‘Really, Captain? You’re a damn sage, you know that?’
A heavy silence. For the colonel it was only the second time he had been ordered to use illegal methods to break a prisoner; for Grant, it was a first. They hated it, they were not animals. But the intel was clear. This was a big one. Thousands of lives might be at stake, so the gloves were off.
From far off they could hear an electronic hum, a generator in Classroom Block D. The building, the two men knew, was a derelict school, and the military had kept the old names from the fifties when kids had run along these corridors. The room in which Al-Yussuv lay had perhaps held a geography class.
‘Right. We focus on this shit’s buddy, the young guy. Miah Ahmadi.’
‘He’s a nothing, sir,’ Grant replied. ‘Al-Yussuv knows the entire plan, whatever that is. Ahmadi is just suicide-bomb fodder.’
‘Got any better ideas, Captain? As you so wisely pointed out, we’re running out of time. Anything will help, any clue. Al-Yussuv will die before he says a word. He’s a fucking robot.’
CHAPTER 7
THE KID WAS a nobody. That much Captain Grant had right. But he was tough: brainwashing and religious zealotry tended to have that effect on people. He had his god to protect him. He knew he would die a martyr. He would go to heaven.
Miah Ahmadi’s family were from Yemen, but had moved over to England in the seventies. His father worked at a toy factory near their home on Oak Lane, in the Bradford suburb of Allerton, making trinkets for Christian bastards and Jew-spawn. Miah had turned nineteen last April. He hated his parents. They were, he believed, ‘Slaves of the Infidel’ and he had walked out on them the day he finished school. For two years, he had lived at the mosque on Thornbury Road.
The SAS officers entered the room. Ahmadi lay on a similar table to the one on which Al-Yussuv had endured so much. Ahmadi had been waterboarded, too. The paraphernalia lay all around.
The colonel leaned over the boy. ‘Patience running low, Miah,’ he said. The boy felt the man’s hot breath.
‘Time to talk,’ Captain Grant added. He was leaning against the wall, arms folded across his broad chest.
‘I don’t know nothing,’ the youth croaked, his Yorkshire accent thick as black pudding. His mouth was so dry he could barely form whole words.
‘Nothing? Sure about that, Miah?’
‘You got nothin’ from—’ He stopped short. Give no information, he had been taught. Loose talk is deadly.
He felt proud of himself. He was a real soldier of Allah. They had his weapons and his bomb vest, and these filthy animals, these scum, had waterboarded him, cut him, beaten him, yet still he had said nothing apart from his name.
Grant pulled away from the wall and helped the colonel tighten the leather straps holding Ahmadi’s feet and hands to the table.
What was happening now? the kid thought. What now? He turned to face Grant, but the soldier grabbed him, held his head still and Ahmadi felt a strap being laid over his forehead. He just caught a glimpse of a rack of machines to one side of the bed. Then a wire touched his cheek and he felt Captain Grant fix something to the head strap. He could not see him, but the boy felt the other man moving, and then cold air as his trousers were ripped open. Something brushed his scrotum and then came a bolt of pain as a clamp was tightened.
‘Start at one hundred volts,’ Jack Stewart said. Grant threw the switch and Ahmadi convulsed, his back arching. His screams reverberated around the room.
‘Speak, Miah. Tell us.’
The kid said nothing. Sweat ran down his face and mingled with his tears. He shook his head.
‘One-fifty,’ Stewart said.
The switch was snapped down again.
‘Noooo!’ Ahmadi screamed.
‘Speak.’
‘Noooo!’
Stewart nodded to Grant. He adjusted a dial on the side of the machine at the top of the rack and electricity surged through Ahmadi’s frail body. The screams were almost unbearable. Almost.
‘I’ll . . .’
‘Yes?’ It was Grant. He really wanted this to end.
‘Allah, help me,’ Miah whispered.
Grant leaned forward.
‘Church . . .’ the boy groaned.
‘Churchill Airport?’ Colonel Stewart snapped.
Ahmadi produced the tiniest nod and closed his eyes.
‘Where in the airport?
Ahmadi tried to resist, shook his head again.
‘Pump it up to two hundred,’ Stewart ordered.
