The Protocols of Carstairs
Copyright© 2021 by Ron Dudderie
Chapter 21: To Find the Truth You Must Leave Your Cave
“Holy shit. Nice find, Carstairs!”
Gerard was laying flat on his stomach, holding a pair of night vision binoculars as he peered through the oval hole.
“Team effort, I’d say.”
“Oh don’t be so British! You found the cave AND the base! Look at that ... Why the hell isn’t that fort visible on the satellite imagery? It’s humungous!”
“Well, either the images are out of date or they’re wrong. Lots of stuff on Google Maps gets censored. Army bases, mostly. And let’s face it, this must be the easiest terrain to airbrush something out of.”
“Airbrush ... You’re showing your age, Granddad,” said Gerard, still peering out of the hole. I’d had a go through the binoculars as well. The image could be set to either green or brown. Either way, it was superb. But then, we’ve all seen this type of footage in movies, haven’t we? Thing is, directors often use regular camera footage and add a few filters. They also make it fuzzier, because that’s what we as an audience somehow expect. We, on the other hand, were looking at amazingly crisp imagery. Amina was a few metres behind us, looking at the same images on Gerard’s laptop. A thin cable ran across a big boulder between the largest room of the cave and our lookout point.
“Don’t move so fast, I am trying to draw,” she said.
“Sorry. But you don’t have to draw. Just press ‘printscreen’ and it will save an image on the desktop.”
“I don’t want it on the desktop, I want it on paper.”
Let’s have a go at giving you an idea of what we were looking at. Do you have any idea what an Arabic fort looks like? Picture a square building, about forty by forty metres. Forty metres, for those reading this in Liberia or Myanmar, is 130 feet. Picture solid walls that seem to be made of brown clay (and probably are, at least from the outside) and are about 8 metres high, or 3 floors and change. Imagine slightly higher, rounded towers on each corner. Lookout holes are rare and mostly consist of vertical slits. There’s a wooden gate, of course, and a walkway behind a parapet, so that the fort can be defended by archers or riflemen, who can hide behind the battlements. In this case the crenels were triangular, which looks cool but offers far less protection. But then, this was clearly a relatively new building. It was built to look nice, not to offer any kind of meaningful protection in the age of long range artillery and tanks.
A very large shade sail covered the entire courtyard, which made perfect sense. That would still let through a lot of light, but keep much of the sun’s heat away. It was a large, single piece of mostly light brown fabric, but it seemed to have some sort of irregular pattern printed on it.
This fort, so new that it probably still had a price tag attached to it somewhere, stood on a rock plateau about six to eight times its size. The plateau, essentially a flattened hilltop, rose at least fifteen metres above the valley floor below in all directions, except for a small triangular slope that allowed for vehicles to negotiate the height difference through a series of four switchbacks. A regular car could probably negotiate those turns, but a truck would have to seesaw, like a narrow gauge railway on the side of a mountain.
The fort didn’t sit in the middle of the plateau, but about twenty metres from its furthest edge. It wasn’t the only structure, either. At the top of the slope stood a guard tower, not even slightly in harmony with its surroundings. It was just a functional thing: a bunch of wooden pillars with diagonal beams, a fixed stepladder on one side and a Portakabin-type hut on top, with windows to all sides except for a small section where I suspected a toilet was located. It had a metal walkway running around it and a very, very large AC-unit on its roof, because otherwise the occupant would be dead in an hour. The glass was mirrored, probably with some sort of reflective foil to help keep out the sun. A digital indicator in the top left corner of the binoculars told me that the distance to the tower was exactly 999 metres. (At least the US military has gone metric.)
The other major structure on the field was a barrack. Not two barracks: one building, used to house soldierly types. Therefore a barrack. I’ll get to the occupants in a bit.
The barrack stood right on the edge of the cliff, so that side only had windows. It had the same brown colour as the fort, but was clearly constructed from modern, easy to assemble elements. It was only one floor tall and had two sturdy AC-units on its roof. I also saw two round ventilator holes in the walls at the back, presumably for a kitchen or a shower. I’d put the whole building at twenty by eight metres.
