A smile touched the man’s lips. “May peace be upon you, my son.”
7:39 P.M.
Brooks’s
St. James, London
Conor Hale handed over his coat to the doorman, self-consciously brushing a speck of lint off the lapel of his jacket. It was strange for the former SAS sergeant to feel nerves, but he was feeling them now.
Perhaps it was the surroundings, he thought as the butler motioned for him to follow, feeling oddly out of place as they walked farther into the men’s club. Or perhaps it had more to do with why he was here.
Brooks’s was one of London’s most exclusive social clubs, with a legacy dating back to the middle of the 18th-century. A membership that had counted kings among its ranks—walls that had once borne witness to the passionate oratory of Edmund Burke.
This was England, Hale thought, gazing up at the barrel-vaulted ceiling of the Great Subscription Room. England as she had once been.
England as she could be once more.
The drawing room was nearly deserted, a couple men conversing intently in armchairs over near the far wall.
The butler guided him past them, back toward where a towering bookcase rose toward the ceiling, a 19th-century globe of the world centered squarely on a heavy endtable carved from mahogany.
A man sat there, alone, the newspaper nearly obscuring his face, sipping at a tumbler of whisky.
“Ah, Sergeant Hale. I’m so glad you could join me,” he smiled, setting aside the broadsheet as he gestured for Hale to have a seat in the leathern armchair across from him. “Please, Desmond…a whisky for my friend.”
“It’s a beautiful place, isn’t it, Conor?” Arthur Colville mused, glancing up at the ceiling as the butler left them. At sixty-one years of age, the publisher of the UK Daily Standard was over two decades Hale’s senior. “A reminder of just how great this country once was.”
“That it is, sir,” Hale responded, unsure what else to say. He’d had prior meetings with Colville, but none under these circumstances. In these surroundings—with their plan already underway.
“You knew the IRA bombed this building, didn’t you? Back in the ‘70s. I was at Cambridge at the time, but Ted Heath gave me the details when we met in later years. What it felt like to be in the middle of that. The terror. It’s coming again.”
“I spoke with Flaharty,” Hale interjected, conscious of the irony of his words. That was the way of the world. Enemies became allies…and allies, enemies. Having too rigid a morality only served to complicate affairs. “Everything is on schedule.”
“Good,” the publisher replied absently, seeming lost in thought.
Hale cleared his throat. “Does Pearson know what we’re planning?”
The MP was their biggest backer in Parliament, the public champion of their cause. Their face. Yet he wondered if the man had the stomach for what was to come.
“No,” came the reply. “Nor can he be allowed to know, at least not until the board has been set, the pieces already in motion. Daniel is a good man, but he is a politician and politicians are timid animals by nature.”
Hale snorted his assent as his employer glanced around them once again, taking in the ornate furnishings.
“The bombings couldn’t stop us, and yet what is Brooks’s now? A shell,” Colville added, answering his own question. “A shell of a memory, echoes of greatness. That’s all clubs like this are, for all their history. Just a reminder of the England we are losing.”
He gestured with his whisky toward the broadsheet. His own paper. “Have you seen the headlines from this morning?”
“No.” Hale shook his head. “I don’t subscribe, sorry. Get most of my news off the telly and the net.”
“Like most people,” the publisher responded. “If the Standard only had half the subscribers that we have in traffic on the website…”
He smiled, reaching forward and lifting up the paper. “It was another incident in Whitechapel overnight, they found a shopkeeper trussed up to the beams of his own shop, his clothing shredded—the skin flayed from his back with a whip. Forty lashes…the Islamic punishment for selling liquor. Here. In our country.”
7:43 P.M.
A cafe
Leeds, England
“Have you spoken to your parents of your desires?” the imam asked, glancing keenly across the café table into the face of his young friend.
The shadow that entered the boy’s eyes at the question gave him all the answer he needed. A simmering anger. “Once.”
“I see.” He leaned back in his chair, sipping at his tea. Giving the boy space.
