Act of Vengeance

by Michael Jecks

  And what had she done? She had cried. Like a pathetic little girl, she wept in the face of the injustice. She was pathetic.

  She had phoned her lawyer, Mr Lomax, and he had listened patiently to her as she explained what had happened; he seemed to grow more and more silent and quietly enraged as she spoke. Lomax had known Mohammed from his time at Braboeuf Manor in Surrey, where they had both trained for the law, and knew him better than any in the profession. The idea that the police should have broken in again like this was enough to make his libertarian soul rebel.

  He called back later to say that they had a meeting arranged with the local Superintendent of police in the morning to learn why Mohammed was arrested again. There was no time to fix a meeting sooner, Lomax said. They should learn all they needed in the morning.

  Sara had put the phone down without another word.

  Now, lying in her bed, sobbing silently, she prayed again that her husband might be returned to her.

  Without Mohammed, she was lost.

  *

  03.32 Glasgow

  Mohammed al Malik slept very little that night. He couldn’t work out what was happening to him. He had been convinced that his captors were the police at first, but now, having been packed up and locked in here for so long, he started to doubt that. The police would have taken him to Scotland Yard, or their special terrorist prisoner cells at Paddington. He knew that. They took him there last time.

  This was different. They had travelled solidly for ages. He had no watch, and for all that time he had been left alone in the back of the van, shivering with the cold, thrown from side to side at first, but then the vehicle settled down and the engine took on a steady roar. He guessed he was on a motorway but he had no idea where they could be taking him. It was so far, and even though the slow rocking and the continuous rumble were soporific, he could not rest. His mind kept running over the brief assault when they captured him. Whoever ‘they’ were.

  And now, at last, the van was slowing again. There was more of a rocking motion as it slowed and then started going round corners. A lurch and bang told him they’d run into a pothole, and then they were on again, and there was a loud roar from outside that made him frown. It sounded like an aircraft, but surely, if they were going to take him to Heathrow, they would have got there in minutes, not in hours. It made no sense.

  It stopped. The van rocked and two doors slammed, and then the rear doors were thrown wide, and he had to cover his face against the appalling brightness. Two halogen lamps were nearby, and their terrible illumination seared his eyes. He had to hold a hand over them as the two men grabbed him and pulled him from the van and out onto tarmac.

  ‘Come on, Mister Malik,’ one said, not unkindly.

  ‘Where are you taking me? Please? What is happening?’

  ‘You don’t have to worry about that, Mr Malik,’ the other man said.

  ‘Where are we now?’ he demanded.

  It was the first of the men, the one who had cut off his tag, who said, ‘Prestwick airport, in Glasgow. You’re taking a plane ride.’

  He wanted to struggle to free himself, but he knew it would not work. The last weeks of self-disgust and despair had left him a weakened shell, incapable of fighting. He only prayed that Sara might be safe. He hated to think what could happen to her. She would be distraught.

  They were propelling him towards a small aeroplane and, as the light began to grow more tolerable, he saw it was an executive jet. They took him up the stairs and he was thrust into the cabin. As soon as he entered, a large man with gingerish hair stood up and snapped a handcuff onto his wrist. The other went on his own.

  ‘Where are you taking me, please?’ Mohammed asked.

  But there was no answer. He was led to the back of the plane, and there he was forced to stand, while men and women in black cut his clothes from him and peered into his ears, up his nose – everywhere – until satisfied. And then they unlocked his arms and made him dress himself in a jumpsuit, and then bound his hands and feet, before pulling a hood over his head.

  ‘Please,’ he said, shivering now with the fear.

  But the only answer was the prick of the hypodermic needle in his arm.

  *

  08.42 France; 07.42 London

  It was a small, sleepy little village, a few miles from Poitiers, in the flat plains that were filled with enormous fields of sunflowers every summer.

