State of Honour (33 page)

The Saudi ambassador sat deep in thought as the Land Cruiser moved in a small convoy across a flat, arid plain in western Yemen, bordered by high sand dunes. The xenon headlights lit up the clear night air seemingly for miles. This was the Tihamah, the hot lands on Yemen’s Red Sea coastline. He’d stopped at a small village en route, constructed entirely of stamped clay and sun-dried mud bricks. Sitting on palm-leaf matting, he ate a light meal of goat meat and lentils, and drank the strong sweet tea. He thought the village smelt like a dung heap and was glad to return to the hermetically sealed car, and feel the AC on his face. But at least he hadn’t been at risk from the northern Shia. If they’d gotten hold of him, he would’ve likely lost his manhood.

With his keffiyeh-wrapped head tilted backwards against a rear headrest, he ruminated upon the recent events that had led to him being in this unlikely and primitive place. Despite all of the meticulous planning and loss of life, the secretary had almost been rescued. He found it difficult to believe, especially given that the head of her protective detail was supposed to have been killed by Swiss’s men in the US. As a result, he had blood on his hands, including that of Brigadier Hasni and the jihadist, Mullah Kakar. Part of him felt disloyal. But he couldn’t risk anything coming back on him, let alone the Brothers of Faith. That would not only lead to his probable death, but also, and more importantly, the complete negation of all he wished for his son.

After landing back in Riyadh, he’d had a meeting with the Brothers. They had ordered him to oversee the secretary’s killing personally. A poorly veiled repost, he’d thought at the time. Besides that, he hated Yemen. He called it the sick dog of the Gulf. Dirt poor, unstable, dangerous and corrupt. All the things his country would have been without oil and gas. He’d thought he’d be going back to Riyadh to watch the beheading on the Internet like half of the computer-savvy world. Instead, he’d been flown to Sana’a, the Yemeni capital, ostensibly on a personal visit to the Saudi embassy there.

It had taken fourteen hours for the secretary to be flown from France to Yemen and then driven overland to the remote hamlet. His journey would add another six hours to that. The difference between the time that she should’ve been beheaded online, and the actual time it would take to get it done and transport the video to an area with Internet connection, would be close to a day and a half. The only possible advantage would be that the US would consider the threat to be a bluff, one that would be all the more dramatic when it was in fact carried out. Still, he took off his Ray Ban sunglasses, which he wore to help him relax, despite the darkness, and barked at the driver, ordering him to put his foot down. He wanted the grisly errand over as soon as possible.

Linda could barely breathe, the dry air being heavy with dust. It was dark with no artificial light. She’d heard insects scuttling around her since she’d been dragged here. It had been stifling at first, and she’d felt as if she were being slow cooked. But now she was freezing, her teeth chattering as she lay on the hard concrete floor. Wearing the burqa, although her head was bare, she was chained to a brick-built pillar in a square room. She hadn’t had any food or water since the group of masked men had brought her here. Despite not seeing the sky since leaving France, she knew she was in the desert, close to the coast. She could smell the sea and sand had leaked into the room.

The Muslim men who’d carried her from the jet at another unknown location had been different from those who had held her previously. Although they too had refrained from speaking in her presence, they’d manhandled her roughly for most of the time and had even kicked her on a couple of occasions. She’d been blindfolded and gagged before being thrown onto the bed of what she’d guessed was a pickup truck and covered with a mouldy tarp. She’d wept then, partly due to the pain in her shoulder and knee as she’d landed heavily, and partly due to a rising sense of fear. But weakness wasn’t going to save her life now, so she closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind.

She felt around with her feet, an act designed simply to distract her. But after a minute or so, she felt something sharp and cold like metal. She examined it as best she could, guessing it was a nail. She eased it up with her toes, so that as she extended the chain to its limit she was able to manoeuvre it into her hand.

It was a nail. She hid it beneath the folds in the burqa. Fleetingly, she thought she might get a chance to pick the lock with it. Then she thought that was a ridiculous notion. She didn’t have a clue how to do that. Still, she would keep it.

Less than a minute later, she realized that keeping up her spirits was an impossible task. It was little more than a pretence. Her mind was on the cusp of closing down and making up a new reality to save it from further trauma. After Tom Dupree had appeared in the room where the Englishman had abused her, she’d actually thought her nightmare would end. But she guessed he was dead now, and all hope had disappeared as a result.