“My father said that if he ever heard me speak of Syria again,” Aydin continued after a long silence, “he would throw me out on the street. That the concerns of Iraq, of Palestine, were not ours here in England. ‘Mind your business,’ he says. ‘Don’t make waves.’”
Rahman nodded his understanding. “Your father is like so many who do not grasp the true nature of the Ummah. We are all one body, as was witnessed by Allah’s Messenger, may peace be upon him. And wherever a faithful Muslim is being oppressed, you should feel that pain, as if it had happened to your own family.”
“I do,” the young man replied earnestly, the sandwich long since forgotten on his plate.
“And your father does not, and this troubles you. As well it should.” Rahman paused, choosing his words carefully. “If you are only concerned with your own safety, with that of your immediate family and not that of the faithful…something is wrong. You have become detached, are no longer a part of the body.”
“He wants me to go to college next year. To go into business. To be normal.”
He spat the word as if it were a curse, his face twisting with the emotion.
Rahman inclined his head toward the front of the café, a young couple sitting there on the stools by the counter—a short skirt accentuating the woman’s legs, her partner’s right hand resting possessively on her bare knee. His left clutching a drink.
Their heads together, laughing. At each other, at everything—and nothing at all.
“You see them?” he asked, watching as the young man nodded. “‘You only live once,’ they say—but they do not truly live at all. They pretend to be happy, but their kind simply exist, moving like ghosts from one party to the next. Chasing their next fix. No purpose. Restless, hopeless. Empty.”
The imam leaned forward in his seat, an edge of emotion entering his voice. “They promise you a dream if you only will be a ‘good’ Muslim—if only you will be like them—but it’s a dream which turns to ashes in your mouth. A mirage. And you will never be like them.”
Across from him, Aydin nodded, sadness clouding his features. “And what of my father?”
“It is truly as the Prophet has said…everyone will be with those whom he loves.”
7:51 P.M.
Brooks’s
St. James, London
“How did we get here?” Colville mused, staring across the drawing room at a massive oil painting of Trafalgar. “So far from those days of glory…wooden ships. Iron men. ‘England confides that every man will do his duty.’ That was Nelson’s original message, you know, before they changed it for ease of transmission.”
Hale nodded. He knew the story well, the day when the fate of all England had rested upon the men in those ships-of-the-line. Outgunned. Outnumbered. But not outmanned, for no one could outfight an Englishman.
Then.
“Our country has grown soft,” the publisher continued, as if reading his thoughts. “There is nothing more sedentary than your average Briton, no one more loathe to be roused to action. Unless it’s football or some other rot, of course. Then you can get them out in the bloody streets.”
He shook his head disdainfully. “And all this in the face of the greatest threat Europe has known in centuries.”
“Since Tours,” Hale offered, a smile touching his lips as he took a sip of his whisky, the crystal tumbler poised awkwardly between rough,
calloused fingers.
Colville laughed, a mirthless, bitter sound. “Nothing ever bloody changes. But we have no Charles Martel now…no Nelson. What we have is democracy—the weakest, most insipid form of government known to man. We could use a king.”
“We’ll have one, sooner or later,” the former SAS sergeant said, shaking his head. “The Queen can’t last forever.”
“Charles?” Colville demanded, passing a hand over his face. “Don’t jest. He wants no more to do with the throne—with the leadership of the country—than he did with his wife. He’ll keep playing the gentleman farmer and leave it all to those same simpering fools in Whitehall. ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,’ as the saying goes. There are moments when I think that we’re too late, that England is already lost.”
Silence fell between the two men as they sat there in the drawing room. No answer which could be given to a truth which was all too plain.
Hale drained his glass and set it on the endtable between them, waiting for the other man to speak.
“But I tell you—one of the greatest evenings of my life was a few years ago when a friend invited me to the Special Forces Club. Less lavishly appointed than this, of course…but I was in the presence of men.”
