Pirate
by Duncan Falconer
To Jamie Seward: a rich
pirate to be sure but one
of the good guys!
Dinaal Yusef had lived in Bogota for five years before he learned why he had been ordered to begin a completely new life there. He first arrived in the Colombian capital on vacation: or at least that was the way his leaders wanted it to look. In reality he was there to carry out a preliminary assessment of the city. And to ascertain what he needed to do to be able to apply for a resident’s visa. Yusef was a tall, handsome and athletic man in his late twenties, and he was well educated, having attended university in Barcelona, where he had lived for fifteen years. He’d been born and grown up in a small town on the Kashmir border in Pakistan. But a wealthy uncle living in Spain had adopted Dinaal and brought the boy to live with him after his mother and father, a policeman, had been killed in a dawn raid by the Indian army.
In the second week of Dinaal’s month-long visit to Bogota he met a young local girl. He frequented the street cafe where she waited on tables. After just a few days he’d charmed her, completely turned her head. It had been easy enough for a man of his looks and intelligence to convince the girl, who had left her village only a few months before to find work in the city. It was almost as easy convincing her parents. After a brief but passionate affair, he flew back to Spain promising to return to marry her. Three months later he was as good as his word.
It was a union of love for the Colombian only. For Dinaal, it was one of convenience. It meant he acquired his permanent resident visa. And completed the first stage of his assignment. Dinaal had been sent to Colombia to set up an undercover operations cell. So he needed to be married. It was a necessary tool. It allowed him to stay in the country for as long as he wanted and to travel abroad at will and return at will. Without having to deal with the usual visitor’s visa complications.
He waited a year before he travelled out of Colombia. Dinaal went back to Pakistan for the first time since his youth. On arrival he took the first of many trips into Afghanistan to meet his bosses. These visits, mostly into Kandahar, never showed on the pages of his passport. Because he was always guided in and out through the mountainous, arid borders by people who knew how to avoid Pakistani troop patrols and Western Coalition forces.
It took close to three years to get the Bogota active unit numbers up to operational strength. The secret cell was made up of six other men, all of whom had been recruited from madrassas in various parts of the world that taught an extreme form of Islamic jihad. The seven men had subsequently attended jihadist training camps once a year for weeks at a time, and on one occasion for two hard months straight. They’d learned the art of terrorism. They’d taken weapons and explosives training and been drilled relentlessly on how to conduct themselves undercover. Only one of the men was a native Colombian. The others were from Pakistan, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. In the final weeks of training they’d focused on the skills required to conduct independent and unsupported attacks in foreign countries. By now they had solid small arms skills. They could handle pistols and assault rifles. At this point they learned how to construct simple but lethal explosive devices using locally purchased materials.
When Dinaal was sent to Colombia to set up the active service unit, the leaders didn’t tell him why. He would have to wait another two years before learning of its purpose. But he had been able to wait because he was a patient man.
In truth, the men who had recruited and sent Dinaal to Bogota didn’t know what the task would be either. They were following a directive that came down from on high. They had been ordered to set up as many active service cells as possible in just about every significant country in the world. The cells were to remain asleep until given orders to become operational.
It was during one of Dinaal’s visits to Islamabad, while receiving training in the use of wire-guided missiles and anti-vehicle mines, that he got called to attend a meeting. The gathering, which included other cell commanders, was held on a country estate a few miles inside Afghanistan on the Kandahar road beyond the Spin Boldak border checkpoint. Much to his surprise, Dinaal’s bosses were men he had never seen before. It was like there had been a complete changing of the command guard. Many of the new leaders were younger than their predecessors and were far more politically savvy. They were also ruthless and ambitious.
The meeting lasted a whole day. One by one the cell commanders were called to give account of their units. When it came to Dinaal’s turn, he described his men, their enthusiasm and their eagerness to do anything they were asked in the name of Islam. He also emphasised they were all willing to die for the cause. At the end of it, Dinaal was given what seemed a strange sequence of instructions. But he was not permitted to question them nor to divulge them to any living person outside the members of his cell.
On his return to Bogota, Dinaal assembled his team at the first opportunity and relayed the instructions. His men were equally bemused. He assured them that ultimately it would lead to a significant task: all he could say was that they were taking part in a truly global operation, one that would have a greater impact than the Twin Towers assault on 11 September 2001. Dinaal also warned the six men not to ask questions about the task nor to discuss any aspect of it beyond the walls of the secret cell headquarters. He didn’t lie to them: if they disobeyed the order they would be killed.
The Colombian, the Indonesian, the two Pakistanis and the two Saudis assumed Dinaal knew the real purpose behind the weird task. He did not let them think otherwise. He was well aware that information was power and that if you didn’t have any, it was always best to let others think that you did.
He spent a week carrying out day and night reconnaissance of the target area on his own. He looked at it from every position until he was satisfied. When he had decided on the location and timing, he took his two best men out on the ground to explain the plan in detail. He showed them where it would take place and precisely how they would carry it out.
He had one relatively minor obstacle in the preliminary plan: the procurement of a rifle. Dinaal wasn’t worried about ammunition being a major issue since he required only one bullet. And getting hold of a rifle was easy enough in Colombia. But it had been impressed upon him that the acquisition of the firearm had to be as clinical as every other part of the operation. It had to be a clean weapon, untraceable back to them. No member of the cell could be associated with a firearm in any way, shape or form. This was vital to the future of the cell. Dinaal knew he had to take it extremely seriously.
It was the Colombian who managed to achieve this level of secret acquisition, quite by chance. He stole the weapon from the military without them knowing who had done it. He was driving towards a country road checkpoint late one night, common enough just about anywhere around the Colombian capital, and the barrier was up. He was waved through by a single soldier and noticed a dozen or so others asleep, weapons out of hands. Instantly inspired, he drove for about another hundred metres, around a couple of bends and pulled the car off the road. He crept back through the bush on foot. He took not only a rifle but a pouch full of magazines.
After detailed questioning of the Colombian, Dinaal was satisfied that security had been maintained and that it would remain so as long as the weapon was never found in their possession and they kept it hidden until they needed it.
Finally the night of the task arrived. The seven men climbed into a van and they drove into the city. The van belonged to Dinaal, a second-hand Transit with windows at the front and in the back doors only. It was rusty in places and looked well worn but Dinaal ensured the engine was always in good condition. The Colombian was at the wheel. They kept to the highways and after a while they hit Calle 17 and headed into the much less populated agricultural area to the north-west. The traffic had been heavy in the city but as soon as they turned on to the farm road it disappeared. The surface of the road was hard-packed crushed stone that wound through small, cultivated fields. A handful of farm houses were dotted about. The land was as flat as a billiard table in every direction.
Less than a kilometre along the lane, the vehicle turned into an even narrower track and came to a stop
