It was a large space, with shuttered windows looking out into the evening. The room was dominated by a long, wide table of old pine cluttered with papers, cups and pieces of equipment that Halil couldn’t identify. At one end, a bulky portable computer sat, making quiet ticking sounds. There was a telephone handset nearby, connected by wires to the computer. More cables went to a curious pole made of scuffed steel, which stood on splayed tripod feet near one of the windows. The pole ended in a bowl made of metal mesh that reminded Halil of an inverted umbrella, or the television aerials that sprouted from the roofs of the houses where his family had lived.
He touched it and almost knocked it over, a spike of fright stabbing into his gut. Halil backed away from the device, almost tripping over the cables snaking from it across the floor.
What was he doing? What did he hope to prove? Suddenly Halil felt foolish and afraid. He was almost a man and yet here he was, playing games of dare like some little child. Tarki had been right to leave him behind. Perhaps even now, the other youth was telling one of the teachers what they had been doing. Perhaps they were looking for him at this very moment.
His cheeks flushed red with embarrassment. Halil was supposed to be smart, but he was behaving like an idiot! Dread was building in him, welling up to consume his last remaining measures of courage. He would be caught, and a beating would be the best that he could expect. It would be what he begged them for.
How could he have thought he would get away with this? Halil saw his own actions as if from a distance. He had written his name on the wall! How many boys named Halil were there at the orphanage? His idiotic, impulsive bravado would be his undoing.
He had to get out. He had to go back, scratch out the words on the wall, get away and hope, hope to heaven that Tarki had not talked to Adad or any of the other youths in their dormitory.
But the door in the corridor opened and closed, and there were men coming. Halil turned in a frantic circle, looking for a place to hide. The table was too high; there would be no cover below it. The windows were secured with iron bars.
There was a side room with a broken door in the far corner, and he ran to it. Inside, old chairs stood piled up among torn rolls of carpet. The little space stank of mildew and mouse shit, but it was some kind of concealment, and Halil hid inside. He drew up his knees and made himself small, flinching back from the chink of light that spilled in through the door. He felt the flutter of his racing pulse.
Out in the main room, the doors opened and the first to enter was the cruel-eyed man. Halil’s stomach twisted in fear as the man turned to address the person following him.
It was the tall man, the warrior, the general. Of course it was him. Where there was one, there would be the other. A teacher joined them, continuing the conversation they had been having in the other room.
“It’s a strong crop,” the teacher said. “You’ll be pleased, Khadir.”
The general threw the teacher a sideways look, as if he was disappointed with the other man’s presumption. “We will see,” he intoned. The warrior had a deep growl in his voice that made Halil think of a lion. His face was rough with a wiry black beard and a full head of hair that made that impression even stronger. He turned away. “Jadeed. Is it ready?”
The cruel-eyed one was at the computer, and the keys chattered under his fingertips. “Almost time,” he noted.
Somehow, knowing the names of the two men frightened Halil more than anything else. He remembered the stories his father had told him about demons and djinn from ancient history, of how those who knew the name of a beast gained a terrible insight into its soul. Khadir loomed large as he crossed the room, and for one brief moment Halil could not be sure if the man was a terrible angel or a devil in earthly incarnation.
The teacher looked at his watch. “This must be done now?” he asked.
Jadeed didn’t look up as he went to the metal pole, frowning at it. “It is important to our mission.” He reached out and adjusted the device. “Did one of your men touch this?”
“Of course not,” the teacher replied hotly. “You were very clear about the … the equipment.”
“See to it,” Khadir ordered. “I will not let the Combine condescend to us because we kept them waiting.”
Halil saw Jadeed’s head bob in agreement. He altered the angle of the aerial slightly and an answering warble sounded from the portable computer. A stab of pain tightened around Halil’s ankles, and he tensed. His legs were starting to cramp.
The teacher gestured toward the door. “I can wait outside if you require privacy?”
