The Sixteen (25 page)

The four of us pressed our backs into the wall as the soldier walked slowly by with the dog on a leash. The dog seemed to sense something and kept looking back over its shoulder towards us but the guy just kept yanking it along.

‘Can you believe it?’ Chalky whispered in disbelief. ‘What an idiot! I mean just what is the point of having a dog if you’re not going to take any notice of it!’

‘It’s just as well he didn’t,’ Spot commented dryly. ‘The dopey beggar!’

We started to pull off the boards, but two of them snapped with a loud crack, which I felt certain the guard must have heard. I held my breath but nothing happened and we continued to pull the planks away until we had a hole large enough for us to climb through. Once inside we split up and began searching around, trying to find a way up to the roof.

Opening a door, I discovered a massive pile of masonry and looking up saw that there was a huge hole right through all of the floors. It looked as though a bomb had come right through the roof into the middle of the building. A few beams of light from the neighbouring compound penetrated the broken windows and cracks in the walls but despite this, and being able to see right through the building to the sky and stars above, it was very dark inside.

Stumbling around, I discovered the rickety remains of a wooden staircase and began to carefully make my way up it. By the sounds coming from above, I realised that the others had already reached the upper floor. Most of the stair treads were missing and getting up was difficult, there was a large gap near the top and the only way across it was to jump. I landed awkwardly and gripped at the tubular metal banister to steady myself, but it instantly came away from the wall and I swung out over into the building over a two-storey drop. Peering through the darkness, it looked as though the banister was hanging on by only one bracket fastened to the crumbling masonry.

I began to pull myself up the banister, hoping that the bracket would hold until I reached the top. Spot’s face suddenly appeared above me.

‘What are hanging around for, Geordie?’ he joked, offering me his hand.

‘How the hell did you manage to get up there without this happening?’

‘We came up by another staircase. I thought you were behind us.’

‘What other stairs? You could have told me! Show me the way to the roof, then, you clever sod!’

In the darkness, I could barely see the faces of my mates, even though the sky was clear and the stars were so bright I felt I could reach up and touch them. The only lighting in the area came from a string of bulbs hanging from a wire over the compound, together with two large floodlights, which lit up the front of the garrison building and the main entrance.

From the roof of the building, we could make out the flat rooftop of the garrison building opposite. Below us a number of guards where mainly positioned around the front of the entrance. We knew our target was there as we could see his parked limousine, with its insignia and pennant, a larger version of which was raised on the side of the building alongside the Egyptian flag.

In our briefing, we’d been given full details of the layout of the building – the only thing we weren’t sure about was exactly which office our target would be working from, although we did know it was on the third floor.

We were lucky that the building we were in was now derelict. It was a godsend. Obviously, we’d been informed that the building was there next to the compound, but we hadn’t been aware that it was empty, nor of the state it was in. It was going to make our operation considerably easier, as we could work from the roof undetected. All we had to do now was to get a rope from the roof across two fences, which were about thirty feet below us, and on to the adjacent building, approximately forty-five feet away. It wouldn’t have been an impossible task if this building
had been occupied, but obviously it would have been that much more difficult.

Below us, we saw that the perimeter fences had barbed wire running along the top of them and were roughly thirteen feet high and fifteen feet apart. One of these looked as though it might be electrified or alarmed in some way, as we could see small white bobbins on its main struts. We needed to ensure that our ropes didn’t touch these fences and there was no room for error – if anything dropped on to them, it would immediately give our cover away.

A low parapet approximately two feet high ran around the opposite rooftop, a telegraph pole was fastened to this and the side of the building roughly ten feet in from the edge nearest to us, with roughly eight feet of it sticking up above roof level. It had a large bobbin on the top, which appeared to be carrying the main electric supply and below this was a crosspiece carrying dozens of telephone wires, which ran across to a similar pole attached to the building we were on. About four feet beneath the crosspiece we could just make out what appeared to be a further metal bar about fifteen inches long that stuck out at a right angle on the roof side of the pole. We would be able to utilise this, if it proved to be strong enough.

