Ahead of him, the doors closed and the bus jerked into motion. Another few hours, he’d have linked back up with Mehreen and Flaharty.
Time to regroup.
8:38 A.M.
Thames House
London
“…as rioting continues for a third day following the bombing of the Madina Mosque in Northern London, the Security Services seem incapable of stemming the tide of violence. The Home Secretary is scheduled to deliver a statement at noon on the developing—”
Marsh punched the mute button on the remote, shutting off the droning voice of the reporter on the telly.
The twenty-four hour news cycle was going to be the death of them all. In the old days there had been time to react, to tamp things down before they hit the papers, the evening news.
Now, everything was instant. And it was only fueling the madness.
He looked out over the floor of the Centre, taking in the sight of the map thrown up on the big screen. A map of the UK, each red dot representing a flashpoint.
It looked as though the country had developed a serious attack of the measles.
The door opened and he turned to see MacCallum standing there, a folder in his hand. “Yes?”
“They found the van,” the section chief responded, pulling a photo from the folder and handing it over. “It was abandoned in Stavely, about nineteen kilometers south of Sheffield.”
Marsh took it from him, wincing as his eyes scanned across the image. It had been decades since he had been in the field, but he remembered Northern Ireland, and the picture was reminiscent of what he had witnessed there.
The seats of the van were stained with fresh blood, flecks of it spattered across the windshield, spider veins radiating out through the glass from a single bullethole.
“Ismail Besimi?” he asked, the meaning behind the question only too clear. They had been working off the premise that Ismail Besimi had been rescued by sympathizers—by friends. But what if that wasn’t what they were looking for at all?
Question everything.
MacCallum shook his head. “No. Besimi’s blood type is AB—rare, that one. Preliminary swabs of the bloodstains in the van came back O…and B.”
“Two victims?”
“That’s Derbyshire’s working theory. Impossible to say who—or why.”
Indeed. The DG ran a hand over his chin, turning over the scenario again and again. “What do we have from the scene of the ambush?”
“Not enough. No eyewitnesses that we’ve been able to locate—no nearby traffic cameras.”
“Satellite?”
“Nothing in the area,” the section chief replied, hesitating for a moment. “We could see if the cousins had anything in the sky at the time.”
“Oh, they probably bloody well did.” Marsh swore softly, pacing across the floor of his office. “How is it we always find ourselves going to the Americans, hat in hand—asking for help?”
His subordinate didn’t respond, just stood there in silence holding the folder. And he knew. This was necessary. “Fine,” he said after a moment, “do it. But make it count—they never forget a favor.”
MacCallum acknowledged his words with a brief nod, but made no move to leave the office.
“There’s something else, isn’t there?” Marsh asked, transfixing the section chief with a keen glance. They had known each other for years, and when he had been appointed to the post of director-general, bringing MacCallum over from SO-13 had been one of his first official actions.
A half-nod served as a reply, a torturous uncertainty playing across MacCallum’s face.
The DG stepped to the door of the office, the noise of the operations centre without fading away as he closed it firmly. “Then out with it, man.”
“I think we have to consider the possibility,” MacCallum began, seeming to choose his words with the utmost of care, “that Mehreen was involved in Ismail Besimi’s escape.”
9:01 A.M.
A studio flat
Leeds
It was the smell that brought Aydin awake, the smell of spices, of bread cooking.
A smell like that of home…but different, somehow. He raised himself up on one elbow and nearly fell off the couch, realizing suddenly where he was.
“You’re not going back.” Farid’s words from the night before, the look in the mujahid’s eyes brooking no debate. And he had offered none.
He hadn’t wanted to go back to his home, he realized with a start. Even knowing that he would never see his parents again. But they would hear of him.
He swung his legs off the couch, looking over into the flat’s small kitchen to see Farid standing there by the stove, molding the roti in his hands as he prepared to cook it over the flickering blue flame of the burner.
Trash was littered around the small flat, faded bags of take-away stuffed into an overflowing rubbish bin in the corner.
It was only when he saw the sun streaming in through the window, when he felt Farid’s baleful gaze fall upon him, that it occurred to the teenager—he had slept through the fajr, the morning prayer.
He flushed red, making his way to the flat’s tiny loo to prepare himself for the performance of the salat.
Cleanliness is half of faith, Aydin thought, recalling the words of the Prophet as he turned the tap on full and cold—splashing the water over his face in the start of the ceremonial washing.
His head came up, water dripping down his cheeks as he stared into the mirror—and it was though he could see the form of the rabbi standing before him, his hands covered in blood, his lips forming the question: Why?
He could feel his hands begin to tremble, the memory of the Jew’s eyes flooding back over him. The way he had looked, lying there helpless.
Knowing he was about to die.
Aydin’s hands seized the edges of the washbasin, his stomach heaving as though he were about to retch, the ice-cold water continuing to splash unheeded below him.
No. It should have felt good, but it didn’t. Even as triumphant as he had felt last night, now…he could feel only emptiness. It shouldn’t be like this—the Zionists were the enemy, he told himself, struggling to regain control of his emotions.