“That won’t be necessary,” Jadeed cut him off. “Wait there and do not speak.” He picked up the handset and Halil heard a distant string of electronic chirps. In return, Jadeed spoke a series of numbers, one after another. It was only a moment later that Halil realized that the numbers were in English.
Khadir settled into a seat with his back to the youth’s hiding place and poured himself a glass of tea from a carafe on the table. He gave Jadeed a languid nod and tapped his earlobe.
The other man did something to the computer and suddenly a speaker box on the table was alive, crackling with static like a poorly-tuned radio. “Secured?” said a gruff, guttural voice with a heavy British accent.
“Of course,” replied Khadir. He glanced at the teacher, who looked back at him with a blank, slightly nervous expression. “Who is this? You are not familiar to me.”
“I am the man you’re gonna be talking to from now on.”
Halil closed his eyes and concentrated. Seamlessly, the general had shifted into speaking English. It seemed peculiar to hear it, the same resonant tone gliding over words with a different cadence from Halil’s native tongue.
It was difficult for him to do, but the boy listened and translated the words in his head. His father and mother had taught him the language of the British and the Americans when he had been young. It was a skill he prized, but one he kept secret. No one in the orphanage had anything but antipathy for the Westerners, and to admit he could speak like them would have made him a pariah. Concentrating on the words helped him block out the tremors in his legs.
The teacher clearly didn’t understand a word of what was being said, but Khadir and Jadeed were fluent.
“Let’s get straight to the point,” said the foreigner. He seemed irritable and terse. “I’ve seen your work and it’s all well and good. But we’re going to be taking a more, what do you wanna call it—pro-active—role.”
Halil didn’t see Khadir’s face, but he heard the chill in his voice. “Is that so?”
“I’ve been brought on by our mutual friends as a … A contractor. So, I’ll be your point of contact. Everything goes through me. You follow?”
“Your predecessor—”
“He’s out of the picture. Have we got an understanding here?”
A long moment passed before Khadir answered. “We have.”
“That’s good. Where are we on the big job?”
Jadeed moved around the table, and Halil caught sight of a simmering annoyance in his gaze.
“The crop is almost ready to harvest. What is the status of the delivery?”
The man on the radio gave a grunt of amusement. “Don’t you worry. You’ll get your gear when you need it. That’s what we do.”
Khadir leaned forward. “We kept our part of the agreement. We cannot proceed—”
“You can proceed,” the voice corrected. “Next contact will be as scheduled. Out.” The line dissolved into static.
Jadeed’s hands tightened into fists. “Arrogant goat-shit!” He slipped out of English with an explosive snarl.
Before he could say any more, Khadir had raised a finger to silence him. “Our needs make us allies,” he went on, switching back. “But only for the moment.”
He kept talking, but Halil wasn’t listening any more. The slow burn of pain in his legs was building by the second into agony. He felt as if he were kneeling in a furnace, the cramped ang
le of his stoop making his calf muscles twitch with the effort. Tears in his eyes, the youth tried to hunch forward, tried to shift slightly to ease the pain, but nothing worked. If only they would leave …
And then without warning, Halil’s right leg spasmed and kicked at one of the chairs. Wood scraped on the floor, the sound as loud as a gunshot.
The broken door was torn open and Jadeed was suddenly there, filling the doorway. His face twisted with anger. “What is this?”
Before Halil could raise a hand to protect himself, Jadeed’s arm shot out and grabbed a bunch of the youth’s hair. He pulled him up and out of the side room. Halil tripped on his numbed legs, falling to the floor in front of Khadir.
The other man observed, his eyes narrowing. The teacher at the door came forward, drawing a short baton from his belt, but Khadir shook his head and he halted.
For a second, Halil thought his beating had been postponed, but then a whipping sting of new pain seared his face as Jadeed flicked his wrist and struck him across the cheek with a loop of misbaha beads in his fist.
