Authors: Keith Hoare
One of the Commandos offered her a biscuit, which she took gratefully. Now with Karen much more alert, some of the Commandos were ribbing her, asking if it really was a real girl under all the mud and dirt.
“Of course I’m a girl,” she replied indignantly. “Tell you what, are you staying at the camp tonight?”
“We are, because of the Remembrance Parade tomorrow, then we move on to NATO headquarters to begin a major exercise. Why do you want to know?” the Captain asked.
“I’ll be in the Social Club later tonight and I would like to buy you all a drink, besides prove to you I’m really a girl.”
Then she suddenly had a thought. “That’s if General Ross will give me some money, otherwise I might have to sell my body.”
One of the Commandos grinned. “Forget the body bit, Lieutenant, the way you look no one would buy you. Besides, we’ve never had a British Lieutenant offer to buy the drinks, or want to for that matter. You’re more than welcome to join us tonight and we’ll buy the drinks if you’re out of cash. What do you say lads?”
They all wholeheartedly agreed, with the Captain adding a little caution as Karen would need to go to the medical centre and be cleared as fit to go to the club first.
General Ross had arrived at the camp minutes earlier and was walking up to the main building when the colonel came out through the main door.
“General, you’re just in time. Would you like to join me in the Land Rover, apparently Karen’s due to land in five minutes?” the Colonel asked.
“You’ve found her then, is she all right?”
“Yes, the Canadian search and rescue found her. They were extremely lucky to do so; she’d followed standard orders and cloaked herself from heat-seeking equipment. They said the signal was so weak they at first believed she was dead. Anyway the pilot reported she was very cold and close to hypothermia, but has pulled round while on the helicopter.”
The General lit a cigarette as they drove across the parade ground just as a helicopter came down. This girl never ceased to amaze him with her resilience.
Karen climbed out and stood a little unsteadily in front of them. They both wanted to laugh, but refrained. The girl was looking at them from under her baseball cap with a face streaked in mud. Her clothes were absolutely filthy, even her boots caked in mud.
“Are you all right, Lieutenant?” the Colonel asked.
“A little tired, Sir, and I could do with some food, I’ve had nothing, besides a biscuit, since yesterday,” she replied then grinned. “But the best part is I got myself an escort of real live Canadian Commandos to bring me back. I hope that it was in order to accept a lift, or should I have completed the exercise on foot?”
The Colonel was relieved she was in good spirits. “Under the circumstances I ordered the exercise aborted a good time ago. I also believe we could convince the mess to rustle up some food for you, Lieutenant, after all you deserve it. But you’re in the army and normally, before anything, you should give your report. However, you are a little bedraggled and I wouldn’t want you dirtying my carpet. How about I have you run over to your room, get yourself a shower, change into something more acceptable then come back and join the General and myself? Say thirty minutes?”
“Yes, Sir, that sounds fantastic.”
“Lieutenant Harris?” a voice came from behind.
She turned to see who’d called her, and then there was a flash of light.
“Thank you, this is a brilliant shot for the camp paper,” a young soldier commented looking at the result on his viewer.
“You’re dead if you print that,” she said. “My street cred will be on the floor, I’ll never live it down.”
The soldier grinned. “Maybe, Lieutenant, but it’ll be the photo of the year. I’m not sure anyone’s come off the moor in such a spectacular fashion before.”
Karen just smiled and climbed into a waiting Land Rover. Going directly to the shower room she stood dumfounded looking at herself in the mirror. No wonder the Commandos all ribbed her and the soldier wanted a photo, she couldn’t even recognise the person stood there. Never in all her life had she been so dirty. However, after ten minutes under the shower, her hair washed and dried; with clean clothes on she looked her normal self again.
“Take a seat, Karen, the General said as she entered the Colonel’s office thirty minutes later. Only the General was in the office and he’d walked over to a side-table after asking her to sit down.
“Would you like your coffee topped up with a tot of brandy?” the General asked.
“Yes please, that would be great.”
He poured a little in and took the chair by the side of her, bringing also a large plate of buffet items for her to eat. She thanked him and tucked into the sandwiches.
“Both Sir Peter and myself were concerned to find you’d been sent out from the camp without protection. Our orders were specific in that you should be protected at all times. Then to find out another attempt to abduct you had happened, I was annoyed I can tell you.”
Karen sighed. “It was my fault I suppose, allowing the other soldiers we thought we’d captured to come with us. After all it seemed a bit strange them saying the Sergeant had told them to join up with us if they got captured. But I couldn’t understand how they found us so quickly, besides stopping when we did, so I was convinced they had a spotter and I’d end up with a whole army to hide.”
“I can understand your dilemma, Karen, after all you’d never been on an exercise like that before, and my enquiries found out you’d not even been given the rules of engagement. In those rules it clearly states what to do with captured soldiers; normally they hand over their dog tags and leave the exercise. The fortunate thing was, if you had worked to those rules, then things could have been very different.”
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
“Because, Karen, if they couldn’t have split you from the other soldiers then they’d have killed them for certain.”
“I suppose you’re right there, so my naivety saved their lives. It doesn’t bear well for me does it?”
He leaned forward. “Listen, Karen, stop knocking yourself it wasn’t naivety not knowing what to do with prisoners in an exercise, you could hardly have shot them dead, and besides no one realised that there would be a possibility that you’d capture soldiers, after all you were the ones everyone was pursuing, you weren’t the pursuer. Remember that you’re only just eighteen; the pressures on you have been enormous. Sir Peter and I are really very proud of what you’ve achieved. The reports from your instructors couldn’t be better. Unfortunately we’re going to have to cut short the planned training. Believe me this is something I didn’t want to happen.”
Karen had suddenly gone cold inside, she knew it was going to happen sometime, but she’d hyped herself up to ignore it and concentrate on her fitness and training. “When do I go then?” she asked meekly.
