FRIENDLY FIRE

By Stephen Leather

****

NOVEMBER 2001.

THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES.

For eight hours Spider Shepherd had been lying up in a sand dune overlooking the six-lane highway that slashed through the desert like a knife. It was a moonless night, the blackness dotted with so many stars that looking up made his head spin. He lay motionless, peering through his sniper scope, watching and waiting for any movement in the shadows.  To his right, far off in the distance, were the lights of a city and beyond it, close to the sea, the diffused yellow glow of the oil terminals that gave the Gulf state its immeasurable wealth.

To his left, about a hundred yards away, was a clump of small concrete buildings and rusting pick-up trucks.  Several of the buildings seemed to have been abandoned but, in some, oil lamps flickered behind wooden shutters. From time to time, Shepherd heard the reedy cry of a sick baby.

‘Target mobile,’ said a voice in his ear.   There was a faint double-click in his earpiece as he acknowledged, still peering through his scope towards a jumble of concrete and mud-brick houses flanking a narrow, high-walled passage. The houses were half a mile away, on the other side of the highway, but that wasn’t a worry. The rifle he was using was accurate at well over double that distance.

At first he saw nothing, but then a black-clad figure slipped from the passage, crossed the street and disappeared again into an alley at the far side. Shepherd continued to track the man and focused on his face.  ‘Target acquired. Positive ID,’ he murmured into his throat-mic.  Shepherd’s memory was photographic and one quick look at the surveillance photograph in his top pocket  had been enough.

‘Wait out.’

He saw the shadowy figure disappear and then reappear where the mud brick walls and buildings gave way to the empty scrub and desert beyond the city. There he paused and made a final scan of his surroundings before moving across the open ground towards the road that led from the airport into the city. Tomorrow was the ruler’s birthday and other heads of state, including a representative of the Queen, would be traveling along this road from the airport to the palace.  MI6 had come across intel that one of al-Qaeda’s top bomb-makers had arrived in the Gulf state on a mission to attack one of the VIP convoys. The ruler was a close friend of the British Prime Minister and had agreed to allow the SAS to operate in his country, provided the mission remained totally covert.

As he checked out the target through his scope, Shepherd saw he was carrying a mobile phone.  It would be the trigger for the massive bomb that two days earlier had been buried at the roadside. There were four oil drums full of explosives and it had taken three men the best part of two nights to dig the hole, taking cover every time they saw headlights heading their way. Now the bomb was buried and ready to be armed and that was the job of the bomb-maker. The three other members of the bomb-maker’s team were being taken out by other teams. There would be no arrests, no trials, no publicity, just three bodies buried deep in the desert.

Slowly, deliberately, he took a series of deep breaths, preparing himself for the shot. The man came to a halt again, peering along the dusty road, then crouched down in the shallow ditch at the roadside. Shepherd murmured into his throat mic. ‘I have the target. Positive ID. Clear engage?’

‘Clear engage. Stand By, Stand By. Fire when ready!’

It had to be a head shot, a clean, instantaneous kill, to stop the bomb-maker activating his device. Shepherd sighted on the bridge of the man’s nose, took up the first pressure on the trigger, then exhaled in a long, slow breath, and squeezed the trigger home. He barely felt the recoil, but the bomber dropped to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

‘Target down,’ said Shepherd.

Two dark shapes emerged from the darkness and ran to the body. One of them turned it over with the toe of his boot. There was no need to check for vital signs. The bullet Shepherd had fired had drilled a neat hole in the bomber’s forehead and punched a fist-sized exit wound in the back of his head.

Shepherd slung his rifle across his back and ran towards the men, just as the dark shape of a Puma helicopter, flying without lights or markings, came skimming in over the sea.  As he reached the men, the helicopter went into a hover a couple of feet above the ground, throwing up a whirlwind of dust. Shepherd and the other troopers jumped aboard, dragging the body with them.  They were airborne in seconds, flying back towards the sea. When the helicopter was half a mile from land, one of the troopers kicked the body out of the open door. ‘God bless all who sail in her,’ he scowled as the body spun through the air and splashed into the waves far below.

* * *

Back at base, Shepherd was disassembling his rifle, carefully wrapping the telescope mount and the scope in foam rubber to protect them, and then slipping his scope into his grab bag. He looked up as a grizzled-looking figure in shorts and tee-shirt walked over to him. ‘All right, Spider?’  It was Billy Armstrong.  He’d gone through selection with Shepherd five years ago and, like him, was a keen runner. It was Armstrong who had thrown the bomb-maker’s body out of the chopper.

‘Like shooting fish in a barrel… and just about as interesting.’

Armstrong grinned. ‘They tell me the entry hole was an inch and a half northeast of his nose. You’re losing your touch.’

‘And you’d know?’ Shepherd said, laughing. ‘A man who couldn’t hit his own arse with a shovel.’  He rubbed his chin with his hand. He hadn’t shaved in four days. ‘I’ll be glad to get back home,’ he said. ‘Only two more days.’

‘Wishful thinking, mate,’ said Armstrong.

‘What? You’re shitting me.’

‘Fraid not, you’re on your way to Doha.’

‘To do what?’

‘You know better than to ask and, even if I knew, I know better than to tell you, but I’ll bet any money that wherever you are going, it isn’t Hereford.’

‘Are you coming?’

‘Apparently not. They’ve got something for me but they’re being all secret squirrel about it.’

‘When do I go?’

‘You should have left already.’

Shepherd groaned. ‘I need to call my wife. She’s going to hit the roof when she hears this.’

‘No time, Spider. Seriously.’

* * *

Shepherd flew into the Doha International Air Base, better known as “Camp Snoopy”, later that morning. Twenty years before, Doha had been a small town in a dusty, desert kingdom of Qatar with a lot of oil and not much else. Now it was a city of a million citizens with a cluster of gleaming tower blocks rising out of the desert sands. The American base was next to the international airport and was used as the main jumping-off point for troops and equipment heading into Afghanistan.

Shepherd had had no sleep other than a quick catnap during the two-hour flight, but the adrenaline was pumping as he looked around, taking in the hive of activity. Trucks and forklifts roared across the concrete as crates of ammunition and supplies, and more trucks and armoured vehicles were loaded into giant C5s and C17s. As each was loaded, it taxied out to the end of the runway and took off, its engines belching black fumes as the aircraft laboured upwards under maximum load. Before it was out of sight, the next C5 had taxied into position, ready to begin its own take-off run.

The sprawling base was the hub for the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of operations that included Iraq and Afghanistan. The invasion of Afghanistan had begun just four weeks earlier and the base was a hive of activity. There were vast areas of concrete hard-standing, acres of toughened hangars and warehouses, shielded by concrete blast walls, and communications centres and control rooms deep below ground in air-conditioned, blast-proof chambers carved out of the solid rock. Above ground there was the usual US base sprawl of McDonalds, Burger King, Starbucks and all the other home comforts US forces expected wherever they deployed. It wasn’t like that in the rather more homespun British section, a small corner of the base allocated to the trusted partners in George Bush’s “war on terror”.

As Shepherd stood on the concrete next to the Hercules transport plane, easing the stiffness from his limbs, a Land Rover pulled up.  ‘You Shepherd?’ asked the driver, a Geordie lad who looked as if he was barely out of his teens.

‘Guilty as charged,’ said Shepherd.  He tossed his kitbag into the back of the Land Rover and climbed in. The driver set off across the airfield towards the SAS sector, a compound within a compound, a functional collection of tents, portacabins, shipping containers and two breeze-block buildings, all surrounded by a double razor-wire fence, and shielded by berms bulldozed out of the sands. Three times on their way across the base, they were flagged down while their ID was examined by gum-chewing men in unbadged combat fatigues.

The driver dropped Shepherd at the gates of the SAS compound and sped off. As Shepherd showed his ID to the guard on the gate, he heard a shout. ‘Spider! They’ve not got you on this Sunday school outing as well?’

One of the group of men sitting on upturned crates and sun-faded chairs next to a shipping container got to his feet with a big grin on his face. He had the typical SAS build: no more than medium height and a body built for endurance rather than raw power. Next to the young troopers who were sitting around him, his lined face and hair flecked with grey made him look even older than his forty years.

‘Fuck me, Spud,’ Shepherd said. ‘I thought you’d be drawing your pension by now.’  Jake ‘Spud’ Edwards had been one of his trainers back at the SAS Stirling Lines camp in Hereford.

‘So did I, Spider, so did I. Turned forty last autumn, got myself a cushy little number back at The Lines, keeping my nose clean and counting down the days till I can jack it in. But there are so many of the Regiment away, with so much kit - and fuck knows what you’re all doing - that even old men like me, and babies like these boys, fresh from Selection - are being shipped out on active service now.