‘But that’ll—’
‘Do it.’
‘Wait. Please . . . wait,’ the boy sobbed, his eyes half-open.
‘You have three seconds,’ Stewart spat, his face an inch from the boy’s. ‘Three . . . two . . .’
‘Four. Terminal Four.’
Ahmadi’s facial muscles froze, his eyes wide open. ‘Terminal Four, Churchill Airport.’
CHAPTER 8
SWEAT DRIPPED DOWN Muhammad Girgrah’s face and he hastily wiped it away. Passing through security, his guts were doing somersaults. He flashed his pass at the guard and pushed the metal-framed food cart through the scanner. The security guard gave Muhammad a brief smile. They’d talked before, shot the breeze, grouched about their wives and lives over a cigarette.
Through the scanner, Muhammad peeled off left along a corridor away from the route to the restaurant. Shaking still, his mouth bone dry, he headed straight to Arrivals and passed under a roller door that had been raised and fixed in place over a ramp leading to double doors. Inside, he saw signs overhead, arrows to ‘Gates 1–9’, ‘Gates 10–23’; ‘WAY OUT’; ‘TOILETS’, solid figures of a man and a woman. He reached Gate 0, an out-of-the-way spot where even the security-camera footage was barely glanced at. He could feel his heart pounding.
It was quiet. He saw a chef in a striped apron with a hat clasped in his hand as he dashed towards the kitchens a long way back. Then he was in the open, a wide but empty expanse, huge windows opening out to the tarmac. The nearest plane was far off at the regular gates in the main hubs. He hung another left and backed up to a door, the cart in front of him. A small plastic sign on the door read: ‘STAFF ONLY’.
He flicked on the light switch and a fluorescent strip beat on and off, then splashed around a sickly lemon light. One end of the room was filled with boxes. A chair had been placed in front of them. A tall man with a beard down to his waist was seated in the chair. He was wearing a white robe and conical hat, a thick leather belt and sandals – a costume worn over two thousand years ago by the elite warriors of the ancient Mede tribe.
Muhammad was startled, but pulled himself together, bowed and pulled the cart into the room. He started to unload it as the man watched him silently. With all the boxes piled on the floor, Muhammad dismantled the frame, stood the parts against the wall, took one of the struts, popped the square metal cap from the end and slipped his fingers carefully into the tube. He gingerly withdrew a length of glistening steel.
The tall man stood, towering over Muhammad; he was at least six foot six with a physique like a young Arnold Schwarzenegger. His hair hung in long ringlets from the base of the conical hat, and his dark eyes shrouded by thick black brows were unreadable. He removed a leather cylinder from a pocket in his robe and held out his other hand for Muhammad to pass him the length of metal.
The giant fitted the leather tube to the end of the shiny blade and twisted it. A satisfying click. ‘Good, good,’ he said, his voice a rich baritone. He raised the slender length of metal and slashed the air, making Mohammed jump back in terror. The man traced a finger along the edge of the blade, watching a trickle of blood slide down onto his palm. ‘Excellent!’
CHAPTER 9
THE LEARJET NUDGED forward ready to dock, its engines beginning to quieten, when suddenly the sound of the twin Honeywell turbines grew louder and shriller as the jet quickly backed away from the gate.
Saudi Prince Adil al-Salhi jolted forward in his seat and glared at his head of se
curity, Dirar Radi.
Radi raised his hands. ‘Nothing to worry about, my Prince.’ He held a hand to his earpiece, nodded and produced a relaxed smile. ‘Change of gate, that’s all. MI5 will meet us at another. It is not far. They wanted a last-minute change . . . For our safety!’ He gave his boss a look of disdain.
Prince Adil al-Salhi had every reason to be jumpy. He was on the run, a fugitive from his own family. Intelligent, with a naturally gentle character, Adil had been educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he had been ‘de-radicalised’. He had grown to hate his government, the relentless cruelty of the Saudi regime; and he had struck a deal with British intelligence – a thorough debriefing, everything he knew about his evil uncles and their worthless minions in exchange for a cast-iron, secure new identity and round-the-clock protection.
