Just driving from one end of the harbor to the other—with the most dangerous load he’d ever carried in the three years since leaving the Royal Engineers and obtaining his HGV license to drive these lorries.
A load that would put him away behind barbed wire in Category A until the day he died if it was discovered. If a sharp-eyed constable ran the licence plates and realized it had been stolen.
An abandoned church—or “kirk” as they were called here in Scotland—set off to one side of the street as he rolled back toward the harbor area. Nearly swallowed up in the industrial sprawl spilling out of the harbor itself, awash in a ghostly sea of ancient gravestones.
Shades of a Britain that once had been, and was no more. A Britain they weren’t going to bring back, no matter what they did today.
But the alternative? The man’s face hardened, his eyes focusing on the signage ahead. “You are now entering an industrial area.”
Almost there. At least no one was going to read the history books and say there hadn’t been men willing to put up a fight.
“Once the perimeter has been breached,” Tarik Abdul Muhammad said, looking up from the commercial satellite print-outs to meet Farid’s eyes, “you and your men are to make your way quickly up the road in the second vehicle.”
The Syria veteran nodded grimly, taking in the layout at a glance. “Distance?”
“Just under three-quarters of a kilometer. You will need to cover that ground before the alarm spreads, before her protective detail is able to mobilize. Do not allow yourselves—”
“Shaikh,” a young man’s voice interrupted, “you are needed at the gate. There’s a lorry outside—a British driver. He’s asked for you.”
Delaney felt the CZ 75 semiautomatic shift under his leather jacket as he dismounted from the cab of the artic, ignoring the guard standing just a few meters away as his eyes focused on the form of the Shaikh appearing around the edge of a towering stack of shipping containers. It was the first time he had seen the man since that night on Almscliffe Crag…when all of this had been set in motion.
Just draw his weapon and fire—end this all right here—
Delaney thought, eyeing the Pakistani as he approached, flanked by a pair of his men. Put him down.
Patience. That time would come soon enough. Just a few more hours. Once the man had served his purpose.
“You have delivered what was promised?” the Shaikh asked as he approached, his light blue eyes searching Delaney’s face with their charismatic gaze. Even as an enemy, it wasn’t difficult to understand why men followed this man.
“Aye,” he responded, his face expressionless as he fished keys from the pocket of his jacket, tossing them underhand to the bearded young man on Tarik’s left. “Everything’s there. Go ahead and see for yourself.”
9:08 A.M.
CIA off-site facility
City of London
“Take her and run—far and fast. Go dark. I can trust you to do this, Harry. I know you. I know what you’ll do. Vaya con Dios.”
A futile prayer in the end, David Lay thought, the morning sun streaming in through the tinted floor-to-ceiling glass as he gazed down from the eighth floor of the high-rise upon the City of London far below, his eyes picking out Finsbury Circus just to the east.
Ongoing construction work for the Crossrail marring what he remembered as having once been one of London’s most beautiful parks.
Futile. Because in the end, his trust had been misplaced. The oldest maxim of the spy business proving ever inviolable. Trust no one.
Not even Harry Nichols.
He could still remember standing in the rain on the tarmac at Dulles waiting for his daughter’s body to arrive from Vegas, a cold December rain soaking him to the skin. Unheeding. Uncaring.
The plane descending out of the sky, low-hanging clouds bleak and gray as if in acknowledgment of his grief. A mute nod all he could manage when the coroner had asked him to identify her body. It was her. No doubt about that, a knife stabbing him to the heart.
She’d always had her mother’s features. Her smile. Her azure-blue eyes, now forever closed in death.
Because of this man. Time to put an end to all of this. Bury the memories. Once and for all.
“All right, people, listen up,” he announced curtly, turning back from the window to address the CIA personnel filtering onto the floor.
“By now, you’ve all been briefed on the developing situation in Leeds involving our former officer. This is now your number one priority. Harry Nichols was once one of our best…but he’s not one of ‘ours’ anymore. Find him.”
9:47 A.M.
The safehouse
Leeds, West Yorkshire
“…Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth has arrived at her country estate of Balmoral in the Scottish Highlands this morning, beginning a vacation reported to last a week. The Queen’s visit this early in the year breaks with long-established precedent, fueling speculation that her trip north may have been prompted by the civil unrest which has wracked England in recent weeks—although Buckingham Palace has declined to comment. Here to discuss these developments with us is royal watcher Madeline Dobbs…”
“She’s there safely,” Mehreen observed, letting out a sigh of relief. The female newshost’s voice continuing on the telly as she turned the volume down. “Your man was telling the truth.”
