“What did you find, boss?” the analyst asked, tucking the phone back into the pocket of his jacket.
Kranemeyer shook his head. “Nothing. He wasn’t there. Hasn’t been there for a very long time.”
“Do you think…” Carter’s voice trailed off as he looked over at the DCS.
“It’s thin,” was Kranemeyer’s response. And it was thin—but they were both used to that. It wasn’t like they were trying to convince a jury. “But it’s possible. Anything is possible. Particularly when it comes to Nichols.”
The analyst swore under his breath. “This is beautiful. Just beautiful. I’ll need to brief Lay.”
“No,” Kranemeyer said, reaching forward and tapping the button to hold the elevator doors closed. He gave Carter a warning look. “You won’t.”
Carter shook his head. “Look, I liked Harry as much as anyone else here. He was a good guy, but I am not going to lie to the DCIA for him. Or you. I can only stall so much longer on his request for the report on the Mali op. And we both know who led that team.”
The analyst wasn’t comfortable with any of this, and Kranemeyer knew why. He’d come to the Agency from Air Force intelligence, spent years at the Intel Directorate. Everything handled just so. By the book.
That was all before Kranemeyer had requisitioned his services for the ops side of the house—the Dark Side, as many of the Directorate’s desk jockeys called it. All these years, and Carter still wasn’t quite at home.
The DCS took a step closer, looking his head analyst in the eye. “Let me make something perfectly clear, Ron. This is my call. You work for me. And if I ask you to lie for me…you will.”
The elevator doors opened.
3:48 P.M. Greenwich Mean Time
The hostel
Leeds, England
He’d come back to the hostel after meeting with Mehreen, stretched out on the bed, his leg propped up on a pillow. It wasn’t a bad sprain, by his estimation—and he’d had ample experience with those—but his morning walk had done nothing for the swelling.
Harry looked down at the map spread out on the blankets, eyeing the crude markings he had made in red pencil. It was hard to find a paper map these days, with most people entirely dependent on their GPS.
The hostel was nearly deserted now, most of the tourists out seeing the city. The countryside.
He reached for the Para’s mobile lying on the pillow beside him, the number displayed on-screen. The number he knew so well.
We need to meet, he typed, his fingers moving awkwardly over the keypad, punching each key until he had the letter he desired, reviewing the message for a brief moment before pressing SEND.
A minute went by, then two. Three. Four. Nothing.
It was a gamble, he knew that. He would only get one chance at this, and then it was gone forever. Mehreen could have done much more with the information on the burner—if she would have. If.
He sighed, unable to blame her for her words. She was right, even, but none of that mattered in this moment.
When the mobile pulsed in his hand it almost startled him, catching him off-guard as he slid the screen up to reveal the message. Can’t it wait till the delivery tomorrow nite?
A delivery. The words sent a chill through his body, the fear that perhaps he had been played all along. It felt as if he had walked out into the middle of an empty room, the ceiling vaulted high above him—danger lurking in every shadow.
No, he tapped back, composing himself. It’s urgent. Tonight, the industrial estate north of the city. Midnight. Come alone.
Another long wait, the minutes ticking by as he feared he might have lost him. Inadvertently warned him that everything was compromised.
There was no such thing as certainty in this game, you were always taking risks. Realizing that your life served as stakes in the gamble.
When the mobile pulsed again, the message was brief. Three words. Will be there.
He fell back against the pillows, wincing at the pain from his ankle, relief washing over him.
The bait had been taken, now all that remained was to spring the trap.
11:43 A.M. Eastern Time
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
There was no such thing as “friendship” in Washington, Coftey mused, moving swiftly down the hall as he left the chamber of the Senate.
The sooner you came to terms with that reality, the longer you’d last. Take too long in the learning of it, you’d get cut off at the knees.
Left to bleed out by the same people who would smile across the table and bow their heads with yours at the prayer breakfast the next week. A game, all of it—played out for the benefit of the biggest audience in the world. The despised group of little people known colloquially as “the electorate.”
A staffer moved at his side, hurrying to keep up with the older man—gesturing with the folder in his hand as he spoke.
No doubt something he felt was desperately important, but Coftey barely paid him heed. He was just like all the rest of the interns that came through these halls. Young, idealistic—enamored by their proximity to power, unable to grasp just how unimportant, how expendable they were. Cannon fodder.
He nodded to Greg Hunter as they passed, but the freshman senator from Pennsylvania just kept on walking, eyes straight ahead.
Coftey smiled tightly, an expression masking the cold fury within. Gratitude is the disease of dogs was a maxim people lived by in the Beltway.
He had made Hunter—campaigned hard to help the Pennsylvanian win the rural areas of his state, areas where Coftey’s Oklahoma good ol’ boy persona trumped that of a slick Philly lawyer any day of the week. And twice at Sunday family dinner.
He’d put him in office in what had been a nail-biter of a race, a victory by the narrowest of margins. And now…well, Cahill had gotten to him as well.
It wasn’t that Coftey didn’t understand the pressures the young senator had been placed under to distance himself.
