Dead Centre 2 - Even The Wrong Can Be Right Sometimes!

1 BANGKOK, THAILAND-2

“Wasn’t the roof reinforced?”

“It had indeed been reinforced, Toby, but I’d like you all to watch this video. Now, please,” he said turning to an army intelligence technical officer who was manning the video equipment. “Tech staff have enhanced the image as much as they can, but blow… enlarging it like this brings its own problems.

“OK, here you see the helicopter swinging into position over our embassy, the first to be hit, then you see what looks like two men rolling a drum out of the side door. It has been estimated that the craft is between one hundred and fifty and one hundred and seventy feet above the building at this juncture. Now watch carefully, within ten to fifteen feet, the drum, which had been rolled out on its side, had righted itself. Freeze frame! Pay particular attention to the underside… you will notice an arrowhead-type construction.

“A two fifty litre drum full of explosives could easily weigh two hundred and fifty kilos, but the weight added to make it right itself and come down on its tip, could have made the drum weigh three hundred kilos. Three hundred kilos per square inch on impact… I’m afraid I don’t know what that would increase to after having fallen a hundred and fifty feet, but I know of no pitched roof that could withstand an onslaught like that and anyway, it is obvious that neither ours nor the American’s were able to.

“Did the terrorists know that or did they just chance their arm anyway? Who knows? Was sensitive information about the roof’s construction passed on? We don’t know? Certainly the maintenance men would have known about the condition of the roof or indeed roofs. OK, roll. As soon as the IED is dropped, the helicopter moves over a little, then after the first blast it returns, drops the second drum of fuel and flies off to the American Embassy a minute or so away.

“They drop an IED, move away over the rear garden to avoid the up-blast again and throw something out as the drum detonates. It was later discovered to be the American pilot who had been flying the helicopter for the terrorists for the company they had hired it from.

“He had been shot through the back of the head, so there must have been a replacement pilot, at least of sorts on board, because then the chopper returns to the gutted roof and dives in through the hole created by the IED producing the same kind of inferno as at our mission.

“This is reminiscent of 9/11 as I am sure you will be aware.

“Thank you,” he said to the technician, “you may leave us now.

“Well, gentlemen, that’s all I have.”

“Thank you, Richard,” said the P.M. “Anyone got anything to add? It’s a rum do and no mistake. I imagine that the Americans were the real target, but we were so close that the miscreants couldn’t believe their luck. Two birds with one stone, eh? And a leased one at that, though I bet no-one pays the invoice. Oh, was it leased or stolen?”

“Almost certainly leased, Prime Minister. We know next to nothing, we have no-one there but a BBC correspondent, so we are at the mercy of the Thai authorities and the media for our local knowledge. The Consuls in Chiang Mai and Pattaya have been told to get to Bangkok post haste, but they are old men and not trained for this kind of work, still they can help out with processing visas. They should be there in about three hours,” replied Richard checking his watch automatically with the clock on the mantelpiece.

“Anyone got anything to say? Chief?” he asked addressing the head of MI6.

“No, not concrete news really, all our three operatives were taken out. I can only say that we had no wind of an imminent terrorist attack. Thailand is a very peaceful country except for its internal problems with the Muslim Separatists down in the south by the border with Malaysia. It’s their Irish Question, but it has been kept local. Other than that, Thailand is a very important rock in between the Communist-inspired eastern countries like Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam and the junta in Myanmar, er, old Burma.

“There haven’t been any issues that have concerned us since the Seventies and Vietnam. I’m afraid we were very much a soft target. It means we’ll have to re-evaluate our embassies in other countries as well, or this could become an epidemic. I’m afraid that the consequence of these attacks could be a series of others by the same group, or even copycat bombings.”

“I take it that we are all suspecting that Al-Qaeda or ISIS were behind it.”

People nodded their heads and looked at the sheet of paper with their notes before them.

“It seems that that is the general consensus, Arthur, yes. All right, I have a small bit of news, or non-news to add. I just got off the phone with the American President and he says they don’t know anything either… make of that what you will. OK, that’s it for now then, gentlemen, thank you for coming. You know that it is impossible to overstate how important this is - absolute top priority, especially in light of possible future attacks on other embassies, as Chief just pointed out.

“Richard, you will forward any new information as and when it arrives, won’t you?”

“Yes, sir, the moment I get it typed up.”

“Good man, I want to see you all back here at fifteen hundred hours today, gentlemen, let’s see how fast we can work on this one. Talk to anyone you need to to get a result. I will be available for consultation for the rest of the day in my office. I have already cancelled all my appointments. I will not insist that you all do the same, but this job takes precedence.

