Cobra Gold

Cobra Gold

Damien Lewis

For the late A. J. Hogan, recently departed this world.

Rest in peace.

‘Cry Havoc and let slip the dogs of war.’

—William Shakespeare

‘Fine talking of God to a soldier, whose trade and occupation is cutting throats.’

—Private Jack Careless

‘Beware of what you want, for you may end up getting it.’

—Cherokee Indian saying

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

06.00 Hours: Present Day, Eastern Mediterranean Sea

Fifty nautical miles off the coast of northern Syria a sleek black shape came to a halt beneath the grey-flecked swell of the oily sea. The stealthy form of the USS Polaris, an Ohio-class nuclear submarine, barely moved with the rise and fall of the ocean, such was the bulk of the vessel suspended some thirty feet below the waves.

Slowly, a black metal tube extended itself vertically from the submarine’s conning tower, making barely a whisper of noise as it did so. At the same time the Captain of the Polaris grabbed his periscope and did a quick three-sixty-­degree scan of the surrounding sea. By the faint glow of dawn he could see that not another ship was in sight—which was just as he wanted it.

The Captain downed periscope just as the mysterious black tube—a Universal Modular Mast—broke the surface. A metal cowling flipped open with a faint pop, breaking the watertight seal at the top of the tube. Inside there were four separate vertical chambers. Seconds after the Mast had broken through the waves, and on an order from the sub’s captain, a rocket ignited in the bowels of the tube.

Moments later a cylindrical object shot out of one of the chambers, rising vertically away from the sea. The launch rocket propelled the device some two hundred feet into the air, whereupon its upward momentum slowed. As it did so, four arms folded out from the core of the device like the wings of some giant mutant insect emerging from its chrysalis, each one terminating in a vertical fin.

At the rear of the aluminium–titanium fuselage of the Sea Strike unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) a propeller started to rotate—slowly at first and then with increasing speed as the aircraft’s fuel-injected engine took over from the spent rocket thruster. Beneath the foam-packed nose cone a surveillance cluster dome whirred as the aircraft’s pan-tilt-zoom video camera and infrared imagery systems kicked into life.

As the Sea Strike gained altitude under the lift generated by the aircraft’s 4.5-metre wingspan, it increased its speed to some ninety knots and set a course for Syria. Some one hundred and twenty miles away in the mountains above the ancient Syrian town of Aleppo the diminutive aircraft had an urgent rendezvous with an unsuspecting target.

In the ops room on board the giant submarine special-forces pilot Bob Kennard stared into the blue-green glow of his Combat System Console Interface—a computerised control panel that enabled him to ‘fly’ the Sea Strike remotely. A state-of-the-art GPS autopilot system was now guiding the aircraft towards its target. But it was up to Bob to take control of the final stages of the mission—that was if it was green-lit by his commanders, back at Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in Florida—and carry out the final kill.

As soon as Sea Strike One was airborne, and Bob had confirmed to the Polaris’s captain that he had full interface with the aircraft, the giant submarine slipped quietly down into the depths. Now it had become a waiting game. The aircraft was an hour away from Aleppo, and upon arrival she would have six hours’ loiter time over the target. It would then be a matter of luck as to whether the intended victim was present at the training camp. Only if Bob was able to acquire a clear image of the target would he launch the kill strike.

Bob had over a decade’s experience as a special-forces pilot but this was his first remote combat mission. He settled back into his seat with a fresh coffee, being careful not to spill it over the rubberised computer terminal, and eyed the screen. A green line traced the course of Sea Strike One as she headed east and climbed towards her 25,000-foot operating ceiling. Weather conditions over the Syrian mountains weren’t perfect but in recent exercises the Sea Strike had proven herself capable of flying blind through all but the worst of storms.

Bob Kennard had little idea who the target was, or why the man was being singled out for such a costly and covert hit. The mission’s security clearance was Beyond Top Secret. Bob had been given the target’s name: The Searcher. And he’d been told that The Searcher was a British ex-soldier based in a terrorist training camp in the Syrian mountains. And that was that: Bob had no need-to-know when it came to the full mission details. In fact he preferred not to know: it was far easier to assassinate someone if it was done from a distance without ever knowing their true identity.

