Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors Book 3)

by Stephen England

  Slipping out in the middle of the renewed search for Tarik Abdul Muhammad—a search he was still, technically, in charge of—was hazardous, but leaving her out there was more so.

  He still knew of a place or two to look.

  12:43 P.M.

  North London

  Third call. Straight to voicemail. The American wasn’t picking up his phone—no indication that it was even on.

  Gordon swore under his breath, his head coming up as a passer-by jostled him on the crowded kerb. There had to be some way to stop this—to put an end to it.

  The bus station was just ahead—forty minutes and he could be in Millbank. At the front door of Thames House.

  It would be so simple. They would know how to handle this, they would know how to protect him.

  Or would they? Hale’s words, running back through his mind. “This time…we have an advantage on them. We have a man inside Five.”

  No. The American was his only option—the only solution for this. He hit SEND once more, listening as the voicemail came on once again.

  “If you’ve abandoned me,” he hissed when the tone came through, his voice trembling with anger and fear, “so help me, I’ll see the end of you yet. Call me back as soon as you can.”

  12:48 P.M.

  The industrial estate

  North of Leeds

  “The Queen,” Harry whispered, using the remnants of Rahman’s torn undershirt to wipe the blood from the tip of the hammer’s claw, his hand moving with exaggerated care. “So what you’re telling me is that the Shaikh’s plan is an attack on the Queen—the royal family?”

  “Yes, yes—yes,” the man sobbed, his head buried in the crook of his arm, nearly incoherent from the pain. His fingers smashed, bloody stumps. Harry turned away for a moment, unable to maintain his composure—the memories flooding back. The pain, the torment.

  He couldn’t keep doing this much longer—the darkness threatening to reach out and overwhelm him. Swallow him whole.

  Get a grip. It was an audacious idea—the kind of thing you would expect from a man who had brought an American city to its knees.

  But that attack had to have been years in the planning—this one? It felt different, somehow. “And this attack,” he began once more, turning on the moaning terrorist, “when will it take place?”

  It took a moment for Rahman to respond, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps. “Her motorcade will be ambushed…on the road—on the road to Balmoral. Tomorrow morning.”

  Dear God. It was happening, all over again. The moment when you looked up from running and realized you not only weren’t ahead of your opponents…you weren’t even running in the same race. Out of time.

  “Is that the truth?” Harry leaned forward across the table—grasping a fistful of Rahman’s coarse black hair and using it to roughly jerk his head back.

  “Look at me,” he commanded, his face scant inches from the imam’s, “look me in the eye. Are you sure, Hashim? Are you sure this is the plan? Because you don’t have enough fingers left to be lying to me this time.”

  “It is—it is!” Tears streamed down the man’s face, mingling with the grime. The blood. “I swear it before God.”

  Harry shook his head, reaching for the hammer. “That means nothing. You have broken so many of His laws—why should your oaths be any different?”

  “No,” Rahman gasped, the panic only too visible in his eyes. The look of a man who had been pushed so far past his limits he no longer even remembered what they had looked like. Desperation, raw and visceral. “No, no—please don’t.”

  He was telling the truth. Harry released the man’s head, watching him suck in great gulps of air—hyperventilating. “The plan was to hit…her motorcade, with a—with a bomb. Tarik said we’d disable the escort vehicles—kill the guards. Take her.”

  And butcher her on live camera. That was the way such things went—he’d heard this song before. He closed his eyes, fighting against the rage welling up within. His fingers finding the butt of the Sig-Sauer in its shoulder holster.

  It was so tempting to just draw the weapon, put a single round through Rahman’s forehead. End it all, right here and now.

  But no. He eased his hand away from the pistol, his vision clearing. He had to get clear, think this through. Plan.

  12:53 P.M.

  Leeds Central Police Station

  West Yorkshire

  Enough of this. Thomas leaned back in his chair, glaring across the holding room table at the SO-15 officer standing there. “Protocol clearly dictates that Ambassador Cullen be apprised of any situation such as this one.”

