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Prologue Toronto Canada "Hey mate, you'd better see this!" McCalister called Barlow into the living room. CNN was on the "box". "Reports are coming in that eleven oil and natural gas platforms in the North Sea, the Irish Sea and the Eastern Atlantic have been bombed. All we know at this stage is that three have been lost with all hands. These platforms and production rigs belong to Britain and Norway. The Moslem Alliance has claimed responsibility. More as the story breaks." He wiped his hands on the dishcloth. His mind flashed back to '93 and his face changed from husband to stone-cold killer. ***************************************************************** They were sat in the steel-walled Commissary Number 7, five men amongst a hundred others, the only difference being that they ate their food as opposed to wolfing it down. Twenty-ounce steaks, eggs, fries, pies of every type and taste just vanished as men stoked the powerhouse that kept them working. Small men, big men, it didn't matter, the food disappeared, untasted, washed down by tea that could take the plating off a spoon. Barlow looked at the remains of a steak left on his plate that, he thought, could have fed a Biafran for a week. He watched the Boss surreptitiously pop a Dilaudid, as the pain from an old neck wound got to him. Barlow glanced at the other three and thought, Holy shit. We're all like a bunch of old crocks, as he absentmindedly rubbed at the hip that had been displaced in a night drop nine months before. Each of them had bits and pieces damaged or missing, but they considered it par for the course and if it didn't kill you, it made you stronger. He could never get used to this place. Three and a half million tons of steel and the bloody place still vibrated. Built in Korea and floated to the North Sea, it had cost hundreds of millions of pounds sterling for the fabrication and then the crafty bastards at the oil company used British taxpayers' money to do all their repairs to make it fit for the job. Big Geordie at the next table was talking to his skinny runt of a Cockney partner. In a mixture of ancient Norse, Middle Age English and low German he questioned the fertility of the Korean population, their construction techniques and their quality control. Apart from the term "Fucking Kareuns," Barlow deciphered succinctly for his colleagues: "Leg five is not sound, is leaking and requires re-welding." He gathered this through an accent that was the fruit of numerous invasions, a rugged independence, grinding poverty and the unrestrained rape of the Industrial Revolution. It sounded like a man chewing gravel underwater. In his best pseudo public school voice and in the style of a BBC news anchor at a State funeral, he continued to quietly apply his linguistic skills to the response from 'Big Geordie's' Cockney mate who replied in the crudest Anglo Saxon. He translated: "But my friend, we are receiving excellent financial remuneration and your beloved wife will greatly appreciate it. And, she will respond energetically to your base, sexual advances." The team at the table quietly cracked up. How all these buggers communicated was in itself a thing of genius, he thought. And they were all English. He laughed to himself. "You know, Boss, when you listen to this lot, it's no bloody wonder they're up for WWIII when they're on the sauce. You could get a bloody Battle Royal just saying 'good morning'!" They all smiled at the thought of this crew hitting the pub after being dry for a month. He looked at the table and watched the cutlery shimmer. He placed his one piece of vanity on the table, a solid gold Zippo. After all, the Rolex on his wrist wasn't technically his, it was issue. In a slight fit of maudlin, that lasted all of a split second, he realised that this must be the only job in the world where they gave you the retirement watch the same day you joined. The Zippo trembled gently as the table vibrated. The power surging through the platform was just unbelievable. A three and a half million ton jelly. The reverie ceased abruptly. 17:32. All five team members left the table, two leaving by the port side, three heading out the stern doors. Suited up in the best that money could buy, their own money, both groups emerged into the bitter darkness of a North Sea winter's gale. One hundred and twenty feet below was the water line. Ninety feet below that, the seabed. Eighty feet above were the aircraft hazard lights, as though there was any chance of not seeing this manmade mountain, which was lit up with so much candlepower that the natural darkness was destroyed for five miles. One hundred and twenty feet and the spray still hit the handrails and decking, to freeze in a solid sheet of ice. The wind was out of the north and the tidal flow, what there was this far out, was into the wind. Hundred-mile-an hour gusts were forecast and up there they were exposed fully. Seagoing rules applied, one hand for the ship and one hand for yourself. Barlow thought it would be a good time to be an octopus. The maelstrom directly below only served to heighten his awareness of the big sea running all around. He studiously examined the height markers on the legs. Waves were actually breaking at seventy feet. His stomach turned over but he quickly regained his equilibrium. If this goes down tonight, he thought, this will be a fucking massacre. Nobody in their right… Then he saw it. About three miles