No one had more connections in the party than Cahill—no one. And with word on the Hill that he was beginning to leverage influential donors against anyone foolish enough to stand with Roy Coftey, the Oklahoma senator was all too aware that his hold on his committee chairmanship was growing ever more tenuous with each passing day.
Oh, he understood the reasons for Hunter’s disloyalty, all right. ‘Understanding’ didn’t mean he had slightest inclination to forgive.
Or forget.
Continuing to ignore the staffer, he pulled a phone from his pocket, speed-dialing a number he could have dialed from memory. So familiar.
He smiled when a voice came on the other end. A genuine smile this time, his first of the day. “Melody,” he began, “I want you to meet me for lunch. Bub and Pop’s. I need to see a friendly face.”
He listened to her response for a moment, then thrust his keys toward the young staffer. “Make yourself useful for a change, son. Bring the car around.”
5:09 P.M. Greenwich Mean Time
The MI-5 safehouse
Leeds, England
The heavy door clicked shut behind her, an ominous sound in the silence, the emptiness of the entry hall. She’d been in dozens of safehouses over the years…all of them possessing the same lifeless sterility. You became accustomed to it, learned to ignore your feelings.
But now she could feel the oppression of the place, the chill of the surroundings permeating her very body.
Betrayal. It was a reality every spy had to understand, had to be prepared to experience. Be prepared to wield.
But the truth was you were never prepared. Not really. That you were was a lie you told yourself.
Hoping to sleep at night.
Mehreen closed her eyes, leaning back against the door of the safehouse, still struggling to process the events of the morning. She had known what Nichols was planning—had known better than anyone else what he was capable of.
And yet he had still found a way to blindside her, to betray what t
rust she had placed in him, those many years ago.
Perhaps she had never thought that he would go so far. That some things were sacred.
And she had known better, because that wouldn’t have stopped Nick.
You have a mole.
He had said it with such conviction, such certitude, she thought…just the way Nichols would have told a lie. And yet.
A black Ford Fiesta. License number Alpha. Echo. Zero. Five. Romeo. Yankee. Whiskey.
The licence plate, perhaps that was the key. If there even was one.
6:49 P.M. Greenwich Mean Time
Leeds, England
“She’s going into surgery tomorrow,” the voice in his ear protested. “An’ they don’t know if she’s going to come out the other side. I can’t bloody well just leave her. You understand that.”
“We’ve gone over this, Paul.” Hale took a deep breath, accelerating the Nissan out into the next lane of traffic. One of Colville’s men had disposed of the Ford the previous night—no sense in taking the chance that it might have been seen leaving the station with Tarik. “What are you going to be able to do for her there? Hold her hand? Pray?”
Silence from the other end of the phone. He hadn’t intended the words to sound so mocking—hated pushing an old friend like this, but he didn’t have a choice. This was happening. Now.
“Look, mate. I’m giving you a chance to hit back at these animals—in a way that makes a difference. Now stop arsing about on me, you’re either in or you’re out.”
More silence, then Paul Gordon cleared his throat. “I’m in.”
“Good. Then be up here tomorrow—I’ll send you an address for the rally point.”
Hale switched off his headset, turning off the main road down a side street, south of city centre. Almost there.
Gordon’s words kept running through his head as he drove, the hesitation he’d heard in the man’s voice. He’d told Colville that he trusted his old comrade with his life…but was that true?
It had been so many years since the war. So many years, and people changed.
The former SAS sergeant pulled the Nissan over by the sidewalk, glancing up at the buildings on either side of the street. All those years, and still the first thing that ran through his mind in a place like this was “chokepoint.”
A grim smile touched his lips. Perhaps not that much changed after all. And Paul was a good mate.
The next moment, the passenger door of the Nissan opened and Tarik Abdul Muhammad slid onto the leather seat.
Hale didn’t look at him, just plucked a small black square of fabric from the pocket of his jacket and threw it into his lap. It was a blindfold, the type marketed to suburban housewives with insomnia and often used for “other” purposes.
“Put it on.”
8:57 P.M.
An industrial estate
North of Leeds
Harry had arrived early, hiding the motorcycle behind a building deep in the estate. He’d need to ditch it after tonight, should have done so before now but he just hadn’t had the chance.
There was a massive truck bay beneath him, the windows of the small office offering a view out over the plant, an enclosed bridge connecting the building to its fellow across the main road.
The window gave him a clear field of fire on the gate, but he didn’t have the weaponry to take advantage of that.
Not at hand, he thought, glancing at the pair of handguns he’d laid on the desk. He’d had to leave the Accuracy International in the boot of the car back in London—waiting for a moment that might never come.
No matter. If he came to need it tonight, it would mean things were already gone well beyond redemption.
He picked up the Sig-Sauer, tucking it into its holster as he palmed the compact H&K. When had it all changed? When had his mission turned from one of killing Tarik Abdul Muhammad to one of tracking down…whatever this was?
He’d lost sight of his objective, he knew that. But he’d been a soldier for far too long to turn his back on this. A soldier, lost in a war without end.
He brass-checked the H&K, tapping the luminous dial of his watch. Three hours…
9:03 P.M.
