The Englishman

by David Gilman

  Raglan held his breath. He kept his left hand pressed against the rock wall, feeling for some purchase that would help propel him forward. He held the knife at an angle between stomach and chest. He was balanced, ready to push off with his rear leg. He heard the man mutter a curse beneath his breath and saw him fumble for something in his belt. The man had yanked free a torch and its beam suddenly swept the tunnel. Raglan powered himself forward, short sharp steps, body held straight, careful not to lunge which would give the man a chance to sidestep. As the torch beam danced towards Raglan he saw the man’s teeth bare in a snarl behind his thick beard. He was bigger and heavier than Raglan, but with a knife in his hand Raglan had the advantage. The terrorist did not turn away; instead Raglan saw the glint of a blade in his hand. Knife fighting was part of the man’s culture.

  There was little room to manoeuvre although the torchlight showed Raglan that this end of the tunnel was much wider. The man tried to blind him with the beam but Raglan was ducking and weaving his head and shoulders as the man tried to position himself for the knife fight. The blade slashed forward, Raglan stepped inside the lunge, turned his back, grabbed the man’s muscled forearm with his left hand and rammed his elbow hard into his sternum. The rank smell of sweat and bad breath filled Raglan’s nostrils. His winded assailant still had the strength to bang the metal-cased torch against Raglan’s helmet with his free arm. It was enough to throw the commando off balance. The torch fell to the floor and cast dancing shadows against the walls. Raglan spun away and thrust quickly, concentrating on the man’s knife hand, wanting to slash tendons or fingers and force him to drop his blade. The man had sidestepped, anticipating the strike. Raglan regained his balance before the man could counter-attack. Raglan’s knife blade was in line with his knuckles. Wherever he struck the cutting edge would make contact. In contrast, his opponent’s wrist was loose, cutting the air in rapid figures of eight, his free hand palm out to deflect any strike against his neck. It wasn’t a trained defence; it was something that looked good in the movies. The man could take a cut to arm or shoulder but if Raglan’s blade reached his neck he was dead. Raglan ignored the fancy knife-wielding exhibition and took two fast tight strides and slashed diagonally; the man blocked the strike but the tip of Raglan’s knife caught his arm. It was not a debilitating wound. His opponent grunted, twisted his wrist, counter-struck, aiming for Raglan’s armpit. The blow would have put Raglan down, but his attacker was too slow. Raglan saw it coming. Muscle memory was quicker than any thought process. The jihadi jabbed repeatedly towards Raglan’s face and neck. His reach was short and Raglan looked beyond the blade, trying to see the man’s eyes and gauge his body language.

  Raglan jabbed diagonally left and right, fast, stabbing and crisscrossing the blade in a small, tight area in front of him, forcing the man to try and break through the impenetrable attack. He was no coward. Hatred fuelled him. He took too big a stride forward. Raglan changed his stance so that the man facing him was in the one o’clock position. In that instant, the man’s eyes told Raglan that the man knew he had made a mistake. Raglan’s downward slash cut into the man’s leg. The wound was deep. Tissue, fat and muscle parted as neatly as if a surgeon had made an incision. The leg could not support the man’s weight. He pitched forward and as he did a lucky strike caught Raglan’s lower leg. Raglan’s adrenaline negated the sudden burning pain; he reversed his wrist and stabbed his blade beneath the man’s beard into his throat.

  Raglan yanked free the knife before the man’s face hit the floor. Wiping the sticky blood from his hand he moved towards the source of the light. Sweat stung his eyes. He sucked the fetid air and took a moment to slow his heartbeat. There was a turn in the tunnel, and within a few paces that too curved to the right. Now the light was brighter. He edged forward, peered around the corner and saw the opening into a cave as high as a double-storey house. A steel ladder was bolted to the far wall ascending to another level – a dark gap in the rock face told Raglan there was another way in and out of this main bunker. A line of trestle tables bore cans of food and a camping gas stove. Filing cabinets boxed in a desktop computer. Two laptops partnered each other married by a cable. Weapons were laid out with loaded magazines next to them. Easy for the man thirty paces away, who had his back to Raglan, to reach. A low-frequency handset was cradled between the man’s ear and shoulder. The Al Qaeda fighter pulled a briefcase from the filing cabinet drawer as he shouted into the handset, temper rising, words poisoned by desperation. Raglan heard what sounded like final instructions to keep fighting even though the caves were breached. He called the French les chiens to whoever was on the other end of the radio, probably in another cave. His back was still turned to Raglan, who moved as quietly as he could towards the weapons. If he could reach one of the AK-47s or automatic pistols he had a chance. The bearded fighter turned, caught by surprise, but Raglan recognized the man they hunted. Abdelhamid Abou Zeid had a suicide vest strapped to him. He was never going to surrender. Raglan was ten fast paces from the table and the weapons. He hurled the knife to buy vital seconds.

