Whatever had happened to her, he had to know.
RAMTHA, JORDAN
Ahmed had grown tired of waiting. As the sun set, he had parked on the outskirts of the town near a cemetery and had watched the gravediggers scoop out four fresh holes in the rough, cold ground, before going home, leaving their spades upright in the piles of earth.
Behind them, across a fence, sat the town’s licencing office for cars, a tattered Jordanian flag attached to an upper window, the dreary building deserted. In the distance he could make out the gaunt arrays of spotlights at a sports stadium, but that too was in darkness.
He got out of the car and shivered. Inside the cemetery he bent down and examined the graves with a small flashlight. They were simple rectangles of bricks or stones with the names spray-painted in black.
Mohamed Abdel Rahm – brave martyr, born 1978 – died 2013
Mariam Shukhair – no date of birth or death
Hassan Mohamed Attiya al Yateen – born 1968 – died 10.6.13
So some of the dead were being brought from Syria and buried out of sight in Jordan. No doubt the names were false. At any rate there was no time or requirement for fulsome tributes. The place was a production line. And at the end of it – four open holes in the ground waiting for the next incumbents, dead already or dying just a few kilometres away.
Ahmed returned to the car and switched on the engine.
Once, in recent history, it seemed the town of Ramtha had had a life. There would have been crops to harvest and plenty of other produce to sell. The stadium would have brought visitors and young people. Now it was just the dead, arriving to be buried.
Perhaps the two men from Zarqa were already among them.
He tried their phones again – but there was no connection. At best the phone system was overloaded – often, like everything else in the region, it gave up completely.
As he drove back into Ramtha his headlights picked out some graffiti on a wall. ‘My mind is tired and my heart is crushed.’
He passed half-finished buildings with blankets stretched across the entrances instead of doors. A dog sniffed the legs of a child that were poking out onto the street.
The town slept in its poverty and distress.
AMMAN AIRPORT
A driver had been waiting for her at Arrivals and on the back seat of the car was Manson’s promised gift. She didn’t need to open it. It had the weight of an automatic with several clips of ammunition. Local embassy issue, she assumed. And somewhere in the pack would be the arse-covering piece of paper to fill in if you used it or lost it, or returned it in less than pristine condition.
She stared out the window at the darkened landscape. In her world everything had a paper trail – except the things that were really important.
Like her mission in Jordan. Like the instructions from Manson.
She checked into the Landmark Hotel and waited for Sam to arrive.
He was only minutes behind her. As she opened the door to him, she noticed he had changed clothes. The Central European coat had been replaced with a black anorak and his mood had changed as well.
Laid-back Sam had a new light in his eyes. The man was enjoying himself, fired up, she reckoned, by the mission and the chance of violence.
You’re not like me, Sam. You live for this …
‘OK. I’ve got a car outside. Let’s go.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Where to?’
‘Our source says the best guess is the border village of Al-turo, near Ramtha. If the Russian can extract the woman – signs are he’ll take her there. We might get more information en route.’
Margo pulled on her coat.
‘You have a gun?’ he asked.
She didn’t answer. Didn’t want to go down that road with Sam.
When it came to the really difficult decisions, you had to work them out for yourself.
You didn’t hunt in packs or committees. Not in the world where she lived.
You didn’t care and share. You just got on with it.
She remembered years earlier how she had blackmailed a Bosnian Serb before turning him into a double agent.
‘If you tell me what I want to know,’ she had whispered to him, ‘I will keep it secret from everyone. But if you don’t tell me, I will go out and inform the whole world that you did.’
The Serb had cowered in fear – but he had talked. And she had kept her promise right up until the day he had lied to her.
His body was never discovered.
So was she really any different from Sam? Or had the passing of so many years made her softer.
He opened the door and held it for her. ‘Shall I wish us luck?’
‘Don’t bother.’ She glanced at him. ‘We’re going to need something better than that.’
FIFTEEN KILOMETRES FROM THE SYRIA/JORDAN BORDER
They had all been forced into the kitchen – the baker, his brother-in-law, two of their children and the old doctor with the broken spectacles.
In front of them, the younger man from Zarqa produced a gun but none of them showed a trace of surprise.
He thought they had probably seen plenty of guns in recent years – hadn’t everyone in Syria? – but he knew no other way to get their attention.
‘We’re looking for two women in a car – and’ – he pointed to the baker – ‘and his wife. Not to harm them, not even to ask them questions – but to help them. That’s all.’
The doctor began to laugh. ‘You really expect us to believe you? You come out of the darkness, you wave a gun at us and you say you just want to help. An odd way to help, isn’t it?’
‘Listen to me.’ The man from Zarqa wasn’t used to verbal persuasion. By this time, he reflected, he would normally have shot someone – at least through the foot – which always seemed to make information flow more freely. ‘Listen carefully. If we don’t find them, somebody else will and those are not people they want to meet. OK?’ His jaw jutted towards each of them in turn. He would lose it in a moment, he thought. Didn’t do self-restraint. Not with fools who stood in his way. Never had.