She heard the wooden door being unlocked and opened. She trembled involuntarily. Someone shone a strong beam of light from a flashlight onto her face but said nothing.

“Water,” she said, although it sounded as if someone outside her body had spoken.

The figure stepped forward and blindfolded her with a length of rag that smelt faintly of male sweat before gagging her with another piece. The door was closed and locked. She guessed her death was near. She couldn’t help herself.

She began to weep. In truth, she didn’t know if she was weeping for herself, or for the pain her daughters would feel at knowing they would grow up motherless; for John, her husband, perhaps, or the thousands that would die once her death became known.

Where is God in all this? she thought. Where is He?

The night sky was brocaded with tight clusters of luminous stars. On this part of the north-east coastline of Djibouti, the white-sand beach was speckled with stunted trees and scrub, and was edged by squat, stone cliffs. Abandoned fishing boats were upturned beneath them, their barnacle-ridden hulls resembling a pod of beached whales.

Tom and the operators were dressed in civilian Yemeni clothes: hand-woven turbans, short, sheepskin coats and cotton breeches. Underneath their baggy shirts, they all wore modified ballistic vests. The equipment – radio sets, portable SATCOMS, an array of small-arms weapons and IR and thermal lasers – was lying on light-brown poncho liners, ready to be passed out among the men.

Tom watched as a Mark V.1 Special Operations Craft, a twenty-five metre transport boat armed with M60 7.62mm machineguns, was lowered from the triple-hook system of a special ops Chinook, just beyond the surf thirty metres away. A Chinook was the heavy lifter of helicopters, versatile and dependable. The rotor blades whipped up the water into a surface whirlpool and flecks of sand stung Tom’s face. He turned his head, seeing the operators apply stripes of black face camo before checking the chambers of their assault rifles and sub-machine guns.

Nathan had informed them at the briefing in England that the Yemeni navy was insignificant, consisting of just thirty-five vessels, most of which were patrol boats. Given their extensive coastline, the chance of being spotted by one of them was remote. Added to which, the Mark V’s angular design and anti-radar cladding should ensure that they’d avoid the Yemenis’ Selex Coastal Defence System, he’d said, with a wry smile.

But as Tom waded through the warm shallows towards the craft, he knew he was heading for a kill zone.

After he strapped himself into one of the eight seats on the port side, the Mark V was soon travelling at over sixty-five knots, the sea spray all but soaking the occupants. The craft was used extensively as a SEAL launch facility and the seats were designed for maximum impact resistance, but the shock waves from the aluminium hull slamming through the waves sent jolts through Tom’s spine.

Nathan, who was sitting in front of him, turned around. “Clench your teeth,” he said as he grabbed the gunwale, “or you’ll bite your tongue off.”

The platoon chief put on a pair of headphones, the wire affixed to a VHF radio backpack propped up against the spare seat next to him, enabling him to use a secure frequency.

About ten miles out from Djibouti, Nathan confirmed that their fellow SEAL Team 7 operators had arrived at the rendezvous point. The landward edge of a secluded lagoon eighty-nine miles south of Al-Hudaydah, a seaport and Yemen’s fourth largest city. The Mark V’s engine was killed and the two CRRCs, combat rubber raiding craft, were manoeuvred onto the ramp on the stern. The craft, powered by outboard motors, would take them the remainder of the distance, where they’d be slashed open and buried. The motors would be cut a mile out and paddles would be used to reach the shoreline. If all went to plan, they would be flown from the hamlet in Black Hawks and be back on the African coast way before dawn.

About an hour later, the oil-black waters of the near-stagnant lagoon could be seen separated from the expanse of sea by a coral reef little more than fifteen centimetres below the CRRCs. Beyond, the muted moonlight had turned the dunes into huge piles of dark-red spice. During the day, the lagoons were teeming with mosquitoes, but the species that lived in sandy environments didn’t feed at night, and Tom and the SEALs hadn’t needed to apply repellent.

As a couple of operators paddled towards the beach, Tom, who was surrounded by bagged covert ops gear and ordnance, saw a small group of men emerge from the dunes and crouch down into a diamond shape on the dry sand. The deployed SEAL team, he thought. Nathan, who was sitting in the stern, resumed radio contact with them, speaking in short sentences peppered with code words and military acronyms. Apart from him, no one else spoke.