“Let’s get weaving then.”

∞

The same five men took the same five seats at the same table at three o’clock that afternoon. The Foreign Secretary chaired the meeting again.

“All right, gentlemen, because of the sort of people you are and because we have all kept in close contact with each other since this morning’s meeting, I know that most of you have something to say now, so I propose to go around the table one by one.

“Arthur, I think you would like to go first, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, Dicky, thank you…” He smiled as a flashing light on his muted mobile phone lying on the desk before him interrupted him. “Excuse me, PM, this is relevant.” He read the message in silence and then explained, “One of the Firm’s top men, James Young, has just boarded the fourteen fifty-five British Airways scheduled flight for Bangkok. He will arrive at oh-nine ten local time tomorrow, er, that is 0h-two ten here.”

“Excellent, Arthur,” said the Prime Minister, “please continue.”

“Well, to be honest, sir, the rest of my news is not so good. We have operatives in the embassies of all the surrounding countries, and I could get them to fly to Bangkok without a problem, but none of them has much local knowledge and no Thai language skills. It appears that Thai is a one-off language - – only Thais speak it… a bit like Welsh.

“Lao is similar, but different, like Bretagne is to Welsh. In short, we’ve got four units in Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Malaysia, all the neighbouring countries but none of them is any sodding use to us. Young can’t speak Thai either, but he’s very resourceful. We are trying to work out something with Army Intelligence, but we’re not sure yet… they sometimes work on exercises with Thai troops or train them in the use of British weapons.

“Perhaps Toby can enlighten us further on this one.”

“I’m afraid not, gentlemen, not at this precise moment, anyway. I can only confirm that word has gone out to the three armed forces and all their regiments including Special Forces, looking for Thai speakers, preferably with local knowledge, but I doubt that we’ll hear any more today.. Sorry.”

“All right, thank you, Toby. Roddy?”

“I can confirm what Toby just said, and I have details of the flight of replacement personnel to the area. A Merlin helicopter from RAF Benson, will fly to Stanstead Airport in the city this afternoon to take twenty-five staff chosen by Dicky and Arthur to Boscombe Down, where an RAF Voyager will be waiting to fly them non-stop to Bangkok. They should arrive at two pm local tomorrow… we have already obtained all the necessary clearances.

“Our only problem here, but it might not be a problem, is sensitive surveillance and communications equipment. Thailand likes to keep up an image of neutrality so it officially denies entry of many types of technical gear into its country. However, the place is so corrupt that it has never been a problem before. We thought we’d load up the transporter with a few military pallets and cargo boxes and play it by ear. If it’s no go, then we’ll take them elsewhere.

“That would leave our people in Bangkok vulnerable though. Dicky, would you like to pick up the story?”

“Sure. The personnel that we have selected are, a new ambassador, twenty-one replacement embassy staff and the usual team of three of the Chief’s men. Then we have Agent James Young who is not directly attached to anything, he’s a floater, ostensibly an ordinary tourist with dual Swiss and British nationalities, which the Swiss will back us up on, but we can attach him to the embassy staff at any time it is felt expedient to do so.

“Then there is the secure communications problem. We have conducted bi-lateral talks with the Swiss and they are happy for us to use the equipment in their embassy, until we can get ourselves sorted out, as long as we keep quiet about it. Apparently, they don’t want the Thais to know that they have broken their embargo, although as far as I am concerned, the Thais expect everyone to have broken it for years. Still, we have to respect their wishes

“Young will send us his preliminary report from there at eleven am tomorrow morning, that is six pm Bangkok time, if all goes well.”

∞

As the powers that be in the UK were taking their seats in Number 10 Downing Street, so was Agent James Young of the Secret Intelligence Service taking his in Business Class aboard BA Flight 1954, which was on time and due to take off in ten minutes on its eleven-hour voyage to Thailand. He had never been there before, and, despite the circumstances of his visit, he was looking forward to it, but then he relished every challenge.

A charming air hostess of the cabin crew took his only piece of luggage, a leather holdall and stowed it away for him. He thought he recognised her from other journeys, but her calling him by name was no guarantee of that.

“I hope you have a pleasant flight, Mr. Young. Drinks will be available in about twenty minutes, but if you need any help with anything at all, please push the button overhead. My name is Suzanne.”

“Thank you very much, Suzanne, I shall be sure to do that.” They smiled at each other, then she turned to walk up the aisle in front of him. He watched her bottom travel up the aircraft in her tight skirt then closed his eyes.

‘I can wait twenty minutes,’ he thought, ‘we’ve got half a day ahead of us’.