Ummm... How many of you remember me? Sorry it has been a while (like four months) I went overseas for a holiday. A long holiday. But now I'm back, and I've got to be honest I had completely forgotten about this story. Still, here's some more for you to chew on.
... I have a feeling I might be receiving a few angry reviews
A boy in a long brown shawl, with a white turban wrapped completely in cloth so nearly his entire face was covered, shuffled through the village with his Hessian sack over one shoulder.
Virtually his entire body was covered against the elements, as only his right hand on the sack and the occasional flash of exposed neck could be seen. If anyone had stopped to look closely, they would have spotted the foreigner from a mile away, but in the early morning, as the village began to wake, no one batted an eyelid.
Alex rubbed the cloth uncomfortably, as the material made his itchy and as a result, quite irritable. He was also far too hot, even in the very early hours of the morning, with two layers of clothing on. He checked his watch for the tenth time since he landed, checking how much time he had remaining. He had to find transport and make the trek almost two miles into the dunes to find the occupied outpost.
Trudging through sand with nearly 20 kilograms of arms and ordinance over one shoulder was not easy work, and Alex found himself sweating like a pig as he headed West, towards the village that he could make out over the crest of the dunes. The GPS reader on his wrist informed him that it was a mere half mile away, but to him it felt more like fifty miles.
The outskirts of the village were thankfully empty, as it was far too early for any self-respecting Tunisian herder or merchant to be selling their wares, but as he moved towards the centre of town, he found himself being hustled and jostled by stall-owners keen to gain prime spots to best show off their wares.
The market itself was a rickety set of structures, mostly poles that had been hammered into the sandy earth and had pieces of cloth draped between them to protect the residents from the harshest sunlight later in the day.
Alex's eyes scanned the dusty scene before him, finally alighting on what he had been looking for. There was a man on the far side who was clearly richer than most traders, because instead of carrying his wares himself or using a donkey (of which there were several) he had three camels loaded up with saddlebags, and was directing a pair of young boys as to how he wanted his large stall arranged.
Alex approached him slowly, and the man appraised him as he did so.
"Welcome stranger," the man said, looking him up and down.
Alex knew that he stood out, local customs were impossible to judge without concentrated reconnaissance, of which there had been none. Nevertheless he pushed on.
"Greetings," Alex replied haltingly and as quietly as possible. Even from those two words the man had spoken, Alex knew his Arabic sounded nothing like anything the man would be used to.
"You are not from around these parts," the man said simply, a statement of fact rather than a query.
"I wish to purchase some transport," Alex said, ignoring the obvious statement, which steeled the trader, and suddenly the tone of the conversation changed.
"I see. I'm sure I can provide what you need for a reasonable price," he said, gesturing at his stall with obvious pride.
"No, I have no need for trinkets, I need transport," Alex repeated, gesturing at the camels who were being unloaded.
"But my camels are my livelihood, I cannot sell them. What do you even have to offer me in return?"
"Dinar. Lots and lots of dinar," Alex replied, reaching into his sack for the smaller plastic covered bricks of notes which he had been given.
"Pah!" exclaimed the man, "I would have to make a special trip to the city for those to be any value, currency is virtually worthless here!"
Alex cursed under his breath, but continued to remove the little plastic packages.
"Would maybe 8000 Dinar change your mind?" he asked, removing the wads of cash.
He had been informed that the standard price of camels was roughly US$1000 each, depending on country and availability, and the price he had just offered was almost five and a half times that amount.
The man pretended to consider for a minute, but Alex knew he had him sold. He could survive for a year on that amount of money, and the man's breathing was suddenly heavy as if he was nervous Alex would realise just how much of a rip-off the deal they had just brokered was.
The man even seemed to feel a little guilty at how well he had done from the deal with the strange outsider, so he offered him the saddlebags as part of the deal, which Alex gratefully accepted. The sack was not and easy thing to lug about, so as soon as he had led his recent purchase out of the centre of town, he set about loading it up as best he could.
Alex had never ridden a camel before, something that no one had even bothered to mention might have been an issue. Standing next to the animal, holding the simple rope tether that connected to its harness, he wondered how one mounted such an animal, given that his head barely reached the top of its back.
In a far less dignified manner than he would have liked to admit to, he ended up climbing up onto a window ledge and clambering across onto the puzzled looking animal, which tossed and turned slightly as he did so. He had seen plenty of footage on the news and documentaries of men climbing onto camels that had squatted down to allow for them be boarded more easily, but he didn't have the time to work out how to do that.
Instead, treating the creature as if it were a horse with a less comfortable back to sit on, he kicked his heels in, and headed West towards the glowing red dot on the GPS indicator he had reattached to his arm.
