The Devil's Handshake (41 page)

“
If it looks like we’re
facing a breach and we have to move the President, we will need to
do this by surrounding him then move out in a circle are you up for
that?” he asked as he knew the first instinct of Mikhail’s team
would be to protect Thomas.

Thomas answered for him. “Igor, I am more
than capable of holding my own so don’t worry I know the score and
I have told the boys the President comes first.”

Igor didn’t argue. Mikhail’s look suggested
otherwise though. It was something that had been picked up by
Thomas, who quickly asserted his authority over his friend.

“
Mikhail?”

“
I hear you, Boss!” he
answered, accepting his order if somewhat reluctantly.

Igor smiled. He decided he liked these men.
“True professionals to the core.”

“
We have company!” said one
of the Gurkhas on the wall over the communications earpieces broke
the tension.

The deployment teams quickly took up
positions at the windows to sounds of the ever-present call to
prayer, coming from the loudspeakers attached to the mosques of the
small city. The last line of defense around the President of
Adwalland placed themselves at the windows off the office that
looked out on to the compound.

“
Boss, make sure you don’t
poke your head out!” offered Avi towards Thomas with a
smile.

“
Cheeky sod, I was fighting
bandits long before you were out of nappies!” said Thomas towards
his trusted and youngest bodyguard of his team while he cocked his
Heckler & Koch M5, the trusted weapon of his youth as a Captain
in SAS and as he re-checked his body armor one last
time.

“
Concentrate!” ordered
Mikhail in Hebrew towards them both, putting an end to the banter.
He was never one for humor before an action. Especially one when
they were out-numbered. His mind drifted back for a second to the
last time he had faced such moment. He shivered. Bosnia still
haunted him.

“
Mr. President please stay
under the desk,” ordered Igor towards the standing leader of
Adwalland.

“
A President doesn’t act
like a coward he stands by his men!” he responded. “Give me a gun!
I can fight!”

The experienced intelligence officer rolled
his eyes.

“
Badr, please make sure he
has vest on!” he instructed the President’s head of security not
needing an argument at that precise minute. To which, the trusted
bodyguard nodded his support and pushed his boss under the
desk.

The former Corporal in 7th (Duke of
Edinburgh’s Own) Ghurkha Rifleman Bijaya Dhimal reported his final
reconnaissance of the building in Dila back to his leader.

“
There are a couple sensors
on the stairs, and there are three targets inside all up and about
and being very noisy!” he said.

“
Okay, Bijaya we go for a
Dynamic Entry,” answered Barak. With such little time to prepare
both he and Yossi decided that their best tactic was surprise,
speed, and domination.

Moments later they quietly ran the eight
hundred yards to the building and moved up the stairs without a
sound, avoiding the sensors as they went, and deployed either side
of the door. The assault team took up position.

On Bijaya’s closed fist movement and point
towards the door, one of the other Gurkhas quietly placed about 30
grams of RDX explosive on the handle. Finished, he stood back.

He gave the signal to take up position.
Fifteen seconds later, BANG! The building shook.

Moments after the explosion Bijaya quickly
entered the room with one of the other Gurkhas, followed by two
more from the team, before finally Barak and Yossi so they could
take up the points of domination in the room.

Before Joe, Clara, and Pete had time to react
their collective ears still ringing and minds confused by the
explosion they found they were facing weapons pointed at their
faces.

“
DOWN! DOWN!”

“
HANDS BEHIND YOUR
HEAD!”

“
NOW!” the assault team
shouted at once towards the three targets, again forcing their
domination in the room through the use of lots of voices from
different directions to cause confusion for the targets.

Realizing they were completely covered with
overlapping fire by the fact each corner in the room had been taken
by their assailants the SAD team surrendered immediately and did as
ordered.

Not one shot had been fired in anger.

“
CLEAR,” shouted one of the
Gurkhas having checked the kitchen and bathrooms.

Knowing there was no point pretending they
were charity workers with the hi-tech monitoring equipment in the
room the three SAD officers quickly went into silent mode so to
prepare for the worst.

Securing them firmly and roughly with
flexi-cuffs, Yossi quickly pulled a sack over their heads one by
one, then manhandled them to their feet ready to exit the
building.

“
CLEAR,” shouted the Gurkhas
having checked outside to see if the team they had taken down were
about to receive any help.

“
COMING OUT,” Barak
announced as he pushed the prisoners out and down the stairs one by
one to exit the building to the lights of the surrounding buildings
coming on one by one as the occupants’ having been woken up by the
explosion and the shouting.

Once they were bundled, one by one, into the
four Land Cruisers that had pulled up at speed in front of the
building the assault team sped off to down the street to make their
way back to TLH secure compound just outside the Cismah.

“
Just like the old days!”
Barak offered in Hebrew towards Yossi who smiled in
response.

At his feet with her hands tied behind her
back and her head still covered Clara began to get her bearings
back, calming her mind to allow her training to kick in. She had
trained for it once at the Farm and now for the first time in her
life she was actually facing it. Taking slow breaths, she went
through her mental routine.

“
Deny any connection with
their agency. Do not request diplomatic legal assistance; none will
come. Hold out for as long as possible to enable other team’s
members to escape.” These were the thoughts swirling away in her
mind at the same time as she started her mental count and direction
change routine to try and work out when she was being driven to
from their base.

“
Calm down,” she told
herself again. Taking a deep breath but having never experienced
anything like this outside her training, her mind was drawn to
voices above her.

