by Chris Ryan
'You reckon they know you've been turned?' said Matt.
'Mary called me and told me all about it,' Ivan said. 'Said they knew I was doing a robbery, that's all, and they wanted the money.'
'I thought we'd agreed no contact,' said Damien. 'How did she know where to get hold of you?'
'She sent me a text message, then I called her back, simple as that.' He looked around the men at the table. 'Of course I left a way for her to get hold of me. I bet all of you have done the same.'
'Not me,' snapped Damien. 'I stick to my word.'
'And you guys?' said Ivan.
'I haven't spoken to Jane, but, yes, my mobile is switched on a couple of times a day,' said Cooksley. 'She could leave a message if there was an emergency.'
Reid nodded. 'Same here,' he said. 'You never know. Something might happen to the kids.'
Matt leant forwards on the table. 'If it's confession time — I called Gill,' he said. 'But I didn't tell her where I was.'
Ivan leant forwards, his elbows leaning on the table, the lines on his forehead creasing up. 'Let me get this straight, you spoke to your girlfriend?'
'I didn't tell her where we are,' Matt repeated.
'You owe a lot of money to a Russian gangster, Matt,' Ivan said. 'If he knew how much money you'd just taken, he'd be after you.' He paused, looking around the pool area. 'This is Cyprus. The place is crawling with Russian mafia, in case you hadn't noticed the accents in the bar. It's where they come for their winter holidays.'
'Let's get back to you, Ivan,' Reid said, his face reddening. 'If the PIRA know how much money we have, they'll be after the lot of us. Those guys would kill us for free, never mind thirty million. It's you that's the problem, you have been right from the start.'
'He's right,' chipped in Cooksley.
Ivan raised his hands into the air. 'I'm not defending myself,' he said. 'Nobody is more worried about this than me. But I fight my own battles. If there's a problem, I'll fix it.'
'Once a traitor, always a traitor,' said Reid, stubbing out a cigarette into an already bulging ashtray.
Ivan turned to look at Matt. 'Look, it was an Arab driving the car, you say?'
Matt nodded.
'Not an Irishman then. The Provos wouldn't go after Cooksley. They'd come after me.'
The first sign of trouble, and everyone starts turning on each other.
'So we have four possibilities,' Damien interrupted. 'It could be al-Qaeda, it could be a local gang, it could be the IRA, or it could be the Russian mafia. Either way, you know what that says to me?' He looked around the table, meeting the eyes of each man in turn. 'We get the hell out of here. Because whichever of those four it is, they already know where we are, and I don't want to be around when they catch up with us.'
* * *
Sallum parked the Lexus LS430 in the bay, next to the Fords, Vauxhalls and Rovers. A light drizzle was falling. Dark clouds had gathered in the sky, and even though it was only three-thirty in the afternoon, the night seemed to have started to draw in. He slammed the door shut, pocketed the keys, then walked swiftly towards the factory and the main office.
For Ibrahim bin Assaf himself to have asked to see him in person, he knew it had to be important. Field operatives rarely had any direct contact with their masters. That was not how the organisation worked.
Assaf Foods occupied a sprawling factory and warehouse on the outskirts of West Bromwich, close to Birmingham. It made Indian ready-meals for supermarkets, irradiated chicken tikka masala that sat in the microwave for five minutes. Assaf had started the business twenty years ago as a young Pakistani immigrant. Now he was one of the wealthiest, most respected figures in the British Muslim community.
If only they knew, thought Sallum as he strode across the factory floor. The infidels wouldn't be so keen on their curries then.
He sat for a moment in the waiting room, glancing out to the floor below. He could see the giant machines slicing the battery chickens, spitting out the bones and throwing the remnants into huge bins. Machine cutters were dicing vegetables, and conveyor belts dropped spices into huge vats of oil and grease. A small cloud of smoke hung over the factory, and the rich smell of raw curry powder infiltrated the building.
Disgusting. A nation that has forgotten how to cook for itself has also forgotten how to defend itself. That is why they are weak and we are strong.
'Sallum alakim,' said Assaf, standing up from his desk and shaking Sallum warmly by the hand. 'You are well, my brother?'
