Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors Book 3)

by Stephen England

  Ahmed’s head came up, his face twisted in anger as he spat, “He’s become one of them.”

  12:04 P.M.

  The offices of the UK Daily Standard

  London

  “…I must lend my voice with that of the Prime Minister in enjoining calm throughout these troubled times,” Kathleen Napier intoned, looking up from her prepared statement as she stood behind the lectern in the press room within the House of Commons. The high-resolution cameras did nothing for the middle-aged woman, Arthur Colville thought, regarding the telly with a jaundiced eye. Then again they did very little for anyone, which was why he ran a paper. “At this time, the United Kingdom finds itself embattled, under assault from forces both within and without. Her Majesty’s government condemns, without qualification, the cowardly attack made upon the innocents of the Madina Mosque—men, women, and children—British Muslims, whose only ‘crime’ was to worship God in the way they saw fit.”

  The Home Secretary paused to adjust her glasses on the bridge of her nose as she continued, “An attack carried out in the name of a misguided and perverse ‘patriotism’ by a group claiming to represent the true soul of Britain. They do not.”

  “And still more representative than you lot,” Colville growled, the publisher’s eyes narrowing as he glared at the screen. Napier had been working her way up for years, advancing herself the way politicians always did. By carefully concealing whatever spine she once had until it atrophied away to nothing.

  “The British people have known what it was to welcome immigrants for decades, and they appreciate all that Muslims have brought to the UK, the way multiculturalism has strengthened our country. Islam is an ancient and noble religion, and not to be judged by those who have perverted it—extremists like Javeed Mousa, the Algerian-born lone wolf who carried out the murder of the club-goers at Heaven earlier this week.”

  The phone on Colville’s desk buzzed with an incoming call and he punched the mute button on the remote before picking it up. “Good morning, Daniel,” he said, recognizing Pearson’s voice. “Are you watching this?”

  12:11 P.M.

  The terrace house

  Leeds

  “For it is written in the Holy Qur’an,” the woman said, appearing to consult her notes, “whosoever kills a man without reason is as though he has killed the whole world. And whosoever saves a single life, it is as though he has saved all the people.”

  She raised her head, staring directly into the cameras as she continued, “Is there one among us who cannot appreciate the simple majesty of these words? Who cannot agree with their message? This is Islam as it truly is—not as it has been distorted to serve the political agendas of murderers and cowards. And the British people will not succumb to the rhetoric of those who wish only to balkanize and divide us, to answer violence with violence until it consumes us all. Those who have perpetrated these attacks will be brought to justice, and the Security Services—”

  The Shaikh turned off the television, cutting the Home Secretary off in mid-sentence. “They think that they can sit in their comfortable halls,” he began, a dangerous edge to his tone as his eyes locked with Aydin’s, “and smugly lecture us on the ‘real meaning’ of Islam. Telling us to remain silent—to be ‘good Muslims.’ Lull us into submission, all the while they support those who would oppress our brothers and sisters in Gaza and across the rest of the Middle East. Do you think this is what the Prophet, peace be upon him, would have desired?”

  Aydin shook his head, swallowing hard. There was something mesmerizing about the Shaikh’s eyes, the intensity of his gaze as he went on. “‘Whosoever kills a man without reason.’ Is not the cries of the oppressed reason enough? The West loves their ‘democracy’, the ability of every man, every woman, to make their voice heard in defiance of God. And the result? The blood is on all their hands—there is none innocent.”

  The door opened, admitting the young black man Aydin had seen at the warehouse. The bodyguard. “But this…is what you already know,” the Shaikh concluded, drawing himself up with a grim smile. “Or you would not be here. And now the time has come for you to carry out your part in God’s struggle. To follow the green birds.”

  He walked over to a small sideboard, pulling out the top drawer. When he turned once more to face Aydin, he was holding a suicide vest in his hands.

  “Tomorrow morning,” he said, extending the vest toward the boy, “you will be welcomed into Paradise.”