“What is this?” Jadeed shouted again, this time directing the question to the teacher. The other man shrank back a step, his face a muddle of worry and annoyance.
Halil looked up and Khadir’s dark eyes were burning into his. The man radiated a stony, fearsome magnetism, and he could not break his gaze. “What is your name, boy?”
He failed to keep the tremor from his voice. “Huh-Halil,” he managed. “I wasn’t … I didn’t want to…” He couldn’t frame an excuse, the new welt on his face throbbing.
Khadir nodded toward the side room. “What were you doing in there? Stealing?”
“No!” Halil insisted. “Hiding, sir.”
“Hiding.” Khadir repeated. “And listening?”
“Commander,” ventured the teacher, “Let me deal with the little rat. I will make sure it doesn’t get in the way again.”
Khadir ignored him. “You must be a clever one. Clever or lucky.” He glanced up at Jadeed, who hovered over Halil with his fists bunched.
Halil could sense the cruel-eyed man humming with the power to end his life, straining at the leash like a snarling dog. He shrank toward the floor, willing it to open up and swallow him whole, cursing his own idiocy.
Khadir gave the teacher a withering look. “To come this far into the compound without getting caught by the guards, you must be a good recruit, Halil. You clearly have ability, even if you lack discipline…”
“You know you are not supposed to be here!” shouted the teacher, pointing at Halil with the baton. “You should be beaten bloody for this as an example to the others!”
“Be quiet,” snarled Jadeed. The other man colored, but did as he was told.
“I was j-just looking,” Halil stammered. “It was a … A dare.”
“What did you hear?” Khadir asked, almost kindly. “Tell me.”
“Nothing!” insisted the teenager. “Just talking. Voices.”
Khadir nodded absently. “Tell me what you heard.”
Halil almost answered the question before he realized Khadir had asked it in English. It took a physical effort for him to clamp down on his reply. He blinked away tears and shook his head. “I … I don’t understand.” Halil’s blood ran cold. Khadir was testing him to see if he had followed any of the conversation with the Britisher.
He heard the jangle of the steel prayer beads by his ear as Jadeed let the length of them drop, and the sound made him jump.
Khadir topped up his tea glass and shifted in his seat, his actions unhurried. When he spoke again, it was in English once more, and the tone was mild and conversational. “Jadeed? If I take a drink from this tea, you will break the boy’s neck.”
Everything in Halil wanted to flinch, to shy away, to try to run from the killer standing behind him, but he knew that the slightest reaction he gave, even the very smallest inkling of understanding, would see him killed.
Khadir brought the glass to his lips, swirled it under his hawkish nose. “You didn’t mean to hear, did you? I know that. Just admit it and we will move on. There will be no punishment.” He paused, taking in the aroma of the hot black tea. “Do not lie to me.”
Halil’s fears screamed in his head, telling him to come clean, to beg forgiveness and hope that Khadir would be merciful. Very carefully, the youth schooled his features, keeping his expression blank and fearful.
“I don’t understand what you are saying,” he offered, praying that his lie would be strong enough.
Halil saw a brief flash of emotion cross Khadir’s face, but it was gone so quickly he could barely read it. Was it annoyance, disappointment, or something else? “Very well,” he said, switching back to their common dialect. “You can go.”
The teenager rose shakily to his feet, blinking, scarcely able to believe that he might have deceived the general.
Khadir continued, nodding to the teacher. “Take him back to the barracks. But rebuke him first.”
Halil turned and threw up his hands again, but he was too late to stop the other man coming in and striking him repeatedly with the wooden baton. He fell back to the floor, taking hit after hit on his arms, his ribs, his head.
The pain blurred into one long cascade of hurt until finally the beating ended and Halil shivered on the floor, unable even to cry.
Dimly, he heard Jadeed ask a question. “We have plenty more, commander. Why keep this one?” The voice seemed to come from a great distance away.