out. A light where there should have been no light. "Two Bravo to One Alpha." "One Alpha." "Two Bravo, two thirty degrees from my position, over. Can anyone confirm? Over." "One Alpha to all units. Heads up people. Shi'ite hawk is at it again. One Alpha. Anybody confirm? Over." Silence. Barlow knew to trust his eyes. He remembered his old sergeant's advice: "Always trust your eyes until you can confirm it was not there. And then check it out anyway. If you've made the timings then you have the time." Barlow had made the timings so he checked, settling down into the patience that made him formidable at what he did. "Two Bravo…" "One Bravo, I confirm. Over." Each unit confirmed simultaneously. "One Alpha, all units go to net. Over". Each unit clicked once to confirm net was activated. Barlow was operating the CIWS that they had quietly armed that afternoon. The laser-guided weapon was in two parts; a missile system backed up by a mini-gun. Target acquisition was a sod in these conditions, but the recent addition of infra-red capacity made this toy a joy to operate. "Just hope the bloody computer hasn't frozen up," he said to nobody in particular. "Two Bravo, One Alpha. On your signal, Boss." "Target acquired?" "Target acquired." "One Alpha, Two Bravo. Shoot!" There was no noise above the screaming of the wind. The computer directed both the laser and the infra-red readings. By the time Barlow realised that everything was A.O.K. there was an explosion. Right where an explosion should be. "Absolutely Fucking Ace," was all he whispered into the net. "One Alpha, Two Bravo. I say Amen to that. Good Shooting! All units, like the Good Shepherd might have said, lets get the flock out of here. Commissary Seven fellas. Out" In Commissary Seven, the platform's captain delivered tea with his own fair hand. The Boss raised his eyebrows questioningly. "Her Majesty's Ships rules?" "Nicely done, fellas. Nicely done. Hardly noticed a thing." "It's a bloody good job you did hardly notice a thing or we wouldn't have been doing our jobs," the Boss replied, perhaps a little too sternly. The rig administrator looked into his doctored drink. "Who were they? Do you know?" Barlow looked up at him and answered for them all, his eyes as bleak as the sea outside, his voice without a single trace of emotion. "Does it matter? They're where they should be. Dead." ***************************************************************** ******* He remembered. And she permitted him to remember. He had been good at what he did and she recognised his need. He hated it in Toronto and she hated him feeling that way. "Thinking about the Squadron?" "No," he lied. "Barlow, you ever do that to me again, you son of a bitch," she yelled, "and I'll leave you. Don't you ever fucking lie to me again! You demean me. You cut me out. Goddamn it. If you can't be straight with me what the hell have we got?" He stood there in shock. This woman would never cease to amaze him. He walked over to her and she let him put his arms around her. "Whoa there, woman. I'm sorry…" he started to tell her, but she cut him off. "I know you think that there's nothing to be done about it. It's gone so leave it. But you have to tell me when it hurts. We need to get out of here. This place is killing you, with a capital K. I know somebody who might be able to help. He's out west." "Who is that? Father Christmas?" "Not quite," she almost whispered. "It's Father McCalister, my dad." Her look was pensive. Chapter One "Of meetings" South of Manchester, England He listened attentively, but all he could hear was the rain on the windshield. "This car is the most under rated piece of machinery…." The thought ended with the words. He turned off the engine and sat, looking at the rain making rivulets on the glass. He had a sense of foreboding, of urgency. Checking the mirrors and the parked vehicles, out of habit more than necessity, he exited and flinched as his autonomic system responded to the great lumps of rain that found the gap between his collar and his neck. Again he looked around, half welcomed and strangely antagonised by the little pub he had come to know so well. Her car wasn't there, so she couldn't be here yet. What was it she had said? "We need to talk." And that was it. She had just hung up the phone. Gutted. That was the only way to describe his feelings. He thought of the night that they had met seven months ago. He was on a quiet one and had just cleaned up three shits who had thought that they were really "tasty". He had been a nondescript man reading the paper. The landlord had begun arguing with the three wiseguys. "Look, gentlemen, I would appreciate it if you would leave. The law is the law and I'm not serving you." The leader had become most ignorant. "Listen you old fart. Serve the beer and cough up the cash. You know the rule - pay up and shut up." The landlord, short and skinny as he was, took no notice. "I'm not serving you and I won't be a party to protection money. Now get the hell out of my pub. Go on-there's the door." Barlow had started to get annoyed. He hadn't realised that a beautiful woman was calmly watching him through the internal arch. He went back to reading his paper, but shouted to the landlord, "George, where the hell's my Bushmills?" He heard George tell them to get out again, but the leader had intervened. "Keep your friggin nose out of our business. Or the boys will teach you how to mind your manners. Right lads?" Barlow simply spun around and picked