The Trusted

by Michelle Medhat

  Kinley’s mind flipped through possibilities. They had to be some kind of nano-bot, something new Al Nadir hadn’t told him about. He knew Sabena would be behind it. Somehow, they must have discovered he was still with MI6. That he hadn’t turned at all. That he’d been playing them all this time. He’d read nothing in their faces. He’d only seen Salim a few days before. He’d given nothing away. How long had they known - days, weeks, months? Kinley didn’t think it had been any more than a week or so.

  In her bed last weekend, Sabena had been her usual nymphomaniac self, full to the brim with her sadistic proclivities, and as per his alter ego Kingswood, he’d obliged her every sick desire and wanton need. Ever since Snowdrop started, her and Kinley had been lovers, if one could call it love. Kinley preferred to regard it as a union of requirement. Operation Snowdrop’s objective was to get deep undercover within the terrorist collective, and he’d used Sabena as the ‘in’ to infiltrate Al Nadir. That’s why he had to compartmentalize. Knowing that the hands and lips that touched his innocent, beautiful wife and child had also touched Sabena, and sometimes others in Al Nadir’s inner circle, including Salim. The very thought, had he not conditioned his mind completely, could have tipped him over the edge.

  Operation Snowdrop had been hailed as a considerable success by the three people who knew about the mission. They’d used the intelligence he’d secured and the incredible access he had into Salim’s inner circle to turn parts of Al Nadir’s financial castle to rubble. The intel agencies around the world had worked together wiping one hundred billion dollars off Al Nadir’s financial capability books.

  Only three other people knew of his involvement in Snowdrop: Maide, Ashton and Sam, and all had signed a vow of silence. That had proved necessary as Snowdrop’s by product had been innocent deaths by the bucketload. Al Nadir had devised a unique explosive adhesive connected to nano RFIDs embedded within the adhesive mix. They’d had all the posters on the trains replaced with the new adhesive. The bombs behind the posters all simultaneously detonated at eleven hundred hours on June 28, 2013.

  On that day, five thousand, eight hundred and twenty people died.

  During the four years Kinley had obliterated the lives of tens of thousands.

  But he’d also saved tens of millions.

  That’s the only way he slept at night. Knowing he was still saving lives.

  As he looked down at the dust creeping up his body he knew that this was his judgement day.

  He’d joked with Sam before Operation Snowdrop started that the job could be the death of him. Now he knew it wasn’t a joke.

  Kinley pushed back the past and focused.

  “Get water! Throw it over me.” If they had the same nano-electronics as the previous nano-bomb perhaps he could try and short-circuit them.

  Angela let go of Lotte’s hand, ran to the kitchen, grabbed a jug, filled it with water and returned to the hallway where she hurled the water over her husband.

  “Argh! It’s burning!” screamed Kinley, as the water hit the dust. But instead of seeping into his body, the water fizzed to steam. “I’m burning up, Angie. You’ve got do something. God, you’ve got to!”

  Kinley pleaded to his wife, but Angela was mesmerized by the metamorphosis taking place across her husband’s torso. The dust had hardened into a metallic coating.

  “Angie, my arms, they feel strange.”

  Kinley looked down. Both arms, which had been covered in dust, were now shiny silver.

  “Oh, God. What’s happening? Angie, I’m scared. Angie, help me.”

  This reaction of a nano-bomb was nothing like he’d ever seen before. Al Nadir had kept this very secret. With the last iteration of the nano-bomb upgraded four weeks ago, Stein-Muller had to have been working on this for a month.

  He watched as Angela looked around the hall, trying to find something to help her husband.

  She picked up an umbrella. Then a cordless phone. What could she use?

  She flicked her head back and forth, dizzy, confused and terrified.

  “Mummy! What’s wrong with daddy? No, no, Mummy. Mummy, no. No!”

  Lotte’s loud, penetrating insistence forced Angela to stop her examination of the hall and look back at him. As she stared at Kinley, the sight that greeted her brought out a scream louder than Kinley ever believed she could possibly make.

