Cobra 405 Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Damien Lewis

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Epigraph

  Author’s Notes

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Part Two

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thireen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  End Note

  Copyright

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  1976, war-torn Beirut. In a breathtaking act of daring, an unknown band of armed men blast their way into the Imperial Bank of Beirut. Over the next 48 hours they load up three trucks with gold bullion, and the raiders and the loot disappear forever.

  Two weeks earlier, a young SAS Major newly arrived in The Regiment had tasked his men with scoping out just such a Beirut bank robbery – strictly as an exercise only. But when SAS veteran Luke Kilbride presented his plan for the heist, the Major tore it apart.

  Kilbride and his men decided to prove the Major wrong.

  But whilst the heist went like clockwork, that was just the start of things going badly wrong for Kilbride and his unit. Forced into hiding the loot, they make a quick getaway.

  Now, Kilbride and his men are planning their return. But a powerful and ruthless enemy is hell bent on reaching the gold first. So begins a race against time to retrieve the loot before the deadly Black Assassins can catch up with them.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Damien Lewis is a journalist and documentary film maker and has spent twenty years reporting from conflict zones. He has worked for the Telegraph, the Guardian and the BBC. Slave and Operation Certain Death have both been Sunday Times bestsellers. He lives in London.

  Also by Damien Lewis

  Slave

  Operation Certain Death

  Desert Claw

  Bloody Heroes

  For the late A. J. Hogan, recently departed this world. Rest in peace.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Special thanks to my agent Andrew Lownie for sharing a maverick sense of adventure in the literary world; to my editors, Tim Andrews and Mark Booth – whose boundless enthusiasm for this story helped propel it to completion; to Ron Beard, Robert Nichols, Neil Bradford, Jonathan Sissons, Rina Gill and all the production team at Random House. Special thanks to Mike M (‘The Kiwi’), Kev S and Andy E for your input into the story. Special thanks to Tara Wigley, for the inspirational read. My thanks to Burt Joubert, for his advice on the aeronautical elements of this story; my gratitude to Fran and Alan Trafford, for his comments on the manuscript from a submariner’s perspective, and more generally. Special thanks to Lisa Canty, my PA and assistant, for the research; very special thanks to Steve Clarke, for commenting on the dog-related sections of the early drafts whilst sharing a cold Whitstable Ale or two. My thanks to Clara McGowan and all the pupils at Saint James National School, for the inspirational visit on World Book Day. My thanks once again to Adrian Acres and Sinead Brophy, who read early drafts and provided invaluable critical comments. My gratitude to Tim Bailey for his advice on the sub-aqua elements of the story. Again my thanks to Don McClen for reading early drafts and for your comments and support. Very special thanks to Theodore Gray, for sharing with me his expertise and powers of lateral thinking in the field of metallurgy, in particular regarding tungsten and gold. To his colleague Max Whitby, and all at RGB Research – special thanks for the precious golden cylinder, and the advice that came with it. Lastly, special thanks to my wife Eva, for putting up with excessive bouts of crankiness during the months spent writing: it can’t have been much fun. I hope the results are worth it.

  ‘Cry “Havoc” and let slip the dogs of war.’

  William Shakespeare

  ‘Fine talking of God to a soldier, whose trade and occupation is cutting throats.’

  Private Jack Careless

  ‘Beware of what you want, for you may end up getting it.’

  Cherokee Indian saying

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The world’s biggest-ever bank robbery took place in 1970s Beirut, in the midst of the Lebanon’s bitter and bloody civil war. The target of the raid was a British bank that had its headquarters on Rue Riad al-Sohl – better known as ‘Bank Street’ – the heart of the city financial district. The main bulk of the valuables stolen was made up of gold bullion. Estimates vary as to the value of the heist, from fifty million dollars (approaching two hundred million dollars at today’s value) to ten times that amount. Amazingly, none of this loot has ever been recovered and no one knows who carried out the raid.

  At the time of the raid, the Christian militia forces in Beirut blamed the opposing Muslim forces. Predictably, the Muslim forces in turn blamed the Christian militia. Other theories then surfaced, including: (1) that the Christian and Muslim forces cut a deal to jointly carry out the raid; (2) that the Corsican or Sicilian Mafia did the bank job; (3) that the Russian mafia robbed the bank; (4) that the Israeli Secret Service did it; (5) that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) did it; (6) that the late Yasser Arafat’s Force 17 did it.

  In short, the world’s biggest bank robbery remains shrouded in mystery.

  The military hardware and technology depicted in this story exists in the real world today and is employed by the elite of the British and US armed forces. This includes the submarine and drone elements, the surveillance gear, the fixed-wing aircraft, helicopter and boat based scenes. Likewise, the historical, religious and political background of the Assassins is accurately portrayed. The Assassins were a real force that existed at the time of the Crusades and had considerable similarities with the mysterious Knights Templar.

