The Kill Zone

by Chris Ryan

  He turned the car round and drove. At no point did he look back in the mirror, so he never saw the roof of the barn catch alight and then fall in, creating an enormous funeral pyre.

  7 JULY

  25

  04.30 hrs.

  The sun had yet to rise, but Special Agent Brad Joseph was already up. He stood at the window of his room in the Four Seasons Hotel, looking down on to the night lights of London. From here he could see the bridges over the river and the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral in the distance. Even he had to admit it was an impressive sight. Busy, yet somehow peaceful.

  He was glad of this moment of quiet. Glad to have these few minutes to get his head in order. Presidential visits like today’s were finely tuned affairs. A whole raft of standard operating procedures were in place, designed to ensure the President’s safety. Every single member of his security team was as familiar with these SOPs as with their own names, but Brad knew that sometimes familiarity could be dangerous. It could lull you into a false sense of security. His job was to make sure that didn’t happen. He knew that there were plenty of Secret Service operatives who considered him a jobsworth, but it made no difference to him. Rather that, he thought to himself, than give free rein to some wannabe Lee Harvey Oswald.

  He took himself through the details of the President’s movements, looking for any weak links he might have missed. There was none. Not now that they had the Beast. They could move him round London in absolute safety, no matter what happened. That, at least, was a relief.

  He turned from the window, took his firearm from the bedside table and placed it in its holster. He looked at the clock. 04.58 hrs. Today would be a long day. It would be a relief when the President arrived safely at the Houses of Parliament a little after 18.00 hrs. It would be even more of a relief when today was safely consigned to history.

  Brad collected his cellphone and key card, then left the room. It was time, he decided, to go to work.

  06.00 hrs. Hereford.

  Jack stood at the end of his street in the dim lamplight.

  The previous twelve hours had passed in a blur. It had taken him half an hour to get back to the airport, where he kept his profile low and his mind alert. But there was a constant mental distraction.

  Siobhan. Dead.

  Every time he thought of it, it was like a knife in his guts.

  He relived O’Callaghan’s death, but it didn’t help. Siobhan would be mad at him. He could hear her now. He was our lead, Jack. Our only lead. And you—

  He pushed the imaginary reprimand from his mind. He’d fucked up. He knew that. But there was no point beating himself up about it. Khan’s dirty bomb was in England. He knew he had to do something about it.

  But what? The question had burned in his brain on the night flight back to Birmingham. Go to the authorities, tell them everything? No way. He knew how they worked. The police would take Siobhan’s killing as sectarian, and they’d be more interested in quizzing Jack about the dead bodies that were sticking to him than listening to his theories about terrorist attacks. And the date wasn’t lost on him either. One day until the anniversary of 7/7 – party time for every nutcase and bogus caller in the country. The security services would be overwhelmed by people seeing shadows. If anyone was going to take Jack seriously, he needed evidence. But all the evidence that crossed his path had an unfortunate habit of ending up dead.

  By the time he landed, though, he’d come to a decision.

  Khan knew who he was, and he knew Jack was on to him. That put Jack himself in a position of danger. But maybe it also gave him an advantage. If Habib Khan had a hit list, Jack was on the top of it. And although, being Regiment, it wasn’t easy to track him down, it wasn’t impossible. Not if you had resources. And so, Jack had one last throw of the dice. One last avenue to follow. If Khan had a contract on him, he needed to put himself in harm’s way. Wait for the bullet to come to him. Khan wouldn’t use some random shooter, someone untrustworthy – he was too clever for that. Whoever he sent would be part of his operation. And that would make them – as Siobhan would have it – a lead.

  Which was why he found himself back home. In Hereford. Jack knew only too well that the easiest place to hit someone was at home when they were feeling secure and comfortable. And from what he’d learned about the man, Habib Khan would know that too.

