The plan for the pirate gang, Alex explained, was to do the job of the army public relations team. They needed to ingratiate themselves with the people running the operation on the ground, so that their movements wouldn’t be challenged. Alex told Novak to drive to the line of tents and they cruised slowly through the dust churned up by an armoured car in front of them until they came to one that said Headquarters. Someone had scrawled Operation Jumbo in chalk underneath. Alex, Novak, Kufa and Kobus got out of the Toyota and Kevin got in the driver’s seat. ‘Go hide in the car park,’ Alex told the rest of them.
Inside the brown canvas army tent were four rows of folding trestle tables littered with maps, field radio sets, laptop computers, satellite phones and half-drunk plastic bottles of