  All the characters in this book are entirely fictional, as are their units and troop designations. There is no Q Squadron within the SAS, and there never has been. No Q Squadron could have been in Cyprus at the time depicted in this book, or at any other time for that matter. All the characters in this book are invented, and their characters and actions are entirely imaginary. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  06.00 Hours: Present Day, Eastern Mediterranean Sea

  FIFTY NAUTICAL MILES off the coast of northern Syria a sleek black shape came to a halt beneath the grey-flecked swell of the oily sea. The stealthy form of the USS Polaris, an Ohio-class nuclear submarine, barely moved with the rise and fall of the ocean, such was the bulk of the vessel suspended some thirty feet below the waves.

  Slowly, a black metal tube extended itself vertically from the submarine’s conning tower, making barely a whisper of noise as it did so. At the same time the Captain of the Polaris grabbed his periscope and did a quick three-sixty-degree scan of the surrounding sea. By the faint glow of dawn he could see that not another ship was in sight – which was just as he wanted it.

  The Captain downed periscope just as the mysterious black tube – a Universal Modular Mast – broke the surface. A metal cowling flipped open with a faint pop, breaking the watertight seal at the top of the tube. Inside there were four separate vertical chambers. Seconds after the Mast had broken through the waves, and on an order from the sub’s captain, a rocket ignited in the bowels of the tube.

  Moments later a cylindrical object shot out of one of the chambers, rising vertically away from the sea. The launch rocket propelled the device some two hundred feet into th
e air, whereupon its upward momentum slowed. As it did so, four arms folded out from the core of the device like the wings of some giant mutant insect emerging from its chrysalis, each one terminating in a vertical fin.

  At the rear of the aluminium–titanium fuselage of the Sea Strike unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) a propeller started to rotate – slowly at first and then with increasing speed as the aircraft’s fuel-injected engine took over from the spent rocket thruster. Beneath the foam-packed nose cone a surveillance cluster dome whirred as the aircraft’s pan-tilt-zoom video camera and infrared imagery systems kicked into life.

  As the Sea Strike gained altitude under the lift generated by the aircraft’s 4.5-metre wingspan, it increased its speed to some ninety knots and set a course for Syria. Some one hundred and twenty miles away in the mountains above the ancient Syrian town of Aleppo the diminutive aircraft had an urgent rendezvous with an unsuspecting target.

  In the ops room on board the giant submarine special-forces pilot Bob Kennard stared into the blue-green glow of his Combat System Console Interface – a computerised control panel that enabled him to ‘fly’ the Sea Strike remotely. A state-of-the-art GPS autopilot system was now guiding the aircraft towards its target. But it was up to Bob to take control of the final stages of the mission – that was if it was green-lit by his commanders, back at Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in Florida – and carry out the final kill.

  As soon as Sea Strike One was airborne, and Bob had confirmed to the Polaris’s captain that he had full interface with the aircraft, the giant submarine slipped quietly down into the depths. Now it had become a waiting game. The aircraft was an hour away from Aleppo, and upon arrival she would have six hours’ loiter time over the target. It would then be a matter of luck as to whether the intended victim was present at the training camp. Only if Bob was able to acquire a clear image of the target would he launch the kill strike.

  Bob had over a decade’s experience as a special-forces pilot but this was his first remote combat mission. He settled back into his seat with a fresh coffee, being careful not to spill it over the rubberised computer terminal, and eyed the screen. A green line traced the course of Sea Strike One as she headed east and climbed towards her 25,000-foot operating ceiling. Weather conditions over the Syrian mountains weren’t perfect but in recent exercises the Sea Strike had proven herself capable of flying blind through all but the worst of storms.

  Bob Kennard had little idea who the target was, or why the man was being singled out for such a costly and covert hit. The mission’s security clearance was Beyond Top Secret. Bob had been given the target’s name: The Searcher. And he’d been told that The Searcher was a British ex-soldier based in a terrorist training camp in the Syrian mountains. And that was that: Bob had no need-to-know when it came to the full mission details. In fact he preferred not to know: it was far easier to assassinate someone if it was done from a distance without ever knowing their true identity.

  As retrieval by submarine of the Sea Strike UAVs had as yet proved impossible, they were of necessity disposable one-mission aircraft. At the end of this flight Sea Strike One was programmed to self-destruct: she would blow herself to pieces over a remote Syrian mountain range, leaving no evidence that she had ever flown. But at one and a half million dollars per aircraft they were costly pieces of kit – so whatever this British ex-soldier was up to, the US military and their British allies had to want him real bad, Bob reckoned.

  Fifty-five minutes after launch Sea Strike One slipped quietly into the airspace over a remote Syrian mountain valley. The aircraft automatically switched from liquid-fuel engine to silent electronic-propulsion mode, descended from 25,000 to 10,000 feet, and began to fly a set of search transects across the known coordinates of the training camp.

  Bob would have preferred to operate at a higher altitude, but there was no way around it. He needed to capture a clear enough image of the target to ID him from his facial features alone, which he might just be able to do from 10,000 feet. They would only ever get the one chance to make the kill, so they had to be certain that they had got him.