The low parapet was capped with concrete slabs, which we worked out were roughly three feet long by one-and-a-half inches thick. By using the rough sizing of these concrete slabs as a guide, we were able to make an estimate of the distance up to the telegraph pole along the side of the building. This gave us a pretty good idea what length of light line we would need to attach to the arrow we’d use in order to eventually get a rope over from one rooftop to the other.

Spot selected a crossbow and arrow from one of the canvas bags. The arrow had three small fins and one large one, in order to stop
it twisting in the air, and carried with it two very strong thin light lines, which were different colours so that we could differentiate between the two. We needed the arrow from the crossbow to drop over the metal bar and stop before it hit the roof: this we called a single-shot pick-up, and it would enable us to get the light line over the metal bar. Then when we attached the heavy rope to this, it would also take it over the metal bar and bring it back to us, thus forming a loop.

Spot took a three-inch, side-casting reel and attached this to his waist. He would normally leave the line on the reel so that when he fired the crossbow it wouldn’t become entangled. But, in this instance, because he didn’t want the arrow to hit the roof when it went over the metal bar so that we could retrieve it, he had to work out the distance between himself and the telegraph pole. He tied up the remaining line so that it wouldn’t travel any further than the distance he’d measured. If he were accurate, this would enable the arrow to stop just before it hit the roof, which would allow the pick-up on the end of the arrow to be manipulated in order to recover the light line and bring it back to us.

I held my breath as Spot took aim at the crosspiece of the telegraph pole. It was festooned with wires and I knew that the success of his shot was absolutely critical. It was much darker now, making it difficult to even see the small target; if the arrow fell short it would dangle over the street, possibly making a noise by clattering against something and alert the guards below. If it passed too far over the target and hit the roof it could also make a noise or become snagged.

He took aim, and steadied himself but just as he was about to fire, Chalky tapped him on the shoulder and pointed below. The soldier with the guard dog had suddenly appeared around the corner of the building and was passing beneath us.

Spot quietly waited until the pair of them had walked by, before rapidly taking aim once again and firing. As usual, he lived up to his name and scored a direct hit first time. The flying arrow was silently checked by its securing lines and dropped just over the crosspiece. With the arrow now dangling down from one line, Spot pulled the lower line, which allowed the pick-up to collect the upper line, bringing the arrow and upper line back to him and, by making the light line go around the metal bar and return to him, it formed a loop.

Securing our heavier rope on to the light line, we pulled this over the bar and back towards us again, so that it now took the place of the light line. By attaching a dog-clip to the end of the rope we were able to form a slipknot around the metal bar. Then we attached the rope to the telegraph pole near to where we stood on the roof, and tightened it by means of small pulley wheels in order to stop it stretching or sagging beneath our weight as we crossed.

Removing our sashes, we took our rope-sitting harnesses from the holdalls and put them on around our legs and waists. Now we could attach a pulley wheel on to the rope for extra safety and start to cross the gap between the two buildings without being seen or heard. The whole operation took about ten to fifteen minutes.

Spot, being the lightest, went over first. He unhooked the line from the metal bar and wrapped it around the telegraph pole in order to make it more secure, then checked behind the building to make sure that no patrols were passing before signalling that it was clear for the rest of us to cross. Dynamo followed him over and I went after him.

By the time I arrived on the garrison rooftop, Dynamo had already begun to remove some old bits of canvas and wood from a broken skylight, or possibly a trapdoor, which had been boarded up. He cautiously lifted one corner and we peered through the
small opening. Two guards were standing talking to one another by some stairs at the end of a corridor directly below. Silently replacing the cover, Dynamo swiftly went to the edge of the roof and signalled to Chalky that there was a problem, in order to stop him from coming over.

‘Two guards!’ he hissed, holding up two fingers and pointing over to the skylight.

Chalky held up his hand and whispered back: ‘Five minutes.’