  “And he will be,” Howlett replied, with a smile that signaled more clearly than words how thoroughly he believed himself to be in command of the situation. “All in good time.”

  He pulled a photo from the folder in his hand and placed it on the table, sliding it across. “Do you know this woman?”

  It was a picture of a woman in her mid-forties, dark-skinned—Pakistani, maybe? Dressed in Western business clothes, hair cascading over her shoulders. Dark waves shot with silver. What was going on here?

  “I’ve never seen her before in my life.”

  Howlett shook his head. “I asked if you knew her, not if you’d ever met.”

  “Not biblically, no,” he shot back, unable to repress the smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Haven’t had the pleasure.”

  “The woman’s name,” the SO-15 man responded, controlling himself with a visible effort, “is Mehreen Crawford. She’s an MI-5 intelligence officer—and a CIA asset.”

  “Well then…I’d hate to be you.”

  1:01 P.M.

  The industrial estate

  North of Leeds

  It was a truism of the intelligence business. Everything you needed was out there, somewhere. On any attack, just as it had been on 9/11.

  But intel was worth nothing unless you could get it into the hands of those who could make use of it.

  And that was his current dilemma, Harry thought, pushing open the service door at the top of the stairs and walking out into the sunlight, finding himself blinking like an owl caught in the noonday sun.

  The Agency was off-limits. Thames House was compromised. And Mehreen? She was as far out in the cold as he was, now.

  Nowhere to turn. He felt a sudden vibration from his jacket pocket and reached within, fumbling for his phone.

  Four missed calls. And a voicemail. He hadn’t heard a thing—the cell’s reception no doubt blocked by the building. He entered the brief passcode, the Para’s voice coming over the phone only a moment later—his words hurried, clipped. Fear in his tone.

  It was no reflection on the man’s bravery. It was one thing to keep your head in a firefight—with death whining about your ears and men falling all around you.

  It was another to take a step out on a tightrope, balancing above a chasm of lies. Knowing every single step could be your last.

  Three rings, and then Gordon’s voice answered cautiously, “Yes?”

  “You had something for me, I believe?”

  1:05 P.M.

  New Barnet Station

  North London

  “Nearly thought you’d scarpered on me,” Gordon exclaimed, feeling anger along with the relief that washed over him at the sound of the American’s voice.

  “I’m right here. Talk to me.”

  Gordon glanced down the tracks, hearing the sound of an approaching locomotive. Orders had been to rendezvous with Hale in Leicester, and he had already delayed far too long.

  “There’s going to be a jihadist attack, in Scotland. They’re not just letting it happen, Hale’s bloody well putting it together. It will—”

  “Target the Queen’s motorcade,” the American finished coolly. “I know.”

  But…“I-I don’t—how?”

  “How I know doesn’t matter. Give me the details—something I can work with. What is Conor Hale’s endgame in the attack?”

  The
train was closer now, more people moving onto the platform. “He wants to turn public opinion in this country against the Muslims once and for all. Drive them out—start a war.”

  “And he believes that when the Queen is killed by the Shaikh’s men tomorrow morning, all that will be accomplished?”

  “She’s not to die in the attack,” Gordon responded hurriedly, lowering his voice as if he feared being overheard. “The two of us will be set up on the ridgeline with sniper rifles—covering the motorcade. The hajjis won’t get near her.”

  “Then why are you going to the risk of calling me?” The American asked, the same even calm in his voice. “It sounds like Hale has everything in hand.”

  Why, indeed. What had driven him to turn informant on an old comrade? His back on men he had fought beside. Was it still the screams of the innocents at Madina? The knowledge that he had betrayed everything he once fought for in that moment?

