12 ST. CHARLES STREET
LONDON
"Beep, Beep, Beep!"
Alarmed by the incessant beeping, Ronan scrambled from his slumbering position and stared at the message on his screen. "Christ, Primo, what are you up to?" he mumbled as he read the message. "Begin count. Mark!"
He carefully pecked out the response. "Mark! 1412 GMT."
"Egress Q."
"Ack. XII advised. Egress Q."
He stared as the response inched across his screen. "Alt egress?"
"CB. Use GG."
"Ack. Out."
He picked up the secure phone. "Iron Hammer. Priority Black. Designation Shaddad 145. Advise latest."
The duty officer on the other end of the phone typed in the designated codes and waited for a system response before responding. "Dual comms from Thames House and FO, sir. Monitoring both. Tracking IP addresses. Neither package delivered, sir. Will advise when delivered."
"Thank you, Iron Hammer out."
"I assume that we have no new information," a yawning Sir William queried from the library door.
"Nobriega is entering the zone now. Primo is standing by. Two communications left MI-6 and the Foreign Office, but both may be legitimate. We just have to wait, William. You look like the insides of a dead fish."
"A shower and shave will put me to rights. You should have one also," Sir William responded as he accepted a mug of coffee from Edmond. "Feel like a squash game at the club? I need a change of scenery. Nothing's going to happen for the next six hours anyway until Primo and Nobriega link up."
"Why are they linking up? Why haven't you told anyone about this before, William?"
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake, Ronan. That is an old edict that is very applicable in this situation."
WEST OF QUETTA
INSIDE AFGHANISTAN
"Take a look, Mustapha. The Colonel and Inspector are using a gated approach. Advise your team." RSM passed his binoculars to the former Jordanian Pathfinder. "Keep an eye for anyone tailing him." He gestured to the sky. "He's going to try to lose any drones in those trees and in that gully. He may even drop off the Inspector among them. Get your men ready to create the necessary diversion. I'm heading back to the Sergent Chef." Primo slithered down the low escarpment.
"Laurent!"
"Votre serviteur, CSM." Laurent bowed in a vain effort to emulate a Royal Courtier as he returned his assault rifle from the ready position. "Is the Colonel on the way?"
"Yes. Time we started unloading the special gear. Is everything ready for an unscheduled departure?" He gestured to the aircraft under the camouflage nets and reflective blankets.
"Oui. We are irradiating the same amount of heat as the environment so we have no infrared signature. And we are invisible from the air," the French Special Forces officer replied as he heaved the first of the weapons containers to the RSM. "I whip the blankets off, the net disappears and we are running down that flat stream bed faster than you can say tout suis." Laurent grinned at his failed attempt at being humorous. "I will get the next container."
Fifteen minutes later, the CSM and his erstwhile student, Lt. Colonel Christopher Nobriega thumped each other on the back as they engaged in the prehistoric ritual of male bonding – the bear hug.
YOU ARE READING
The Shaddad Conspiracy
Adventure“Your murder victim was not an innocent, naive woman. She was on our terrorist watch list. The fact that she escaped from Basra and lived a normal life in London buggers belief, but she was planted here by a foreign government to wreck the Taliban p...
