Death in the Desert Read online

  BLACK OPS

  DEATH IN THE

  DESERT

  JIM ELDRIDGE

  EGMONT

  Copyright

  EGMONT

  We bring stories to life

  Black Ops: Death in the Desert

  First published 2010

  by Egmont UK Limited

  239 Kensington High Street

  London W8 6SA

  Text copyright © 2010 Jim Eldridge

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted

  ISBN 978 1 7803 1013 8

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  www.egmont.co.uk

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  First e-book edition January 2011

  ISBN 978-1-7803-10138

  For Lynne, my inspiration as always!

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  BOOKS BY JIM ELDRIDGE

  1

  As Mitch fell from the plane, the exhilaration of flying hit him. He felt that sudden blast of air ripping at his body as gravity took over.

  ‘When you’re jumping at night you have to be visible for three miles in any direction,’ his instructor had once told him. That was then. Tonight, his life depended on being invisible. The same went for his comrades.

  Mitch brought his legs together and his arms to his sides and rocketed down to the two men who were plummeting towards the Earth below. When he came level with them he opened his arms and legs wide to slow himself, and gripped hands with Gaz on his left and Two Moons on his right to complete the triangular formation. Benny’s Texan accent came through the earpiece in his helmet. ‘OK, guys. Point of no return. Take it down to 2,000 feet, then separate and open the chutes. We’ll keep radio silence from now until you hit the ground. Next contact after the plastic’s ready to blow.’

  And then there was quiet. The three special-forces soldiers flew downwards through the darkness, riding the air. The sensation of flying was so incredible it was hard to remember they were actually falling at 120 miles per hour.

  Below, the outside walls of the castle glowed orange, lit by security lights. Mitch checked the digital display of the altimeter on his wrist, watching the numbers go down. At just the right moment, the men released their grip and moved apart, ready to open their chutes.

  Mitch pulled the pilot chute from the bottom of his rig. There was a second’s delay while it caught the wind, then it pulled the main chute out. He felt the G-force of deceleration as he slowed to twelve miles per hour. Then he was floating, pulling on the toggles that would steer him directly over the dark surrounds of the castle.

  Mitch hit the ground and rolled, hauling his parachute in fast. He heard growling and the thud of running paws: three guard dogs were coming at him, jaws open, their vicious teeth glinting in the moonlight. He pulled out the tranquiliser gun and fired, and the leading dog crumpled to the ground, then lay still. The other dogs also collapsed as Gaz and Two Moons appeared, holstering their own tranquiliser guns. The dogs would be out for about half an hour.

  ‘Right, let’s move,’ whispered Two Moons.

  The three of them made for the castle and then spread out along the front of the building. As he ran, Mitch took the pack from his back and opened it, revealing the explosives inside.

  Reaching the castle wall, he worked swiftly, pressing explosives against the stone and at points in the enormous ground-floor windows. When the explosives went off they would take out the supports, leaving the lintel straining under the enormous weight above. If the other guys had fixed their explosives correctly, the stone alcove would come crashing down when they blew. Mitch pushed the detonators into place in the plastic, and then headed for the high outer wall.

  Suddenly Mitch sensed a movement to his right. He ducked just in time as a metal bar whistled past his head, glinting in the dim light. Mitch dropped and kicked out at the man, smashing his heel into the side of his assailant’s knee. As the man let out a yell of pain, Mitch jumped up and ran for the wall. He could see Two Moons and Gaz already on their way.

  Search lights now illuminated the whole area. A voice boomed out from a loud speaker: ‘Stop where you are or you will be shot!’

  Mitch, Gaz and Two Moons stopped and looked at each other expectantly. From the castle came shouts and the sound of running feet. Armed men were spilling out from the doors.

  In Mitch’s earpiece, Benny’s voice called out, ‘What’s happening? Situation report!’

  Mitch took a deep breath, then said firmly into his mic, ‘Plastic’s in position! Blow the place up!’

