Invasion

by Dc Alden

  ‘Nonsense,’ protested Khan.

  ‘She’s right,’ Alex said, snaking an arm around Kirsty’s shoulders. ‘We owe you. Thanks, mate.’

  ‘Let’s just call it a team effort, eh?’ smiled Khan. Then the smile faded. ‘Just remember, you’ll be discovered eventually. Plan for that, and when it comes, don’t resist. Okay?’

  ‘Oh, wait,’ Kirsty exclaimed. She produced a cell phone from her jeans pocket and gave it to Rob. ‘Take our picture, please Rob. You know, two or three, just to be sure.’

  He did as he was told and Kirsty flicked through the results, smiling as she did so. Then Khan realised she was upset too. ‘For posterity,’ she explained, trying to fight the tears and failing. ‘When you get to America you can e-mail us and I’ll send you a copy.’

  Then she turned and headed for the house. ‘Jesus Christ, I’ll be next,’ Alex joked. He slapped Khan on the back and headed towards the Range Rover.

  ‘C’mon, I’ll ride with you to the roadblock.’

  The short drive was made on sidelights. On arrival they were surprised to see that the earth-bank was almost complete. It was being hastily camouflaged by a couple of dozen people, the only sound the low murmur of their voices, the stamp of their feet and the slap of shovels on the hard-packed earth. Metcalfe loomed out of the darkness to greet them.

  ‘Well? What do you think?’

  ‘Very impressive,’ Khan said. They all clambered to the top of the barrier. Here they were a good eight feet above the road, the barrier merging subtly with the banks on either side.

  Khan noticed that some enterprising soul had painted over the junction markings on the road. Once the vegetation took hold it would be hard to spot another road behind it. It wasn’t fool proof, but it would do for now.

  They climbed back down and assembled around the driver’s door of the

  Range Rover. Metcalfe handed Khan a slip of paper.

  ‘I sent some lads out to chop down as many signs as they could, so these are your directions. If you don’t balls them up they’ll get you into Hampshire. You’ll have to use a couple of major roads, mind. No choice.’

  Khan took the slip and studied it carefully. He leaned inside the cab and entered the details into the Range Rover’s on-board Satnav system. Satisfied that the route reflected the one given to him by Metcalfe, Khan tore up the paper, stamping the fragments into the ground.

  ‘Thanks for all your help, Andy.’

  ‘See you, mate.’ Metcalfe slapped him on the shoulder and walked away. Urgent whispers carried on the night breeze warned everyone to stop talking.

  They stood motionless as the sound of distant helicopters clattered around the northern horizon. After a minute or so, the sound faded and the work continued.

  Khan watched Metcalfe a short distance away, his bulky shoulders silhouetted against the night sky, his gruff voice still issuing orders.

  ‘Just keep an eye on Andy,’ he said to Alex. ‘It’s probably just a rush of blood to the head, but he seems to be enjoying the role of leader right now. Make sure you don’t get side-lined.’

  ‘Okay.’

  They shook hands, then embraced; for a moment Khan hesitated. It would be so easy to stay, to get lost in the English countryside. Compared to stealing a boat and sailing solo across the Atlantic, remaining on the farm seemed like the sensible option. But he put a lot of faith in instinct, and this time his gut feeling told him that staying wasn’t a healthy option.

  He started the Range Rover and turned into the adjacent field, while Alex walked ahead with a torch. When they reached the bridle path at the bottom of the woods, Khan swung the vehicle through a gap in the hedgerow and out onto the road. He powered down the passenger window.

  ‘Take care of yourself,’ he said.

  ‘You too,’ Alex replied, his face bathed in the red wash of the Range Rover’s brake lights. Khan hit the accelerator and drove slowly down the lane, away from South Lockeridge. He glanced at the rear-view mirror but Alex was gone, swallowed by the darkness.

  The initial thirty miles were uneventful. Khan eased the powerful Range Rover slowly along the country roads, paying close attention to the computerised female voice of the Satnav system. He drove on sidelights in an attempt to draw as little attention as possible, but he didn’t expect that to last. Sooner or later he would be stopped and challenged.

