Wilco- Lone Wolf 16 Page 15

‘Big old softy, aren’t you,’ she teased.

  ‘Yep, I wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

  An hour later trucks started to arrive, local blacks, a worry. I had the trucks halt well away from the building, supplies offloaded by many a shiny face with a toothy grin – all of the men in need of a good bath. Bed frames were soon being carried towards the building, dropped outside, mattresses in plastic covers, wooden chairs, even a few desks.

  I rounded up a few men and had those people in the rooms with new glass windows kicked out. Bed frames were placed inside those rooms, mattresses on top, desks and chairs placed down, shame about the bare concrete walls, floor and ceiling – and the lack of toilets.

  I had two beds placed in every room, people trying them – plastic covers still on the mattresses. Bedding came next, towels, so we were looking good, save no running water. But as I watched, several toilet bowls were carried between two men.

  I fetched the Engineers major. ‘Did you find any water?’

  ‘We found where the pipes are, and where the original toilets sat, so we’ll get a suitable pump flown in.’ He pointed west down the mine. ‘Pipes go to the river that way, but down there the outflows might be blocked.’

  ‘As fast as you can please. If you need something, ask me, I’ll make a call. Specify that pump.’

  At 11am, 2 hours late, I called a command meeting, booting a few people out of the dark HQ room to make space. Rizzo and Sasha would make notes of patrols. ‘OK, I want patrols of eight men, so some of your groups will have many patrols out there, but try and arrange it so that a patrol comes back in as another goes out.

  ‘Check supplies and ammo, clean weapons, wash armpits and groins – jungle hygiene applies. Senior men, check those under you. Mister Morten, you also check for any infected sores.

  ‘OK, patrol Green One goes west to the river, over, then southwest, night out whilst setting an ambush in a likely spot. Next day, different route back here, back for sundown if you can.

  ‘Green Two goes west to the river, over, due west, same deal, back the following evening. Those are your patrol routes for a few days, till we get intel on any movements.

  ‘Seal One, your go northwest to the river, over, heading 280. Seal Two, they go on a heading of 320.

  ‘French One, south to river, over, heading 240. French Two, heading, 220, but move east and around on the second day.

  ‘Wolf One and Two, British. Due north together, over the river, on a day, ambush point – Wolf One remains static. On a second day for Wolf Two, second ambush point, back to Wolf One, back together.

  ‘Wolf Three, Four, Five, Americans. North to the river together, then heading 045 a day, Wolf Three goes static. Four and Five go on, heading 045 again, Four goes static, Five goes on a day and back, all back together, so make sure you have enough food – but I’m sure they’ll shoot a deer and eat it.

  ‘I want at least one Echo man with British and American Wolf patrols. 14 Intel, they patrol close in northeast, training patrols, always two Echo with them. Mister Morten, up and down the mine with your team twice a day, and some weapons work, no sitting around.

  ‘Mister Haines, patrols close in as you see fit. Engineers will continue to work on this place, and maybe someday soon we’ll have toilets that work. Please don’t use the ones we have.’

  They laughed.

  ‘Those of you here, always ready to move out and fight, and to rescue or to support a patrol in trouble. Check feet, check supplies, check sat phones, then get going.’

  Many men shuffled out. I grabbed Swifty and Smitty, found Doctor Abrahams – green combats now on, and we headed west along the tree line and south, cutting through the trees and slowly down to the river over a hot steamy half an hour.

  We heard the river then glimpsed it, starting to move south. The ground levelled off, and Doctor Abrahams finally stopped.

  ‘There. This would have been dug out for fish traps. Village would be a few metres above the water level.’ She pointed, we followed on, and she read the ground as we walked slowly.

  Stopping, she rubbed away dirt with a stick. ‘Charcoal. They knew how to make iron, and to work gold, they were not complete savages.’

  With a stick in hand, no machete, she attacked the bushes, stopping to glance at the river often to get her bearings.

  ‘Look!’ she called.

  We looked at the river, a body seen floating down, bloated.

  ‘One of the men we killed,’ I told her.