  André Bouvier had lived here for almost four years now, and he was glad to have been able to set down some roots. Here, in his own little garden, he felt as content as he ever had. It was as his father had always told him: a man needed land. Without land, a man was nothing. It was land that defined a man; that gave him strength. Once he was aware of his land, he was aware of himself, his father always said.

  It is not always so easy to know yourself, André knew. He had been born in French Senegal in the early 1960s, and he had been happy there. It was different to this place, he thought as he smiled to himself. In Senegal his father was a house servant to a Lebanese family, and it was from them that the young André had learned what little schooling he had. They had been decent, kind people, devoted to their children, and fond of André. He adored them in return, and their son Charles who was two years older than him. André loved him, too.

  Then Lebanon had been the playground of the rich, and André had been proud to be asked to join them on their trip to their homeland in 1974, and when he arrived, he had walked about with his jaw hanging open, astonished at the sight of enormous sparkling tower blocks rising up into the sky, the glorious Mediterranean Sea glistening like silver, the cars, and the markets full of colour and scents that were so alien and beguiling. He loved every moment of his time there, and when he was told that they would be returning to Senegal, he wept. But he went back with them, and if that had been all, perhaps his life would have been content enough.

  But it wasn’t. The next year, civil war struck Beirut. The city was cut in two, with Christians battling against Muslims, and the young André was distraught at the thought of all those generous, kindly folk. He wanted to do something to help them, but of course there was nothing he could do. But when Charles told him that he was going to go and join the war, little André knew he must too. And so the two took a ship and sailed to Lebanon, a fourteen year old Muslim boy who could barely read or write, but who was desperate to join with the people who had shown him kindness, and a sixteen year old boy who was learned, but had never handled a gun.

  Charles did not last a week. He was shot by a machine-gunner on their third day. André was lucky to be missed. He was only three feet in front of his friend when the staccato burst came from the top of the street on their right, and when he looked back, he saw Charles lying in a welter of blood, trying to scream, but making no sound. He looked at André, and André saw the life fading from his eyes as his blood soaked the rubble in the street. The horror was so profound that André could never speak of his friend’s death from that day on.

  André remained. His luck held all through the vicious fighting. Even when his fortune might have failed him, when the Syrians arrived and removed all obstacles, his fortune held. But he was left with an undying hatred of Jews. He had heard how the destruction of Beirut was caused by the hundreds of thousands of displaced peoples – Palestinians evicted from their own lands by Israeli invaders, and he blamed the Jews without hesitation and without limit. He detested the ground they polluted with their martial feet. They had trampled the innocent, women and children alike, in their greed for ever more land, and he would do all he could to avenge their victims. All of them. Especially poor Charles.

  It had been good in the 70s and 80s – hard, but good. He was involved with the PLO for many years, moving gradually from the Arafat arm into a splinter group that sought to harm not only Israel, but her friends too. ‘My enemy’s enemy is my friend’, he might have said, and he was quite convinced of the corollary: ‘My enemy’s friend is my enemy’. Thus it was that he became involv
ed with the attacks on America in the gulf, helping with the assault on the American embassy in Nairobi, even trying to design bombs for cars and trucks to detonate under the two World Trade Centre towers to bring down those monstrous symbols of American dominance. Sadly that attempt failed, and from the moment of that failure, he had been forced to go on the run. Never remaining in a house more than one night at a time, constantly moving from town to town, city to city, nation to nation. It was a wonderful thing, to learn how the people would help a warrior.

  But every year it grew harder to maintain his determination. It was less and less attractive to see young boys and girls who were prepared to dedicate themselves to Allah and go to kill others. He had no compunction about killing Americans, Jews, or other unbelievers, but he was less convinced by the wholesale slaughter of other Muslims. They may have followed a different leader, and their religious conviction become perverted, but still, he saw only young boys and girls being sent to their own deaths, and they reminded him too clearly of his Charles.

  And then, for some reason he did not understand, there came an offer to come here – to live in France. The DST , the counter espionage arm of the French government, managed to pass a message through an intermediary, and within two months, he was here. New name, new life, all signs of his past wiped away as if it had never been. It had all been a terrible dream and nothing more. In return he told of some missions he had participated in. It was worth it.

