No reaction to her words. “I figured as much,” he replied, a curious inevitability in his tone. “That’s not why I’m here.”
He paused, as if measuring his words, determining his next move. And Mehreen let him. Years of running agents for Box had taught her that you didn’t push an asset in a meet like this. Didn’t pressure them unless you had to.
Was that all Nichols was to her now? Her asset? A friendship gone horribly wrong.
Or, an even more troubling thought: was she his?
“I came to bring an olive branch…a token of goodwill.” His left hand came out of his pocket, placing a folded slip of paper on the wood of the bench between them.
She waited a moment before placing her hand over it, unfolding it to reveal a series of numbers scribbled in black ink. GPS coordinates, she realized a moment later. “What is this?”
“Someone’s brought an arsenal into the UK—military surplus assault rifles and Semtex. Someone connected with Tarik Abdul Muhammad.”
It took a moment for the full import of his words to sink in. “My God. Then these last attacks…”
“…are only the beginning,” he finished for her. “Prelude to a requiem.”
“Who was responsible for bringing the weapons into the country?”
“I don’t have access to that intel,” he responded, without a moment’s hesitation. “I do know that any attempt to maintain surveillance on them—to use them to trace back to Tarik Abdul Muhammad—will be futile.”
“What are you saying?” She knew even as she asked. You have a mole, the words that had haunted her consciousness for every waking moment since he had uttered them by the side of the walking path in Leeds.
“Like I told you,” he said, eyes still straight ahead, “you’ve been penetrated. How I don’t know, but he has help, likely the same people that helped him escape your surveillance teams in Leeds. You need to keep the circle tight, take them out of play—now, before he can use them to arm his people.”
He was right—she knew that. It was the nightmare scenario: jihadist sleeper cells armed and equipped with modern weaponry and explosives. Planted throughout Britain.
There were dozens of them that Five knew of, and like any iceberg, the majority were still beneath the surface. Aydin’s e-mail account had convinced her of that much.
And yet…
She took a deep breath, preparing herself for what she knew she had to do. She had joined the Service to protect her country, but what good was all this—any of this—in the end, if you couldn’t protect the ones you loved. “I can pass this intel along to Thames House, can recommend to the DG that we move at once to seize the arsenal. But I’ll need something from you in return.”
He turned to look at her finally, cold blue eyes meeting her gaze—a wary caution in their depths. “Cut to the chase, Mehr…what are you trying to say?”
11:51 A.M.
Barnet Hospital
North London
“…crowd of protesters grows behind me at the Madina mosque in North London as faithful Muslims gather for worship at the noon prayer.”
Faithful Muslims. Paul Gordon closed his eyes, fighting against the bile rising in his throat. Like the ones that had…he looked down to see his sister’s small white fingers interlaced with his, her skin cool.
She lay there in the bed beside him, her thin body swathed in a hospital gown, the steady, rhythmic hum of the oxygen filling the room. Helping keep Death at bay.
On the screen of the telly, the Sky News reporter droned on, camera panning back to reveal the figure of a short man standing beside him, hair cropped into a military buzzcut, a nose that looked like it had been broken more than once and set, badly. “Here with us is Lucas Sanders, member of the British Defence Coalition and organizer of today’s protest. What would you like to say to us today, Mr. Sanders?”
The man seemed surprised, looking back and forth between the reporter and the flickering red eye of the camera as if uncertain of his ground.
“What I have to say to you,” he said, a stubby finger jabbing outward from his fist toward the camera, “I will say to everyone here in a few minutes. So that everyone can hear precisely why we have come here—without you lot taking my words and editing them, twistin’ them to make us out to be something we’re not.”
11:54 A.M.
Regent’s Park
London
There came a moment in the life of every spy when the job became personal. It was that moment that killed you, even if your body might not know it yet.
For him that moment had come for him on a dark night in Vegas, the red and blue lights of emergency vehicles washing over the face of the woman he had loved, sightless eyes staring up into his face. Her blood soaking his hands.
For Mehreen…that moment was now. Harry looked up at the sky as she continued speaking in the same low undertone, the sun struggling to peek through slate-gray clouds hanging low over the city.
Knowing what he should say, knowing he should refuse. Talk her out of it.
“So those are your terms?” he asked quietly, glancing over as she finished.
A nod. She leaned back against the back of the bench, her dark eyes fixed on his face. Almost unreadable. “You were Nick’s friend, you were mine”—he winced at her choice of the past tense—“but I’ve put everything on the line this last week to help you, without asking anything in return. No more. I can make sure Special Branch hits the warehouse this afternoon, but I need you to promise me that you’ll help me get Aydin out of this.”
“And if he doesn’t want to come?”
11:56 A.M.
Barnet Hospital
North London
“They asked me what I’d like to say,” the man called Sanders said, gesturing to the gathered crowd of protesters as he stood upon the rude stage the BDC had erected in the middle of the street before the mosque. “Asked me what I wanted Britain to hear—that lot over there with their cameras, their microphones. Asked me why we were all here today. And what do we tell them?”