After landing on the sandy beach, the operators dug two large holes with short-handled shovels to hide the deflated boats. A couple of them had heaved out a large black box beforehand, which had been handed over by the CIA at Camp Lemonnier. When Tom had asked what it was, he’d been told by a bearded SEAL with densely tattooed forearms that it created enough interference to block cell and satphone signals. But it wouldn’t mess with their voice-activated radios, so, even if the rescue site could be used to communicate from, the Arabs were screwed.

One of the men on the beach was the Yemeni interpreter that Nathan had mentioned, a man of about twenty with eyes like polished chestnuts, a prematurely lined forehead and wispy facial hair. His name was Khaleed Thabit. The operators called him Kali. He’d told Tom that he loved the US president and that he was going to marry an American girl and bring up a family in Santa Monica. Tom figured the guy was hoping for a Green Card. If the Yemeni survived the next few hours, he guessed he’d get his wish.

Nathan liaised with the team leader on the ground, a broad-shouldered man in his early thirties with a thick beard. He was wrapped in a traditional Yemeni shawl and carried a big-barrelled M79 grenade launcher with a customized pistol grip. An HK 45c handgun was holstered on his thigh. He looked as if he’d just stepped off the set of a spaghetti western. Nathan told Tom afterwards that the guy was a seasoned master chief, who was famous among assaulters for never carrying anything into battle apart from his handgun and beloved launcher.

The SEALs who had travelled with Tom handed out extra gear and ordnance to their brothers in the troop, including fragmentation grenades, suppressors and ballistic vests. The hard ceramic armour was uncomfortable and would slow them down some, but it would help to save their lives. Their backpacks had ballistic shields woven into them, which would be used to protect their heads as they fired around them. But like Kali, Tom remained unarmed. Nathan had said from the off in Djibouti that his orders were that Tom couldn’t use a firearm in combat in Yemen, and, although he didn’t care for military rules, this one was non-negotiable. Kali refused to wear a ballistic vest, too, saying that he was a Muslim and would put his faith in Allah. No one tried to persuade him to do otherwise. But everyone, including Tom, was given a med kit.

The hamlet was an hour’s drive away by Desert Patrol Vehicles: high-speed buggies that looked like souped-up sandrails fixed with M60 machine guns. They’d stop the DPVs a mile or so from the rescue site, just close enough for the black box to operate. They’d walk on foot to ensure the terrorists there wouldn’t be spooked by the roaring sound of the DPVs’ air-cooled 200 hp VW engines.

Tom motioned to Nathan, who walked over to him, “How’s it lookin’?” he asked.

“Like we’re in the middle of a
Mad Max
set,” Nathan said, grinning, as he put his hand on a DPV’s roll bar. His expression changed to stern resignation. “We don’t have a positive ID. The mission is flawed, you ask me. If she’s there, I’d say there’s a ninety per cent chance they’ll kill her before we get to her, or she’ll die in crossfire. And there’s three unidentified vehicles heading toward the hamlet, less than twenty klicks away.”

“Can’t a drone take them out?” Tom asked.

“No problem. But she could be in one of them. Would you make that call?”

No, Tom thought.

“That could be an extra fifteen fighters. But successful or not, we won’t leave any of them alive. That much I’m sure of.”

Tom nodded, although he felt mentally numb.

No more than a quarter of a mile from the Red Sea, crescent-shaped sand dunes surrounded the hamlet on three sides, the fourth being open to the hundreds of barren square miles of the so-called Empty Quarter. There were no perimeter fortifications, just a few makeshift goat pens made from thorny scrub and jagged stones. The hamlet had five African-style mud-and-thatch huts, together with a central timber one. Fishing nets and woven pots lay in clusters between them. Two metres from the wooden hut, smoke-tipped orange flames rose from an open fire. Three Yemenis were huddled around it, smoking cigarettes. Nearby, a pair of small dogs pulled at either end of a discarded bone, their lips curled back, snarling.

