Fatal Ally

by Tim Sebastian

  No one spoke to him on the journey and when the car stopped, the two men left him where he was, ordering him not to move. In the distance, he heard the occasional car but he realized that he was far from anything or anyone that he knew. In recent years, he had seldom left the little town and the shop.

  His two children had gone off to fight – who hadn’t? But he didn’t know what group they belonged to, or even if they were still alive.

  Perhaps he should have kept his mouth shut about the women, and yet it was a long time since anyone – especially his wife – had listened to anything he said. A long time since he’d had a story to tell. And the women had definitely been suspicious. The older creature, sick and in evident pain. The younger one silent and in shock. They were on the run. Had to be.

  He heard footsteps getting close. The car door opened and a hand yanked him out of his seat.

  ‘Where am I?’ he asked. But whoever was attached to the hand didn’t answer.

  He was led into a building. The air was cold, stale.

  ‘Sit on the floor.’

  ‘I can’t see.’

  He was pushed onto the stone tiles. Only then did they remove the blindfold.

  The commander was sitting silent in a chair opposite him. A single desk light on the table beside him.

  ‘Tell your story.’ The voice seemed further away than the man.

  The baker nodded furiously, trying hard to order his thoughts. He should not waste the time of a sheikh, but this was unexpected. There was no warmth or friendship here. No greeting. No hand to shake.

  ‘I told it to one of your people, I think …’

  ‘Tell it again.’ The voice was quiet but strong. A voice that gave orders.

  ‘Two women were in my shop today. They looked odd, out of place.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Sick, desperate somehow. Running from something.’

  ‘This is Syria. Everyone’s running. Why do they matter?’

  ‘The older one wasn’t from here. Different Arabic. Syrian, but maybe she’d lived abroad.’

  ‘And the younger one?’

  ‘Local. I’m sure of it. Tired, hungry. Both of them.’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘I don’t know. I went to get some supplies from the basement. My wife asked me to. When I came back, they’d gone.’

  ‘Did they speak to anyone else?’

  ‘Only my wife.’

  ‘Then we will talk to her.’ The commander turned away and looked into the darkness as if throwing the idea to someone in the shadows.

  ‘I tried to call her …’ The baker stopped. Something in the commander’s voice worried him. He shivered suddenly, not knowing if it was from fear or the cold.

  When the baker had been led out of the room, the two men from Zarqa emerged from the darkness behind the commander.

  ‘What did you think?’ He looked up at them.

  The younger man shrugged his shoulders. ‘Hard to tell. The fellow is stupid and looking for attention.’

  ‘But is he lying?’

  ‘Why would he lie? Maybe he was just nervous.’

  ‘But his eyes were all over the place. One lie, chasing another …’

  ‘Listen my friend’ – the older man from Zarqa put a hand on the commander’s shoulder – ‘we’ll take the baker back home and talk to his wife. If there’s anything in his story, we’ll find out.’

  ‘Do it quickly. The hours are passing and the American spy has still not been found. This is the first and only lead we have.’ The commander got up from the table and stared from one face to the other. ‘Understand this, my brothers. It will go very badly for us all if she gets away.’

  LONDON

  ‘Did you fix the thing we talked about?’

  ‘It’s not that easy. Events are moving fast on the ground …’

  ‘I don’t want excuses.’

  ‘I’m giving you facts, Alec. This is highly delicate – the whole thing …’

  ‘Then go off the books … use some of the former Service people …’

  ‘There’s no time for that. And no time to find someone who’d keep their mouth shut. This thing is highly toxic – it leaks and the whole alliance is finished. I shouldn’t even be talking to you about it, in case you get questioned.’

  ‘I’ll handle the questions.’

  ‘I’m not talking about the press – or even one of those bloody silly committees. I’m talking about a possible criminal enquiry.’

  ‘I know what the risks are.’

  ‘Do you really, Alec? This isn’t about losing power, political disgrace … it’s about authorizing a termination.’

  ‘I didn’t use those fucking words … in case you’ve forgotten. I said make sure the operation is stopped.’

  ‘So how else do you think we stop it? Blow a whistle? Set up a fucking traffic light? Sorry, Alec. It’s dirty hands’ time. And if this goes ahead then yours’ll be as dirty as anyone else’s.’

  The prime minister swivelled his chair and stared at a portrait over the fireplace. It was one of his predecessors, who looked considerably happier in the job than he was.

  Sears stood up and approached the desk. ‘I can abort this now. One phone call and it all comes to a grinding halt. The MI6 woman is recalled. Manson gets stood down. We go back to square one—’

  ‘… with the Americans, blowing our agents and screwing us with impunity?’

  ‘You can do this through diplomatic channels. Much safer option.’

  ‘We both know that isn’t going to work. They’ll deny everything and all we’ll have done is stir up a bloody hornets’ nest.’

  ‘So what do you want to do? Our agent lands in Amman in two hours’ time. After that, she’s on the ground and may even be out of reach …’

  Sears went back to the sofa. ‘It’s your call.’