  There weren’t many people about at this time. An old guy walking his dog. The postman. Jack didn’t trust either of them, and he waited for both to conclude their business in his street before walking down the road. As he approached the house, he paid diligent attention to the curtains in the windows of the houses opposite. Jack was never around enough to know his neighbours or anything about them, but he saw their curtains were all closed apart from two. These windows opened out on to rooms that had their lights on. No sniper worth their salt would be hiding out where they were lit up, so Jack felt reasonably safe hurrying up to his front door and letting himself in.

  It was cold in his flat, and gloomy. Jack didn’t turn the lights on, though. That would be like a beacon to anybody awaiting his arrival, and he didn’t want to shine a beacon until he was ready to do so. He moved from room to room, checking for anything suspicious. There was nothing. At least, nothing that he could see. The flat was empty.

  There were two entrances, front and back. The front door opened out on to the street, the back on to a small, overgrown garden whose rear wall was shared with the garden of an opposing house. If Jack was trying to gain entry, that was the way he’d come. His garden was uncared for, and easy to hide in. You could gain access to it, then break in the back door without raising the suspicion of anyone in the street. But as far as he could tell, there was no sign of anyone.

  The back door led directly into Jack’s bedroom, where his Bergan was still lying on his bed. Underneath the Ikea bedside table he had stashed a handgun. He took it now, then switched on the bedside light. He saw the answering machine flashing. Four messages. He turned down the volume and listened to them. The first two were from Bill Parker, the adjutant’s clerk, politely asking where he was. The third was from the adjutant, who was less polite. ‘I don’t know where the hell you are, Harker, but—’ Jack pressed a button and moved on to the next message. It was blank. Just a click as someone hung up the phone. It had been left at 22.38 the previous evening. Jack didn’t have much doubt that it was someone checking to see if he was in . . .

  He returned to the corridor that led from the bedroom up to the front door. Here he waited. Weapon primed. When his man came, he’d come hard and fast. It was the only way in confined quarters like this. Jack pushed all thoughts of yesterday’s events from his mind. Time to grieve later. For now, he needed to keep his focus because if – when – his shooter came, Jack had to be ready for him.

  12.38 hrs.

  The doorbell rang.

  Jack jumped. It seemed unnaturally loud in the silence of the flat, and his first instinct was to ignore it. But something changed his mind. He’d already seen the postman that morning, and nobody else would be ringing on his door at this time of day. He approached the front door. It was solid wood, with a small peephole at eye-level. Keeping his gun ready, Jack looked out.

  There was a kid on the doorstep. Probably a teenager, but only just. Baggy jeans. IPod earphones hanging over the front of his T-shirt. Gum in his mouth. Jack opened the door a little, keeping his weapon concealed, and gave him an enquiring glance.

  ‘Wash your car, mate?’ the kid asked in a West Country accent. ‘Fiver.’

  Jack shook his head. ‘Try next door,’ he said.

  The kid shrugged. ‘Yeah. All right.’ He stepped backwards and didn’t take his eyes off Jack until he’d shut the door again. Jack looked through the peephole just in time to see the lad running back down the street and out of his vision.

  One thing was for sure: the kid hadn’t tried the neighbours.

  Aamir Hussein wished he could return to London. He missed the mosque, and these Hereford stre
ets were unfamiliar to him. He wasn’t all that keen on the clothes he was wearing to make himself blend in – white trainers, khaki combats and a hooded top. But he had his instructions and he was glad, at least, to put some of his training into action. He sat on the bench of an empty bus shelter and watched as the kid with the baggy trousers ran up to him.

  ‘He’s there,’ the kid said breathlessly. ‘He answered the door. He’s in.’

  Aamir felt a little surge of relief. He removed a twenty-pound note from his pocket and handed it to the kid.

  ‘Twenty?’ the boy protested.

  Aamir shrugged and handed over another note. The kid had earned it, after all, knocking on his target’s door every few hours for the whole of the previous day and again just now, then running back to report on his progress.

  ‘You can go now,’ Aamir said. ‘I don’t need you any more.’