Then he disappeared inside the derelict building. We waited a few minutes before he reappeared on the opposite roof and quickly began to make his way over to us.

‘Where have you been?’ I quietly asked him. ‘What have you been up to?’

‘All in good time, Geordie. Wait a couple of minutes and you’ll see. I’ll show you how to get rid of them,’ he said, nodding towards the skylight.

We silently waited a few more minutes, then Spot turned to him.

‘Well?’

‘Give it time, old boy.’ Chalky grinned back.

At that moment, there was a commotion at the front of the building, a lot of shouting and the sound of running feet. Smoke began rising from a small hut in the corner of the compound followed by a series of small explosions. Spot dashed to the edge of the building, looked over briefly, and then strolled back to where we were waiting.

‘Your handiwork I presume?’ he said evenly to Chalky.

‘Small store area, full of paint and paraffin – came in rather handy. Right then, let’s get on with the damn job,’ Chalky calmly replied.

We felt secure leaving the rope in place at this stage. It ran parallel to the numerous telephone cables and wires from the telegraph pole
across to the adjacent building and anyone looking up wouldn’t have been able to spot it amongst the masses of wires already attached to the pole.

Dynamo led the way over the roof to the skylight and peered through the hole he’d made earlier again, to see if the guards were still there but by now they’d gone, presumably to see what all the noise was about in the compound.

‘It worked, they’ve gone!’ he whispered to Chalky. Squeezing his hand through the hole, he released the bolts holding the skylight in place. Once it was removed, we dropped through the opening and landed on to a large box about seven feet below, before dropping quietly down from this into the corridor. Dynamo immediately took out the small photograph of our target he’d hidden in the waistband of his trousers, looked at it briefly, then systematically began to try all the doors leading off the landing. The first couple he tried were locked and as no light shone beneath them, he swiftly moved on. He paused by the following door, listening, and then looked through the keyhole.

‘There’s someone in here,’ he whispered, then turned the handle and took a step into the room. Immediately he backed out again, pulling the door shut behind him, and looked at the photograph in his hand.

‘That’s him, in there!’

Politely he knocked on the door before re-entering the room with the three of us close behind him and walked straight over to a man sitting behind a large desk. The man looked furious. He stood up and walked towards Dynamo with his hand pointing towards the door, and said something in Arabic, no doubt words to the effect of ‘What the hell are you all doing in my office?’

Dynamo replied, also in Arabic, before adding in English, ‘Sorry about this, old boy.’

Using the ‘Machine’ moves he knocked the man’s outstretched arm out of the way and spun him around, before delivering two instantaneous blows, his left hand to the back of the guy’s head while the base of his right palm hit the guy on the right side of the chin. But just as he was about to break the man’s neck, I grabbed his arm and stopped him.

‘Don’t kill him!’

‘Bloody hell, Geordie, what’s the matter with you?’ he exclaimed in surprise. ‘That’s what we’re here for isn’t it?’

‘Yes I know but I think I can do this without having the whole Egyptian army looking for us. I’m fairly certain that I can make it look like suicide. I think I know just how to do it!’ I explained. ‘If he’s got a gun, we can do it.’

I began to search the guy but there was nothing on him.

‘He’s bound to have one,’ Spot said, looking around the room.

‘What about this, any good?’ Chalky pulled a service revolver out of one of the desk drawers. ‘What’s on your mind, Geordie?’

‘I hope this isn’t going to take too long,’ Dynamo said, glancing towards the door. ‘Do you really think you can do it?’

‘Just help me set up some light lines, lads, we’ll be out of here in no time!’ I said confidently.

Immediately on entering the room, I’d looked around and noticed that it had three barred windows and only one door. I’d also noticed that the door had an unusual lock, which could only be locked from the inside, as there was no keyhole on the other side. It also had a standard lock higher up the door, with a keyhole either side and two bolts, one at the top and one at the bottom. After quickly examining the type of locks on the door, and seeing that the key in the half-lock had a ring with two other large keys hanging from it, I’d come up with an idea.