The Child Taker & Slow Burn (3 page)

Grace immediately saw that his left eye was glass. She was about to signal the snipers by raising her hand when the driver of the van stepped between them. He smiled as he approached her and he pushed his glasses up on top of his head. The driver had a turn in his right eye. The young men of Mogadishu were part of a militia as soon as they were strong enough to carry a gun. Violence was a way of life to them, and making it into your twenties with both eyes intact and keeping all your limbs attached to your body was virtually impossible. There was no way of identifying Adid by the turn in his eye alone.  

“I asked you where you are from, bitch,” the man pressed the Bulldog to Tara’s temple. He leaned his face close to hers and licked her cheek with his long pink tongue. Tara recoiled but he pressed the gun harder to her head. “Get on your knees now.”

Grace had no way of knowing who the primary target was, but the situation was now beyond redemption. There was no way of taking out Adid alone. She reached for her combat spike, which resembled a sharp screwdriver and with expert timing she drove it upwards under the driver’s chin. The spike sliced up through the driver’s flesh, pierced his tongue and the roof of his mouth before entering his brain. His eyes widened in shock as the metal   penetrated him. He dropped like a stone onto the sandy road. Four sniper rifles, which were well concealed around the area, spat death and in the space of ten seconds the men from the van and their affiliates in the technical pickup truck were lying dead or dying in the Somali dust.

CHAPTER THREE

The child taker stayed hidden in the trees for hours. The smell of peat and foliage permeated the woods, along with the fresh scent of spruce when the breeze changed. Fluffy white clouds sprinted across a clear blue sky chased by the occasional grey ones, which sprinkled showers in their wake. He watched the twins and their parents playing and eating their dinner. The sound of their laughter drifted to him and echoed inside his tormented mind. He was filled with both a sense of excitement and a tinge of jealousy. His first memories of family life were not happy ones. He recalled the days when his parents called him Ian. Ian was the first child of a young couple who lived in a small town on the outskirts of Manchester called Irlam. The couple had married in their teens. It was a shotgun wedding and his mother was nearly six months pregnant when she walked into the registry office. There were no cheering guests or comedy speeches from the best man, just two sets of scowling parents disgusted that their youngsters had been so irresponsible. All the aspirations they had held for their offspring had been shattered by premarital unprotected sex. The hopes and dreams of college and university educations followed by great careers were dashed, and disappointment and shame replaced them.

By the time Ian was born, his young father had followed his own father and grandfather into employment at the local steel mill. The work was incredibly hazardous but well-paid for that day and age. His father adored Ian. He was the apple of his eye and even the grandparents eventually relented and doted on the newborn baby. His mother, however, was a different kettle of fish. She struggled to bond with her son at all. She felt trapped in the two-up-two-down terraced house that they lived in. Her husband grafted twelve hours a day to earn a living and the long hours of enforced solitude made her resent the child. The grandparents became concerned as she left Ian in soiled nappies for long periods and he was always crying. Ian’s father desperately tried to help his young wife to cope with the burden of motherhood but his shifts were long and the work was physically exhausting. When he came home from work he needed to eat and then sleep. Life for Ian’s mother was lonely and relentless, and she took her frustrations out on the child. Bruises began to appear on the baby and he looked underfed. The family were convinced that she was mistreating him. There were arguments and the threat of bringing in social services was made several times, although it never came to fruition.

Just when it seemed that the situation couldn’t get any worse, Ian’s father went to work one day and never came home. He was crushed to death between two huge ingots of white-hot steel. The ingots were lowered onto a flatbed trailer that travelled on railway lines through the mill to a cooling area. There hosepipes sprayed them with water that was pumped from the nearby canal. That particular day Ian’s father was in charge of one of the hoses. He was spraying the white-hot steel when a second trailer broke free and crashed into the one that he was working on. The impact tipped the flatbed over and the ingots, which weighed tons, fell on top of the young father. By the time the metal had been cooled down enough for his rescuers to move the massive ingots, Ian’s father was welded to the steel. His body had to be peeled from the metal like a burnt sausage from a griddle. When his charred body crumbled, even his intestines were cooked.  For baby Ian, things could only get worse.

