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Paperback 128 pages |
Desert Claw
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Desert Claw is published on May 11th, 2006, as a Century imprint and as part of the British Government’s Quick Reads initiative. This is Damien Lewis’s first fiction book. The plot goes like this. In war-torn Iraq there is a $40 million Van Gogh painting being held to ransom. It has been looted from Saddam’s palaces by Iraqis. It is for sale to the highest bidder. But the British Government aren’t paying. And they want the Iraqis dead. So ex-SAS soldier Mick Kilbride is asked to lead a very secret mission. But all is not as it seems. Mick and his team are drawn into a dark and violent world. Someone, somewhere has deceived them. They will only escape if they stay one step ahead of the mission .. and their betrayers.
Synopsis of Book
The story is set in the Wild West of post war Iraq. A group of Iraqis are offering for sale a highly valuable painting. It is Vincent Van Gogh’s still life - Vase with Irises on an Orange Background. The painting was originally stolen from Kuwait by Iraqi forces during the First Gulf War. In the chaos that engulfed Baghdad during the recent conflict Saddam’s palaces were looted and the Van Gogh fell into Iraqi hands. But rather than paying, the British Government decides to launch a black operation to forcibly retrieve the painting. HMG are seeking to return the painting to its original owner, a Kuwaiti Prince, to thank him for his support during the recent Iraq conflict. Or at least this is the story told to ex-SAS soldier Mick Kilbride when he is recruited to lead a team to seize the painting. Mick’s mission is given the code name Desert Claw. He and his men are on a black, deniable operation. If they are captured or killed in Iraq they will be disowned by HMG. Mat and his right hand man, SAS tough man ‘East End’ Eddie, are told to leave no man alive. There are to be no witnesses to their mission. They are provided with the nerve agent gas Sarin to kill the Iraqis without harming the painting. But as Mat and his team are drawn into a web of violent action and intrigue in Iraq, it becomes increasingly clear that there is a hidden agenda to the mission. Only the involvement of American Iraqi war veteran Bill ‘Bronco’ Berger saves the men from certain death in a bloody ambush. In the climactic scenes Mat and his team are confronted by the British officer who first recruited them - and they realise that they have been horribly betrayed. But the denouement introduces a shocking twist to the tale as they turn the tables on their betrayers. The story is darkly disturbing. It is also unsettlingly close to the reality of post-conflict Iraq, where fortunes are being made and lost overnight .. and good men are dying in the process.
Story Update
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Where Are They Now
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The Story Behind The Story
As will be the case with my next fiction, Desert Claw is a story based in fact and my own, real life experiences. That’s what lends it the rawness and keen sense of realism that makes is such a page-turner of a story. Crucially, the reader knows that it could all have happened in reality, that it might just as well be true. In the summer of 2004, a British ex-special forces friend of mine asked me to meet him in London. He said he needed my help, and somewhat urgently. I was more than a little curious and we met up at the Holborn hotel, a discreet location just five minutes walk from Holborn tube station. The staff there know me well and are used to me entertaining all sorts of unusual guests in the lobby and bar.
My contact – let’s call him ‘Steve’ - was on his way back from Iraq for a few days r-n-r in the UK, before heading back out again. He was working the private security circuit – providing armed security for a big American company - and making a serious amount of money whilst doing so. We met, ordered a beer, and talked about the general state of play in Iraq for a while. Then I asked him why he needed to see me so urgently. Steve lowered his voice and leaned across the table. Did I know anyone in the art world, he asked me? He reckoned it was the sort of circle I might move in. As it happened, I did know a couple of art dealers. One of them I greatly admired as a philanthropist – he was a Canadian art dealer who had set up the groundbreaking Social Venture Network, to aid good causes. I told Steve as much, and asked him why the sudden interest in art?
“There’s a Van Goff, mate,” Steve told me, talking out the side of his mouth. “Bunch of Iraqi crims have it. They’re trying to flog it to us. But we ain’t got a clue if it’s real.”
For a moment I thought that Steve was joking. But it turned out that he was deadly serious. In order to convince me, he pulled his lap top computer out of his bag. He placed it on the hotel’s glass coffee table and fired it up. He pulled up a grainy image on screen. It was a video filmed by the Iraqis holding the painting. Steve proceeded to play me the grainy, wobbly shots as the video panned up and down the picture itself – which was a remarkably Van Gogh like image. In the background I could hear the excited voices of the Iraqis who were filming. I wondered what they were saying. It would be fascinating to know, I told myself. Finally, the painting was turned over and the video focussed down onto what appeared to be an export certificate attached to the rear of the frame. I asked Steve if the certificate said what I thought it did. The focus was bad – it kept hunting backwards and forwards in the dim light – and I wasn’t sure I’d read it properly.
“Yeah,” he told me, with a grin. “It says $25 million. That’s the money whoever paid for it paid, ain’t it?”