“My brothers,” Hale observed quietly. He’d been to the club in Knightsbridge once, shortly after his return from Afghanistan. The black-framed photographs on the walls a grim reminder of the price Britain’s special forces had paid in the decades since their formation during the Second World War. A legacy of blood.
“And that’s why I’m counting on you to see this through to a finish, Conor.” Colville tapped his fingers against the rim of his tumbler, staring keenly at him. “Your friend from the Paras—this Paul Gordon fellow. You trust him?”
“As I do all the rest. With my life.”
9:14 P.M
The flat
Ealing, London
The flat seemed emptier since he had left, the emptiest it had felt since Nick’s death.
Moving slowly to the window, Mehreen pushed back the shades, looking out at the light rain smacking against the pane—running in rivulets down the glass. The mercurial nature of London weather once again asserting itself.
She knew now what she had seen in his eyes when she had first opened the door on that rainy evening. Grief. Bitterness congealing within their depths. A familiar feeling.
Just a few days before, but it felt like forever. Maybe it was—it had been an eternity since Nick’s death.
The death of the one you loved—it wasn’t something you could move past. Get over. Forget. They took a part of your soul with them to the grave. Sometimes the only part that mattered. The part that made you…better.
He was out there, somewhere. A man with a mission. And a gun, she thought, remembering the hard bulge against his side—the feel of metal under her hand when she’d embraced him.
And where had he obtained that? Handguns weren’t easy to come by in the UK, but Nichols had always had his sources.
Like her.
She had gone to the park with the intention of telling him no, of explaining why she couldn’t help—why she couldn’t lay that much on the line for him.
And she had done just the opposite. Why? Was it the repayment of a debt? Or did she just want justice? If not for her, for someone in this life. For Nichols, as he’d stood there by the fence—the pain so visible in his eyes. The loss.
There had been no justice for Nick. No one hauled into Old Bailey to answer for his murder. As far as the public was concerned, there hadn’t even been a murder.
Just another dead soldier, in a war everyone was sick of hearing about on the telly.
Gone and forgotten.
No. Her fist clenched as she stared out into the rain, eyes shadowed by grief. Not forgotten. Never.
11:03 P.M.
Hadley Wood
London Borough of Enfield
It was a small house on the edge of the town, a five-block walk from the Route 399 bus stop.
Not far at all, Harry thought, looking up at the crumbling brick façade of the abandoned council house, jagged glass protruding from a broken window in one of the dormers. It looked as though it had been a beautiful home once—in better days—but it was little more than a ruin now.
It would keep out the rain, at the very least, he thought—pausing by the door. He’d brought a lockpick set, but it wasn’t necessary. The lock was broken, the handle giving under his hand as he pushed down. Swinging open with a rusty groan from the hinges, a sound nearly masked by the falling rain outside.
He took a step back, into the open, raindrops splashing against his face as he slung the knapsack over his back, drawing the Sig-Sauer and bringing it up in both hands.
Darkness closed around him as he entered, his eyes adjusting as the glare of the streetlights faded away. Trash littered the floor at his feet, the detritus of past occupants. Or current? It was hard to say, but he had sought refuge in worse places in the weeks since arriving in the UK.
He couldn’t have stayed with Mehreen much longer, he thought, suddenly aware of just how monumental the task he’d set for himself was.
The lone wolf archetype popularized by thriller novels was nothing more than the stuff of fantasy. To pull off an op—any op—you needed manpower, and that was something he didn’t have.
Yet.
Beg. Borrow. Steal…
Chapter 5
7:03 A.M.
Thames House
London
“According to our teams, Tarik visited Gaveda yesterday but did not buy the car,” Alec MacCallum summarized, looking up from his notes. “We’re running down financial information and contact records for any matches on Gaveda. Nothing. There’s been no further contact between him and Rahman, but we’re assuming the meet is still on for today. The question remaining is how he’s going to get there. As for Rahman himself—he spent time in Germany before immigrating, so we ran his name past the BND.”
