The night sky was brocaded with tight clusters of luminous stars. On this part of the north-east coastline of Djibouti, the white-sand beach was speckled with stunted trees and scrub, and was edged by squat, stone cliffs. Abandoned fishing boats were upturned beneath them, their barnacle-ridden hulls resembling a pod of beached whales.
Tom and the operators were dressed in civilian Yemeni clothes: hand-woven turbans, short, sheepskin coats and cotton breeches. Underneath their baggy shirts, they all wore modified ballistic vests. The equipment – radio sets, portable SATCOMS, an array of small-arms weapons and IR and thermal lasers – was lying on light-brown poncho liners, ready to be passed out among the men.
Tom watched as a Mark V.1 Special Operations Craft, a twenty-five metre transport boat armed with M60 7.62mm machineguns, was lowered from the triple-hook system of a special ops Chinook, just beyond the surf thirty metres away. A Chinook was the heavy lifter of helicopters, versatile and dependable. The rotor blades whipped up the water into a surface whirlpool and flecks of sand stung Tom’s face. He turned his head, seeing the operators apply stripes of black face camo before checking the chambers of their assault rifles and sub-machine guns.
Nathan had informed them at the briefing in England that the Yemeni navy was insignificant, consisting of just thirty-five vessels, most of which were patrol boats. Given their extensive coastline, the chance of being spotted by one of them was remote. Added to which, the Mark V’s angular design and anti-radar cladding should ensure that they’d avoid the Yemenis’ Selex Coastal Defence System, he’d said, with a wry smile.
But as Tom waded through the warm shallows towards the craft, he knew he was heading for a kill zone.
After he strapped himself into one of the eight seats on the port side, the Mark V was soon travelling at over sixty-five knots, the sea spray all but soaking the occupants. The craft was used extensively as a SEAL launch facility and the seats were designed for maximum impact resistance, but the shock waves from the aluminium hull slamming through the waves sent jolts through Tom’s spine.
Nathan, who was sitting in front of him, turned around. “Clench your teeth,” he said as he grabbed the gunwale, “or you’ll bite your tongue off.”
The platoon chief put on a pair of headphones, the wire affixed to a VHF radio backpack propped up against the spare seat next to him, enabling him to use a secure frequency.
About ten miles out from Djibouti, Nathan confirmed that their fellow SEAL Team 7 operators had arrived at the rendezvous point. The landward edge of a secluded lagoon eighty-nine miles south of Al-Hudaydah, a seaport and Yemen’s fourth largest city. The Mark V’s engine was killed and the two CRRCs, combat rubber raiding craft, were manoeuvred onto the ramp on the stern. The craft, powered by outboard motors, would take them the remainder of the distance, where they’d be slashed open and buried. The motors would be cut a mile out and paddles would be used to reach the shoreline. If all went to plan, they would be flown from the hamlet in Black Hawks and be back on the African coast way before dawn.
About an hour later, the oil-black waters of the near-stagnant lagoon could be seen separated from the expanse of sea by a coral reef little more than fifteen centimetres below the CRRCs. Beyond, the muted moonlight had turned the dunes into huge piles of dark-red spice. During the day, the lagoons were teeming with mosquitoes, but the species that lived in sandy environments didn’t feed at night, and Tom and the SEALs hadn’t needed to apply repellent.
As a couple of operators paddled towards the beach, Tom, who was surrounded by bagged covert ops gear and ordnance, saw a small group of men emerge from the dunes and crouch down into a diamond shape on the dry sand. The deployed SEAL team, he thought. Nathan, who was sitting in the stern, resumed radio contact with them, speaking in short sentences peppered with code words and military acronyms. Apart from him, no one else spoke.
After landing on the sandy beach, the operators dug two large holes with short-handled shovels to hide the deflated boats. A couple of them had heaved out a large black box beforehand, which had been handed over by the CIA at Camp Lemonnier. When Tom had asked what it was, he’d been told by a bearded SEAL with densely tattooed forearms that it created enough interference to block cell and satphone signals. But it wouldn’t mess with their voice-activated radios, so, even if the rescue site could be used to communicate from, the Arabs were screwed.
One of the men on the beach was the Yemeni interpreter that Nathan had mentioned, a man of about twenty with eyes like polished chestnuts, a prematurely lined forehead and wispy facial hair. His name was Khaleed Thabit. The operators called him Kali. He’d told Tom that he loved the US president and that he was going to marry an American girl and bring up a family in Santa Monica. Tom figured the guy was hoping for a Green Card. If the Yemeni survived the next few hours, he guessed he’d get his wish.
Nathan liaised with the team leader on the ground, a broad-shouldered man in his early thirties with a thick beard. He was wrapped in a traditional Yemeni shawl and carried a big-barrelled M79 grenade launcher with a customized pistol grip. An HK 45c handgun was holstered on his thigh. He looked as if he’d just stepped off the set of a spaghetti western. Nathan told Tom afterwards that the guy was a seasoned master chief, who was famous among assaulters for never carrying anything into battle apart from his handgun and beloved launcher.
The SEALs who had travelled with Tom handed out extra gear and ordnance to their brothers in the troop, including fragmentation grenades, suppressors and ballistic vests. The hard ceramic armour was uncomfortable and would slow them down some, but it would help to save their lives. Their backpacks had ballistic shields woven into them, which would be used to protect their heads as they fired around them. But like Kali, Tom remained unarmed. Nathan had said from the off in Djibouti that his orders were that Tom couldn’t use a firearm in combat in Yemen, and, although he didn’t care for military rules, this one was non-negotiable. Kali refused to wear a ballistic vest, too, saying that he was a Muslim and would put his faith in Allah. No one tried to persuade him to do otherwise. But everyone, including Tom, was given a med kit.
The hamlet was an hour’s drive away by Desert Patrol Vehicles: high-speed buggies that looked like souped-up sandrails fixed with M60 machine guns. They’d stop the DPVs a mile or so from the rescue site, just close enough for the black box to operate. They’d walk on foot to ensure the terrorists there wouldn’t be spooked by the roaring sound of the DPVs’ air-cooled 200 hp VW engines.
Tom motioned to Nathan, who walked over to him, “How’s it lookin’?” he asked.
“Like we’re in the middle of a Mad Max set,” Nathan said, grinning, as he put his hand on a DPV’s roll bar. His expression changed to stern resignation. “We don’t have a positive ID. The mission is flawed, you ask me. If she’s there, I’d say there’s a ninety per cent chance they’ll kill her before we get to her, or she’ll die in crossfire. And there’s three unidentified vehicles heading toward the hamlet, less than twenty klicks away.”
“Can’t a drone take them out?” Tom asked.
“No problem. But she could be in one of them. Would you make that call?”
No, Tom thought.
“That could be an extra fifteen fighters. But successful or not, we won’t leave any of them alive. That much I’m sure of.”
Tom nodded, although he felt mentally numb.