The surveillance van
Leeds
“Rahman’s still in there,” Thomas observed, turning his eyes from the bank of screens to glance at his companions in the van. “Working late tonight.”
The brunette from the previous day had been rotated out, replaced by a gentle-faced, matronly woman in her late forties. He knew her only as “Meg”, a name that seemed utterly suited to its owner.
She checked her wristwatch, a look of regret flitting across her face. “My son, Billy…his football game was tonight, wanted me to be there. Had to tell him yesterday that I had to work. His da’ wasn’t able to get off, either.”
“Is he a good player?” Thomas asked absently, the headphones encircling his neck.
“One of the best.” She smiled. “Or at least I think so. Do you have any children?”
A grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Not that I know of.”
The grin was gone almost as soon as it appeared, a man’s face appearing in his mind’s eye. Grim, angry. Reproachful. The face of the FBI’s special-agent-in-charge in Vegas. A man whose wife he’d once slept with.
“So it’s true what they say about you boys at the Agency, after all? James freakin’ Bond…”
He’d died ten minutes later, killed as the Las Vegas conference center exploded around him. Leaving behind his once-unfaithful wife and their unborn child.
There were some things you just couldn’t take back. She hadn’t been the first. Or the last.
He needed a drink, had needed one ever since his phone call with Jimenez that morning. Three days dry this time, and he could almost taste the need, it was so powerful. Thomas refocused his attention on the screens, just in time to see a slight figure walk in from off-camera, moving toward the mosque.
“Look alive, people,” he said, gesturing to the second British intelligence officer sharing the van with them. “We have a visitor.”
The door handle gave under Aydin’s hand and the boy slipped into the darkened entrance of the mosque, kneeling to remove his shoes. He had been to the mosque earlier in the afternoon and received the same answer as the day before: “The Shaikh is not here.”
There had been a shadow in the imam’s eyes when he said it, as though there was something more. Something he wasn’t willing to say.
He put his shoes on the rack, padding barefoot deeper into the building.
“Camera 3,” Thomas announced softly, bringing it up on the mainscreen as the young Muslim entered the lens, moving along the corridor. He glanced back at Meg. “Make sure you send a screengrab to Thames House, maybe we can get an ID.”
The woman just looked at him. “You honestly think he’s a courier for Tarik?”
“Could be. I saw a kid no older than him walk up to a patrol near Kandahar,” Thomas replied, no emotion visible in his eyes. “He had a vest strapped to his body—took out four soldiers. Three of them went home in caskets, the fourth will never recognize his wife again. So, yes, anything’s possible.”
He didn’t look to see her reaction, his eyes focused once again on the screens as a tall figure emerged suddenly from the shadows of the mosque’s corridor, its movements jerky in the camera feed. It seemed to move at the teenager, forcing him back against the wall.
“Tell me we have audio on that hall,” he demanded, searching through the screens for another camera angle, anything that could tell them what was happening. “We need ears.”
There was a pause, then the British intelligence officer shook his head. “Negative.”
“Who are you?” the black man demanded, his hand around Aydin’s throat as he slammed him back against the wall, towering over him in the darkness.
Munkar, was the thought that went through the boy’s mind—glancing up at the intimidating figure, into his dark eyes. The questioner.
But he wasn’t dead. Not yet.
“I—I—” he whispered, struggling to form the words, get them out past the fingers pressed against his throat.
“Let him go, Nadeem,” came a calm voice from behind the black man.
He reeled against the wall, massaging his bruised vocal cords as the man stepped back, revealing the imam standing behind him.
“That’s Rahman,” the British woman announced, staring through the lens of the surveillance camera as a figure stepped from the shadows, moving forward to place a hand on the boy’s shoulder. They could see the man’s lips move, but without audio…
Thomas swore under his breath. This was the bane of any surveillance operation. You just couldn’t have mikes everywhere you might need them.
“I am sorry, my son,” Rahman continued, looking into the boy’s eyes as he squeezed his shoulder. “We are all under a great deal of pressure in these days. You came to ask me about the Shaikh, yes?”
Aydin nodded, still rubbing his throat with his hand as he looked past the imam back to where the young black man stood, arms folded across his broad chest.
“It is as I told you earlier—I do not know where he is. No one has spoken with the Shaikh, God keep him in safety, since Nadeem parted company with him at City Station yesterday.” The imam shot a dark look at his companion and once again it seemed as if there was something they weren’t telling him. “I fear he may have been taken by the secret police.”
“Ya Allah.” Oh, God. A whispered prayer that it might not be so. “No.”
Rahman shook his head. “Our times are in Allah’s hands—and the mujahid must always understand the price which may be required of those who have chosen to follow the green birds.”
Green birds. The birds of paradise, in whose bodies the soul of a martyr could find eternal peace.
He glanced up to see the imam regarding him keenly. “We spoke of your dreams, of your devotion to God’s struggle…but is this a price you are prepared to pay?”
The boy swallowed, feeling his fingers tremble in that moment. “Insh’allah.”
As God wills.
9:43 P.M.
The Colville estate
The Midlands
Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors Book 3) Page 15