  BA 737 EN ROUTE TO AMMAN, JORDAN

  She didn’t look round. Didn’t need to. Sam was ten rows behind her. They would meet later at the unremarkable and hopelessly inefficient Landmark Hotel in Central Amman. No further contact till then.

  She knew he’d be sleeping. Sam was untroubled by ‘big’ thoughts: the mechanisms by which you hastened the death of some people and delayed it for others. It’s just timing, he had told her. A little bit more time or a little bit less. Such a fine calculation, depending on the intersection of so many random and uncontrollable events.

  Recalling his words, part of her envied him his cheap and easy philosophy. The elegance with which he could finesse the taking of a life and the finger on the trigger. The entire, time-honoured rationale of the powerful, confronted by the weak.

  It’s your fault that I’m killing you. You brought this on yourself by resisting oppression, left me no choice, drove me to it. The responsibility is yours.

  Murder converted neatly into suicide. And no shortage of useful idiots to believe and retell your version.

  Margo closed her eyes, listening to the miles rush past beneath her. So what would she do when the time came to confront the American woman, when the thinking had to stop, when the choices were distilled down to the final two?

  All she knew was that she would walk to the edge of the cliff, stare into the darkness beyond and find out.

  As Sam had said, such a fine calculation.

  LONDON

  He hadn’t allowed time to go home. Stopped the car on its way to Northolt airport along the Great West road, bought a couple of shirts and some underwear, didn’t know how long he’d be away.

  They had his name at Security and directed him to a small private terminal.

  He could see the plane refuelling close by – a white Gulfstream, owned by one of the Service’s shell companies, registered God knew where.

  ‘Mr Manson?’

  The man approaching him wore a blue pilot’s uniform but there were no markings on it.

  ‘I’m Phillips. Flight Lieutenant. But for obvious reasons not wearing my usual stuff.’

  T
hey shook hands. Manson didn’t want a conversation but as always he wanted it clear who was in charge.

  ‘You’ve filed a flightplan?’

  The pilot stiffened slightly. ‘Only to Cyprus, so far. We’ll declare the onward route into Jordan, once we’re further south. No point alerting anyone in advance. By the time we’re out over the Med, we’ll get lost in the commercial corridors and I doubt anyone will pay any attention.’

  ‘And the final destination?’

  ‘It’s a military airfield. There are one or two we could use close to the Syrian border. Your people are taking care of that. I’ll just fly where I’m told to.’

  ‘Co-pilot?’

  ‘Yes. One of ours. No inflight service, I’m afraid. You’ll find a fridge and some sandwiches. That’s it.’

  Phillips led the way to the aircraft. Manson didn’t bother to greet the co-pilot. He strapped himself in, loosened his tie and checked his messages on his phone.

  He hadn’t been involved in a live mission like this for many years – and never behind the back of a serving officer.

  Sure, there were things you didn’t say to people, facts and details you might withhold for short-term expediency. But to run a parallel operation, without informing a senior, serving officer, was taking a monumental risk.

  Did he really think Margo Lane would disobey a direct order? A woman with an outstanding track record like hers?

  And yet everyone had a line they refused to cross. He’d seen it enough over the years. Even if you never knew where it was drawn, that line existed.

  For him, though, it was a very different game. No question. He’d lived his professional life in the grey zone and been happy there – the no-man’s land between what you could do and what you knew you shouldn’t.

  Manson had never found it difficult to look in the mirror and see himself as he really was.

  Practical, ruthless and unencumbered by inconvenient principles.

  He didn’t like Lane – he could admit that easily to himself. Didn’t like the way she would bring out her conscience and wave it in his face, didn’t like her assumption that she alone had a moral compass and everyone else made it up as they went along – or didn’t bother. Didn’t like the fact that, even with her incessant questioning and arguing, she was a brighter, more capable, more creative intelligence officer than he had ever been.

  TWENTY-FIVE KILOMETRES FROM JORDAN/SYRIA BORDER

  They could have asked the baker for the keys to his shop but the men from Zarqa couldn’t be bothered.

  Without waiting, the younger man slammed his shoulder against the main door, shattering the metal clasps that held it, and sending it crashing to the floor.

  When the baker protested, he was punched hard in the face and told to sit on the floor and stay quiet.

  The two men searched the shop and the apartment above it, but found no one.

  ‘Where’s the wife, old man?’ The figure from the refugee camp, grabbed the baker’s chin, jerked it upwards and peered unkindly into the man’s eyes.

  ‘I don’t know. She said nothing. Maybe she’s gone out looking for food.’

  ‘Does she visit anyone? Has she friends?’

  ‘She doesn’t—’

  The man from the refugee camp took a step closer. ‘She doesn’t what?’

  ‘Doesn’t tell me anything. She has a brother, though, lives three kilometres away, I haven’t seen him in years.’

  They dragged the baker to his feet. ‘Call her.’

  ‘I can’t …’ He wiped the blood from his mouth with his sleeve. A thin red trickle had oozed onto his chin. ‘She has no phone.’

  They took him back to the car.

  ‘You remember the way to her brother’s?’

  ‘I think so. Inshallah, I will remember.’

  ‘You better hope, for your own sake, that you do.’

  The older man stood for a moment beside the car, watching the road in the direction they had travelled.

