Osama

by Chris Ryan

  Eva was shivering with cold.

  For ten minutes after Joe had left, she’d kept one hand on the key in the ignition. Now she was hugging herself to keep warm. More than once she found herself glancing at the door, checking that the central locking was on. She didn’t know quite what she was scared of. But she was scared.

  One seventeen. She was dazzled by the sight of a single headlight turning at high speed into the car park. She fumbled for the keys, one arm covering her eyes to block out the brightness, but then the light disappeared and she could just make out Joe, jumping off the bike and letting it fall to one side. A fist on the driver’s window, and he was shouting: ‘Open up!’

  Eva had released the lock before she registered that Joe had returned alone. She twisted round as she heard Joe opening the rear door. His face was illuminated by the small internal light, and the look on it chilled her. ‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘Where’s Conor? Joe, what happened?’

  When he didn’t answer she opened the driver’s door and ran round to the back of the vehicle. Joe had pulled out the body armour and was examining the Kevlar helmet. She grabbed his right arm but he shrugged her off.

  ‘I was too late,’ he spat. ‘They’ve already left.’

  ‘Are you sure it was the right place?’

  He nodded. ‘Conor was there.’

  ‘So what are we going to do?’

  ‘The only thing I can do,’ Joe said. ‘Turn up.’ He started to pull on the body armour.

  Eva peered nervously at him. ‘Joe, you can’t,’ she said. ‘He’ll try to—’

  ‘What do you want me to do, Eva?’ he shouted. ‘He’s got my son!’

  ‘But—’

  Joe put one hand to his forehead and paused for a moment, clearly trying to calm himself down after his outburst. Eva noticed that his hand was shaking, and she had to fight a sudden urge to put her arms round him.

  ‘If I lose Conor,’ Joe said, in a low voice that was on the verge of cracking, ‘I lose everything. I’ll have nothing left in the world.’

  He wasn’t even looking at Eva when he said it, so he could have had no idea of the effect the blunt truth of his words had on her.

  ‘Wait,’ she said.

  He turned towards her.

  She pointed at the body armour. ‘How safe is it?’

  ‘Depends on the round, distance, trajectory,’ he said. ‘He’ll try to take me out from the clifftop, I reckon. It’ll protect my vital organs, keep me alive to go after them. Probably.’

  Eva nodded. She remembered how, when they were younger, Joe would do anything to keep her from harm. She remembered the look on his face when he told her that Conor had been abducted.

  ‘Give it to me,’ she said.

  NINETEEN

  0330 hours.

  Mahmood Ashkani, aka Mr Ashe, aka any number of other names at different times and different places around the world, would be glad to get rid of the boy. Ashkani knew that he had a gift for terror. It was not surprising the boy should be scared. He had gone to very great lengths to ensure it. But to be encumbered by someone so silently helpless was wearisome. And his frail, child’s mind was so damaged by what he had been exposed to that really he would be better off dead.

  The grey light of dawn was still two hours away. The only light came from a street lamp ten metres to his right and it was further dimmed by the thick layer of condensation that covered the window of his grey Peugeot, parked in the car park at Thornbridge station. The first train would not leave here for another hour, so he knew the place would be deserted for as long as he needed it. The boy was in the back seat. Ashkani hadn’t bothered to bind his hands. The child didn’t seem to know where he was, or who he was. He just stared into space, never speaking, never moving.

  Ashkani’s left hand lightly touched the laptop that lay on the passenger seat. His fingertips brushed against the satellite phone resting on top of it, and against a 4GB data stick.

  At 5.10 a.m. the headlights of a second car filled the rear-view mirror. It parked to the left of Ashkani. The driver exited and Ashkani gathered up the computer, phone and data stick so that the man could sit beside him. The newcomer looked not unlike Ashkani. He was a similar age and build, with black hair and dark skin. But he had a harsher, crueller face. The lack of lines around the side of his mouth did not make him look younger. It just made him look as though he seldom smiled.