  12:13 P.M.

  The flat

  Leeds

  Even after all that she had seen on Aydin’s laptop—all of the websites, the blog posts—Mehreen found that her brother’s words hit her with the force of a physical blow.

  “How long have you known?” she asked, sinking down there beside him on the couch.

  He shook his head. “Long enough. Aydin was such a good lad. Honest, obedient. Happy. All that a man could ask God for in a son. And then everything changed—it was as though he had withdrawn inside himself, as though the son I knew had died. He no longer laughed—he spent long hours on the computer, watching videos. Devouring every scrap of news he could find from the Middle East, from Syria. And then that man came to the mosque…”

  “Imam Rahman,” Nimra added quietly, as if by way of explanation.

  “We came here to escape from all the suffering, Mehr, the fear of those willing to kill their neighbors over a difference of faith. I told him that if I ever heard him speak of Afghanistan, of Syria, again—he would no longer live under my roof.” Her brother paused, his face hardening. “Perhaps that is the choice he has made, so be it.”

  Words so familiar. Echoes of an earlier time. She could see their father in him in that moment—the way he had looked on the night she had announced her intention of marrying Nick. The obstinance shining through the grief.

  But now, lives were hanging in the balance. And she had no intention of giving up so easily. “Whatever I can do to save Aydin…I will.”

  Her brother looked up, the incredulity visible in his eyes. “I am his father—and I wasn’t able to do a thing. You are the aunt he barely knows…”

  The moment of truth. The moment when lies were shattered—and faiths along with them. Mehreen took a deep breath, looking her older brother in the eye. “I’m also an officer with the Security Services.”

  12:56 P.M.

  The safehouse

  Rochdale, West Yorkshire

  Open source intelligence. It was at once the greatest blessing and the greatest curse of the modern spy.

  Information was everywhere—most of it completely unprotected—streaming live from a million cameras and just as many keyboards. Flooding over the Internet in a never-ebbing wave.

  Trying to properly analyze it all was like trying to drink from a fire hose.

  Harry’s Sig-Sauer lay on the table before him, beside the open laptop—his chair positioned to face the flat’s entry hall.

  There were already thousands of photos on-line from the riots, he thought—most of them uploaded directly from mobile phones onto social media.

  People capturing what they saw in real-time, all across the UK. And no sign of the Shaikh.

  Not that that was surprising. He leaned back in the folding metal chair, clicking through yet another image. One of hundreds he had looked at since the morning.

  The people rioting would be nothing more than rank-and-file—if that. Expendable.

  Pawns.

  Even most of the Islamist imams were staying back from the fray, let alone someone of the stature of Tarik Abdul Muhammad.

  But in the absence of any good leads, you followed up on the bad ones. Perhaps someone had captured…something.

  Find him. If he closed his eyes, he could see Tarik once more ahead of him on the train out of London. Could imagine the iron sights of his pistol centering on the back of his head—the trigger breaking beneath his finger.

  Shoot. Don’t shoot. Pick one.

  You could drive yourself mad thinking of
opportunities lost. Of choices that could never be unmade. Carol.

  He shook his head, clicking angrily through the next few photos. The UK was going up in flames—and somewhere, somehow, Tarik Abdul Muhammad was behind it.

  Using the riots as a cover for something much larger. Far more dangerous.

  It’s what he would have done.

  He felt someone enter the room almost without a sound, and looked back to see Ismail Besimi standing there in the doorway. “I understand I have you to thank for my life,” he said, a faint smile creasing his lips.

  Harry shook his head, rising in the presence of the older man. “Without Mehreen, I wouldn’t have even been there.” He gestured toward the stove, closing the lid of the laptop. “Would you care for a cup of tea?”

  1:07 P.M.

  Lambeth Bridge

  London

  One of London’s famed red double-decker buses swung past Alec MacCallum into the roundabout—the breeze tousling the intelligence officer’s greying hair as he moved out onto the bridge, shouldering his way through a crowd of businessmen returning from lunch.