As retrieval by submarine of the Sea Strike UAVs had as yet proved impossible, they were of necessity disposable one-mission aircraft. At the end of this flight Sea Strike One was programmed to self-destruct: she would blow herself to pieces over a remote Syrian mountain range, leaving no evidence that she had ever flown. But at one and a half million dollars per aircraft they were costly pieces of kit—so whatever this British ex-soldier was up to, the US military and their British allies had to want him real bad, Bob reckoned.

Fifty-five minutes after launch Sea Strike One slipped quietly into the airspace over a remote Syrian mountain valley. The aircraft automatically switched from liquid-fuel engine to silent electronic-propulsion mode, descended from 25,000 to 10,000 feet, and began to fly a set of search transects across the known coordinates of the training camp.

Bob would have preferred to operate at a higher altitude, but there was no way around it. He needed to capture a clear enough image of the target to ID him from his facial features alone, which he might just be able to do from 10,000 feet. They would only ever get the one chance to make the kill, so they had to be certain that they had got him.

Not for the first time that morning Bob glanced at the top right-hand corner of his computer screen. It showed a single, still image—an old dog-eared photo of a figure dressed in army fatigues. A pair of intense green eyes stared out of the screen and the man’s head was topped off by a shaggy mane of sandy hair. The expression on the thin craggy face wasn’t hostile, or unfriendly: all it revealed to Bob was a fierce intellect and a peculiar predatory alertness.

Bob had operated alongside British special-forces soldiers often enough. He knew of their maverick reputation and their unconventional ways, and this guy certainly had that look about him. For a second it crossed Bob’s mind that the target might indeed be ex-SAS. But even if he did manage to kill him, Bob would never know.

Bob’s gaze was drawn to the live data-feed beaming back from Sea Strike One. A faint movement had caught his eye. He felt a kick of adrenalin as the video feed revealed a distant group of figures, half hidden among the rocks. He leaned forward and grabbed the joystick flight control, flicking the master switch from autopilot to manual.

Bob sent the Sea Strike into a tighter orbit and focused the camera in on the group. He felt his pulse quicken. Some two dozen men were squatted around a central figure, receiving some form of weapons instruction. They were dressed in a mixture of Arabic robes and army fatigues, and each held an AK47 between his knees.

But it was the appearance of the central instructor figure that interested Bob the most. His light features contrasted markedly with the dark complexions of the other men. Bob zoomed in closer—as close as the telephoto lens would allow—and flipped up a microphone arm from his head unit. As he started his commentary on the mission he knew that the General would be listening.

‘Okay, this is Sunray Zero Alpha and I now have manual control of the UAV … So we have a group of possible targets at what seems like a lesson under way. I’m zeroing in on what I guess must be the instructor. Notice the lighter skin of his face. And seems like that’s sandy hair I can see to one side of the turban thing he’s wearing, but let’s take a closer look.’

Bob zoomed in still further. ‘Hold it, hold it … We just kinda need to see the face more clearly … Looks like he’s glancing up at us—is he going to?—yeah! Got it! That’s a clear image of the face of the instructor now captured on the video. Okay, we’re going to freeze-frame several of those images so we can all take a closer look …’

Bob turned and glanced at the UAV technician to one side of him. He raised an eyebrow questioningly to check that the technician had copied the instruction, and was given a thumbs-up. Bob resumed speaking into his microphone.

‘Okay, we’re just processing those images … Okay, you should be able to see them now, displayed on the left-hand side of your screen. That’s five images of the face of the target glancing up in the direction of the camera. Question is, do we have a positive ID? It kinda looks right to me. A little older, maybe, but there’s no mistaking that face. I’d say we do have positive ID … General, sir, I am now asking if I’m green-lit to hit the target?’

Eight thousand miles away in US Special Operations Command, Florida, General Sam Peters was on his feet, staring into his computer screen. He flicked his gaze across the series of still video images. The sandy hair and green eyes marked the instructor figure out as a Westerner, that much was for certain. And the faint scar across the right cheek was encouraging: it was exactly what the General had been told to look out for.

