“Precisely. He’ll try to strike hard and fast—act before we can locate him again.”
The DG spread his hands, glancing around the table. “Does this storm cloud have a silver lining, gentlemen?”
“The terror cell in Seacroft that the Shaikh was on his way to meet,” Norris interjected. “They’re dead—casualties of the explosion, which is believed to have resulted from a malfunction with their own explosive vests. Final confirmation is waiting on the arrival of 11 EOD’s 521 Squadron from Chester. They’re in the air as we speak, twenty minutes out.”
“The Lord be praised for small blessings,” Marsh intoned, looking down at his tented fingers. “And the sniper?”
MacCallum shook his head. “Nothing as of yet, SO-15 recovered an Accuracy International L115A3 from a nearby rooftop. Someone was clearly set up and waiting. We weren’t the only ones who knew the Shaikh was going to be there.”
He let that statement hang there for a long moment, its implications only too clear. They weren’t just being outplayed, they hadn’t even identified all the players at the table. A perilous oversight.
“And we have no idea who it is, do we?” the DG asked finally, voicing what they were all thinking.
“No idea,” Norris replied. “We’ve pulled all the available CCTV footage from the area around Seacroft—I have my people sifting through it even as we speak.”
“Get back to me the moment you have something. The moment.”
10:56 A.M.
The industrial estate
North of Leeds
Killing a man in the heat of a firefight was one thing—the mind rationalized it easily enough.
No choice—him or me. Like Flaharty had said, they were words you told yourself to get to sleep at night. To escape the reality that you had taken the life of another human being. And escape it you could, given time…and practice.
But to take a man’s life slowly, deliberately—using his pain as a weapon against him until it finally became too much for his mind or body to withstand. That was something different entirely.
The line between men and monsters.
The metal chair gave off a loud, unearthly scraping noise in the silence of the underground room as Harry dragged it across the floor, taking his seat across from Hashim Rahman. The man was slumped in his chair, his bloodied head resting on his chest—the zipties securing him to the chair the only thing keeping him aright.
Harry unscrewed the cap of the water bottle in his hand and tilted it back, taking a long sip. Letting the silence build until the tension was unbearable.
It was a feeling he remembered all too well from his captivity in the Hindu Kush. Sitting across from one of his interrogators in a room not so much different than this—beaten with a wooden club every time he made eye contact with the man, before they lapsed back into a silence broken only by his moans of pain.
Hours of it. Days, even. Until it came to that dark place where even the beatings were more welcome than the silence. Nothing more than a broken shell remaining where a man had once been.
He’d come so close…
His body shuddered, unable to even finish the thought. To relive the memories brought back by what he was about to do.
But he didn’t have days. Or hours, really. Not now, with Tarik on the run.
Rahman’s head came up slowly, fearfully—his eyes gazing out through blood-matted hair. “I…gave you what you wanted,” he began, his voice hoarse and trembling.
The things that I want. Carol alive, the Shaikh dead. A house in the Virginia countryside. A wife, children coming home from school. Peace.
The American dream.
It wasn’t a dream for men like him. Never had been. He replaced the cap of the water bottle, screwing it on with a painfully deliberate motion as he rose to his feet, walking over to where the terrorist sat.
“Please…I helped you. You promised. Please, just let me go. I swear, I—”
His hand drew back without warning, describing a sweeping arc until it met the side of Rahman’s head, connecting with enough force to rock the chair back on two legs.
It hung there in the air for a single, agonizing moment, then crashed backward—a scream of pain and fear escaping the man’s lips as he slammed into the concrete floor.
Harry stood there for a moment, looking down at him. A pitiful sight.
Probably the way he had once looked, lying there on the dirt floor of that house in Pakistan. But there was no place for pity this day.
He bent down on one knee beside Rahman, his face devoid of emotion. “You couldn’t be more wrong, Hashim. You and me…we’ve only just begun.”