Assaf was a short, compact man who looked younger than his fifty-three years. His hair was greying but still thick, and although there were lines around his forehead his skin was still smooth and velvety. His eyes were set deep into his head, and his long nose raked out from the centre of his face. He had bearing and presence, Sallum observed, and a natural sense of command. Yet at the same time, he was discreet: you wouldn't notice him until he meant to put you under his spell. That was probably what made him such a successful businessman.
'I am well, sir,' Sallum replied stiffly.
'The operation in Saudi Arabia, it went better than we could have expected,' said Assaf. 'You are to be congratulated.'
Sallum bowed his head. 'To serve the movement in any way is an honour.'
'Quite so,' answered Assaf. 'May it be just the first of many great victories.' He turned, walking back towards his desk. The office was decorated simply — a desk, a computer screen, and a couple of leather armchairs for visitors. A copy of the FT and a pair of trade magazines lay on a coffee table. There was a picture of his wife and children on the desk, and a modest portrait of the prophet on the wall. But otherwise there was nothing to suggest that Assaf was anything but the most respectable of businessmen.
'But any movement will experience setbacks as well as victories,' said Assaf.
Sallum moved closer to the desk. 'A setback?'
'Unfortunately so,' Assaf replied. 'A boat carrying gold and jewels belonging to the organisation has been attacked and sunk. All the goods on board have been stolen, and our men killed.'
Sallum could feel a bead of sweat forming on his brow. 'Nobody would dare,' he said. 'It is an outrage.'
'They have dared,' said Assaf. 'But they will regret it.' He laid out five photographs on his desk, each one depicting a different man. Sallum picked up the pictures one by one, holding them carefully between thumb and index finger. On the back of each picture was stencilled a different name in black ink: Matt Browning, Damien Walters, Ivan Rowe, Alan Reid and Joe Cooksley. 'Are these the men?'
'They are British,' replied Assaf. 'They took the boat, and stole our money.' He paused, turning towards the window and looking out at the drizzly suburbs of Birmingham. 'In the Koran, in the book of Abu Dawuud, it is written: "A thief was brought to the Prophet four times and his punishments were amputations of the right hand, the left foot, the left hand and then the right foot. On the fifth occasion the Prophet had him killed."' Assaf looked towards Sallum, meeting his eyes. 'I think we know what it is the Prophet would wish to be done.'
TWELVE
This is where it started, Matt thought, looking up at the drab brick façade of the Holiday Inn Express on Wandsworth roundabout. He walked briskly into the hotel, telling the receptionist that three rooms were booked in the name of Jim Arnold. Matt had pulled the name straight out of his head when he made the booking on the phone. 'This way, lads, second floor,' he said.
Cooksley, Reid, Damien and Ivan followed him up the stairs. They had flown back from Cyprus that morning on the first flight available. From Heathrow, they had made their way directly to the hotel. Matt had called Alison from the airport, saying they were back in Britain, and they needed a meeting. Urgently.
'When will she be here?' Reid asked.
Matt checked his watch. It was three-twenty now, and she had promised to be there by three-thirty. 'Another ten minutes,' he said flatly.
The decision had not been hard to make, and it had been taken jointly between all five o
f them. Regiment rules. They took decisions together.
Who had attacked Cooksley or why, they had no way of knowing for sure. But it was obvious that someone was after them. They had talked about escaping, discussed lots of different places. They could have headed for Greece, maybe, or gone into Romania or the Balkans somewhere. There were lots of places a man could hide in that part of the world, and three of them knew Kosovo well. They could have crossed to Turkey or headed into north Africa. But it was Damien who had come up with the most practical solution. When you want to hide, go somewhere you know well. That meant going home.
Matt answered the door on the second knock. Alison was wearing a black trouser suit with a red cardigan underneath, a string of pearls slung across her neck. She glanced at him briefly, smiled, then looked across the room. There was something different about her today, Matt judged. She was colder, and a couple of lines seemed to have creased into her brow.
I'm not sure she's pleased to see us.