The grandparents tried to step in and help the young distraught mother but she shunned their efforts and her behaviour spiralled out of control. The death of her husband had brought her a small amount of compensation from the steel mill, and the local community always had a whip-round when a mill employee died. She began to use her newfound wealth to buy the only thing that made her happy: vodka. Every time the grandparents turned up at the house, she was drunk and abusive. The house became steadily more and more filthy and disorganised. Soiled nappies were left discarded around the house, and a mountain of dirty dishes threatened to engulf every flat surface in the kitchen. Eventually Ian’s grandparents stopped visiting altogether, especially when a string of men began to frequent the tiny house. She sought company from any man that would stretch to the price of a half bottle of vodka; she repaid them by giving them her body and it wasn’t long before she fell pregnant again. She didn’t have a clue who the father was and she didn’t care. All she did know was that the thought of giving birth to another child would only add to her woes. She sought out a private clinic and had the baby aborted, which brought more shame on her family. She never heard from her father again. She was left all alone in the world apart from her baby Ian, who she hated.

Ian had no good memories of his childhood. His mother was a violent drunk and he could only remember hoping that she would be so drunk when he got home from school that she would be asleep. She couldn’t hit him when she was asleep. He also remembered being scared and hungry most of the time.

School was a blessed relief at first but it soon became an extension of his living nightmare. The other kids soon spotted that he was always unwashed and that his clothes were ill fitting and dirty. His school blazer was three inches too short on the arms and there were snail-trails of snot on his sleeves formed by his constant runny nose. He was a skinny kid with sticky-out ears and holes in his shoes and kids are incredibly cruel to other kids. Soon school became so bad that he didn’t go any more. He spent his days wandering around the back streets, or stealing sweets and food from the local shops, until it was time to go home.

Ian, the child taker, was eight years old, when after a long list of casual affairs his mother finally met another man. There was a short spell when life became almost normal for the young child. His mother stopped drinking as much, although it was always prevalent in his memory. There was a brief period when he enjoyed hot porridge every morning and he was given dinner money to take to school. Tea was cooked and served for six o’clock in the evening, in time for his stepfather to come home from work. Ian had never been happier at home and there was a routine for a while, although his memories were tainted by the fear of receiving a beating if he stepped out of line. 

The problems with the new set-up began when the school truant officer knocked on the door. Ian hadn’t been into school for nearly nine months. His mother was furious when he got home that day but her wrath paled into insignificance when compared to the reaction of his stepfather. Ian had taken many a good hiding from his mother in the past and a couple in the schoolyard from older bullies, but nothing came close to the pain he felt that night. His stepfather dragged him by the hair into his bedroom and beat him to within an inch of his miserable life. Ian couldn’t understand why he was so angry. His stepfather told him that he was a thief and a liar because he had continued to take his school dinner money for all those months without actually going into school. Ian had begged and pleaded with him to stop the assault but the beating was relentless. Even when he’d tried to explain through his swollen bleeding lips that he had bought his dinner every day with the money, the beating continued until he had lost consciousness.

Ian’s memories of the next few weeks were hazy and blurred. His injuries were so severe that his mother reluctantly took him to hospital the next morning. The doctors didn’t believe that he had fallen down the stairs and social services were alerted to the fact that he was an abused child whose safety was in jeopardy. A gaggle of disapproving social workers decided that he was to be taken into care when he was well enough to be discharged. His mother and stepfather never visited him once in hospital. At the grand old age of eight and a half Ian was taken to a care home for prepubescent boys, which was run by a Catholic priest. It was then that the real abuse began.