  He was kitted out in the clothes that Rob had given him and the identity card he carried declared him to be the same man that had worshipped at the mosque in Morden. The ID card was real, as was the National Insurance number displayed upon it. His Security Services warrant card had been carefully hidden under the thick carpet in the rear passenger compartment. The automatic rifle he’d left behind, exchanged for Alex’s ten-millimetre Glock, hidden in the air filter compartment under the hood.

  It was past midnight by the time Khan turned on to the A338 and headed south towards Tidworth. He flicked on his headlights. The wide road was empty in both directions, which Khan didn’t really expect but welcomed all the same. The last thing he needed was to get caught up in a sea of cars all trying to escape the chaos.

  The miles slipped slowly by. The only other sign of life were the bugs that flickered in and out of his headlights and a lone fox caught in the middle of the road just north of Tidworth. To the southeast the sky glowed red around the horizon. There were large fires somewhere out there. Khan knew that Tidworth military garrison was in the general area and he assumed the fires were the aftermath of a terrorist attack. He increased speed, eager to clear the area.

  At the junction with the A303, Khan negotiated an empty roundabout, then headed south on a quiet back road that would take him as far as Romsey in Hampshire. From there it was roughly ten miles to Southampton, but he intended to skirt the city and loop around the eastern side towards the village of Hamble. It was there that he’d learned to sail and he knew the area was littered with marinas, sea schools and boat yards, all potential sites for finding the—

  He slammed his foot on the brake as the Range Rover slewed across the narrow country lane. The nearside wing clipped a hedgerow, forcing Khan to swing back the other way. His chest snapped against the seat belt and he rocked back in his seat as the Range Rover came to rest six feet from the steel track of an Arabian battle tank that squatted menacingly across the road.

  Within seconds his door was wrenched open and Khan was dragged out of the vehicle. He stumbled and sat down heavily on his backside. Two soldiers pulled him roughly to his feet. The tank lit up a searchlight mounted on its turret, washing the scene in harsh white light. Khan looked up, shielding his eyes with a hand. The tank was parked broadside across the narrow lane, forming a giant roadblock. Its massive gun barrel was pointed out over an adjacent field, but a fifty-calibre heavy machine gun was aimed directly at the Range Rover.

  There were three or four other soldiers on the tank and one of them jumped down to the ground. He strode slowly up to Khan, studying him as one would study an insect caught in a spider’s web. Khan saw the officer’s shoulder boards and lowered his eyes in submission, a gesture not without meaning in the Middle East.

  ‘Who are you? Where are you going?’ barked the man in heavily accented English. The other soldiers remained silent, watching the exchange carefully. He felt the grip on his arms tighten. Khan had the impression that this was the first contact with a British person that this crew had experienced.

  ‘I have ID. In my pocket,’ Khan replied.

  The officer nodded and the soldier to Khan’s left quickly emptied his pockets, dumping the contents on the hood of the Range Rover. The officer held up each item carefully, examining them in the glare of the tank’s searchlight. He noticed the name on the ID card.

  ‘Fawad? You are Pakistani?’ he asked, switching to Urdu.

  ‘By blood. I am a British citizen,’ replied Khan in the same tongue.

  ‘You are Muslim, no?’

  Khan nodded, holding his breath. The officer studied the fake ID
card a moment longer, then began picking through the other items, finally unfolding a drug prescription. He peered inside Khan’s vehicle. Seeing a brown paper bag on the passenger seat, he retrieved it and spilled the contents on the hood. He picked up one of the pill bottles and read the label carefully. ‘What are you doing on this road?’

  Khan pointed to the prescription, to the drugs supplied by the village pharmacist in a fictitious name.

  ‘For my nephew, to treat the child’s epilepsy. He’s only six years old.’

  ‘You’re a doctor?’

  ‘Medical student,’ Khan lied, ‘at the hospital in Swindon. I haven’t heard from my brother in Southampton. I’m worried about the boy.’

  The officer eyed Khan for several moments, then waved his hand. The soldiers suddenly released him from their grip. He jerked a thumb at the Range Rover.

  ‘Expensive vehicle.’