Shepherd shrugged. ‘As long as they can do the job. So... where’re we going then?’

‘Where d’you think?’

‘I’m guessing Afghanistan?’

‘You know what Spider?’ Spud said with a broad grin. ‘You’re not as thick as you look. But take your suncream, we’re going on holiday. The Defence Secretary stood up in the House of Commons the other day and said he doubted if British troops would even fire a single shot.’

He introduced him to the others. There were a couple of other older troopers he knew from previous ops but as Spud had said, the majority were fresh from Selection. There was also a contingent of Paras from the Special Force Support Group Battalion with the usual assortment of tattoos and shaven heads on display.

Spud beckoned to one of the Paras, a young-looking, sandy-haired corporal with a rash of old acne scars across his forehead. ‘This is Lex,’ Spud said.‘He’s going to be your spotter.’

‘What?’ Shepherd said. ‘Why not one of ours?’

Spud shrugged. ‘Not enough men. We’re thin on the ground, remember?’

‘What about Billy? Why’s he sat on his arse over there? He’s spotted for me before.’

Spud shrugged. ‘Ours not to reason why,’ he said. ‘All I know is Lex has been assigned to you.’

Shepherd glanced at Lex. ‘You know what spotters do, Lex?’

‘Bit of a clue in the name, isn’t there?’ he said. He had a Scottish accent and had a habit of thrusting his chin up as if looking for a fight.

‘Up to a point. You’re called a spotter and you may spot targets as well, but your prime role is to have your sniper’s back.  My back. You protect me, so I can concentrate on what I’m doing.’

‘I get it,’ said Lex.

‘You’re sure?’ said Shepherd. ‘I have to trust you with my life out there. Literally.’

Lex’s jaw tightened but he didn’t say anything. As the two men stared at each other, Spud broke the silence. ‘Lex is good, I’ve worked with him before. He’ll be all right, trust me.’ He patted Shepherd on the back. ‘Trust me,’ he repeated.

Shepherd nodded. ‘Okay Lex. If Spud says your okay, that’s good enough for me.’

He settled down in a quiet corner, unpacked and sorted his kit and began cleaning his rifle.

Lex walked over and squatted down next to him. ‘That doesn’t look like a standard 7.62.’

‘No, this is the Rolls-Royce of sniper rifles, an Accuracy International .50 cal,  made in the UK and going for twenty-three grand a pop.’

‘So what’s so great about it?’

‘It’s state of the art kit. The traditional sniper rifle fires a lighter round with an arcing flight that makes it less accurate. The .50 is heavier and has a flatter trajectory, so it’s a more accurate weapon, and it’s beautifully engineered.’ He flashed Lex a tight smile. ‘How much do you know about the Afghans?’

‘They’re ragheads, that much I know.’

‘They’re just about the toughest fighters in the world, mate,’ said Shepherd. ‘And just because we helped them out against the Sovs a few years ago, doesn’t mean we’re best buddies now. We’re invading their country, don’t forget, and they’ve been fighting westerners pretty much non-stop since Queen Victoria was a nipper, so it’s not going to change now. Plus there are a lot of al Qaeda around. So a picnic it definitely won’t be.’ He paused as he checked the action of the rifle.

‘You know what the muj used to do to the Soviet soldiers they captured?’ asked Shepherd. Lex shook his head. ‘First they’d castrate them and then they’d flay the skin from them while they were still alive.’  He shrugged. ‘But you never know, you might be lucky. You might be captured and kept alive - a few Soviets were, some of them for years. It’s like medieval Europe if you’re captured. You become the property of your captor until somebody who outranks them comes along. But I wouldn’t be holding my breath for that. That’s why it’s so important that I know you’ve got my back. Because in Afghanistan there are no POW camps and no Geneva Convention.’

‘I won’t let you down,’ said Lex.

‘You’d better not, that’s all I’m saying.’

* * *

During the night they flew in a Hercules to Bagram airbase, 25 miles north of Kabul. Built and named by the Russians, it was the only airport in Afghanistan that could accommodate the huge C5 Galaxies that Shepherd had seen taking off from Doha, and one was landing every five minutes. Men swarmed around them unloading ton after ton of supplies, while trucks and armoured vehicles rumbled down the ramps from the vast holds of the aircraft. The night was cold and, fresh from the searing heat of Doha, Shepherd pulled his jacket close around him as Spud, Shepherd, Lex and two other SAS troopers who had joined them walked across the dusty compound and found a place to bed down for the night in a draughty tattered tent.

Everyone was up before dawn and Shepherd, Spud and the others were sitting on folding stools eating their breakfast of naan bread and grapes as they watched the sunrise inching down the western face of the mountains.  Shepherd took a sip from his mug of watery instant coffee and grimaced at the taste.  ‘Any idea why we’re here?’ he asked Spud.

‘I went to see the Major first thing,’ said Spud. ‘Nothing specific, they just want more bodies on the ground. The Yanks are keen to show that this is a joint effort so they want to embed us in whatever Delta Force are doing.’  He looked up as an Afghan boy approached. He walked with a limp, his left foot twisted inwards. He could not have been more than ten or eleven years old, but the expression in his eyes, so dark they could almost have been black, suggested that he’d seen a lot of life, good and bad. He broke into a broad smile as he caught Shepherd’s eye, ‘Salaam alaykum, Inglisi. You want cigarettes?’ He pulled two packs out of his sleeve. ‘Only two dollars.’

Spud glanced up ‘Fuck off kid.’

‘Leave him be, Spud,’ Shepherd said, ‘He’s just trying to make a living, like the rest of us.’ He turned back to the boy. ‘No smokes thanks, kid, but what else have you got?’

‘Anything you want, Inglisi: grapes, mulberries, tea, sugar, songbirds, gold jewelry, a pesh kabz - an Afghan knife - or if you want to dress like an Afghan man, I’ll give you good price on a beautiful salwar kameez. Or I can get you a Kalashnikov. Just tell me and I’ll get it for you.’

‘A Kalashnikov?’

‘Sure. Cheap, too, same price as a half-kilo of sugar.’

Shepherd glanced at Spud. ‘What have we got ourselves into here - a country where you can get a Kalashnikov for the price of a bag of sugar?’

He turned back to the boy. ‘No guns, thanks, and I suppose a decent espresso is out of the question?’

The boy’s face fell. ‘That might be more difficult, but I’ll try.’ He paused. ‘What is espresso?’

‘I’m pulling your chain, but a mint tea would be good.’

‘At once, Inglisi. At once.’ The boy turned and ran off as fast as his limp would allow. Shepherd shouted after him ‘And go easy on the sugar, no more than six spoons, okay?

‘Be careful with the locals, Spider,’ said Spud. ‘You don’t know who you can trust.’

‘He’s a kid.’

‘They use kids as suicide bombers here.’

‘He’s okay,’ said Shepherd.

‘That’s a dad talking, isn’t it?’

Shepherd laughed. ‘Yeah, maybe.’

‘How’s your boy? What is he, four?’

‘Four next birthday,’ said Shepherd.

‘Never wanted kids,’ said Spud. ‘Or a wife. Didn’t want anything or anyone to tie me down.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘How’s the lovely Sue?’

Shepherd put a hand to his forehead. ‘Shit, I still have to call her,’ he said. ‘She’s expecting me back this week.’

‘Talk to the Major, he might let you use his sat-phone,’ said Spud. ‘Still giving you grief, is she?’

‘It was bad enough before this Afghanistan thing,’ said Shepherd. ‘Now she’s really on my case. Wants me out and back in Civvie Street.’

‘Women huh? Can’t live with them, can’t put a bullet in their heads.’

‘That’s not funny, mate,’ said Shepherd.

Spud held up his hands. ‘I take it back,’ he said. ‘But I’m serious about the Major’s sat-phone, he’s let a few of the guys call home.’

‘Cheers, I’ll give it a go,’ said Shepherd. He took a sip of coffee and grimaced. ‘This is foul,’ he said.

The boy was back within five minutes with a cup of hot, sweet green tea. Shepherd took it from him and tossed him a dollar bill, which he tucked inside his shirt. ‘I can’t keep calling you kid,’ Shepherd said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘I am Karim, son of Qaseem,‘ the boy said, touching his hand to his heart in the traditional Afghan gesture of greeting.

‘And he’s Spider, son of a bitch,’ Spud said, laughing loudly at his own joke.

‘Pleased to meet you Karim,’ Shepherd said, ignoring the interruption. ‘I’m Dan, but everyone calls me Spider.’ He held out his hand and the boy solemnly shook it.

The boy’s brow furrowed. ‘Spider? Like an insect?’

‘Yeah, I ate one once for a bet.’