  2

  Tug looked at Mitch, Two Moons, Gaz and Benny and repeated, ‘Blow the place up!’ And then he burst out laughing.

  ‘It wasn’t funny!’ snapped Benny, annoyed.

  The five soldiers of Delta Unit, part of the US-UK Combined Special Forces, were in the briefing room at their barracks in London. Troopers Paul Mitchell, Danny Graham and Sergeant Tony Two Moons were telling Captain Robert Tait what a success their practice mission had been, while Lieutenant Bernardo Jaurez was insisting it had been a failure.

  ‘Our mission was to bring the building down,’ said Mitch. ‘We did it. That building would have collapsed, no problem.’

  ‘But you were supposed to be on the other side of the wall before I set the detonators off!’ argued Benny. ‘From that distance you would all most likely have been killed.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Gaz retorted. ‘We’d judged the explosives carefully.’

  Tug laughed. ‘Either way, I wish I’d been there.’ He patted his leg. ‘The medicos say I’m ready to jump out of a plane again.’

  ‘I’d still go easy,’ suggested Mitch. ‘It’s only been two months since the docs put that leg of yours back together again. When I broke mine a few years ago it was at least four months before I was ready for action.’

  ‘Four months is what they said to me too, at first,’ said Tug. ‘They offered me a desk job. I told them to forget it. Exercise is what my leg needs, and I’m not going to get it sitting around, pushing paper. So they gave in. I think they got tired of hearing me complain about it.’

  Mitch smiled as he looked around at his four squad mates from Delta Unit. They were a great bunch, he thought. Guys he’d trust with his life.

  He, Gaz and Two Moons were the youngest in the unit. Gaz, the short stocky Geordie from Newcastle, was wearing his civvies: jeans and a black leather jacket over a T-shirt with ‘Rock ’n’ roll’ printed on it. With his close-shaven head, tattoos, and Doc Marten boots, he looked more like a roadie for a rock band than a special-forces soldier. Towering above him, Two Moons, the tall Sioux Indian, was loyal and a fierce fighter, frightened of nothing. Today he was dressed almost conservatively, at least by his standards, in a colourful Hawaiian shirt.

  Tug, a quiet, softly spoken Englishman, was the son of a lord, but he kept that part of his life separate from his career as a
black-ops soldier. Second in command of the unit, under Colonel Chuck Nelson, Tug still limped slightly from the appalling injury he’d suffered on their most recent mission in West Africa. And Benny, a Latino Texan, was the unit’s tactician. He’d taken charge of the recent practice and was still upset at the way it had gone.

  ‘The mission was to blow the place up and for you all to get away safely,’ he repeated.

  ‘No one said that at the briefing,’ said Two Moons, shrugging.

  ‘Because it’s so obvious it didn’t need saying!’

  ‘Trust me, if it had been a real operation, we’d have got out,’ said Mitch confidently. ‘We’d have shot the enemy and then got over the wall in the chaos of the explosives going off.’

  ‘You’d have been dead!’ insisted Benny.

  ‘No, we wouldn’t,’ Mitch argued back. ‘I’m only dead when I say I’m dead. And even then I’m probably lying.’

  ‘Lying about what?’ asked a voice.

  They all looked round and saw that Nelson had entered the briefing room. The tall black colonel from Boston was accompanied by another man, Middle Eastern in appearance.

  ‘We were just discussing the recent exercise,’ said Tug with a smile. ‘There seem to be conflicting opinions on how successful it was.’

  Nelson nodded. ‘Yes, I heard,’ he said. ‘Parachuting in at night from high altitude. Good tactic.’

  Benny didn’t say anything, just sat with a scowl on his face. The games were over, thought Mitch, and it was time to put Benny out of his misery.

  ‘Good tactic, but we messed up, Colonel,’ Mitch admitted. ‘Only Benny’s too good a guy to tell you.’