To the left, on a separate, much smaller plateau connected to the larger one with a narrow, natural bridge, stood a large, modern looking villa. Perhaps a much more luxurious version of the barrack would be a better description, because it had an illuminated pool with a large patio, a roof filled with sun panels, some landscaping around it and it was two floors tall. One side had a balcony, but that was the most extravagant thing about the entire structure: no flood lights, no front door with pillars, no large windows, no fancy roof. Just a big, walled garden with a pool, partly covered by a wooden roof.
Now that we know the buildings and their location, let’s talk about people and vehicles. The guard tower was manned. A guard had come outside as we were watching, and seemed to be enjoying a cigarette as he leaned on the railing of the metal grate walkway with his forearms.
Parked next to the barrack stood three vehicles: two simple white Mazda vans, of which millions are used in the Arabic world to take people to and from work. Each van would seat about eight people. They might not have been Mazda vans: the night vision system wasn’t THAT good. The odd, compact face of the car certainly suggested a Japanese make.
Next to the vans stood a 4x4 which looked a lot like the one I’d seen behind the large fuel trucks I passed. And speaking of those fuel trucks: one of them stood next to the fort, with two men walking around and keeping an eye on a large hose that fed into a filling point at the base of one of the fort towers. I didn’t see the other one, but it might have been parked behind the fort, ready to roll up once this one was empty.
With Gerard acting as our camera operator we looked at everything in great detail. The small building near the edge was classified as a barrack when Gerard zoomed in and Amina saw a bunk bed through one of the windows. Gerard spotted that the tower guard wasn’t wearing a rifle over his shoulder, but had one leaning against the wall near the door of his hut. Amina noted some symbols on the roof of one of the fort towers that indicated it was likely to contain a prayer room. Clearly they were both more adept than I was at looking for specific details.
“You know, that is a hell of a lot of cooking oil for one site,” said Gerard, as we observed the fuel truck. A man had just emerged from the barrack with a cigarette, which made one of the pump operators run over and shoo him away.
“Yeah. Even if that entire fort is also filled with people who need to charge their phones and want to watch a bit of telly, one of those trucks could power a heavy duty generator for at least a month. And this sure looks like one of the two I saw on the way here.”
“There were double tracks,” remarked Amina. “And you should have noted the license plates.”
“I can’t write down the license plates of every truck I pass!” I objected.
“It should be a habit to notice anything out of the ordinary. Even if you didn’t think the fuel trucks were important, you did tell us you noticed a jeep with four men who seemed ready for a fight. And instead of looking at the license plate, you made a funny face at them.”
“Okay, but I got kicked out of spy school for a reason. Anyway, what uses a lot of power?”
“Maybe a small nuclear generator? I mean, if they’re building bombs in there...” said Gerard.
“You’d think a nuclear generator would produce its own power. That entire compound doesn’t run off just those solar panels on top of the villa. Especially now it’s dark.”
“Yeah. Anyway, I think it’s time to kick this upstairs. Now I definitely want a fly-over tomorrow, from an airplane if need be. Or a fucking balloon. Carstairs, since this is technically your op, do you want to inform your handler first?”
“My handler plays tennis with your boss. But perhaps you’re right. I’ll get my own phone from the car and give him a ring, if I can get a signal. Why don’t you whip up a nice little PowerPoint presentation on that thing and get ready to send it to John?”
“Okay.”
Then it occurred to me that there was another agency represented here.
“Amina? Do you want to call this in to ... whoever?”
“Wait, wait, wait! What are you asking HER for? What’s the Ayatollah gonna do, other than shout this off the rooftops in five seconds flat? Or worse, try to nuke this place before it nukes HIM? Nonono, if the CIA and MI6 are involved, that’s more than enough. I can get court-martialled for just talking to her!”