  She watched as it floated by before continuing to hack away at the undergrowth, working up a sweat. With her hair a mess, her faced shining, I shared my water with her, her top undone, a great cleavage of lily-white skin exposed.

  Back at it, she hit bushes, Smitty joining in, Swifty watching the slope above us; we were making a noise. She finally took a swing at a bush and hit stone. Pulling away the leaves and branches, she uncovered a large natural stone, not carved, but on top lay a smaller carved stone on its side, perhaps three feet tall and ten inches wide, rounded at the edges.

  And there, in holes, sat the diamonds, some missing given the number of holes. She readied a camera.

  ‘Wait,’ I told her, and moved in. Knife out, I cut out the diamonds, eight of them. ‘Now photograph it.’

  ‘And where will they go?’

  ‘To a man who will turn them into money, that money to a secret bank account, and that bank account funds me and my men and our operations that are off the books.’ I faced her squarely. ‘Do you trust me?’

  ‘The government trusts you, so I guess I should.’

  I handed her a diamond, the largest one. ‘Keep sake.’

  She held it up and studied it for a minute. Then she handed it back. ‘Find the men who killed my father.’

  I nodded.

  ‘And give me some time alone with them in a locked room.’

  I blinked. ‘Oh. Right.’

  ‘Tied up of course.’

  She photographed the statue before we righted it, and afterwards. Standing back, she sighed before she covered it over. ‘He would have been so happy to have found it.’

  She faced me. ‘Not finding the body was the worst. People held theories that he was living around here, that he had gone aboriginal, had been kidnapped and held for years. That almost drove me mad.’

  ‘Did he have a sponsor?’

  ‘Yes, the museum’s benefactor, the late Lord Michaels.’ She caught my reaction. ‘What?’

  ‘He was in bed with NordGas, and behind the coup here, and responsible for a grand conspiracy than almost saw a London building brought down with thermite. He was … high up in a shadowy organisation that I’ve been fighting, and he fell ill when fed a poison. In hospital, three ceremonial masonic daggers were thrust into his chest, then covered up.’

  She stared back, shocked. ‘Before I came out here his son, Jeremy, came to see me, wished me well.’

  ‘Lord Michaels would have stood trial on terrorism and treason charges, and a hundred murders.’

  She looked away. ‘Jeremy, he … offered to buy me dinner when I returned, to discuss funding for the museum.’

  ‘Money corrupts, power corrupts, and I think fathers pass bad habits to sons. Hint at what I told you and he’ll kill you. But, you could set a trap.’

  ‘Trap?’

  I handed her a blood diamond. ‘Show him, tell him you feel guilty about it, ask what to do about it, keep it, and we’ll see who turns up at your house to steal it.’

  She studied it, then handed it back. ‘I could never face him knowing … knowing that he was involved, that he knew about my father. I’m no secret agent.’

  ‘He will visit you upon your return. But … do you have his mobile number?’

  ‘She dug a British mobile out from her bag, switched it on and looked up a number, that number read out.’

  I punched the digits. And waited as it rang.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Jeremy?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Major Wi
lco, SAS.’

  After a long pause came, ‘What … what can I do for you?’

  ‘You’re on my list of people to kill. I poisoned your father, killed his hired guns, I blew up NordGas and Bastion, I shot up the Antwerp Bank, and I unearthed the bodies down here in Liberia. Of course, I knew where to look.

  ‘You see, a man that worked for your father made file copies, detailed files going back twenty years, and he handed them to me. Bit by bit I’m killing the scum involved, destroying the businesses involved, and you’re getting closer to the top of my list.’

  He cut the call.

  I faced Doctor Abrahams. ‘Must have been something I said.’

  ‘Did you know about the bodies?’

  I shook my head as I put my phone away. ‘Lads walked down the mine and found a foot sticking out. And I suspect there are others. We’ll search it at some point.’

  ‘Other daughters may find fathers. Could I … search it?’

  I considered that. ‘Bring in some people, do it properly. It’s evidence.’

  Walking back up, Swifty asked, ‘What did you cut out the stone?’

  ‘Diamonds.’

  ‘Ah, so the lad’s beer money is safe then.’