‘I have nothing to—’
‘Tell him.’ It was the baker who raised his voice. ‘Tell him what he wants to know. It’s the only chance for my wife. She doesn’t know how much danger she’s in. Doctor, please …’
The doctor lowered himself painfully onto a wooden stool. He drew a rag from his pocket, blew his nose and glanced over towards the baker. ‘This is Syria. It’s dangerous to speak – maybe it’s just as dangerous to stay silent. I don’t know anymore. But if this is what you want …’ He sighed. ‘Your wife came here, another woman was with her and a child – a girl – maybe thirteen or fourteen.’ He grimaced. ‘I find it hard to tell ages these days …’
‘Where did they go?’ The older man from Zarqa took a step forward. ‘How long ago was this?’
‘Maybe an hour … maybe a little less. They were looking for a place to spend the night. I—’
‘Where?’
‘I don’t know – but your wife …’ His eyes alighted again on the baker. ‘She spoke of a teacher and said he wouldn’t let them down.’
‘What teacher?’ The man put away his gun.
‘I know who it is …’ The baker got to his feet and put a hand on the doctor’s shoulder.
The old man looked up at him, shook his head but said nothing. Neither of them expected to meet again.
Outside, the three men climbed back into the car and the driver produced a map. ‘Show me where this teacher lives.’
From the back seat, the baker leaned forward, drawing his finger along a section of road, close to the border.
‘What’s there?’
‘Some houses, nothing more. The teacher lives alone. All his family are dead.’
The two men in the front exchanged glances. The younger one produced his mobile phone, sent a text message, then turned back to the driver.
‘Are they still following us?’
His companio
n let in the clutch and the car jerked forward, bouncing across the potholes.
‘Of course they’re following us. They’re crazy for this woman’s blood.’ His eyes fixed on the road ahead. ‘And if they don’t get it, you can be certain they’ll want ours instead.’
ISRAEL/JORDAN AIR CORRIDOR
‘Ten minutes and we’ll be in Israeli airspace.’
Phillips had come through from the cockpit and was leaning over him. Manson struggled to open his eyes.
‘What did you tell them?’
‘We’re flying in urgent blood plasma for the Jordanian royal family. The Israelis don’t seem too concerned. This plane’s from a charter company that’s pretty well-known in the region. It’s done similar things for some of their own VIPs.’
‘And the landing?’
‘Al Mafraq airbase – north of Amman. There was a choice of two in the area. Your people took this one. I gather there’s some kind of Jordanian team waiting for you. You expecting that?’
Manson nodded and watched the pilot return to the cockpit.
He pulled a satellite phone from his overnight bag and made a call to London. Margo Lane, they told him, was en route to the town of Ramtha, close to the border with Syria.
From there she would make her way to the village of Al-turo.
No, the voice on the line was quite adamant, she had said nothing at all about her intentions after that.
Bugger the woman. He whispered it silently, cut the connection and leaned back in his seat. He thought he knew now what she would do. Remembered that he’d looked at her file in detail over the years, read what the trainers had written, the psychological profile, reaction to authority, likely responses under specific pressures. A lot there. And all of it had pointed in one direction.
Margo Lane would kill in self-defence – but she didn’t do executions.
More than fifteen years had passed since her training and he doubted that any of her convictions had changed. Especially that one.
She would know perfectly well the difference between legal and illegal orders, because she was paid to know and paid to think. She wasn’t the kind of zombie thug who could do strategy one day and slit throats the next.
But Manson knew he could – if it came to that. And the little boy Sears, sweating away in his Whitehall office, intent on covering his tracks, had known it too.
He cleared his mind as the plane descended towards Jordan and thought of the team that would be waiting for him.
He didn’t know them. Would never see them again once it was over. Didn’t need their names, couldn’t have cared less if they had fathers or herds of sheep or queues of girlfriends. Hoped he wouldn’t even see their faces in the short ride to the border. In any case there’d be no chit-chat, no tedious banter to ease the wait.
They were strangers, designed to stay that way.
HIGHWAY 25, JORDAN
Sam was silent on the drive and she was grateful for that. Gradually, the traffic began to thin as they headed north and the steep hills gave way to country that was flat and desolate.
They passed the filling stations and cafés, the police cars tucked into the side of the road, their lights off, watching them go by. Snapshots rolled by: two men playing cards under a paraffin lantern. A boy in a striped shirt waved from a fruit stand and threw a banana in the air. She caught a glimpse of three children, laughing on their way into the night, careless, unaware of danger.
Such a long time since she had felt that way.
By the morning, she thought, there would be something else to try to forget. Whatever happened. Another slab of life, not to be revisited. Like a gallery that’s shut. Exhibit closed. Permanently off limits. One more guilty secret deep in the unprintable and irretrievable archives.
Only she would always know it was there.
The successes in the job never compensated for the losses. How many people in the Service had told her that? Success was a drink in the bar or a pat on the back in a sixth-floor office or a miserly civil service bonus of 250 pounds at the end of the year.
