Benledi Street

Benledi Street East London

Lat = 51 degrees, 30.8 minutes North

Long = 0 degrees, 0.2 minutes West

Upon entering, the safe house in Benledi Street Omar had been subject to a severe dressing down from Hussein.

“I swear I was not followed Hussein.”

Hussein was peering out of a downstairs window at the Gold coloured Ford Granada with two occupants one hundred yards down the street.

“Come here,” Hussein, barked angrily.

Omar came over to the window, “what do you see?”

Omar scanned the street his eyes locked onto the Gold Granada his face turning ashen.

“But; but that’s impossible.”

“Where’s Abu?”

“He’s at the safe house in Wellington way”.

“Well we can kiss his arse goodbye; you bloody fool I’ll deal with you later now leave here and loose those bastards out there.”

Omar left the house and gunned the Citroen down the road turning left onto Abbott road.

Hussein observed the Gold Granada following and then ran upstairs to the back of the house he scanned the rear of the property with high powered binoculars and noticed a dust cloud on the wasteland half a mile away; “curse’s Army chopper,” he muttered.

Hussein zoomed in for more detail and could see as the dust was settling armed troops all in charcoal grey Combat attire with a disruptive pattern, he recalled the conversation with Shakira when he had told him of the raid on their camp in Zimbabwe; “They were wearing charcoal grey uniforms with a disruptive pattern ruthless and totally professional, a British special forces unit; no doubt about it.”

He ran to the front upstairs window and scanned up and down the street nothing unusual he went down to the back room and reached inside one of the five rucksacks on the table; Sixty seconds later he was limping down Benledi Street he turned left into Blair street and quickly looked over his shoulder there was no tail.

He then made his way to Abbot road and then onto the India Dock road it took him several minutes to arrive at Canning town underground, the army helicopter was lifting off less than a quarter of a mile away on his left as he entered the station a cruel smile appeared on his face. Hussein purchased his ticket and the ticket operator noticed the facial expression on Hussein’s face, Hussein failed to notice a CCTV mounted near to the ticket office.

Roy Smith and the two teams were in the helicopter heading for Benledi Street, they were going in hard a vertical abseil drop from the chopper with both teams dropping simultaneously into the rear and front of the premises using stun grenades.

The helicopter had risen to five hundred feet in order to reduce the chances of detection and would then slowly Descend to achieve a safe height for the troops to abseil down.

The pilot of the helicopter had just achieved a hovering height of two hundred feet above the house when he experienced the machine being forced violently upwards this was followed by a loud volatile noise; he quickly looked at his instruments for any warning or malfunction lights there were none,

He instinctively increased the power to stabilise the machine just as projectiles slammed into the undercarriage and shattered the side window; a high pitched audible warning message broadcasted from the instrument panel; Power failure... Power failure... with a sporadic red light, engine power output was falling the engine or the rotors had been damaged.

The computer-generated voice was now repeat-ably saying “Engine malfunction... Engine malfunction...”

The pilot fought to regain control using his skills and knowledge from experiencing this in flight simulation.

However, unlike a simulation he knew that this was for real and they would all die if he did not get it right.

He looked at the altimeter one hundred feet in less than Three seconds the helicopter altitude had halved and was still losing altitude.

The pilot wrestled with the controls and tried to eke out every last drop of the remaining power from the faltering engine.

Roy and the teams had been violently thrown around like rag dolls in the back of the machine, three of the team had taken shrapnel as projectiles had pierced the under body of the Helicopter.

A cloud of smoke and dust enveloped the helicopter; the pilot was just about winning the battle between man and machine but was now having difficulty locating a LZ through the cloud of smoke and dust.

It seemed like an eternity but was no more than fifteen seconds from the helicopter being pushed upwards to the pilot landing safely.

Roy Smith clambered out of the Helicopter; he looked at the plume of smoke and dust, what caught his eye was the devastation at the base of the cloud; the house they had been hovering above had disappeared along with everything else for a thirty-yard radius.

Civilian survivors were walking about in the street dazed, the buildings were on fire and jets of water were erupting from the street from fractured mains pipes.

The street looked like a World war two picture from a Luftwaffe bombing raid.

The distance sound of sirens was becoming more audible, Roy looked over at the helicopter the under carriage was peppered with holes and one of the rotors had been severed in half it was a miracle they had survived.

Everyone was out and clear of the vehicle, the Pilot approached him; both men looked at each other for a moment, they were both encased in dust.

Roy commented “one hell of a landing sir.”

“Any landing you walk away from is a good one,” replied the Pilot.

“Is the radio operational?”

“Yep; I’ve sent a ‘SITREP’ back to command they have another helicopter en-route ETA fifteen minutes.”

“Is it safe for me to use the radio?”

“The fuel tanks have not been damaged; it should be okay just be careful.”