Three minutes later, the plane skirted the edges of Terminal 3 and edged into Gate 0. Prince Adil al-Salhi gazed at the grey stone, glass and steel as Dirar Radi stood and removed a metal briefcase from a locked compartment towards the rear of the plane.
Radi, his Glock producing a bulge in his buttoned-up Armani suit jacket, led the way, followed by the prince in his white robe and keffiyeh, the traditional Saudi headdress. Behind them strode two more guards, AK-47s at their hips.
CHAPTER 10
HUBAB ESSA’S TEAM was the first to arrive and meet up. They had spread out in ones and twos and were now gathered in a long-stay car park on Eastern Perimeter Road close to Terminal 3.
‘Group Green, status,’ Essa said quietly into her secure mobile as she punched key 5. Some static, then Vafi Akel’s voice replied: ‘In position.’ She clicked off and called each commander of the other five surviving groups. They had each taken up position around Terminal 3. They were ready.
Essa checked her watch: 9.14. Via her modified phone, she sent a signal to each of the groups. A signal that meant move to Stage 4, the penultimate step in the opening phase of the operation. She then set off for the lifts, pulling her suitcase behind her. A minute later, two others in her group, brothers Parizad and Cemal, walked to the lifts on the far side of the car park, each dragging two cases and carrying a large shoulder bag. Jaad followed Essa ninety seconds later, and Nizam after him. Finally, the sixth member of Group Red, Ruhi, carrying a large backpack and two smaller shoulder bags, took the stairs. By 9.26, they were all in the arrivals hall of Terminal 3. Another sixty seconds passed as they each converged on the gents’ toilets in the corner furthest from the main concourse.
Essa was the last to arrive. She closed the door to the outside and strode into the clinical white room lined with urinals. The place stank of bleach. Two businessmen in suits stood close to the basins, a wide mirror behind them, their hands on their heads. Their faces were as white as cooked albumen. Essa noticed with satisfaction that one of the men had pissed his pants; the crotch of his smart suit was sodden and dark.
Without a word, Essa pulled her Glock from her jacket, screwed on a silencer and shot the executives in the head. They collapsed in two bloody heaps.
They all heard a sound from one of the cubicles. Essa pumped the door with five shots in quick succession; a body fell to the floor and a stream of blood ran from under the shattered door.
Essa checked her watch: 9.28.
‘Two minutes,’ she snapped, and the six of them started to unpack the cases and bags.
CHAPTER 11
CHAZ AND I have this ritual. It goes back six years now, since my divorce. Chaz? He’s a career bachelor. We meet once a year at JFK or Churchill and catch a cheap flight to a sunny holiday destination. One year it was Tijuana, another it was Majorca, last year Florida. And that’s why I had been racing along the M4. I was running late for the prearranged meet-up with Chaz, fresh off his Virgin Atlantic flight from Kennedy. I had the tickets for our flight to Athens and from there we planned to catch a ferry from Piraeus to the Greek island of Mykonos. Two weeks of sun, women, beer and relaxation – just what we needed. I had Skyped Chaz the day before and he’d looked completely wrung out.
I checked in my bag. The pretty young woman at the desk eyed my passport. ‘Welcome, Captain Bates.’
That always brought a smile to my lips. I had been discharged from the army ‘without honour’, but as an act of defiance I kept my title in my passport. It was a shame I had to get a fresh one soon and would lose the ‘Captain’. But that was the least of it. Thanks to the ‘without honour’, the best job I could get was as a security guard for G4S. Maybe you can get a sense of why ‘wifey’ left, taking my beloved son Tommy with her. I was now working sixty hours a week to pay alimony and save for one holiday a year.
‘Anything flammable in the bag? You packed it yourself?’ the check-in assistant asked.
‘No. Yes.’ Questions answered and boarding gate circled in pen, I strode towards Arrivals to wait for Chaz. I checked the board and saw the 9.18 from JFK had just landed. Chaz would soon be coming through and we would pump hands, smack each other on the back and head for the connecting flight.