  The kid slunk off.

  Avoiding the gaze of the other pedestrians – mums with pushchairs – Aamir started to walk towards his target’s house. Jack Harker, his name was. Aamir knew nothing else about him. It didn’t matter. When you had a gun in your hand, one man was very like another. And the gun Aamir carried was powerful enough for him to deal with any problems he might encounter: a .500 Smith & Wesson Magnum revolver. Its barrel was too long to keep in his belt, so he had it strapped across the front of his body in a holster specifically designed for the task. And he knew that the .50-calibre rounds that were loaded inside would put a hole in almost anything he cared to point it at.

  He surveyed the main entrance from a distance. A solid-wood door and a small, concrete front yard with a low brick wall and no gate. He could be through that door and into the flat in no time at all; and once inside, with the element of surprise, his target wouldn’t stand a chance.

  Aamir smiled to himself. What he was about to do would be an act of jihad. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy it. He put his hand into his jacket, curled his fingers round the handle of his Magnum, then loosened it in his holster.

  And then he strode across the road to Jack Harker’s front door.

  He was fully prepared to shoot it in. By the time the shots were reported he’d be long gone, after all. When he was about a metre away from the door, however, he stopped. And blinked. It was ever so slightly ajar.

  Aamir shook his head. The guy hadn’t closed it properly. The way some people went about their daily lives, he thought to himself, it was almost as if they wanted to get killed.

  He pulled the gun from its holster and used it to poke the door open. The hallway light was on. Aamir stepped inside. Then he stood and listened.

  A stillness. If there was anybody moving about in this flat, they were as stealthy as a cat.

  Aamir closed the door gently behind him, then stepped further down the hallway. He stopped again. Listened.

  It took a moment for him to identify the sound he could hear: a constant hissing that came from a room off the hallway, ahead and to the left, whose door was half open. When he realised what it was, though, he blinked again.

  A shower.

  Harker was actually taking a shower.

  Aamir’s grin became broader. This would be like shooting fish in a barrel. He raised the Magnum slightly and stepped towards the door. It took only a gentle poke for the door to swing fully open and for Aamir to see what was in the room: a bath, a toilet, a sink. And in the corner, a rectangular shower unit, fully closed, with thick frosted glass; and the unmistakable outline of a person inside.

  He raised his gun a little higher. One shot would probably do it, but two in quick succession would be safer: one to shatter the glass, the second to make sure the target was dead.

  Steam billowed from the top of the shower.

  He fired. Once. Twice.

  It all happened so quickly. The moment the first round made contact with the shower screen, it shattered and crashed to the floor. What it revealed, however, was not a person, but a beige raincoat suspended from the shower rose. Aamir didn’t realise what he was looking at until the second round had thumped harmlessly into the raincoat and shattered the white tiles behind it; but by that time it was too late. Someone behind him had wrapped a thin cord round his neck and was already pulling it hard.

  His arms flailed as he tried to raise his gun hand up and shoot randomly behind him, but his assailant quickly grabbed his wrist and knocked it against the door frame so sharply that he thought he felt his wrist breaking. The gun fell to the ground and he tried to cry out, but the cord round his neck meant no sound came other than a strangled gasp.

  He felt faint. The room began to spin. As his legs gave way beneath him, he felt himself being lowered to the ground, but by the time his head touched the floor he had already passed out.

  When Aamir woke up, he had no way of telling how long he’d been out. Not very, he suspected. The first thing he noticed was the burning sensation around his throat; he groaned, and as he did so, he realised that a gag had been tied round his mouth. He opened his eyes to find himself lying down. It took a moment to work out that he was in the bath, fully clad, with his hands tied behind him and his ankles bound. The blinds were closed and the radio was on. A memory flashed across his eyes: it had occurred only a few days previously, when he had been beating Salim Jamali’s mother. Aamir had turned on the TV then, to stop the neighbours hearing her screams. Now, he realised, someone else was taking similar precautions.

