have one fifteen-minute visit a day, but only in a closed environment with prison officers present. That is, if he's graded Category A — which I've no doubt he will be.'

'And who was the guy who tried to visit?'

Fraser checked his notes and said, 'He identified himself with a driving licence in the name of Peter Smithies — but of course it turned out the licence had been stolen.'

'So the PIPA know where Farrell is anyway?'

'Oh yes. They know.'

That evening, for a change, I ran home. It was a good distance — about my usual eight miles — and I'd sussed out a route through the lanes that was almost entirely free of traffic. But again I had trouble with my rhythm.

Even more now I was feeling the pressure, and I was so needled by the contradictory thoughts chasing through my head that I couldn't settle to a steady pace.

I was pleased now that Operation Ostrich was going down, as it promised genuine action to distract me, and the chance of doing a hard job well. Besides, I positively looked forward to topping al-Khadduri. At the same time, I was apprehensive about leaving the UK with my own affairs in such a mess. On the one hand it seemed there was nothing to be gained by hanging around at Hereford. If or when the PIRA came on the air there would be plenty of trained negotiators on hand to deal with them; in any case, I was fairly sure that if I did demur about going, the legiment would order me to.

Yorky Pose had admitted as much. On the other hand, Hereford was the last place I'd seen Tim and Tracy, and my natural inclination was to cling to any trace of them that I had. iF i went overseas and someone made a cock- up in my absence, I might never see them again; my whole life would go to ratshit. Similarly, if I went under in a foreign country, Tim would never remember his father, we would never get to know each other properly. What sort of a person would he grow up to be without me to guide him? What would Tracy do, left without support?

Trying to think everything through, I realised that although I'd already made a will I might need to make some adjustments. As things stood I'd arranged to leave a small amount of money for Tim, who'd get it when he was eighteen, and the house to Tracy. She and I had talked all this through before, and she'd agreed that if I died she would adopt the boy. But now — to face the worst — there was a chance that she might not outlive me. I decided that in the morning I'd better go into town to visit my solicitor, the owlish Mr Higgins.

As for Farrell — I couldn't help feeling nervous about the situation. At least the bastard hadn't escaped. I'd half expected the Colombians to let him out, through corruption or sheer incompetence. Now he was behind bars in Birmingham, and it sounded as if he was too ill to cause trouble for the time being.

But sooner or later he'd start to agitate, and when he did he'd stir more trouble than all the turds in China.