TURKISH DELIGHT Read online

  We started walking along the cliff top towards the old town and the dock. The moon was giving us enough light to see the way forward, but we took the precaution of putting our night vision glasses on, just in case – a bit cumbersome, but we’d see someone before they saw us. The cliff top began to give way to the narrow pebbled streets of the old town with rows of small two-storey stone built farm worker houses either side, three to a row with a narrow alleyway between each block. Their windows had the wooden shutters closed; slits of light shone through from some, and every now and again laughter and raised voices could be heard from inside.

  A choice had to be made: carry on along the streets to the dock, or skirt round the back where their backyards gave way to a wide shingle beach. Trouble was, if they had dogs they would be tethered round the back and would probably bark their heads off at us. The streets weren’t lit, so we took a chance that nobody would be about at that time of night and carried on.

  Big mistake. We should have taken our chances with the dogs. An open army jeep swung into the narrow road from a cross roads fifty metres further on, headlights blazing, and caught us in the glare. I wasn’t even thinking that they’d patrol this area, but with the ultra nationalist Turkish Grey Wolves Islamic terrorist group very active in north Cyprus with strikes against the army we maybe should have factored that into our thoughts. We had the advantage that they would be confused seeing two black-clad and armed men in their lights and had to stop and get their guns out; ours were slung over our shoulders and primed to go.

  I swung my carbine up and loosed off a few rounds on automatic, taking out the headlights. Jones stepped across the narrow street to make a separate target and knelt on one knee as he did the same, his shots disintegrating the windscreen and driver’s head. Out of control, the jeep careered into the nearest house as I took care of the remaining two occupants. Lights were going on and doors opening all along the street as people came out to see what was happening. I nodded to Jones to follow me and ran down the nearest alley – the chained dogs were already barking so no need to be careful now as we ran towards the sea with the slope of the land giving some cover from behind. Once below the sightline from the houses we struck out towards the dock area which was lit up about a mile and a half further on. Behind us we could hear sirens and shouting; the upside was that the authorities would no doubt think this was a Grey Wolves random attack, and not be thinking it was from outside the area and that maybe the docks were the target

  ‘Into the water,’ I shouted to Jones who was ten metres in front. ‘They’ll have dogs.’

  He raised an arm in agreement and we ran down into the surf, which slowed us down but would lose our scent. After what must have been a mile we halted and took a rest. Looking back at the old village we could see searchers’ lights were all over the shore and a line of them coming our way. It was an obvious choice for the pursuers if they thought we were Grey Wolves, we would be going towards the town and a safe house, so why would we go the other way into bracken and forest where dogs would soon find us? So we had to keep going, as no doubt they’d be sending troops down onto the beach all the way along towards the dock; it was just a matter of being ahead of them and getting into some decent cover.

  My legs were feeling tired from running in water but the adrenalin had kicked in and we hurried on. Then we heard it – the unmistakable whirring of helicopter blades. It was coming from the dock area, its searchlight scanning the beach. We turned up the slope inland, over a small perimeter wall and into a beach hotel garden. It was pretty open ground and deserted being out of season, but there wasn’t enough time to make it across the grounds to the building itself before the helicopter searchlight would pick us up.

  ‘The deckchairs!’ I shouted to Jones. I’d seen two piles of stacked deckchairs over by the pool.

  We ran to them and squeezed in between the piles, reaching up to pull the top ones over the gap we stood in – if the ‘copter saw us we were sitting ducks. He swept his searchlight over the grounds for what seemed an eternity before making off further along the beach.

  We didn’t hang about and started off towards the lights of the dockside, again keeping below the sightline of the beach.

