Pirate - Duncan Falconer [105]
Downs smiled broadly as he shook the officer’s hand and, although Stratton couldn’t hear Downs’s voice, in his head he could hear the rich Irish accent asking the officer how he was. Winslow would have realised by then that Downs had forgotten their previous relationship. Or he might suspect Downs of deliberately pretending not to know him.
Stratton wondered if Winslow would mention their shared past right away or wait for an opportunity to corner Downs in the same way he had done to Stratton. The officer might be dis appointed if he did. If Winslow pushed Downs too far, the Irishman would quickly become indignant and brush the man’s failure aside as having been for the best.
Downs, Winslow and Phelps went into the superstructure and the bulk of the lads ambled inside after them.
Stratton would have liked to stay where he was for a while longer but the operational briefing would take place soon and he needed to attend it.
As he headed into the superstructure and down the stairs to the main road, he didn’t see any lads he was familiar with. He passed a group of younger SBS men in the gangway but they didn’t give him anything more than a respectful nod. Stratton was known to everyone, even those who hadn’t actually seen him before. That renown, however, had got tagged with the usual rumours and exaggerations. Because SBS guys were human and subject to the same rules of gossip and hyperbole. He had indeed been on several interesting operations during his time in special forces and while in the employ of the British Secret Intelligence Services. But only a handful of people truly knew the operations he had been involved in, and hardly any of those people were among the ranks of the SBS. But a snippet of a story would be enough to encourage suppositions and assumptions, parts of which generally stuck as fact. Nobody ever asked Stratton to comment. No one would dare. It wasn’t because of any fear of him. You simply never made enquiries about a secret operation or anyone who had been involved in it. You were limited to asking only those people who hadn’t been directly involved.
The men had a couple of hours to sort out their equipment and grab a meal before the operational briefing. They all knew in outline why they had arrived in the Gulf of Aden. The briefing would deliver the finer points and last-minute details.
Stratton arrived at the crowded briefing room minutes before it started and stood at the back of the dimly lit space. All the men sat in tight rows facing the operations officer on his podium set to one side of a large screen that had maps and images of ground-to-air rockets on it. The young officer, Phelps, gave his orders in the usual manner, beginning with the ground, situation and then the meat of the mission itself. All straightforward enough: destroy the Chinese ground-to-air missiles. The secondary missions included rescuing any hostages and repatriating them. All of the execution phases had to be visually recorded using digital equipment. To satisfy the usual legalities. Ops had prepared a legitimate excuse to kill as many of the jihadists as they could. It was an indictment of the times, the need for an excuse. It had been presented as a necessary strategy. The bad guys could not be given the time or space to regroup and mount a counter-assault while the men were distracted by the second phase of the task, which was the pirate village on the coast and the kidnap victims. Etcetera, etcetera.
The secondary pirate assault phase was intended to be less bloody and represented the humanitarian side of the operation. Which was partially because it would be the main cover story. As far as the media were concerned, the operation would be reported as purely a hostage rescue task, with no mention of the jihadists. Because they needed to keep the whole portable ground-to-air missile story secret. The al-Qaeda-backed operation was an international one and they had many players who had to be reeled in. You couldn