  The train was pulling in, its loud whistle piercing the afternoon air. “If Hale gets his way, tens of thousands will die. Not just the animals we’ve been fighting over in the sandbox, not just thugs like the ones that…raped Alice. Thousands of women and children too. Theirs, ours, all of us together. I can’t have any part in that.” Something hit him just then and he paused, his mind racing. “Wait just a sodding moment—why did you say tomorrow?”

  1:09 P.M.

  The industrial estate

  North of Leeds

  “Because that was the nature of the intel I received,” Harry replied cautiously. Where was this going? Rahman couldn’t have been lying—or could he?

  And the answer to that was yes, as he knew all too well.

  “Then someone’s been playin’ you, mate,” came the Para’s response. “The attack is to take place as the Queen leaves Balmoral on the 11th. Hale an’ the rest aren’t anyways close to being in position. The ship with the arms—still at harbor in Grimsby.”

  And he could see it all in that moment, dark anger rising once again to the fore. Understanding what had so nearly happened. It was an old trick and a clever one.

  There were few things an intelligence officer feared more than being wrong, having passed along bad intel. Being discredited.

  And that was exactly what the imam had tried to do—strike a final blow for his cause by feeding him disinformation.

  Dezinformatsiya, the Soviets had called it. Few things more deadly. Enough of this.

  “And the man behind Hale?” he pressed, hearing voices in the background. The shrill piercing whistle of a train. His contact was on the move. “What have you learned?”

  A pause, filled by the pneumatic hiss of doors opening and closing. A muffled apology exchanged. “I got into his phone,” Gordon continued, his voice coming through clearly once more. “Had a series of numbers he’s been calling for weeks. First one, then the next—and the next. Dozens of calls.”

  “Give them to me. I’ll have it run.” Somehow—he didn’t know how, but there had to be a way.

  The former soldier read it off the numbers twice, adding, “They were in his contacts under the label Artorius.”

  The Latin name of the man who had faded into the mists of British history as “King Arthur”, Harry thought, inscribing the series of numbers into the back of his hand with a pen. It had to mean something, but what was unclear. Misguided nationalist fervor? Something more?

  “And what are you wanting me to be doing now?” There was hesitancy there in the man’s voice, but underneath it a resolve of steel. The resolve of a man who had looked into the abyss and turned his back upon it. “I don’t have any training for this sort of thing, you know.”

  “None of us do,” Harry replied, honestly enough. There was no training in the world that could prepare you for the reality.

  The only way to learn this game was to play it, win…or die. “Stay with Hale—keep close to him. And keep me in the loop. Do it by text if you have to, and remember what I told you if you do.”

  Make sure not to forget the authentication code, he didn’t add, unsure whether to assume the connection was secure.

  He’d set it up to be simple—easy to remember. Hard to say if it would be easy enough. The stress of the spy business played games with a man’s mind. Even when you were used to it—and the Para wasn’t.

  “I will.”

  It would have to be enough.

  1:12 P.M.

  Birmingham New Street Station

  Birmingham

  Conor Hale heard the call disconnect, lowering the cloned burner phone from his ear and watching the screen slowly fade to black as he leaned back into the threadbare seats of the train carriage. The doors sliding shut as the train began to move.

  “They’re not just letting it happen—Hale’s bloody well putting it together.” Those words, ringing in his ears. Again and again, a bitter echo. Barely-controlled anger distorting his face.

  Betrayal. He’d told Colville that he could trust every man he had approached. Trust them with his life…but Paul Gordon more than most. They’d been mates, nearly made it to the Regiment together until Paul had collapsed that day on the slopes of Pen y Fan. A good man.

  Or he once had been.

  1:14 P.M.

  The industrial estate

  North of Leeds

  Everything was quiet when Harry descended once more into the darkness beneath the abandoned industrial complex. The ninth circle of Hell.

  Treachery.

  The stench of excrement and fear filled his nostrils as he moved to one side of the room and switched on the utility light, its harsh glare illuminating the scene.