  Chapter 52

  Richard Ashton took in his assembled colleagues. Dudley Gibbs looked tired. Paul Weaver looked stunned. Sir Justin Maide looked pensive. Quentin Ludlow looked smug. Dr. Sam Noor looked deeply pissed off. Something was clearly up.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen. What do we have today?”

  Ashton glanced through the agenda.

  “Al Nadir, and it’s not good,” replied Maide with solid force, jumping ahead of Gibbs, who scowled.

  Ashton glared, his eyes screaming ‘When is it ever?’

  “Our operations in Oslo proved positive,” continued Maide. “Two items of note. The package taken from Rikard by Dr. Noor has been analyzed to be some kind of Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) synaptic inhibitor. Analysis is still on-going. We’ve also discovered unequivocally that Al Nadir have established a new cell in the UK.”

  Weaver stared, horrified. “Another one? Oh, good God. Can’t we keep our damn borders protected?”

  “These are Brits, Home Secretary. No illegal immigrants here,” said Gibbs.

  Ashton scowled at the comment. He hated that the terrorists were British.

  “Gibbs, what the hell is happening with your people?” asked Ashton.

  Maide shuffled but knew he couldn’t take the lead. This was Five’s jurisdiction.

  “Prime Minister, we have confirmed a convergence of activity, meetings, money movements, acquisitions and, of course, the usual chatter. Looks like there’s a storm brewing. With the summit approaching, we need to be proactive.”

  Maide leapt in. “Right now, our people are pouring through transcripts of Rikard’s diatribe before he blew.”

  “Have you identified the cell’s location?” Ashton directed the question to Gibbs, who shook his head.

  “No, Prime Minister, not exactly. However, we know it’s somewhere in Cambridgeshire.”

  Ashton turned his head sharply to Maide.

  “Didn’t you learn anything more concrete from Rikard?” shouted the PM.

  “Sir, with due respect, Al Nadir operative Rikard Allan was loaded with the nano-bomb. We only had a short interrogation window before the nano-bots in his system sent back his biometric data to Al Nadir confirming his captured status. The signal from them to detonate was sent sooner after, and we had to handle Rikard’s demise through a controlled explosion.”

  Ashton listened and got more irate. “For fuck’s sake! Aren’t you managing to counter the nano-bomb at all?”

  “Of course we are, Prime Minister,” responded Gibbs.

  But Maide jumped in to finish off the address. “It’s just that the complexity of the nano-bomb and the constantly evolving nature of the threat has made progress much slower than we anticipated. Dr. Noor, perhaps you would like to explain further on this.”

  Sam moved forward with expectancy. Ashton recognized the agent understood his role, and it wasn’t to make up the numbers. He had the inside track on Al Nadir’s nano-bomb. Ashton stared at Sam as he made a wide scan across the faces at the table. He seemed to be centering himself, but Ashton could discern a pulling of tension at the sides of his lips. The tension increased as his gaze fell upon Quentin and Maide. Ashton took in Quentin’s expression. A supercilious mouth up-turned into a condescending sneer. Maide’s stance was professional as always, but he could discern a slither of mocking directed at Sam within his intense brown eyes. Ashton watched Sam. He saw him clench his right hand into a fist and his eyes told of an anger he could barely contain. He wanted to rip the men’s throats out rather than discuss nano-technology. Ashton knew that look. He’d seen it before, on himself, in the mirror, when someone had pissed him off badly. Wh
at on Earth had they done?

  “Prime Minister, the nano-bomb is unlike any other threat we’ve previously faced. To put this into context, three months ago we discovered the nano-bomb, and only five weeks ago, we managed to acquire the technology.”

  Ashton nodded hurriedly and smiled with gratitude as he remembered that it was down to Sam’s endeavors that they had the nano-bomb at all. Sam acknowledged the PM’s reaction with a gracious tilt of his head. Ashton noticed Maide straightened up and Ashton could see he was basking with pride. You’ve got nothing to be proud of, you haven’t solved anything, thought Ashton harshly, and looked toward Sam as the agent started to speak.

  “Sir, we can expect this model to be upgraded at any moment, if it hasn’t been already.”

  “But tell me, Dr. Noor. What progress has actually been made? What I’ve heard so far suggests we’re still chasing our tails.”