“You’re going in with Special Forces very early Monday morning. You’ll be collected tomorrow at midday, flown to a military airport and then onto Cyprus. From there you’ll be flown to a carrier currently steaming to a point five miles off the Lebanese coast. I know it’s a rush and you’ll be literally jumping from one means of transport to another, but there is no option. En route you’ll be briefed in the operation and also meet the Captain in charge of the Special Forces.”
She looked down. “It doesn’t give me much time to say goodbye to the friends I’ve made here, or even talk to mum and dad.”
“It’s worse than that, Karen, you mustn’t tell anyone you’re going, particularly your parents. We cannot risk another attempt to snatch you. The first time anyone here will know you’re leaving this camp will be when your helicopter is waiting on the tarmac. As no one has an inkling why you are here they will think nothing of it, after all you trained, did an exercise on the moor and left. The timing is perfect. But until the moment you climb on that helicopter, there are to be no more risks taken with your life, you will be guarded day and night with armed MPs.”
“What if Gareth or Terry ask me what happened?”
“They won’t, Karen. They are currently on an extended debrief. They will not be around the camp until you’re gone.”
“What about the MPs being with me all the time, won’t it cause people to talk?”
“Maybe, but it can’t be helped. This is the second time an attempt has been made to abduct you. Besides, we’re only talking of today and tomorrow and most of that time you’ll be in bed so don’t worry too much as to what anyone says. Anyway, you must be tired, go and get some sleep and above all don’t worry, this time next week you’ll be home and hopefully the girls too.”
She never said anything. In fact what was there to say? It was a place she really didn’t want to go back to, but Saeed was making her life hell, not knowing when another of his people would try to take her, so she could see no option but to go and sort him out herself.
“You’re very quiet, Karen.”
“I’m, like you said, just tired General. It’s been a hard week and the time on the moor, apart from the really miserable weather, made me realise just how easy it is for Saeed’s people to find me, no matter where I am.”
“Yes, that concerned me as well. But when you make it known in the underworld that a great deal of money is on offer, it brings out the opportunists who think it’s easy money. Two groups have found it isn’t when you’re up against a girl who is streetwise and very capable of looking after herself.”
Karen smiled. “It’s nice of you to have confidence in me, but I live on a knife’s edge, relying more on luck than real planning and one day my luck will run out. That, General, terrifies me.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Tell me, Karen, have you considered joining the army? I agree you may have reservations, but you would be safe in the army and I believe it’s a life that would suit you.”
She sipped her coffee and looked towards him. “You know when I was on the moor, trying to work out how I was going to get off, I really thought about that. But I have a problem.”
“What is that?”
“I’d enter at the bottom. Don’t get me wrong, it’s the right thing to do, but I feel a tiny bit more important as a Lieutenant. I get respect, apart from some Commandos ribbing me as to how I looked, but even then they had respect for the rank. I wouldn’t want to lose that, besides with my luck I’d probably meet some of the troops from here, and that would take some explaining.”
“I can understand your concerns, Karen. Let me think about it and perhaps when you return we’ll talk further. But I’m keeping you, and you really do need to get some sleep.”
As she stood to leave the Colonel entered the room, stopping her before she left. “I’d like you to join us for dinner tonight in the Officer’s Club, Karen. I know you’ve been using the normal dining room over the week, but you are an officer and tonight it is a regimental dinner with Remembrance Day tomorrow and an important event in our calendar. It will be full-dress uniform.”
“Thank you Colonel, I’d like that very much. Would it be all right if I left around half ten? The Commandos who found me on the moor, I promised to buy them a drink. With me going sooner than I thought I don’t want to let them down. Besides,” she added with a grin, “I’m determined to prove to them there actually was a very feminine girl under all the mud and not some tomboy.”
He smiled. “That will be perfectly in order; dinner runs from seven until nine so you will have plenty of time.”
“There is one other tiny problem,” she said shyly.
“And that is?”
“I’m completely broke, the money dad gave me to come with is gone. I was going to ask if there was any way I could borrow some money, otherwise I couldn’t actually afford to buy them the promised drink tonight.”
He sighed. “Why didn’t you say something? We don’t expect you to use your pocket money. I’ll have the Personnel Officer advance you fifty pounds, would that be enough?”
“Fifty, god, I don’t want that much, I’m not working and would struggle to pay it back. I was thinking of twenty at the most, dad would help me out with that much, but he’d go berserk if I asked him for fifty.”
They both laughed.
“Karen,” the General began. “You’re a Lieutenant, temporary I grant you, but you’ve signed up officially in the army all the same. This means you’re earning twenty eight thousand pounds a year, that’s at least five hundred pounds a week. I think personnel will be able to advance you fifty pounds without too much of a problem.”
“Oh… I didn’t know. But will that mean, because I’m leaving early I’ll miss a week’s pay?”
The General and Colonel looked at each other.
“She’s quick, Colonel, I’ll give her that.”
“She is, so what do you think? Should we give her a month’s employment?”
“I think so; otherwise we won’t hear the end of this lost week’s pay.”
Karen thanked them and left. However, outside waiting for her were two MPs, both over six foot and well built.
“Hi, are you my protection?” she asked with a smile.
“We are, Lieutenant, but we need your cooperation. This is a military close protection order from the very top. You’re also subject to the same order. You go nowhere unless we’re with you, so no sneaking out of the back, otherwise when we find you, for your own protection, we’ll lock you up. If anyone is walking with you, be it to the Officer’s Club or the Social Club they will be searched by us. If any attempt is made on your life, you hit the ground and remain there until we tell you to move.”
“God, that’s a bit over the top. You don’t come into the showers and my bedroom, do you?” she asked trying to lighten the conversation.