‘And not just any spider,’ Spud said. ‘He ate a fucking tarantula.’

Shepherd shrugged. ‘I killed it first though, so it couldn’t bite me before I bit it.’ He grinned. ‘Tasted like chicken.’

‘Really?’ said Karim. ‘Spider tastes like chicken? I didn’t know that.’

‘I was joking,’ said Shepherd.  ‘Anyway, what are you doing hanging around Bagram?’

‘My father is here working for the Americans as a translator. He used to be a teacher. But before that he fought with you Inglisi against the Russians.’

‘That’s why your English is so good? Your father taught you?’

Karim nodded.  ‘He is a very good teacher. I shall be one too when I’m older, but for now I am a businessman.’ He paused. ‘You want a watch?’ He pulled up his sleeve to reveal four or five watches strapped to his forearm. The cyrillic lettering on the face of each one showed their Russian origin.

‘I’m not even going to ask how you got hold of those,’ Shepherd said.

Karim shrugged. ‘The previous owners had no further use for them.’

‘No watches, thanks Karim,’ Shepherd said, patting his arm. ‘But you can keep the mint teas coming if you like. One every half hour till I tell you to stop.’

Karim grinned and then limped off in search of fresh customers. Shepherd began checking his rifle, cleaning it and wiping off the dust. Spud studied him for a moment. ‘You  keep rubbing that like you hope a genie’ll appear,’ he said. He was about to say something else when they heard a booming shout from across the compound. ‘Spud! Spud my friend!’

A huge, black-bearded figure in a flowing, striped robe and a round cap lined with black lamb’s wool was bounding towards them, showing a mouthful of crooked teeth in a broad grin.

He embraced Spud, planting a smacking wet kiss on both cheeks. ‘It’s been a long time, my friend.’

‘And you’re still an ugly bugger,’ said Spud, entangling himself from the man’s arms. ‘And didn’t I lend you a hundred bucks last time I saw you?’

Taj gave a piratical smile. ‘Surely that was a gift, not a loan, my friend, and anyway it’s long since spent.’

‘Spider, this is Taj,’ Spud said. ‘He’s one of us, I trained him and his men back in the late eighties when they were fighting the Sovs. Taught him to use Stingers.’

‘Great days,’ Taj said. ‘We killed many, many Russians together.’

‘You shot down a few helicopters, too,’ Spud said. ‘You know the Yanks are offering a reward for the return of the remaining Stingers, don’t you? Any idea where they might be?’

Taj’s expression was deadpan, but there was a glint in his eye. ‘Why? Are the Americans worried that we will do to them what we did to the Russians?’

‘Maybe. So you know where they might be? It’s a very large reward. I’m serious, Taj. Be a nice bonus for you if you could bring a few in.’

‘I heard rumours that perhaps the faranji fighters, the Arabs, may have some,’ said the Afghan.  ‘I know no more than that, but I do have other information, Spud, valuable information.’ The tip of his tongue moistened his lips.

Spud gave a cynical smile. ‘How valuable?’

‘The man the Americans seek? I know where he may be hiding.’ He paused, glancing around to make sure no one else was within earshot, then beckoned Spud and Shepherd closer.

‘You remember the White Mountains?’ He pointed away to the southeast, where a range of towering, snow-capped peaks filled  the horizon. ‘That was our kick-off point and our main base when we made our raid on Bagram.’ He laughed and slapped Spud on the back. ‘A whole squadron of Mig 21s - their best aircraft - destroyed on the ground. What a day! From that moment we knew, and the Russians knew too, that they were beaten.’

‘Aye, that was one hell of a scrap,’ agreed Spud. ‘We gave them a right bloody nose that day.’

‘What about the White Mountains?’ asked Shepherd.

‘There are no roads there, but there are a handful of tracks and passes into Pakistan,’ said Taj. ‘The valleys are steep, twisting and very narrow, and a few men on the ridges above them can hold up an army. In the heart of one of the most narrow and inaccessible valleys of them all, there is a complex of caves. The main one is called Tora Bora in Pushtu, the Black Cave. We used it as our base. Russian aircraft and helicopters dared not penetrate those narrow valleys and those who did, we shot down. We could fire down on them from above. Then they sent ground troops against us, but we retreated before them, luring them on ever further into the mountains and then we struck. They sent five hundred men against us and we killed them all, except one.’ He paused. ‘The last one, we cut out his eyes so that he could not see the caves we used, or the passes and tracks to reach them, and we cut off his manhood, so that he should father no sons to seek blood revenge against us. Then we sent him back to the Russians as a warning of what would happen to any more they sent against us. There were no Russians in the White Mountains after that.’

Shepherd could see that Taj enjoyed telling stories, but he needed the man to get to the point.  ‘And why are you telling us this now, Taj?’

‘Because no one moves in those mountains without me hearing of it, and recently many faranji - Muslims, but Arabs and Chechens, not Pushtuns, Tajiks or Uzbeks - have been seen there. Many pack trains of supplies have come through the mountains and a satellite dish has been installed on a ridge near Tora Bora.’

‘So the Taliban are bedding in? Is that your big news, because that’s no surprise.  They’re taking a pounding from American bombs and missiles on the plains, so why wouldn’t they be retreating to the mountains?’

Taj shrugged. ‘Because there are very few Taliban in the caves, according to men I trust. The Taliban are guarding the approaches to the mountains, but the valley itself is heavily guarded by faranji fighters, not Taliban, and they’re fortifying it to resist a siege.’

‘Any heavy weapons?’ Shepherd said.

‘They have RPGs, of course, plus heavy machine guns, mortars and perhaps even tanks.’

‘And Stingers?’

‘I do not know. It is possible.’

Shepherd thought for a moment. ‘So what are you saying? You think they’re protecting something - or someone - of high value?’

Taj crushed him in a bear hug, filling Shepherd’s nostrils with the acrid stink of sweat and the oily smell of lanolin from his wool clothes. ‘Exactly my friend,’ he boomed. ‘And who is worth that kind of protection, if not our honoured guest? He was with us when we fought the Russians but now, how do you say it? He has overstayed his welcome.’

The Afghan was talking about Bin Laden, Shepherd realised. The most wanted man in the world, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.

‘That’s one hell of an assumption you’re making,’ said Shepherd.

‘Who else would merit such activity?’ said Taj. ‘But if you do not believe me, let’s go and we can look for ourselves.’

Shepherd studied him for a few moments. ‘Why is this important to you Taj? Are you after the bounty on Bin Laden’s head, is that it?’

Taj shook his head fiercely. ‘You have heard of Ahmad Shah Masood?’ he asked.

‘The Northern Alliance guy who was killed by a suicide bomber? Sure.’

‘He was a great man. I served him and my brother Mirzo served him. Mirzo was at his side when the bomber struck. He tried to shield Masood and….’ His jaw clenched. ‘He also was killed. So for me this is a blood feud. I shall not sleep until the blood debt has been repaid. They killed our leader and insh’allah, we shall kill theirs, even at the cost of my own life.’ He looked at Spud and Shepherd. ‘No man alive knows those mountains, and the tracks and paths through them, as well as I do. At Tora Bora we will have our revenge.’

There was a long silence. ‘Give us a minute, Taj,’ Spud said. ‘Spider and I need to talk.’

Taj nodded and walked away across the compound.

Shepherd watched him go. ‘You trust him, Spud? He looks like he’d sell his own grandmother for a few bucks.’

‘Taj is okay, Spider,’ Spud said. ‘I’d trust him with my life - or yours.’

Shepherd gave him a dubious look. ‘I’m hoping I won’t have to, but if he’s right about Tora Bora...’

‘We’ll need to take him with us,’ Spud said. ‘He knows the place like the back of his hand. He can lead us in and out.’

‘I don’t know Spud. He’s on a one-man mission for revenge. That makes him a pretty loose cannon.’

‘Trust me, Spider, I worked with the guy for three years back in the eighties. I’ll personally vouch for him. He’ll not go rogue on you and he’s got local knowledge that it would take you and me a lifetime to acquire.’

Shepherd nodded thoughtfully. ‘OK, let’s see what the Head Shed says.’

Their CO was Major Allan Gannon, well over six feet tall with wide shoulders, a strong chin and a nose that had been broken at least twice.  He was a good ten years older than Shepherd but was one of the fittest men in the Regiment, regularly running the SAS’s selection course in the Brecon Beacons for the fun of it.  He clapped Shepherd on the back when he saw him and congratulated him on his work in the Gulf state. ‘You’d be up for a medal if it wasn’t for the fact that it never happened,’ he said.

‘Can we have a word, boss?’ asked Spud. ‘We’ve just been given some intel that might make your day.’