  For a moment Mitch thought Nelson was angry. Mitch was the most recent recruit to Delta Unit, and after his first mission Nelson had threatened to kick him out because of his maverick attitude. Only the support of the other guys had saved his position in the squad. Maybe his ‘Blow the place up!’ gag had angered his commander.

  Instead, to Mitch’s relief, Nelson smiled. ‘I know exactly what happened,’ he said. ‘I even got a film of it. Next time, get over the wall before you blow the explosives. Anyway, enough on that. I’ve got a little treat for you. We’re going on a trip.’

  ‘Somewhere warm, I hope?’ asked Gaz.

  ‘Somewhere very warm,’ Nelson replied, nodding. ‘We’re going to Afghanistan.’

  3

  Mitch shot a worried glance at Tug. The captain had seen action in Afghanistan before and it hadn’t been a good experience. Behind enemy lines with a four-man unit, Tug had been the only one to come out alive.

  Nelson gestured at the man who had come in with him. He was tall and slim, wearing a very smart, expensive-looking suit. This guy is not a soldier, thought Mitch, intrigued. Not if he can afford a suit like that.

  ‘This is Mansur Omari,’ said Nelson. Omari smiled in greeting at the soldiers. ‘He’s the key to this, so I’ll let him make his own introductions and he can tell you what the gig is. And then I’ll explain how we’re gonna do it.’ Nelson sat down while Omari moved to a screen at the front of the briefing room.

  ‘Good morning, gentlemen. As the colonel has told you, my name is Mansur Omari and, as you can tell from my accent, I’m an American. I was born and brought up in Chicago. But my family originated from somewhere else, just like pretty much everybody in the States.’ Here he smiled and nodded towards Two Moons. ‘Except for the Native Americans, such as your colleague, Mr Two Moons.’

  Two Moons nodded slightly in acknowledgement. This guy is smooth, thought Mitch. He’s got to be a politician of some sort.

  Omari continued. ‘My parents were originally from Kajaki in Helmand Province in Afghanistan. They left in 1981 during the Soviet invasion to emigrate to America, where I was born a couple of years later. I still have family in Afghanistan, and for the past two years I’ve been acting as a mediator, working for the United Nations, trying to get peace talks going there.

  ‘The problem is that the official line of both the US and the UK governments is that they “don’t negotiate with terrorists”. But, as you know, the war is going badly. Privately both governments accept that they will have to negotiate in some way with the moderate Taliban, who may be willing to talk.’

  A PowerPoint display had already been set up. Omari triggered it and a map appeared on the screen: Afghanistan. Mitch was familiar with it, as was every soldier. The area to the south had been highlighted.

  So that’s where we’re going, thought Mitch. Helmand Province. One of the most dangerous places on earth.

  ‘As most of you know, Helmand Province is the hub of insurgent activity,’ continued Omari. ‘And to make matters worse, it’s also the home of the Afghan drugs trade, which provides most of the money to fund the Taliban. And we’re not talking small-time drug dealers.’

  On the screen appeared a chart showing the structure of the drugs trade in Helmand.

  ‘The Afghans grow poppies from which they extract opium, which is then turned into heroin,’ Omari continued. ‘In case you didn’t know, Colombia produces most of the cocaine that comes into the West, and Morocco most of the cannabis. To put things into perspective, Helmand Province’s heroin output provides more street drugs in the West than Colombia and Morocco put together.’

  ‘Why don’t we just destroy the poppy fields?’ suggested Two Moons. ‘No poppies, no opium, no heroin. No money for the Taliban. After all, the Brits have been in Helmand for years. They must know where the poppy fields are.’

  ‘We do,’ agreed Tug. ‘The troops travel through them when they’re on patrol.’

  ‘So why not set fire to them while they’re there?’ asked Gaz. ‘Or, even easier, call in an air attack. A few runs with some napalm would wipe out every poppy field in the place. Several problems solved in one go. No heroin. No Taliban.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s not that simple,’ Tug said, sighing. ‘We’re trying to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. Most of the farmers in Helmand Province earn their living by growing poppies for the drugs trade. If we destroyed the poppy fields we’d also destroy their income at the same time. That wouldn’t go down well.’

