A Deniable Death
Gerald Seymour
Three parties have an interest in getting rid of Rashid Armajan – the ‘Engineer’. He is the Iranian bomb maker whose knowledge of technology and sophisticated designs keeps the enemy one step ahead. First there is the ‘Cousin’ who has been patiently seeking him out, then there is the ‘Friend’ who will kill him given the opportunity and, with troops in the firing line, the UK are prepared to play their part and provide surveillance resources. All undercover, all deniable.
Len Gibbons has recruited two men for the job; ‘Badger’ Baxter, a specialist from the police and ‘Foxy’ Foulkes, a war weary soldier. No need to tell them much. In the name of national interest get them on their way - into Iraq and then Iran. Abigail Jones, the woman who runs the intelligence side of the show in Iraq, has four men who provide her security. All she has to do is be ready and stay the right side of the Iraq/Iran border.
Inserted into a danger zone, the two experts in deception are at the mercy of their enemies and puppet-masters alike.
The Gang
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An opportunity presents itself for Len Gibbons to make good a failed reputation. He is charged with over-seeing a most sensitive combined operation to eliminate a target. First they need definitive intelligence from on the ground in Iran but the previous local source has been rumbled…taken out. He needs to get a surveillance team in place. In and out without a trace – deniable. Even his own meeting with the Minister, the ‘Cousin’ and the ‘Friend’ is deniable – the Minister’s diary already shows he was elsewhere at the time.
Two very different talents are what Len Gibbons has to contend with. ‘Badger’ Baxter, so skilled in holding cover that animals have been known to mark him out as part of their territory. Some say you can still smell how much he blended into their world. ‘Foxy’ Foulkes is the man with all the electronic surveillance gizmos and the language skills to match. Problem: they both have attitude and a definite outlook on life. Difficult when they are going to have to be so up close and personal.
The Target
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One way to stop the carnage is to over-run the enemy. Not easy in Iraq, where they can slip away into the shadows and the locals see your presence as a mixed blessing. The prize would be to find the bomb-maker. Get to the skilled pair of hands the enemy rely on for their increasingly sophisticated bombs. Kill him.
Kill the ‘Engineer’ and the enemy will suffer a catastrophic and strategic setback. A real possibility now the security forces have found out who he is and where he is.
Protected and kept well away from the front lines, he lives by a lakeside in Iran with his family. And family is the only weak spot. His wife has cancer and treatment has gone as far as it can. There is no hope for her at home, but there is elsewhere. His masters have agreed to let them both out of the country so she can have lifesaving surgery. That will be the moment to act, provided only that the time and place can be found out without the enemy being aware.
Echo Foxtrot
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Abigail Jones, one of the Cousin’s, has spent two years tracking the bombmaker and extended her term of service in Iraq to see this covert operation through to a conclusion. Codename Echo Foxtrot, she will be the one to brief and run the surveillance team from the UK. Special in so many ways, she is protected by four men from the private security services – but with names like Shagger, Corky, Hamfist and Harding they are hardly drawn from American stock.
The plan… Get close to the ‘Engineer’ at home and eavesdrop, knowing that discovery must lead to death. There can be no signals sent or received, no possibility of rescue. There can be no incursion into Iran by an armed group. The best Echo Foxtrot can do is site her group in the marshlands, masquerading as naturalists making a study of threatened species. Even so, they can only stay close to the Iranian border for four days. That’s all the time Badger and Foxy have before they must get back to their rendezvous to report in. Courage and loyalty are tested to the limit and deceit and bribery all figure in the outcome.
When the endgame is played out Badger reckons it was ‘not in my name’ but then it was never in anyone’s name.
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