  He ran the hose over the gardens in the early morning light and watched the early morning sun play with the fine drops, creating a mist of glowing chips of colour. Reds, golds, and blues all danced in the air before him, and he watched with fascination. It reminded him of seeing fountains in Beirut in the good days before the war. He had come from the dry, poverty-stricken Senegalese landscape to that land of water richness, and that shock had never left him. To see fountains of water, that was to see true beauty.

  There was a car, and he turned and watched the lane cautiously. Here he was free, but there was always that wariness. It could never leave him entirely. He was wanted by Americans, by English, by so many enemies. So long as the intelligence arms of Israel or Saudi Arabia did not discover him, he was happy. Those were the two that gave him most reason to fear, he knew. They were ruthless and without compassion.

  It was an old Citroën. Battered and dented, the red car rattled and thumped over the badly pocked road surface. While he was fairly sure that the Americans would have a better, sparklingly clean vehicle, he was on alert. The Jews wouldn’t hesitate to make use of the most dilapidated and antiquated equipment if they thought it might give them an edge.

  The car rolled up to the first house and stopped. There was a momentary pause, and then a heavy, Gallic-looking man grunted loudly, shoved the door wide and pulled himself out. He was a fat man, with a drooping moustache, in a sweat-stained linen suit, crumpled like an ancient bag, wearing a straw Panama. He did not look at André, but stared up at the house itself, shoving a Gauloise into his mouth and breathing heavily as he lit it.

  Then André heard a step behind him, and he was about to move when the tranquiliser gun fired the dart into his back, and although he managed to take seven steps, each grew harder and harder against the resistance of the air itself, and he found himself collapsing. He felt the stony ground against his cheek as men moved purposefully around him; then he felt himself being lifted as engines raced towards him. Finally, he was dropped into a trunk, and his last memory was of the fat man blowing smoke in his face, before slamming the lid shut.

  *

  09.24 London

  The police station was at least quiet as Sara stormed in. Behind her, trying to keep up, was Mohammed’s lawyer, Ian Lomax, who struggled to maintain an outward appearance of calmness as his anger overwhelmed him. His face was ruddy, making him look like a farmer dressed in an unfamiliar grey pinstripe suit.

  ‘I want to see the superintendent,’ he said to the desk sergeant. ‘Now.’

  Soon they were buzzed through the security doors and taken into a long room. At the far end was the superintendent of the station, a young man, slim and serious-faced with dark hair and pale green eyes. There was a sergeant with him, an older man with grey hair.

  ‘I wish to speak with my client.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Please, sit down. Mrs Malik, isn’t it? What has happened?’

  Sara could not contain her rage and shouted, ‘That is what I want to hear: what has happened to my husband? Where is he?’

  ‘Mrs Malik, I have no idea…’

  ‘Even under the anti-terrorism laws you have to tell us where he is,’ Lomax said. ‘It is a disgrace that you should send armed officers to arrest him and…’

  ‘Wait!’ the superintendent said, and held up his hands. ‘You are not listening to me. I have no idea – no idea whatever – what you are talking about. No one from this station has been to speak with your husband, Mrs Malik. That’s right isn’t it, Bruce?’

  The sergeant at his side nodded. He had a square, kindly face.

  ‘Mrs Malik, when was this supposed to have happened?’

  Sara glanced at Lomax.

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘How many men were there?’

  ‘I saw four – they were in a car and a van.’

  ‘Did you see what sort of van? Was it marked?’

  ‘No! They were plain white, that’s all.’

  ‘With lights? Blue lights?’

  ‘I don’t… no… I don’t think so – but what of it? They were police, I know they were! I saw them, and they took my man and threw him into the back of the van and drove away before I could get to them.’

  The superintendent was watching her carefully. Now he looked up at Lomax as Sara collapsed into a chair.

