Special Deliverance Read online

  Saddler heard his OOW’s report over the Open Line: ‘Big explosion, sir, on Red zero-five!’

  ‘Radar lost target!’

  Saddler said, ‘Cease fire.’

  Derek Cadell ordered from the TS, ‘Stop loading, stop loading, stop loading!’

  Seventy seconds had passed since he’d said ‘Command approved.’ Now he told the officer of the watch, ‘Bring her back to one one zero,’ and pulled off his headset, just catching the report ‘All guns empty’. He headed for the lift.

  Anne had written in her last letter — which, come to think of it had been some while ago — ‘The whole country’s praying for you. Me twice as hard as the rest. But apart from the obvious, horrible anxieties I do realise how important it is just at this time for you personally, professionally…’

  It had annoyed him when he’d read it, and it still irritated. What she’d been saying in that passage was that she hadn’t forgotten he was in the promotion zone, a stage in his career when he’d either go on up to flag rank or go out. You didn’t hang around, in today’s Navy, you either progressed to higher levels or you made way for a younger man. But as far as he, Saddler, was concerned, the Navy could make up its own mind and either way he’d be happy to go along with the vision. This was the point. Anne thought he cared about it, and he genuinely didn’t give a damn. He’d had quite a different atitude seven and a half years ago when he’d made captain’s rank at thirty-nine; he’d seen the ladder reaching to the heights, himself racing up it. Now, it didn’t matter. If they wanted him to be an Admiral, he’d be one, but if they didn’t there’d be plenty of challenge and satisfaction, even excitement, in trying something new — and, incidentally, getting to spend more time with Anne than he ever had so far.

  Her preference, he knew, would be for him to leave the service. But she was sure he had his heart set on getting to the top: no matter what he said, she believed his denials were only insurance against disappointment — and, as always so unselfish that at times it quite annoyed him, she’d decided to want for him what she believed he wanted.

  The lift banged to a stop on 02 Deck. He wrenched the gates open, dragged them shut behind him, went quickly round the corner and then into the darkened bridge. As well as the first and second officers of the watch, Jay Kingsmill, Shropshire’s second in command, was there; and David Vigne, navigating officer, heron-like with his long legs, sharp nose and slight forward stoop. They were all wearing anti-flash gear, and had binoculars trained out on the bow as the ship swung back to her easterly course. Kingsmill told him, ‘Blew up, sir. Carrying ammo, I’d say. Or those mines we heard were coming. After the bang there was a bit of a burn low on the water, but nothing there now.’

  Except dark night, black white-veined sea. There was an eight-hundred-foot hill to the north of the headland, he knew, and a disused metal light structure; radar could find both, but the eye could not…

  The inclination to move in closer and look for survivors had quickly to be rejected: the target had been close inshore, hugging the coast for cover and for safety, and what had been its comfort would be Shropshire’s danger. There were five hundred lives here to think about. Saddler ordered, lowering his glasses, ‘Secure from action stations.’

  *

  The Sea King had flown westward up the middle of the Magellan Strait, no more than twenty feet above the water. The Strait belonged to Chile, as did the land bordering it, Punta Dungeness about seven miles to starboard and Punta Catalina on Tierra del Fuego the same distance to port, both of course invisible. But fifty miles inside, when the helo left the water and had land under it, Chilean land, the Argentine airbase at Río Gallegos — their nearest operational fields to the Falklands — was only another fifty miles due north. There was a long haul ahead of them, in darkness all the way and flying low to stay under the reach of radar; this made no problems for the pilots because the Sea King was equipped with Passive Night Goggles, an American device that was proving immensely valuable. PNG, apparently, had made it possible for Special Forces teams to be put into the Falklands by helo at night as easily as in daylight; Cloudsley and John Saddler had been talking about it a few hours ago in Shropshire’s chartroom.

  Andy liked Saddler. He’d met him before, of course, but only briefly and with Lisa or her mother present, everyone making polite conversation. He felt grateful to him now for not having brought up the subject of his relationship with Lisa; and he’d admired what seemed to be a quiet, un-pompous style of command.