“Calm down,” answered Amina. “We have almost no assets in this country and my bosses are hardly going to send in a strike team based on this. Besides, it would have to cross the Gulf and a few hundred kilometres of desert unseen. There is no immediate threat to Iran and no way for us to intervene. My report can wait a bit longer. Sometimes I don’t file one for a month.”
“Good. Thanks,” said Gerard, relieved.
Outside it wasn’t exactly pleasant, but at least I could stand upright without the fear of bumping my head. I switched my regular phone, which had no signal whatsoever here, back on to look up the number on which to reach Edgebaston and then called it on my satellite phone. He didn’t pick up, so I left a message. I kept it vague, because I had no idea if this was encrypted. Probably a little, in that the signal to the satellite and then on to the ground station would be encrypted, but after that it was anyone’s guess.
“This is 327. That site I went to have a look at is hot. We may have a big problem on our hands. I’m here with one of our friends, and he will be contacting John with the details. We are observing the site from a safe location. Even so, I will want an extraction pretty soon. In fact, as soon as someone who knows what the hell they’re doing steps in, I’m tapping out. And I may bring a friend. Thank you and God bless Her Majesty, long may she reign, hip hip? Hooray!”
Then I hummed ‘God Save the Queen’ until the voice mail timed out. When I turned around, Amina was standing there, grinning.
“Were you singing?!”
“Humming. God Save the Queen. Do you know it?”
“Please don’t sing it. Maybe there are patrols out there. Did you say you were going to bring a friend?”
“Yes. I mean, you can do what you like, but I’m assuming this is the end of your assignment. How would you even get back? You can’t drive here, can’t even go into a shop alone. I wouldn’t want to leave you stranded in the desert and I’m pretty sure the CIA won’t give you a lift, so...”
Amina came up to me and put her arms around my waist. This was somewhat unexpected, but not unpleasant. I’m a human being. I occasionally need to be touched, same as anyone.
“That’s very sweet of you. You were a very kind man when you were playing the Professor, but I’ve learned that was not part of your act.”
“I wasn’t actually playing any kind of professor. I just replaced the old one and I seem to have inherited his job title.”
She moved in a bit closer.
“Yes. I kept calling you Professor, just because I liked how it seemed to embarrass you. In fact, I considered sleeping with you several times...”
“Did you, now?”
I was genuinely surprised.
“Yes. But it was never safe enough. And at first I really believed you were still mourning your late wife. I take it she wasn’t real?”
“No. Well, she’s a real person. But not my wife. And very much alive, as far as I know. I am a widower, though. I tapped into that experience whenever my late wife came up. So...”
It would have been polite to ask something about her now, but any question I could think of sounded creepy.
“Do you think ... Gerard could be persuaded to sleep in the car tonight?” she asked.
Not even I needed an explanation for that.
“Uhm ... I have no idea. But apart from the fact that I don’t want to do it in a cave in the desert, I am actually married in real life. And ... I’ll be going home, soon.”
She pouted, playfully.
“Really? I showered only a few hours ago. That won’t get better after one or even two nights camping in the desert. And I have been here, alone, for a LONG time, Professor. You know how they keep an eye on women.”
“I feel your pain, trust me.”
“So did you ever have fun with that French girl from the kitchen? The baker?”
“Anaïs? How do you know about her?”
“I clean your room. I talk to everyone. I came in right after a piece of pastry exploded in your face. And I saw her getting into your car and leaving the palace with you shortly afterwards. And I thought: ‘Well, well, well. Our quiet, dignified professor likes to play around a little.’ But then, suddenly, you were gone.”
“To prison.”
“Yes, I know. But what did you do with her? Where did you go on a date? It must have been difficult, right?”
“Yeah. You remember those two dead Mutaween in the desert? They were found a few days after you saw us leaving the palace.”
Her eyes rolled back a little, as she recalled the event and matched it to the date.
“YES!”