  ‘I assure you that I have no knowledge whatever of this. None of my own officers have been involved so far as I know. If it’s true that officers from another force have encroached on my patch without telling me, I will be demanding explanations, I assure you.’

  ‘Where is he, then?’

  ‘I will try to find out. Has he removed his tag? Or perhaps he has been using a mobile telephone or communicating with someone else?’

  ‘No!’ Sara cried. ‘How could he? This is all about that officer, isn’t it? The one who hurt my daughter. He has invented all this.’

  ‘Mrs Malik, I don’t know what you are talking about. All I do know is, there has been no operation from here to arrest your husband. I will investigate, and will inform you when I have heard anything.’

  ‘You had better be quick,’ she said. ‘I will be writing to the Home Office and my member of Parliament, as well as all the papers and… and…’

  ‘Mrs Malik will see that no stone is left unturned in her pursuit of justice. That may well include bringing a charge of wrongful arrest against all the individuals involved,’ Lomax said.

  ‘I am sure you will,’ the superintendent said, barely concealing his dislike. ‘In the meantime, you could also write to the Commissioner of Police to ask him. He is more likely to help.’

  Sara walked out of the station with Lomax behind her and, as she came into the roadway, she suddenly felt squashed with the pressure of the disaster. There was a weight of grim misery that fell upon her shoulders. She stumbled and almost fell down the steps to the pavement. She was going to be sick.

  Lomax caught her and helped her to a wall, where she leaned, panting and waiting for the nausea to pass. She felt disorientated, confused in the midst of all the traffic, and stared about her wildly. It was an alien state, this. She had grown up in a free England, but in recent years all her certainties had been first challenged, and then shattered.

  In the country in which she had been born, the police had no more powers than a citizen. It was a fundamental principle that all were equal, that no man or woman could be held without a warrant, that no one may be gaoled without a fair court hearing in front of a jury, that all were innocent until proved guilty. All these
underpinned her belief in her country – and all were gone. It felt as though she had been lifted and transplanted into a foreign culture, dumped into Soviet Russia or North Korea. She did not understand her own land.

  ‘Mrs Malik, I am sorry. I need to get to my office to find out what I can. I won’t let this rest, I promise you.’

  ‘Where is he, Mr Lomax? Who has taken him? They can’t just do this, can they?’

  ‘No. They have no right to kidnap. Whoever did this will pay for it,’ Lomax said definitely.

  Sara tried to smile, but found that her eyes were brimming again.

  *

  Unknown

  Mohammed woke to a rumbling drone, and he felt an incredible urge to vomit. He was lying on his back, but he couldn’t remember what had happened, where he was, why he was here.

  The ground beneath him was quivering, but it was at least comfortable. It felt warm to the touch, and he stretched, nausea held at bay while he tried to assess his surroundings. As soon as he felt the tightening at his wrists and ankles, he stopped, his heart thundering a warning.

  Slowly, he opened his eyes. It made no difference. All was entirely black. He could have been in a pit miles beneath the earth, but for that noise, that vibration. And he knew where he was in an instant: an aeroplane. The sickness returned with force, and he had to struggle to swallow the bile, because now he realised he was hooded. He could drown in his own puke like a drunkard. He would not.

  It was disorientating. Under the sky a man could tell where the earth was, where the sun stood. Here, he was able to reassure himself that the pressure of the mattress or couch on which he lay was surely down. The Newtonian proof was there on his back, his buttocks, and his scalp. And yet, in this never-ending blackness he felt the weird sensation that he associated with alcohol: like a drunken teenager shutting his eyes, it felt as though the room was spinning about him. He could have been in a plane that was about to crash. The fuselage could have been whirling through the air for all he knew, and the picture of the craft twisting and falling, to crash in a blossoming cloud of flame and destruction, was all too gripping. He shivered with anticipation and his heart pounded with the terror, until at last he was persuaded that surely no disastrous fall could take so long. And if the craft were to tumble to its doom, it would not rumble so smoothly. It would whip about, and there would be screams from others on board as they panicked.