"Cub, Mary-Poppins to Cub, convey present position and status, over!"
Alex had removed his earpiece as soon as he had entered the village, knowing that he would need his wits about him if he was to avoid arousing too much suspicion. Of course, their eyes in the sky in the AEW1 were not accustomed to simply being removed from the loop, and he assumed that if K-Unit hadn't been there to reassure them that full scale panic would have broken out.
"This is Cub, reading you Mary-Poppins. I have moved through the village, secured transport, and am Oscar Mike now. ETA of about 30 minutes to target. Over."
Alex somewhat resented the ridiculous military jargon that he was forced to adopt, but he knew that it was what was expected. Anyone who said the military had no sense of humour had clearly never met the guys who job it was to come up with the code names for tactical ops or their technological assistants.
Somewhere out there, a group of radio jockeys were crying with laughter as angry men with big guns were forced to reference a literary character from the 1930's who used to fly about with the aid of her umbrella and sing about spoon-fulls of sugar.
Ignoring this for a moment, he readjusted his disguise. The sand coloured balaclava he wore underneath the cloth that he had wrapped around his head was a necessity for protecting his identity as soon as the raid began, and the extremely lightweight Osprey body armour gave him more bulk, helping him to appear older than he really was.
The chatter in his ear was incessant and frustrated Alex no end. The perceived need to communicate the smallest of movements drove him up the wall, but there was nothing he could do about it.
One communication, however, he took note of.
"T minus fifteen minutes to jump, Cub, and... mark!"
He had just been notified that K-Unit would be following him out of the plane that was now circling at a much higher altitude, directly over the target area. Their fall would be noticeably faster however, as they would only deploy their chutes at the last possible second to make themselves as difficult to shoot out of the sky as possible.
The risks were still immense, Alex knew, regardless of how late they left it to pull their ripcords.
This message served as an effective hurry up warning, and Alex wiped the sweat from his brow and glanced at his GPS once more. The desert was taking its toll on him, and he took another swig of water from his canteen as the beast he sat astride trotted further into the desert, and away from the only civilisation for hundreds of miles.
"Cub, our rules of engagement are simple on this one," came the voice in his ear, and Alex listened. This was the stuff that mattered. "All non identified individuals within the structure are considered hostile and probably armed. Therefore engage on sight, lethal force is approved. Seems harsh I know, but take no chances. We don't want to be flying any bodies home in boxes."
More gibberish from cross-channel linking, but Alex was ignoring it all.
The sight of the World War II era fort rose up from behind a dune to confront him like some behemoth creature had just blocked his path. It was unbelievable to think that just over half a century ago, Allied forces and the Axis powers had fought so bitterly over the control of miles upon miles of sand. His life's journey had taken him to Tobruk, the Libyan capital, the previous year, and he had seen the monument, or more specifically, the monuments. There were simply too many names of young men who had died for their country to fit them onto a single wall.
The situation that confronted him now was somewhat different to that which the British troops had faced in the 1940's. Technology had changed, the players had changed, but the game remained the same. Kill or be killed was still the end point.
And Alex had absolutely no intention of losing, not now, not ever.
He steered his docile beast down a dune, and once more found himself in the precarious situation of having to trust the creature to find it's footing in the ever-shifting sand. The ground flattened out around the fort, a square walled structure, made of sandstone, with four towers at each corner. Although it had been built in the midst of the second world war, the structure had remained largely undamaged, aside from a few cracks here and there.
The only notable difference was the gate, or what was left of it. Two wooden doors had clearly once hung in the space that marked the entrance, but the elements had taken their toll, and the pock-marked iron supports were all that remained.
Alex spurred his beast onwards towards this entrance, all the time watching the ramparts, looking for movement. The wind blew sand up into his eyes, and he cupped them, trying to protect himself from the stinging sensation.
It was here that he heard voices, coming from above him. The words were unmistakeably Arabic, but the dialect made it almost impossible for him to translate. He looked up, having finally cleared his vision, to find he was being looked down upon by several men, all dressed in a similar fashion to himself, except they had all accessorised with AK-47s or RPG launchers. They were all shouting at him now, and pointing, maybe all of fifteen men.
Then there was a crack.
Some of them were shooting at him.
Alex turned his camel around and went to take off for the dunes, but there was no need. The terrified animal was fleeing from the menacing racket of the assault rifle fire and little puffs of sand that started to appear at its feet all of their own accord.
They were speeding away from the sandstone structure as fast as the creatures legs could carry them, which, as Alex was discovering, was surprisingly rapidly. They had already made it to the first set of dunes outside the plateau that surrounded the fort, but the men on the ramparts were not letting up, apparently determined to bring him down.
