Kill Zone (A Spider Shepherd Short Story) (4 page)

‘You’re too soft
sometimes, you know that?’

‘Yeah, so I’ve
been told.’

* * *

For the next week
Spider was engaged on routine surveillance, intelligence gathering and their
trademark hearts and minds work, with Geordie dispensing drugs and dressings
and carrying out minor operations on the local villagers. It was work that had
won the SAS local allies in every campaign in which they’d fought but it was
hard going in Afghanistan as Geordie ruefully remarked as they made their way
back to the FOB after another long, tiring day in the field. ‘Hearts and Minds
is fine when we’re operating on our own. But it only takes the Yanks to fire
one Hellfire missile into the middle of an Afghan wedding party to fuck up six
months of patient work.’

Shepherd enjoyed
meeting the local Afghans and he got some satisfaction from actually being able
to help.
 
Antibiotics were in short
supply and infections often went untreated. It was amazing to see the
difference that a few tablets could make.

After seven days
in the field, they were recalled to the main base at Bagram. As the heli landed
on the sprawling base, shared with U.S. forces and awash with American
personnel, vehicles and kit, they could see that the mountains of military
equipment were still being added to, as forklift trucks shuttled between giant
C5 transports on the concrete hard standing and the supply dumps ringing the
base. It was clear that the Americans were in Afghanistan to stay – for
the foreseeable future at least.

As the heli came
to a stand and the rotors wound down, Shepherd jumped down and glanced around.
‘Do you know what?’ he said. ‘After a few weeks in that fly-blown dust-bowl we
laughingly call an FOB, even Bagram is beginning to look quite civilised.’

‘Don’t get too
excited,’ Jock said. ‘The Boss has set up a briefing for seventeen hundred
hours today. So we may not be here for long.’

 
The briefing room was a windowless,
air-conditioned room, set below ground in a building shielded by concrete blast
walls and berms bulldozed out of the sandy Afghan soil. As Shepherd, Jock, Jimbo
and Geordie and the other members of the Squadron filed into the briefing room,
they found Todd already there, adjusting a laptop projector and spreading a
series of maps and documents on the table.
 
He waited until they had all seated themselves before
speaking. ‘Before we get the briefing under way, I have something I need to
say.‘
 
He took a deep breath, then
turned to face Shepherd and Jock directly. ‘I owe you all an apology. I screwed
up badly over Ahmad Khan. I was an idiot and three men paid the ultimate price
for my stupidity. I know nothing can bring those men back, but I want to make what
amends I can, and to do so I’m claiming “Droit de Seigneur”. I want to be in at
the kill.’

Shepherds
eyebrows shot skywards and he could see several of the troopers frowning in
confusion.

‘Twat what?’ said
Jimbo, and Spider threw him a withering look.

‘How do you know
about that?’ Shepherd said.

There was a
tradition within the Regiment that the murderer of any SAS guy killed in cold
blood would be hunted until he was found and killed. Any man claiming Droit de
Seigneur because of his personal involvement with the original incident or
friendship with the dead man, had the right to be involved in any operation to
kill the murderer.

The Captain saw
that several of the men were confused so he struggled to explain himself.
 
Droit de Seigneur goes back to the
Middle Ages, when feudal lords claimed the right to deflower the local virgins.
In the Regiment it refers to the right for revenge. One of the “old and bold”
SAS guys told me about it. He said he’d claimed the right in Oman, after his
best mate was killed, but it had also happened as far back as Borneo in the
1960s, when a captured SAS man was tortured and murdered by an Indonesian Army
Sergeant. The Squadron offered blood money to the local highland tribes to kill
the man responsible and it was paid after the tribesmen produced the head of
the Indonesian sergeant as proof that he had been killed.’

Jock raised a
hand. ‘You’re confusing me, now. This is about Ahmad Khan?’

Todd flicked his
fringe away from his eyes. ‘Very much so.’

‘You know where
he is?’

‘That’s the
purpose of this briefing. Yes.’ He looked over at the Major who was sitting at
the back of the room, his arms folded across his chest. The Major nodded,
letting Todd know that he should get on with it.