  The end of the concrete dock came into view, wide unlit concrete steps leading up to it from the beach. We crept up and peeped over onto the apron. Nothing happening this end; there were the two big freighters comms had mentioned tied up alongside about a hundred metres further along. All the activity seemed to be around the furthest one, which was steel grey and had Turkish Navy markings; an overhead crane was lifting on pallets with what looked like Rambart’s crates strapped to them. The lifeboats hanging on the freighter’s side swung slightly on their gantries as the crates were lowered into the hold, causing the boat to rock a little. The three green HGVs were parked with their back doors open facing the ship. I took a good look through the telescopic lens of the CF8 – yes, they were Rambart’s crates. On our left and all the way along the back of the dock apron ship containers were stacked three high in lanes. I motioned Jones to follow and made for the first lane. We worked our way along until we were opposite the ship being loaded and could watch proceedings through the gaps between the containers.

  ‘See the crates being loaded on?’ I asked Jones.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They are the target. They mustn’t reach Turkey.’

  ‘Okay, how do you want to play it – blow the whole lot up?’

  ‘Yes, but not here. I want to get onboard and sink her once outside the three-mile limit. The blame will be hung on the USA or a host of Middle Eastern Countries taking revenge for the attack on the Saudi oil tanks in Jeddah.’

  ‘Did Turkey do that?’

  ‘No, the Houthis did it. But the missiles came in through Turkey – they act as a middleman. These missiles might not be going to Yemen, but wherever they are going it’s not good news.’

  Jones nodded. ‘Okay, so we have to get onboard then.’

  ‘Should be easy once the crates are onboard. The dockers will want to get off home and that only leaves the ship’s crew, and that won’t be many – just a couple in the engine room and the master and two others in the wheelhouse. It’s a freighter, not a warship.’

  It was a good half hour before the crane driver climbed down the steel ladder from his cage. I shook Jones who had managed to drop off sitting next to me. We watched as the dock crew slammed the HGV doors shut and walked off en masse towards the main entrance at the far end of the dock. We took off our rucksacks and edged through the small gap between the containers towards the lit dockside with me in front. Voices! We froze as three people crossed my line of vision and stopped at the foot of the gangplank; they shook hands and two started off up the gangplank. The one in front turned to give a last wave to the man left on the dockside – the face was unmistakeable. What was Eve Rambart doing onboard a freighter with missiles heading for Turkey? I took a quick picture on Woodward’s phone, making sure the flash was off, and sent it. I think there was enough light from the dock lights to show who it was,

  ***************************

  CHAPTER 13

  People often query my bill for the time charged on a job – they forget how many hours the PI spends sitting, watching and waiting for the mark to move. And so it was with this caper. I got over my surprise of seeing Eve Rambart go onboard the freighter and we stayed still, giving her and the goon with her time to settle in. The Captain, or somebody with a peaked officer-type hat, had welcomed her on deck and gone with her inside out of view. Freighters usually have a couple of extra crew cabins, so perhaps she was making herself comfortable in one of those for the trip.

  It was forty minutes before the one with the peaked cap re-emerged onto the deck gangway, made his way along it for three-quarters of the ship’s length and then up some steps to the large wheelhouse that spanned the breadth of the ship. Now was our chance. We emerged from the gap and walked across to the gangplank as though we should be there; s
ometimes hiding in plain sight works, although this time there probably wasn’t anybody to see us and wonder who we were, but you never know. Once onboard Jones followed me along the gangway away from the wheelhouse to the far stern of the ship, where we hid behind a large anchor chain windlass which sheltered us from view.

  Before long activity on the deck and dock pointed towards an imminent departure. The mooring ropes were slipped off their dock moorings and hauled up and the heavy throb of the diesels starting up shook the deck as they fought the water to turn the giant propellers. The dockside slipped away behind us as we edged out into the main breakwater bay, past the end of that with its flashing red warning light and into the Med. We gave it another ten minutes for everything in the wheelhouse and engine room to settle down; the officers and engineers would probably settle back with a drink and relax, with everything on autopilot. Nothing to do now until we were well clear of coastal waters. Jones sat and I watched Cyprus fade into the far horizon as daylight began to break.

  ‘You think we are in international waters yet?’ I asked after a while.