  ‘Hey, Andy! Company!’

  Geoff Hosegood had reached over, poked his shoulder; ‘company’ was the Sea King’s navigator, leaning over to show them a plastic-covered map. Pointing out their position, and the flight-path up the west side of the mountains, and then their destination, the landing zone or ‘LZ’. Andy looked for, and recognised, the lake — long, narrow for most of its length but widening at its eastern end, reaching from Chile right through the Andes and deep into the Argentine.

  ‘That’s about it, then.’ The lieutenant’s blue pencil-tip tapped the plastic over the LZ again. He shouted, ‘After we deliver you, we’ll be spending the day there, lying up. Come the dark, we take off again, and Bob’s your uncle!’

  No. Bob’s my brother. Except he calls himself ‘Roberto’ now. Roberto MacEwan, pronounced as if it might be spelt MacJuan. Lieutenant-Commander MacEwan of the Comando de Aviación Naval…

  Hosegood had yelled, ‘All the way back?’ He looked as if he found it hard to believe. ‘What’ll you do for gas?’

  A thumb jerked: ‘Got it with us. Extra tanks, internal.’ The navigator swung away, preparing to go through his spiel again with Jake West, who was sitting in solitary state halfway up the cabin. Geoff Hosegood winked at Andy, then folded himself back into his seat, shut his eyes and seemed to fall instantly asleep. As easily as that, Andy thought. They continued to impress him, these people — with their skills, their confidence, quiet acceptance of huge problems and extraordinary risks. He’d asked Cloudsley, for instance, on the subject of certain clothing — Patagonian-type, civilian clobber in which they were intending to disguise themselves for the journey across country — whether it wasn’t a consideration that a man not wearing uniform when taken prisoner in enemy territory could under the internationally accepted rules of warfare be regarded as a spy and shot; and Cloudsley had said yes, sure, that was the case. He’d added, ‘But we don’t reckon on being caught. We plan it so we won’t be, you see.’

  ‘But if you were?’

  He’d frowned. ‘This operation’s approved at a high level. And it can’t be carried out in uniform, obviously. So we have to do it the only way it can be done, and accept the consequences of any balls-up.’

  The consequences being a firing squad. And Geoff Hosegood sound asleep, breathing deeply and evenly, a suggestion of a smile curving his mouth under the floppy black moustache; maybe dreaming, Andy guessed, of that young wife and baby daughter.

  3

  West complained — several hours later, and in a deeply contrasting silence after that long stretch of continuous, deafening noise — ‘I dig what SBS stands for now. Special Bloody Sherpas.’ He asked Cloudsley, ‘What else is in them packs? Bricks?’

  Cloudsley had his back against a rock. He was wrapped in a poncho and wearing a cloth cap with earflaps dangling loose. Bombachas — baggy pants — stuffed into well-worn riding boots completed the external picture, but under the poncho he was also wearing a campera of reversed sheepskin, and the overall effect was to double his apparent bulk. The others were dressed similarly, having changed in the helo into this gear which had been rounded up in England from second-hand shops and other out-of-the-way places. Andy had specified the type of clothing, and approved the final selection.

  Cloudsley said amiably, ‘You’ll be getting a free ride tonight, Jake. Count your blessings.’

  The ponchos, made of alpaca wool, weren’t only for disguise; they gave protection against the wind that funnelled up the valley. Higher gr
ound and the peaks above it were already white, under autumn snow; northward, the great receding march of the Andes was hazy-white over blueish lower slopes, while here on this north face of the ridge black shadows lay over them, daylight strengthening on the Argentine side. From the LZ about four miles away, where the Sea King was now pegged down and hidden under camouflage nets, the five men had trekked uphill under their heavy loads, through a neck of rain-forest and then out of it to the treeless ridge with the lake below them on its other side, silvering in the mountain dawn.

