Sleeper 13: The most explosive must-read thriller of 2018

by Rob Sinclair

  ‘Okay,’ Subhi said. ‘Seeing as you asked so nicely.’

  Cox stepped to the side as Subhi moved past her. He pulled the apartment door to on his way out. Cox left it like that and headed straight for the en suite. She turned on the light and locked the door behind her. She looked at herself in the mirror for just a moment, not really liking the reflection she saw. And it wasn’t just because of the green contact lenses that hid her natural blue. There was so much about the woman she saw that wasn’t her, that she didn’t like. All the lying . . . however good-intentioned, after a while there was simply no way to stop it taking its toll.

  Cox moved across to the shower cubicle, opened the door and got down onto her hands and knees. She rolled up the sleeve of her blouse on her right arm then pulled off the plastic cover for the shower waste. Next she picked out the inner container that looked like a small cup and acted as a trap for hair and other debris. It was full of gunk and residue and the unpleasant stench of the slime stuck in her nose. She pushed the sensation aside and stuck her hand down the drain, feeling around inside. She found the clean circular hole for the waste pipe and moved further to the left. The skin on the top of her hand scratched against the rough surface of the holed-out section and she winced in pain. She wormed her arm further in, past the elbow, as far as she could reach. Her fingers were extended out, grasping.

  There was nothing there . . .

  But surely whoever had trashed the apartment wouldn’t have looked here?

  Unless . . . they already knew what they were looking for?

  Had Nilay told someone?

  Cox thought again about Subhi. She held so many secrets from him. What about him with her?

  She heard the front door creaking open. Footsteps. She realised her heart was drumming in her chest. She shut her eyes and pushed her arm further in, ignoring the pain in her upper arm.

  She got it! She grabbed hold of the plastic and pulled.

  There was a tap on the door.

  ‘Hey, Rachel. Everything okay in there?’

  ‘Fine,’ she said, her voice sounding strained as she pulled her arm and hand free from the drain.

  She stared at the plastic bag in her grasp. At the papers inside. The thumb drive. She looked at her arm. There were red marks and scratches all the way up it. The skin on the top of her hand was torn, there was a line of bright red blood about an inch long where the rough edges had gouged a section of skin. She cursed quietly, then replaced the shower parts. She flushed the toilet then went to the sink and washed her arm clean, removing the blood and hoping the bleeding would stop. She washed the grime off the bag then dried both that and her arm. She pushed the plastic bag into her handbag, then rolled down the sleeve of her blouse, leaving the cuff button undone so the fabric hung over her hand, covering the worst of the scratches.

  Another knock on the door.

  ‘Seriously, are you okay in there?’

  She moved over and unlocked then opened the door. Subhi was there, leaning against the frame.

  ‘Too much hummus last night I think. It’s gone right through me.’

  She could tell Subhi didn’t buy it, but he didn’t say anything. She noticed he’d put his gun away. That had to be a good sign at least.

  ‘You find anything?’ she asked.

  ‘No one in,’ he said. ‘So come on, what are we doing here?’

  ‘Looking for why Nilay was killed.’

  ‘To do that you might need to tell me what the deal was between you two.’

  ‘Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it. Do you want to help me search this place or not?’

  Subhi raised his eyebrows, then peeled away from the door. ‘You’re the boss,’ he said. She didn’t appreciate the tone, but wasn’t going to rise to it. Not now. She had what she needed in her bag. She just wanted to get away and get it safe as quickly as she could.

  Cox moved through the open space, picking up clothes and broken ornaments and furniture. Subhi did the same, though she felt his eyes on her the whole time.

  ‘There’s a chance she really was just an innocent victim of that blast,’ he said.

  ‘I know. Doesn’t feel like that though, does it?’

  He just shrugged at that.

  After less than five minutes Cox decided she’d had enough. There was absolutely nothing left in the apartment of any worth. She wondered again exactly what the police and the ransackers had already taken.

  ‘Did you say the police found a computer? An iPad, anything like that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Subhi said. ‘But if there was anything here like that, they’ll have it.’

  ‘And can you get it for me?’

  Subhi pursed his lips.

  ‘You can say no if it’s too hard. But it would be really helpful for me.’

  ‘Let me see what I can do. So we’re done here?’

  ‘Unless you’ve got any brainwaves.’

  Two minutes later they were walking out of the building into the bright midday sunshine. They’d made it all of five yards from the building before Subhi put his hand onto Cox’s shoulder to stop her. She turned to face him. He looked pensive, as though there was something on his mind that he wanted to say but knew it wasn’t the best idea.

  She guessed what that might be, and she knew he was justified in thinking that way. Their relationship was entirely one way. He helped her, again and again, and he never asked for anything in return. Yet even now, stuck in the middle of this huge mess, she still held back so much from him. She knew that couldn’t work out forever, even though he did owe her, after what she’d done for his family. She was increasingly realising though that he was thinking his debt was now repaid, and really she had to expect that to be the case sooner or later.

  ‘How long have we known each other?’ Subhi said.

  ‘Months.’

  He let out a long exhale.