up a poker from the fireplace. Cool as a cucumber he walked up behind the villain and hammered him to the ground. The second wiseguy had pulled a wicked looking knife and Barlow stepped back onto the balls of his feet. "Put it away, sonny Jim, unless you want it sticking up your arse," was all he said. The villain miscued and Barlow carried out his promise. Not satisfied with the outcome, he then threw them into the street where he continued to beat them. "Now all of you piss off home before you really annoy me," he had calmly suggested, before retrieving the knife from the man's rear orifice and proceeding to slash at their clothes, their tires and the seats of their car. Finally, as they staggered away, he threw the knife onto the pub roof and walked casually back inside. "George, where's my bloody Bushmills?" He began picking up his scattered newspaper when a shadow fell across him. To try to get back his equilibrium he had ordered the old people in the corner a drink. The Landlord was most apologetic that his drinking had been interrupted and had refilled his glass with Irish. It was like smoke in his mouth he remembered. Then she was there. And he was overrun. "Smooth. Really smooth," she said. He held up the glass and quizzically raised his eyebrow, as if she was talking about the malt. She inclined her head towards the door, out through which he had fired the three loud-mouthed bullies. "That surely was a pleasure to watch." she continued, faking the brogue. He raised the glass to her, offering her the seat opposite him, his back being to the wall in the corner. She sat down while raising two fingers over her shoulder. The landlord immediately obliged. "McCalister," she intoned, at the same time tearing out his soul with a look as direct as a straight left. "Barlow," he had responded over the glass, while trying to get his balance back. Her hair was crinkle dried, the colour of sun-bleached flax and dropped below her shoulders. Her eyes were tawny and bold. Her skin was like burnished gold. Her mouth was perfect. And she was made real by a tiny scar on the bridge of her nose. She was petite, but well put together. And she had just sat there and let him look. Losing women wasn't a new experience to him, but this time it would be different. After all, he hadn't been much of a husband to his two wives, what with never being home. Both had given him the same ultimatum, "Me or the Squadron." It was no contest. The Squadron had won hands down. They had all parted amicably. After all you can't name Her Majesty's forces as the other woman in a divorce case. And there were no kids. So it was simply pack up and move back into quarters. He wasn't the first and he wouldn't be the last. But this one was different. He didn't want to lose her. If it were something he had done, he would change. If it were something he had said, he would apologise. He wasn't going to lose her. He entered the low-ceilinged bar and took a pint of bitter. Settling himself in the corner seat by the fire, he waited. Not for long either. She came in dead on time. It had to be something to do with her nursing training. She was never late. She bought her own drink and came to sit beside him. McCalister; MSc; SRN; teacher of ER practice; ass kicker to doctors and nurses alike, lover extraordinaire, light of his life and holder of his future. "Hi you," she said. "Hi you back. Do you love me?" he responded. "This much," she said holding her hands apart at shoulder width. She looked him straight in the eyes. "Barlow. You've got a choice. I'm going home to Canada. Do you want to come? Because if you do, mate, you've got to do the proper thing by me, or they won't let you in." He nearly died of relief on the spot. "Shit! You stupid bugger," he cursed her as gently as a caress. "You frightened the living shit out of me. I thought it was the great heave-ho." "Well you do have a choice," she said smiling, "though to be truthful it isn't much of one if you really love me. I take it the answer is 'Yes'?" "When?" "I've got the papers for the Registrar and Immigration". "Cocky bitch, aren't you?" this around the foam of the beer. "Not really. But I was still a bit unsure." She tipped her head and smiled the smile of the victor. He loved the moustache she always got from her first swallow of beer. "Like hell," he laughed, "In for a penny." "In for a pound," she finished for him. The newspaper on the table held a small piece about the police in Manchester reopening the investigation into an explosion in a laboratory at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, three years before. But they were not there to read newspapers. Gloucestershire, England One hundred and twelve miles south west of where Barlow and McCalister were sitting, in a beautifully panelled drawing room on a small and discrete private estate in Gloucestershire, two neatly dressed, but slightly dishevelled gentlemen were quietly going over some paperwork. "Where did this come from?" "Manchester." "What do you say it is?" asked the elder with a voice that was strong in age and authority. "Some sort of liquid that changes the molecules of liquids," responded the voice's associate, undaunted by the brusqueness. He was ready for the interrogation. He had all the answers in the three-inch thick file. "GIA?" the Brigadier enquired. "Naughty little buggers are the Armed Islamic Group. Slit the throats of thirteen people and wounded two others on the night of the fifteenth of last month, in