  Geoff Hosegood grumbled, ‘Sooner not talk about bloody riding. Five days since I was on one o’ them things, I still got a sore arse.’

  They’d arranged lessons for him. While Andy had been learning to parachute, practising unarmed combat (as well as close combat with a fighting knife) and in the intervals running — not jogging, running —incredible distances over hill country under a heavy pack, Geoff had been learning to sit on a horse and steer it. In fact horse-riding was not the kind of ride Harry Cloudsley had referred to a moment ago. Horses were for later — for tomorrow, if Tom Strobie had come up to scratch — and tonight’s ride would be in the inflatable they’d brought with them, four metres long, designed to carry six men with full equipment or eight more lightly armed. Its fabric was a new product, ultra-strong and lightweight, and the boat’s special value was in its strength/weight/capacity ratio, with a resulting high degree of buoyancy. The outboard motor was also new: lightweight, delivering eighteen horsepower, and sound-proofed, the engine itself enclosed in a glassfibre pod with a flexible ‘drowned’ exhaust. The noise reduction was said to be in the order of sixty per cent, and Beale and Hosegood, who’d tested it in sea conditions, confirmed this.

  ‘Lightweight’ was a comparative term, of course. 132 kilogrammes was a definite improvement on the 180 kilogrammes of a standard Gemini — a four-man lift on its own, without an outboard or any other gear such as weapons, clothing, rations, let alone more esoteric equipment such as that for castrating an AM39 missile.

  They’d all slept during the long flight, and they had the whole span of daylight hours ahead now before it would be safe to move. Plenty of time for more sleep, and no hurry for it. Except for Hosegood, who was already yawning. Andy mentally pinched himself to make sure he really was awake, not dreaming this whole business. And aware of Cloudsley studying him — of wide-set eyes sombre, thoughtful, trying to see inside his skull maybe. You could hardly blame him, with these men’s lives (and indirectly, out there at sea, many others) in his hands, and knowing that his guide into unknown territory had a brother there who was clearly their enemy.

  Cloudsley did not, Andy thought, know anything about Francisca.

  The two civilians, well, men in civilian clothes — one young and abrasive and the other middle-aged, mild-mannered — who’d spent most of one day interrogating him and had then presumably cleared him, had known about her but had not linked her with him. Only with Robert. They’d known as much as they had about her, of course, because her father, Alejandro Diaz, was a prominent man of obvious interest to any Intelligence service. The younger of the two had asked him, ‘This man Diaz… He’s a neighbour — right?’

  Andy had confirmed it.

  ‘A big wheel politically?’

  ‘Counter-insurgency. He was a commander in the Argentine fleet air arm before, then resigned and took on this state security job.’

  ‘Meaning torture, disappearances…’ The younger one had added, ‘One of his colleagues being Alfredo Astiz, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘So one heard.’

  Astiz was ‘wanted’ by several governments, to answer questions about the imprisonment, torture and disappearance of some of their nationals. (More recently, he’d been taken prisoner on South Georgia.)

  The older of the two interviewers put in suddenly — as if he’d just woken up to what was being said, and found it shocking — ‘This man’s your neighbour?’

  He’d nodded. ‘Happens to have a sheep-station to the north of ours.’

  ‘And an American wife, am I right?’

  ‘Did have. She left him, some while ago. Took off with a rich Yank polo player. Her brother’s a Congressman, incidentally.’

  ‘Quite. But there’s a daughter, isn’t there? Married to your brother?’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  Both of them staring at him. As if expecting him to comment, or make excuses. He kept his mouth shut, because there was nothing he could have said that seemed to be any of their damn business. A minute later, they came back to Francisca’s father.

  ‘Alejandro Diaz… D’you know him well? As a neighbour; you must have seen a lot of him?’

  ‘Not so much. I was over here at school, and so on, and in the early years he never spent much time at his estancia.’

  ‘What sort of man would you say he is?’

