Chapter 40

The four made their way to Steve’s office in the Operation’s building, weary after nearly twenty hours of flight, from Barbados and then Kandahar. Broken up only by a few hours at Fenton to pick up their gear.

Mike was with Steve when they entered, Steve began. “At the moment we still have not traced who is, or has, supplied the SAM’s, although we have a good lead. Stingers have been ruled out. Our best guess is that either SA-7s or more likely SA-14s were used.

Russia supplied them to Egypt and Syria during their run in with Israel; we think they came from there. No arms dealer in their right mind would sell them knowing how the secret services would react. So it has to be a fanatic with a pathological hatred of the West. We have it narrowed it down to two suspects, one in either country. But these men still like to make money; you could say that takes the edge off their hatred. We have established that if such weapons came on the market the asking price would be in the neighbourhood of a quarter million dollars.”

Mike took over. “Since they have lost this year’s revenue from the opium, their cash flow has been sadly depleted, there can’t be much left of last year’s cash. We don’t suspect that they could afford too many at that price. At the moment the Egyptian is being entertained by a foreign group of the secret services. For obvious reasons I can’t say more than that. Suffice it to say that what they are interested in is how many weapons were sold, and how they got into the country. The Syrian was picked up twenty four hours ago and is being transported to an interrogation centre; we expect to have answers within three days.”

“All the A10s have been upgraded,” Steve said. “The SA-7 and 14 are heat seeking missiles; it takes a skilled operator several seconds for it to lock on to a target before it can be launched. Your threat systems will let you know as soon as one is switched on, prior to launching, it should give you five to ten seconds early warning. The A10’s have been fitted with the latest flare cartridges that far out rate the heat from your engines. The fact that they are so willing to spend this sort of cash shows what a significant threat the A10 poses to their operations, that’s got to be a compliment of sorts to you.”

“Do you have any idea what area they are likely to be used in?” Robert asked.

“Not really,” Steve answered, “the one that took out Bob was fired up by the dam.”

“What about those firing, they must have had training in their use,” he asked again.

“We suspect it was Iranians, either using them or having trained them,” Mike replied.

They found Dave, Dick and Jim in the mess having a beer; their flying over for this tour. All three showed the strain they had been under.

“Sorry to have dragged you back early, Robbie,” Dave said with an apologetic smile that didn’t quite work.

“Don’t worry about it Dave, you all have been in the thick of it,” Robert said.

“You’ll have to watch out, they’re cute; you never know when they are setting you up. We had another fired at Dick two days ago, the flare took it out.” Dave said.

“Did you get him?” He asked.

“No he fired it from a compound with civvies all around, Robbie,” Dave continued, “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m seeing Marge when I get back.”

Robert smiled, “Not at all Dave, but if I can give you some advice I should eat lots of steak, it’s been my experience that those Highlanders can be quite wearing.”

Once back at Camp Bastion, Robert called the three together for a meeting.

“Until the threat from the SAM’s has been neutralised we will fly in pairs, the lead aircraft will undertake the orders of the LAC. The second has only one job, if a SAM is launched he kills it. The lead aircraft can take care of itself, regarding the inbound missile. Needless to say the second aircraft has to fire with pinpoint accuracy, there may be civvies about. So who wants to do what?”

It was soon established that Robert and Tim would fly shotgun, they being more accurate with the 30mm canon.

Four days later he received a coded message from Steve: three launchers with three missiles each had been sold, it also told how they had entered the country. It ended by stating that the Syrian was now out of business, permanently.

To draw the Taliban out, Robert asked Steve to leak the fact that the people responsible for their loss of opium were now back flying at Bastion.

It didn’t take long for the Taliban to react. Three days later a missile was launched at Tom whilst attacking a Taliban position near a village. Tim had spotted the flash from the missiles rocket motor on top of a flat roofed building and reduced the firer and launcher to pulp with a twenty round burst. Tom deployed his flares banking tightly as the missile exploded on one of the flares.

For the next two weeks the Taliban laid low regarding their SAM weapons, although they still had missions to fly.

Robert and Bill were flying cover for a ground convoy when it entered a narrow valley, half way along it, it came under fire from the enemy firing RPG’s and small arms. Bill dropped down to begin his attack run, Robert two miles behind covering him. His threat warning lit up, someone had switched on a launcher; he searched the area but could not see anything other than the rocks. Then he saw the smoke emanating from between two large rocks he switched over to Hellfire getting a lock on the rocks and fired. As the smoke cleared he saw a figure crawling out from the remains of the rocks dragging what could only be a launcher behind it, he switched to guns. The figure disappeared into a pink mist as the 30mm canon shredded it and the launcher. That’s for Bob you bastard, he thought as he pulled up.