a village in Tiaret Province. A couple of days earlier they planted a timed explosive charge in a tanker on a train. Apparently intended to blow up the oil refinery at Arzew. As I said 'nice company'. Pity the French didn't shoot the bloody lot before they left Algeria." The Commander fired up his pipe, which was a lethal weapon in its own right and sat back. The Brigadier commenced filleting him and his team's work and destroyed every conclusion. "Check it out. If I'm thinking right there was one survivor at the university. And, by the way, fire up GCHQ and tell them to be wide-awake on the Middle East Desks. My bones are aching." Both glanced at CNN on the TV screen. "The poor bloody Yanks have got their hands full again. Look at the bloody weather over there. Is this a sign of the end of times?" the Commander asked theatrically. The withering look he received in response to his attempted levity quickly re-focused his attention. "By the way, the GIA and Muslim Alliance have become active in the States." He passed the Brigadier the Terror Watch report. The information was delivered in a flat, desultory form, but somewhere a God began to strike a cymbal with his fingernail. Unknown to either man, a red 28 was, at that moment, being scratched onto a calendar in Baghdad. Washington DC Across 'the Pond' in Washington DC, a dance macabre was taking place in the workplace of every senator and congressman on Capitol Hill. Only the time of day differed, as private secretaries carried out a task that is performed by private secretaries the world over. "Is your coffee OK, sir?" "Yes, it's fine, thank you." "As they say sir, I am yours to command!" Not one senator or congressman noticed the strange inflection, with the stress on "I" and "command." But each held the same thought, 'I am yours to command.' Then the thought generalised, "Pity everything was not so easy." The single thought united the parties as no other idea had ever done. The coffee had a slightly burnt aftertaste, which quickly disappeared with the next sip. As each aide left, each repeated jovially, "Don't forget, sir, I am yours to command." Across the way, as they say, in the White House, this President never seemed to sleep. It was a trick that he had learned while managing his own considerable business interests and though he did actually sleep very deeply for four hours a night, he had mastered the art of "cat napping". He and Churchill both. And no lesser, though very different challenges, faced both men. The group before him came to realise that he was wound up. "Gentlemen. Saddam Hussein has, for the last ten years, played this country like a fiddle. We have spent billions of dollars bringing our forces to states of readiness, only to have them stand down for humanitarian reasons. This maniac has cost us more than if we had purchased the damn country. Our forebear Webster asked, 'Neighbour, how stands the state of the Union?' As the good General, here, might put it, 'We are faced with a complete cluster fuck, sir!' Forgive my base language, but where do we begin? OPEC and Hussein? The Eastern Seaboard? Or the Midwest? All these would appear to require the most immediate action, before we put our minds to the overall state of the economy. Your views please and we will go round the table left to right." People were getting used to the idea that this President was no respecter of departments or personages. When he wanted advice he wanted it now and he had no time whatsoever for the Prince of Washington games-Cover Your Ass. Four very senior politicians and several appointees had said fare well to their positions in his short term of office to date. And so unknowingly, the bedlam began. Had he known of the activities taking place half a world away, the President might well have shown even greater ire. Baghdad, Iraq Aly ibn Muqtal lounged languidly in the Louis XIV chair. He pressed the concealed buzzer in the arm and a full colonel entered. Without a word, ibn Muqtal pointed at the solid gold, cedar lined cigarette case on the Rococo desk. The colonel removed a cigarette, fitted it to the holder passed to him by Muqtal, and lit it. He took one draw, exhaled and waited. Ibn Muqtal watched the expression of relief in the officer's face and clicked his fingers. The sound was that of silk on silk and he accepted the cigarette holder. The aide-de-campe stood to attention until he was dismissed. The Frenchman, seated opposite in a matching chair, wriggled. He wanted to pull the chair up to the table to increase the intimacy and to suggest his integrity, but knew that it was impossible as it was securely bolted to the floor. In his heart of hearts, wherever that might be in a French diplomat, he admitted that he was frightened. His errand was almost completed and he was simply waiting to be handed the signed documents. Time and again he had successfully negotiated for his country. But this time he wondered whether or not the document on the desk before him was, in fact, his death sentence. These people, he thought, are animals and hoped that it did not show. "You are right to be afraid and I'm sure that you think that we are that lowest form of life," ibn Muqtal lisped at him. The Frenchman's heart skipped a beat. "These are troubled times for my country and you are, after all, an infidel. But we recognise that, of all the infidels, you and your country are most like us. We only care about our own and we will do whatever we have to do in order to