  He pulled a mobile from his shin pocket and turned it on, then using his thumb to page through various apps found the one he was after. It was a map of the Mediterranean, showing us a flashing red dot in the middle of it off the far tip of Cyprus.

  ‘Looks like we are, but better give it another thirty minutes to make sure.’

  ‘Wake me up then.’ I settled back and closed my eyes; he’d grabbed forty winks at the dock, so my turn now.

  In what seemed only a minute later a jab in the arm woke me up from my slumber.

  ‘We’re in international waters now,’ said Jones. ‘Let’s go.’

  I slung the carbine round to my back, pulled out the Sig and took off the safety; Jones had done the same. Then I pulled down my balaclava and followed him along the side gangway and we took up position either side of the door Eve Rambart had gone through. It was solid – no window – so I turned the handle slowly and pushed it open. Inside was a corridor that had doors off it and at the end an opening in the floor with a steel staircase leading down into it. The cover to close off the staircase was propped open and the deep thudding noise of pistons turning the drive shaft to the ship’s propeller somewhere below us came up the well of the staircase, together with a blast of heat; the engine room was down there.

  I set foot on the stair rungs and went down slowly my Sig in my hand, looking around as I went. The stairs led down directly into the engine room, and the noise became deafening as I reached the floor level. Two big steel turbines hid the stairs from the rest of the engine room, I beckoned Jones down and he joined me. The heat was quite suffocating, which I assumed was why the stair cover was open. Peeping round the turbines I could see three men: one was sitting at a table with bottles of drink on it reading a paper, the other two were standing in front of an array of gauges on the back wall checking pressures and taking readings. Their naval insignia jackets and caps were hung on wall hooks and their three rifles were leaning against the wall.

  I raised two fingers to Jones and pointed to the two standing – I’ll take them. He nodded and we walked out from behind the turbines and were within twelve feet before they noticed us and made for their rifles – well, how can you miss from that distance? The first shot from my Sig was already aimed at the back of one man’s head and he crumpled to the ground as it sped through his brain and left via his forehead; my second target was so shocked and surprised to see us he couldn’t move, which allowed me time to make sure my second shot had the same effect on him, only going in at the front and out the back. Jones’s target had suffered the same quick death. No way would the shots have been heard above the engine noise, so we were quite relaxed – nobody would come running.

  Yeah, I know what you are thinking – we just killed three men, maybe three husbands, or dads, or brothers. I know, but that’s what I do – not often, and without people like me you wouldn’t sleep so soundly at night, would you? You have to remember these are military people, who signed up knowing the risks; these are the bad guys who are transporting live missiles to an enemy who will pass them on to some other enemy, who will probably aim them at a busy public target to cause the most damage and kill maybe a hundred or so of the good guys. You want to live in a failed state run by warring warlords? Okay, disband MI5 and 6 and that’s what you’ll get, believe me.

  Taking off our rucksacks we pulled out the slabs of Semtex and peeled off their greaseproof wrappers. There was an obvious place to set an explosion for the maximum result, and that was where the large driveshafts went through the ship’s hull to the propellers. Semtex is very malleable and like playing with plasticine, so I was easily able to mould around the thick eighteen-inch rubber seals where the drive shaft went through the hull. As I was working at that, Jones took out the timers and set them for thirty minutes. I checked my watch – I wasn’t going to be anywhere near this ship when that lot went off. He pushed the timers into the Semtex, and I could see their LEDs flashing red as the seconds ticked by. Dangerous things, timers; basically they ticked away for thirty minutes or whatever length of time you set them for, and then a small battery sent an electric shock through a small amount of magnesium which flared up, exploding a small amount of Semtex or dynamite that in turn exploded the main charge. Simple, effective and deadly.