  ‘I feel like you’re about to propose to me or something,’ Cox said, giving him a wide smile that was a stark contrast to how she was feeling inside.

  ‘You must know I’ve always––’

  There was a dull thwack and Subhi froze mid-sentence, and Cox jerked as she felt a spray of liquid on her cheek. She saw the small hole punched into Subhi’s face, just under his left eye. A split second later there was a distant crack that echoed across the city’s battered buildings, like the sound of a whip.

  Subhi’s lifeless body plummeted.

  TWELVE

  Cox was running before her brain had even fully processed what she’d witnessed. There was another thwack as a bullet smacked into the road next to her, followed a split second later by the same crack in the distance. Cox kept on sprinting across the street, towards cover of parked cars and the buildings opposite, clutching her handbag as she ran, her rational brain finally catching up with her instincts.

  A sniper. North of where they’d come out of the building. Cox’s brain whirred as she tried to recall her training all those years ago. How the distance could be calculated by the delayed sound of the muzzle blast. She couldn’t remember. She was too panicked. She knew, at least, that with her hugging the edge of the building on the other side of the road that she was in cover from the shooter.

  Unless there were more of them.

  She quickly glanced back across the road to where Subhi’s body lay in a crumpled heap. The small hole in his face oozed dark blood and his wide-open glassy eyes were staring right back at her. She realised her hands and legs were trembling.

  She snapped herself into focus. There was no time for frailty. This was her job. She could deal with this. She jogged away down the road, then after a few strides slowed into a quick march. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself. She had no clue who had just pulled the trigger to take out Subhi. Had he even been the target, or was it her?

  Either way she had to assume she wasn’t safe. Yesterday there’d been a faint question in her mind that maybe Nilay really was just an unlucky civilian caught up in a random suicide bl
ast. Cox saw absolutely no chance of that now. In fact, she was already thinking the worst; that it was her cover that had somehow been blown. That she had caused the deaths of both Nilay and Subhi.

  There was no going back from that. Everyone she saw now was a potential threat. She reached into her bag and pulled out her phone as her eyes darted left and right in front of her. Her chest heaving with deep breaths – adrenaline more than anything – she ducked into the arched entrance of a derelict office building and typed out a text message.

  Holiday needed.

  A simple SOS code. She entered the eleven-digit number that would send the message to a switchboard at Vauxhall Cross, who would route the request to both Flannigan and whichever extraction team was closest to her.

  She held her finger over the send button.

  No, she couldn’t do that. Not so soon. She couldn’t just run away from the situation without any knowledge of what had gone wrong and who was after her. First things first, though; she had to get to the safe house.

  ‘Pull yourself together,’ she told herself angrily.

  Feeling a bubbling anger she deleted the message then put the phone away and looked over the street. No one else was in sight. Cox peeled away from the building and walked with purpose, retracing her steps from earlier. In front of her a man and a woman turned onto the street, heading in Cox’s direction. The man, with a salt-and-pepper beard, looked to be in his forties and wore an ankle-length thawb. The woman, in a long deep blue dress, with a plain hijab around her head and neck, was a similar age. There was nothing at all unusual or alerting about them. They just looked like an everyday couple. No sign of menace or malice. Yet Cox knew how deceiving looks could be, and she was on edge.

  The man locked eyes with Cox when they were ten yards away. His eyes narrowed. Cox looked away, thought about crossing the road, but then over the other side she spotted two casually dressed men walking purposefully – locals, in their twenties. Inwardly she cursed herself for not bringing the gun with her. Or even for trying to retrieve Subhi’s. He certainly didn’t need it now.

  Perhaps she should just double back and get it?

  When Cox was two yards from the couple the man reached behind him. Cox braced herself. Yes, she was scared, however strong she wanted to be, out in this war zone alone, there was absolutely no denying that, but it was largely because she didn’t know what was happening. She was certainly ready to fight back if she had to, though. At such close quarters she knew she was easily capable of disarming this man if he had a knife or a gun.

  A suicide bomb? Well, that would be a different story but why would anyone send a suicide bombing couple after just her?

  Cox’s phone buzzed in her hand and at the sound the man shifted slightly in his step and his wife took a sharp inhale of breath.

  The man’s hand came back into view. Empty.

  The couple walked on past. Without feeling any relief, Cox kept going too. She looked back after a few seconds but the twosome were still casually walking away. The men on the other side of the road were gone too – they must have turned down a side street.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Cox muttered under her breath.

  Since when had she been such a bag of nerves anyway? She looked down at her phone. The text message was from an unnamed number but Cox recognised it as coming from Flannigan.

  Update for you. Can you white line?

  Cox sighed and did her best to push away the negative thoughts crashing through her mind. She needed the laptop to use a white line because part of the encryption was in the laptop itself. Her phone, a standard prepaid handset she’d bought just two days ago – she changed them weekly – had no such encryption software, though the Internet line would still be secure.

  The safe house was only twenty minutes’ walk from where she was, but she couldn’t just head directly there any more. Someone was after her, and there was a good chance they had a tail on her – not that she’d spotted anyone so far. As much as she didn’t like the idea of being out in the open any longer than necessary she would take a circuitous route through the city to the safe house, sticking to populated areas as much as she could, but also snaking through the twisting old city streets and alleys where safe to do so to try to lose anyone who was following in the shadows.

