killing their warlord. We could only carry so much ammunition and no one would have been able to get to us in time.
‘I had two options, as I saw it. We could walk out of there and hope we didn’t bump into anyone. Or we could call in our vehicles. That was Jordan’s team. In the original plan he would pick us up beyond the village, when we were clear. But we had discussed the possibility of him driving through. The white Toyota pick-ups we used were the same as the Taliban used in that area. Convoys of them came through the village at any time of the day or night. We felt we could get away with it. A one-off. When I signalled Jordan he asked if we could get closer to the edge of the village. He could see movement on the road and thought he might be challenged. Once the Taliban got a look at the occupants of our Toyotas there would be a battle. I said no. He had to come in and get us. I thought he had more chance of success that way than us going to him.
‘Jordan wasn’t the type to argue, not in a situation like that. So he came on in - the three pick-ups, loud as hell, headlights cutting through the blackness. A handful of Taliban challenged them on the edge of the village but they pushed through. The Taliban didn’t fire, they hadn’t seen enough. Jordan kept on coming. Men walked out of houses as the pick-ups passed, or stood where they had been sleeping, wrapped in blankets. They always had AK-47s, as if the guns were part of their bodies.
‘It was obvious it had to be a moving pick-up. We moved out of the house. A couple of Taliban came towards us. The warlord decided this was his best chance of surviving. We took the Taliban out. Click-click. Others came. We took them out. As the pick-ups arrived we ran to them and dived into the backs. The warlord began to scream, he could see we were succeeding. We shot him through the head. The op was over. We’d failed. It was survival time. It’s not unusual. Not every op is a success. You can only plan for so much. You let go of the trapeze a hundred feet above the ground and look for another.’ Stratton glanced at Rowena.
‘The Taliban opened up on us. Our vehicles weren’t armoured. All we had was the dust we kicked up and the rounds we could put down. Every vehicle got hit but somewhow we all made it out of the killing zone. We lost one vehicle with a stalled engine outside the village but everyone managed to get into another Toyota. Two of my lads were hit - nothing serious. I didn’t know Jordan had been shot until we got to the air-extraction RV. He’d driven without a complaint for twenty minutes until he lost so much blood that he started to fall unconscious.
‘He kept quiet, hoping it was nothing serious so that I wouldn’t get blamed for it. When he told me this later it was his only admission that he thought I’d made the wrong call. Within months he’d been invalided out of the service.’
The lift doors stood open before them and they stepped inside.
‘Do you still believe you were right?’ Jason asked as the doors closed.
‘That’s not the point,’ Stratton said.
‘What is the point?’ Jackson asked.
‘If you need to ask you wouldn’t understand.’
The lift came to a halt and they walked out into the tacky lobby. The others were dissatisfied with Stratton’s answer. ‘Was Jordan a good operative?’ Jason asked.
‘Very.’
‘Did he get the point?’ Jason persisted.
It was an interesting question. That was Stratton’s only complaint about his old friend. ‘You know how beekeepers deal with getting stung? They can’t blame the bees.’
Stratton left them to ponder the comment and he opened the exterior door enough to look towards the helipad. The sound of the helicopter’s purring engines increased measurably. ‘That thing working?’ he asked Binning.
Binning held the plastic case in his hand. ‘I promise you it is.’
Stratton opened the door fully. ‘Give me one minute.’
As the operative closed the door behind him it aroused Rowena’s suspicions once again. ‘Have you considered the possibility that he’ll simply tell the helicopter crew what we’re doing and bring this to an end?’ she said.
‘Don’t you believe him?’ Jason asked.
‘Does he need us to achieve his mission?’ she wondered.