  The City was never at a loss for foot-traffic, even at the slow times of day. It made the job of blending in, going unnoticed, so much easier.

  The American was standing at the middle of the bridge, elbows resting against the parapet as he gazed out over the water toward the House of Lords down-river. He was toying with the sandwich in his hands, absently tearing off bits of the crust and throwing it to the gulls below.

  “I never did like the crust,” he said as MacCallum came alongside him. “Used to throw it in the trash at school as a kid—you’d think the Corps would have cured me of that wouldn’t you? I guess there’s some things even the Marines can’t do. Least the birds make good use of it.”

  MacCallum shook his head, continuing to scan the crowd of passers-by. Americans. “The information I mentioned to you earlier—were you able to secure it?”

  Carlos Jimenez nodded, tossing the rest of his sandwich into the Thames in an unexpected motion. “I was indeed,” he replied, a canny look entering the CIA liaison officer’s eyes as he turned to face MacCallum. “There something going down that I should know about, Alec?”

  Jimenez had always possessed all the subtlety of, well, the Marine he was. “What are you suggesting?”

  “Come on now,” his counterpart said with a smile that suggested he felt he held all the cards, “playing dumb isn’t going to get you anywhere. I saw the local news out of Luton this morning, all about a pair of constables found murdered on the M1. You ask me to share highly classified imagery from a spy sat in geosynchronous orbit above that highway from the night before…I can connect the dots.”

  MacCallum shoved both hands into the pockets of his overcoat, leaning back against the parapet. “You found something, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, you might call it that, brother.” Jimenez grimaced, his face nearly unreadable, eyes hidden behind his Oakleys. “But if you want a line on it, you’re going to have to give us a seat at the table.”

  That wasn’t unexpected—you gave the Americans an inch, and they did their best to take a mile. It was worse when they had something you needed. “You already have one,” he responded, still not looking at the liaison officer.

  A snort of disbelief served as his reply. “Right.”

  1:13 P.M.

  The safehouse

  Rochdale, West Yorkshire

  The guerilla must move amongst the people like a fish swims through the sea. Chairman Mao’s dictum on insurgency, every bit as true for the spy.

  For him in Afghanistan, it had meant countless meetings so very much like this one—a cup of steaming tea warming one’s hands, sitting cross-legged across a small fire from a tribal elder. Those quiet moments, far more important to the success of his mission than any door he had ever kicked in.

  Ismail Besimi reminded him of so many of those men—seemingly aged beyond time itself, the skin of his face weathered and leathery above the beard.

  And now, as then, he held his peace—waiting for the older man to speak first.

  “You’re an American, are you not?” Besimi asked finally, an enigmatic smile creasing his lips as he stirred the tea idly with a spoon.

  Harry answered the question with an almost imperceptible nod. This was a dance he knew so well. “A friend of Mehreen’s,” he added, by way of elaboration.

  The imam nodded his understanding, raising the cup of Earl Grey to his lips. “I have known Mehreen for many years, ever since she was small. And I know that in her line of work, you only make friends among your own kind.”

  Your own kind. It was a good way to put it, strange as it seemed. The brotherhood of lies.

  “She speaks highly of you,” Harry observed, choosing to ignore the implication of the imam’s words.

  Besimi spread his hands, leaning back in his chair. “There is nothing to be spoken of. I am only God’s humble instrument, insh’allah…nothing more.”

  “You’ve been in Leeds for a long time.” He was probing, if ever so gently—and they both knew it. The old man was no one’s fool.

  “Long enough,” Besimi mused, sipping slowly on his tea—long, bony fingers curling awkwardly around the cup. “I’ve seen men grow old and die, watched others drift from the faith of their fathers, never to return.”

  “Faith is a tenuous thing.” Hard to hold onto, no matter how much you wanted to. A truth he knew far too well.