11:07 A.M.
Thames House
“The crowd of counter-protesters is building as the British Defence Coalition gathers in Birmingham’s Victoria Square at noon today for what has been advertised on the group’s Twitter account as their ‘largest rally to date’, sparking fears that the strong nationalist presence may only incite further violence as Birmingham shop owners continue to sweep up broken glass from Monday’s riots. MP Daniel Pearson is scheduled to address the gathered…”
And in the midst of it all, the Queen was departing for what was traditionally her late-summer residence in Balmoral, Scotland, Alec MacCallum thought—reviewing Her Majesty’s route on the screen before him. SO-14’s Special Escort Group had sent it over for Five to conduct a threat assessment.
He looked up at the sharp, insistent knock on his office door—reaching for the TV remote and hitting “mute” as he saw Norris standing there. “What is it?”
“It’s CCTV from the council estate. You need to see this—it’s the sniper.”
MacCallum tapped a brief command into his computer, locking his workstation as he rose to follow Norris out into the corridor.
“He was careful,” the analyst went on excitedly, “but not sodding careful enough. This time, we got his face.”
“What do you mean, ‘this time’?”
“I mean,” Norris said, glancing back as he led the way into the Centre, “that we’ve run stride analysis on the CCTV feeds. It’s the same man who was with Mehreen Crawford in City Station just before the deaths of Ismail Besimi and the young suicide bomber. The same man who was at the train station the day we lost the Shaikh.”
He retrieved a folder from his desk and handed it over to the section chief, the heading “TOP SECRET—CANUKUS EYES ONLY” clearly visible at the top.
Canada. United Kingdom. United States. Three of the “Five Eyes.”
“This man.”
MacCallum took it from him without a word, pulling back the cover sheet impatiently to reveal the thin jacket beneath—a single photograph and a type-written page—his eyes widening as they scanned down the paper.
“My God,” he whispered, scarce able to believe what he was reading. “Get the DG on the phone at once.”
11:34 A.M.
The council estate
Seacroft, West Yorkshire
So this was how it happened, Darren thought—walking to the edge of the roof and glancing out over the parapet, down to the street where Tarik Abdul Muhammad had last been seen.
It had been a couple years since he’d had a long rifle in his hands, but it was an easy shot. Or should have been. He could tell that.
The Accuracy International and the three ejected shell casings still lay where they had been discarded by the sniper—a West Yorkshire constable now snapping photographs of their placement. Reconstructing it all. This was a crime scene now, whether they liked it or not.
He shook his head. The number of people who would find themselves receiving a refresher on the Official Secrets Act after all this, it was going to be endless.
Movement off to his left and he saw Thomas Parker standing there, looking off toward the bus station. “We didn’t have the eyes-on we needed after the UAV went down,” he began, catching the American’s eye. “If you had radioed in the sniper’s position instead of deciding to play cowboys and
Indians, we might have taken him.”
“As I told you,” Parker responded quietly, “I hit the ground hard when that freaking bomb went off. Damaged my comms unit in the process. Couldn’t make contact over the network. Besides, it was a hunch, nothing more.”
“Based on what?”
The CIA officer came over to the parapet to stand beside him, his eyes hidden by the polarized Wayfarers. “I…spent some time in Afghanistan, few years back. Rotated out to Kabul Station. Lost more than a few good men to sniper fire. You get a feel for where they’re hiding.”
At least part of that was true. “And you saw nothing of him on your way to the roof?” Darren pressed. “No one who looked or acted suspiciously?”
“Do I count the teenagers chewing khat?” The American shook his head. “Not a soul. It took me several minutes to even get to the building, he likely took the shots and made his egress immediately. That’s what training would dictate.”
Darren’s eyes narrowed, trying to read the man’s face. “Who said he had training?”
“No one. But that,” Parker shrugged, gesturing toward the Accuracy International, “isn’t something you use unless you do.”
