‘Nuke the lot of them,’ said Shortt.
‘Thanks, Jimbo,’ said the Major. ‘Any serious thoughts?’
‘Are the Yanks on the case?’ asked O’Brien.
‘The military?’ asked the Major. ‘As much as they can be, but one kidnapped British contractor isn’t top of their priorities, not with their own death toll heading towards three thousand.’
Shepherd, Armstrong, O’Brien and Shortt sat back and waited for the Major to continue. The fact that he had called them together meant that he had something in mind.
‘If anything is going to happen, it’s going to be down to us,’ he said. ‘There’s no question of British troops being pulled out, and no question of the government getting involved in any form of negotiations.’
‘Because they don’t negotiate with terrorists,’ said Armstrong, bitterly. ‘Unless they’re Irish, of course. Then they invite them to Downing Street for tea. Bloody Paddies.’
‘Hey,’ said O’Brien. ‘Behave. I’m a Paddy, remember.’
The Major raised a warning eyebrow and Armstrong and O’Brien fell silent. ‘From what I’m told, Geordie’s Sass background won’t be revealed,’ the Major continued. ‘The only family he has is a brother and he knows to keep his head down. The company has been briefed to say only that he served with the army. No details of his career with the Paras or Sass. If the group holding him finds out that he’s former special forces they’ll make it a lot harder for him. Officially Sass can’t be seen to be involved, but unofficially they’ll move heaven and earth to find him. But with Geordie in the Sunni Triangle, we’re going to need American help. Unofficial American help.’
The Major looked pointedly at Shepherd, who knew what he was suggesting and nodded slowly. ‘I’m on it,’ he said.
‘Assuming we do find where they’re keeping him,’ said O’Brien, ‘what then?’
‘Let’s take it one step at a time,’ said the Major.
‘Yeah, but is the plan to let the Yanks try to pull him out, or do our guys go in?’
‘I’d hope it’d be a Sass operation but, like I said, they’re not in the area. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First we’ll find out where he is.’
‘It’s al-Qaeda, right?’ said Shortt. ‘Has to be.’
‘It’s not as simple as that, Jimbo,’ said the Major. ‘There is no al-Qaeda any more, not really. These days, it’s more of a brand than an organisation. All the groups I mentioned have a similar ideology to al-Qaeda, but the days of a criminal mastermind with overall control are long gone. The guys in these groups were probably trained by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan or Pakistan ten years ago, but now they function as autonomous units. In effect, they’ve become a terror franchise. It’s like Burger King. A franchise in Birmingham doesn’t have to call head office every time it cooks a burger. These guys are just out there to cause chaos. If we had an al-Qaeda source, he probably wouldn’t even know where Geordie was being held.’
‘This is a bloody nightmare,’ said Armstrong. ‘Why don’t we just fly over there?’
‘And do what?’ asked the Major. ‘We wouldn’t be able to move around. Any Westerner’s a target. We’ve no intel sources on the ground. No one’s going to talk to us. We’d spend all our time just staying alive. At least here we can take a broader view, see the wood for the trees.’
‘How about Billy and I head to Baghdad?’ said Shortt. ‘At least we’d be on the spot.’ Armstrong nodded in agreement.
‘No one’s going to Iraq,’ said the Major. ‘At least, not yet. We’re only eight hours away. We’ve got just under two weeks, so we don’t have to rush into anything, okay?’
Shortt didn’t look convinced.
‘I want you and Billy trailing the video,’ said the Major. ‘We need to know how it reached the TV stations. The first to get it was al-Jazeera in Qatar. They usually get the kidnap videos first and pass them on to others around the world. If we can follow that video back to the source, we’ll know where Geordie is. Plus, there might be more video with more usable intel on it. I’ll get the pictures we already have analysed, see if there’s anything there to help us. Spider will look into getting American intel on what’s going on in Iraq, and as I said, Geordie’s boss arrives tomorrow so we’ll have a briefing from him.’ The Major stood up. ‘It’ll be okay,’ he said. ‘We’ll bring Geordie home, whatever it takes.’
Geordie Mitchell put down the paperback book he’d been staring at for the past hour. He hadn’t got beyond the first page of The Da Vinci Code. It was creased and there were greasy fingerprints on the cover, and Mitchell couldn’t help wondering who had read it before and if he had lived to finish it.
The room was fifteen paces long and nine wide. There were no windows and only one door. The inside of the door was featureless except for a peephole at head height. There was no lock, and no handle. Other than a threadbare blanket and a blue plastic bucket, there was nothing. When they fed him it was on paper plates and he had to eat with his hands. Water came in paper beakers. He’d been over every inch of the floor and walls and there was nothing he could use as a weapon – except his hands, of course, and his feet, elbows, knees. Mitchell knew a couple of dozen ways to kill with his bare hands, but despatching one of his captors wouldn’t get him out of the basement. He had seen at least six men, and had no way of knowing how many more were upstairs. He could grab one and threaten to kill him unless they let him go, but he doubted they’d be intimidated by threats of violence.
Besides, the chance of catching them unawares was virtually nil. Most of the time he was alone in the basement. When they came to feed him, they shouted through the door that he was to stand against the back wall with his hands out to the side. They wouldn’t open the door until he had complied. One man would come in, usually the one called Kamil, with food or water or to empty the bucket. Kamil was the only one who had spoken to him, and he had always been polite and friendly. While Kamil was in the room a second man, wearing a ski mask, would stand at the door cradling an AK-47, his finger inside the trigger guard. It was an intimidating weapon, but Mitchell found it reassuring. It wasn’t the sort you’d fire in the confines of a basement: there was a high risk of ricochet, the noise would be deafening and it would be hard to manoeuvre, all of which suggested that the men weren’t as professional as he’d first thought.
Mitchell paced round the room on autopilot as he considered his options. During his time on the SAS selection course, he’d gone through Resistance to Interrogation training with the Joint Services Interrogation Unit and passed with flying colours. But it had done nothing to prepare him for what he was going through now.
The training was based on building resistance to physical and mental torture. It came after the Escape and Evasion section of the gruelling SAS selection course – three days of being pursued across the Brecon Beacons by British Army units trying to prove they were every bit as hard as the men who wanted to join the elite special-forces unit. Eventually everyone was caught and handed over to the hard men of the JSIU. The interrogation was open-ended. Mitchell had been grilled for two full days and three nights before he was told that he’d passed and was qualified to wear the SAS badge and beret. It had been sixty hours of hell.
He’d been beasted by four burly paratroopers before he got to the JSIU, so he was already battered and bruised. He’d been stripped naked and doused with icy water. They’d played white noise through huge speakers for hours. They’d shouted at him in languages he didn’t understand. They’d blindfolded him and made him stand spreadeagled against a wall with most of his weight on his arms. He’d been screamed at, punched and had his face submerged in a barrel of water until he’d come close to passing out. He’d been tied naked to a chair and interrogated for hours. Under the rules of the test, he had been able to give only his name, rank and number. Divulging any other information meant instant rejection. The interrogators had tried everything. Screaming at him. Cajoling him. Telling him jokes. Asking him if he wanted food or to sleep. They’d even produced a bottle of beer and told him there was nothing in the rules about accepting a drink. He’d refused it and they’d put a cloth bag over his head and dragged him across a field telling him they were going to bury him alive. They hadn’t, of course. That was one of the flaws in the test. No matter how convincing the JSIU men were, those they interrogated knew it was an act, that they wouldn’t do any permanent damage, and that at some point it would all be over. In the real world bones and teeth were broken – and worse. On the selection course you’d get a little bruised. All you had to do was keep your mouth shut until it was over.