  Ashton tried to tone down his disdain at British Intelligence’s inadequacy. He felt guilty. He didn’t mean to target Sam. The agent had done a superb job and it wasn’t his fault things weren’t moving faster.

  Maide and Gibbs needed to come up with the answers he sought.

  “Sir, we are progressing. Our success with Rikard Allan was down to our co-op with the CIA to develop the anti-agent. The nano-bomb works like a virus, mutating cells and assimilating them into being part of the nano-bomb. The anti-agent we’ve developed is a blocking programme that stops assimilation. We managed to block assimilation in Allan for a little over half an hour. That was how we learned of the Cambridge cell. Our scientists are working fourteen-hour shifts to extend the blocking time. Once we get to a permanent block on assimilation, we’ll be able to make a real move against Al Nadir.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Noor. I’m pleased that at least some progress is being made.” Ashton’s voice, laced with droplets of sarcasm, aggravated Sam.

  “Sir, we are doing everything possible,” Sam retaliated. “But until we’ve nailed the nano-bomb, we can’t move very far forward.”

  Ashton placed his hands together as if to pray, and then rested his thumbs underneath his chin and pointed his fingers in Sam’s direction.

  “Are we absolutely sure that all senior lieutenants have the nano-bomb?” asked Ashton exasperated.

  “As far as we know, sir, yes. But Al Nadir is unpredictable. We can’t be completely sure of anything,” said Sam.

  “Talk about feeling impotent,” muttered Maide. But he immediately collected himself when the PM glared irritably at him.

  “Maide, Gibbs, just tell me. Why Cambridgeshire?” asked Ashton, inwardly confused by the sudden obsession with the previously clean and terrorist-free county.

  His security heads stared at the PM, and in their eyes, Ashton could see they had the reason behind Al Nadir’s new fixation with the quiet county.

  Chapter 53

  Salim looked out the window of his luxury helicopter. The cityscape of Jumeriah Palm passed beneath him. Less than a decade ago the place had been just sea. The petrodollar had bought a lot in a very short time, and now the only life that teamed below was of the two-legged kind. He smiled, leaning back and enjoying the sumptuous views of the futuristic, shining towers. The people of Dubai knew what he knew: money could buy anything. For them, it meant culture, class and acceptance. For Salim, money bought freedom.

  The myriad alphabet of intel agencies around the world had been carefully bought off. And when the money couldn’t talk, interventions from his invisible armies were enough to silence the most avid and tenacious of spies.

  Salim knocked back his vodka and poured another as he dived into memories. Those armies had been one of his many masterstrokes. It was such a startlingly obvious idea, he wondered why no one had thought of it before. But, of course, all the terrorist groups preceding Al Nadir had either been driven by an inner cause of religion or revolution, or set up by various government powers to create societies of fear, controlled by propaganda and negative imagery. None had been about the money or sheer domination. Perhaps, that’s why they never saw the bigger picture, the connectedness of the world around them. Salim, had taken Al Nadir to the next level.

  In truth, it had been Sabena who had made the original suggestion. “Salim, baby, how would you like to really kick start Al Nadir?”

  “You know I want to. Bringing together terrorist agencies is one thing, but I want more, much more.”

  “There are over one point two billion people across the world living in shitholes?”

  “So? There are an awful lot of people waking up to interesting aromas?”

  Sabena shook her head and smiled at Salim’s uncharacteristic naivety. “Let me rephrase it. If we were to harness just five percent of that lot, that’s 60 million recruits for Al Nadir.”

  Salim grasped Sabena’s inference immediately. He laughed, grabbed hold of her hair roughly, and pulled her towards him. Sabena’s eyes widened with pleasure as the unexpected pain touched her nerves and she moved her lips up towards him.

  “Sabena, you are-”

  Sabena pushed hard against him, stabbing her tongue violently into his mouth, taking his breath with his words away.

  She moved back for a second to speak. “I know what I am. Don’t you ever forget it!”

  Salim prickled uncomfortably at her tone. He pulled her away, his face bloodless and cold. “Baby, I’ll remember you when I need to, and I’ll forget you when you’re no longer needed.”