“Well, that was how our date ended. Those two bastards came into our hotel room and busted me. She got away. They wanted to interrogate me in the desert.”
I’ve mentioned it before, but the urge to spill all of one’s darkest secrets really is the policeman’s best friend. My face is glowing as I type this, but if Edwin ever reads this it hopefully serves as a reminder of this human weakness.
“And you ... But ... they were butchered!” she said, though her smile was appreciative rather than shocked.
“Yeah. Well, I had to make a mess of it. Make it seem like they turned on each other. Not my proudest moment, but a nice illustration of the trouble you can get into when you let yourself be distracted by sex. Right now we are allies, but I don’t know the first thing about the Iranian government and their intentions towards ... well, anything, really. Gerard had a point: if we let you file a report, Tehran might well decide to launch a missile at this place. You have to assume they have the ability to launch from other locations than downtown Tehran.”
“Yes, but we are usually downwind from Saudi Arabia. Even if a nuclear device went off here, the fall-out would soon reach us. So ... no fun and games for us?”
“No. Tempted, but no. I’ll deal with this last thing and then I’m out of this game.”
Amina giggled.
“I’ve said that twice in my life so far. I had eight months in Berlin all to myself before I went back in.”
“Berlin wasn’t work?”
“No. I love Iran, but I don’t particularly want to live there. I did mean it when I said I wanted to go to a real pub with you, and do a quiz. Wouldn’t that be fun?! It’s a big world. This job is a chance to see it. For me, at least.”
Gerard submitted a written report along with some pictures and set up his binoculars on a stand in front of the observation hole. They would record movement and store it on an SD-card. We’d review the file in the morning. Then we blocked the draughty crack with Gerard’s black equipment bags and whatever else we had lying around. As we only had two rubber mats and Amina and I had already spent one night in the car, it was decided Gerard would sleep on the rear seat that night. There was no real need for a blanket when we went to sleep, but it can get quite cold at night in the desert, so we used the big beach towels Amina had bought and didn’t bother keeping much distance between us. We knew where we stood. It took me an hour to get to sleep and my shoulder, never the same after my ordeal with Kelly at Tower Bridge, hurt like a motherfucker.
I was the last one to wake up, just after nine in the morning. Gerard was frying eggs. He and Amina were drinking coffee outside. It looked to be a scorching day, but for now our car was in the shade.
“Morning.”
“Hey, there he is. M to the I to the 6. Coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
I always drink tea in the morning and Nescafe is just revolting. It smells nice so I fell for it again last night, but not now. How people can drink that is beyond me.
“Water, then,” decided Amina. And she was right, of course. She hadn’t brought tea. I could hardly blame her for that, because she’d brought a hundred things that were far more important. But the water was tepid now. We had some cans and leftover burgers in the cooler, but that space was too precious for water.
“Amina brought a folding table,” said Gerard. “How cool is THAT? I can put my laptop on it!”
“I know. I loaded it into the car. Should have bought seats, too.”
“Not a morning person, our friend,” smiled Gerard. “And we let you sleep late!”
“Yesterday he got to bathe in the sea. He was alright after that.”
“We’re at least sixty miles from the sea now. I suggest you wear a hat if you’re walking to the beach,” joked Gerard.
“Oh yeah ... My hat,” I grumbled, and went to fetch it. My Panama hat had suffered somewhat. It was decidedly less white than when I bought it, but on balance that was probably a good thing. Inside I noticed Gerard’s laptop had been shut down. It was hot as balls in that cave, by the way. How had I slept there?
“Will we be getting a satellite view?” I asked.
“I’m in no hurry. We’ve got a better view here than any satellite can get us, except for what is at the back of that fort. I think at this point it’s more important that the Pentagon has a look at those images, so I shut down the machine to save the battery.”
“Oh fuck, battery. How much have you got left?”
“Six hours, at least. And look...”
He pointed at a place just beyond the shade, where a red fabric square with sixteen black rectangles sewn into it lay flat on the ground.
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