  Hashim Rahman lifted his head from the table where he was handcuffed, moaning with the effort—his eyes filled with fear at the sight of the Questioner come to torment him once more.

  Munkar. Nakir.

  Not this time. Harry reached within his jacket, pulling out the Sig-Sauer and screwing the suppressor into the end of the threaded barrel. Slow, deliberate movements.

  “No,” he heard the man gasp, his voice weak, dehydrated. At the end of his strength. “Please, I did—I gave you everything. Please, my family. You said—”

  “Shut up,” Harry ordered brusquely, turning to face the man with the weapon in his hand—brass-checking the Sig’s chamber to assure himself it was loaded.

  Flaharty’s words filtering their way back through his mind.

  “You may never get the man who shot your brother in the sights of your rifle, so you shoot the sod next to him and tell yourself it’s justice.”

  Was that what this was about? His inability to eliminate Tarik—to take vengeance for Carol’s death? No matter…this was justice. And Flaharty had been right. It was war.

  Eternal, unchangeable.

  Chapter 26

  2:04 P.M.

  Thames House

  Millbank, London

  “The CIA team is being brought back to Paddington Green under armed escort,” Norris announced, coming over to MacCallum’s workstation. “They should arrive within the next couple hours.”

  “Has Grosvenor Square been notified of their detainment?” the section chief asked, glancing at his subordinate.

  Norris shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “Well, we can’t put off doing that forever,” MacCallum acknowledged, running a hand across his face. “Have Hoskins draft an official memo and get it sent over. Nichols himself?”

  “Nothing yet. The man’s a professional, he’ll have gone to ground.” The analyst paused. “We suspected him of involvement in the 2006 murder of Ibrahim al-Qawi, a radical Islamist preacher in Marseilles—a man believed to be instrumental in recruiting young French Muslims to wage jihad in Iraq. Someone strongly resembling Nichols had been caught on CCTV boarding a Chunnel train from the UK to France only five days before, but we were never able to confirm the match with reasonable certainty, and that’s where the trail went completely cold.”

  The type of man who was bloody impossible to find, MacCallum thought, gazin
g at his computer screen. They didn’t have the resources to conduct another manhunt of this size—not with the Shaikh still in the wind. Had to narrow it down somehow.

  “And Mehreen Crawford…what’s his connection to her?”

  Norris took a deep breath. “Crawford has foreign intelligence contact reports filled out as far back as 2002—it appears that he and her husband were friends up until the sergeant’s untimely death.”

  “Served together?”

  “I think that’s a reasonable assumption—I don’t have the clearance necessary to access the relevant files.”

  That told the whole story, right there. “Make sure Roth is apprised of that information.”

  “I tried,” the analyst replied. “He’s not answering his phone—no one at the regional office has seen him in over an hour.”

  Bugger.

  2:17 P.M.

  The offices of the UK Daily Standard

  Central London

  “I have eyes on our man,” the man announced without preamble when Arthur Colville picked up the phone. The voice of his contact within the Security Service. “He’s at the train station in Leeds—mingling with the crowd. Probably deciding on a ticket. Picked him up on CCTV twenty minutes ago.”

  The publisher swore. “And you’re just now getting around to calling me? If he bolts—if Five gets their hands on him—it’s the end. We’ll have to start this whole bloody thing all over again.”

  “And I’m of no use to you if my cover is blown,” the man replied coolly. “I called as soon as it was advisable to do so.”

  “Is there any way you can contact him?”

  “Not reliably, no. You’re going to need to get a man there—to make contact with him in person. Make sure he’s still oncourse. Guide him back if he’s not. A call won’t accomplish that, even if we had the means.”

  And there it was, the fatal flaw. “I don’t have any people close enough. No one I trust.”

  Conor Hale was the only man he had entrusted with the entire plan, from start to finish. The only man that could be sent to meet with the Shaikh—to bring him back to the fold.

  And he was on a train bound for Leicester—too far away to do what needed to be done. Unless…