Spud quickly outlined what Taj had told him. The Major listened in silence until Spud had finished. ‘And this guy is trustworthy?’ he said at last.

‘No question,’ Spud said.

‘We need to be sure,’ said the Major.  ‘This is big, but if he’s setting you up a lot of people could get hurt. Or worse.’

‘I’m happy to go, boss,’ said Spud. ‘I’d trust him with my life, no question.’

The Major looked across at Shepherd. Shepherd nodded. ‘I’m up for it,’ he said.

The Major nodded thoughtfully.  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Then let’s use some of our drone time and see what’s going on there. I’ll give you a shout when I get the intel. Until then, mum’s the word, obviously.’

Spud left but Shepherd stayed put. ‘Boss, I need a favour.’

‘You want to phone the missus?’ Shepherd’s jaw dropped and the Major grinned.  ‘I’m not psychic, Spud mentioned it earlier.’  He went over to a metal chest, opened it and took out a bulky sat-phone. ‘Take it outside, try to keep it below ten minutes, any longer than that and I have to do a memo.  Crazy as it sounds, if you end the call at nine minutes and redial it counts as separate calls.’

‘Cheers, Boss,’ said Shepherd. He took the sat-phone outside and called his wife. ‘Hi honey,’ he said.

‘Where are you?’ asked Sue.

‘I can’t tell you,’ he said. ‘Sorry. It’s classified.’

‘You’re still coming back this week, aren’t you?’

‘That’s looking unlikely,’ said Shepherd.

‘Dan….’  sighed Sue.

He could hear the disappointment in her voice. ‘I’m sorry, honey. There’s a lot going on at the moment.’

‘It’s Afghanistan, isn’t it?’

‘I can’t say.’

‘That bloody Blair. What’s he doing sending our troops to that God-forsaken place?  We need you here, Dan. Not in some bloody desert.’

‘It won’t be long,’ said Shepherd.

‘You’re always saying that. And then I get the phone call saying that you’ll be another week and another. And one day I’ll get a phone call that says you won’t be coming back.’

‘Sue!’

She sighed. ‘Okay, I’m sorry. But this isn’t fair on Liam and me. You know that?’

‘I’ll make it up to you,’ he said,  A Chinook helicopter flew overhead, its twin rotors kicking up dust around him and Shepherd shielded his mouth with his left hand. ‘Is Liam there?’

‘Of course he’s here. Where else would he be?’

‘Can I speak to him?’

He heard Sue talking to Liam and then she came back on. ‘He says he doesn’t want to.’

‘What?’

‘He just shakes his head and says he doesn’t want to talk to you.’

‘That’s stupid.’

‘That’s as may be, but I can’t force him.’

‘He’s okay?’

‘He’s fine. But he keeps asking when you’re coming home.’

‘Tell him, soon.’

‘I’ll tell him, Dan. But you’d better mean it.’

‘Honey, I’m sorry. Truly.’

‘You’d better be here for his birthday, Dan.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘You need to do more than try. You’ve missed his last two birthdays. And last Christmas. Last night he took one of your old sweatshirts and stuffed it with a pillow and slept holding it. He said it felt like he was hugging you.’

Shepherd felt as if he’d been punched in the chest. ‘I’m sorry, Sue. Really. I’ll make this up to you.’

‘You need to think about what you’re doing, Dan,’ she said. ‘I know how important the SAS is to you, but we didn’t sign up for this.’

Shepherd rubbed the bridge of his nose. The Chinook had flown off into the distance and the air around him was still thick with dust but that only half-explained the tears that were pricking his eyes. ‘Honey, I’m sorry.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I will make it up to you. I swear.’

‘Just be careful. And come back in one piece, you hear me?’

‘I hear you.’

‘I love you. We both do.’

‘I love you too, honey.’

There was a lot more he wanted to say but he knew that there was nothing he could tell her that would make her any happier and the longer he stayed on the line the more he risked upsetting her, so he ended the call.

* * *

The Major arranged for a US surveillance drone to be routed over Tora Bora, and later that day he called in Spud and Shepherd to examine the footage on a laptop. Mist and squally snow showers made it hard to decipher much detail but it was clear that Taj was right – something was going on in the mountains.  The valley was so steep-sided and narrow it could almost have been a ravine, but there were fresh tracks through the snow, following the river and then cutting away at a steep angle up a narrow, precipitous path. The path, barely wide enough for two men to pass, lead to a series of caves. Geometric shapes that might have been stone-walled defensive sangers were positioned on the ridge above and at intervals along the cliff face overlooking the track.

‘Something’s definitely going on there,’ the Major said, ‘but it’s hard to see exactly what.  Someone’s going to have to go in for a look-see.’

‘We’ll need a heli-lift for three two-man teams,’ said Spud.

‘I’m not sure about that,’  said the Major. ‘That terrain and altitude are iffy. The approaches to the valley are crawling with muj and Taliban, so we’re risking compromise, and if they’ve got Stingers...’ He left the rest of the sentence hanging. ‘We’ll go in over land. We can use ex-Sov vehicle,  there are enough of them lying around Bagram. The Sov UAZ 469s are just like Land Rovers. I’ll get the mechanics on the case.’

Twenty-four hours later, they had three UAZ 469s fuelled and ready and the Major called everyone in for a final briefing.

Major Gannon went over the map and the satellite imagery together, identifying possible sites for the OPs that the two teams would use to locate enemy sangers and defensive positions.

The dirt-track road leading to the valley where the caves were sited was heavily defended and there was no possibility of approaching that way. The Major traced the line of the dirt-track road running up the valley to the north of the Tora Bora valley, and stabbed his finger at a point where the faint line of a side-track could be seen, ending in a straggling clump of trees by what might have been the ruins of a house or goat pen near the river. ‘You can leave the vehicles there,’ he said, ‘and climb the ridge, though it’ll be a stiff climb. It’s well over then thousand feet.’

‘There is a track,’ Taj said, pointing to a wavering line up the ridge, so faint as to be almost invisible.

‘What’s it used by?’ asked Shepherd.  ‘Mountain goats?’

Spud’s team and the other SAS team would be infiltrating the valley from the other side, crossing a lower ridge to reach their OP sites. The Para Support Group with the heavy weapons would move up to a Forward Operating Base near the entrance to the valley, outside the Taliban defenses but close enough to make a rapid intervention.

The Major straightened up as he addressed the men. ‘You know the prime target we’re seeking is code name Muj 1, but snipers, if you make positive IDs on targets, make sure you have permission to fire from your Sunray before engaging. This may be highly sensitive and we don’t want any cock-ups.’ Shepherd and Spud exchanged a brief glance, knowing that the cock-ups usually came a lot further up the chain of command than the men in the front line.

‘Comms. The usual call signs: Snipers prefix Sierra, assault troops Alpha, support groups Quebec, and all leaders are Sunray. Snipers, assault groups and the support heavy weapons, all have your own internal nets,’ the Major said. ‘Everything’s encrypted so everyone can talk in real time and the only reason to use codes would be to shorten the time, so “Fetch Sunray” will do it instead of “I want to talk to the Boss”. We’ll keep you separate to stop the net from getting clogged up with traffic, but if you need mortars or other support, tell the Head Shed and we’ll link you in with the other nets if necessary. The Head Shed on the ground will monitor and control, but we also have a link back to Bagram patched through to the UK, so they’ll be exercising tactical control from there.’

Shepherd and Spud exchanged another world-weary glance. Signals traffic was always monitored in Bagram, where they would arrange any air- or heavy weapons support that was called for, but the army - the Green Army as SAS men dismissively termed it - would also be involved.  Shepherd was far from happy about it as it smacked of too many cooks, but it was the way that wars were fought and there was no point in saying anything.

‘I know you guys would rather work autonomously but that’s not going to happen here,’ he said as if reading Shepherd’s mind. ‘The Americans are running things so everything has to be run by them and that’s done at a pay grade much higher than mine. So, again, you need permission to fire from Sunray. No excuses.’

‘What if we come under attack, boss?’ asked Spud, at the same moment it had occurred to Shepherd.

‘I’m not going to say no exceptions, Spud. But if you fire without authorization, you’d better have a bloody good reason because you’ll have to justify every round down the line.’

The comms system was secure but it was increasingly complex. Anything Shepherd transmitted in the field would be immediately encrypted. It went up to one satellite, where it was encrypted again, and then a second one, where it was encrypted for a third time, before being sent down to a recipient who might be two hundred yards or two thousand miles away. The Head Shed would consist of a couple of bosses led by the Major, with two or three signallers monitoring Shepherd and the other SAS crews, and a couple more sending back to Bagram. There would also be an overview in COBRA in London, and quite possibly the White House, since politicians tended to treat special ops as a spectator sport. Even if it wasn’t patched through to the USA, since the comms system was licensed from the US and used American satellites, all the SAS troopers knew that anything they said and did could be seen and heard by the US military. So pulling a fast one on the Americans was pretty much out of the question.