The General turned to a figure at his side. ‘You reckon we got our man?’

Nick Coles glanced at the General, then back at the computer. He scrutinised the images for several seconds. He wanted to be one hundred per cent certain that this was their target—that they were going to get their kill.

‘Son, you reckon we got him?’ the General repeated, impatiently.

‘I think we probably have, General, yes,’ Nick replied. ‘I think it’s our target.’

‘Listen, son, probably ain’t good enough,’ the General growled. ‘Unless I’m mistaken, this guy’s still a Brit citizen, still ex-special forces. Now, if the US is gonna sanction the use of our top-secret technology to assassinate the son of a bitch we’d better make darn sure of what we’re doing. Wouldn’t you agree, son?’

Nick hated the way the General was addressing him as ‘son’. He was ex-military himself and had risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel before joining the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. Nick felt certain that the General would have been fully briefed on his credentials. Peters was playing a power game with him, and right now he held all the cards in his hand. But Nick prided himself on always being the grey man, on being able to take the abuse and show no visible sign that he had been needled.

He kept his stare glued to the computer screen as he framed his reply. ‘Well, from the records we’ve been able to dig up on him all the physical characteristics—height, eye and hair colour, physique—seem to be correct, General. Plus The Searcher has a scar running down his right cheek. You’ve noticed this man’s scar, I take it? So yes, General, I’d say I am convinced. I believe it’s him. That’s our target.’

‘You’re certain we got the right man?’

‘Absolutely, General. Absolutely.’

‘Now that’s more like it.’

The General pulled his radio mouthpiece up so that he could make voice contact with Bob Kennard, the UAV’s operator.

‘This is General Peters, calling Sunray Zero Alpha. Good work finding him so quickly, son. I am giving you the green light to proceed with Operation Terminal Search. I repeat, proceed with the operation. Go get him, son.’

‘Well copied, sir,’ came back Bob Kennard’s reply. ‘This is Sunray Zero Alpha proceeding with Operation Terminal Search …’

‘God, Operation Terminal Search—who thinks up these names?’ Nick muttered under his breath.

In spite of four decades of military service, General Peters’s hearing on his left side was still sharp. Unfortunately, Nick was sitting at the General’s left shoulder.

‘Sorry, son, did you say somethin’?’ the General growled. ‘We’re only having to proceed with Operation Terminal Search for one goddamn reason, and that’s because one of your boys has gone over to the dark side. You hear me? And boy, is his shit dark.’

Nick nodded. He had regretted making that comment almost before it was out of his mouth. From the file he’d read on the General, he knew that Peters had a long and distinguished combat history and was famed for his robust temper. With a rogue SAS soldier training the world’s newest terrorism outfit—the Black Assassins—to take out seven of the West’s top leaders, it was hardly surprising that the General was displeased. It would be a terrorism spectacular the likes of which the world had never seen.

The General glared at Nick. ‘Now, Operation Terminal Search is about the best hope we got of stoppin’ your boy. So, if you don’t appreciate the mission name, son, maybe we can settle on a better one? How’s about Operation Terminate with Extreme Prejudice that Goddamn Traitorous Brit Son of a Bitch? Sound better to you, son? Does it?’

‘Probably … I’m not sure, sir.’

‘Well, like I said, probably ain’t good enough, son. So, don’t you sit there with your oh-so-superior English attitude and take the rise out of my operation, you hear me?’

‘Yes, sir … And sir, I apologise.’

‘Apology accepted,’ the General grunted. ‘Now, let’s get on with the mission and kill this bastard.’

The General glared into the computer screen as the UAV was brought around for another pass over the target, and Bob Kennard recommenced his commentary on the mission.

‘Now starting transect five, bearing 0407 degrees. I’m aiming for a second overflight of the target area. Should be overhead that position in less than three, repeat three, minutes. This is the attacking run …’

‘One thing, General,’ Nick remarked as the two men stared at the live video feed. ‘The Searcher was never a commissioned SAS officer. He was only ever an NCO.’