Chapter Four

Mogadishu

An unmanned MQ-1 Predator drone patrolled the airspace over the ruined city of Mogadishu. It was tasked with monitoring the operation that was taking place on the ground and its information was being sent back to the task force command centre, situated on board an American aircraft carrier twenty miles off the Somali coastline. The Predator was equipped with synthetic aperture radar, which was capable of relaying detailed digital video via K-band satellite links, even if the ground was obscured by cloud of smoke. In non-technical language, it could see everything. The plan to draw the Somali warlord Said Adid from his hideaway by using the promise of foreign, disease-free women as bait had been compromised. The honey trap had worked to a degree, but the unit was now uncertain of the outcome. Whether it had been successful or not, was still in question. All the active members of the unit were unharmed. However, they could not confirm that they had eliminated their target. There were several confirmed kills but Adid had been so elusive in the past that there were no up to date photographs of him. They had bodies but there was no way of knowing if he was amongst the fatalities.

“What’s the situation down there Pilgrim one?” Major Stanley Timms used Grace’s call sign. The Major was the head of the Terrorist Task Force. The small but elite counter-terrorist unit was called upon only when all other options had been exhausted. Their operations were known as ‘black bag operations’, which means that the British Government would claim to be completely non-complicit in any of their activities. As far as the general public and conventional law enforcement agencies were concerned, the task force did not exist. Their targets never stood trial. They were eliminated.

“We have a number of fatalities but no positive identification of Adid.”

“What about your guide?” The Major asked. “Couldn’t he identify him?”

“He’s dead, and it turns out he’d never actually met Adid.”

“What?” The Major was furious. Their intelligence was obviously flawed. The guide had lied to them about his level of familiarity with the warlord, but it was their job to identify quality intelligence and to weed out liars. Somalia was full of militiamen who would trade their mothers for money, and the intelligence units were supposed to be able to qualify their informants. The lives of his unit rested upon it.

“He had never met Adid. He told us that Adid had a turn in his eye, which was not much help in this city.”

“Roger that. Have the bodies been searched?” John Tankersley joined in the communication. He was situated a half a mile away from the scene, in the ruins of a derelict building. His colleagues called him Tank and he was the task force’s lead agent. On this particular operation he was consigned to the backup unit, which consisted of him and four other task force members. They had to be hidden. The presence of a seventeen-stone white male with a shaven head, accompanied by four heavily armed men dressed as Robocop, would not go unnoticed in the centre of Mogadishu. 

“The unit are checking the bodies now, but so far we have zilch,” Grace replied.

“It’s your call Major,” Tank said. The city was a ticking time bomb and their presence there would not go undetected for very long. The sound of gunfire had been kept to a minimum by the use of suppressors but heavily armed militiamen in their technicals constantly patrolled the empty streets. If Adid was amongst the dead then his absence couldn’t be kept a secret. His remaining troops would realise that he had not returned to his safe house.

“Roger that. Our tech people are analysing the data from the drone. Now that we have the details of the vehicle that he was travelling in, we can trace back through the footage to see where its journey originated.” The Major wanted this mission completed and wrapped up as soon as was physically possible. He was on board the Nimitz-class carrier
The Ronald Reagan
and although he had served for many years in the Royal Marines, he had never got used to sailing. He didn’t have sea legs at all. Seasickness was amplified on carriers like the
Ronald Reagan
because they are powered by two nuclear reactors, which drive a huge water turbine. The turbine propels the vessel through the oceans in virtual silence. The sensation of being below decks without any engine noise added to the sick feeling.

The Major was handed a series of aerial photographs and a tech pointed to the relevant areas on the operations map. He assessed the information from the drone and spoke into the coms unit.

“Pilgrim one, I’m sending in a Heli-vac for your unit. You can’t achieve anything more there,” he said.

“Roger that, we’ll be at the rendezvous point in five minutes.” Grace made a circular motion with her right hand and pointed it towards a narrow street one hundred yards down the road. Her unit moved silently in combat formation towards their extraction point. The dead Somalis were left bleeding in the dirt; swarms of flies were already feasting on their carcasses.