  Not for the first time that morning Bob glanced at the top right-hand corner of his computer screen. It showed a single, still image – an old dog-eared photo of a figure dressed in army fatigues. A pair of intense green eyes stared out of the screen and the man’s head was topped off by a shaggy mane of sandy hair. The expression on the thin craggy face wasn’t hostile, or unfriendly: all it revealed to Bob was a fierce intellect and a peculiar predatory alertness.

  Bob had operated alongside British special-forces soldiers often enough. He knew of their maverick reputation and their unconventional ways, and this guy certainly had that look about him. For a second it crossed Bob’s mind that the target might indeed be ex-SAS. But even if he did manage to kill him, Bob would never know.

  Bob’s gaze was drawn to the live data-feed beaming back from Sea Strike One. A faint movement had caught his eye. He felt a kick of adrenalin as the video feed revealed a distant group of figures, half hidden among the rocks. He leaned forward and grabbed the joystick flight control, flicking the master switch from autopilot to manual.

  Bob sent the Sea Strike into a tighter orbit and focused the camera in on the group. He felt his pulse quicken. Some two dozen men were squatted around a central figure, receiving some form of weapons instruction. They were dressed in a mixture of Arabic robes and army fatigues, and each held an AK47 between his knees.

  But it was the appearance of the central instructor figure that interested Bob the most. His light features contrasted markedly with the dark complexions of the other men. Bob zoomed in closer – as close as the telephoto lens would allow – and flipped up a microphone arm from his head unit. As he started his commentary on the mission he knew that the General would be listening.

  ‘Okay, this is Sunray Zero Alpha and I now have manual control of the UAV … So we have a group of possible targets at what seems like a lesson under way. I’m zeroing in on what I guess must be the instructor. Notice the lighter skin of his face. And seems like that’s sandy hair I can see to one side of the turban thing he’s wearing, but let’s take a closer look.’

  Bob zoomed in still further. ‘Hold it, hold it … We just kinda need to see the face more clearly … Looks like he’s glancing up at us – is he going to? – yeah! Got it! That’s a clear image of the face of the instructor now captured on the video. Okay, we’re going to freeze-frame several of those images so we can all take a closer look …’

  Bob turned and glanced at the UAV technician to one side of him. He raised an eyebrow questioningly to check that the technician had copied the instruction, and was given a thumbs-up. Bob resumed speaking into his microphone.

  ‘Okay, we’re just processing those images … Okay, you should be able to see them now, displayed on the left-hand side of your screen. That’s five images of the face of the target glancing up in the direction of the camera. Question is, do we have a positive ID? It kinda looks right to me. A little older, maybe, but there’s no mistaking that face. I’d say we do have positive ID … General, sir, I am now asking if I’m green-lit to hit the target?’

  Eight thousand miles away in US Special Operations Command, Florida, General Sam Peters was on his feet, staring into his computer screen. He flicked his gaze across the series of still video images. The sandy hair and green eyes marked the instructor figure out as a Westerner, that much was for certain. And the faint scar across the right cheek was encouraging: it was exactly what the General had been told to look out for.

  The General turned to a figure at his side. ‘You reckon we got our man?’

  Nick Coles glanced at the General, then back at the computer. He scrutinised the images for several seconds. He wanted to be one hundred per cent certain that this was their target – that they were going to get their kill.

  ‘Son, you reckon we got him?’ the General repeated, impatiently.

  ‘I think we probably have, General, yes
,’ Nick replied. ‘I think it’s our target.’

  ‘Listen, son, “probably” ain’t good enough,’ the General growled. ‘Unless I’m mistaken, this guy’s still a Brit citizen, still ex-special forces. Now, if the US is gonna sanction the use of our top-secret technology to assassinate the son of a bitch we’d better make darn sure of what we’re doing. Wouldn’t you agree, son?’

  Nick hated the way the General was addressing him as ‘son’. He was ex-military himself and had risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel before joining the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. Nick felt certain that the General would have been fully briefed on his credentials. Peters was playing a power game with him, and right now he held all the cards in his hand. But Nick prided himself on always being the grey man, on being able to take the abuse and show no visible sign that he had been needled.

  He kept his stare glued to the computer screen as he framed his reply. ‘Well, from the records we’ve been able to dig up on him all the physical characteristics – height, eye and hair colour, physique – seem to be correct, General. Plus The Searcher has a scar running down his right cheek. You’ve noticed this man’s scar, I take it? So yes, General, I’d say I am convinced. I believe it’s him. That’s our target.’

  ‘You’re certain we got the right man?’

  ‘Absolutely, General. Absolutely.’

  ‘Now that’s more like it.’

  The General pulled his radio mouthpiece up so that he could make voice contact with Bob Kennard, the UAV’s operator.

  ‘This is General Peters, calling Sunray Zero Alpha. Good work finding him so quickly, son. I am giving you the green light to proceed with Operation Terminal Search. I repeat, proceed with the operation. Go get him, son.’

  ‘Well copied, sir,’ came back Bob Kennard’s reply. ‘This is Sunray Zero Alpha proceeding with Operation Terminal Search …’