‘Don’t make a heap of difference, son, now he’s gone over to the dark side. Still knows his stuff, don’t he? Makes my goddamn blood boil. What kinda name is that for a soldier, anyways—The Searcher? Don’t the son of a bitch have a proper name?’

Before leaving London Nick had been told not to reveal The Searcher’s true identity. The US military was notoriously leaky, and the last thing Her Majesty’s Government needed was a story breaking about an ex-SAS operator training the world’s most fearsome terrorist outfit. There were half a dozen of the General’s men crammed into that stifling ops room, not to mention the assistants who kept buzzing in and out. Any one of them could have a contact in the media, and once they had the man’s name then they had a story.

‘The Searcher’ was a nickname that had been given to the target by his SAS mates back in the 1970s, Nick explained. He was always seeking some greater cause or meaning in life. He’d gone through most of the major religions—Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism—before converting to Islam and training up the Palestinian resistance.

But in 1986 there’d been a raid by Force 17 terrorists on an Israeli yacht. Two of the gunmen were Palestinians, but the third was a British mercenary. That man was almost certainly The Searcher. At that time he’d made the crossover to direct involvement in terrorism. Since then The Searcher’s name had been linked to operations by Black September, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Abu Nidal, the Turkish Grey Wolves and more. And now he was with the Black Assassins, plotting a world-class terrorism spectacular.

In spite of the submarine’s air-conditioning, Bob Kennard was sweating heavily in the bowels of the USS Polaris. The tension of the mission was getting to him. His hands felt lumpy over the computer terminal as he waited for the image of the target to reappear. Every atom of his consciousness was focused on that tiny aircraft as he willed it to seek out and find its prey. Even though Bob knew little about their fair-haired target he could sense the threat in his bones, and was determined to go get him.

Sea Strike One pushed onwards and the group of stick-like figures reappeared in the video screen. As Bob zoomed in he noticed one of them glancing skywards. Something—perhaps the glint of sunlight on the camera lens—had alerted him to the UAV’s silent presence. The figure detached himself from the main group and hurried across to an underground bunker.

Bob put the tiny aircraft into close-orbit mode and began punching buttons on his console. From the nose cone of the UAV an invisible beam fired earthwards as the aircraft began to ‘paint’ the target area with the hot point of its laser. Seconds later a pair of miniature bomb doors swung open beneath the fuselage, revealing a blunt-headed projectile some three feet long, its four guidance fins folded against its body.

Sea Strike One was ready to attack.

The video image was still now: internal gyroscopes in the camera’s housing kept the lens focused exactly on target. All Bob had to do was hit the ‘fire’ button, and the silent, gliding Viper Strike munition would drop almost vertically, accelerating to some 250 feet per second.

It would reach the target area in forty seconds, giving the enemy scant time to take cover—that was if they ever saw the strike coming, for they certainly wouldn’t hear it. The 2.5-pound thermobaric warhead would hit without warning, throwing out a vapour cloud of fuel–air explosive that would detonate in a terrible vortex of heat and flame.

Bob spotted the figure re-emerging from the bunker and recognised it as their target. He was carrying an indistinct bundle slung across his right shoulder. Bob punched the ‘fire’ button, there was an inaudible click within the belly of Sea Strike One, and the Viper Strike munition dropped silently away from the aircraft.

As the warhead dragged the bulbous nose of the Viper Strike downwards four fins unfolded from the bomb’s tail end and it began its graceful, gliding dive towards the ground. Immediately it did so, the on-board guidance system picked up on the hot point of the laser and began to minutely adjust the Viper Strike’s glide path so that it exactly homed in on the target.

Bob’s eyes were glued to the digital read-out on his computer screen as it counted down the seconds to impact—30, 29, 28, 27 … But all of a sudden there was an intense flash of light at ground level. Bob refocused the camera, only to find the target with a smoking missile-launcher balanced on his shoulder and the arrow-like form of a surface-to-air missile streaking upwards towards Sea Strike One.