  His eyesight was sharp and he was pretty sure what he had seen. A white pickup truck, about half a kilometre from them, had pulled off the road but most of it was still visible behind some trees. The same truck that had tailed them at a distance, ever since they had left the commander.

  He wasn’t surprised to be followed. There was no trust between any of the groups. Whole towns and districts changed sides overnight. Fighters and factions came and went, winning and losing land and winning it again. Sometimes you battled the same faces who had stood alongside you as comrades just a few days before.

  In truth, the only way to be certain of anyone, he decided, was to kill them.

  The painkillers had been stronger than Mai imagined. From time to time she could feel herself drifting in and out of consciousness, as four or five sets of hands lifted and carried her to the car.

  She forced herself to sit up and look around.

  Night was falling, turning the landscape to grey. A young boy was driving sheep along the main road, with a dog herding the strays. For a moment she remembered what a normal life had looked like. Land and animals. Peace and laughter. A night beside a fire.

  The baker’s wife slid into the driver’s seat beside her. ‘We’re not going far. Too dangerous to travel at night. But I know a retired schoolteacher who lives nearby. He’ll put us up, if I ask him.’

  ‘And if he doesn’t?’

  ‘It would not occur to him to turn us away.’ She touched Mai’s sleeve. ‘People were good to each other before the fighting started. I had a lot of friends. Then it became difficult. Nobody wanted to talk anymore because families were divided. Fathers and sons even – some of them fought on different sides. But I know this man. He’s a good person.’

  The car moved off into the shadows. In the back seat Lubna hummed a children’s song.

  Mai put her hand in the zip pocket of her jacket and felt the gun. She had almost forgotten it was there. Holding it was a small comfort.

  She thought about the doctor, his patched-up spectacles and the tired, slow-moving eyes behind them; Lubna, who had helped her without a second thought; the baker’s wife, driving into the night with a couple of endangered souls for company – they had proved to her that against all the odds, kindness and bravery could survive.

  And yet that kindness would offer no protection from the men who were hunting them in the darkness, who might ambush them at the side of a deserted road or run them to earth in a dugout like animals.

  At that point, only the gun would count.

  WASHINGTON DC

  Harry Jones could feel the doors closing. The silence from the White House told him everything he needed to know. Not the silence of respect for a senior official whose wife was dying, but the quiet that surrounds a man under suspicion, a man who has moved imperceptibly from sunlight into the shadows.

  It didn’t matter what had triggered it. Probably his frequent meetings with Yanayev. Ambassadors – especially Russian ambassadors – were under blanket surveillance and eyebrows in the FBI and the Agency would have been raised more than somewhat by Yanayev’s encounters with a senior White House official.

  Somebody would have told the president, because he alone had the power to order Harry Jones into quarantine – Jones with his intimate knowledge of US capabilities and assets across America and around the world.

  Even now they’d be watching him from somewhere near the house. Probably a mobile command centre, monitoring his phone and computer, standing by to cut him off if he became a security risk. Armed, as usual, to ridiculous excess.

  And Harry knew that the president, moody and irascible as he was, would be unwilling to think the worst of him; he would have told the agencies that Harry’s wife was desperately ill and that he wouldn’t want the two of them separated. Not at this stage. Not until the evidence against Harry was solid.

  The nurse met him on the landing. Rosalind was sleeping deeply, her condition unaltered. When the doctor had visited that afternoon, Harry had asked him if she should be mov
ed to hospital. But the man had simply touched his arm and told him there was little point. She was comfortable at home. She had no pain. It wouldn’t be long.

  He sat in the kitchen and stared at the television. He was glad that Rosalind wouldn’t live to see his disgrace, to see him put on trial, to see the handcuffs on him and the cameras in his face. She couldn’t have stood that. The friends who would shun her, the phone that would never ring, the knowing looks in the local shops. It would all have been way, way too much for her.

  And Mai? He could see her face so clearly in front of him, half covered by the black, wavy hair, the chipped front tooth, the sudden smile that could blaze at him when he least expected it.

  He remembered an afternoon when they had driven out to the Shenandoah mountains and Lost River State Park, remembered word for word what she had told him.

  ‘I feel so American here. But when I was last in Syria, I was an Arab again – which meant I was a donkey, staggering under the weight of the great lie. Whose lie? All the lies and the hatreds and the duplicity that cut through the heart of our people. The arrogant refusal to accept blame. The obsession with self.’

  The pathway had become steeper through the forest. He had taken her hand and held it.

  ‘But with all our faults, I can’t help thinking there are two Gods – one who gave you forests and lakes and precious silence – and another who decided to give us something terrible, the barren land, the constant betrayal and the endless killing.’

  She had stopped and looked straight into his eyes.

  ‘You brought me to this park, Harry. I could stay in this park forever.’

  And he had known then that this wasn’t the throwaway line of a daytripper.

  Behind it, a depth of longing and despair, quite outside his own experience.

  When she had said: ‘I could stay in this park forever,’ she had meant exactly that.

  Harry got up and switched off the kitchen light.

  If Mai could be saved, then his own downfall would at least have some meaning.