Alex went to turn back to look at the fort when suddenly the creature bucked violently, and suddenly Alex was hanging on for dear life as he was carried away into the desert.
His left arm was stuck in the saddlebags, painfully tangled in the straps, preventing him from simply letting go, and his body was hanging off the right side of the camel, bouncing on its side, his toes occasionally brushing the sand as he struggled.
He desperately scrabbled for his knife, as his left wrist suddenly stopped causing him agony where the reins were cutting into it, and went numb. Fumbling around and with a great effort, he pulled himself up slightly, and managed to wrap the knife around the reins and used the movement of his former transport animal to help him slice through the leather straps that were currently dragging him along.
There was a split second where he suddenly realised it might not have been such a wonderful idea, before he bounced off the camel's side and landed face down in the desert.
Dimly, the sound of the camel's hooves could be heard, thundering away into the depths of the Sahara, leaving Alex with only a mouth full of sand for for his efforts.
Scrambling to his feet, he swore viciously. In his ear, the chattering had not let up, and Alex responded only by switching on his microphone to give a particularly vicious dismisal, but it told them what they needed to know; he was still alive, if only temporarily.
His elegant dismount had left him lying halfway down a dune, and he rolled onto his back and took the opportunity to rip off his disguise in some disgust.
If they were going to shoot at him regardless of what he was wearing, he wanted to be comfortable.
Then it hit him; the camel had been carrying all his supplies, his equipment, his firearms. Now all he had was a GPS transponder and a radio. Naturally, he started swearing once more, and then gave a testy status report, outlining his present situation.
The instruction was to stay exactly where he was until further directions came, and for once, Alex was happy to oblige. He had no idea what was going on overhead, but he wasn't going to risk getting himself popped by some wannabe soldier of fortune who was looking for a trophy.
This resolution lasted all of two minutes. Apparently, seeing someone around these parts was rare enough that it warranted investigation, and it wasn't long before Alex could hear loud voices, arguing in Arabic. They were coming closer, moving across the dunes, but Alex couldn't make out what they were saying, the regional dialect defeating him once more.
Whoever had designed this TactOP deserved a boot in the crown jewels, Alex thought savagely, and he skirted across the sand.
The men were moving between the dunes, taking the shortest route to avoid the loose sand and to conserve energy. After living in the desert all their lives, Alex knew they'd have a few tricks up their sleeves. Hopefully though, they hadn't seen him fall off his not so noble steed despite the spectacular display he was sure it had been, because their sight lines had been obscured.
Scrambling around a dune, he used the comparative height advantage to his benefit, keeping the dune between himself and the men, in order to get around behind them. He watched the two of them move, praying they wouldn't notice the mark that his sudden dismount had left in the sand, but no such luck.
They both examined the site of his fall closely, and then glanced around for footsteps to follow. It didn't take them long, as they spotted the remnants of Alex's desert disguise which they pointed to and began arguing about rapidly. Both men had assault rifles hung over their shoulders, and Alex knew that if he was going to make it out of the situation alive, he'd have to close the distance to them quickly, and not give them enough time to respond.
Crouching, Alex padded across the sand, as the two many increased their speed, sensing the tracks to be fresh. In essence they were chasing him around one dune, but he knew it was a matter of seconds before they realised he was only metres away from them.
As always, he had his knife handy, and grasped in his right hand as he stalked his prey, his eyes never leaving their backs. He moved diagonally up the dune, and peeked out over the lip, in time to see one of the men point at the footprints that indicated that he'd returned to where they had been standing only moments before.
Alex's moves were quick and efficient. He leapt out from above them, having used the natural ridge line of the sand for cover, and he collared both the men simultaneously, dragging them to the sand. He had no idea what either of the men were like when it came to hand to hand combat but he knew he could ill afford to bring their firearms into play.
The knife in his right hand found the jugular of the shorter of the two men, and suddenly it was a contest of only one man and a boy. Alex rolled to his right into a crouching position, but the taller man was still in a state of semi-shock, and was slower to react. Alex finished him before he'd raised his hand to defend himself.
It was in this lull that Alex noticed that his earpiece was no longer resting in his ear, and in a slight panic he reached for the transponder that should have been strapped to his waist; it was no longer there. All that remained of the systems was his microphone, but it was no good to anyone without the associated equipment.
He made himself breathe slowly, and think. It must have come loose or been torn off after he had been dragged by the camel he reasoned, so all he could do was retrace his steps, and see if it was anywhere he could find it. Slipping the strap of one of AK-47's over his shoulder, he set about examining the path along which he'd come.
I think I just about have the next chapter done, but I'm snowed under at school so we'll see when I get it finished. Hope some of you stuck with this and can actually recall what has happened already. I imagine some of you are going to be surprised to see that notification that I've updated...