  ‘For the next thousand years or so.’

  ‘Worth much?’

  ‘Oh … four hundred million, give or take.’

  He shot me a startled look. ‘Fuck, we are so not getting paid enough.’

  ‘You’ll get a bonus, don’t worry.’

  At the start of the mine I called David Finch. ‘I found some valuable items.’

  ‘Worth … how much?’

  ‘Say … four hundred million, give or take.’

  ‘Dear god. And just what will you do with them?’

  ‘What would you like me to do with them?’

  ‘Can’t come through us, but … government might want them.’

  ‘They’re illegal under UN rules, and the property of the Masonic People of Liberia.’

  ‘Two good points, yes. What did you plan on doing with them?’

  ‘Put some money into our bank account for a rainy day, defence of the realm, some money to the Masonic People of Liberia. But there is a way it could be cleaned up, if the Crown Prince of Oman paid over the odds for his weapons.’

  ‘That … could work yes, no one would question it.’

  ‘Then I have a visit to make soon.’

  ‘He’s visiting Nigeria, they work with oil together, and he’s funding a mosque there.’

  ‘Send him a note, to visit me in Monrovia. It’s safe these days. He can open a mosque here as well.’

  ‘I’ll send a note now, yes. Two birds with one large diamond.’

  Back at the building I took Salome outside. ‘How are you finding my kind of work?’

  ‘It is easy enough.’

  ‘I’ve questioned the men, and they find that your attitude gets in the way, but that you’re a good soldier. So … unless your attitude changes we won’t be working together, in Yemen or anywhere else.’

  She stood angered, but controlled it. ‘Because I’m a woman!’

  ‘No, because you’re a pain in the arse. And Israeli. So think about what you want to do, because I’m tempted to put you on a plane and send you home.’

  I left her stood there and walked inside, hoping not to lose the diamonds from my webbing, they were worth a few quid.

  A call in to Captain Harris, sitrep given, a chat to the Brigadier, and I called Captain Moran to detail the patrols. Slider was close to me now, coming in from the southwest, a few shots fired on his journey, and Crab and Duffy were awake, arses bunged up with tissue paper.

  That evening I sat in the HQ room with Doctor Abrahams, our guest now allocated a real bed and mattress along with the medics. ‘Is there a Mister Abrahams, an Indiana Jones lookalike?’

  ‘There was, once, but my work got in the way, and when not working I write.’

  ‘Write?’

  ‘Romance novels, even got a Mills & Boon story published – and that’s hard.’

  ‘No stories about ancient treasures?’

  ‘Yes, many, but technical papers.’

  ‘Kids?’

  ‘No,’ she sighed out. ‘Never seemed to find the right time with my ex-husband, and he worked in archaeology so was away a lot. You?’

  ‘I made an RAF officer pregnant many years ago, and recently she asked me to donate some sperm. And that’s all she wanted. She’s high society, and me -’

  She laughed.

  ‘What?’ I playfully complained. ‘Do I not seem the right type?’

  ‘She’s high society, you’re Tarzan.’

  ‘She admired my physique and wanted my genes. I was in a test programme, running in a treadmill with a tube down my throat.’

  ‘Do you see them much?’

  ‘No. Rumour has it my job gets in the way.’

  She smiled widely. ‘I see you in papers all the time, then you were on the BBC news, and you spoke like someone who was 100% confident in himself and his cause, like a surgeon about to work on your heart. Your real life persona was as I imagined it.’

  ‘And your plans for the future? Will you end up as a romance writer or a professor of something, teaching college students?’

  ‘I’d like to just write romance, but the income is sketchy, so the answer is … probably a bit of both. I’m thirty-six now, so … the clock is ticking to find Mister Right.’

  ‘A man not put off by a lady with an hour-glass figure,’ I risked.

  She shot me a look. ‘You mean a lady with huge boobs.’

  ‘Not all men could cope, to be seen out with you. Other men would make comments and then it would be a punch-up.’

  ‘When I was married there were awkward moments, but I always covered the boobs over, but that just made me look fat. On holiday in a bikini was hard.’