Atop the southern sand dune, Tom lay between Kali and Nathan, who was scanning the hamlet with his panoramic night-vision goggles. Global Hawk spy planes, equipped with advanced synthetic aperture radar, and high-altitude Reaper drones with thermal imaging systems, were feeding him with real-time information via pilot operators at Camp Lemonnier, but an on-site confirmation of the layout and the number of occupants was essential. Nathan had a HK416 carbine fixed with a thermal scope and a red-dot infrared laser, which was invisible to anyone without night vision. Although he’d told Tom that his orders were that he’d have to remain unarmed, he had relented once the DPVs had stopped, and handed him a SIG P226 handgun, saying that if anyone asked, he didn’t get it from him. It was for self-defence only. He reiterated that he couldn’t become involved in the mission proper. Tom had thought that a decent gesture.

The sound of the fire crackling and the Yemeni guards sitting chatting around it seemed to be amplified threefold, Tom thought. He heard his heart pounding in his chest, his breath through his nose, and did his best to mentally calm himself as he sensed the adrenalin coursing through his veins.

Nathan had split his SEALs into three attack squads. Alpha squad covered the only way in for the vehicles, which were only a few minutes away, while Bravo and Charlie squads occupied the dunes on the southern and northern slopes of the hamlet proper. A fourth squad, made up of the master chief’s snipers, was situated on the dune leading to the coast. They all wore headphones and cheek microphones.

Sensing movement around him as the assaulters finalized their positions, Tom picked up an infrared field-scope and held it to his right eye. The images cut to a muted green. Eleven occupants. Two moving. That’s nine possibles, he thought, discounting the possibility that the secretary was travelling in one of the approaching vehicles. Then there were the three around the fire. That left six possibles. One emerged from the hut at four o’clock. He walked a few paces before hitching up his sheepskin jacket and urinating, which left five possibles in the huts.

The secretary could easily be disguised as a man, but it had been agreed that the chances of her being allowed to roam about the site freely were so low that the figures outside were deemed hostile. But he knew that without a positive ID, Nathan would have to risk the vehicles getting here before his men moved in. Although the black box would prevent the fighters in the hamlet from alerting them by cellphones, and the SEALs’ weapons were suppressed, the occupants of the vehicles would see or hear the discharges from the Yemeni’s weapons miles away.

Tom lowered the scope, about to check the SIG’s chamber and magazine. But before he released the clip fully from the well, the headlights of three vehicles appeared out of the darkness. This is it, he thought, pushing the magazine back into place.

The Land Cruisers skidded to a halt and armed men in suits exited at speed. Nathan ordered the attack and suppressed flashes flickered in Tom’s peripheral vision. The guards who were in motion around the hamlet’s cluster of huts fell in quick succession, their bodies landing with soft thuds, taken out by the snipers.

The three Yeminis by the fire grabbed their AKs and lay flat, firing randomly into the night. Then they threw smoke grenades towards the perimeter as they rushed into the nearest mud hut in the melee. With that, a massive explosion boomed through the night air. The beachside dune had erupted, sending up a huge, sand-filled cloud. As it settled Tom could see that the top quarter of the dune had disintegrated, leaving an uneven, crater-ridden series of sand hillocks.

Nathan swore under his breath. Tom knew that none of the master chief’s snipers could have survived such an impact. He reckoned that the Arabs had rigged the dune to prevent a seaborne assault. He turned towards the vehicles, forcing himself to concentrate on the unfolding events, rather than dwell on the carnage that had just occurred.

The men from the vehicles who hadn’t been cut down as they’d exited had half flung themselves to the ground, or had begun scaling the surrounding dunes. The area erupted into a seemingly chaotic firefight. Tom watched as the shadow-like figures of the lead operators moved down in unison from the dunes; he knew this was the most crucial time.

There was a series of half-muted explosions. Tom guessed the sand around the perimeter had been peppered with IEDs or landmines. “Jesus,” he muttered. The twisted bodies of three assaulters writhed on the ground, while others lay motionless, their legs severed. Nathan hadn’t put any contingency plans in place for such an eventuality at his briefing, and the secretary’s life was hanging by a cotton thread.

After telling Tom to stay put, Nathan flipped up his NVGs and removed the lens cap from the thermal sight, which would allow him better vision in the smoke. He pulled out two fragmentation hand grenades from his pocket and handed them to Tom, saying that he should use them if their rear was compromised. Tom nodded before looking over at Kali. The interpreter’s hands were shaking, his eyes wide. He looked as if he were on the verge of screaming. Nathan launched himself down the slope, heading for the master chief, who’d been hit by shrapnel and was dragging himself back to the base of the dune, rounds hitting the sand around him.