As they left the Major’s quarters, Shepherd slapped Lex on the back. ‘Got your own set of Passive Night Goggles yet?’

Lex shook his head.  ‘No.’

‘Now’s your chance. They’re very expensive but easy to acquire. If we get in a fire-fight, when we’re on our way out again, stash your PNGs in your grab bag and tell the quartermaster you lost them in the confusion; that way you’ll have your own set in future - it’s how I got mine.’

They headed for the weapons store and armory, a small concrete bunker buried under a mound of bulldozed earth. Lex filled his bergen with ammunition for his M16, then watched as Shepherd collected his ammo. He held up a bullet for Lex to admire. ‘.50 ammo,’ he said. ‘High tech stuff. The rounds are precision-engineered with a titanium-tipped head. Plus I use two types of mass produced ammo: the ones with red bands around the business end are APTI - Armour Piercing Tracer Incendiary. The ones with yellow bands are APTP - the second “P” is for Phosphorous. I use them for target marking, you get puffs of white smoke where they strike.’

Shepherd had a small personal radio, like a sat-phone, on his right shoulder, so he merely had to take a sideways glance to see what channel and frequency he was on. Like the other old SAS hands, he also had a voice-activated, throat-mic, keeping his hands free. The new guys, still with much to learn, mostly opted for the hand-operated switch that they had to press to talk.

They set out in the early afternoon. All of them wore Afghan clothing and headgear. They were all fresh from tours in the Middle East and, with skin burned by the sun and at least a few days growth of beard, they could just about pass as Afghans to any villagers they passed. Shepherd, Lex, and Taj took the lead vehicle, with Spud in the next with one of the SAS rookies, and the other two-man team bringing up the rear. Taj had an AK74, the updated and smaller caliber version of the ubiquitous AK47, ammunition belts and a pack loaded with even more ammunition.  Apart from the weapon and ammo he could have been dressed for a country stroll, with his rations - rice, almonds and raisins - in a small pouch around his waist. ‘Is that all the kit you’ve got, Taj?’ Shepherd said.

The Afghan nodded. ‘It’s all I need.’

‘I’ve heard about traveling light, but you take the biscuit,’ said Shepherd.

‘I have no biscuits,’ said Taj. Shepherd couldn’t tell if the Afghan was joking or not.

They drove out of the base and took the road to the south, soon leaving the city well behind. The road was rough and the only traffic was an occasional vividl-painted, ancient Afghan truck rumbling past in a cloud of diesel fumes.

Signs of the country’s perpetual war were everywhere: shell-blasted and bombed buildings, wrecked trucks and rusting military equipment, much of it from the Soviet era. The people they passed paused to stare at them, their expressions neither friendly nor hostile, merely watchful, and everyone they passed carried a weapon. ‘Have you seen that, even the kids have got AK47s,’ said Lex.

Paths at the edge of villages were marked by lines of white stones, showing cleared pathways through the minefields that covered much of the country.

They drove by a roadside stall, roofed with torn sacking, selling sandals cut from used tyres and cooking pots made from beaten, reclaimed metal that still bore traces of camouflage paint and cyrillic lettering, and a collection of wooden limbs, perhaps harvested from the dead for re-use. The only goods that looked new were the racks of Kalashnikovs and the boxes of ammunition. The shopkeeper was an old man, his face the colour of a weathered satchel, a steel hook where his left hand had once been.

There were brief glimpses of the rich, fertile country that had once been known as “The Crossroads of Asia”, but there were few people tilling the fields and almost all of them were old men. ‘This is what three generations of war has done to my country,’ Taj said. ‘The young men are gone either to fight for or against the Taliban or they are already dead. Only the old remain.’

As the valley narrowed, the road passed through an abandoned village, the mud-brick houses already returning to the earth from which they were formed. The crumbling mosque still had remnants of the shimmering blue tiles that must once have covered it, but it was pocked with bullet holes and blackened by fire. The pool for ritual bathing was dry and filled with rubble, and the mulberry and walnut trees that had once shaded it had been shattered by shellfire.

Just beyond the village, a spindly tree had been dragged across the road, and two figures stood behind it, an older man with a long grey beard and a boy who was barely as tall as the AK47 he was holding. ‘What do you think?’ Shepherd said, his hand resting on his rifle.

‘They’re not Taliban,’ Taj said. ‘Just a couple of villagers trying to levy a toll of a few Afghanis for crossing their land.’

‘Then let’s pay them,’ Shepherd said. ‘Why look for trouble before we need to? You do the talking.’

He slowed to a halt and Taj jumped out, walked over to the makeshift barrier and exchanged a few words with the old man. Whatever the old man asked for, Taj greeted it with a roar of laughter. He shook his head, thrust a few crumpled Afghani notes into the old man’s hand, then turned his back without waiting for a reply and strode back to the vehicle. After a momentary hesitation, the two villagers dragged the tree off the road and Shepherd accelerated away.

‘How much did he want?’ asked Shepherd.

‘A hundred dollars.’

‘How much did you give him?’

Taj laughed. ‘A lot less than that.’

The terrain grew ever more bleak and forbidding the farther they drove. The walls of the mountains rose higher around them and the soaring, jagged, snow-capped peaks were thrown into even starker relief by the low sun. Steep scree slopes were punctuated by mountain torrents and waterfalls tumbling down black cliff faces, the wind tossing the spray high into the air.

Just beyond a perilous stone bridge, a rough side-track split from the road. It led around a rocky crag and down towards a ruined house, sheltered by a stand of cedars and larches on the banks of a rushing green river in the valley floor. ‘This is the place,’ Taj said. ‘The valley we want is beyond that ridge.’ He pointed beyond the river at the rocky, scree-strewn slopes, rising to what looked like an almost sheer, snow-covered ridge line. Shepherd checked his GPS and nodded. They swung off the road and bounced and jolted down the track, coming to a halt at a point where they were screened by the trees from the road.

Taj got out, crouched on the banks of the stream and scooped up a few handfuls of water. Shepherd and Lex drank from their water bottles. ‘What now?’ Lex said.

‘We wait for the sun to go down,’ said Shepherd said. He gestured at the bleak mountainside above them, ‘We’d be sitting ducks up there in daylight.’

They set out as soon as night had fallen. Shepherd had his sniper rifle on a sling leaving his hands free for an AK47. The sniping rifle was perfect for long distance but if the fighting got up close and personal he wanted something less fancy in his hands. Taj cradled his AK74 and Lex had the standard Para Support Group M-16.

All of them wore PNGs, turning the night into an eerie, yellow-tinted landscape. Shepherd watched as Lex prepared himself and stopped him as he began to put his trauma dressing into one of the pockets of his jacket. ‘Word to the wise,’ he said. ‘Keep your dressing on your left chest or left arm where you can get to it straight away; even a delay of a few seconds while you fumble with your pocket could be fatal. And keep your morphine syrettes on a bit of para cord round your neck, that way you can get to it straight away if you’re hit.’

The first obstacle was the narrow but fast-flowing river.  The only way across was to get into the water and that meant taking off their clothes because wet clothes at night would be a killer. He stripped off his clothes and tied them in a bundle, gesturing for Lex to do the same. ‘I’ll cross first,’ Taj said, ‘I’ve been doing this since I was a boy.’

‘What about my boxers?’ asked Lex.

‘Everything,’ said Shepherd. ‘You can dry yourself after you’ve crossed but wet clothes will stay wet.’ He chuckled. ‘Don’t worry, Lex, you haven’t got anything we haven’t all seen before.’

Taj pulled off his clothes revealing a back as hairy as a bear’s.  ‘Give me a rope,’ he said. Shepherd handed him his tac line, a coil of nylon rope with a carabineer on one end. Taj secured one end with a quick release knot to the trunk of a larch just above the water’s edge. He put his pack back on, hoisted his bundle of clothes onto his head and, holding his rifle aloft in his other hand, slipped into the river and moved away.

The bitterly-cold current was fierce but he never seemed to slip or stumble and soon afterwards Shepherd saw him clamber out on the far bank and secure the rope around a boulder. Shepherd sent Lex next and then began to edge across after him. He let out an involuntary gasp as he lowered himself into the icy water. It rose above his waist, lapping against the bottom of the bergen on his back, as he began to inch across, grateful for the rope, for the current tugged at him and the rocks underfoot were smooth and slippery.

