42399 FOR
42682 T104
15662 ACKNOWLEDGE
88765 02442
‘Extract target’ was easy enough to understand: they wanted me to remove Sarah from the house by 5 a.m. tomorrow morning. Fair enough.
It was the next bit I couldn’t believe: ‘T104.’
‘T’ plus a numeral is a code within a code, for brevity. There are quite a few T commands, and they have to be learned parrot fashion, as nothing about them is ever written down by anyone, anywhere. They don’t officially exist, and the reason is simple. T is a command to kill.
They wanted me to kill Sarah.
Not only that, but 104 meant without trace: the body must never be discovered.
Elizabeth must have been more pissed off at being summoned to Northolt on a Sunday than I’d thought. Either that, or they’d told me even less about the operation than I suspected they had.
The wind gusted and the heavens opened, as if to confirm my feeling about the T104.
13
I redialled.
The recorded voice said, ‘You have no new messages.’ There was a pause, then she started to give out the introduction for the groups already sent. I checked them against the ones I’d written down, and went through all the codes again.
As I protected the 3C from the rain I knew there was no mistake. I took a deep breath and let it go slowly, wiping away some water which had splashed down my cheek.
I’d been a young infantryman when I’d killed my first man, an IRA terrorist. I’d felt good about it. I thought that was how you were supposed to feel. After all, it was what the Army did for a living. Later, I got more satisfaction from stopping death than causing it. However, if the task was to kill, it didn’t particularly worry me. I didn’t celebrate the fact, but neither did I complain. I understood that they had sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, but they were players like everybody else, including me. And at its most basic level, if somebody had to die, I’d rather it was them than me. My only concern was to try to make it as quick as possible – not so much for their benefit, but to make it safer for me.
This T104 was different. This was the second time I’d had to kill someone I’d been close to. Considering there was only Josh left who resembled anything like a friend, I couldn’t help wondering what the fuck was going on in my life. Euan had been my best mate for as long as I could remember, but he’d used me – worse than that, he’d used Kelly. Now the only woman I’d ever felt really involved with had got herself into a world of shit that I had to wipe clean. I was starting to feel sorry for myself, and realized it. I had to cut out of this; I needed to get real.
I deleted from the flash card the groups that had been used for the two messages, and ate the small piece of paper I had used. No-one would ever be using that combination again – that was why it was called a one-time pad – and no evidence of any T104 would ever be seen, since all details are destroyed once used. I put the two flash cards back into separate pockets in my jeans and turned off the 3C, getting it out of the rain.
Everything that Elizabeth and Lynn had said was making sense to me here on the ground. They knew the big picture, I was sure of it; maybe the imagery I’d Mac’d down to them had confirmed their fears. Was there a connection with what she’d got up to in Syria? I didn’t even bother to think that much about it. I didn’t really give a fuck. Even if, say, this group was planning to hit Netanyahu, Arafat, Clinton or even the whole job lot – so what? I remembered the footage after Rabin had been assassinated, and sure, I saw his niece, or whoever it was, speaking at his funeral. I understood that it must be sad, but I wasn’t personally affected. To me, it was just one more dead person amongst the thousands on both sides in Israel who’d been bombed and shot over the years. I didn’t get worked up about political murders, even when they were closer to home, which usually meant Northern Ireland. Fuck ’em, we all have to die some time. Live by the sword, and all that. They were all as bad as each other.
For all I knew, there could be massive ramifications to whatever Sarah was involved in. This crew could be plotting the murder of thousands of people. Maybe the USA’s fear of chemical or biological weapons being used in their backyard was becoming a reality here and now, in a holiday home in North Carolina. It would be quite easy to contaminate, say, the entire water supply of DC. Even if it was partial contamination, the right sort of disease would quickly spread itself around. Making one person history can often mean saving many others; it was simplistic, but I always saw such Ts in terms of putting a round into Hitler’s skull in 1939.
