It was a sight he remembered well, from a visit to the area with Nick and Mehr. In happier times. A hill fort dating back to the Iron Age, Castle Hill’s slopes were now littered with the fragments of shell casings from a WWII anti-aircraft battery.
This land…was no stranger to war.
2:13 P.M.
Thames House
London
“Rahman showed up at the council estate shortly after noon, walking in right past a Yorkshire Special Branch surveillance team at the estate on an unrelated investigation,” MacCallum said, glancing up from his notes. “Roth and his people were on-scene within the hour, and reacquired him as he was just leaving for the bus station. He’s currently in Bramley, just across the river, still under MI-5 surveillance.”
“Do we have any idea of his purpose in going there?” Mehreen asked, her mind still revolving through the GCHQ intercepts she had spent the day going through. There was something wrong about the message—something very wrong, but she couldn’t put a finger on what it was.
The section chief responded with a shake of the head. “None—the council estate is massive, nearly four thousand inhabitants. We’re liaising with local authorities. Should have the tenant list by tonight so that Norris can run it against our database.”
He shrugged, the message clearly written in his countenance. They had gotten lucky, Mehreen thought. Very lucky. It would be unwise to rely on that luck holding, and as for the tenant list…considering the state of council housing in the UK, it was unlikely to hold the answers they needed.
But they had Rahman, and that was something.
She saw MacCallum stand to his feet, signaling the end of the meeting—a nod and a word or two to Norris as the analyst disappeared back to his workstation.
“Where are we on Ismail Besimi?” the section chief asked as Mehreen also rose, moving toward the door of the conference room. “We need to pull together whatever we can to use as leverage. The quizmasters are getting nowhere with him.”
She paused, turning back to face him. “There may be a reason for that—he might be telling the truth.”
MacCallum shook his head, sadness in his eyes as he looked at her. “Assets turn, Mehr. It’s the reality of our world. No matter how well we feel we know them. You can’t ask someone to betray everyone around them and assume that they’re incapable of doing the same to you. Besimi sold you out—the GCHQ intercepts confirm that.”
He was right, she knew that. It had been a truth hammered into her from her first days with Five in Northern Ireland.
A truth she had come to realize first-hand, staring down the barrel of a tout’s gun one dark night in Belfast. And yet.
“But that’s just the thing,” she began, finding her voice as she stared back at MacCallum. “Do they?”
She had his attention, Mehreen could tell that. He had always taken her seriously, the respect tendered by one veteran officer to another. “Go on.”
“There are…inconsistencies in the message headers as received from Cheltenham. As though someone spoofed Besimi’s phone—planted the messages, essentially.” She shook her head. “I’m going to have to ask Norris to have a look at it, his technical expertise is far beyond mine in this arena. Whoever did this worked very hard to erase any evidence of tampering.”
“If it was done,” her colleague responded. Alec came around the edge of the conference table, placing a gentle hand on her forearm as he looked down at her. “I know you think this is something you have to do, Mehr, but this country is on fire. We’re stretched to the breaking point—and I need you to ask yourself a question: are you trying to investigate Ismail Besimi? Or exonerate him?”
The one question she couldn’t face. Not now. “I should speak to him in person, at least sit in on the interrogation—I know him better than anyone at Five, better than the quizmasters at Leeds could dream of.”
“He’s not going to be at Leeds much longer—they’re moving him to Paddington Green tonight.” MacCallum shook his head wearily, adjusting his glasses with a forefinger. “But go ahead and give me what you’ve compiled on the message headers. I’ll task Norris with it, see what he can dig up.”
5:42 P.M.
Leeds
“You’ll stay close to me, bruv, and do exactly what I tell you to do.” There had been an edge to the man’s voice when he said it—a tone that would brook no disobedience.
The man introduced to him as “Farid” would have drawn no attention on any city street—slight in stature, an unremarkable face. The accent of a South Londoner. But he was a veteran of the jihad in Syria, one of many British Muslims who had returned home from fighting with the Islamic State against the safawi of Iraq.
A man who knew what it was to slay God’s enemies.
Aydin pulled his coat tighter around his body against the chill of the evening, feeling the bulge of the small automatic in his pocket as he made his way down the sidewalk, a can of petrol in his left hand—staying three steps behind Farid, abreast of a young college student named Nisar who rounded out their trio.
The synagogue was a large building, pale blue domes surmounting the structure above a façade of brick. Three cars in the parking lot, the lights above shining down into the faces of the young men as they advanced silently on the building.
Let this serve as a message, the man had said, the final words he had spoken before leaving the car two blocks back. To those who have rejected the word of Allah’s Messenger.
The side door was locked and Farid reached wordlessly back to the college student, who pulled a small crowbar and a hammer from within his sports jacket.
The hammer blows resounded loudly, echoing off the surrounding buildings. Aydin stood there, his free hand shoved deep into the pocket of his jacket, clutching the butt of the automatic.
His palms were slick with sweat, eyes darting around them as Farid and the student worked—heart pounding against his chest as though it threatened to break through.
Come on. He found himself praying, whether from excitement or fear, he didn’t know which.