As he approached the bank, he threw his bundle of clothes onto the ground ahead of him and pulled himself out. He heard Lex’s teeth chattering and hissed to him ‘Rub yourself dry with your shirt or you’ll freeze.’ He took his own shirt from his bundle and began to do the same, his flesh burning in the cold. Taj, impassive, had already dressed, as if a stark naked crossing of a freezing river was all in a day’s work.

Shepherd retrieved the rope and they moved off. The ground sloped steeply upwards and the cold was soon forgotten with the effort of climbing. Taj moved with a slow, relentless stride. They climbed higher, a zig-zagging ascent as the track wound its way across the face of the mountain, pausing frequently to watch and listen, waiting for the blood to cease pounding in their ears as they searched for any trace of noise or movement in the darkness above them.

As the gradient increased, they had to use their hands to haul themselves upwards. They passed the snow line, clambering on across hard frozen snow and ice-covered rocks that made every step a gamble, and still the ridge was high above them.  The Afghan winter was coming on and it was ferociously cold. The physical effort left Shepherd and Lex fighting for breath, but Taj, born and raised in the mountains, was totally unfazed by it.

After what seemed an eternity of crawling slowly upwards, his head pounding from oxygen deprivation and with the dead weight of his bergen making every step an ordeal, Shepherd saw the crest of the ridge no more than fifty yards above them. Taj had stopped, waiting and listening once more, and he now signalled to Shepherd and Lex to get down. The two men flattened themselves to the ground, pressing their faces into the gritty snow. Taj drew his curved Afghan knife and moved up the mountainside. He paused just below the ridgeline, and then moved forward again and disappeared from their sight.

The minutes dragged and Shepherd was about to move up the slope when a dark shape appeared on the ridge above and to their right. The next instant, it slid down the mountainside, gathering ice and stones in a miniature avalanche as it fell. A second later, another dark form followed it. As it fell, Shepherd heard Taj’s voice in his earpiece. ‘Come up, it’s clear.’

When they reached the ridge, Taj was cleaning his knife.  ‘Two,’ he said, baring his teeth in a savage smile. ‘But both were sleeping.’ He slid the knife back into its sheath.

‘Did they have radios?’ asked Shepherd.

‘No, and the Taliban often sends sentries to such places for a week or more before they’re relieved, so it may be some time before their disappearance is discovered.’

If Shepherd had had any remaining doubts about Taj’s value and trustworthiness, they were now completely resolved. He had risked his own life to clear the way for Shepherd and Lex. A few moments later, they were looking down into the upper reaches of the Tora Bora valley. The rock-strewn slopes were as bleak and featureless as the surface of the moon. There were no trees or grass, just bare ice, rock and scree. They began the descent into the valley, moving even more cautiously now, inching their way, climbing down the rock faces and crossing the open slopes from boulder to boulder, using the natural cover and avoiding the loose screes that would give them away.

Two hours before dawn, they reached the position Shepherd had identified from the surveillance imagery and set up their OP overlooking the caves. Two huge boulders jutting from the mountainside provided cover and some shelter from the bitter wind. In front of them, a rock ledge a few metres wide, part-covered with a thin layer of gritty soil, gave them a platform from which they could observe the caves and the track leading to them.

Shepherd wormed his way forward, feeling the ammo vest on his chest catching on small stones and projecting edges of rock. Still wearing his PNGs, Shepherd scanned the area, searching for suspiciously regular shapes or movement that would give away the presence of enemy soldiers or equipment, but the goggles didn’t have much magnification and the yellow tint blurred his vision.

He took off his goggles and used the sniper scope to focus first on the area surrounding the caves. The sniper scope had a twenty-five fold magnification without having the same distortion as the PNGs, and it picked up a lot of ambient light. He was able to identify a series of defensive sangers just above the track and what might have been the barrels of heavy weapons in some of them, clearly outlined against patches of fresh snow.

He turned his attention to the caves and saw something. Activity. Heavily armed men, some in turbans and black robes and others in what looked like white Arab robes, entering and leaving.

Shepherd wormed his way back to Taj and Lex in the deeper shadows at the foot of the boulders and checked his radio channel. ‘Sunray, Sierra 5. Eyes on the target. Much activity, defensive positions and heavy weapons. At least fifty men visible outside the caves.’

He heard the other OPs checking in, adding their intelligence. There was now no doubt that, at the least, they were looking at a substantial Taliban or al Qaeda stronghold. But it was also possible - and Shepherd felt a jolt of adrenaline at the thought - that they had found Bin Laden’s lair.

He could imagine the buzz of excitement at the Head Shed at Bagram and even more so in London and Washington. The intelligence was now not from rumour or satellite surveillance, but from eyes on the ground, and he knew that it would galvanize the Regiment into action. His earpiece crackled again. ‘Sierra 5, Sunray. Maintain Eyes On and wait out.’

As dawn broke, he carefully removed the protective foam from his rifle, took his sniper scope from his grab bag and assembled the rifle, zeroing them to one point. He laid it down on the foam rubber, careful not to give it the least knock that might throw it off, then settled down for what experience told him would be a long wait. In theory, a Quick Reaction Force could be on its way, if not within minutes, at least within hours. In practice, days might pass before an order to attack was given, as the various arms of the forces of the two nations jostled for position, and the politicians and spin doctors in Whitehall and Capitol Hill positioned themselves to claim the credit if successful and deflect the blame if not.

Throughout the day they watched a steady flow of arrivals and departures from the caves. Near midday, one of the Taliban’s red Toyota pick-ups pulled up at the foot of the track to the cave. The back was packed with soldier monks with kohl-rimmed eyes and the forked tails of their black turbans flying in the breeze. They looked like young boys, but each of them clutched an RPG or an AK47. While the driver painstakingly turned around, what appeared to be a delegation made their way up to the cave. They remained inside for forty minutes and then emerged and drove off again. Shepherd reported the sighting over the net, one more piece of the jigsaw in place.

Towards sunset the Major patched Shepherd into the net with the other teams. ‘We’re going in,’ the Boss said. ‘Alpha 1, can you set LTDs? I’m going to ask for top cover, the jet jockeys are the only heavy stuff we can use, we’re out of artillery range.

The LTDs were laser targeting devices that would be used to bathe the target in a light visible only to the planes or choppers that would attack the stronghold.

Shepherd heard Spud’s reply. ‘Sunray, Alpha 1. I’ll  try but it might not work. We can set them up all right, but they need a level surface to reflect from and the rock face around the caves is as rough as they come. And the valley’s narrow, steep-sided, and twists and turns like a corkscrew. I don’t think the jets will be able to get close enough.’

‘What about the attack helis?’

‘We trained some of the guys down there, remember. We taught them how to catch the Sovs in a crossfire from the valley sides and shoot them down. They may or may not have Stingers, but they can do the job just as well with heavy machine guns and RPGs. They may be up on the ridges above where the top cover might fly and shoot down on them like they did the Sovs.’

There was a silence, broken only by the hiss of static, as the Major took instructions from up the line. ‘We’ll try with LTDs first,’ he said at last. ‘H Hour is 0500 hours. Suppressing fire to keep the Taliban heads down and the Support Group will move up at 0530.’ He paused. ‘One more thing. Our friends are running this operation, and they will be the lead teams going in.’

Shepherd gave a rueful smile. “Our friends” was the standard euphemism for US Special Forces. Not for the first time, it looked like SAS would do the spade work and Delta would get the gongs and glory.

Spud’s voice interrupted him. ‘Sunray, Alpha 1. We’re here, they’re not.’

‘They will be, and they will lead. The decision is from the highest level.’

Shepherd glanced at Lex. ‘Hear that? The White House has spoken, we’re bag-carriers for the Yanks again.’

Just after eleven that night, Shepherd watched through his scope and his PNGs as Spud’s team broke cover and inched their way down the valley sides, through the rubble of rocks and drifts of gravel washed down by the winter floods. One would move while the other covered him, ready to unleash an avalanche of fire if they were detected.

They slipped silently past the defences where Taliban and Arab mujahedeen dozed. He watched as they forded the river, then Spud took the lead up the facing slopes. They paused a quarter of a mile from the cave entrance and placed the first of the laser targeting devices, no bigger than a paperback book. They sited two more LTDs at intervals of fifty yards, then crept back the way they had come. They had covered no more than three quarters of a mile of ground, but it had taken them four hours to do so.

At five that morning, still a couple of hours before dawn, Shepherd heard the roar of jets and the first crumps of explosions as bombs began raining down on the Taliban positions further down the valley.

He looked towards the cave mouth where figures could be seen racing in all directions, like wasps buzzing around a shattered nest. Moments later the first A10 jets roared up the valley towards them, punching out clouds of chaff and flares to throw off any missiles. It pulled a sharp turn well short of Shepherd’s OP, releasing its bomb load as it did so, before swinging away over the valley walls. He watched the parabola of the bomb’s flight, but it fell well short of the caves and detonated harmlessly among the rocks on the valley floor. A second and a third followed and also fell short.

