Zero Option

I'd recognise him a mile off in thick fog.'

'He's your man, then, Geordie,' chirped Whinger.

'Nice little solo venture. Piece of cake.'

'Fuck off, mate,' I replied equably. Then I asked Gilbert, 'What's he doing, exactly? I mean, has Gadaffi given him a job?'

'Officially he's in charge of officer training. That's why he's based at Ajdabiya, which is Libya's answer to Sandhurst. But signal intercepts show he's using the place for every kind of political and revolutionary activity. I repeat: he's regarded as the most dangerous single operator in the Middle East, Saddam Hussein not excepted.'

There was a short silence. 'Gadaffi!' exclaimed Pat contemptuously. 'That guy's mad as twenty fucking hatters.'

'That's the trouble,' Gilbert agreed.

'Can you give us any personal gen on the target?' Pat went on. 'Any clue about his movements or habits?'

'Not much, I'm afraid. He's married, with a family, and he tends to join them at a house on the coast whenever he has days off. But while he's working he lives in the commandant's quarters on the base. One point that may prove relevant: we know he's a night owl, and sits up all hours working, when everyone else has gone to bed and things have quietefied down.'

'How do we know that?' I asked.

Gilbert hesitated, then said, 'You'll find out shortly.

Now, for details of the camp layout we're awaiting satellite intelligence from the CIA. A courier should be in London by tomorrow. I'm afraid some or all of you will have to come to London to see what he brings. The office have judged the material too sensitive for it to go outside, even here. Any more questions? No?'

He sat down, and Mac took over. 'Thanks, Gilbert,' he said. Then he turned to us. 'I don't have to emphasize that your hit team will have to be absolutely clean. You'll wear Arab or some sort of civilian clothes, use Soviet or Chinese weapons and ammunition. None of you must carry any trace of any Western organisation.

Webbing, bergens, boots — everything's got to be checked for names or labels. If the team suffers a fatality, it will be absolutely imperative to bring the body out with you. If that proves impossible, you'll vaporise the body with a bar mine.'

'You mean we're going to take nice British bar mines with us?' Whinger said.

'No, no,' Mac assured him, 'we've got a few Chinese ones that'll come in handy.'

'How alarming,' went Whinger. 'Bloody charming.'

Mac ignored him and continued. 'Back to timing. As I said, Bright Star runs for six days. That means you've got to be in and out within this time bracket, while the cover lasts. And it commences on the seventeenth, which means you've got less than two weeks in which to get prepped up. OK? Any questions?'

'What about weapons?' Pat asked.

'You'll draw non-attributable AK-47s from the SAW section of the main armoury. They're being delivered from London in the morning. Once you've got them you'll store them here.' He gestured to the lockers at the sides of the room. 'Anything else?'

'Why isn't Tony Lopez in on this?' asked Fred Parry.

'He was in the nick with you, Geordie, wasn't he? He must know the guy.'

'That's right, he does.' Mac answered for me.

'Tony's an obvious candidate with his special knowledge. But because of American political sensitivities we haven't yet got clearance for him to join the team. We're still hoping he'll be able to come in.'

For a final word, Mac turned to me and said, 'If there's anything you want to know, Geordie, these guys will fill you in. They're all genned up on the way the Wing works. And if there's anything you need, don't worry about asking for it. What you may not realise is that the SAW has its own budget: within reason, money's no object, and there are no restrictions on equipment. If you need civilian clothes, for instance, go and buy them. Any bits and pieces of extra kit — the same. You're in a different game now.'

With the ruperts gone, I got the lads to gather round for a minute. 'R.ight,' I said, 'we start training proper tomorrow morning. But we can begin sorting out our priorities now. First things first: wills. Have you all made out a will?' I glanced round the team. Pat, who was married, gave a nod, but the other four looked blank.

'Well, even if you don't think you've got anything to leave, I suggest you get organized. There's no guarantee that all of us will come back. Correction: there's no guarantee that any of us will come back. Jabs the same.

Get your arses up to the doc's office: see the clerk in there, and make sure you're up to date. It's no big deal.

'Now — individual responsibilities. I'll be team medic; I've got the training. Fred, you're in charge of explosives. You'll need to check out these Chinese bar mines, make sure you read the instructi6ns, lkight?'

Fred nodded.

'Whinger, signals, OK? We're getting in some special non-attributable kit, and there's a rep coming up from the Firm to run you through it.'

'Yeah. I know most of that stuff, but a refresher wouldn't do any harm.'

'Good. Pat, how's your Arabic?'

'Shit hot!'

'Say something.'

'Aaaarrght.' he went, and then gave a kind of hiccup.

'What did that mean?'

'Fuck off.'

'Don't piss about.'

'Honest, that's what I said.'

'You did the Arabic course?'

'Yonks ago.'

'It'll come back to you. Get on the tapes in the language lab and you'll make it.'

'Allah karim.'

I turned to Stew Stewart and said, 'You're from Mobility Troop, Stew. Go down and speak to the INTO about the quads. Get a mechanic to take you through anything we might need to know.'

'Fair enough.'

Because Norm Paxford was already a competent signaller, I told him to work with Whinger as his backup on the radios. 'Take all the sets along to the signals technician and make sure the frequencies are in line,' I said. 'The other thing is, we'll use throat-mikes rather than booms, because booms would pick up the noise of the wind and the engines.

'And wait a minute,' I went on. 'A bell's ringing.

Covert Method of Entry. Weren't you posted to the CMOE wing, Norm? Didn't you do the specialist lock- picking course?'

'That's right,' he said. 'All two years of it.'

'Great. You're our CMOE expert, then.'

In a moment of black humour I saw all the members of our team in terms of what they didn't have — the areas where, in military jargon, they'd gone deficient. I'd gone deficient in terms of family; Norm couldn't be bothered to talk; Stew was definitely deficient in the legover stakes; Pat couldn't control his appetite; Fred wasn't overburdened with brains; and Whinger didn't know when to stop cracking jokes. Still, I thought, we've all got our own strengths, and even if we're not fucking perfect we'll make out.

Back in the incident room I found Fraser still in occupation. 'Hey, Geordie,' he said. Tve got news for you.'

'What's that?'

'Farrell's back.'

'Christ, that was quick!'

'Yep. He landed at Lyneham after lunch. Maximum security all the way.'

'Where's he been taken?'

'Winson Green, Birmingham.'

He picked up a sheet of fax paper and studied it. 'The prisoner's wounds are infected, and he's suffering from septicaema. He's running quite a high fever, by the look of it.'

'I'm not surprised,' I said, 'the amount of shit there was in that jungle. Some of it's bound to have been sucked into him with the bullets. Does that mean he's in hospital?'

Again Fraser consulted his notes. 'Yep, he's in a single cell in the hospital wing. He's on fifteen-minute watch. That means one of the screws takes a look at him every quarter of an hour.'

'What about visitors?'

'He hasn't had any yet. One guy tried to see him, and a search revealed that he was carrying an escape kit inside a transistor radio. So that was the end of that.