  She could wait to speak to Flannigan until she was back at the safe house, but that could be two hours away. Despite the deadly situation she was caught up in, she wanted that update now. Had Flannigan had a change of heart about Trapeze?

  I can blue line. Now?

  She sent the message then took a right turn, phone still held out waiting for a response. She headed back along the street where she’d so recently had coffee with Subhi. She felt a lump in her throat at the thought. Had anyone even found his body yet? What would the police’s reaction be? Would Cox be sought as a witness or a suspect?

  She imagined the reaction of Subhi’s mother and grandma in Egypt – the only family he had left. Would they ever even find out about the fate of their boy?

  Cox shook the thoughts away. She took another turn and spied a Lebanese cafe further along the road whose outside area consisted of a blue plastic tarpaulin erected over wooden poles. The shop front had no windows, just boards and an open doorway. Cox had been before. As with every place she frequented, she’d long ago scoped out entrances and exits. She knew there was an unlocked back door that led onto an alley behind, just yards away from another busy cross street. Unless there was a whole assault team after her, the cafe was a place she felt comfortable stopping at for a few minutes to speak to Flannigan, but just as importantly to watch the street outside for signs of anyone following her.

  Cox headed inside, smiled and greeted the sole worker and took a seat in the far back corner where she had a decent view up the street she’d come from.

  The inside of the cafe reminded Cox of scenes from a post-apocalyptic movie. It was clear the cafe had once been a trendy establishment with its long glass-fronted cake counter, the grand coffee machines behind it, the ornate wood-panelled walls and light fittings. But it quite literally looked like a bomb had dropped inside. There were cracks in the glass counter, in mirrors on the walls. Only one of the five hanging light fixtures was working. The seat-backs and cushions on benches were ripped and torn. A few tables had no chairs at all by them. The tiled floor had whole sections missing, filled with dirt. And, like much of the city, that thick dust from the relentless bombardment, a combination of sand and grit and pulverised stone, was everywhere.

  Cox felt her stomach growl. She humphed. How much she’d love to sit back and enjoy one of the proprietor’s renowned baklavas. She could smell the sweet, honeyed desserts from where she was sitting. She ordered only a coffee. Her phone buzzed again.

  Needs to be white. Please advise.

  Cox tutted and sent a quick response. Will let you know.

  She put the phone on the table and peered outside. People were moving about their business and for a couple of minutes no one caught Cox’s eye. The waiter brought her the coffee and she took a sip of the treacly liquid. Outside, the street was quieter. Just the natural ebb and flow of people?

  No. This was something else. Where moments before people had milled and roamed back and forth, all of a sudden there wasn’t a soul in sight out there. Cox looked up to the waiter. He was standing by the counter, drying a coffee cup with a tea towel, but his eyes were on the exit. From his position he had a view further up the street than Cox did. He knew what was coming. He glanced over to Cox. No give on his face except for the nervousness in his eyes.

  Cox jumped up from the table, grabbed her phone and her handbag and darted for the back entrance. The waiter shouted out to her. ‘Stop!’ Cox didn’t.Out on the street she heard shouting too, though she didn’t bother to turn round to look who was shouting or why. Instead, she just raced through the corridor at the back of the cafe, past the storeroom and toilets and flung open the door at the back . . .

  She bundled straight i
nto the man standing there. He was tall and lean with dark skin and darker eyes. Black hair and stubbly beard. He was shocked by Cox’s rapid exit. Perhaps that was the only thing that saved her. It only took her a second to realise he had a gun in his hand. She grabbed hold of his wrist to stop him turning the weapon towards her, but she could tell straight away she didn’t have the strength to hold him off.

  He thumped his free hand into her kidney and Cox grimaced in pain. The man arced his head forward to butt her, but Cox craned her neck to the side, resulting in only a glancing blow that split the skin above her eye.

  She was more concerned about that gun, though. She’d only be able to hold on for a few more seconds before the weapon was in firing line.

  Cox took a slight side-step then lifted her heel and drove it down against the side of the man’s knee. The leg buckled, causing the man to stumble and Cox pulled back her arm and crashed her elbow into his jaw.

  Those two blows alone were probably good enough to give her space to make a run for it, but Cox wanted to make damn sure. With him already falling, Cox grabbed his head and pulled down, hauling her knee up at the same time. There was a sickly crunch as bone connected with cartilage and the man flopped to the ground. The gun clattered away. Cox had her eye on it, but then heard shouting from beyond the still-open back door.

  Then more gunfire.

  She dove for the ground, her arms and knees scraping across the slabs. She grabbed the gun, turned and fired three shots back to the door. Simple warning shots because she had no target. Without waiting for a response, she jumped to her feet and sprinted the few yards to the end of the alley, then turned onto the main road. She was glad to see pedestrians there, but knew she was far from in the clear. She heard shouting behind her again, but didn’t dare look to see how many people were chasing or how far behind they were – she simply focused on what was ahead as she hurtled along.