Five sharp blows of the hammer and the door came open—Farid leading the way inside, opening into a small, dark hallway.
Doors lined the corridor, the English lettering identifying them as classrooms, but the men ignored them—moving toward the faint red Exit lights marking the door leading to the stairs.
12:47 P.M. Eastern Time
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
“I understand, Khaled. I truly do. We’ve known far too many of our own losses in this War on Terror.” Borne the burden of most of them. David Lay bit his tongue as he fell silent—listening to the Mukhabarat head on the other end of the phone. “And the death of each is a tragedy. Please convey our regrets to your president, along with my gratitude for your continued cooperation in the Sinai.”
For as long as it continued was more like it, the CIA director thought—the buzzer on his desk going off even as he returned the phone to its cradle. Their status with the Egyptians was ever one of uncertainty.
His secretary’s voice. “Ron Carter to see you, sir.”
“Send him in,” Lay replied, the door opening a moment later to admit the analyst.
“What’s this about, Ron?” he asked, glancing up at Carter’s entrance.
“The report on the Mali operation—as you requested, sir,” the analyst replied, placing a folder on the desk and taking a step back. An unnatural tension seeming to pervade his body as he stood there, hands clasped behind his back. From the rigidity of his posture, one could almost imagine a younger Carter—dressed in the Air Force fatigues he had once worn—standing at attention before his superiors.
It had been a stressful week for all of them, Lay reflected, dismissing it as he opened the folder, his eyes scanning down the sheet. Between the end of the successful operation against TALISMAN and now the ongoing situation in Egypt, it was taking its toll on all the ops people.
“Brian Fornell,” he said
, his eyes narrowing as they fell on the name near the bottom, “he led the SAD strike team into Mali?”
“He did.”
“And have you contacted him about the connection there with Flaharty?” Lay asked, looking up.
A shadow seemed to pass across the analyst’s face. “Brian Fornell…was killed two years ago in Afghanistan. A VBIED—he died instantly, along with an SF liaison officer.”
Lay grimaced, remembering the attack. “All right, then. See if you can hunt up any of the other members of the Mali team, as time permits. Egypt takes priority.”
“Understood, sir.”
The elevator doors had closed behind Carter by the time he dug the phone from his pocket, his fingers trembling despite himself as he punched in Kranemeyer’s number, cursing under his breath as it rang again and again before finally being picked up.
“It’s done.”
5:51 P.M. Greenwich Mean Time
The synagogue
Leeds
There were only dim lights on in the main sanctuary of the synagogue, enough to make visible the outlines of the Torah ark at the far eastern end of the room—the almemar, or pulpit, in the center of the steps before it.
“The can,” Farid ordered gruffly, motioning for Nisar to take the petrol from Aydin’s hand.
He watched, excitement building within him as the fuel was thrown over the canopy of the Torah ark, drenching the scrolls beneath—the stench of it filling the air as the student began to spread it around the room, soaking the furnishings.
He had seen the images from Paris, protesters in support of Palestine clashing with French gendarmes—the broken glass, the synagogues in flames. And he had dreamed of being there. Now…
All at once the room was flooded with light, Aydin’s heart nearly stopping—the fluorescents above them flickering to life. A dark silhouette in the shadows near the door issuing the challenge. “What are you doing here?”
He glimpsed Farid turn, the gleam of metal in the mujahid’s hand as his pistol came out. And then flame exploded from the gun’s muzzle.
There was a difference between watching the leaked videos on the Internet and the real thing. The panic of it.
He had never heard a gun fired before—not here, right beside him—and he found himself stumbling backward, falling to the carpet, trying desperately to protect his ears as the explosions hammered his eardrums.
One, two, three, four, five—the gunshots seemed to go on forever, the form of Farid visible moving amongst the chairs, firing as he went.
And then…silence. Heart still racing, the boy pulled himself aright—shaking his head as if he could by so doing clear the ringing from his ears.
He saw Nisar rising from where he had crouched for shelter, took in the sight of the Jew lying at the back of the room, a dark, viscous liquid pooling beneath the body. Farid standing there, just a few feet away, the slide of his pistol locked back on an empty magazine.
A scowl on his weathered face as he glared at Aydin, the look in his eyes speaking louder than words his appraisal of his companions.
“Enough,” he said finally, cursing under his breath as he came over to take the can of petrol from Nisar’s hand, upending it over the curtains of the windows, the heady fumes rising about them.
He threw the can at the foot of the pulpit and turned, leading the way to the door, Aydin stepping over the body of the Jew as they reached it.
Looking down into his face, the kindly eyes of a middle-aged man staring back from above his Orthodox beard, eyes now filled with pain. He was still alive, but barely—his breath coming in short, tortured gasps.
Farid turned back, kicking the wounded man in the belly, eliciting an anguished scream.
“Zionist scum…” he spat, pulling a lighter from his pocket. Eyes impassive, the fighter flicked it until flame spurted from the tip, tossing it without a moment’s hesitation into the petrol-soaked room. “As the Prophet has surely spoken, may they taste the punishment of burning.”
