The Gulf Conspiracy (2 page)

There was silence in the room. Everley looked crestfallen.

Gardiner stayed on the offensive. ‘Have you even considered the effects of telling thousands of our troops that they have been poisoned on the very eve of their going to war? Christ almighty, man, we might just as well send a congratulations telegram to Baghdad and call the whole bloody thing off.’

‘
You’re right, James,’ said Warner. ‘We need cool heads at a time like this.’

‘
I suppose when you put it that way,’ conceded Everley.

‘
There’s no other way to put it,’ said Gardiner. ‘We must keep this accident a secret.’ Gardiner made a point of establishing eye contact with each man in turn. 'And we are all going to sit here and decide just how we’re going to achieve that.’

Dhahran Airbase

Saudi Arabia

20 Jan 1991

‘
Shit, I’m not sure I want to fight alongside anyone who risks that much on a pair of twos, ‘ said Air Force Corporal Neil Anderson, slapping down three of a kind and reaching across the table with both hands to bring in his winnings. ‘Shows a distinct lack of judgement, if you ask me.’

‘
Don’t kid yourself, pal, I saw you waver there for a moment,’ retorted fellow corporal, Colin Childs. ‘I bloody near had you, sunshine, and just remember: who dares wins.’

‘
Yeah, yeah,’ laughed Anderson.

‘
Cut the crap and deal.’

Anderson chuckled as he boxed the cards and started dealing. ‘I can feel the force,’ he joked. ‘Lady Luck is not just with me, she’s positively taking her knickers down for me.’

Childs was about to say something in reply when the sudden wail of sirens filled the air and both men rushed from the table to their action stations.

‘
Scud coming in!’ yelled Anderson, pointing at the distant night sky as they ran across the dark compound.

‘
Where the fuck are the Patriots?’ complained Childs, trying to look around him and run at the same time.

As if in response, the whoosh of an American Patriot interceptor missile, being launched from the perimeter battery, brought a cheer to their lips.

‘
Go get that fucker, baby,’ yelled Anderson.

‘
Send it right back up Saddam’s arse,’ added Childs.

There were more cheers and from all over the base when the Patriot made contact with the incoming scud, causing it to spiral out of the sky about four hundred metres from the perimeter fence. In the ensuing silence before ground impact, Anderson and Childs threw themselves flat and covered their ears against the anticipated explosion but none came. Instead, the eerie silence continued until the two men became fidgety. Suddenly, bedlam broke out as the NAIADS (chemical and biological weapon detectors) started wailing all over the base like demented banshees.

‘
It didn’t explode because it’s a fucking CB attack!’ yelled Anderson as he scrambled to his feet and led the way as both men sprinted over to the clothing store to pull on their protective suits.

‘
Jesus fuck, this is really it,’ murmured Anderson, hopping on one leg as he struggled into his suit.

‘
Sweet Jesus Christ,’ murmured Childs over and over again as he too struggled with the cumbersome fastenings, his fingers all thumbs as fear knotted his stomach and sent adrenalin coursing through his veins. Both men had done this a hundred times before in training but this was for real and Christ, it felt completely different.

For twenty minutes, both men sat quietly with their thoughts. Bravado and banter were things of the past, not that it was ever possible while wearing respirators. They wondered about their position. There was no way of knowing what was in the air and maybe just on the other side of their visors. Nerve gas? A virus? The plague bacillus? All three perhaps?

Anderson remembered training lectures where the Russian tactic of formulating a ‘mixed load’ for CB weapons had been highlighted as a possible way of countering protective measures against such weapons. He distinctly remembered the instructor pointing out at one stage that Russia and Saddam were big pals. Subconsciously he rubbed the area on his upper arm where he had been vaccinated.

He could see that Childs had his eyes closed. He hadn’t known the man to pray before but conceded that now was as good a time as any to start. His thoughts turned to thinking about his wife Jenny and their two children. Claire, the youngest, had been born by Caesarean section a month premature just the week before he’d left for the Gulf. She had seemed so small and vulnerable, a bit like the way he felt at the moment.

The all-clear sounded and broke the eerie silence. Both men felt weak as adrenalin dissipated and feelings of relief took its place. They got to their feet slowly and started stripping off their protective suits.

‘
Must have been a false alarm,’ said Anderson.

‘
Tell my bowels that,’ said Childs. ‘Christ, I hate the idea of not being able to see what I’m fighting.’

As they set out to return their protective gear to the storage pods they caught sight of a figure, still wearing his, running across the compound towards them. He was shouting something and waving his arms but his visor was muffling the sound. As he drew nearer, Anderson recognised the man as Gus Maclean, a sergeant and one of the five-man team who operated and maintained the chemical and biological detectors.

‘
Put them back on!’ yelled Maclean. ‘It’s not over. There’s gas all over the fucking place. I’m going to find the stupid fucker who sounded the all-clear and remove his balls.’

Panic returned in an instant and Anderson and Childs struggled back into their suits. A few minutes later the NAIADS sounded again. The base remained in NBC Condition Black (under chemical and biological attack) for the next eight hours.

It was two days before the men saw Gus Maclean again. He was in the canteen, sitting on his own, toying with a meal that he was obviously finding less than appetising.

‘
So what gives?’ asked Anderson, sitting down beside him.

Maclean shrugged and glanced from side to side before saying, ‘The official line is that there was no confirmed chemical attack on the base.’ He stressed the word ‘confirmed’.

‘
I though you guys confirmed it,’ said Childs.

‘
Every detector on the fucking base was screaming gas attack but the brass are pretending it never happened. What’s the point of having the team here if they’re not going to believe us? Who else can “confirm” it if we can’t for Christ's sake?’