  ‘Very ambitious. Ruthless. Socially he’s smart, sophisticated, moves in all the best circles, as they say. Dislikes Americans, one heard, because his wife ran out on him. But if you want the whole low-down on him, why not ask her? Or ask your opposite numbers over there to talk to her?’

  He’d thought this suggestion was a good one to have made, as a way of distancing himself from the Diaz family. But they kept to the same subject, or near it, asking about his attitude to Roberto’s marriage. The older man asked, ‘Did you approve of your brother marrying the Diaz girl?’

  He’d hesitated, thinking, Christ, what a question…

  ‘Not entirely. But you see — looking at it objectively — out there where it’s been happening, what they call the “Dirty War”, the activities of people like Diaz weren’t by any means universally disapproved of. People who’d had friends or relatives murdered by the Montoneros or ERP for instance, or who were in danger from them themselves, would see it as a matter of beating terrorists at their own game. I know, a hell of a lot of completely innocent people were victimised — I’m not excusing it for a moment, but—’

  ‘Quite.’ A nod. ‘Difficult to justify wholesale murder by the State. Eh?’

  He’d held that stare, and nodded. ‘Diaz is not a nice man. If that’s the opinion you want.’

  ‘But your brother wouldn’t have had any compunction—’

  ‘My brother isn’t a particularly nice man either.’

  Looking round the faces now: at Beale, Cloudsley, West, Hosegood. Not sure they were trusting him entirely, even though those two characters had cleared him at least to the extent that he’d been brought along. For instance, he was fairly sure they had their plans drawn up to the last detail, but he wasn’t being let in on much of it, only on as much as he’d have to know for today, tomorrow. He’d no idea, for one thing, how they were intending to get away after the task was completed — only that there was supposed to be a submarine involved. Where or how they’d get to the coast hadn’t even been discussed in his presence. OK, he understood it — the less anyone knew the less could be extracted from them. Interrogators, he’d been told, would be more likely to use drugs than torture in present circumstances, because they’d know (or in his own case, believe) they were dealing with men who’d been conditioned to withstand pressure, and because time would be vital to them; so they’d take the short cut… But he’d still have liked to know something about the final exit route. Not knowing was beginning to feel like going into a tunnel that might not have an opening at the other end.

  More immediately, he didn’t know where Jake West and Monkey Start were going, tomorrow, after they made the rendezvous with Start. They had some separate objective of their own – the two operations apparently overlapping only in these early stages, Start making the essential arrangements with Tom Strobie, West helping meanwhile with the ‘Sherpa’ stuff, then away on their own business.

  But these others knew, he thought.

  Tony Beale met his eyes as he glanced round the circle of recumbent men again. The colour sergeant suggested, ‘How’s about a bed-time story, Andy? How the MacEwan f
amily came to be farmers in the Argentine?’

  West nodded. ‘And like how you come to be on our side.’

  The question had a sting in it, even if he hadn’t meant it that way. But Beale answered for him. Tony Beale was about six-two, long-limbed and spare — like a greyhound compared to Cloudsley’s bull-mastiff. He was a year or two older than the others; and married, with two toddlers at home in Hampshire.

  He said, ‘He’s British, Jake. That’s how come.’

  ‘Yeah, but — I mean, family here, an’ all?’

  ‘All the family I have is one brother.’ Andy took over — appreciating Beale’s defence of a member of his own team, even a civilian member, but also accepting that West had been perfectly justified in asking. Not every Anglo-Argentine, by a long chalk, was on ‘our’ side. He told them, ‘I was born in Edinburgh, and my father was born near Inverness. He was brought out here when he was a baby, just before the first war. So Tony’s dead right, I am British. Actually, there was an old great-uncle out here, been here since about eighteen-seventy, when sheep-farming first started, and he’d died with no wife or children. My grandfather Robert MacEwan was a crofter, in Inverness, and he just upsticked with his wife and baby son.’ He asked, thinking he might have told them enough to explain his origins, ‘Want any more of this heart-warming saga?‘