  ‘A friend’s,’ Khan explained.

  The officer turned back to the tank and made a signal. The turret searchlight was extinguished and its powerful twin diesels roared into life in a cloud of exhaust smoke. The tank jerked into gear and surged forward into the adjacent field, clearing the road. Behind it were parked two Humvee jeeps.

  ‘Things are about to change here, my friend, but good Muslims have nothing to fear. ‘The officer reached into his pocket. ‘Take this.’

  Khan took a laminated card from the officer’s outstretched hand. He studied it for a moment and then looked quizzically at the officer. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘A temporary movement pass. You may travel freely for the next twenty-four hours. You must carry it with you at all times and present it when ordered. Your business is urgent, I can see that. When you have tended to it, remain indoors and listen for information broadcasts on your radio. Do you understand?’

  Khan turned the card over between his fingers. ‘Thank you. May Allah bless you for your kindness.’

  ‘On your way,’ the officer ordered.

  Khan jumped into the Range Rover and started the engine, edging the vehicle past the Humvees. In his rear-view mirror he saw the tank reverse back across the road. Once again the roadblock was lost in the darkness. He powered down the window and let the cool night air wash over him. Close one, he thought to himself. But the cover story held up and, as a benefit, he’d been issued some sort of movement order. He reprogrammed the Satnav to find a quicker route.

  When he reached the M27 coastal motorway some time later, his movement order was checked again by another Arabian patrol. He was asked a couple of questions and waved down the ramp and onto the motorway. He was ordered to keep to the left-hand lane and out of the way of military traffic.

  Travelling along the unlit motorway, the view was unsettling. The other side of the road was choked with Arabian military traffic, all streaming out from Southampton docks. Khan saw troop transports, towed artillery, tanks and jeeps all rumbling past in the darkness. As he neared the interchange for the road to London, Khan saw that that road, too, was solid with military traffic. He kept going east.

  The enormity of the operation was staggering, the repercussions yet to be felt. The world had changed overnight. Everything Khan knew was gone now, and something dark had taken its place. He’d made the right decision, of that there was no doubt. But he wasn’t clear yet.

  Thirty minutes later, Khan eased the Range Rover gently under a large stand of trees near Andrews Marina in Hamble. He parked on the western edge of the village, the nearby buildings silent and shrouded in darkness. The approach to the village had been quite tricky, the dark roads narrowing as he headed towards the spit of land that Hamble nestled on.

  Khan turned off his headlights, unwilling to broadcast his arrival as he negotiated the tight country lanes. In one particularly heart-stopping moment, a car had careered past in the opposite direction, its headlights burning through the darkness. Khan had got a brief glimpse of the driver; young, male, the other occupants shouting and screaming as it barely missed the side of the Range Rover. Joy riders, Khan assumed, making the most of the blackout. He hoped that that would be his only human encounter here.

  He stepped out of the vehicle, closing the door with a soft click. He popped open the hood and retrieved the pistol, which he checked and shoved into his waistband. It was time to go shopping.

  Back at the farm, he’d made a list of items he’d need for the long trip across the ocean. He’d secreted that list under the carpet of the Range Rover and now he studied it again by the light of a small torch. The list wasn’t long. If he was lucky, the boat he chose would have most of the items aboard. But first he had to find the right boat.

  He walked beneath the trees until they gave way to an eight-foot high chain-link fence. Ahead, he could see the dark waters of the estuary that led out into the Solent, the moonlight dancing off its surface. He peered through the fence into the marina for several minutes. He didn’t spot any movement, but he could hear the soft slap of water on fibre-glass hulls, the unmistakable sound of yachts tied alongside jetties. A soft breeze moaned through the mastheads and, somewhere across the estuary, a dog barked.

  Khan lifted himself over the fence and dropped noiselessly to the grass on the other side. Ahead of him was a vast network of moorings that looked to be pretty full. He walked slowly across to the nearest jetty and began his search. If he was going to find a boat it would be here.