Bob knew that he had only seconds in which to act. If the missile struck the UAV then the debris of the aircraft would tumble to earth in the midst of the training camp—in which case their ultra-secret mission would be blown wide open. Several of the UAV’s parts were clearly identifiable as American military: it even had ‘Made in the USA’ stencilled across the experimental titanium airframe.

For an instant Bob vacillated, torn between hitting the self-destruct button to vaporise the UAV and hanging on to see the Viper Strike detonate. But then he punched a button on the computer terminal hard. There was a sudden belch of smoke in front of the camera lens and the screen went black.

Just as the image died on Bob’s screen the Iranian-made Sayyad-2 missile went hurtling through the plume of fire and fine debris which was all that was now left of Sea Strike One. At exactly that moment the Viper Strike bomb ploughed into the hard-packed earth of the training camp. The compact warhead impacted with a dull thud and a small charge threw a fine mist of fuel–air explosive high over the camp.

A split second later the weapon detonated, instantly transforming the air above the training ground into a seething white-hot fireball. As the raging fire-monster sucked in oxygen, the blast wave flashed outwards from the epicentre of the explosion. It tore across the open ground and slammed into the nearest bodies, ripping them limb from limb.

It was followed in an instant by the firestorm itself, like the breath of an avenging dragon that incinerated every living thing. A black mushroom cloud of smoke belched upwards and outwards from the point of impact. And as the firestorm raged onwards it tore the very air out of the lungs of anyone caught in its path.

At 11,000 feet above the training camp the Sayyad-2 missile started to hunt across the horizon, trying to reacquire its target. Deprived of its kill it burned itself out. By the time the spent projectile fell to earth on a distant mountainside, the survivors of the Viper Strike explosion were stirring.

They emerged from the camp’s bunkers to be met by a scene from hell itself. Pulverised weapons, torn clothing and the odd shoe lay scattered across the camp. And mixed in with this smoking debris were contorted, blackened shapes barely recognisable as human—the bodies of those caught in the fearsome vortex of the Viper Strike’s blast.

‘He hit the goddamn destruct button!’ General Peters yelled for the umpteenth time, as he stared dumbfounded at the blank computer screen. ‘He hit the goddamn destruct …’

The General turned away, cursing in frustration. He had been replaying the last few seconds of the video over and over, but it seemed to lack the final moments when the Viper Strike hit. Deep down the General knew that the aircraft’s operator had been right to send the self-destruct signal. But it still galled him.

The General glanced at Nick Coles, searching his face for some kind of confirmation that they’d made the kill. But Nick just shrugged his shoulders. He wasn’t about to stick his neck out and say that they had.

‘Sergeant Ames, I want you to grab that last image,’ the General barked out an order. ‘The very last frame before the screen went black. You got me?’

‘Yes, sir!’ came the reply from a bank of computers to the General’s right.

‘Let’s just hope and pray we hit the bastard where it hurts,’ the General growled, more to himself than to anyone else.

An image appeared on the General’s computer screen. It was a fuzzy picture of the Viper Strike, guidance fins outstretched like the wings of a bird of prey, streaking downwards. It was the very last video frame filmed by Sea Strike One, and it showed the warhead still some 300 feet or more above the target area. And there, at the corner of the video frame, was the target—The Searcher himself—running hell for leather for the nearest cover.

‘Dammit,’ the General cursed to himself. ‘We got no video of the point of impact.’

General Peters turned away from the computer terminal and spoke into his radio mouthpiece. ‘Sunray Zero Alpha, what d’you reckon, son? Tell me, you’re the operator—you reckon we got him?’

‘Sir, I just dunno, sir,’ came back Bob Kennard’s reply. ‘It was a damn good Viper Strike hit, sir, just like we trained for in exercises. That’s a thermobaric munition we used, sir—pretty much incinerates everything … But I just can’t say for certain, sir, that we got our man.’

The General grunted. ‘I’d like to say Mission accomplished, son, but I can’t … What I can say is a real warm thank-you, ’cause you did us proud. And pass my congratulations to the captain and crew of that boat, son. The mission couldn’t have been done without them …’

The General squared his shoulders and pounded a balled-up fist into the palm of his hand.

