THE FOLLOWER: SAS hero turns Manchester hitman (A Rick Fuller Thriller Book 4)(3)

He looked a mean fucker.

“How much support will this guy have?” I asked. “I mean, with the Libyan army holed up in the town, can we expect them to protect him?”

The suit began to put his papers back in his briefcase.

“Al-Mufti has his own protection group. Our intel says they number between twenty and thirty. They are battle hardened and well trained. Taken from all over the Muslim world. Men who have grown tired of war and have been tempted away from their various conflicts by the handsome wages he pays. However, Al-Mufti is also a close personal friend of Gaddafi, and the soldiers in Tiji are loyal to Gaddafi’s regime. What can I say? This is a job that needs to be done quickly and quietly Fuller. Don’t wake the sleeping dog… if you know what I mean?”

I knew exactly what he meant.





Sterling Lines Friday 13th November 1987


Des Cogan’s Story:

I was gutted about the Enniskillen business. All my family were descendants of Irish Catholics. My old man had been born across the water and he knew what it had been like to grow up in the sectarian hotbed that was Belfast. He’d quickly learned how the Provo’s worked and what kind of influence they had over the local community. Strangely, he never questioned my motives when I joined up. ‘There’s good and bad everywhere,’ he’d say. ‘Just make sure you are on the right side of that, son.’

He was rarely wrong my old Dad.

That said, the bombing had opened up many of the old wounds, and some of the more vocal lads were gagging for a bit of revenge on the Paddies.

I kept my head down and my mouth shut. I didn’t need a fat lip, just because I kicked with the wrong foot.

We’d only been back home ten days ourselves. Our troop had been over the water since May 9th. Ringing my wife, Anne, with the news that I was off again, didnea go too well, I’ll tell yer.

The minute the suit had left, the OC dropped a thick file on the table and we all sat around the table poring over maps of Tiji and aerial shots of the target premises. We drank pints of tea, offered different opinions on how best to tackle the job, and took the piss mercilessly.

A couple of sweaty hours later, we had a plan we considered would work.

The Head Shed had organised our transport. First, we would fly to Malta, a friendly face in that part of the world where no-one would ask questions. Then it was a nine-hour boat ride to the Tunisian port of Jarjis, located at the southern end of the eastern peninsula named, the Délégation. We chose Jarjis as it was both a major port and a popular tourist destination where foreigners didn’t stand out like a sore thumb.

The boys from Whitehall had a contact there, who would provide a jeep, fresh rations and get our ‘equipment’ past the port authorities.

Then, it was a two and half hour drive along the P19 to the Libyan border, dump the vehicle before the checkpoint and a tab to Tiji.

Piece of piss.

Abdallah Al-Mufti’s house was a single storey, square block of a place, flat roofed and well fortified. It was situated on a narrow street of similar buildings that we had to presume would be occupied by civilians.

As the OC had said, within five hundred yards was a fair sized mosque and a small medical centre. Even with modern weaponry, the RAF would have wiped out half the community. The boss was right, an air strike was a none starter.

Rick had asked me to act as quartermaster for the job, something I enjoyed and had done before. With the prospect of meeting up to thirty well armed and trained fighters, we needed some big stuff to go with our personal kit.

I found us an AW50F, a folding stock variant of Accuracy International’s AW50, which fires the multi-purpose Raufoss Mk 211 cartridge. The round combines a penetrator, high explosive and incendiary effect all in one tidy package. They make a fucking mess, I’ll tell you.

Our model was also fitted with a Hensoldt NSV 80 night-vision sight as we figured we may end up fighting in the pitch black.

At 15 kilograms, the AW50F is four times the weight of a typical assault rifle, and the .50 calibre ammunition weighs a fucking ton, but I reckoned it would be worth the extra effort as it would take on a light armoured vehicle or punch through a concrete wall.

Four M16A3’s with extended 30 round mags, and four Browning L9A1 Hi-Power SLP’s finished the picture for weaponry.

Some would say the Browning was outdated by 1987, but I’d fired it all my army career, as had the other lads in the patrol.

Better the devil you know.

Also finding their way into our Bergens were eight HG 85 fragmentation hand grenades each containing 155g TNT and around 1800 fragments, great for fighting in built-up areas.

As our plan didn’t involve us firing a single round, you might say this mass of armaments was over the top, but if we were forced to fight our way out of Tiji and back over the border with half the Libyan army on our tails, well…

Of course, each of us would be taking those little things that made us comfortable.

Frankie Green had the most important job as our explosives expert, and he was busy sourcing C-4, reels of cable, tremble switches, detonators and the like.

Frankie actually enjoyed blowing things up.

He hailed from Barnsley, South Yorkshire. They breed them tough down there and Frankie was no exception. The son of a Yorkshire coal miner, he spoke with a thick accent, using ‘thee’ and ‘tha’ rather than ‘you’ and ‘you’re’. He’d been married from the age of seventeen and had three kids. His wife Karen, was a big girl in every way, whereas Frankie was as skinny as a rake. A wiry little tough fucker who you would have to kill to beat in a scrap.