  Those seconds were denied him.

  Abou Zeid’s eyes widened. His mouth opened in a final defiant scream. ‘Allahu Akbar.’

  Raglan’s luck ran out.

  PART TWO

  EUROPE

  3

  Bedford Park

  London W4

  September 2019

  Bedford Park is a select residential quarter of west London: a designated conservation area with proximity to the nearby Underground station giving easy access into the city, making these tree-lined roads a highly desirable location. Woodstock Road is a leafy street occupied by people in the media – actors, film directors – lawyers and families who are considered ‘old money’, those who have enjoyed the privilege of professional status and wealth for a couple of generations.

  Jeremy Carter, a 49-year-old City banker, lived in one such house in Woodstock Road with his wife, his adopted thirteen-year-old son, Steven, and his daughter, five-year-old Melissa. Carter had embraced the boy as his own since marrying Steven’s mother Amanda, and, as on every Saturday since the rugby season began, this morning he would be accompanying him to his team’s rugby fixture across the River Thames at the private St Paul’s School in Barnes and urging him on from the touchline.

  The persistent ringing of the telephone inside the five-bedroomed house made no impression on the running argument between Carter and his wife. She was a tall woman, several years younger than him with well-cut shoulder-length auburn hair framing a handsome face. Her good bone structure and exercise regimes at the tennis courts and swimming baths made her look even younger than her forty years.

  ‘You said the twenty-seventh was fine,’ she insisted.

  ‘And I told you I have to go to Zurich,’ he countered with more equanimity than his irritated wife could muster as he followed her through to the utility room where she bundled an armful of bedsheets into the washing machine. Her domestic help had been off sick for a week and the additional household chores added to her bad temper.

  ‘You said that was the seventeenth. I’ve planned this dinner party. Everyone’s accepted.’

  ‘For God’s sake, I’m hardly likely to—’

  She raised a hand to stop his self-defence and picked up the phone’s handset. ‘Hello?’

  Carter ignored her gesture and continued to fight his corner. ‘—make a mistake about a business trip. It’s been planned for months.’

  Amanda Reeve-Carter flicked an angry glance at him as she pulled a length of hair from her face and spoke into the phone. ‘Helen, no, I won’t be able to get there before three. Look, can I phone you back? Well… yes…’

  Her friend Helen was not an easy woman to silence. Carter shrugged and walked back through the kitchen into the entrance hall. He called up the stairs. ‘Steve! Ready?’

  A moment later the boy thundered down the staircase carrying a kit bag and a rugby ball tucked under his arm.

  Amanda
pushed the phone against her chest to smother the chattering as she ruffled her son’s hair, wished him luck and glared at her husband. She turned her back and climbed the stairs to remake the bed, putting the phone back to her ear. By the time she reached the front bedroom she had dealt with her friend’s demands and looked down across the garden as her husband and son climbed into the car. Steven turned and waved. Carter did not.

  She wished she could overcome her irritation. It was unreasonable, she knew. It was only a dinner date that had to be changed. She would make up with her husband. They always did. It was too good a marriage to let pettiness sour it for too long. As the car turned down the street she was distracted by her five-year-old.

  ‘Mummy?’

  She picked the child up and immediately felt the tightness around her heart diminish. ‘What, my baby?’

  ‘Daddy went away without kissing me bye bye.’

  She stroked the child’s fair hair and kissed her cheek. ‘He was in a hurry so he asked me to give you one instead.’

  *

  Carter and his son settled in the back seat of the Jaguar XJ as the driver levered the indicator, checked his mirrors and swung across Woodstock Road into Rupert Road.

  ‘Ready to give ’em a run for their money then, Stevie?’ said Carter’s long-serving driver, Charlie Lewis. He had been with Carter for six years and watched the young Steven grow into a fine, well-balanced lad, despite his near-constant mobile use: the ubiquitous phone culture endemic in youngsters. In all the years the boy had known his father’s driver, the man had always dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and regimental tie with highly polished shoes – a result of the well-groomed 53-year-old having served twenty years in the Irish Guards. No lilting brogue softened his south London accent, however, and nor was it likely to, given the mix of men who served in the regiment. Once retired, Staff Sergeant Lewis had applied to and was accepted by the Rochester Crawford (Private) Bank as chauffeur to the bank’s Risk and Compliance Director, Mr Jeremy Carter. A bonus for Lewis was that the British-owned bank had foregone the slightly more ostentatious S-Class Mercedes and 7 Series BMW in favour of the British-made Jaguar for their directors. It was felt that the marque and styling made a more appropriate statement to their client base. And it was a fast, well-balanced car much loved by those who drove them. All in all, Charlie Lewis was more than content with his lot in life.