I knew I was trying to keep emotions out by looking at it logically.
Maybe the Americans had now been told what was going on, and would be hitting the target as soon as they got sorted? In which case, it stood to reason that Elizabeth wouldn’t want Sarah to be found on target. So extract her, drop her, make sure she’s never found. Who knows?
I forced myself to cut away from conjecture; it had no bearing on the order I’d received, and I’d probably come to the wrong conclusion anyway. Either way, I just didn’t want the job.
I was watching the house through the misty rain in a sort of daydream. I gripped myself again. Fuck it! If I carried on thinking like this, I’d end up howling at the moon and dancing round the maypole – or whatever tree-huggers do. Maybe I’d been reading too many books about kids and their emotions; maybe all the touchy-feely crap was getting to me. I decided to bin it; get the tree-hugging cassette out of my head and put the work one back in. Sarah might have lots of plans, but as far as I was concerned long life wasn’t going to be one of them.
The rain was bucketing down. I pulled on the hood string, trying to stop the water running down my neck. I was getting very cold. I forced myself to focus on a mission analysis, and to look at the factors that could affect it; only then could I carry out the task and have a chance of getting away with it. If I wanted to kill the president of the United States, nobody could stop me, but getting away with it would be the hard bit.
The first thing I had to do was understand my mission. What was required of me? It broke down into just two parts: first, I had to get her out of the target area by 0500 hours tomorrow morning; the second part, the T104, wasn’t important at the moment. Besides, I already knew how I was going to do it.
I broke down the first part of the job into five phases: one, approach the house; two, make entry; three, locate Sarah; four, lift and exfil from the house; five, exfil the area.
Next I had to look at what might stop me carrying out those five phases. The first obstacle was obviously the men with her. There were far too many of them for comfort, and for all I knew there could be even more inside who hadn’t poked their heads out yet. What were their intentions? Fuck knows. It was a safe bet, though, that they weren’t there for the canoeing. It looked as if the place was an RV point. At some stage, therefore, they were going to leave, and maybe that was the reason she had to be lifted before five o’clock in the morning, because they wouldn’t all be staying together in one place for long.
The next question: What were their tactics, training, leadership and morale? I could only guess. Certainly their leadership would be good; either Sarah would be in charge herself, or if she wasn’t, then whoever was would have to cut the mustard, or she wouldn’t be working with them. As for their morale, that looked just fine. They seemed confident about what they were doing, whatever that was. Ninety per cent of people’s confidence can come from total stupidity and no understanding of what’s going on, and only 10 per cent because they are well trained and well prepared. Sarah would only be in a group where confidence was backed up with ability.
What were their capabilities? And did they have weapons? I had no idea. All I knew about was Sarah as a person and an operator, so I knew that she was professional, ruthless, focused and capable of killing. If I got into the house and she saw me first, she’d kill me if she had to. She would fight rather than be taken. Strangely enough, that meant that I wasn’t so worried about her, because she was quantifiable; but the other guys – I didn’t know if they would fight, and what with. I had to assume the worst; it always pays to assume that the other players are better than you are, and plan accordingly.
I didn’t have a lot of information to go on, but what was new about that? It wouldn’t be the first time that I’d had to go into a situation blind. It just pissed me off that I’d positively ID’d her. Maybe it would have been better if I hadn’t. Maybe. I found myself half hoping that everyone in the house would clear off in the next few hours. Then there would be nothing I could do but start on the trail again.
I began to run through everything I’d seen so far, trying to think of something I’d forgotten. The subconscious is wonderful, because it never forgets what it has seen or heard. Every sight, sound and fragment of perception is tucked away in there somewhere – all you’ve got to do is drag it out. Maybe, for example, I’d seen a weapon without actually realizing it? Nothing came to me.
Now I had to look at the ground where I was going to carry out the mission. First of all the general terrain, and that was of no concern because I was sitting on it. I could almost spit at the target; it wasn’t as if I was heading into an area I’d never seen before.