protect that which we love. You on the other hand, will do anything for money, under the guise of national fidelity. No. Do not presume to correct me. You know that it is true. Here are the documents you desire." He rolled his wrist to indicate the portfolio on the desk, already placed tantalisingly close to the edge. His voice lost its feminine silkiness and suddenly took on an exceptionally manly timbre. "The rates are agreed. Do not attempt to barter another deal at a later stage. Most importantly, everything is FOB here in Iraq. Do you understand this? If we do not receive the goods on the dockside, you will not be paid. Is this understood? A simple nod of the head will suffice. Good. Now please leave me." The Frenchman rose, moved forward to shake hands, but stopped when he realised that ibn Muqtal was not even looking at him. He suddenly became quite alarmed when he noticed that Aly ibn Muqtal's right hand was concealed in his robes. Like some sort of demented mannequin the diplomat bent forwards to take the file from the desk. He was just able to reach it with two fingers and flipped it into the palm of his hand. As he straightened he began to sweat as he recognised that he would have to turn his back to leave the room. He walked away stiffly, all the time waiting for the shattering pain from the bullet. As he closed the door behind him, he happened to catch the eye of the colonel and sensed, rather than saw, their mutual feelings. He tried to walk calmly from the outer office but finished up almost running, diving into the rear of the limousine. He glanced at the guards outside and saw not contempt, which is what he envisioned, but relief. Relief for him, tinged with a little surprise. From the vehicle, he punched up a number. He spoke rapidly in French for perhaps fifteen minutes and hung up. It was then that he ordered the driver to pull over to the side of the road and he was violently, yet euphorically, sick. While the diplomat was celebrating the fact that he was alive, ibn Muqtal was himself making a call. He didn't bother to dial, as this phone only connected to one number. In contrast to his previous manner, he was servile, even fawning. "Yes, My Father. The infidel has left with his precious-signed documents. No My Father, he does not understand the implications of my comments on his being an infidel. No My Father, before Allah, my mouth is clean and my heart is pure." He put down the phone. What will that butchering bastard Hussein choose to defile next week? he thought. Even the thought brought spittle to his lips and he wiped the bile from his chin with the back of his hand. As he did so, he felt the double click in his index finger and the pain of the memory of his father, with whom he had shared this quirk, poured out. His father! A true and loyal member of the Baath party, although he was of mixed blood. His father, who was butchered by his leader to make a political statement. One day, Father. This was all that was left of his family heritage in Iraq. Here he was, the most trusted aide to Hussein, possibly the most powerful position in Iraq after the butcher himself and definitely the most dangerous political position in the Middle East. And those who had tried to dethrone him. What of them? Dead by their own scheming. Defending himself in the ever-changing world of Iraqi politics had resulted in the deaths of, how many? Did he just count his direct adversaries, or the extended family that they had condemned by losing? And Hussein himself had inadvertently come to his rescue again and again, either through war or through the numerous political purges that he had ordered. Ibn Muqtal lived by the code that his father had taught him; keep your friends close and your enemies, closer. His father had said that this was a teaching from the Koran. Not until his adult life did he realise both the blasphemy and the joke. One day, father! Energised, he contacted a dissident Iranian Islamic cleric in the city of Qom. Hossein Ali Montazeri, who was under house arrest for his preachings against the authority of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenie, was a man of peace, a true believer. After talking with him for fifteen minutes ibn Muqtal spoke with his civil advisor, a much more pragmatic personality. Between them they arranged for the removal of a thorn in their sides. He painted 27 on the calendar as he pondered how things were proceeding in the US. Idaho, USA Seventeen of the USA's most powerful men sat around the table. An array of TV screens was banked in front of them. Outside, four private jets were parked on the runway holding areas while numerous discreet, but obviously executive vehicles, were being babied in the expanse of garage space. There was nothing ostentatious here. The butlers moved about quietly. The bodyguards did not sit around playing cards and eating linguini. They guarded bodies. Inside and out. Nobody was getting within fifteen miles of this meeting without the residents knowing his underwear size and his great grandmother's maiden name. One of the screens was speaking. "Gentlemen, you are industrialists and bankers, but yes you are quite correct. I and my colleagues, who are present on screen, are major influences not only in policy, but also in the development of plans, strategies and protocols. Now if your predictions are correct and it is my information that they probably are, then what you are suggesting, from a military standpoint, is feasible." |