“Young pups must be trained,” Khadir replied, his words coming closer. “And it is an affront to me to see potential put to waste.”
Halil blinked and through his haze of pain, saw the hawkish face of the tall man loom over him as the teacher dragged him back to his feet.
“This is your lesson for today,” Khadir told the youth. “Learn it well. Do as you are told, obey the rules and soon … Very soon, you will be gifted with a great purpose.”
SIX
Donald Royce cupped his hands in the washbasin’s icy water and splashed it over his face, letting the chill hit his skin. He blinked and shook away the fatigue pulling on him, looking up to study his reflection in the washroom’s mirror. Cool, steady eyes stared back.
It was important for him to maintain composure, to project the right aspect to his staff. The situation was at a critical point, and any mistake now could make things spiral out of control.
There was a discreet knock on the door. “Sir? I have the updates.”
“I’ll be out in a moment.” Royce crossed to the hanger where a freshly pressed Russell & Hodge shirt was waiting. He dressed, took a breath, and walked back into his office.
Talia Patel was there, the data pad in her hand like it was welded to her. Royce couldn’t think of a time when he had seen her without it. She was efficient that way, and that was the reason she was his senior analyst; but she was also circumspect, and didn’t ask too many questions. He liked that about her.
“Have you slept?” he asked. “How did you find the time?”
“I cat-nap,” she told him. “Growing up in a big family, you learn to snatch sleep where you can.”
“Teach me that sometime,” he replied. “I’m running on cups of coffee and angst.” Royce blew out a breath. “How is it on the floor?”
Talia paused, and that was an answer in itself. She was trying to frame a palatable reply. “I’ve rotated in another team. Everyone else I sent home after they passed off to the new shift.”
“I want every person who was in Hub White when it happened to be monitored. Standard thing, you know the drill.” He sighed. “Have to be thorough.”
She offered him the data tablet. Royce gave it a sour look. “Already done,” Talia noted.
The updates made for grim reading. A secondary team out of the Paris field office had been deployed, but by the time they had reached Dunkirk the explosion site had been fully cordoned off. According to TV5 and Sky News, the local authorities had announced that the blast from the
Palomino was caused by a fuel fire on board the ship, which meant that the DCRI had already thrown a curtain over the facts behind the matter.
“Ground team reports that bodies have been recovered and taken to the morgue at a nearby army base.” Talia frowned slightly. “French intelligence have sent up a few flares, pulled some of their analysts in, but so far they’re not talking to anyone else.”
“What a sodding mess,” Royce said grimly. He put down the data pad and walked to the window.
The explosion at the docks had lit up every monitor in Hub White, and a second later the lines of communication into the area went dead. Royce and Patel and the rest of the command center team had been cut off, with only the satellite link still open for them to watch what was taking place. Helpless and unable to intervene, they could only glimpse fractions of events through the plume of fire rising from the burning freighter.
Emergency lockdown protocols were now in effect, regarding the Palomino operation, and unit Nomad. Talia’s reports only underlined what Royce already knew; every member of OpTeam Seven was now missing presumed dead, and the focus was on damage control and disavowal. Along with the team on site, at MI6 there were technicians working to ensure that any possible connections between the incident and the British security services were cut. One error, one missed link, could bring the DCRI to the front door of Vauxhall Cross—and that was something that Donald Royce could not allow to happen.
“It’s galling that our first action has to be this,” said Talia, thinking along the same lines. “Firewalling our allies, instead of concentrating on our own people.”
“One thing at a time. We need to have deniability in place,” he said, thinking aloud. “Something we can afford to burn if it comes down to it.”
Talia gave a nod. “Farrier has that in hand.”
“John Farrier?” She nodded again. “I thought he was already overseas.”
“I held him over.”
“Good. Sensible choice. He’s got experience with this sort of thing.” Royce grabbed his jacket and drew himself up. All at once, the energy seemed to ebb out of him. He leaned forward and steadied himself on his desk.
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