But failure – despite all your efforts – never went away.
Like a deformed leg or a birth scar on your cheek. Or the lousy, immovable view from your bedroom window when you pulled back the curtains. A brick wall that would forever obscure the sunlight.
She didn’t want this day, didn’t want the decisions it would force her to make, but now there was no way to stop it.
LONDON
‘Where is she now?’ The PM took off his jacket and slung it over the back of his chair.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know who she is, I don’t know where she went. I don’t know anything about it.’ Sears raised his eyebrows and stared expressionless across the study.
‘Don’t play games with me. Deniability is one thing. Betrayal is something else. I’m not going to betray an agent that we sent to do our dirty work for us.’
‘Fine.’ Sears smiled without humour. ‘I wondered if you’d have a little attack of conscience before all this was over. Pity your conscience didn’t click in a little earlier. And then we wouldn’t have to be sitting here in the middle of the night wondering …’
The prime minister crossed the study and stood over him, fists clenched. ‘We may have known each other a long time, but don’t ever speak to me that way again.’
‘I’m protecting your back …’
‘Or maybe just your own.’
‘Listen to me, Alec. You’re a good man, always have been and I admire you for it. But the interests of this country are not well-served by you putting yourself in the firing line, just to do the decent thing. You made the decision that the US operation should be stopped. I didn’t agree – but we’ll live with that. Only remember one thing – our entire relationship with the US could be on the line over this – and if it goes wrong you’re going to need that deniability. Not for you. But for the country.’
‘So I scuttle away into the shadows while one of our agents puts her life on the line. Is that what you want?’
‘Let her do her job, Alec. That’s it. That’s what she signed up for. Besides’ – he raised an eyebrow – ‘it’s far too late to turn back now.’
RAMTHA, NEAR JORDAN/SYRIA BORDER
It was two a.m. when the text came in. The men from Zarqa had a lead on the American and were tracking her towards the border. No other details.
In the darkness of the car, Ahmed nodded to himself and shut his phone. He would wait for them to come to him. He scanned the map. But he already knew which way they would travel, knew they would make use of the small amount of natural cover, just as the contact had done. Knew they would choose the undulating fields, close to the village of Al-turo, the clumps of trees and ditches. Knew it would be slow and dangerous.
In two hours, maybe three if they were lucky, they’d bring the woman across the unmarked border, dodging the Jordanian patrols, praying the sky was still dark.
He checked that both automatics were armed. Beside them lay the machine pistol in the floorwell by the passenger seat. A small zip bag contained spare magazines. All serial numbers and markings had been carefully chiselled away. The kit was clean.
It was his discipline. His set of unbreakable rules.
When the world around you went to hell, only rules could save you.
He picked up the phone again and told the contact to wait on the Syrian side of the border, in case things went wrong. The next few hours would be crucial.
FIFTEEN KILOMETRES FROM THE JORDAN/SYRIA BORDER
Youssef took a last look around the kitchen. Nothing moved.
He had shot one of the young boys first – a tiny creature, no more than five years old, much like his own son – but he had done it without any qualms or reservations. And the boy had fallen silently into a woodbasket.
As expected, the doctor had broken down in horror at the violence and told Youssef everything he wanted to know: where the men from Zarqa had gone and where the American spy was likely to be hi
ding.
Of course the old man had begun begging for the life of the other boy and his father, crawling across the floor, tugging stupidly at Youssef’s trouser legs, but by then Youssef was no longer listening.
He simply shot the three of them where they were – a bullet each in the forehead. Precise and effortless. Just as he had done so many times before.
They hadn’t even tried to run, so perhaps they had simply accepted their fate. It wasn’t his fault that they were on the wrong side.
Outside in the white pickup truck, he told the commander what he had done and received a pat on the head.
The earlier unpleasantness between them had passed and Youssef felt sure that he had acquired a useful comrade and friend.
He felt proud and elated. But what he looked forward to more than anything was the abject terror on the American woman’s face when she would see him again and realize that this time there was nowhere to run.
He knew she was close. So close he could almost touch her, smell her.
He began to giggle uncontrollably.
SIX KILOMETRES FROM THE JORDAN/SYRIA BORDER
‘I don’t see them anymore.’ The younger of the two men from Zarqa turned round and stared into the darkness.
‘They’re coming. You can be certain of it.’ His companion reached into the back seat and shook the baker. ‘How far to this teacher’s house?’
‘One kilometre, I swear. No more.’ The man was shaking with fear. ‘There is a turning soon. I will tell you.’
The car banged and shuddered over a pothole but they kept moving along the empty road. They passed a garage with burned-out cars in front of it. A tanker lay rusted and overturned in a ditch.
‘Turn here, turn here …’ the baker shrieked out and the driver swore at him.
They lurched down the unmade road.
‘Pull off into this field – on the left. Go on …’ The older man grabbed the driver’s arm.
Fatal Ally Page 23