  ‘Persuade them to grow something else,’ persisted Two Moons. ‘They’re farmers. They can grow food. Sell it to Africa. Make money and solve the famine at the same time.’ He shook his head and gave a sigh. ‘Sure seems simple to me.’

  ‘True,’ Omari admitted with a nod, ‘but that’s without the politics.’

  ‘Ah, the politics!’ Two Moons said, chuckling. ‘That explains everything!’

  The others laughed.

  ‘Back to the matter at hand: the drugs trade and the fighting are carried out by connected groups, led by individual warlords. There are lots of these warlords, each one running his own patch of Helmand, and each with a tough, well-equipped small army. The warlord we’re particularly interested in is this one.’

  On the screen appeared a picture of a bearded man dressed in loose-fitting robes, his head covered with a black turban. He carried an automatic rifle and had bandoliers of ammunition hanging around his neck and shoulders.

  ‘This is Azma Al Haq, a very powerful Taliban warlord with a stronghold in the mountains in the north of Helmand Province.’

  ‘We gonna kill him?’ asked Two Moons.

  ‘I hope not,’ said Omari. ‘He’s my uncle and he’s prepared to meet with the UN. We’re going to talk to him. Or, rather, I am.’

  The soldiers, all except Nelson, looked at one another in surprise.

  ‘Why would he suddenly want to start talking peace?’ asked Tug suspiciously.

  ‘I believe he is genuine,’ replied Omari. ‘I have met my uncle on a few occasions in Afghanistan while working for the UN. He has been fighting all his life. All he’s ever wanted is an independent Afghanistan, run by the people. At first the Taliban offered that, but my uncle says that many of the Taliban leaders now are foreigners from Pakistan, not Afghans.

  ‘Over the years some of hi
s children have died in the fighting, as well as his brothers, their wives and daughters. He is an old man now, and he doesn’t want his grandchildren and great-grandchildren to go through the same pain and fear of a never-ending war. And the only alternative to war is peace, however difficult that may be to achieve.’

  ‘And you really believe him?’ asked Benny.

  Omari nodded. ‘I do,’ he said. ‘I met him recently in Kandahar, and made a tentative offer of talks. He agreed – with some conditions.’

  ‘What sort of conditions?’ asked Mitch, interrupting.

  Omari hesitated, and threw a look at Nelson.

  ‘Need to know basis only, Mitch, I’m afraid,’ said Nelson. ‘Not our department.’

  ‘It sure would help to know what we were going into,’ said Mitch with a shrug.

  ‘I can tell you.’ Gaz grinned. ‘We’re going into trouble.’

  The others laughed, and Omari joined in. ‘I’m afraid your colleague is right,’ he said. ‘But a deal with Al Haq could deliver a ceasefire in his part of Helmand. It’s been arranged that I will meet him at the only place he really feels safe: his own hideout in the mountains. To get there will mean going through Taliban-controlled territory.’

  ‘And we are going to be Mr Omari’s bodyguards,’ added Nelson.

  ‘The Taliban will get to hear what’s going on,’ pointed out Benny. ‘Word spreads.’

  ‘Exactly,’ agreed Omari. ‘So, to stop the extremist Taliban finding out the true nature of our journey, we have concocted a cover story. For which, I’ll hand you back to your commander, Colonel Nelson.’

  Nelson got up and addressed the unit. ‘The reason we gave you the info about the drugs business, the poppy fields and all that, is because our cover story is that we’re a bunch of renegade soldiers on our way to do a deal for a very large shipment of heroin from Azma Al Haq.’

  ‘So we’re criminals?’ asked Two Moons.

  ‘Correct.’ Nelson nodded. ‘And to make sure the story rings true, it’s going to be spread around Pakistan, and other parts of Afghanistan, so that no one knows what’s really going on.’