  ‘A big strong bikini top,’ I joked.

  ‘Custom made,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘Did your father leave any money for you?’

  ‘He left some money, and a large house. If I sold it I’d be rich, but I don’t have the heart to sell it, and I won’t rent it out, I hate the idea of someone being in there.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Oxford.’

  ‘Close to my base. My Brigadier has a house in Oxford. I could probably get you some officers to pay rent.’

  ‘Well, it’s just that I left his stuff all over the place, and I’d have to box it all up and put it away.’

  ‘Maybe it’s been long enough, time to move on.’

  She nodded as she studied the inside of her cup.

  The next day David Finch called, a hastily arranged meeting for me to attend, a Chinook called for. The Ambassador was again on the Chinook when it arrived, dressed smart and now with an aid, two armed MPs with him. I dragged along Henri and Dicky since most others were out on patrol.

  In Monrovia, we set down at midday, walked inside by our hosts, a large party from Oman stood waiting inside. The Prince greeted me like a long lost son returning, that move being curiously observed by our host, Mike Papa, our host dressed – as usual - like some great military leader. He often reminded me of the photos of General Patton, a black General Patton.

  ‘We need a private chat,’ I finally told the prince, and he nodded. I led him to the President’s grand office as we chatted, just the three of us. Sat, rifle down, I began, ‘I need a favour, Your Majesty.’ I fetched out the diamonds, the President gasping.

  Prince Kalid puzzled that gasp.

  I told him, ‘Those are natural diamonds.’

  He held one up with a frown, up to the light. ‘My god.’

  ‘Each is worth around fifty million dollars,’ I told him. ‘More for the off-cuts. I want you to cut them, have them appraised and sold, and then … pay over the odds for some British aircraft and weapons. You decide on the split, I trust you.’

  ‘You trust me with a great deal,’ he noted, studying the diamonds.
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  ‘I also ask that you spend some of the money here. A mosque, schools.’

  ‘I will indeed look like the generous benefactor.’

  ‘Our gracious host here is in the same battle as us, against the bank. The bank organised the coup in this country, and tried to part him from his head. You are blood brothers in the same battle.’ I faced the President. ‘They killed his son.’

  He nodded, offering his condolences.

  ‘And they paid a price,’ the prince pointed out. ‘That man Maddocks gave up much. I will send you what we know, but Lord Michaels is dead.’

  ‘Lord Michaels?’ the President queried.

  I told him, ‘A British man in bed with a Dutch/Belgian bank. He had security companies, ex-SAS men, and they were involved down here, attacks on our British soldiers, and spying on me and my men in England. He knew Rene Bastion.’

  ‘We gave him some cocaine, and he likes his cocaine,’ the President put in. ‘He is already talking when high.’ Opening a drawer, he pulled out several large wads and handed them over, all euros, all 500 euro notes. ‘For your expenses.’

  ‘My boss in London needs a signed receipt,’ I told him, making him laugh. In a mocking voice I said, ‘Sign for that money to go hire an assassin and break the law.’

  Prince Kalid laughed. ‘British bureaucracy!’ He placed the diamonds in a small bag provided by our host and pocketed them. ‘What is the talk of oil here, Russian rigs offshore?’

  I told him, ‘A good friend of mine, a Russian, has rigs here at the gracious invitation of our host. Inland, my men are at a mine that was developed by NordGas.’ His eyes widened. ‘And under the mine - which on the surface is cement, limestone and silica and iron ore - lies a vast hidden reserve of oil in a strata that runs into northern Sierra Leone and then Guinea.’

  ‘And the bank wanted to get at it,’ he noted, nodding. ‘If I had a concession here, they would … be vexed.’

  ‘They would be most put out,’ I agreed. ‘First you need talk to our gracious host, then meet with the governments of Britain and France and talk nicely. They spent money keeping our host alive, so they will want some money back.

  ‘I have invited in Atlantic Oil, shares part-owned by Britain, France and America, that way everyone is happy and no one is wanting to topple the president here. What you don’t know, not yet, is that my good friends in America are moving into position to take a controlling stake in the bank – now that the bank is in need of help.’