The Bundesnachrichtendienst, Julian Marsh thought, running a hand over his forehead—Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service. The BND had been founded during the Adenauer chancellery, back in the days of a divided Germany. Dark days that Marsh remembered all too well.
The senior officer paused and Marsh shot him a look. “And?”
“And they believe he might have spent time in Afghanistan.”
“What do they mean ‘believe’?” the DG exclaimed. “Isn’t Kohler minding his store over there?”
“I’ve seen their jacket on Rahman,” Simon Norris interjected, tapping his pen on the conference table. “It’s full of holes—empty spots, entire years where they have no idea where he was.”
“Sounds like a player to me,” Thomas Parker offered. He was in the conference as a professional courtesy, nothing more. The Americans.
MacCallum cleared his throat. “That might be good enough for your people at Guantanamo, Mr. Parker, but here in the UK we hold ourselves to somewhat more…rigorous evidential standards. We’ll need more.”
Problems—they came new every morning, particularly at briefing sessions like this one. Marsh lifted his eyes, glancing wearily down the table toward his field officer. “Tell me you have something uplifting for us, Darren?”
“Arsenal won last night’s game?” the former Royal Marine offered helpfully, trading looks with his American counterpart.
“We no longer behead people in the Tower,” Marsh observed, shooting his subordinate a baleful glance, “but I’m sure we can make an exception for ‘extenuating circumstances.’”
“Sorry, sir,” Darren Roth amended. “All the bugs we emplaced yesterday—the audio is coming through crystal clear. From the moment Tarik walks through the doors of that mosque, we’ll have him. There’s only one thing. I need more manpower.”
Marsh waved his hand at the stack of folders sitting in front of him. “We’re already trying to compartmentalize this as far as we possibly can. I have officers sifting throu
gh everything we can find on the eleven men we identified at the brothel. Eleven men. We’re stretched thin.”
It was the danger of any operation like this—you got overextended, started missing things. Started ignoring pieces. That was what had happened in DOWNTEMPO. Mohammed Siddique Khan had been on Five’s radar early on, but the intelligence linking him to the main cell had been so weak. Like that linking these men at the brothel to Tarik.
They’d let him drop off their radar—only to have him show back up in the Edgeware Road Station on that July morning, a bomb strapped to his body.
He gave Parker a pointed look. “Perhaps Grosvenor Square would be inclined to lend a hand?”
Darren put his hand up before the American could respond, cutting him off. “In point of fact, sir, I had a specific officer in mind. I want Mehreen Crawford read in on PERSEPHONE. She’s fluent in Arabic, Pashto, and Urdu—can give us a real-time translation of the audio.”
“Crawford?” It was Norris again, MacCallum’s analyst clearing his throat from the opposite end of the table. There was skepticism in his voice—along with something more.
The DG’s eyes narrowed, trying to read the man. “Do you have an objection, Simon?”
There was a moment before the analyst responded, as he seemed to choose his words. “I just think we need to be very careful on this. If half of what our American cousins,” he gestured toward Thomas Parker, “are telling us is true…we need to tread with caution. Mehreen Crawford still has family ties to the same part of the world from which this threat emanates.”
He paused, just letting the suggestion hang there. Unspoken.
Marsh saw Darren straighten in his chair, his body stiffening. “Exactly what are you insinuating?”
Norris put up his hands, shaking his head. “I’m not insinuating anything, just advising caution. There’s risk to be assessed when dealing with anyone of that background.”
“That background?” The look on Darren’s face was one of pure fury. “Nick Crawford was a good mate, one of the best I ever served with. Sod me if I’m going to bloody well sit here and listen to you disparage his—”
“Enough.” Marsh leaned forward, his elbows on the table—fingers tented as he glared at the two men. “We shall, I trust, save some of these energies for dealing with the enemy, yes? The decision is mine to make, and I have made it. Alec, you will brief Mehreen on PERSEPHONE when she arrives. As for the rest of you, please make an attempt to focus on the mission before us. We still have a team on Tarik, correct?”
Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors Book 3) Page 9