  Khan took his time, walking slowly up and down the network of jetties and inspecting the myriad of different boats. Everything seemed to be moored here, from small dinghies and skiffs to luxury motor cruisers and–

  The boat that grabbed his attention suddenly loomed out of the darkness in front of him. He stopped, turning slowly as he scanned the area around him. Still nothing. Good. He turned back and walked towards the yacht, running a hand admiringly along her stainless steel rail. She was beautiful.

  The Sunflower was an Oyster 68, a sleek, superbly appointed ocean-going yacht that had a solid reputation for strength and reliability. It was the type of boat he’d learned to sail on, although that was the much smaller model. The Sunflower was not that much different in terms of sailing, although she was probably designed to be handled by more than one person. But so far it was the only boat that Khan had seen that he felt immediately comfortable with. It wouldn’t hurt to take a look. He checked the area once again and slipped quietly aboard.

  On deck, the first thing he noticed was that all the ropes were where they should be, the right amount and length, all expertly tied-off. The boat was secured fore and aft and the fly-bridge situated amidships was sealed tightly with a waterproof cover. Except for one corner. Khan lifted up the flap and peered underneath. The cabin below was in complete darkness. He reached for his torch and flicked it on, waving it around the cabin area. Satisfied, he crouched under the flap and stepped down the short staircase below.

  The blow caught him full in the face and he staggered backwards in the darkness, cracking his skull on something hard. He bit his tongue sharply and cried out in pain, ending up on his backside in the gloom, the pistol skittering across the cabin floor. The taste of blood was thick in his mouth and his lip was split. He scrabbled around for his weapon, then froze when he heard the distinct click-clack of a round being chambered. A light shone in his face and a male voice, full of menace, spoke quietly in the darkness.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing on this boat?’

  Khan almost smiled. Just his luck to pick a boat that was occupied. Still, the man was hiding too, so maybe they had something in common. Instinct told him to tell the truth.

  ‘Well, I was planning to steal it. Looks like I’ll have to try elsewhere. Now, if you’ll excuse me…’ He made an effort to get up, but the pistol was suddenly thrust in his face, the barrel an inch from his nose. He eased himself back down and leaned against the cabin wall.

  ‘Don’t be so bloody smart. And don’t think I don’t know how to use this.’ The man rattled the gun in the darkness. ‘
Now, who are you and what the hell is going on?’

  Khan was beginning to lose patience. In a few hours the sky would start to lighten in the east. His plan was to be on the water before dawn and to have cleared the Solent by the time the sun had fully risen. It wasn’t a journey he wanted to attempt in daylight, mindful of Arabian shipping. He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and dabbed at his mouth. With his other hand he felt the growing lump on the back of his head. Luckily the skin was unbroken. Khan squinted, looking up into the light, his own pistol pointed at his chest. He was wasting time here.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, okay? I’m taking a long voyage and I need a deep-water vessel that’s up to the trip. This boat fitted the bill.’

  ‘Where are you headed?’ asked the voice behind the torch.

  Khan squinted into the light. ‘The States.’ He was desperate to get going. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Don’t you realise what’s going on out there? Where have you been for the last thirty-odd hours? The country’s under attack, did you know that?’ Khan pushed himself to his knees and this time the voice didn’t object. ‘Look, I’m sorry about your boat, but if I don’t leave, then my life will be in danger. So either shoot me or let me go.’

  The torch clicked off, replaced by the warm glow of cabin lights. The man that stood before him appeared to be in his mid-forties, with short-cropped grey hair and sporting a couple of days’ worth of stubble. He wore a pair of khaki trousers and a blue, open-necked shirt. The gun was still in his hand, but the barrel was now pointed at the deck. He held out his other hand, which Khan took, and helped him to his feet.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Khan.

  ‘Sorry about your jaw. Couple of the boats here have been stolen since yesterday.’ The man opened an overhead cupboard, producing a large medical kit. ‘Here.’

  Khan fished inside and dabbed his lip with a cotton ball and some antiseptic, wincing painfully. He looked around the cabin. It was magnificent, almost brand new he guessed, with teak decking and wall panelling, and a luxury raised seating area that looked out through forward-facing windows. There was a well-appointed kitchen and all the other fineries that one might expect from a state-of-the-art boat. Khan was impressed.