Killing for the Company

He picked up his Bergen and left the ops room. Tomorrow was going to be a long day. Fuck knows what it would bring, but he needed to be ready.

TWENTY-THREE

9 December.

05.00 hrs.

Luke was the first of the unit into the briefing room, but O’Donoghue was already there. His tired eyes were bloodshot and he reeked of sweat. Luke could tell at a glance he’d been up all night. He was sitting staring intently at a laptop. When he saw that Luke had entered, he nodded. ‘Seen this?’ he asked.

Luke went over to his desk. The screen, which refreshed every five seconds, displayed an outline of the eastern Mediterranean. He could make out the shape of Israel, with the Gaza Strip on its western edge. To the north, Lebanon; south, Egypt; east, Jordan. A hundred and fifty klicks into the Med he saw the island of Cyprus, where he’d been on decompression more times than he could count. But there was more than just the geography to look at. Fifty clicks south-east of Cyprus were two flashing red dots, and in the flat terrain north-west of Jerusalem, three triangles.

O’Donoghue poked the dots with a thick, calloused finger. ‘Yanks,’ he said. ‘Marines. Ground attack aircraft.’ His finger moved to the triangles. ‘British Army, IDF, Canadians and Ozzies in from Germany. Five thousand men mobilised already and they’re still coming. We’ve got half the fucking RAF sitting on the tarmac in Cyprus.’ He sniffed. ‘I’m telling you, if Stratton doesn’t get the right noises out of Hamas, they’re going to do a Dresden on the Gaza Strip. And I wouldn’t put it past Israel to send a few over into Lebanon and the West Bank either. Every raghead east of Bradford’s going to be signing up. The Yanks have sent over satellite imagery. There’s troop movement along Iran’s western border and we’re getting reports of Yemeni activity in the Gulf of Aden. Even the fucking Iraqis are making the wrong noises.’

The two men continued to watch the screen in silence until, a minute later, the rest of the unit walked in, accompanied by the squadron ops sergeant carrying a computer printout. ‘Foreign Office report just in, lads,’ he announced. ‘Anti-Western demonstration in Gaza City last evening. Unrest overnight and unconfirmed accounts of small-arms fire across the border. We’re changing your route to avoid the trouble spots. Orders are to get Stratton to Hamas, but if things get hairy, turn around. Stratton won’t like it, but those are your instructions. Nobody wants any casualties. Especially not him, especially not today. Got it?’

Luke gave a curt nod.

‘Call sign Tango 17. You’ve got an hour.’

The unit made their way to the weapons store. The SQM was already there, ready to check out the gear they’d need. Plate hangers first. Luke made sure his body armour was strapped up tightly, then pulled on his ops waistcoat. Each man was issued with an HK53 — a good weapon for close-protection jobs, especially in urban areas because of its shorter barrel. The 5.56 NATO rounds came in thirty-round magazines, which they stashed in their waistcoats along with two fragmentation grenades each, before drawing their Sig 9mm handguns from the store. To their arms they fitted satellite markers which would transmit their location back to the ops centre, then attached their patrol comms to their chests — MBITR radios with earpieces and boom mikes, plus Iridium sat phones for comms with base.

The vehicle waiting for them was a black Land Cruiser. A plush interior — leather seats and all the trimmings. From the exterior it looked just like any other 4 x 4 of its type, but Luke knew the tinted windows were 40mm bullet-resistant polycarbonate; the bodywork was of hardened ballistic steel; the hinges, shock absorbers and springs were reinforced; and the tyres had special inserts to allow them to run when flat. There weren’t many small-arms rounds that could penetrate a vehicle like this. Short of driving a tank into hostile territory, it was the closest they’d get to maximum protection.

The ops sergeant was waiting for them by the Land Cruiser. He handed detailed maps to Russ covering Tel Aviv, the route from the capital to the border crossing with Gaza and substantial imagery of Gaza itself. Russ accepted them quietly. He did everything quietly. He was the tallest of the four of them, with a close-shaved head, a Barry Manilow nose and the navigation skills of a homing pigeon.

Fozzie took the wheel. As a member of mobility troop he was the best qualified to drive if things went noisy; Russ was in the passenger seat, GPS and mapping at the ready; Luke and Finn sat at the back. A nod from the OC and they hit the road.