“Pilgrim two, the vehicles started out from a small compound three blocks to the east of your position. There appears to be some activity taking place there.” The Major nodded to the tech and indicated that he wanted the live feed from the drone patched onto the screen in the command centre. The screen flickered to life and the ancient city appeared on it, the aerial view segmented by gridlines.

“Roger that, what type of activity Major?” Tank asked.

“It’s difficult to say, but there are a dozen or so armed men in and around the compound. It looks like an abandoned open air souk with one main entrance gate on its west wall. The gate is being guarded by two men in a technical.” The Major relayed what he could see on the detailed pictures from the drone.

“What is the ETA for the extraction helicopter?” Tank asked. The sight of an American Navy helicopter flying over the city would create mayhem on the streets below. Every militia in the city would call its men to arms. Tank was hoping that its arrival would create enough of a diversion for his unit to take a sneaky look at what or who was being guarded inside the souk.

“Six minutes exactly,” the Major replied. He already knew what Tank was thinking. They had an understanding that came from years of working together.

“I need ten minutes at least to get to that souk before the chopper stirs up a storm.” Tank made a circular movement with his hand and then pointed his fingers to the east. The task force men moved as a unit to the jagged hole in the building that was once a door. The compacted sandy road had a pinkish tinge to it. The buildings around them had flat roofs and were rendered with yellowed plaster. They scanned the road and it was clear in both directions before Tank and his men began to slither stealthily between the ruined buildings towards the old market place. At certain points, the road narrowed to nothing more than an alleyway three yards wide and the path was strewn with shattered bricks and debris.

“Roger that Pilgrim two, you have ten minutes before the extraction. You’d better get in and out of there before the city comes down on you. Check out the souk and then lay low until sundown and then we’ll extract your unit.”

“Roger that, are there any more details from the pictures on the souk?”

“There are two men with a fifty calibre on a technical at the main gate. The others are either inside or on top of the walls.” The Major noticed a shadow moving at the rear of the building near the market wall. “Wait a minute.”

Tank moved with his men through the dusty alleyways and empty streets. There wasn’t a single building intact, let alone occupied. This sector of Mogadishu was completely deserted. The families that once lived there, were born there, educated there, married there and ultimately kept the wheel of civilisation turning there, had long since fled the violence.

“There is one x-ray on the north wall of the souk. I can’t see him fully, so I’m presuming that he’s in a doorway. He seems to be sheltering from the sun, but it looks like he’s a sentry,” the Major explained.

“Roger that. That’s our way in.” Tank clicked the coms unit twice to signal that they were now approaching bandit country and he could no longer safely speak aloud. He could hear the familiar drumming of a helicopter engine in the far distance. He could also hear the distinctive rattle of AK-47 machineguns. The militias on the ground were emptying magazines of nine millimetre bullets into the sky, despite the fact that by the time they had realised what it was that was flying over them, it was too late to fire at it effectively. The task force man who was at point suddenly froze and held up an open hand, which was the signal to stop. Tank and his unit crouched low and tried to melt into the crumbling brick walls, which surrounded them. The heat was becoming unbearable and dust clung to their sweat covered skin. Tank checked his men visually, all elite agents, and the very best counter-terrorist operatives available. They had been trained to fight in extreme conditions and they couldn’t be more extreme than this. Flies buzzed around their heads looking for a quick meal. His men all made an okay sign with their fingers to let him know that they had no problems at this stage. The uneven ground and intense heat was putting incredible stress on their bodies. He had to check regularly that everyone was ‘a-okay’. Heat stroke could creep up on a man in this climate and affect his judgement.

The point man was situated to the left hand side of a ragged doorway. Huge chunks of brick had been blasted away by stray munitions. The point man looked around the opening and then curled his index finger to summon Tank over to his position. The sun was beating down on them through a huge hole where the roof once was. Tank could feel beads of sweat trickling down his back as he slowed his breathing down to a minimum. Sweat tickled his neck and face as it ran from beneath his armoured helmet, and made its way south in tiny rivers across his skin. He reached the point man barely making a sound.