It certainly looked like it – that’s if it all was genuine. It was time to order another beer! Steve wanted to know if I could get the video shown to one or other of my art dealer contacts, just to see if they thought the painting was genuine. I told him that I could. But if it was a real Van Gogh, then where on earth might it have come from, I wondered? Steve and I discussed this over beers. The most likely source of the painting was Kuwait. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in the First Gulf War, Kuwait was looted. The royal palaces were stripped bare – including all their priceless artwork. Most of it was hauled back to Iraq and stuck in Saddam’s palaces. During the recent Gulf conflict law and order had broken down and Saddam’s palaces had in turn been looted. Which might just explain how a bunch of Iraqi criminals had got their hands on a priceless Van Gogh.
I asked Steve how much the Iraqi gang wanted for it. He told me that they were still negotiating a price – but it was in the hundreds-of-thousands of dollars, as opposed to millions. I told him that if the painting could be identified, then it shouldn’t be hard to trace its original owner. And then the thing to do would be to reunite the original owner – most likely a Kuwaiti Prince – with his painting, for a negotiated fee.
But the trouble was the Iraqis, Steve said. They were a heavily armed lawless bunch in an all but lawless country. How could they trust them? If they went with the money to buy the painting, what was to stop the Iraqis from taking the money and doing a runner? Or worse still, taking the money and then taking Steve and his mates hostage? Iraq was a very dangerous place. No one could be trusted. And then there was the issue of how to keep the painting safe in Iraq and get it out of the country, without someone else robbing it off them. Iraq was the Wild West and nothing was secure. Finally, Steve and I parted with me promising to get a positive ID on the painting. I also promised to see if one of my art dealer mates would be willing to try to cut a deal with whoever was the painting’s rightful owner.
I did speak to both of my art dealer friends and we did identify which Van Gogh we thought it was. Steve and I stayed in touch, but as far as I know he and his mates never took the project of liberating the Van Gogh any further forward. Yet I kept on thinking about that Van Gogh and what might have befallen it. A few months later I was having dinner with one of my two literary agents, Andrew Lownie. We were in Pimlico, at a quiet little wine bar he frequents around there. We got talking about the Iraqi situation and after a few glasses of wine, I told Andrew the tale about the Van Gogh.
“What a brilliant story,” Andrew enthused, his eyes sparkling. “You should write it as a fiction.”
The seed was planted in my mind. Andrew went on to discuss it briefly with a feature film agent, who also loved the basic idea of the story. When a year later I was invited to be involved in the Quick Reads initiative, I decided it was the right moment to write the Van Gogh story. The basic tale that Steve had told me was expanded into Desert Claw - the main contention of the book being that the Iraqis could never be trusted to hand over the painting, and so it would have to be taken off them forcefully and violently. At the same time, whoever so liberated the painting would have to do so without harming it, not an easy or a straightforward proposition when faced by a heavily armed Iraqi gang.
The dramatic, dark and vicious plot line of Desert Claw developed from there. It was helped enormously by that fact that I had just recently purchased a Land Rover 110 Tomb Raider. This is a highly specialised limited edition Land Rover based upon the actual model used in the Lara Croft Tomb Raider movie. This Land Rover is similar in type to those used by the UK armed forces. Alongside the ex-special forces soldiers who are sent in to bust the Van Gogh free, their fleet of Land Rover 110s are also the stars of the story told in Desert Claw. These rugged vehicles enable the team to penetrate parts of Iraq that no other 4x4 could, whilst having the brute power to fight their way out of trouble. To see pictures of the Tomb Raider Land Rover and the author with his vehicle, see Photo Gallery.
I was helped in writing the most horrific parts of the story – those involving the use of Sarin nerve gas - by the fact that I was myself trained by the then Chemical & Biological Defence Establishment (CBDE Porton Down), in the taking of samples of chemical and biological weapons, and how to protect oneself whilst doing so. I had operated as a journalist in Burma on two occasions, and also in the Sudan war zone, where chemical and biological weapons had allegedly been used. I had gone in wearing protective masks, suits and clothing to take samples of those agents used – in order to produce film reports for Channel 4 and the BBC about the attacks that had supposedly taken place. I knew what it was like to operate in hot, stifling conditions inside an NBC suit and mask. And I knew pretty well what these horrific chemical and biological agents can do to their victims.
I still don’t know the fate of Steve’s Van Gogh in Iraq. But I’m more than thankful to my ex-Special Forces mate for the inspiration he gave me for the story told in Desert Claw.
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Images
Some of the research images behind the book Desert Claw, including the vehicles featured and the Van Gogh painting in question.
View Desert Claw Image Gallery
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Excerpt
From the cover of the bushes Mick stared at the target building with unblinking eyes. It was barely thirty yards away. Their approach across the desert had been slow but sure and no one had noticed their passing. In spite of the chill desert night, it was hot and sticky inside the bulky suit and he could feel the drops of sweat trickling down his neck. He wiped the eye-piece of his night vision unit. Four windows were lit up in the target building. Every now and then he could see a figure flit across one of them. People were awake and active in there, but that was as he had expected. Everything seemed quite normal.... Read More