  That someone was standing by the bath looking down at him. The sight of him made Aamir’s blood freeze. His face was expressionless. Aamir didn’t need to guess who it was, of course, and he stared at Jack Harker, the man he’d been sent to kill.

  Harker didn’t move. Not for a minute or two. The World at One wittered on in the background. Aamir began to wonder if he was seeing things. If the motionless figure hulking above him was just a hallucination. It was only when Harker eventually bent slightly towards him that he noticed what he was carrying.

  An ordinary kitchen tea towel.

  Harker bent down further and ripped the gag from his mouth. Aamir gasped just as his captor laid the tea towel over his face. ‘What are you doing?’ he whispered, but his voice was drowned out by the sudden sound of the shower. He felt his combats moisten. The water was cold at first, but it soon became stingingly hot and Harker didn’t keep it aimed at his trousers. He moved it up to his face.

  It took only a second or two for the tea towel to become saturated. Aamir tried to breathe, but his mouth didn’t suck in any air – just the damp material. After only a few seconds his lungs started to burn through lack of oxygen. He tried to move his head to one side in order to allow a little air to enter the corner of his mouth, but that didn’t work.

  He was panicking now, and he tried to sit up. All he got was a boot in the chest. The sensation of drowning continued. He desperately tried to breathe in. He started to become dizzy . . . he thought he was dying . . .

  Suddenly, Harker ripped the tea towel from his face and directed the shower jet to the bottom of the bath. Aamir gasped in a noisy lungful of breath, and then another. He felt almost grateful to his assailant for giving him the opportunity to breathe.

  ‘Who sent you?’ They were the first words Harker had spoken to him. His voice was a low growl, and it was full of intention.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he whispered.

  Which wasn’t the answer Harker wanted to hear. He draped the tea towel over Aamir’s face again, and repeated the process.

  It was worse this time. Aamir’s lungs were already feeling bruised by the first session. Now they screamed for oxygen, but this second bout lasted longer than the first. How long, he couldn’t have said. It seemed like an age of agony.

  When Harker finally removed the tea towel, Aamir was almost unconscious. He choked and gasped for breath while Harker stood over him, silent. Only when his breathing achieved some semblance of normality did Harker finally speak.

  ‘If you make me do it again, the cloth’s not coming off. Don�
��t make the mistake of not believing me.’

  Aamir shook his head violently.

  ‘Who sent you?’

  He started to shake. ‘I swear, I do not know.’

  Harker shrugged, then reached for the shower hose. Immediately, Aamir felt a warm sensation spread through his already wet trousers as he lost control of his bladder, and he heard himself squealing. ‘I swear it . . . I do not know his name. He calls me with instructions. I call him when they are carried out. I swear on the life of the Prophet . . . I am telling you the truth . . .’

  He stared, wild-eyed, at Harker, who surveyed him with a bland look on his face.

  ‘If you’d killed me, what would you have done?’

  ‘Called a number. Told him you were dead. Then gone back to London.’

  ‘The person who gave you these instructions, what are his plans?’

  Aamir shook his head again. ‘I don’t know. I swear I don’t know. I was to kill you, and if there was someone with you called Caroline Stenton, or another woman, I was to kill her too . . .’

  Silence. Harker looked like he was concentrating. Working things out in his mind.

  The radio babbled in the background. A woman’s voice, cheerful, even chirpy. Aamir found himself focusing on it – a way of distracting himself from the monster in front of him.

  ‘Preparations are underway for the President of the United States’ visit this evening to a dinner at the Houses of Parliament, where he is expected to give a speech. This controversial announcement has angered the relatives of some 7/7 victims, who believe that the President’s arrival has directed attention away from the memory of the fallen. But in a statement, Downing Street has denied it is ignoring the concerns of the victims’ families, saying, “The Prime Minister believes that standing alongside our allies on this day shows to those who would attack our people that we have strength in unity . . .”’