The man had a point. Darren started to respond to him when the phone in his pocket began to vibrate. Thames House.
“Roth here,” he began, turning away from the American and walking to the far side of the roof. “Talk to me.”
“Darren,” came Julian Marsh’s voice from the other end of the line, snapping him to full attention. The DG.
For Marsh to contact a field officer personally, in the middle of an ongoing operation—it was nothing short of unprecedented. “I just left a meeting with the Home Secretary. We’ve had a rather unexpected…development. I need you to listen very carefully.”
11:40 A.M.
Thomas left the roof through the access door, drawing his Agency cellphone from his pocket as he moved down the stairs into the top floor of the tower block, which had been evacuated and sealed off by SO-15.
He listened for a moment, then entered an eight-digit alphanumeric authentication code—looking back over his shoulder. It was the first time he had succeeded in breaking away from his minders in hours. Roth suspected something, that much was clear.
And to be expected.
Langley had to be notified—brought into this. Stopping Harry on the stairs had been beyond his power, alone and unarmed, but it wasn’t an end they could afford to leave loose.
A rogue officer operating on the soil of an allied country was a nightmare—the surest recipe for an all-night bender he’d ever heard.
An uncomfortably long moment passed before the call connected, Lasker’s familiar voice answering. Not even zero-seven hundred hours back in the States…someone was in early.
“Listen, Danny,” Thomas began, casting another wary glance down the corridor. Unable to escape the feeling that time was running short. Which was why he was going straight to the top, devil take protocol. “We’ve got a situation. Next few hours, give or take, it’s going to get very delicate over here. I need to speak to the DCIA.”
“He’s not in-country at the moment,” came Lasker’s terse response. “Flew out of Dulles yesterday for a meeting with Anaïs Brunet in Paris.”
Brunet. The head of the DGSE, France’s foreign intelligence service.
“All right, then,” he replied, his mind racing. There had to be a way to get ahead of this, to shut it down. He’d known Harry for a long time. Had never known him to stop. “Have Kranemeyer give me a call as soon as he—”
Thomas looked up suddenly to see Darren Roth standing there a few feet away, flanked by Howlett and two of his men. There was no mistaking the look in Roth’s eyes—or the stance of both SO-15 officers, their hands resting on holstered weapons. Crap.
“I’m going to have to give you a call back, Danny. Something’s…come up.”
He closed the phone, turning to face the British officers with a half-smile. “Is there something I can do for you gentlemen?”
“Inspector,” Roth began, his eyes never leaving Thomas’ face, “have your men take Mr. Parker and his team into custody, by order of the Home Secretary.”
It was hard to look surprised, but he managed it. He’d bluffed his way out of worse situations before—but this wasn’t a Third World country. The chain of command here was all too clear. “On what charge?”
“Conspiracy to carry out an assassination in the UK.”
12:16 P.M.
Victoria Square
Birmingham
He was positioned too far away to hear the words coming from the stage at the foot of the steps leading to the Council House, but no matter. He had heard them all before, many times. That’s all they were…words. Stirring up the crowd for a passing moment before they would retreat to the comfort of their flats and fancy themselves warriors on-line.
The time for them was past.
Hale sank down behind the long gun, resting its barrel on a pair of sandbags he had brought for the purpose, glancing momentarily at the cloned burner phone lying there on the floor a few feet away, its screen still dark. Gordon had made contact with no one since they had parted ways, his location data showing him to be going exactly where he’d said.
Barnet.
Time to put all those suspicions—all thoughts of Gordon’s possible betrayal—out of his head, for this moment.
He had a mission to perform.
The twenty-eighth floor of the office building was available for lease, but he had let himself in. He wondered absently if the small circular hole he had cut in the glass with a handheld saw—the aperture just wide enough to admit the L42A1’s muzzle—would impact the property values.
