missiles but the trail to the ultimate end-users was never uncovered to any satisfaction.
A few months ago the interest in the deadly weapons seemed to dry up, said the MI6 man. This was significant and had happened for three possible reasons. One, the end-users had failed to acquire the weapons and given up the effort, perhaps redirected their energies into a different scheme. Or two, they had just changed their minds about whatever they were planning to use the weapons for and no longer needed them. Or three, they had managed to find a reliable source for the deadly weapons.
The intelligence community had been speculating that the third option might be the case and that Islamic terrorists had managed to acquire portable ground-to-air missiles. Whereas it was always wise to prepare for the worst, it was also dangerous to assume anything. What they needed was some ‘A1’ category evidence – A1 being hard evidence witnessed by an intelligence organisation’s own personnel. The source of the weapons couldn’t be identified but there was still talk of them going round. For a time the rumour was thought to be the result of a collating phenomenon. Like Chinese whispers. One intelligence organisation asks another if they know anything about a given topic, such as the purchase of man-portable ground-to-air missiles by a terror organisation. The question gets passed on to another intelligence agency, which passes it to another. On its journey the question gets distorted, perhaps thanks to an inaccurate translation here and there, and, without any evidence to support it one way or another, it comes back to its point of origin in the form of an answer. Experienced analysts have an eye for such a result. And a warning for any analyst irresist -ibly attracted to a particular theory for whatever reason: ‘If you look for something hard enough, you’ll find evidence of it, even if it doesn’t exist.’
Whatever was the case, the rumour was treated as highly plausible. Pretty much every Western government intelligence organisation began a search for the buyers and, most importantly, the weapons. The spiral-like patterns of the intelligence gathering system took a series of acute turns when someone working in the depths of the MI6 building on the Thames in London postulated that the shootings of the aircraft could well have been rehearsals. For something else. The theory had analysts sitting up all over the place.
A week before Stratton’s visit to Washington DC a name surfaced, through British sources in Yemen. Someone had identified a possible missile provider. The name was Tajar Sabarak, a Saudi Arabian businessman. A name previously unknown to Western intelligence organisations. Sabarak was known to the Yemeni and Saudi authorities but as a petty smuggler who had so far eluded both countries’ authorities. He made his income out of the legitimate transportation of khat leaf from Yemen to Somalia. And he was suspected of using his international network to traffic, on occasion, in blood diamonds.
The breakthrough came when MI6 sources in Yemen reported that Sabarak had met with representatives of people who a year earlier had shown up as being interested in purchasing ground-to-air missiles. Shortly afterwards, Sabarak began flying around the world, several of those trips to Hong Kong and Indonesia, nowhere that had anything to do with the buying and selling of the amphetamine khat leaf or blood diamonds. But when it came to places like Indonesia, plausibly everything to do with Muslim extremism. A sting operation was planned to try and entrap the Saudi into selling his missiles. And even though it failed, what it revealed, on secret recordings of meetings, was a man clearly obsessed with global jihad.
It was enough to trigger a reaction stronger than just the need for more clandestine information gathering, said the MI6 man. The SIS decided to bring Sabarak in for questioning. The decision was based on the feeling that it would be better to have Sabarak in custody than put him under surveillance in the hope of finding the weapons and then risk losing him. It was believed that whatever the jihadists were planning, it had in some way already begun.
While Stratton was landing in DC, Sabarak was flagged arriving by air from Saudi Arabia into Sana’a, Yemen’s capital. From there he took a domestic flight to Riyan on the south coast. Before leaving Sana’a, Sabarak placed a call to a Somali in Riyan, a man named Mustafa Jerab, a man with strong ties to Al-Shabaab, an Islamic terrorist group. Stratton knew all about Al-Shabaab. Based in Somalia. No small-time organisation. In just a few years it had grown from a little-known gang of fanatics into a membership of tens of thousands and control of almost half the country.
Sabarak’s phone conversation was recorded and sent to MI6 by a British spy operating within the Yemeni Secret Service. Sabarak and Jerab talked like business associates. They said nothing specific but the inference was quite clear to the British intelligence translator. Sabarak wanted to discuss the shipment of something highly sensitive.
Stratton’s task was straightforward enough, the MI6 man said. He was to go to Riyan with one other operative and two Gurkha special forces support staff, snatch Sabarak and take him to the Oman border seven hours away by road, where British intelligence staff, with the nod from the Omani authorities, would take the Saudi away for a long rest and some very intensive interviews.
The MI6 man stopped talking. He picked up a phone and made an internal call. He needed a car out front right away.
Stratton’s ride took him back to his hotel to pick up his belongings. From there it took him over the Anacostia river to Bolling Air Force Base, where he was met by a senior US Air Force officer whose job it was to escort him through the camp’s bureaucracy and take him to a waiting aircraft.
Judging by the schedule Stratton had been given, he didn’t have a lot of time to get to the UK to meet his next transit east. He climbed into a scuffed US Air Force van and as they headed for a line of huge C-141 jet transport aircraft he couldn’t see how he was going to make the connection in time. So he wasn’t surprised when the driver pulled the van past the transport craft towards a lone two-seater F-16 parked on the skirt.
Stratton stepped from the van as an aviation fuel truck drove away. After the senior officer’s brief explanation of the flight – basically what not to touch and what to do in the event of an emergency – the man handed him a helmet and life vest and invited him to climb the ladder into the back seat of the dull-grey fighter. Stratton nodded to the pilot, who was already aboard. After a brief exchange the canopy closed and the engines roared as the bird rolled off the skirt.
As the pilot taxied the fighter, he called in to the tower and received clearance to go. He turned the F-16 on to the runway and fired the thrusters. Stratton’s seat had been lowered to reduce the effects of the g-force but the take-off acceleration was exhilarating even for him. Especially since all he could see were the clouds through the polycarbonate bubble canopy. Once they were airborne, the pilot raised Stratton’s seat back up and after climbing to thirty thousand feet, they shot through the skies at around fifteen hundred mph, more than double the speed of a commercial jet.
After a while looking at nothing but clouds below and blue sky everywhere else, Stratton nodded off. Until a strange noise woke him. For a few seconds he wondered where the hell he was. A long tube with a bulbous end was hovering above him outside the cockpit. The far end of the tube was attached to the back of a large aircraft above and in front of them. The F-16 was being refuelled, a new experience for Stratton and he watched it with interest.
Three hours after leaving DC, five hours quicker than a Boeing 747, the fighter craft touched down at Mildenhall Air Base in Norfolk and Stratton got taken to an MoD civilianised Gulf jet, where he met Hopper, Prabhu, Ramlal and the ops team who were to give them the detailed briefing and provide the specialised equipment they needed.
Six and a half hours later the aircraft landed in Salalah, Oman, and after that the team rode in a Toyota Land Cruiser heading for the Yemeni border, which they crossed to follow the coastal road all the way to Riyan.
2
Flickering lights coming from the village snapped Stratton out of his reverie and he leaned his elbows on the edge of the wadi to look through a night-vision monoscope. Two Suburbans were making their way between the houses in his direction. It had to be their target departing the rendezvous.
He looked over at Hopper, who was on his knees holding the wire. The last house in the village looked about a thousand metres away. The vehicles would cover the distance in a couple of minutes on the rough road. The first vehicle emerged from between the perimeter houses and into the open, the second one close behind it, their headlights bouncing as they came over the undulating ground.
Stratton placed three small gas grenades on the top of the wadi and slid a hand inside his jacket to touch his holstered P226 pistol. It was a subconscious check. The weapon was already loaded. He had been ready for a fight