It somehow seemed like he should be there, with them in the crowd, Paul Gordon thought—his gaze shifting from the screen of the telly back to the comatose body of his sister. He was useless here, Hale’s words coming back to mind.
“What are you going to be able to do for her there? Hold her hand? Pray?”
On-screen, Sanders took the microphone, raising his free hand as he gazed out over the crowd. “They call us racists—but Islam is not a race. They call us haters, but we’re not here because of what we hate, but what we love—England. All that it has been in the past. All that it can yet be in the future, if that future is not stolen from us. The boffins up in Whitehall, they go on TV—all dressed up in their sharp Italian suits—usin’ fancy words like “multiculturalism” to describe what they’ve done to this country.”
The crowd roared their displeasure and Sanders paused, his voice trembling with passion. “An’ it sounds so good, so noble. So bloody holy. But do you know what it means? It means men beaten for selling a bottle of wine. It means young women groomed by paedos old enough to be their gran’fathers, plied with money and drugs until there’s no way out and they’re sold as sex slaves. It means a beautiful nine-year-old girl comin’ to her da’ in the middle of the night—as mine did not a week ago—asking if she should cover her face at school. My daughter. Here. In England. Is that what you want?”
Gordon could feel his breath catch short at the plain, rough oratory—the protestors’ thunderous“NO!” echoing down the streets. The Sky News camera zoomed in on Sanders’ face until you could see the tears shining in his eyes as he waited for the crowd to subside.
“And that’s why we’re here today—to speak for those who can no longer speak—for those who have given everything to defend this country against those who have threatened it, from without and within. But first things first.” He paused, taking a step forward on the stage, lowering his head like a prizefighter bracing for a rush, sharp ey
es searching the crowd. “Yesterday, a band of soddin’ thugs wearing the armbands of the BDC attacked and beat Moslem women in the streets of Birmingham…listen to me and listen to me well—that was not us. We do not support that. There is no room in our movement for thugs, for the beaters of women, not an inch will I give to cowards like that. Do you want us to become like them?”
This time Sanders didn’t wait for the shouts from the crowd to die out, but continued, raising his own voice with theirs. “I am a soldier. Am, not was. It has been twenty years since I raised my hand and swore an oath before my God an’ my Queen to defend this country, but they told me sod-all about it expiring, ‘cept with my own life. If you swore the same oath, repeat it with me now.”
“I, Lucas Sanders,” he began, the swelling volume of the crowd nearly drowning him out, “swear by Almighty God…”
And in the darkened hospital room, Paul Gordon squeezed his sister’s limp hand, a tear sliding down his cheek as he repeated, “…that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance…”
11:58 A.M.
Colville’s estate
The Midlands
“He’s a good man,” Colville observed, watching the live coverage on Sky News. Arranging for the entire protest to be carried live had required calling in serious favors, but it had been necessary. For what was to come.
Hale nodded, his face nearly expressionless—his eyes never leaving the screen. “Maybe too good a man.”
“How many of our people will be killed?” The publisher asked. It was the hard question he had asked himself time and again in the planning of this.
Hard questions, harder decisions—the kind of decisions no one in this government had been willing to make for decades.
But now he had.
“Impossible to say,” the former sergeant responded, shaking his head. “It’s a big bomb.”
Hale glanced at his watch. “We’ll know, soon enough.”
12:00 P.M.
The mosque
London, England
“In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful,” Ibrahim Khattam intoned, his eyes closed as men’s voices swelled around him, repeating the words of the zuhr. “All praise is due to God, Lord of all that exists. The Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, Master of the Day of Judgment…”
“You remember the words,” Lucas Sanders cried, raising a clenched fist toward the sky, his gaze sweeping the crowd. “Now it’s time to ask if you remember their meaning? England needs men who remember their oaths. Men willing to stand and fight for all they hold dear. Men who—”
In the basement beneath the prayer hall, beneath the carelessly folded tarpaulins…the bomb’s internal timer reached 0:00.
12:00 P.M.
Regent’s Park
“You may not be able to save him. You know that, don’t you?”
Mehreen nodded at Harry’s words, gazing out over the placid waters of the boating lake—absently twisting the wedding ring around her finger. “I know,” she responded, hardly daring to voice the words. “But I can’t stand by and do nothing. He is my family.”
“I can remember having a family.” There was a curious resignation to his words. A finality. As though speaking of something which once had been…and would never be again. He looked over to meet her eyes, an intensity creeping into his voice. “And I would have done anything for them.”
He reached over, pressing a phone into her palm. “Use this and only this to contact me from here on out. Let me know when you’re ready to move and I’ll do whatever I can to assist you. You have my word, Mehr.”
Before she could respond, a muffled crump from the north struck their ears. An odd sound, faint and indistinct like the far-off rumble of thunder.
Except it wasn’t, and they both knew it.
Nichols sprang to his feet, eyes scanning the park as if searching for danger, his right hand burying itself in the folds of his jacket…as the first wail of sirens began to ring out over the city. The next moment, her phone started to ring.