“
Was that Hebrew?” she asked
herself before she tried to focus her mind again. “That means they
are Litchfield’s! How the fuck did they know we were here?” she
concluded, remembering that all of his security team were
Israeli.

45

Lughaya

At the time Yossi and Barak were conducting
their operation without a shot fired, a very different one was
happening on the coast, 230 miles away.

As part of the agreement of the acceptance of
Adwalland as a country, the United Nations had originally
established a comprehensive multi-dimensional operation to assist
the new State on its journey.

Over the last year, with the security
situation how stabilized the UN had begun to wind down its
operations to what was left now on the coast; A medical education
program staffed by the Germans and human rights liaison officers
from Nigeria and various support elements from charities that were
involved in child protection programs.

Within each mandate, there is a principal
that every United Nations member has an obligation that lay at the
core of every mission deployed around the world. No matter where
that station may be. That being, “Every nation that hosts a
mandated mission has to take the necessary action to protect UN
personnel, facilities, installations, and equipment ensure the
security and freedom of movement of United Nations personnel,
humanitarian workers, joint assessment mechanism and assessment and
evaluation commission personnel, and, without prejudice the
responsibility of the Government of the host, to protect civilians
under imminent threat of physical violence.”

It was this obligation that Wasir now planned
to use to his benefit.

Using his night vision binoculars, Buryak
could see the lights were out in the compound and much to his
surprise he also found that the building only had a couple guard
posts outside the mission as well. He spread his search to the
surrounding area for any nearby threats and found none.

“
Habib, it looks like the
guards at the gate are armed, and maybe a couple inside so we’ll
drive through the gate at speed then start the clearing operation
room to the room,” he ordered.

Orders like this were nothing new to Habib.
An experienced veteran of Libya, he had killed more than a fair
share of innocents. All he cared about was that he was being paid
three thousand U.S. dollars for his work to enable him to able to
buy some goats for his smallholding and a new truck back home in
Mali.

“
Use verbal commands to get
them to surrender if you have too,” Buryak continued. “Then shoot
them once they have. These people aren’t soldiers, so they will be
scared and will do as you say,” Buryak continued slowly using
terrible but simple logic.

“
Yes, Boss,” answered Habib
as though it was nothing.

“
If you find some of the
white faces don’t shoot all of them just pick one and bring them to
me,” Buryak finally instructed before adding, “Oh and make sure you
keep maybe ten or so dark faces alive.”

“
Yes, Boss,” Habib answered
again. Five minutes later the Type 63 armored personnel carrier,
drove at speed towards the Mission.

The half-asleep poorly trained guards were no
match. In a matter of moments, they had been taken out by one of
Buryak’s men. Ten minutes later, to screams and machine gunfire
coming from the building at the center of the compound, Habib
dragged a young absolutely terrified overweight blonde woman in her
underwear out by the arm.

Using his cunning, not to mention the
confusion of the situation plus his skin color, Buryak asked the
woman her name as she was dumped at his feet.

“
M-a-r-t-h-a” she replied in
a heavy German accent.

“
Martha, what do you do?”
the Ukrainian coolly asked with a smile trying to calm her
appearing as though he was there to help her.

“
I am Doctor… Sir” she
answered shaking again.

Attempting to comfort her, Buryak lightly
stroked her arm.

“
Okay, you must do something
for me. Can you do that?” he said softly almost as he did to his
children back home in France when they were babies.

“
Yes,” she answered
nervously still shaking as she looked up at him.

Handing her a mobile phone, he told her to
press three and then tell the people down the line they were being
attacked. Still shaking she did as she was as told, telling them
whom she was, her position, and then what was happening until
getting to the point of when she was about to describe him and his
men. Taking phone back from her hand, he promptly cut it off.

“
Good girl, I now require
you to speak to this man on the phone and tell him the same thing,”
he ordered as he pressed the speed dial number.

Again she did as she was told, until as
before she got to the point of trying to explain about him, but
this time instead of taking the phone he shot the woman in the
head.

“
Now, Habib is that
everybody?” he asked while throwing the burner phone on the floor
by the dead doctor’s hand.

Earning a reply in the affirmative Buryak
ordered they refuel the personnel carrier.

Once completed, they drove out as though
nothing had happened to leave the eighty UN staff members dead
around them and only eight survivors cowering in the corner of one
of the offices.

“
Twenty-five minutes, not
bad,” Leo thought looking at his watch.

46

Borama

They arrived at the gates of the National
Television Centre. When the militia guards saw who it was they
immediately lifted the barriers to give a rag-tag salute towards
the occupant.

Although they had heard gunfire erupting in
the distance, they made no attempt to stop the cars as they all
belonged to the Interior Ministry.

Earlier when he was speaking to the German
doctor at the UN compound he had promised immediate assistance for,
Wasir had done so purely for the benefit of the American listening
posts that he believed would be listening. This was to be the next
act of his theatrics.

Telling the producer he was taking over the
station for an important announcement, the young man did not
protest on fear that he would be shot if he did.

“
You must get your messaging
right, announce the President’s resignation and a constitutional
transfer of power as a ‘run-of-the-mill’ regular occurrence, so to
speak,” Gourgamangi had said to him.

As the camera light changed green, the former
pirate began his official coup d’etat.

“
In pursuance of the primary
objective of saving our great country from total collapse, I,
Interior Minister Wasir Osman Hassan of the Republic of Adwalland
have, after due consultation amongst the services of the Lower
house…” he started.

Ten minutes later having reaching the end of
his speech during which he cited the President’s Militia as being
responsible for the attack on the UN Mission and several examples
to justify his action, he dropped his bombshell.