‘
Fuck me,’ said Childs. ‘You couldn’t make it up, could you?’

‘
My granddad used to tell me about the fuck-ups the army made in his war,’ said Anderson. ‘Lions led by donkeys and all that. Some things never change.’

‘
And what about the all-clear sounding?’ asked Childs.

‘
That’s something else again,’ said Maclean. ‘Nobody’s putting up their hands for that one. Hundreds of our guys were exposed to nerve gas unnecessarily and no one’s to blame. It just never happened.’

‘
Bad enough fighting the Iraqis without our own mob having a go at us as well,’ said Childs.

32 Field Hospital

Wadi al Batin

23rd January 1991

Surgeon Commander James Morton watched as the helicopter touched down and sent sand flying up in all directions. As its side door slid open, three field medics ran forward in a crouching run to assist in evacuating the patient from the aircraft. The injured man was a vehicle technician who had been working on an armoured personnel carrier and whose arm had been caught in the half-track when a fellow technician, unaware of his presence, had started up the vehicle and attempted to move off. The man’s right arm had been all but severed. Plans to fly him to a proper hospital had had to be abandoned when blood loss became critical. Wadi Al Batin was the nearest place with the sort of medical facilities that might be able to cope with the situation.

Morton looked at the face of the unconscious man and listened as one of the field medics reeled off a series of statistics as the patient was transferred from stretcher to table. He couldn’t be much more than twenty years old. He should have had all of his life before him. ‘Blood?’ he asked.

‘
On its way,’ replied one of the masked nurses.

‘
Let’s have a look,’ murmured Morton as he gingerly peeled away the wad of dressings from the patient’s arm. ‘What’s his name?’

‘
Jackson, sir. Private Robert Jackson.’

‘
Well, Private Jackson,’ said Morton. ‘I’m afraid your soldiering days are over, old son, and I hope to God you’re left-handed because this is going to have to come off. Make ready for amputation everyone, will you? How’s he doing?’

The question was directed at the anaesthetist, a young RAMC lieutenant who had taken up station at the head of the patient and was taking readings from the monitors he’d been attaching to Jackson.

‘
Not good. He’s very weak.’

‘
As I see it, we don’t have much of an option,’ said Morton.

‘
You don’t think it’s worthwhile just trying to stabilise him and then transferring him to somewhere with a proper ICU?’ asked the lieutenant.

Morton shook his head slowly. ‘Much as I’d like to, I don’t think I could get him stable with that mess still attached to his shoulder. Apart from that, the chance of infection in this hell-hole increases with every minute that passes. His only hope is a quick amputation, so let’s get on with it. Where the hell’s that blood?’

‘
It’s here,’ replied one of the masked figures as a vehicle pulled up outside the field hospital.

Twenty minutes later Morton paused and stood back to allow the severed limb to be wrapped in gauze and removed from the table. Once again he asked for an update on the patient’s condition as he drew together the two flaps of skin he’d deliberately left attached in order to form a neat stump and started suturing them.

‘
Still iffy,’ replied the anaesthetist.

‘
I’ll be as quick as I can.’

Morton’s hand jumped as the air raid warnings went off and he cursed as the needle made an inch long scratch on the patient’s skin.

‘
That’s all we need,’ said the anaesthetist. ‘An air raid.’

‘
Scud attack,’ said someone else. ‘Listen.’

In the ensuing pause they listened to the sound of the incoming missile.

‘
I think it’s going over,’ said an optimist only a fraction before there was a loud popping sound, which made people look questioningly at each other over their masks.

‘
Oh Christ, no explosion means it’s an airburst,’ said the reformed optimist.

Morton continued sewing his neat line of stitches, as around him, people shuffled to their feet and looked at each other uneasily over their masks. Then the NAIADS went off and loudspeakers started proclaiming: ‘NBC Condition Black. This is not a drill!’ It kept repeating, ‘This is not a drill.’

‘
Okay folks, you know what to do,’ said Morton, still concentrating on his work and not looking up. ‘Everyone into their suits please.’

No one argued but the anaesthetist said, ‘I can’t just walk away. He’ll die.’

‘
You might die if you don’t,’ said Morton.

‘
I’ll go when you do.’

Morton smiled under his mask. ‘Fair enough.’ The procedure was all over in seven minutes but it seemed more like seven hours to the two men. ‘Right, you go first and get into your suit,’ said Morton, stripping off his gloves. ‘Bring up a respirator for him as well, and then you can take over while I get into mine. We’ll keep him on the gas for the time being.’

The anaesthetist needed no second bidding.

Three hours later and despite the best efforts of Morton and the team, Vehicle Technician Robert Jackson died without ever coming round. Some two hours after that Morton and the anaesthetist started to feel ill. Both men suffered blinding headaches, stomach cramps and prolonged episodes of vomiting throughout the following night.

‘
Do they know what it was yet?’ gasped Morton as he found respite for a few minutes after yet another round of vomiting. He asked the question of one of his colleagues who had just wiped the sweat from his face as the sun came up over the base.

‘
Unidentified chemical attack is all I could get out of the commandant’s office,’ replied the young doctor.

‘
How about the monitoring team?’

‘
The technicians are saying it was Sarin but that hasn’t been confirmed.’

‘
What does the manual say about that?’

‘
The only information I could come up with comes from studies they did on volunteers a while back. According to that, you seem to be exhibiting the effects of low level exposure to the gas.’

‘
Christ, I wouldn’t like to find out what high level exposure feels like,’ said Morton. ‘Do we know what the long term effects are?’ he asked.