Probably not as much as what he was about to do, the former SAS sergeant reflected, glancing back toward the black flag of jihad he had spread across the far wall, the thick copy of the Qur’an—all green and gilt—lying beside the sandbags. Mirsab.
The Sword of the Prophet…their mythical Libyan.
His scope swept the square nearly three hundred meters away to the east, making out the hideously modern “sculpture” known as Iron: Man rising high above the sea of protesters.
And there he was. He glimpsed the MP making his way toward the stage, escorted by an honor guard of former soldiers wearing BDC armbands.
Striding up onto the stage with the air of a conqueror, feeding off the energy of the crowd. Like the sodding politician he was.
His reticle centered on Pearson’s temple as he moved, just to the front of the ear. Easy, now.
Right there. His finger slipping within the trigger guard. Ready to take up slack.
The primary phone in his trouser pocket vibrated with an incoming call in that moment, jarring him from his concentration and he reached back to withdraw it without taking his eyes off the scope. “Yes?”
“Our pawn,” Arthur Colville announced, something of relief clearly audible in the publisher’s voice, “is still in play. You can stand down.”
12:24 P.M.
Barnet Hospital
North London
There was never any quiet in the hospital—the shrill sound of unattended alarms in the corridor mixing with that of authoritative voices over the intercom. The moans of patients.
And then there were those who would never speak again.
Paul Gordon reached out, taking his sister’s limp, warm hand in his as he scooted closer to her low bed. His eyes taking in once more her bandaged face, the slow rise and fall of her chest the only sign that she was still alive. If just barely.
Lost in his own thoughts. Knowing their visit must come to an end soon. Knowing he couldn’t leave without making his final confession.
She was no priest, but her hospital gown was more sacred to him than any cleric’s robes in this moment.
“This last week,” he began slowly, a single tear escaping the corner of his eye to leave a salty trail down his cheek, “I’ve done a lot of evil. I’ve betrayed my oaths
, been responsible for the deaths of innocent women and children. And I told myself…I was doing it all for you. I was wrong.”
His fingers found the burner the American had given him in his pocket and he took it out, turning it over and over in his hand. Staring at its darkened screen as he chose his next words carefully. As carefully as if she could have actually heard them.
“But I swear by the memory of our parents—by all that’s holy in this world—that I’m going to do all I can to set this right. Even if it means I don’t come back.” He paused for a moment, forcing himself to face the reality of the choice. What he was about to do.
“Truth is, Alice,” he went on at last, gazing earnestly at her sleeping form, “I’m not coming back.”
He rose from his seat, leaning forward to kiss her forehead through the bandages. Fingers tousling a lock of what remained of her hair. “Now be good, luv. Get your rest.”
And he was gone.
12:37 P.M.
MI-5 Regional Office
Leeds, West Yorkshire
“We’ve identified the man Mehreen Crawford was working with at the train station the day the Shaikh disappeared. At the bus station the morning the young suicide bomber was found dead. He’s a CIA officer.”
And a bloody good one by the looks of it, Darren thought, MacCallum’s words filtering through his head as he scanned down the sheet. Harold Nichols.
Five didn’t have much on him—only a single photo, dated 2008. Taken at Heathrow, judging by the backdrop.
That was impressive, in and of itself. And somehow…he had gotten to Mehreen. Recruited her.
One of their officers, a CIA asset. Unfathomable as that seemed.
“We have to face reality, Darren. Helping the CIA might be morally less repugnant than aiding the Islamists, but it’s no less treason.” The section chief had paused, as if suspecting he knew more than he was letting on. “Mehreen was a friend, but she must be made to answer for this.”
The worst part of it was, MacCallum was right. And if Five even suspected that he had helped her, he’d be brought to book as well.
He opened the drawer of his desk to reveal the Sig-Sauer Marsh had given him—glancing carefully around the office to make sure no one was looking his way as he removed the pistol, holstering it on his belt beneath the jacket.
Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors Book 3) Page 52