And behind them, as they turned to leave, the room exploded into fire…
7:08 P.M.
Huddersfield, Yorkshire
There. The final tumbler gave within the lock, an audible click striking Harry’s ears.
He withdrew the lockpick and placed his hand on the door of the warehouse, pushing it open as his flashlight led the way inside, held in his weak hand, the Sig-Sauer in his right.
Into the vacant space of the floor—just emptiness stretching across the concrete floor like the breadth of a cavern, no matter where he flicked the light.
He had known there would be nothing here. Talking with the local color earlier had been enough to confirm that—reports of a tractor-trailer backed up to the loading dock late in the afternoon of the previous day, loading up crates from the warehouse.
Known, and yet he’d needed to see it for himself. Confirm his own worst fears. All the weapons Flaharty had brought into the country—enough weapons to start a war—gone.
Two of the locals said that the trailer had been white, a third that it was gray. No matter, it was far from here now…and he didn’t even begin to know where to look.
He sank to one knee on the cold concrete, shaking his head as if attempting to clear it of the fog. He had made mistakes over the years—mistakes that cost lives, that haunted him in the night.
But nothing like this. “My God, what have I done?” he breathed, the words coming out as more a prayer than a question.
A prayer. He hadn’t prayed since Carol’s death, a yawning hole left where his faith had once been.
A hole? No, that wasn’t true either. Anger and pain, bitterness rushing in to fill the void. Horror vacui.
Nature abhors a vacuum.
“God,” he began, his voice rising as he gazed out across the warehouse floor, up to where light from the town filtered in through a high skylight. “Answer me…where are You?”
And back across the floor came only the repeated, weakening echo of his voice. Anguished and haunting.
“Answer me…where are You…where are You…Are You?”
8:34 P.M.
Westminster Tube Station
Central London
Routine. It was the sworn enemy of any spy—the danger of becoming too comfortable. The perilous illusion of security.
Westminster had been a part of Mehreen’s workday for years, she thought, pushing past a businessman in a tailored suit on the crowded escalator as they descended into the deep-level station.
As near a constant as anything in her life. Twice a day, five days a week. And ever a sea of people, moving in and out of the city.
She was moving down the final few steps before they could reach the bottom—gazing up at the station around her as she moved toward the next escalator, spotting a short, bearded Sikh just ahead, his bright orange turban marking him as it bobbed along through the crowd.
The thing that had always struck her about the deep station was its harsh modernity, stainless steel and concrete—cross-bracing support bars running over her head to support the staggered banks of escalators, stacked one atop another as they descended to the Jubilee Line below.
It was a building devoid of humanity, cold. Austere.
Something prompted her to look up and back, half-turning on the step—catching just then the glimpse of a tall, sturdily-built man stepping onto the escalator above her, a small ruck slung over his shoulder, accessible to his weapon hand.
Their eyes met for just a moment, an almost perceptible click—and then he looked away quickly. Too quickly, Mehreen realized, a sudden chill running through her body.
Recognizing all the signs. Somehow…she had picked up a tail.
She’s a threat, the former soldier thought, studying his target from above. That’s what Hale had told him, their phone call hurried and veiled, as always. “Take care of her.”
It wasn’t an order he was comfortable with. Killing a woman, a civilian—it hadn’t been what he had signed up for. Not those
many years ago, raising his hand to swear the Queen’s oath. Not now, serving once more with Conor Hale.
But getting out now, that wasn’t an option. They were all committed.
The woman glanced back suddenly, catching him off-guard—their eyes locking for a brief moment in time. Sod it.
He looked away hurriedly, cursing himself under his breath—
knowing that she would have had to have realized he was looking directly at her.
Knowing she wasn’t young or attractive enough to have passed his gaze off as casual interest.
As if to confirm his fears, she picked up her pace, pushing past her fellow travelers as she moved ahead of them down the escalator. His gaze flickered to the bottom of the escalator, the sea of people moving toward the platforms.
She could lose herself in seconds amidst that press, their opportunity gone. There was a part of him that prayed for her to do just that—the part of him that didn’t want to commit murder this night, to cross that line.
But he already had. Trapped. The decision already made for him, no way out.
His head swiveled, catching sight of one of his team members on the opposite escalator—a man he knew only as “Henderson”, formerly of the Rifles—standing there, his hand on the rail as they moved down.
Their eyes met and he inclined his head toward the woman below them, the message clear. Move in, move in.
Take her now.
He began moving quickly down the escalator, pushing a small Asian man out of his way—squeezing past a woman with a stroller—his hand slipping beneath the flap of his ruck, closing around the narrow wooden shiv within, its tip hard and nearly as sharp as metal.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Henderson slightly ahead of him, shoving people aside as he went.
But by the time they reached the platform below, Mehreen Crawford had vanished.
Chapter 17
9:17 P.M.
Westminster Station
London
The cold night air struck Mehreen full in the face as she exited the tube station out onto the street—forcing her to wrap the scarf she wore more tightly around her throat. Her coat was gone, discarded in the stall of a women’s restroom far below.
Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors Book 3) Page 33
