THE FOLLOWER: SAS hero turns Manchester hitman (A Rick Fuller Thriller Book 4)(4)

If anyone ever dared mention the size of his missus, Frankie would say something like, ‘Tha don’t know what tha missing thee. Tha needs summat t’ get hold of at neet tha knows.’

He was also a steady Eddie. We nicknamed him Captain Sensible after the singer. He was always so calm and collected, spoke when he had something worth saying, and was an all -round good bloke.

When I look back at my career in the Army, I reckon Frankie was one of the few blokes I met that had a really solid home life.

Butch was another matter altogether. Dave ‘The Butcher’ Stanley, got his nickname after he cut off Argentinian soldier’s ears as wee mementos during the battle for Goose Green. Fuckin’ weird if you ask me, pal, but anyway, Butch was also a dab hand in a scrap, especially at close quarters. Having a bloke like Butch at your disposal was all well and good, but, if we found we needed his particular brand of expertise on this job, we’d be in the shit big time.

Butch packed his own personal Kukri, the knife the Gurkhas used in battle. Once he had that in his hand, blood would be spilled one way or the other, even if it was his own.

Where Frankie was easy going, Butch had a temper. Luckily, Rick always seemed to be able to keep him in hand.

I hoped that remained the case, as I had a feeling this job was going to need cool calm heads.

Rick had a thing about flashes and bangs, and he’d packed half a dozen stun grenades to make him feel better.

Me? I took me pipe and a good pair of binos.





Sunday 15th November 1987


Rick Fuller’s Story:

It had been lashing it down when we took off from Hereford, but by the time we were loading out kit onto the boat that would take us to Jarjis, the Maltese sun shone warm on our backs. None of our patrol had shaved since we’d got the nod for the trip. Every fucker seemed to have a beard in the Arab world. We thought it may help us mingle.

As I watched the lads humping Bergens onto the deck, I considered we looked a right rough bunch.

We wore boots and desert cargos, but after that, I’d left it up to the individual. I just made sure each of the crew had some warm clothes, as it gets terribly cold after dark in that part of the world.

Also, we all had the traditional Arab headgear in our kit. Once we got on the road at the other end, with a bit of luck, the beards and the kufiyah would give us a chance at passing for locals on first glance.

Our boat was an old fishing vessel, all brightly painted. The type you take pictures of when you’re on your holidays. However, it was manned and skippered by a crew made up of 1st Battalion, AFM. They were all from C Company, the Maltese Quick Reaction Force, used for high-risk operations, based at Hal-Far. They didn’t say much or ask any questions. Just the way I liked it.

The nine-hour trip meant we could eat and get some essential kip.

The AFM lads really looked after us in the grub department too. They made us a traditional Maltese meal starting with a dish called Caponata - a vegetable salad made from chopped fried eggplant and celery, with capers olives and peppers.

After that came Suffat-Tal-Fenek, a spiced rabbit stew with piles of fresh bread, all washed down with Te Fit-Tazza, a Maltese version of builder’s tea, made with condensed milk and served in a glass.

It was the best meal I’d had in ages.

As the old boat pushed lazily through the water and the sun set over the bow, Des, Butch and Frankie sat cross-legged on the deck playing cards. They looked like they hadn’t a care in the world.

Me? I lay back against the boat’s bulkhead, stretched out my legs, crossed them at the ankles and closed my eyes. The rhythmical chug of the old diesel engine and the warmth of the evening sent me off in an instant.

I slept like a baby.

It would be my last for a while.

*

We were met in Jarjis by a ‘Man from the Ministry.’

He was a posh boy, with good taste in clothes. He did his job to the letter, and made sure that all our kit was unloaded into a jeep, without a customs guy in sight. I got the impression, he was destined for the Security Services. He had that quiet, unruffled confidence about him.

Within forty minutes of docking, we were on the road, sporting our new beards and headgear, ready for the two and a half hour drive to Libya.

The plan was to dump the jeep about ten kilometres from the actual border and then tab the rest of the way, over rough ground to Tiji.

The Head Shed had given me a hand held GPS unit to play with. One of the first I’d ever seen. I viewed it with some suspicion and decided not to rely on it. The Americans had developed the system, but back in the late eighties there were only ten satellites up in the sky for the units to feed off, making them less reliable than the modern units of today.

Even so, I was told in no uncertain terms, not to lose it. Apparently, they were very expensive.

Unusually, the tab across the border went like clockwork without the faintest sign of bother. The only thing I would say, is that if you ever doubted the cold in the desert at night, I’ll tell you this, it’s colder than a witch’s tit.

We all carried personal shortwave comms should we need to talk to each other.

I, as patrol leader, had a satellite phone should we get in the shit.

Just who yours truly would ring to get us out of the proverbial brown stuff, would be another matter. Air support was never going to be an option with a medical facility and a mosque so close to the target premises.