It was a great arrangement. We lived on different continents but always had a cool two weeks a year together. The only potential problem was that we had pretty much the same taste in women, so on holiday it was sometimes a race to the start line. Apart from women, Chaz and I had something else in common. He had saved my life and I his. I’m ex-SAS and Chaz was a Delta Force captain who was not just badass; he has a brain and is a cyber-combat expert. Back in 2009, Chaz had pulled me from the wreck of a landmined Foxhound Protected Mobility Vehicle in Iraq. A year later, on a UK/US joint black ops mission, I’d saved Chaz when he came within a flea’s breath of gagging on a sniper’s bullet.
I ran along the carpet, dodged a vehicle driven by a young guy wearing a yellow vest transporting an old couple. Chaz was exiting as I rocked up. He gave me his best bear hug, and with grins a mile wide, we were off, heading back the way I had come.
‘You look great, man,’ Chaz said, eyeing me up and down. ‘Good gym?’
‘So-so. Too pricey.’
‘And how’s Tommy?’
‘He’s cool. Ten next month. I wish I could see more of him, but it’s strictly one weekend in three.’
We passed along the main corridor. Other passengers dashed towards and past us. It was peak time, holiday season, a week after the schools had finished for the long summer holiday. It didn’t get crazier than this.
Another oldies’ express was heading straight for us. I pulled Chaz out of the way and saw a narrower, less crowded passage to my right. ‘We can get duty-free nearer the gate,’ I said.
‘And you have got my boarding pass for the Greek flight?’
‘You’ll never forgive me that one time, will you?’
‘Nope.’
‘I know a quick back way to Departures.’ I hung a left and then another right between a storeroom and a sweetshop. Chaz had just a belt-bag; his suitcase would be in baggage handling.
It was oddly quiet here.
‘You’ve managed to get us lost, haven’t you, Einstein?’ Chaz said.
‘No. I’m sure this is right.’
Chaz checked his watch. ‘Cutting it fine, buddy. Let’s go back, take the regular route, yeah?’
I nodded. ‘Guess.’
That’s when we got the first shock.
CHAPTER 12
‘HOLY FUCK!’ I exclaimed. The words just spilled out. I froze and felt Chaz pull up beside me.
I’d had guns pointed at me more times than I cared to remember, but never here, in England, at Churchill Airport, Terminal 3. A man in an Armani suit was standing between two Arabs in white robes who were brandishing AK-47s.
One of the robed guys shrieked, and I thought: This is it. We’re dead. But then the dude in the suit dropped a metal briefcase between his feet and raised his gun in both hands.
‘Get your hands up,’ said the guy in the suit.
Chaz was as startled as me, and for a crazy second, neither of us moved.
‘Get your fucki
ng hands up or you are both dead!’ Armani-man had a thick Middle Eastern accent swamping the English words. Chaz and I put our hands up.
Then it was the wall. Smack. My nose up against the plaster. I could hear Chaz’s heavy breath beside me. He and I knew better than to argue. We were unarmed and had obviously stumbled into something we really shouldn’t have stumbled into. I felt the swish of a robe as I was patted down; a hand ran down each leg, then came a barked Arabic word: ‘Wadh.’ Clear.
We heard footsteps and a fresh voice: ‘Gentlemen. Please, calm down. Release them.’
I felt myself spun round and I glanced at Chaz. He looked like he was about to explode. New Yorkers, especially ex-Delta Force New Yorkers, don’t like to be shoved around any more than the next man.
‘Apologies,’ the new arrival said. He wore a Savile Row suit and black Oxfords polished to perfection. I clocked the old Beretta in his right hand. It was the same gun packed by my favourite Bond, Sean Connery. The guy oozed Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service – I had met a few of his type before. Behind him stood another man in a robe and a keffiyeh. He was tall and delicately built and looked like a Saudi prince. ‘You appear to have lost your way, gentlemen,’ Mr MI5 said. He looked almost amused. I liked him.
‘Guess, so,’ Chaz said. He was really pissed off, I could tell.
‘I think you’ll find the public areas are that way,’ the English guy replied and pointed to our left. ‘We’re headed thataway.’
We stood watching for a second, and I remember thinking how neither of us could see any funny side to it, but perhaps we would later, over a beer. That’s when I saw the shadow, and before anyone else could move, I was sprinting towards the group without a thought for what I was actually doing.
Airport - Code Red: BookShots Page 2