  We had thirty minutes to get off that ship. When the Semtex and timers were all set we dragged the bodies out of sight and went carefully back up the staircase. I poked my head up and saw the corridor was clear before we hauled ourselves up into it. We slowly lowered the heavy steel cover to close the opening and I saw a padlock that, looking at its size, was obviously for fastening the cover shut when the ship was laid up, as it fitted the large hasp welded on the cover exactly. I pushed it through and shut it, putting the key in my pocket.

  We made our way swiftly back outside to the stern and settled in behind the anchor chain windlass again, checking in front and behind as we went. It had begun to rain when we were below and was steadily getting worse and developing into a storm. Lightning was arching over the sky above us which had grown dark and threatening and the wind was whipping up the waves and starting to rock the freighter.

  Jones pulled his radio from his rucksack and switched it on.

  ‘Jones to Williams, come in.’

  There was a short break before he got a reply.

  ‘Williams here, sir. Go ahead, you’re loud and clear.’

  ‘Jones to Williams, we are ready to embark ASAP. What’s your ETA?’

  ‘Williams to Jones, we are half a mile on your starboard side. With you in ten.’

  ‘Jones to Williams, okay. We are at the stern and will be ready. Jones out.’

  I raised myself a little and looked over the broad railings on the starboard side. I couldn’t see any boat coming our way; in fact I couldn’t see much at all as the rain lashed in at me and the wind tore off the top of the waves and hurled them over the railing.

  ‘Don’t bother looking, you won’t see them coming.’ Jones had to shout above the storm now, ‘They’re on a stealth boat, low in the water and very fast – or to give it its proper name, an FB Mil-50P. Any the wiser?’ he asked and was laughing. He likes laughing, does Jones – I wonder if it was to compensate for any fear he was feeling in this situation? I’d read somewhere that people sometimes do that.

  ‘No, just so long as it’s fast and gets us away from here before that Semtex goes up,’ I shouted back above the noise of the storm and driving rain which was running down my face.

  Jones laughed again. ‘No problem. Come on, we need to get as near to the back of the ship as we can – Williams will approach from behind. If they’ve got radar on in the wheelhouse he won’t show much of a picture; the FBs are built of anti-radar material except for the engines, but we still need to get away fast.’

  ‘Has he been tracking us all the way then?’

  ‘Not all the way – he waited outside the three-mile
zone and has been with us since then.’

  ‘You didn’t say.’

  ‘How else do you think we’ll get back to base when the ship goes down, swim?’ Another laugh.

  We crawled to the back of the ship, staying below any sightline from the rest of it and waited, getting more and more wet. The third time I checked my watch annoyed Jones.

  ‘Don’t panic, Nevis. We will be away before the big bang.’

  ‘I bloody hope so.’

  His radio cracked into action.

  ‘Williams to Jones.’

  I thought all we need now is Williams to say his engine has failed, but he didn’t.

  ‘Go ahead, Williams.’

  ‘We are right below you, sir.’

  We both knelt up and peered over the stern railing. Below in the churning water caused by the storm and the propeller blades six foot below the surface, we could see Williams standing in the bow of what looked like a medium-sized speedboat to me; he held what looked like a gun, but the barrel was far too wide for that. Jones gave him the thumbs up and pulled me back down to the deck.

  ‘Cover your head with your arms, he’s firing a rope up to us.’

  So that was what Williams was holding: a bloody big air gun.

  A small metal grappling hook only about three inches in length with three hooks came sailing high over the railing and clattered to the deck a few feet in front of us. Jones retrieved it and starting pulling on the monofilament nylon line attached to it, which soon gave way to a decent size climbing rope. I helped him pull a few yards over the railing until we had enough of a length to tie it in a reef knot around one of the big steel links of the anchor chain.

  ‘Over you go.’ Jones indicated I should climb over the railing and go down the rope. It looked a long way down, about eighty feet on a wet swinging rope to a small boat bouncing in the propeller wake on a stormy sea – nice. I climbed over, took hold of the rope with both hands, twisted my right foot round it and using my left as a brake I abseiled down in fits and starts until Williams’s welcoming hands pulled me onboard the bouncing skiff.