He glared at Nick Coles. ‘On balance, I reckon we got him. But this is a goddamn war, and you know what they say: presumption is the mother of all fuck-ups. You’d be amazed what people just walk away from. So you’d better get onto your people, son. It was your Humint that found this guy in the first place. Whoever you got out there on the ground in your local networks or whatever, they’d better put their feelers out again. See if they can pick up news of your Searcher—find out whether he’s dead or alive.’

‘Of course—I’ll see what we can do, General.’

‘Appreciate it. You know, we should’ve had a man on the ground. All it takes is one good operator up on one of them ridge lines and we’d have confirmation of our kill. You know what worries me most? Those moments after the UAV self-destructed there was no laser guiding in the Viper Strike. When you self-destruct the aircraft, you self-destruct the laser guidance system ’n’all. Just have to hope we were close enough to fry the son of a bitch.’

‘Why didn’t you have that man on the ground, General?’ Nick asked. He knew that he held the trump card on this one, although he wasn’t about to reveal it to the General.

‘Goddamn politicians, that’s why,’ General Peters spat out. ‘Wouldn’t risk having one of our special operators dropped in country, just in case he got compromised. Political fallout with Syria would have been too hot to handle, according to them pansy-assed bastards who sit up there in Washington scratching their backsides all day long.’

Nick saw an opportunity to needle the General and get a small piece of revenge. ‘I suppose you have to see things from their perspective.’

‘Nope, son, I don’t have to see things from their perspective. Period. Haven’t done for forty years, and I ain’t about to start now. From where I’m sitting we’ve got us a bunch of murderers training for the greatest kamikaze mission of all time. Way I see it, we’ve got our President and your guy menaced by a bunch of crazies.’

The General fixed Nick with a steely eye. ‘And as if that ain’t enough we discover they’re getting training from one of your best ex-operators. You don’t fuck around with that little lot. You do whatever it takes—whatever it goddamn takes—to get the job done. We should’ve had a man on the ground, son, simple as that.’

Half an hour later Nick Coles left the entrance gates to the SOCOM building and got into a waiting taxi to take him back to his hotel. As he pulled away from the vast military complex he breathed a sigh of relief. Nick hadn’t been sad to say farewell to General Peters. As far as he was concerned the next American who had the temerity to call him ‘son’ was going to get an earful. Even his ‘grey man’ persona had its limits, and the General had just about overstepped them.

As he settled back into his seat, Nick allowed himself to feel just a little smug. He felt certain that they’d hit The Searcher, which meant that it was mission accomplished. Either way, he knew he would be getting absolute confirmation of the kill in the next hour or so. Whilst the Americans mightn’t have had a man on the ground, the British had—only the General and the rest of the US military had been kept in the dark about it.

Nick punched a number on his mobile phone. It was time to check what their man on the ground had witnessed of the Viper Strike attack.

CHAPTER TWO

19 January 1979: UK Armed Forces Base, RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus

The air of the mess tent was thick with cigarette smoke, stale sweat and the reek of frying food. The fifty-odd men of Q Squadron SAS leaned back in their canvas chairs, taking it easy. It was nearly lunchtime, and they were far more interested in getting a good feed than they were in the briefing. Most had already been deployed to the Lebanon, so the MI6 liaison officer could tell them little new about the vicious little civil war that was going on there.

Since the outbreak of the fighting some six years earlier, Lebanon’s capital city, Beirut, had been devastated. It was now divided into a Christian east and a Muslim west, with a shattered and depopulated no man’s land in the middle. In recent months the men of Q Squadron had been tasked with inserting operators from the CIA and the US Intelligence Support Agency into Beirut, on a series of hostage-rescue operations.

As the MI6 officer finished his briefing, Major Marcus Thistlethwaite, Q Squadron’s Officer Commanding (OC), stood up to speak. An audible groan went up from the tent. The Major had been barely a month with The Regiment. He was a humourless individual who lacked the common touch, and everyone knew he loved the sound of his own voice far too much.

‘So that, gentlemen, is the Lebanon,’ the Major began. ‘Not a pretty picture. Now, yesterday morning I asked each troop for your plans on four mission scenarios. Well, I have your plans before me and I have read them all, and I can’t say I’m impressed.