‘Right,’ said
Todd, his confidence returning. ‘We’ve received very credible intelligence that
a mud brick building in the tribal areas across the Pakistan border is a money
clearing house, where some of the proceeds of the Taliban’s opium trafficking,
protection rackets, etc, etc, are being paid out to the local fighters to keep
them loyal. We believe there are around a dozen Taliban there. I’ve spent a lot
of Intelligence funds tracking Khan, and a fair bit of my own money too. Like I
said, I screwed up and I’m doing my best to put it right. Anyway, I have good
humint, that’s been assessed by the Boss as well as by me, that Khan is at the
clearing house.’

‘Right enough,’
Jock said. ‘Spend enough money, you can always get humint.’
 
Jimbo murmured in agreement.

Todd took a deep
breath. He was clearly uneasy about speaking in public. ‘According to the
reports, one of the Taliban there has a curious eye defect - one brown pupil,
one milky-white one. The source got close enough to see a group of men in
Afghan dress outside the building. Most were holding AK47s, but one had an AK74
slung over his shoulder. I’m ninety per cent sure that we have identified Ahmad
Khan.’ He shook his head. ‘Correction, I’m one hundred per cent sure. It’s him.
And we need to take him out.’ He nodded at the Major, who had his chin on his
chest and seemed to be staring at his boots. ‘I’ve asked the Boss for the
chance to lead the group to do the job.’ He paused again, staring unseeing at
the wall at the far end of the room. ‘As you all know, I have a personal debt
to repay, but if you’re willing to be part of the team, I’d like you men
alongside me when we do the job.’ He looked directly at Shepherd and Jock.

Shepherd nodded
immediately. Jock flashed him a sideways look. ‘Seriously?’ he whispered.

‘Why not?’ said
Shepherd.

Jimbo held up his
hand. ‘Count me in,’ he said.

Jock sighed and
slowly raised his hands. ‘In for a penny,’ he said.

‘Just like the
three musketeers,’ said Jimbo.

‘Make that four,’
said Geordie.

‘We’re all in,’
said Shepherd, and the Captain smiled gratefully.

The Major stood
up. ‘Five should be enough,’ he said. ‘We’ll leave you to it. Considering this
is over the border, the less we know the better.’

The Major left
the room, followed by the rest of the SAS troopers.
 
The Captain walked over to a table that was overflowing with
maps, surveillance imagery and intelligence data. Jock, Spider, Jimbo and
Geordie joined him.

‘What’s the
plan ?’
 
Jock asked Todd.

‘We take out
anyone in the building and destroy any money that’s there,’ said the Captain.
‘That alone will make the mission worthwhile. But there are some very heavy
hitters going in and out of that building and every one of them is a viable
target. But what I want is the chance to take out Ahmad Kahn. That’s the
mission, but obviously you guys have the experience so I’m going to be relying
on your know-how.’

As the most
experienced man there, Jock took the lead but standard practice was for every
man to chip in if he had any suggestions or reservations.
 
‘Usual rules,’ Jock said. ‘If you’ve
anything to say about the plan we’re putting together, say it now. If it all
goes tits up, and you’ve said nothing at the planning stage, you don’t get to
whine about it afterwards.’ All the men nodded, including the Captain.

‘Okay,’ continued
Jock, studying the map and frowning. ‘Insertion will be by Chinook and, given
the distance to the target and the time we’re going to need there, it’s going
to be close to maximum range even with an extra fuel tank in the cargo bay. So
we’re going to have to strip out everything inessential from the heli and make
our own kit and equipment as light as possible. It’s going to be a long and not
particularly comfortable flight, because the only place left for us and our kit
is going to be the tailgate, so we’ll either have to stand or lie on the floor.
I think six is the maximum we can take which means we can take one more.’

‘Who do you
suggest ?’ asked the Captain.

‘I’ll grab Billy
Armstrong,’ said Jock. He’s around somewhere.