The point man nodded to the left, and Tank slowly peered around a splintered doorframe. There were two pairs of feet dangling from a wooden platform fifty yards away. The feet wiggled gently and Tank could hear the voices of their owners chattering in Somali. They appeared to be two militiamen sitting on the remnants of a first-storey bedroom floor. The front elevation of the building had been destroyed, which had left the upper floor exposed. It offered the militiamen a good view of the surrounding streets and an excellent position from which to take out rival militias who ventured into their sector of the city.

The militiamen were between the counter-terrorist unit and the market, and the clock was ticking. Tank pointed to the dangling feet on the left, and then he indicated that the agent who was on point should take care of their owner. He repeated the process with the second pair, indicating that he would deal with them personally. Silently the task force men advanced through the rubble of what was once someone’s kitchen. The air was stifling and Tank’s body armour was saturated with sweat as they crept beneath the Somali militiamen. The ancient floorboards above them creaked and then there was a loud bumping sound. Something heavy had landed on the floor above them and dust billowed down onto the task force men. Tank froze and held up his hand, a signal to stop.

The Somali men began laughing and there was another loud bumping sound, followed by another avalanche of dust and grit. Two pairs of legs wiggled as the Somalis laughed. Tank guessed that they were throwing stones from the rubble at impromptu targets, unseen to the counter-terrorist unit below. He motioned his colleague forward again and they were less than three yards away from the dangling legs when the Somalis stopped laughing. There was an excited exchange of words between the militiamen.

The sound of the approaching Heli-vac was now clearly audible, although it was still far away. The drumming of the engines combined with the staccato of distant machinegun fire had startled the two men, and they were obviously debating what their next plan of action was. Tank signalled with three fingers held up, and a silent countdown began. Three, two, one, and the task force men moved like lightning. Tank grabbed one skinny ankle with his right hand and pulled down hard. The Somali made a squawking noise as he fell through the dusty air and he hit the rubble-strewn ground with a heavy thump. Tank was surprised how light the man was. There was barely any resistance. He was on top of him in a flash, his serrated commando knife was hurtling towards the prone Somali’s throat and then his brain registered several things at once. The man was too light, his clothes were too baggy, his eyes were too frightened and his face was that of a boy. Tank pulled the blade to the right at the last second and it plunged into the compacted sandy floor beneath his head. The Somali could not have been any more than twelve years old. The boy stared at Tank with wild frightened eyes, his mouth was open but there was no sound coming from him. Tank looked around to see how the second Somali had fared. He was lying on his back with his head hanging unnaturally to the side, staring with a lifeless gaze. His tongue was lolling from the side of his mouth and his lifeblood was gushing from a deep rent in his throat. Tank reckoned him to be older, not by much, but definitely not a boy. He signalled to the task force men behind him. They moved through the doorway as one slick unit and joined them.

“Tie him up next to his friend,” Tank whispered. The agent that he spoke to had a look of uncertainty in his eyes. Tank saw it. “Is there a problem?”

The agent knew better than to question an order from a senior ranking officer, especially if his name was John Tankersley. The problem was that on a mission as dangerous and covert as this one, no witnesses could be left behind, no matter how old they were. The agent grabbed the frightened boy and dragged him to where his dead friend lay. He took a Plasticuffs from his utility strap and fastened it tightly around the boy’s wrists. Tears ran freely down the boy’s black skin, making shiny trails across his grimy face. He was shaking like a leaf. The agent reached across to the dead Somali and ripped a strip of material from his shirt. The young boy knew that it was to become a gag and he cooperated without a whimper. The Somali militias grew up fast, and this young boy realised that his survival depended on being quiet, not being brave. The sight of his friend bleeding out like a pig in a slaughterhouse confirmed his logic.