The fear he had seen in the man’s eyes, it was the fear of judgment. A believer need not know such fear.
But he did.
He raised his head slowly, as if he feared the Jew would continue to haunt him. But the apparition had vanished, and he began to slowly run the water over his bare forearms as he continued the ritual, willing his hands to stop their trembling.
Trying to once more find his faith.
He heard Farid’s voice from without, felt the door open without a knock.
“Enough of that, bruv,” the older man said gruffly, beckoning with his hand for Aydin to follow. It was only as he turned to go back toward the kitchen that Aydin saw the mobile phone in his hand, pressed close against his ear. “Of course…we’ll leave at once. I’ll have him to you by then.”
9:12 A.M.
The MV Percy Phillips
Grimsby, Lincolnshire
“What happened out there, mate?” Gordon took another long pull of the brandy, leaning back against the bulkhead with his game leg stretched out before him.
He didn’t remember very much about Hale coming to retrieve him or the journey back, drifting in and out of the haze of unconsciousness induced by the pain and blood loss. All he knew was that they had headed east—the rising light of dawn shining brightly through the windshield of Hale’s car—and that they were now aboard ship.
Had to be at anchor at some port on the east coast of England. Ipswich maybe?
He shook his head, half to himself. “I don’t rightly know,” he began, lifting his eyes to meet Hale’s. “We were all right after the lads split from us, all the way to the forest. Grimes was driving, I left him with the van. Took Turner and Davies into the woods with me.”
The best lie was always the one that stuck closest to the truth, Gordon thoug
ht, nursing the brandy. And it was a good thing…because lying had never been part of his job description.
“We were just going to kill him and leave him there—like you said, no need to bury the body. That was the plan. But before we could do that…I heard a shot off toward the van. It was suppressed, but there’s no mistaking it.”
Hale nodded his understanding. They both knew that sound all too well. “I’m guessing they got Grimes then—I don’t know. All I know is that the next moment rounds were flying through the trees. Davies went down before he could fire a shot, I caught a bullet in the leg—Turner got off a mag before I saw him fall. There were at least four of them, maybe more. I got away through the trees and back out to the road.”
“Your attackers,” the former SAS sergeant began, seeming to mull over all that he had said, “any idea who they were?”
Gordon shook his head. “None. Special Branch, maybe? SO-13? No bloody inkling how they could have been on to us so fast, though. Didn’t see anyone tailing us out into the country.”
And that was the truth of it.
“No,” Hale replied slowly, “it wasn’t Special Branch.”
There was an odd, unnerving certainty to the way he spoke the words. “An’ you know that how, mate?” the Para asked, feeling as if he was stepping out on the narrow ledge above a chasm.
His footing perilously uncertain.
And yet not to ask would have been just as unnatural. Hale looked at him for a moment, then smiled. “I’m sorry that I’ve not taken you more into my confidence, Paul. We were brothers, fought and bled together in those godforsaken sands not so long ago. But I’ve had to be very careful—what we’re attempting is so perilous. If we fail…we’ll all be sodding lucky to see the Tower. Dead, more than likely.”
“We’ve faced those odds before,” Gordon said, grimacing as he attempted to sit up straighter in the bunk. “No one ever guaranteed that we were coming back from Iraq.”
Hale laughed, setting a hand on his friend’s shoulder as he rose to leave. “That’s a truth there. But this time we have an advantage on them. We have a source inside Five.”
And a chill cold as ice ran down Gordon’s spine as a vision of the scene in the woods rose before him, the American standing there—a pistol leveled in his hands. Remembering his words. “The woman who came with me tonight is a Muslim…and an officer with the Security Services.”
9:34 A.M.
Luton, Hertfordshire
Nothing. Roth holstered the Sig-Sauer, feeling the pistol ride awkwardly on his hip beneath the jacket—an unaccustomed feeling, despite the brief time he had worn one in Somalia with Six. Perhaps Afghanistan had been too long ago.
Nothing whatsoever. The black man took a final look around the empty flat before closing the door, the chill morning breeze washing over his bare scalp as he moved back to his car. Bringing with it the acrid smell of burning rubber from the piles of tires torched in the riots the night before.
It was the third safehouse he had visited since leaving Leeds in the wee hours of the morning. The third to come up dry.
Perhaps he had known better than to think that Mehreen would use a Five safehouse for…whatever she was doing. Perhaps he’d run out of other options.
It was only a matter of time before Thames House began to tie her to the disappearance of Ismail Besimi—only a short time longer before they put together who had given her the information.
Information that had led to two deaths, he realized, sliding into the driver’s seat of the BMW. He could still see the faces of the murdered constables if he closed his eyes.
The faces of their families. Dear God.
He sat there for a long moment, staring out at the street, the small English town just now beginning to awake.
It seemed impossible to fathom that Mehreen could have been involved in murder, but there seemed no other explanation for it.
You never truly knew anyone, such was the reality of their world. A wilderness of mirrors, a masquerade gone horribly wrong.
With death the only prize.
10:13 A.M.