  He half expected Besimi to respond, but the old man seemed lost in his own thoughts. “And there have been yet others…”

  His voice trailed off, almost sadly. “Perhaps I always knew it would end this way.”

  Harry just sat there, the warmth of the tea seeping into his body, waiting for him to continue. There was a time to press and a time to pull back—an art to all of this.

  “I grew up,” the imam said finally, the ghost of a smile passing across his face, “in Albania—perhaps Mehreen has told you this, no? My father was a shepherd in the mountains in the years after the war, like his father before him, and his father before that. It’s a simple life, really. Uncomplicated, if you know what I am saying. It gives a man time to think—to be alone with God. I learned more of the true nature of Allah from my father out on those hillsides than I have from grandly esteemed clerics in all the years since. But the life of a shepherd…is not without its perils.”

  And here it was, Harry thought, his eyes narrowing. If you worked long enough in the Islamic world, you learned that no story was told without purpose. And Besimi had just arrived at his.

  “Most of all, I remember the wolves. How they would prey on the flock—harrying the edges, pulling down the stragglers. Rarely ever venturing within range of my father’s Mosin. Just always there, always waiting.”

  He raised his eyes to meet Harry’s. “Men like Hashim Rahman remind me of those days—wolves come to raven the flock. Pulling down the weak, and the vulnerable. The young.”

  “Like Mehreen’s nephew.”

  The old man’s eyes grew shadowed. “Yes. Like Aydin. My people were at peace before they came, at one with their neighbors. Muslim, Christian, Jew—all of them alike, the People of the Book, living together as brothers should. Now?”

  He shook his head sadly. “They have set every man at the throat of his neighbor, baying for his blood. Children rise up against their parents in defiance of every precept of Allah, declaring that they and they alone know His true will.”

  “And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household,” Harry added quietly, finishing the last of his tea.

  A light shone briefly in the old man’s eyes, recognizing the scripture. “Truth. And what of you?”

  1:25 P.M.

  Thames House

  London

  “I was right,” Alec MacCallum announced as the Marsh entered the conference room. “The Americans had eyes in the sky.”

  “And?” The director-general looked worn, an impatient edge to his voic
e. “Now that the Home Secretary has helpfully assured our fellow citizens that we are ‘following up on leads’, the pressure from on high is…building.”

  Politicians and their assurances. MacCallum shook his head. “And, their satellite overpass begins two minutes after the Special Branch transport was hit.”

  Marsh swore beneath his breath, an exasperated sound. “So we have nothing?”

  “Not precisely.” He turned toward the screen mounted at the far end of the room, thumbing the remote in his hand. “They picked up this.”

  The imagery began to play, dark and grainy—zoomed in from low earth orbit, three hundred and forty kilometers up. The M1 Motorway displayed in stark relief, each car clearly visible in the thermal imaging.

  A moment later, three figures moved in from the northbound lanes—their movements jerky, hurried. But they were clearly converging on the transport.

  Fanned out like a tactical team. And you could just make out the assault rifle in the one man’s hands—raised tight against his shoulder.

  “What am I looking at?” Marsh asked after a long moment, his brow furrowing as he stared at the screen.

  MacCallum held up a finger, waiting as the satellite continued its pass, the camera focusing in on the far lane—a dark Audi pulled off to the side by the median barrier, doors thrown wide open.

  “We’re clearly not the only ones interested in the ambushed transport. There were several vehicles abandoned near the scene in the wake of the accident, but judging from the angle of approach, I think we can conclude that whomever these three were, this was their transportation. When the satellite makes its succeeding overpass ninety minutes later—after emergency personnel are on the scene—the Audi is gone.” He fanned out a series of photographs on the table, displaying the same dark black Audi, its plates clearly visible. “From traffic cameras five and eight kilometers south of the ambush, respectively. I’ve already sent the licence number on to the NCA.”

  The DG acknowledged the information with a careful nod. “Do I want to know what Jimenez asked for in exchange for this?”