  The hours Lewis worked were long because Carter often worked late at the bank but it was time paid for, as were the Saturday mornings usually spent happily ferrying father and son to various sporting events. In fact, Charlie Lewis barely thought of what he did as employment because the friendliness and mutual respect between the two men made for a comfortable relationship.

  Steven barely lifted his head from texting on his phone. ‘Hard and fast, Charlie. Knife through butter. No pain, no gain. There to win not to whimper,’ he said, happily repeating some of the ex-soldier’s clichéd mantras.

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ said Lewis. ‘Happy for me to wait, Mr Carter, so I can see the game?’

  ‘Beth’ll know you’re skiving off the Tesco run,’ Carter answered.

  It was a conversation that took place virtually every Saturday morning. It cemented their routine. ‘Have to have a bit of relief from the wife after thirty years, Mr Carter. Besides, no point in trying to get back through all this traffic to fetch you.’

  ‘You’d better stay, Charlie. We need all the support we can get,’ Steven added, finally switching off the screen.

  ‘One of these days I should bring some of my mates down. A right raucous lot, they are,’ said Lewis.

  ‘Not a bad idea,’ Carter said. ‘Raise the roof and shout down the opposition.’

  The car edged along the narrow street, stopped at the junction with Bath Road and turned right. As Carter chatted to his son about the tactics of the game, Lewis effortlessly took the car into traffic, swung left in Turnham Green Terrace and then soon after left again into Chiswick High Road. The traffic was murder on any day of the week and even though most of the ‘white van man’ tradesmen were elsewhere on a Saturday it was easier to get off the High Road and avoid ending up in the logjam before the Hammersmith roundabout. Carter and his son’s voices murmured quietly behind him. Chit-chat about home, the winter holiday and Melissa’s next birthday. He drew the car to a standstill soon after the High Road merged into King Street and waited in the middle of the road, indicator quietly flicking to turn right as he waited for the approaching cars to present a gap so he could turn into Weltje Road, a short rat run on to the A4 and the quarter-mile drive down before turning off left before the Hammersmith flyover.

  Weltje Road is a one-way street with terraced houses on either side. Like many roads in the overcrowded city, parked cars on both sides make it even narrower. There’s usually little pedestrian traffic as it leads only to the residents’ houses and there is no destination beyond the head of the road other than the fast-moving traffic on the A4 arterial dual carriageway travelling down towards the Hammersmith slip road or the Hammersmith flyover. A centre barrier separates the four-lane traffic. Lewis steered the Jag into the queue of cars that slowed to a halt. Ahead the road twisted in a slight S bend and at the furthest corner on the right-hand side before the road merged on to the A4 stood a box-sided Transit van with the name of a contract company emblazoned on its side beneath the red and yellow chevrons declaring it was for Highway Maintenance. Looking past the stationary cars, Lewis saw two road-construction men in hi-vis jackets working outside a yellow plastic barrier. One of the men was wearing ear defenders and leaning on a jackhammer; a third labourer manned a Stop/Go lollipop board. The first two men were digging out and filling in a pothole with tarmac. Lewis sighed. Was there ever a time that the council wasn’t filling potholes? Even on a Saturday. ‘Shouldn’t be too long, Mr Carter,’ Lewis assured him.

  Carter’s thoughts were elsewhere. The trees in the street were already starting to turn. Autumn beckoned. They would go skiing again this year. Steven sat behind Lewis, giving Carter an unobstructed view of the road ahead. He looked to where one of the men abandoned his tarmac duties and put a hand to his ear. Most likely listening to music on a mobile phone, Carter thought as the second man walked to the van where a fourth sat on the passenger side, facing away from the waiting cars. The earphone worker looked towards them. Carter glanced behind to see if there was a problem. Perhaps the cars had backed up too far on to the High Street? There was only one small car behind them. Carter looked back and saw the lollipop turn from Stop to Go. A couple of cars got through; the queue edged forward. Lewis pulled up behind it. The Stop/Go board turned again. In the gap between the four cars in front of them, Carter caught sight of the man’s boots. His overalls were tucked military style just above the ankle. Black laced-up boots. Thick rubber soles. Military all the way. By now the second man had pulled something from the floor of the van and turned. The face in the Transit’s passenger seat turned to look in Carter’s direction.