‘Shall we start with the Lebanon bank raid?’ the Major continued. ‘To recap, your mission was to gain access to the vaults of the Imperial Bank of Beirut and seize papers that are of high intelligence value to Her Majesty’s Government. The bank lies in the middle of the Beirut war zone, so such robberies are not unheard of. You have all been on the ground in Beirut, I believe?’

Major Thistlethwaite glanced up from his notes, seeking confirmation of their previous Lebanon ops from the men. The British Government had green-lit these missions, but only begrudgingly. Increasingly, the Commanding Officer of the SAS was being forced to fight tooth and nail to secure such work. On several occasions in recent years the SAS had come perilously close to being disbanded.

The ruling Labour government was strongly opposed to covert operations, and even the military high command was questioning the need for special forces and the maverick men they attracted. New officers kept being foisted upon The Regiment, tasked with bringing the more unruly elements into line. The men of Q Squadron were certain that Major Thistlethwaite was one of these. Nothing else would explain how he’d made it into the SAS.

The Major glanced enquiringly at his men. All he got in return was a series of blank stares. The mess tent was silent for several seconds as he waited for one of the men to speak. If only the Major had been able to, he would have learned an important lesson from their silence: it was impossible to command an SAS squadron without the support and respect of the men.

‘No one got anything to say?’ the Major snapped. ‘Then I’ll take your silence as a tacit recognition of your previous Lebanese ops. So—the bank raid. Up-to-date intel suggests that the bank is continuing to do business five days a week …’

The men were bored. The Major had been through all this once already, so why the need to repeat it?

‘The bank vault remains operational,’ the Major droned on. ‘We understand that some fifty million dollars in gold bullion is held there, alongside the papers we are after. Those documents detail the financial holdings of Arab terror groups worldwide, so security will be tight. Now, as I said, I briefed you yesterday morning and asked each troop to come up with a mission plan.’

This wasn’t the first time that the men of Q Squadron had been tasked with preparing a plan for a bank raid. In fact, banks were one of the favourite theoretical objectives of The Regiment. They provided a distinct target opportunity, one where security would be tight and ease of entry for the uninvited was particularly difficult. As an exercise, a bank job tested the men’s ability to plan out an assault on a well-defended building, and get in and out again without being compromised.

On a practical level, if hostile regimes or terrorist groups had sensitive documents that they needed to keep hidden, banks were one of the commonest places of concealment. Most of them offered blanket client-confidentiality, which meant that the SAS had to be ready to physically assault and burgle them whenever necessary.

‘These are the mission plans that you came up with,’ the Major announced, waving a bundle of written papers around. ‘Now, I may be new to The Regiment, but I have many years’ military service behind me and I have never set eyes upon such an abysmal set of documents. My mother could have done better, and needless to say she is not a member of your elite fraternity. One in particular is a complete joke …’

The Major glanced around the room. Q Squadron broke down into four fighting units—One, Two, Three and Four Troop. His gaze came to rest on Lieutenant Luke Kilbride, the leader of Four Troop. The Major stared across at the Lieutenant with open hostility: this wasn’t the first time that they had crossed swords. Kilbride gazed back at him uninterestedly, his expression betraying not a hint of concern.

‘Not for the first time,’ the Major continued, ‘it is Four Troop’s plan that really takes the biscuit. I shall read it to you, shall I? It won’t take me long, that’s for certain. Oh, and I presume this is your writing, Lieutenant Kilbride, and chiefly your handiwork?’

The Major glared at Kilbride, but received no answer. Luke Kilbride was in his late twenties, and although he tried his best to hide it he was classic officer material. He was public-school-educated and came from a family with a long military pedigree. His parents were seriously wealthy, hence the nickname given him by his mates—‘Loaded’.

In part due to his moneyed background and boyish good looks he’d gone seriously off the rails with drugs, drink and girls. He’d joined the SAS at age nineteen, as a lowly trooper, in a last-ditch effort to sort himself out. That had been nine years ago. Since then he’d