He spoke into the net. ‘Sunray, Sierra 5. They’re throwing bombs but they’re not connecting with the lasers and falling well short. The valley’s too tight, they can’t get close enough.’

He could imagine the reaction from Spud and the other Assault Groups. They would now know this battle was not going to be fought from a distance – it was going to be up close and personal.

‘Sunray, all groups. Intelligence from our friends: the cave system is a labyrinth of tunnels, sealed by iron or steel doors and extending deep into the mountain. They have concrete floors, a ventilation system, hydro-electric power and an armoury of weaponry and ammunition, that could supply an army of two thousand men.’

Shepherd looked across at Taj, who shook his head vigorously. ‘They are natural caves and you would struggle to get more than two hundred men inside them,’ hissed the Afghan.

‘They could have been extended since the Soviet War,’ said Shepherd.

Taj shook his head fiercely.  ‘My friend, I told you, I know these mountains and the people who live here or pass through here. Nothing happens here that I do not get to hear about.’

Shepherd nodded. ‘Sunray, Sierra 5. Our man says that’s BS. They’re just small, natural caves, holding two hundred men, tops.’

‘Maybe, but the friends are not going to believe that until they see it for themselves,’ said the Major.

Just before zero hour, a fresh rain of bombs fell, dropped by B-52s so high above them they were only visible from the contrails in the icy winter sky. The explosions kept the enemy heads down but had little other impact. It had taken the US seventy to ninety Cruise Missiles and a series of saturation bombing raids by B-52s to destroy four al Qaeda training camps sited in open desert in 1998. In this jagged, boulder-strewn terrain,  a target could be within a few yards of an exploding bomb and suffer no more than a ringing in their ears. Shepherd knew that no matter what weight of ordnance the US brought to bear, they could not bomb the mountains into submission. If Bin Laden was here, he would only be flushed out by fighting troops.

At 5.30 am the percussive thud of mortar fire and the rattle of heavy machine guns showed that the ground battle was underway. As dawn broke, they could see the enemy fighters being slowly pushed back, but it was, literally, an uphill struggle for the Paras of the Support Group, attacking an enemy who was well entrenched on the higher ground. Even the air power that normally gave a decisive advantage in any pitched battle was almost nullified in this forbidding, almost impossible terrain. As Spud had warned, the surrounding mountain ridges were close to the height ceiling for attack helicopters and the approach up the valley floor would force them to run a gauntlet of anti-aircraft fire.

Shepherd heard the chopping sound of rotors and saw the dark shapes of a formation of Blackhawks inserting the guys from Delta Force.  The attack choppers were laying down a barrage of suppressing fire from their rocket and machine gun pods, but there was a blizzard of answering fire from both flanks of the valley and the Blackhawks’ array of electronic countermeasures were no defence against crude weapons like heavy machine guns and RPG’s.

As Shepherd watched, an RPG streaked upwards and the lead Blackhawk erupted in flame. It slewed sideways, a rotor clipped the rock face in a shower of sparks, and the next moment the Blackhawk plummeted down, spinning crazily and exploded like a bomb.

The next Blackhawk in the formation emerged through the pall of black smoke and went into a brief hover as its cargo of troops spilled out and took firing positions in one fluid movement. The chopper was already speeding back the way it had come with bullets striking sparks from its fuselage. The next, hit by intersecting streams of HMG fire, made a crash landing and burst into flames. Shepherd counted the figures tumbling from it; only four of its ten-man payload emerged from the wreck. The remaining Blackhawks turned and flew back down the valley, still pursued by enemy fire.

He dragged his eyes away and, while Lex was on maximum alert scanning in all directions for risks, Shepherd began raking the enemy positions through his scope, searching out high value targets, those giving orders. He spotted one figure in black Taliban robes who was directing fire, and at once trained the scope on him and began the firing ritual that he had practised thousands of times. First, the firm but relaxed grip on the weapon, his eye glued to the scope, his mind closed to all distractions. Then the gentle first pressure on the trigger, the sighing exhaled breath and the final smooth, steady pressure on the trigger. Last, the recoil into his shoulder and the familiar sight of a target turning from a living figure one moment to a collapsing lump of dead meat the next.

Shepherd was also target marking for the Assault Teams. He spotted Spud’s group, identifiable by the recognition markings they had placed to indicate their positions. Invisible from ground-level, they were primarily intended to identify their positions to supporting aircraft to prevent “blue on blue” casualties but, from his elevated position above the battlefield, he could clearly make them out. Spud’s team were exchanging fire with muj fighters, but Shepherd saw an HMG in a sanger on the mountainside being brought to bear on them.

‘Sunray, Sierra 5. Patch Alpha 1.’ There was no time for courtesies or wasted words in the heat of battle.

A second later, he heard Spud’s voice, almost drowned by the bark and rattle of small arms fire. ‘Alpha 1.’

‘Sierra 5. HMG, 350 yards bearing 020.’

There was a pause then ‘Alpha 1. I have no visual. Repeat: no visual.’

‘Sierra 5. Stand by. Stand by. Will spot it for you. Watch for my phos.’  He reached into his ammo belt for two of the yellow tipped APTP phosphorous rounds. He aimed and fired and at once saw puffs of white smoke against the sanger where the machine gun was sited. A moment later there was the ferocious clatter of Spud’s GPMG and Shepherd saw rounds chewing at the edge of the sanger, blasting stone chips in all directions and striking sparks from the enemy machine gun. There was a whoosh as an SAS trooper with an M203 launched a grenade and a fireball erupted from the sanger. Peering through his scope, Shepherd checked for movement in the sanger, then said ‘Sierra 5. Problem solved.’

‘Ta for that.’

Shepherd began to scan the battlefield again, when Lex suddenly grabbed his arm and pointed ‘What the fuck is that?’

Shepherd followed his gaze and froze. ‘And where the hell did it come from?’ he said.

An armoured vehicle, like a miniature mediaeval castle on tank tracks, was rumbling towards the attackers, its turret swivelling as its heavy machine gun sprayed them with fire. Along each of its armoured steel sides there was a row of five small gun ports and the barrels of AK47s poked from them, spitting more fire. One of the SAS men fired his M203, but the grenade bounced harmlessly off the armour and exploded. A burst of fire from one of the gimpies was no more effective. The attacking troops were scattering as it roared towards them, and when Spud came on the net, Shepherd could hear the urgency in his voice, tinged with what might have been fear. ‘Sunray, Alpha 1. Russian BMPI, tracked, armoured troop carrier. 76 mm gun, ten men firing AK47s from inside. We need support. We’re pinned down and we’ve no Milans or even M72s. Who knew they had armour up here?’

‘Sierra 5,’ Shepherd said. ‘Any weak points?’

‘The tracks,’ Spud said, ‘but we’ve nothing can damage them enough. And the fuel tanks.’

‘Where are they?’

‘Bulbous shapes on the rear doors, but they’re armoured too.’

Shepherd was already loading his  .50 rifle with APTI incendiary rounds. As the BMPI halted, raking the SAS positions with fire, Shepherd took aim and began firing at the rear doors. The shots were marked by white streaks of tracer, and almost at once they drew answering fire from muj fighters, but Shepherd was shielded by the rock ledge and at maximum killing range for their weapons, though well within his. His first shot struck the top of the doors, the armour piercing round punching a hole in the plating. His next was a couple of inches lower. ‘What are you doing?’ said Lex, ‘aim for the bottom where the fuel is.’

‘You can’t ignite the liquid fuel,’ Shepherd said calmly, firing as he spoke. ‘I’m aiming for the gap where there’s a fuel and air mixture, not pure fuel.’ He fired three more rounds and had a sinking feeling as each one failed to ignite the fuel.

He lowered his aim another couple of inches and fired again. The round struck home and in that instant, the armoured vehicle disappeared from sight, engulfed in a cloud of flame. As the inferno began to ease, he could see the vehicle ground to a halt, its machine gun silenced and tongues of flame licking from the gun ports. The hatch was half-open and a blackened limb, barely recognizable as a human arm, protruded from it. Shepherd could think of few worse deaths, but he closed his mind to that thought and raised the scope to his eye again, already seeking fresh targets.

The muj and Taliban fighters were pressing hard and the SAS and Para Support Group’s flank was dangerously exposed, with the Delta Force troops pinned down as they tried to advance alongside them.

‘Where the fuck are the rest of Delta?’ asked Lex.

‘They’re inserting on foot,’ said Shepherd.