  ‘Charlie! Back, back, back. Get us out of here!’ Carter shouted.

  Lewis hesitated; then he saw the danger. One of the approaching men lifted a semi-automatic rifle; the other raised a handgun. Lewis pushed the gear lever into reverse and pressed his foot down hard. The Jag slammed into the car behind. Steven fell forward, saved by his seat belt. He looked wide-eyed at his father whose face was pressed close to his. His mouth yelling something at him as he reached across, unbuckling the seat belt. Telling him what to do. Where to go. His urgency frightened the boy. The crash. The fear. More instructions. Did he understand? his father insisted. The boy nodded, his father’s words penetrating the terror. The Jag’s power heaved the smaller car metres back, but then it jackknifed, blocking any chance of escape. Carter pushed open the passenger door, forcing his son to run as Lewis, seeing that he could not drive back any further, changed gear and accelerated at the men running at them, weapons aimed and ready to fire. Half a dozen holes punctured the windscreen, followed by th
e jarring sound of gunfire. Three bullets struck Lewis in the chest, two passed between him and Carter as he threw himself flat, desperately trying to kick open his door, but the parked cars blocked it. The sixth bullet struck Charlie Lewis in the head. Blood and brain splattered across the rear seat. The open door was suddenly filled with the man wielding the assault rifle. He flipped it, struck Carter on the head with its butt, reached in and dragged the unconscious man out into the street. The man was strong enough to haul him to the van. The back doors were already open and they threw him in face down, pulled a sack over his head, bound his ankles and wrists with plastic ties. The van lurched off the kerb and accelerated into the fast-moving traffic.

  The assault, murder and kidnap had taken twenty-seven seconds.

  4

  Eddie Roman’s life of crime had ended twelve years before, when he was nabbed for driving a gang during an armed robbery. It was an old-fashioned smash-and-grab style heist. Simple and stupid. He’d been doing old mates a favour: old cons who thought they could run as fast as they used to but were ignorant of twenty-first-century technology that had them tracked, identified and nicked in record time.

  Eddie served his prison sentence and when he was released promised his wife of twenty-eight years that he was on the straight and narrow. It did not last long. Promises were a fluid commitment as far as Eddie was concerned and there was no money in being a regular van driver. Not with zero-hour contracts. He kept the small delivery jobs to himself; the less his wife Shelley knew the better. To her, he was doing the Amazon delivery run most days. It stopped her worrying and if there was one thing Eddie regretted it was causing so much grief to a woman he had loved since the day he had met her. She was in the same house in Brentford that they had bought soon after they were married and finally, at forty-eight, he was content.

  Eddie had had ambition once: youthful aspirations to be a racing car driver. He was fast and proficient but when he realized how much money he’d need to buy into the race game he was persuaded by the local crime families to drive for them instead. His reputation grew and so too did his profile with the Metropolitan Police. Since last being a guest of Her Majesty’s Prison Service he had sold his skills to the foreigners who ran the sex and drug business in the West End. He delivered their product and dirty cash from A to B with no diversion in between. He was trusted. He never skimmed. Even if he had wanted to he wouldn’t dare. Serbians had controlled much of the trade, until the Albanians, who were even nastier, pushed them aside. Violent bastards, the lot of them. In the old days Eddie had seen men being beaten and coshed, and then the sawn-off shotgun boys had appeared: all that was part of the world he used to live in; but now, these foreigners used violence without a moment’s hesitation. Real ugly stuff. In truth, it offended his sensibilities but he had learnt not to make any comment. Head down, do the driving and take the cash. Two weeks ago a Russian club owner had approached him and introduced him to a hard-looking man with a scar that looked permanently raw across his eyebrow and cheek. The scar-faced man’s English was perfect but Eddie couldn’t place the accent – maybe French, with a touch of Russian? Whatever – he didn’t care. The good thing about Europe having no borders was that it brought high-paying employers into the business. He was to drive the man and his crew around west London. That was easy work for Eddie. His house in Brentford was just off the A4 and he knew Chiswick and Hammersmith blindfold. This crew were a humourless lot. Not a smile among them. Real sullen foreign types. Round and round they went, through all the avenues of the area looking for an ambush site. It was Eddie who showed them the choke hole on Weltje Road and what an easy escape it would be. That did the trick: they liked him for that. And when he showed them where the sub contractor’s yard was, stealing the van and equipment was child’s play. The money being offered was enough to buy the holiday of a lifetime for him and Shelley.