  ‘Do you really think he’s coming?’ The newcomer spoke in Arabic.

  Ashkani sniffed, then replied in the same language: ‘I killed his wife. I kidnapped his son.’ Turning to look at the other man, he asked: ‘Do you really think he’s not?’

  ‘I would have expected him to call the police.’

  ‘I have eyes and ears among the police. He has spoken to nobody.’

  This reassurance seemed to be good enough for the other man.

  ‘You understand what you need to do?’ asked Ashkani.

  ‘It won’t be a problem.’

  Ashkani failed to stop a wave of annoyance entering his voice. ‘If I knew it wasn’t going to be a problem,’ he said, ‘I would not have insisted upon my best marksman. This man is good at staying alive. Do not underestimate him.’

  ‘The reason I am your best marksman is because I underestimate nobody.’ A pause. ‘You will be . . . ’

  ‘I will be where I need to be.’

  ‘It is happening then? Today?’

  Ashkani nodded almost imperceptibly. ‘The British soldier and his son must not survive this morning. You would not wish to deny the Lion his final roar?’ As he said this, he fiddled absent-mindedly with the data stick.

  The other man looked over his shoulder. His expression, when he looked at the boy, was one of contempt. ‘Does he never speak?’

  ‘Sometimes. When forced. He won’t give you any trouble. He doesn’t know what’s going on.’

  ‘Good. I will take him now.’

  Ashkani nodded. ‘Don’t let him out of your sight.’

  ‘I can’t have him with me when I—’

  ‘Don’t let him out of your sight.’

  ‘Whatever you say.’

  Ashkani did not expect the boy to make any fuss when he was removed from the back seat and transferred to the other car, and he wasn’t disappointed. The child said nothing. He still didn’t even seem aware that anything was happening. Not that it mattered to Ashkani any more. He wound down the passenger window and looked out at the other man when he’d bundled the boy into the back of his car. ‘I want to know when it is done,’ he said.

  The other man nodded, before climbing into the car, closing the door and driving off. Ashkani waited for five minutes, then he too drove from the station car park. Commuters would start arriving soon and besides, he had somewhere else to be.

  Ashkani’s marksman drove slowly, westwards towards the coast. He wanted to be there early and if he could set up his position when the light was still dim, so much the better. As he drove, he cursed the mist that seemed to cling to this country. He had not wanted to say so in front of Ashkani, but it made things a great deal more difficult. Still, he had done difficult jobs before, and he had never failed yet.

  He looked in the mirror at the kid. There was something unnatural about him, the way his pale face simply gazed into the middle distance, the way his silence seemed to fill the whole car. He considered disobeying Ashkani, gagging the kid and leaving him in the boot. He thought better of it. Ashkani was not a good man to disobey. But the sooner this morning was over, the better.

  The marksman had already decided that he would not park the car at the clifftop car park, but would drive it out of sight down an old dirt road about a kilometre from the coast. He and the boy would then walk to the firing point under cover of darkness. He had already chosen, too, the precise location from which he would take the shot. The beach itself was 500 metres wide and the part of the cliff that overlooked it was covered in vigorous bracken, almost a metre high and stretching back about 100 metres from
the edge of the cliff. There were many channels in the bracken – made mostly by walkers and children playing hide and seek, he supposed – and that was to his advantage. It meant nobody could tell what path he had taken through it to the cliff’s edge. And because the bracken extended all the way to the edge, he could overlook the beach and remain completely hidden, except for the barrel of his rifle peeking out, which nobody would be able to see in poor light and at a distance. Ordinarily he would have found some way to set up a ribbon on the beach to tell him which way the wind was blowing. On this occasion it was not necessary: the safety flag, there to indicate how safe or dangerous the sea was on a given day, would do the job for him.

  Getting the boy out of the car was simple. Forcing him a kilometre cross-country was less so. He tripped and stumbled, falling helplessly to his knees on three occasions, and once flat on his face. Each time, the man pulled him up by his hair, thinking that the pain would make him stand more quickly. But the boy didn’t even seem to feel it. He said nothing. He didn’t complain, howl, or gasp. He just pushed himself slowly up and continued at his own pace.