The flat
Rochdale, United Kingdom
“How is he?” Harry asked, brushing the crumbs of toast from his fingers as Mehreen came out of the back room of the small flat. It was the only thing he’d had to eat since the preceding night, assuming you didn’t count the coffee. Flaharty’s safehouse wasn’t particularly well-stocked.
Or its owner happy to have them. Flaharty was out at the moment on business of his own, leaving them alone with Besimi.
“Exhausted,” she responded, looking as if she could have been referencing herself, “but he’ll be fine. Given time.”
And time was something they didn’t have much of. “So Besimi is your asset?”
“Was,” she replied, a distant look entering her eyes. “When I left the field, he was issued a new handler.”
“And yet here you are.”
She smiled grimly, taking a seat across from him and reaching for a now cold muffin. “Old habits die hard.”
They did. One might even say that they never died at all. He leaned back in his chair, favoring her with a careful glance. “You said last night that Ismail Besimi could be the key to all this…how?”
An asset was only an asset so long as they could provide something of value. That was the truth, cold and hard though it was.
And they both knew it.
“I don’t know,” she admitted after a long pause. “Ismail has been a leading member of the Islamic community in Leeds for decades—all of my life, really. He’s been an invaluable source of intel ever since I first recruited him. And last night, someone went to a great deal of trouble to have him killed.”
And that’s what it came down to, so often…you moved heaven and earth to keep someone alive simply because the opposition wanted them dead. Even if you didn’t know why.
It worked for him. He drained the last of his coffee, sifting through what she had told him. All that had unfolded in the space of the last few days. “So how soon can I speak with him?”
It was only then that he realized Mehreen was no longer paying attention to him. Her dark cheeks taking on an unaccustomed pallor as she stared down at the phone in her hand.
“It’s about Aydin…” she said slowly, lifting her eyes to face him. “I heard back from Nimra. She says they haven’t seen him for two days.”
11:46 A.M.
A terrace house
On the outskirts of Leeds
It was strange how at times you could see the echoes of yourself in the young, Tarik Abdul Muhammad thought, turning away slowly from the window.
He had not yet seen his thirtieth birthday—there were times when he questioned whether it would be God’s will for him to ever see it—and yet he felt already old. His youth given in Allah’s service, as would the youth of the young man before him be so given.
If far more quickly.
He smiled, brushing at an imagined spot on the sleeve of his white dress shirt as he motioned for the boy to take a seat. The television was on in the background, in advance of the Home Secretary’s speech, the volume muted. “How old are you, my son?”
“I, uh, turned sixteen on the last day of December,” he stammered, seeming overawed in the presence of the Shaikh.
Sixteen. Tarik smiled. That seemed like such a very short while ago. “Then God granted you an early birthday gift in the form of the blow struck against the homeland of the imperialists.”
“A blow you struck,” came the reply, the young man’s eyes glowing with fervor. Excitement.
So young. “No. Allah strikes all blows against the unbelievers. At times and places of His choosing. You, I—all of the faithful you saw the other night—we are nothing but instruments in the hands of Allah. I was your age when I first fought against the Americans in the mountains of Afghanistan. And when I was captured, I found myself questioning God’s will…doubting all that I had been taught. All that I believed.”
<
br /> He could see the disbelief in the young man’s eyes, and he went on after only a brief pause. “But I came to realize, there in that prison overlooking the sea, that it was all a part of a plan. The path He had chosen for me to take, a weapon forged to be of service in His struggle.”
Tarik rose from his seat, his penetrating blue eyes searching the young man’s face as he continued, “As it is the path He has chosen for you, is it not?”
12:01 P.M.
The flat
Leeds
“Mehreen,” her sister-in-law exclaimed, drawing her into her arms at the threshold of the door of their flat. “Thank God you could come.”
“Of course,” Mehreen responded uncomfortably, disengaging herself from Nimra’s embrace as she moved into the house. “I was in the area, had to see if there was anything I could do.”
“What can anyone do?” She looked up to see the form of her brother leaving the kitchen, wiping his big hands on a towel as he approached. The sadness in his eyes unlike anything she had seen before.
“Ahmed,” she began uncertainly, finding him as difficult to read as ever. “I had expected that you would be at the market.”
He exchanged a glance with his wife, shaking his head slowly. “No, I haven’t been there. Last night…”
“Last night, with all the rioting—a gang threw rocks through the windows,” Nimra finished, stepping to her husband’s side.
He looked at Mehreen and grimaced, the pain visible in his eyes. “We were targeted,” he corrected, “I went to open up this morning, found the floor covered in shattered glass. The walls spray-painted in black graffiti. ‘Go back to where you belong, Muzzie.’ ‘Don’t buy from paedos.’ Others I’m not even going to bloody well repeat.”
He shook his head, something of despair in his voice. “I just don’t know what to do anymore, Mehr. I’ve lived in this country for so many years. Our parents sacrificed so much to bring the both of us here. I raised my son to be British. Yet I’m still a foreigner to these people, and our world has gone mad. And my son…”
Her brother paused, glancing at his wife as if uncertain whether he should go on.
“What about Aydin?” Mehreen asked, choosing to press the issue as she saw her sister-in-law insistently shake her head “no.”
Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors Book 3) Page 38