  Sabena attempted a smile, trying to playfully suggest her words were just a joke.

  “And right now,” Salim sneered, his hand edging up her skirt, “you’re needed.”

  Salim enjoyed the memories with pleasure as he fast forwarded from the idea to conception to execution.

  After Salim had identified the size of the urban slum population per country, he realized Sabena had really been on to something with her suggestion. Salim’s top ten target countries came back with the total slum populations in millions (M):

  China 191M

  India 98M

  Nigeria 42M

  Brazil 38M

  Pakistan 32M

  Indonesia 29M

  Bangladesh 29M

  Democratic Republic of Congo 21M

  Sudan 12M

  Iraq 11M

  Salim knew these were massive figures in terms of people. He wondered how the world had allowed such a level of poverty to persist. These people had been forgotten. The world had turned their backs on the poor. Governments, so-called charities and institutions had made themselves rich on the lives of those invisible ones. Within Salim, he felt a twang of righteousness unbecoming of his persona.

  He would give these people what had been stripped from their lives. These people who had lived and scrounged on a rubbish heap twenty-four-seven, who had been forced to put their children into prostitution, who sold their own body parts for money, just to survive.

  Al Nadir would give them back their dignity, their identity and, most of all, their sense of respect and pride.

  After his initial analysis, Salim pulled together the percentage proportion of the urban population in each country living in slum areas:

  South Sudan – 95%

  Central African Republic – 93%

  Sudan – 91%

  Chad – 88%

  Sao Tome and Principe – 86%

  Guinea-Bissau – 82%

  Mozambique – 80%

  Haiti – 74%

  Niger – 70%

  Afghanistan – 62%

  Salim could see that many countries across the world had urban populations that were almost all comprised of slums. They were all valid targets to be recruited into Al Nadir. The countries that had the highest percentage of the urban population living in slum conditions were most likely to have some form of slum overlord or commander.

  In the barrios in Venezuela or favelas in Brazil, the slum overlords were easy to identify. But in the cities where slums were the main urban living profile, which translated to poor access to wat
er and sanitation, no durable housing and insufficient living areas, finding the slum commander may prove a harder activity.

  Salim glanced up at Sabena, smirking, as she walked into his office in Al Nadir’s private residence, Sanctum, on a tiny island in the Caribbean.

  “You know, Sabena, your little idea may just work. Have a look at these figures.” Salim pushed the lists in front of Sabena.

  “It’s a hell of a recruitment opportunity for Al Nadir,” she replied. “Do you want me to prime up the global lieutenants in the major countries you’ve selected?”

  “No. I’m going to do a video call to everyone in Al Nadir’s senior management team simultaneously across the globe. They need to run the figures and report back to me post-mortem. But I’m giving them the autonomy to make this happen. If we go back and forth like pricks, we’ll be no better than their fucking governments.”

  Sabena nodded, smirking, and slipped forward onto Salim’s desk.

  “Doesn’t this call for a bit of a celebration?” said Sabena, rubbing her thigh against his.

  Salim pushed her away roughly. “Not now, babes. I’ve got to keep my head focused. This is business. We’ve got time for pleasure later!”

  Salim flashed his black eyes. Within them, Sabena detected his seductive intentions. She shivered a little in anticipation and dropped down off the desk.

  “Do you want me to set up the conference room?” asked Sabena.

  “Now you’re thinking my way! Yes. Get it set up on global transmission. I just need to change into something less casual,” said Salim, looking down at his t-shirt and shorts.

  “Wear Zegna. It makes you look like you own the world,” suggested Sabena, heading for the door.

  “Babes,” called Salim, “that moment isn’t far off!”

  Sabena peered over her shoulder, raised her eyebrow, and smiled.

  After Salim had given his orders to his senior management team (SMT), the Al Nadir machine sprung into activity. On the ground in the countries of the slums, Salim’s SMT instructed their global lieutenants. They, in turn, contacted their own intricate and far-reaching networks of Al Nadir staff members. They’d been allocated money to be spent as bribes to slum overlords, cash payments to people, or incentives to the authorities to take whole towns away. Given the amount of fire power coupled with financial strength, removal of people from the slums had been straightforward.