Amid sporadic fire from their targets, Polat’s men started to carry out his orders.
“Sir, the hostiles are escaping along the dry riverbed. They’re hidden by the undergrowth!” one of Polat’s men reported shortly afterwards.
“Can you see who is shooting?” Polat demanded as he and Nat reached the man’s position.
“Not yet sir,” the solider replied. “We need to move forward.”
Polat and Nat joined the soldier and wormed their way forward along the riverbed, the solider taking the lead. Everyone else remained out of the way of the sporadic fire.
It had been a long time since Nat had wriggled towards enemy lines, and the smell of dry earth set his heart racing. He ignored the dust that rose and clogged his nostrils, or filled his mouth – that was all part of the experience.
“Bugger me!” the soldier suddenly exclaimed. “They’ve mounted remotely operated machine guns on tripods – there’s no one there!”
Nat and Polat pushed forward and stared at the situation. “How do we…” Polat started to ask when Nat reached over, grabbed a grenade from the soldier’s belt and lobbed it expertly at the guns. A flash, loud boom and large plume of earth and dust rose into the air, along with the remnants of the machine guns.
“Move!” ordered Polat to everyone. “I want four with me following the riverbed. Another six, on foot along each bank. The rest, back in the vehicles and race to the border to cut them off. Once there, block the river and keep an eye on both banks.”
Polat and Nat led the four soldiers along the dry riverbed. Moving as quickly as they dared, trying to catch up with their fleeing adversaries, but wary of further traps. As with all small rivers, there were many bends, each one having to be taken with caution.
We’ll never catch them at this rate, Nat realised, while Polat carefully picked his way around another bend. He’s good, thorough, and well trained, just not field experienced! When they approached the next bend Nat tapped Polat on the shoulder to indicate that he would lead. Polat’s eyes gave away his conflicting thoughts: reticence to cede the lead to a non-Turk and relief not to risk facing a potential barrage of bullets. Following an eventual nod, Nat moved forward in a crouch. Now this is what I trained for! This is what I’m about – sod my age! I’m equal to the youngsters of today!
He barely hesitated at the bend, found a good foothold for a brace, and pushed down hard. Nat leaped to the other side of the riverbed and rolled behind a bolder with his assault rifle raised, ready to take on any opponent. But there was no one. “All clear!” He then immediately set off trying to make up time.
A further three bends in the river passed with equally uneventful results and Nat had to suppress his impatience in order not to become reckless. Blast, the suspects really have got a lead on us! At the fourth bend, as Nat rolled into his upright position he glimpsed the back of one of the fleeing suspects disappearing around the next bend.
Resisting the temptation to squeeze off a quick and wild shot he reported, “They are round the next bend,” and signalled everyone to move up. “We can catch them.”
“I hope so,” Polat replied. “We are only a few hundred metres from the border!”
Dashing to the next bend, his assault rifle held at the ready, Nat peered round a rock to see the eight fugitives huddled together behind some bushes, peering towards the border and in deep, urgent conversation.
“The fugitives are holding back for some reason,” he whispered to Polat. “The rest of your men must be ahead. I will take the other side of the river,” nodding to another depression in the ground that could provide some cover.
Polat nodded and Nat rolled across the dry earth. As he did, the fugitives heard the movement and swung round, firing as they did. Fragments of earth and stone were kicked up as the bullets hammered into the ground near Nat’s head. Polat and a soldier opened fire from behind their rock, scattering the eight hostiles who then exposed themselves to Polat’s colleagues further ahead.
Within seconds, three of the fugitives lay face down in the dirt. Hemmed in, the other five started firing wildly in all directions as they tried to scramble up the sides of the river bed, desperate to escape. Dangerous with the bullets flying, but easy targets for the picking! Nat contemplated. Taking a huge risk, he eased himself up and started firing, noting that Polat and one of the soldiers had had the same thought.
Moments later, five more bodies rolled down the banks and the firing ceased, leaving the quiet moans of at least one injured man.
Nat and the others approached their quarry, heads bowed to avoid the thick vegetation growing over the riverbed, guns at the ready in case of a surprise attack, but none came. Identifying Kamal among the three injured fugitives was easy – his clothes were not the uniform worn by all the others.
“Who are you and what nationality?” barked Polat in Turkish. “Why did you run?” Kamal simply stared up, hate and pain in his eyes. “We will find whatever it is you left others to destroy in the compound – they have been stopped.”
“Ha! That will tell you nothing, but the world will soon know. My revenge will happen, it cannot be stopped! All will know the name of Kamal Jabara! I will be revered by my nation! The world will shudder!”
“How will we know when something happens that it is you instead of a different terrorist?”
“There has been nothing greater! … It has started! … Death to you!” upon saying those last words, Kamal lunged up at Polat with a long, curved knife that he swept from beneath his cloak.
Polat jerked back, the knife slicing through his outer garments, but not penetrating his body armour. A loud crack and the smell or cordite suddenly filled the air: Polat’s instinctive, defensive reaction had ended Kamal’s life. “Damn! I wanted him alive!” he cursed, quickly kneeling down to search for any sign of life.
“Don’t worry, Tugra,” Nat said. “He was never going to talk!”
I need to inform Steven! Nat thought. Whatever those chemicals are to be used for, Kamal thinks it has already started! He quickly typed out an urgent text to Gurning and Laura, sure that Laura would share it with both Rob and David.
* * *
While Laura had been making her numerous telephone calls, Gurning was locked in heated discussions in the underground conference room that is COBRA.
“How much time do we have?” the Prime Minister asked having heard Gurning’s briefing and numerous calls from around the table of twenty four people that a state of emergency be invoked.
“We really don’t know,” Gurning replied. “It appears that the production of chemicals has been going on for quite a long time, but it is not clear how long the terrorists have been shipping the materials, nor how long it will take to build the devices to mix and deliver the chemical attack. The simplest devices could be quite quick to build, but would only affect a small area.”
“Meaning what?” the Secretary of State for Health queried.
“If in a heavily populated area, it could affect a few thousand people,” Gurning said sombrely. “Unfortunately, that figure is potentially at the lower-end of the scale, depending upon scale of attack.”
“So what do our intelligence services think these terrorists will do?” the Home Secretary asked, scathingly.
The DG cut in to spare Gurning some of the vitriol, “There is no intelligence one way or the other for their intentions, but given what we do know about this group, I expect them to go for maximum impact.”
“Meaning?!”
“A means of delivery for maximum casualties. That suggests fewer larger devices rather than smaller ones, the latter risking a greater chance of discovery and therefore ease of identification of other devices.”
“So what do we do?”
“We permit our intelligence services and associated police units to focus maximum resource on this, but must not go public – that could cause untold panic,” the Metropolitan Police Commissioner cut in, supporting his intelligence colleagues. “We have to be prepared, however.”