The Delta Force troops who had survived the Blackhawk crash were pinned down by heavy enemy fire, and must have called in support from mortars, because two rounds came crashing down. They fell, not on the enemy, but close to where the SAS were.

‘Stop-Stop-Stop!’ Shepherd said. ‘Abort mortars. They’re hitting our guys.’  He fell silent, horrified, as another pair of mortar shells fell. One dropped in dead ground twenty yards from the SAS position, but the other struck the rock they were using as cover and exploded at once. Shepherd saw a body thrown in the air, come crashing down several yards away. It lay exposed and Taliban rounds chewed the ground around it and struck the body, as a dark pool of blood spread around it.

Over the net, he heard the words they all dreaded: ‘All stations. Minimize.’ That meant ‘Shut up, there’s a crisis,’ and was normally used only when there were casualties. It was followed at once by ‘Oboe! Oboe!’, SAS-speak for everybody get off the net right away. It was confirmation, if any were needed, that men were down. ‘We have casualties. Alpha 1, Alpha 4, Alpha 7, Alpha 9. Two KIA. One serious trauma of the lower left limb. One major abdominal trauma. Request immediate casevac. Repeat two KIA. One serious trauma lower left limb. One serious abdominal trauma. Vital signs deteriorating. Request immediate casevac.’

Shepherd felt his heart lurch. Alpha 1 was Spud. He listened to the traffic on the net as, like an automaton, he continued to monitor the battlefield, even dropping another muj commander as he showed himself for a moment to urge his men forward. The mortars had stopped. When they resumed, they were landing among the muj and Taliban defenders, giving the Delta Force men enough respite to regroup and advance to close up with the Paras and the remnants of the SAS teams.

The light was beginning to fade - the battle had lasted all day - but it was now turning in the favour of the coalition forces. Delta Force Support Group were bringing up more and more heavy weapons and mortar shells were now raining on the enemy positions. The muj and their Taliban allies had already lost many men dead and wounded, and the remainder were slowly being driven back towards the caves.

As the battlefront moved away, Shepherd saw medics stretchering three SAS men away from the crater where the mortar shell had detonated among them. One lay motionless, face masked in blood, the other two were moving, but obviously badly wounded.  ‘Sunray, Sierra 5. Our guys were displaying ID markers I could see through my scope. We’ve lost four good men, wounded, crippled or killed, because some trigger-happy American fuckwit who thinks he’s John Wayne fired first and thought afterwards.’

‘Sierra 5, Sunray. This isn’t the time for that. I understand your feelings, but we still need you to do your job.’

‘Sunray, Sierra 5. Roger that. But when this is over…’

He broke off as Taj tugged at his arm. He had been a frustrated, peripheral figure throughout much of the fighting, firing his AK 74 at Taliban targets from near-maximum range, but he was now gesturing frantically at something further up the valley. Shepherd tracked his gaze, and through his scope he saw a small group of figures slipping out of a narrow fissure in the rock about two hundred yards from the main cave mouth, and making their way in single file along a narrow rock ledge leading away up the valley. Among them was one man well over six foot tall, who towered over his companions. He was grey-bearded and wore a camouflage jacket, with a white turban wound around his head, but he was moving away from Shepherd, so he couldn’t make a definitive ID.

‘Sunray. Probable Muj 1. Clear engage?’

‘Negative,’ said the Major.

‘I can’t see his face, but I’m certain it’s him.’

‘Negative. Permission refused. Do not engage. Repeat, do not engage.’

As Shepherd watched, the tall figure and the rest of the group rounded a buttress of rock and moved on out of sight.

Taj pulled at his arm again. ‘Follow me.’

‘Wait one,’ Shepherd said and spoke into the net. ‘Sunray, Sierra 5. Permission to move.’

‘Negative. Hold position.’

Shepherd looked at Taj, then said ‘Fuck it.’ He turned to Lex. ‘Follow me and keep my arse covered.’ He slid back from the ledge, slung his sniper rifle on his back and, holding his AK47, followed Taj away from the battlefield, moving at a diagonal up the slope towards the ridge. A bitter wind was blowing snow flurries over the slopes and they battled against it up to the ridgeline, then turned east into the teeth of the wind, following the ridge through the gathering darkness.  He looked over his shoulder. Lex was close behind him.

They paused to put on their PNGs and moved on with Taj still leading, picking his way among the rocks, as sure-footed as a goat.  Some way ahead they could see movement, dark figures moving steadily upwards, outlined against the snow-covered screes close to the head of the valley. Shepherd thought about a shot but decided against it. He wanted to shorten the range to be certain of a hit.

They were now hidden from the battlefield and the sound of firing had faded, carried away on the wind. As they moved on, the upper reaches of the valley opened up to them  and he could see a notch in the skyline, a narrow pass towards which the group was heading. As he stared towards it, Shepherd saw two figures waiting by it, holding the reins of a group of mountain ponies. ‘Faster Taj,’ he said, quickening his own pace. He looked back. Lex was falling behind but he didn’t have time to wait for him.

Taj and Shepherd moved on at route march speed, no longer attempting to conceal their pursuit, the gap steadily narrowing. At last, Shepherd called a halt, trying to calm his laboured breathing as he took the sniper rifle from his back and once more sight-zeroed it, begrudging the time it took, but knowing the jolting it had taken on the march along the ridge would have thrown it off. He studied the group through the scope as they reached the horses and began to mount. The tall figure showed his profile as he was helped on to a horse and Shepherd made a positive ID. It was Muj 1 - Osama Bin Laden.

‘Sunray, Sierra 5. Muj 1. Positive ID. 100%. Permission to fire.’

‘Negative,’ said the Major. ‘Do not engage. Do not disobey this order.’

‘What? I have him cold. He’s the reason we’re all here.’

‘Negative. Permission refused. Do not engage.’

‘Are you insane?’

‘The Yanks want to do it. 9/11 gives them that right. We’re the junior partner here.’

‘So where are they - waiting for their helmet-cams so George Dubya and the boys back home can watch?’

‘Delta Force are now in the caves but they can’t find him.’

‘That’s because he isn’t there.  Muj 1 is almost out of the head of the valley. I’ve got him in my sights. I can take him right now.’

‘Negative. Permission refused. Do not engage.’

Shepherd cursed under his breath, then dropped to the ground and lay still, calming his breathing as he brought up the rifle until Bin Laden’s head filled the scope. He was in the middle of the line of horsemen and now almost at the summit of the pass, in a narrow defile between two rocky crags. It was now or never. He took up the first pressure, exhaled and fired. Bin Laden’s head disappeared from the scope but there was no spray of blood. Instead, the rider in front of him now filled the scope, his back arched and arms flung wide as he slumped from his horse.

Shepherd swung the scope down. Bin Laden’s horse was on its knees. It had stumbled in the instant that Shepherd had fired. Muj 1 was now scrambling from the saddle, stepping over the prone body of his comrade and scrambling for the summit. Three of his escorts ran with him. The others, heedless of their own safety, stood in the open firing at the point from which the muzzle flash had come.

Shepherd ignored the incoming fire. He found his target again in the scope and fired in one movement, but Bin Laden was already diving for the cover of the rocks at the summit, and he disappeared from sight as the round struck the rock face and ricocheted away.

Shepherd scrambled to his feet and he and Taj set off at a run, using fire and movement to keep the muj heads down, but they had gone a couple of hundred yards when the wind strengthened still more and the snow flurries became a blizzard. They struggled on but eventually Taj put his hand on Shepherd’s arm. ‘Even I cannot find my way in a white-out, my friend. We have to turn back.’

Shepherd hesitated then gave a grudging nod. ‘Sunray, Sierra 5,’ he said for the benefit of his radio. ‘Call off the dogs. Muj 1’s gone. He’ll be in Pakistan before daybreak. Oh, and Sunray, be sure to thank Delta Force for me, won’t you? There’ll be a price to pay for this fuck up.’  He switched off his radio and cursed under his breath.

Taj patted him on the back. ‘You did your best, my friend.’

‘It wasn’t good enough,’ said Shepherd bitterly.

‘We’ll get another chance one day, insh’allah,’ said the Afghan.

‘I bloody well hope so,’ said Shepherd.

###

Spider Shepherd left the SAS at the end of 2002 and joined an elite police undercover unit. You can read the first of his undercover adventures in Hard Landing, where he goes undercover in a high security prison to unmask a drugs dealer who is killing off witnesses to his crimes.

Hard Landing is available in the UK for 49p at –  http://amzn.to/xxX2YU

And in the US for less than a dollar at –  http://amzn.to/xWg1E7

You can read more about Stephen Leather’s work at www.stephenleather.com

Table of Contents

Friendly Fire (A Spider Shepherd short story)