'The mission was a great success,' she said. 'You are all to be congratulated. You've achieved a significant blow against al-Qaeda. Without money, they are nothing.'
'Save us the speeches,' said Matt, turning to face her. 'What's going to happen to us?'
Alison stood with her back to the window, her face framed by the sunlight breaking through the clouds. 'You get to keep the money, pure and simple,' said Alison stiffly. 'So far as I know, there is no change of plan.'
'Somebody tried to kill me,' said Cooksley. 'In Cyprus.'
'Something's going on,' said Matt. 'And we want to know what it is.'
'Cyprus is a small place,' Alison answered, turning to face them, her tone harsh. 'Nasty little island full of cheap package tourists, Russian gangsters and a few half-drunk squaddies getting burnt in the sun. It's full of people who drink too much beer, and talk too much. So who knows what has happened? Maybe one of you shot your mouth off in a bar, started trying to impress one of the girls. Maybe the local villains tried to take it off you?' She paused, looking directly at Matt. 'How the hell am I supposed to know?'
'It wasn't like that,' snapped Matt. 'We were there, and you weren't.'
'Then how was it?'
'Nobody shot their mouth off,' said Matt. 'We stayed together at the hotel, and Ivan taught us how to play bridge.' He laughed. 'We were probably the most sober, best-behaved stag party in recorded history.'
Alison turned away again, reaching for her handbag. She pulled out a handheld Olympus tape recorder, and placed it on the table. 'Listen to this,' she said.
She pressed the play button. A stream of Arabic came out of the machine — one main voice, with a pair of less distinct voices in the background. Matt spoke a couple of words of Arabic, but not enough to make any sense of the words he was now hearing. But you didn't need to know any of the language to understand that the man speaking was afraid, very afraid. The fear was scratched into the tone of his voice.
'The voice you just listened to is the captain of the boat you hit,' said Alison. 'He's speaking over an Immarsat satellite mobile phone. He made the call just after you hit them. We've had it translated. He's telling his bosses that the boat has been hit, and that they need help. After the bomb went off, the line went dead. I guess the blast destroyed the transmitter.' She switched off the machine.
'How the hell did you get that?' said Matt, impressed.
'We and the Americans monitor the voice traffic right through the Mediterranean,' said Alison calmly. 'A satellite phone is not a secure line. The NSA taps all conversations.'
'Maybe they're hoping to get Osama on the line one day saying I'm having a birthday bash at my house,' said Cooksley.
Alison didn't laugh. 'They passed this on to us,' she said. 'If you guys had managed to shoot all of them straight away, then this wouldn't have happened.'
'We got them just the way we meant to,' Reid interrupted.
Alison shrugged. Rain was starting to hit the window, leaving a thin film of water on the glass. 'It's too late to do anything about that now,' she said. 'And I don't think it's that important. We've had the whole thing translated, and all it says is that some men are raiding the boat. Al-Qaeda were always going to get that anyway, when the boat didn't make it to its destination. It doesn't say who you are, what you look like, even what nationality you are.'
'But it does tell us that al-Qaeda might be on to us earlier than we thought,' said Matt.
'Either way, it's of no concern to MI5,' said Alison. 'The job is done — it was well done. Thank you very much, end of story.'
Matt raised his hands into the air. 'Hold on,' he said. 'You're washing your hands of us?'
'What did you expect?'
'Five have safe houses, don't they?' said Cooksley, interrupting. 'We've got a week until the gear arrives in Rotterdam. We need to stay out of harm's way until then.'
Alison laughed: a light, shrill sound that started at the back of her throat and cut right through Matt's nerves. 'You've been reading too much spy fiction,' she said. 'Five might have a couple of safe houses, but they are all occupied right now.'
'We risked our fives on this mission,' snapped Matt. 'We want some protection.'
Alison started walking towards the door. 'You seem to have forgotten something,' she said. 'This was never an official mission, and there can be no official protection.'
* * *
Matt put the round of five double-cheeseburger meals on the table. The McDonald's was right across the road from the hotel, next to the B&Q warehouse. None of them had eaten since breakfast, and Matt reckoned they should get some food in their stomachs before they made any decisions. He didn't want anyone flapping.
