TURKISH DELIGHT, Barry Faulkner [best ebook reader ubuntu .TXT] 📗

its steel payload enough for it to smash through. We wouldn’t know until the second drone was in position whether it had worked, as Gold had to cut the power to let the first drone fall and hit the skylight.

‘Fingers crossed,’ she said and cut the radio signal to the drone.

As she did so the control screen blanked out. Quickly I passed the second controller to her and moved the second drone to the rear doors. Then I carefully moved the shoe box-sized incendiary and explosive bomb and waited until Gold had switched on the controller and taken the drone up to about two feet above the car park wall before jumping out and hooking on the box and very carefully pressing in a button that primed the explosive charge to explode on impact. And then it was flying away as I got back into the van and pulled the rear doors closed. We watched the controller screen and saw the city pass beneath the drone camera until it reached the military compound. By now the smashing of the window and the drone falling inside the warehouse must have caused a bit of panic. It had. We could see soldiers running around; most seemed to be running away from the warehouse.

‘It must have got through and fallen on the warehouse floor – they think the steel tube is a bomb, which is why they are running away,’ explained Gold, even though I hadn’t asked the question.

The second drone was spotted, and several flashes from rifles being shot could be seen, but she moved it out of sight over the warehouse before any AK-47s or similar carbine could pump lead into the sky. I watched the controller screen as Gold moved it over the smashed window and lowered it slowly down and through into the warehouse. The camera showed the warehouse lights on and stacks of wooden crates of all sizes in rows; crates similar to those in the Purley warehouse. Part of the floor was covered in upright standing warheads and shells of all sizes.

I was taken aback. ‘My God, you could equip an army with that lot.’

‘Yes, but which army – Assad’s, the Houthis, ISIS, al-Qaeda? I don’t think we want that lot getting in any of their hands.’ She exaggeratedly raised a finger and switched off the drone’s power.

We looked expectantly through the night towards the red flashing lights on the warehouse roof. Nothing happened. Had the explosive failed? Then the red lights went out, and we waited with baited breath; surely we’d see some flames?

The one flame we did see was massive, absolutely massive! It took the roof with it way up into the night sky and behind it flame continued to pour out of the warehouse upwards, accelerated by explosions we could plainly hear from our position a mile and a half away. We must have hit a dynamite stockpile, and a big one at that.

I don’t know why, but we both started to laugh – relief of the tension? We gave a high five. Sirens were beginning to be heard, growing in number, and blue flashing lights lit up the sky from the streets.

‘Time to go,’ I said. I had a long journey back to the rendezvous point and wanted plenty of time, as I didn’t fancy missing the one o’clock deadline and hanging around that beach for twenty-four hours until the next one.

‘Okay.’ Gold took out a tunic from the rucksack and put it on over her onesie before wrapping the hijab around her head. She clasped her hands together and gave me a slight bow.

‘See you in Cyprus. Take care.’ And with that she turned and made her way to the car park staircase.

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CHAPTER 16

 

I gave her five minutes, sitting and watching the inferno in the distance and hearing muffled explosions before driving out of the car park and turning towards the Syrian border road, the one we had come in on. I kept checking my mirror but I suppose every patrol had been called to the compound. Except one, and that one had set up a roadblock half a mile in front of me, probably because of the happenings with Ajdin and the soldiers at the big house; it was too soon for the warehouse attack to have gotten through to those in charge and roadblocks to have been ordered.

It was only one patrol, three soldiers and a jeep; the jeep was parked sideways on but wasn’t long enough to block the whole road. I thought about winging it, hitting its front corner and disabling a wheel so they couldn’t chase me, but that could disable the van as well - no, best to take advantage of the element of surprise and put some distance between them and me. I opened the driver’s side window and pulled out my Sig. Flicking the headlights full on I floored the accelerator; they wouldn’t realise the speed I was doing until I was nearly on them. Surprise is a great element in warfare, and even in a small scenario like this one it works. At about fifty yards from them the soldiers started to think that maybe I wasn’t going to stop, but before they could unsling their rifles I was firing the Sig from outside the side window which had them running for cover, and then I was past and well away into the darkness, lights out, before they started to fire after me.

I kept my foot hard to the floor. I could see the ocean a half mile on my right shimmering in the moonlight beyond the woods. It wouldn’t be long before the jeep would catch me up, so time to play games. I pulled up on the right-hand side of the road and moved into the bushes on the left side. I found a fallen tree and lay behind it, my CF8