  It was four thirty by the time they reached the cliff’s edge. He pushed the boy to lie down and kicked his knee when he didn’t respond. But once he was down, prostrate on the cold ground, he didn’t move. He just shivered. The man eyed him suspiciously for a moment. It was all very well for Ashkani to believe that the kid was beyond causing problems, but he preferred to be sure. From his rucksack he pulled a length of rope. He tied the boy’s limp hands behind his back and bound his ankles together using the other end of the same piece. The boy didn’t struggle or complain.

  The marksman turned his attention to the other contents of his rucksack. First, a satellite phone, which he laid on the ground next to him. Then his sniper rifle – a Galil .308 with a full magazine of tuned, match-grade rounds – which was separated into five sections. He could have slotted them together blindfolded – indeed, he had practised doing so many times in the past – so the darkness was not an obstacle for him. In less than a minute the rifle was assembled, its magazine of five 7.62mm rounds firmly clicked into place. He unfolded a small bipod, placed it on the edge of the bracken, and rested the barrel of the rifle on it. Lying on his front behind the weapon, he closed his left eye and looked through the sight.

  It was still dark and the mist was thick, yet he could just make out the individual waves crashing onto the beach. He estimated the distance between his firing point and the sand at about 350 metres. Close enough for a swift, clean kill.

  He looked over his shoulder. The boy was still lying on the ground. Still shivering. Still silent. It crossed his mind that he should kill him now, but Ashkani had been quite clear: the boy would only cease to be useful once his father was dead. The marksman looked at his watch. Four fifty-six: that gave the kid just over an hour to live.

  0558 hours.

  The gulls that had flocked on the flat, sandy beach had predicted the arrival of dawn. Their chorus had lasted for a full half-hour. There hadn’t been a particular moment when night had become morning. The sky had just grown almost imperceptibly lighter. The marksman lay very still, watching, waiting. There was a weak offshore wind. It blew the safety flag almost exactly in the marksman’s direction. He checked the direction of the spray, to make sure it matched up with the wind direction further from the ground. It did. He would wait until his target was positioned on a straight line between the rifle and the flag. It would make the shot more accurate because he would then not have to adjust for the altered trajectory of the round.

  It was the gulls, too, that announced the arrival of the target. The marksman became aware of crowds of them flocking up from the sands at the northern end of the beach, shrouded by the mist and screeching loudly.

  The figure came into view at 0600 hours exactly.

  At first he was just a vague darkening of the mist 200 metres to the north, the shapeless form gradually developing a human frame as the gulls screeched and flew away from him. He was walking slowly, his head bowed, his hands stuck into the pockets of his hooded top. His frame was bulky – barrel-chested, almost – and although the hood he was wearing obscured his features, the marksman had the impression that his gait was slow and ponderous. Almost as if he knew he was walking to his death.

  ‘Do not underestimate him,’ Ashkani had said. The marksman didn’t. He examined every facet of the man’s movement. Something wasn’t right. Why was he not looking around? If he was here to see his son, why was he not searching for him?

  Perhaps he was not so impressive as Ashkani had predicted.

  Or perhaps he thought that if he sacrificed himself, his son would be set free. A foolish thought, but the marksman knew that, at times of stress, a person’s decision-making could lose clarity.

  The figure continued to walk at a slow, steady pace. He was ten metres from the line of fire.

  Five metres.

  Three.

  The marksman’s fingers brushed the cold metal of the trigger.

  Two metres.

  One.

  The target stopped.

  He turned round, peered out to sea and stood there immobile. Some of the gulls he had disturbed had settled on the sand again, and he was surrounded by them. The marksman experienced a moment of doubt. If this man was here to find his son, why was he not looking around? But he put that thought from his mind – Ashkani’s instructions had been very clear – and adjusted his line of fire by the fraction of a degree necessary to get the target in the centre of his sight. The edge of his body was slightly ill defined because of the mist, but he placed his cross-hairs over the centre of the target’s back: a location as deadly as the head, but broader and therefore easier to hit.