'Bitch,' said Reid, his teeth sinking into the burger. 'I never liked her from the moment I first laid eyes on her.'
'She's just using us,' said Damien 'Go get this boat, knock out al-Qaeda's money, then the minute something goes wrong we're on our own.'
'Sorry, boys, thanks for risking your fives, lah-de-bloody-lah,' said Reid. 'We'd love to help you but we're a bit busy right now.'
'I'll tell you something else as well,' Ivan chipped in. 'Five have plenty of safe houses. There are at least three I know about just in my patch over the water. I reckon there must be a couple of dozen in London. She could stash us away somewhere if she wanted to.'
'She doesn't want to,' said Cooksley. 'She's just a bloody Rupert in a skirt.'
I can't disagree, thought Matt. Better legs, and a softer smile — but she's a Rupert with blonde hair and perfume. And you can never trust a Rupert.
'I suppose she hasn't broken any promises,' he said, looking around the table. 'We weren't told we were getting any protection, just that we were getting paid. We always knew we'd have to look after ourselves.'
'We didn't know it was about to go wrong, did we?' Reid snapped, ignoring the no smoking sign and lighting up a cigarette.
'And we didn't know al-Qaeda would be phoning details of the hit back to base, did we?' said Damien. 'She says there's nothing on the tape about who we are, but we don't know that.'
'Let's cool it,' said Matt. 'There's no point in going over this. She's said no safe house, and that's that. We have to look out for ourselves.'
Damien leant forwards on the table. 'We've got six days until the boat arrives in Rotterdam,' he said. 'After that, we're rich men — that makes life easier. Perhaps it was just some local Cyprus boys, whatever.' He paused, taking a swig on his Coke. 'If not, then we use our money to change our names, disappear. I know some boys down in Bermondsey who can come up with new passports, new credit cards, even a new face if you really want one.'
'Damien's right,' said Matt. 'We hold out for the next six days, we should be in the clear.'
'Until then, we stick together,' said Reid. 'We all look out for one another.'
'And we all meet the gear coming off the boat and take it to the fence,' said Ivan. 'Only then do we go our separate ways.'
'Agreed,' said Matt. 'For the next week, we should be on to
p of each other like a bunch of mosquitoes. Let's stay in this hotel until it's all over.'
Cooksley finished off the last of his chips. 'Except for me,' he said slowly. 'I'm going home.'
Matt looked at him closely, but his face was made of granite: you could no more read it than you could read a piece of stone. 'What's up?'
'The kids have taken a turn for the worse,' he said, his voice trailing away. 'I have to be there.'
* * *
'I know a house you can go to,' said Alison. 'I don't know if it's safe, though.'
Matt looked up from the window to the doorway. His hotel room door was unlocked, and she had opened it without knocking. He had a pint of lager in front of him he had ordered up from the bar, but he was drinking slowly. From the window he could just see the Thames, but most of it was obscured by an apartment block. There were a few salesmen, and a couple of stray tourists who can't have realised that Wandsworth isn't the glitziest part of London. This place is about as miserable as I feel, he thought to himself.
'I like you, Alison, but I don't think there's anything safe about you.'
Alison toyed with her necklace. 'Listen, sorry about what happened earlier. There wasn't anything else I could do.'
Matt looked hard into her eyes but could find no trace of pity there. 'You could have given us what we wanted,' he said. 'Five has plenty of safe houses in London. You know it, we know it, so there was no need to lie.'
Alison sat down on the chair next to him, close enough for Matt to smell the perfume on her neck. Fresh, he noted. She'd just put it on, as if she were heading out on a date. 'You don't understand the kind of pressure we're under,' she said. 'There's something big going off in the next couple of weeks. We don't know what it is, but the al-Qaeda networks we monitor are humming. Maybe Heathrow, maybe Parliament, maybe a bomb at Old Trafford on a Saturday afternoon. It could be anything.' She paused, taking a bottle of mineral water from the desk. 'We're all getting chewed up trying to break the network. We're really grateful for what you've done, and at a calmer time we'd be able to do something. Not now, though.'