The one factor that did worry me was the ‘vital ground’, which in this case was the fifteen metres this side of the house that I reckoned to be within range of the proximity sensors and lights. How was I going to approach the target, let alone penetrate it?
I scanned all the doors and windows for any information that would help me make entry. I had seen through the binoculars that the lock on the garage side door was just an ordinary pin tumbler inside a large knob handle, much like those on motel doors – very common, and not difficult to defeat. The far bigger problem would be whether I could get near the lock in the first place without the detectors going apeshit.
I had a clear picture of what my mission was. I knew all that I could about the enemy at this stage, and I knew all that I could know about the target – or as much as I could for the time being. Now what I needed to work out was ‘time and space’ – how much time I had to do what I had to do. As I lay looking at the target, pushing my hair from my forehead as it was starting to act as a channel for the rain, I thought about the five phases and tried to work out plans for each one.
I looked at the approach. I visualized all the different routes, as if I was sitting in comfort, looking at a monitor connected to a live-feed camera with someone who was moving along each possible approach in turn.
I next considered different ways of making entry. I visualized working on the locks, and what to do if I couldn’t get in that way. Not that it would necessarily work, but at least I’d have an alternative. Deniable operations are not a science. People might have an image gleaned from spy movies of precision and perfection, and assume it all runs like clockwork. In reality it doesn’t, for the simple reason that we’re all human beings, and human beings are liable to fuck up – I knew I did about 40 per cent of the time. James Bond? More like James Bone. Add to that the fact that the people we are working against are also fallible, and it isn’t a formula for guaranteed success. The only true measure of human intelligence is the speed and versatility with which people can adapt to new situations. Certainly once you are on the ground, you have to be as flexible as a rubber band, and what helps you be flexible is planning and preparation. With luck, when the inevitable fuck-up did occur, I wouldn’t be a rabbit frozen in the headlights. As Napoleon, or somebody like that, said, ‘If your opponent has only two possible options, you can be sure that he will take the third.’
Eventually I came up with a workable plan – well, I thought I had. I’d soon find out. I checked my watch – just gone 5.32 p.m. That gave me just over eleven hours to get into the house and get her away. But that was merely the physical timing; the factors that mattered even more were light and dark. I couldn’t move in daylight; all my movements had to be under cover of darkness.
London wanted her lifted by 5 a.m. I knew that first light was at about five thirty, but it would take a little longer to arrive in the forest. I needed to get hold of her and be away from here by 3 a.m.; that would give me about two hours of darkness to get clear of the area. Last light was at just after seven o’clock, but I wouldn’t get full cover of darkness until about an hour later. On the face of it, that effectively gave me seven hours of working time. But I couldn’t go in there while they were still awake, so what would I do if they were still up and about at two o’clock in the morning?
By now, I’d dehumanized the people I was up against. To me they were targets, the same as the house. From now on I wouldn’t refer to them, or even think of them, as people. I couldn’t, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do the job. Ironically, Sarah had once asked me about that. I told her I didn’t like to analyze myself too much because I wasn’t sure I’d like what I found. I knew I’d done some really terrible things, but I didn’t think I was too bad a person. The question that always bugged me more was, Why was I doing this shit in the first place? My whole life had been spent sitting in wet holes. Even when I was in the Army I would ask myself the same thing: Why? I couldn’t answer fully then, and I couldn’t now. Queen and country? Nah. I didn’t know anyone who’d even considered that. Pride? I was proud, not necessarily of what I did, but certainly of the way I did it. Being a soldier, and later a K, was the only thing I was good at. Even as a kid I was just odd socks and scabs, my mother was always telling me I’d never amount to anything. Maybe she was right, but I liked to think that, in my own little world, I was among the best. It made me feel good about myself, and I got paid for it. The only downside was that I’d have a little bit of explaining to do when I was standing at the Pearly Gates. But who doesn’t?