  He heard a whimper from the boy: the first sound that had escaped his lips since the marksman had taken possession of him. It was almost as though he knew his father was about to die.

  Which he was.

  The marksman squeezed the trigger.

  The retort of the rifle echoed over the vast expanse of sea and air. The gulls that had congregated on the sand flocked up into the sky with a single mind, and a sudden, frightened squawk.

  And the target crumpled, instantly, to the ground.

  The gunman watched the body. He didn’t know why. Something told him he should. Its head was pointing out to sea, and as the waves swelled towards the beach, the water lapped against it. A seagull settled on the body, and then another. To them, the corpse was clearly as still and solid as a rock.

  The marksman lowered his gun. His fingers felt for the satellite phone at his side and, for the first time since arriving at the firing point, he rose to his feet. He stood a metre from the edge of the cliff, looking out to sea. Without the aid of the sight on his rifle, the body on the beach was just an indistinct lump. Further out, he could see the grey outline of an oil tanker. The breeze was a little stiffer now, and it blew his black hair away from his face as he called a number, which rang only once before it was answered.

  ‘Well?’ came Ashkani’s voice in Arabic.

  ‘It’s done.’

  ‘Good. See to the boy and do not contact me again.’

  ‘Wait!’

  ‘What is it?’

  A pause.

  ‘Allahu Akbar,’ said the marksman.

  ‘Allahu Akbar,’ Ashkani replied.

  The line went dead.

  The marksman stared at the digital display for a brief moment. He thought of Ashkani. Thought of what he was about to do. ‘You would not wish to deny the Lion his final roar?’ he had said. No indeed. A picture rose in his mind: a thin, weak old man, wrapped in a blanket as he watched television in a shabby room in a compound far away in Pakistan. That was the image his killers wanted to present of the Sheikh al-Mujahid, but his last act would strike fear into the heart of the West.

  Then he saw the briefest glint of something reflected in the screen.

  He had no way of knowing what it was. No way of recognizing the checked
lumberjack shirt or the expression of purest menace. And no way of defending himself as the figure marched relentlessly towards the edge of the cliff, his arm outstretched, a handgun in his fist as, having located the marksman, he strode close enough to ensure a single round from that weapon would serve its purpose.

  The marksman closed his eyes. The flicker of a smile played across the corners of his lips. He had been beaten. He did not mind. He had always known that Paradise would come earlier to him than to others who did not fight the jihad.

  He heard the gunshot from three metres behind, and felt the round enter the back of his neck and become lodged in the gristle at the front of his throat. He felt the sudden impact pushing him forward. He might not have toppled quite so soon if the heel of a shoe hadn’t jabbed him hard in the small of his back. As it was, he experienced the sudden weightlessness of freefall less than a second after he had been shot. As he fell, the breeze that had blown his hair back from his face slammed his body against the side of the cliff and it was the impact of this that finally knocked the life from him. He was dead seconds before he crashed onto the rocks below.

  Joe watched him fall.

  The sound of the body’s final impact did not reach him at the top of the cliffs. There was just the wind in his ears and the hissing of the waves against the sand. From the back pocket of his jeans, Joe pulled the American passport in the name of Mahmood Ashkani and threw it after its owner. By the time it had hit the ground, he was kneeling next to his son, untying the ropes that bound him and rolling him over onto his back.

  ‘Conor?’ he breathed.

  The boy’s face, pale and bruised, stared back blankly.

  He checked Conor’s vital signs. His pulse was weak, his breathing shallow. Every limb was trembling. There was a cut on his lip that looked like it had become infected. But it wasn’t his physical state that made fear rise in the back of Joe’s throat. It was his mental condition. It wasn’t just that he didn’t recognize his own father: he didn’t seem to be aware of anything at all.