James Barrington - Foxbat

About five hundred metres off the coast the crewman eased the inflatable to a virtual standstill and cut the engine. The boat rocked gently on the waves while the two men scanned the shore through image-intensifying binoculars, looking and listening for any sign of life or movement, but the coastline appeared almost deserted. They could see a few lights – probably from oil lamps, since the mains electricity supply in North Korea is, to put it mildly, erratic – signifying isolated dwellings, but there were no large settlements in this region.

At a gesture from Yi Min-Ho, the crewman restarted the engine and steered towards the beach. This was perhaps the most dangerous phase of the entire operation, and they proceeded very cautiously, checking all around them – not just on the beach ahead – as they neared landfall. Both knew the fate that would await them if they were caught by the North Korean security forces.

The moment the inflatable touched the beach, the crewman jumped out and held the bow steady while Yi Min-Ho shrugged his haversack onto his back and climbed out, his boots crunching on the pebbles. Without a backward glance, the crewman immediately pushed the inflatable away from the beach, and climbed back into it.

Yi looked back once, checking that the boat was well clear of the strand and already heading south-west to rendezvous with the fishing boat, then he tramped across to the cover of the trees that bordered the shore. There he stopped, put down his haversack and took out the Kyocera satellite phone and the GPS receiver to check precisely his current position. He’d landed almost exactly where they’d calculated, and this he hoped was a good omen. He next switched on the Kyocera, made a call that lasted less than fifteen seconds, then turned the unit off.

Yi hefted the haversack onto his back again, tucked the GPS receiver into one of his pockets, and started walking. His destination lay some fifteen kilometres directly to the east, but he would probably have to walk about double that distance. He couldn’t cover the entire route in darkness, but the final section of his journey would be in the hill country south of Kungnak-san, where he could probably travel safely in daylight. If nothing unexpected occurred, he should be in position sometime the following morning.

Aïn Oussera Air Base, Algeria

The base looked almost deserted in the ghostly green light of the image intensifier, but Richter could see at least a dozen sentries posted around the hangars ranged inside the boundary fence. Most seemed to be smoking, the sudden flares of brightness unmistakable through the NVGs. That was good news from the point of view of the SAS team, because sentries with lighted cigarettes give away their positions every time they draw in a lungful of tobacco smoke, but also have degraded night vision and are less likely to be fully alert.

‘That’s it,’ Richter murmured into his boom microphone, ‘the second one from the left.’

The satellite pictures they’d studied at Hereford had clearly identified the hangar that Six and the Americans wanted investigating. They’d also shown, on three separate passes, that it normally had sentries posted on all of its four sides, which presented a problem, but Richter thought he’d worked out a way around that.

‘Still happy with the plan?’ Dekker asked.

‘I’m not happy with any of this, but I don’t see any other way of getting a look inside. Do you?’

‘No, not unless we take out about half those sentries first. And since the Head-shed’s very keen to ensure nobody knows we were here, that’s not an option.’

‘Right,’ Richter said, ‘we’d better get on with it.’

To the front of their position, a wadi ran diagonally towards the airfield’s boundary fence. It looked around four or five feet deep, enough to conceal a crouching man, and was the obvious way to reach the fence undetected, which now made Dekker nervous.

‘If I was in charge of security at this place,’ he said, ‘I’d stick a handful of Claymores in that ditch. I think our best approach is straight to the fence, keeping low. The guards are positioned around the hangars, not on the boundary, and there aren’t any watchtowers or dogs to cause a problem.’

Dekker turned aside for a short conversation with his number two – a small wiry sergeant-major named Wallace – then he briefed his men. Just he and Richter, accompanied by a trooper carrying a collapsible aluminium ladder, would cross the open ground to the airfield boundary, while the rest of the men stayed well back. If they reached the fence undetected, Richter would use the ladder to get inside. Then it had to be all up to him, since he was the deniable asset, carrying no possible means of identification. The SAS troopers would protect his progress, of course, but under no circumstances would they themselves enter the base. That had been made very clear at Hereford. Richter must get inside, carry out his surveillance, and get out again, alone.

Richter checked his gear. Like the SAS troopers, he was wearing all-black combat clothing, but he wasn’t carrying the usual assortment of weapons, ammunition and equipment. He had a Sig 226 in a holster strapped to his thigh, which he really hoped he wouldn’t have to use, because that would blow the mission; a set of compact binoculars; a collapsible jemmy; a coil of thin but very strong climbing rope, two webbing straps and a harness; and a high-specification digital camera inside his jacket. And that, apart from a slim leather wallet containing a selection of specialized lock-picking tools, was pretty much all he had. Stealth, not firepower, was his most important weapon here.

‘Ready?’ Dekker asked, and Richter nodded. ‘Right, let’s go. All callsigns, heads-up. Spook’s going in, immediate.’

Dekker led the way, sliding backwards from the top of the rise until he could stand up safely out of sight of the air base. A trooper appeared beside him and placed his 203 against a rock. The ladder, folded and fitted to the frame of his Bergen, was a cumbersome and bulky load, and he didn’t want to carry the rifle as well.

There were dips and rises on the desert floor, and clumps of rocks between their position and the perimeter of the air base. Dekker quickly sketched out a route that would make the best possible use of what cover there was available, then set off. Richter followed, the trooper with the ladder behind him. The three men proceeded slowly, only one at a time, so as to minimize the possibility that their movements would be seen. The nearest sentry was only about one hundred yards away, which was far too close for comfort.

They were forty yards from the fence when Dekker suddenly dropped flat, followed by the others. He’d seen headlights approaching from inside the airfield. The vehicle came closer, apparently following the perimeter track. It passed directly in front of them without slowing down, and they could see it was an open jeep or similar with a machine-gun mounted on the back.

‘Probably just a roving patrol,’ Dekker suggested, his voice sounding alarmingly loud in Richter’s earpiece. ‘No doubt checking that all the sentries are still awake.’

‘Which they are, unfortunately,’ Richter replied.

They resumed their slow and steady progress, and five minutes later the three of them were crouching in a slight dip in the ground only fifteen feet from the fence. It was a typical low-security barrier: steel posts about ten feet high set into concrete bases, with heavy-duty wire netting strung between them, supported by horizontal steel cables.

‘No sign of sensors,’ Dekker observed, ‘and it’s definitely not electrified, so you won’t fry when you touch it.’

‘That’s encouraging, at least.’