‘It’s a long
flight, Jock,’ said Shepherd. ‘To save weight we could cut back on the crew.’
 

Jock nodded. The
Chinook would normally be crewed by four men - two pilots and two crewmen, with
the second pilot acting as navigator. ‘We can take three pilots and use one of
them as a navigator. But Spider’s right, with all the fuel and equipment we’ll
need, it’s going to be a heavy flight.’ He looked across at Captain Todd.
‘You’ve not been on one of these super-heavy flights before, have you? Just so
you know, when it’s fully loaded - and on this flight it’ll probably be
overloaded -
 
the Chinook pilots
achieve take off by rolling along the runway until they’ve built up enough
momentum and sufficient lift to get airborne. It can be a bit scary if you’re
not expecting it.’

‘What about the
landing zone?’ asked the Captain.

‘The best type of
LZ is a dome-shaped feature because then the wind will usually dissipate the
sound of the heli, making it very difficult for Taliban spotters or sentries to
pinpoint where it is,’ said Geordie.  ‘We’ve often found that it’s
impossible to even detect whether a heli is there at all until you can get
visual on it, and since we’ll be night-flying without navigation lights, the
Taliban will probably have to be sitting on the same hilltop to spot us.’ 

‘It also gives us
a further advantage,’ Shepherd said, ‘because with a feature that’s accessible
from all directions, even if we’re observed landing, it’s impossible for anyone
to predict in what direction we’re going to move away from there.’

The Captain
nodded. It was clear from his expression that this was all very new to him.

They began pouring
over a large-scale map of the area around the target. ‘For us to be absolutely
certain that the Chinook won’t be detected by anyone at or near the target, the
LZ needs to be a minimum of ten kilometres away,’ said Jock. ‘Let’s say twelve
clicks for safety.’

‘Which might make
this,’ Todd said, tapping the map at a point where the contour lines indicated
a roughly round-topped hill with steep, but usable slopes on all sides, ‘a very
plausible LZ.’

Shepherd glanced
at it. ‘Looks good to me,’ he said. ‘What about getting to the site? We’re
going on foot?’

Jock shook his
head. ‘With the extra fuel tank filling the load space, we don’t have the room
or the weight allowance to use quad bikes.
 
And because it’s a cross-border op, all our kit and
particularly anything we’re leaving behind, needs to be non-attributable. I’m
thinking 50cc mopeds.’

Geordie laughed
out loud. ‘You’re taking the piss, right?’

‘I’m serious,
mate,’ said Jock.
 
‘They’re small,
quiet and relatively light, and they’re similar to the ones the Taliban use.
That’ll be a big plus if we get spotted by the muj. The heli will land on the
Afghan side of the border and we’ll cross on the bikes.’

‘It’s not a great
distance,’ Todd said. ‘As you’d expect, the clearing house is very close to the
border.’ He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘It works for me.’

Jock nodded.
‘Now, Comms. Because weight is an absolute premium we will not be taking any
comms kit other than our Personal Locator Beacons.  Once activated, the
PLBs send out a pulse signal which will be picked up on a pre-determined
frequency by a Nimrod or AWACs aircraft.  Activating a single PLB at the selected
time will indicate that everything is OK. If more than one PLB is activated at
any other time, it will be an emergency signal and the Nimrod will send the
Chinook back to the
 
area. It will
do a linear approach along the route we are exiting for an immediate pick up.
All we have to do is hit a valley and go along it and the Chinook will find
us. For short range comms to the Chinook there is a voice capability to
talk the heli in to the LZ.’

Todd cleared his
throat. ‘Yes, Captain?’ Shepherd said.

‘I understand
that weight is at a premium, but I’m wondering why we’re leaving ourselves so
light on comms equipment and yet taking half a dozen mopeds for what is only a
relatively short distance. We could walk in to the target in a couple of
hours.’

‘True,’ Jock
said. ‘We could, but when we detonate those charges, every muj within fifty
miles is going to come running. So we need to be in like Flynn, do the job and
get out again. Okay?’ He waited for a nod from Todd before continuing.