It felt as if she was moving in a dream as she ran her thumb across the screen to accept the call, heard MacCallum’s voice on the other end of the line.
His words clipped, peremptory. No. This couldn’t be. Mehreen ran a hand over her forehead, as if she could clear her mind by so doing.
“What’s going on?” She heard Nichols ask as the call ended.
“It was…a bomb.” It seemed strange to hear herself speak the words, everything still seeming in a daze. Memories of her childhood flashing past. “They bombed a mosque—in North London.”
They. The Taliban had burned down the mosque in the small town where she had been raised. Men with guns, carrying torches.
And now it was happening here. “I have to get Aydin out of this—we have to move faster than I had even thought. Harry?”
Silence. “Harry?”
Nothing. Her eyes jerked up from her phone, realizing suddenly that she was alone. “Harry!” Her head swiveling, searching back and forth along the walkways crisscrossing the park, trying to pick out his tall form among the joggers and pedestrians.
But he was gone…
Chapter 14
12:09 P.M.
Barnet Hospital
North London
“My God,” Paul Gordon breathed, the same two words he had been repeating over and over again—his eyes fixed to the screen of the telly, the flames rising from the devastated ruins of the Madina Mosque, bloodied protesters limping away from the scene. A woman, her hijab torn, tears streaming down her exposed cheeks as she screamed for her son. “My God…”
Devastation. It hadn’t been supposed to happen this way, not like this—with the loss of innocent life. It was far too soon to expect casualty estimates, but he had been to war. He knew the power of a bomb like that.
The type of weapon that had been used against him and his men in Iraq, time and again.
He found his hands trembling as if in the grip of a fever, a fear seizing hold as he glanced from the carnage on-screen back to the helpless, broken form of his sister.
Nausea building in his stomach, threatening to overwhelm him with the enormity of what they had done. A mistake, the like of which could never be undone.
He made it as far as the sink in one corner of the cramped hospital room before he retched, his stomach emptying itself into the basin.
How long Gordon stayed there, on his knees, he would never remember, the raw, acid taste of bile filling his mouth—tears running down his face. God…what have I done?
A prayer with no answer but the one he dared not face. A question for which he knew the answer far too well.
At length, he pulled himself back up on unsteady legs, trying to pull himself together. His hand found the mobile in his pocket, Conor Hale’s number the only one listed under Recent Calls.
Three rings, and the former SAS man came on the line. “I’m here at the hospital with Alice,” Gordon began, trying to settle down as the words came pouring out.” I was watching the protest—the mosque.”
It was a moment before Hale responded. “A tragic mistake. I have no idea how it could have gone this…wrong, Paul. I’m sorry.”
Perhaps it was the calm, contrasting so strongly with his own overwhelming emotions. Perhaps it was the flat monotone in which the statement was delivered.
But Gordon could hear his old comrade’s voice echoing through his mind. “This is war.”
And in that moment of numbed shock, he knew the truth. There had been no mistake with the bomb, no malfunction of the timer. Everything had gone exactly…according to plan. The massacre of the innocents.
He caught sight of his own visage in the mirror over the sink—a haunted glance. But he knew what he must do.
“No, you were right, mate,” he lied, a grim resolve entering his voice. “We didn’t begin this war, they did. I—I only hate them the more for what they’ve made us do. What is necessary.”
12:19 P.M.
Colville�
�s Estate
The Midlands
“He’s ours,” Hale smiled, tucking the mobile back into its pouch on his belt as he reentered the den. “This with his sister…it’s devastated Paul, but I knew all along he was one of the good ones. I shouldn’t have doubted him.”
“No,” the publisher countered, looking up from where he sat behind the desk. “Suspicion will be our salvation—I picked you from the start because I recognized you had solid instincts. Don’t ignore them.”
Colville rose from his seat, pacing across to the window, the pastoral scene lying behind giving no hint of the devastation they had just unleashed. “Still, I am of course glad that we are not short a valuable man. Now, regarding the other matter?”
A shadow passed across the sergeant’s face. “My men are soldiers, not murderers. Finding a man to do it was difficult.”
“But?” The publisher asked, an eyebrow raised as he glanced expectantly back at Hale. It was no hour to be developing a conscience.
“But, it is being dealt with as we speak. Getting everything moved will be another story. I have the lads working on it.”
“And as for our source?”
“Once we have the all-clear, he’ll be taken care of. Until then, he’s still of value to us.”
“Good.”
12:33 P.M.
London, England
The mark of any good spy was the ability to stay one step ahead of a situation. To predict, to anticipate the moves of your opponents. Don’t react, act.
But no matter how good you were, you could never predict everything. “Getting to you will be the problem,” Harry said into the phone, raising his voice to make himself heard above the sea of people flooding around him, nearly trampling him in the press. “They’ve shut down the Tube—along with most of the bus system.”
“Sod it,” Flaharty exclaimed, exploding into a string of curses. Agreed. He shifted the phone to his other ear, moving with the crowd as someone bumped into him from behind, the sharp end of their elbow catching him in the side.
Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors Book 3) Page 27