“He was,” she heard Harry say from behind her, his voice sounding distracted. “From a tactical perspective, it only makes sense. Given Balmoral’s isolation, you want to make sure your target is already in the trap before you spring it. Easiest way to do that is let her get there, then keep her from leaving.”
She looked back to see him looking at the screen of his phone. “What is it?”
“Flaharty,” Harry replied, laying the burner back on the kitchen table after sending a brief text in reply. “He’s ten minutes out.”
“Are you going to tell him?” she asked, turning away from the television.
“Tell him what?”
“About Roth,” she replied, her face almost impossible to read. “The part he’s now playing in our operation.”
“And what part is that, exactly?” Harry removed his Sig-Sauer from the shoulder holster, instinctively brass-checking the chamber. “Do you really think we can trust him?”
“You’re serious.” She just looked at him, shaking her head. “After all of this, Harry—after all you’ve done—do you think you have any right to be asking about trust?”
After all you’ve done. She was right, that was the worst of it. Faiths betrayed, lives shattered—pushed aside like so much rubble. But there was no stopping now, not when the end was so close at hand. The objective almost within reach.
“Every right,” he whispered, his eyes darkening as he shoved the pistol roughly back into its holster, taking a step toward her. His hand resting on the table. “If Special Branch comes crashing through that door, it’s all over. For me. For you. Maybe even for the Royal Family. So I need to know—is he taking this seriously?”
“He is,” she replied, never flinching. “You can be sure of that.”
“You’re running late,” Harry observed as he opened the door of the safehouse to admit Flaharty. By a couple hours.
“Count yourself a lucky sod that I showed up at all, boyo,” the Irishman responded darkly, shoving a long, heavy bag into his hands. “Give me a hand with this.”
“You were able to get what I’d requested?” Harry asked, turning to lead the way into the kitchen.
Flaharty nodded, setting his own bag down on the table with a dull thud and unzipping it to withdraw an AK-103 assault rifle, its polymer stock folded against the receiver. “Nearly. Four rifles, though I was only able to acquire two of these like you’d asked.”
“And the other two?”
“Wooden-stocked AKMs,” the former PIRA man replied, gesturing toward the bag Harry was holding.
“Good enough,” he said, opening the bag and pulling out on
e of the rifles. The AKM was a far older design, but they’d still be able to share ammunition and magazines.
Russians were nothing if not efficient.
Flaharty shook his head. “It had better be…I don’t suppose I’m getting paid for any of this?”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Which means bugger-all,” the Irishman shot back, eyeing him with a shrewd glance. “And you an’ I both know it. The widow Crawford, I take it she’s around here somewh—well, speak of the devil…”
Harry followed the direction of Flaharty’s eyes back toward the doorway, turning to find Mehreen standing there. “I am.”
“Sure an’ I can see that.” He shook his head, turning back to Harry. “So, now that we’re all here together like one big happy family—is there actually a plan? I suppose I can assume you’re not going after the ship, seeing as it’s already left port?”
“There’s a plan,” Harry started to reply, the full import of the Irishman’s words only then striking him. Something was wrong. Very wrong. “The ship’s already gone?”
“You know it. Left port at Grimsby late yesterday afternoon—sailing north, last I saw of it.”
11:13 A.M.
MI-5 Regional Office
Leeds, West Yorkshire
“Yes, the numbers,” Darren responded, glancing around him to make sure his phone call wasn’t being overhead. “What were you able to ascertain?”
“Not much as of yet,” the voice of his contact at GCHQ responded, “except that all five numbers may have been used by the same party.”
“Oh?”
“All of the numbers you gave me belong to prepaid mobiles—all of them purchased at a mini-mart in the Midlands, on the same day. Just outside Long Eaton, to be precise.”
Purchased all together. Whether they had all been used by the same person was another question, but it was shoddy tradecraft, to put it mildly.
“And the next step from here?”
“We have the timestamp on the purchase—let me see what CCTV I can pull from the surrounding streets, if any. Maybe identify the buyer.” The man paused. “Failing that, I can contact the mini-mart itself and request access to their feeds. But that’s going to take longer, and if they deny the request, I’ll then need a warrant, which will mean going through official channels.”
“Let’s avoid that if possible, shall we?”
“Right you are,” his old friend laughed. “You know, some day you and I are going to sit down and have a pint together and you’re going to tell me what this was all about.”
“Some day,” Darren acknowledged absently, finding his eyes drawn to the television mounted on the far wall, footage of an airplane coming in for a landing. If he ever got to the truth of it himself. “Get back to me when you have a name.”
“…landing at Aberdeen along with his wife, the Duchess of Cambridge, and their two children. Prince William is due to spend a rare spring holiday with the Queen at Balmoral Castle, a residence which has reportedly become a favorite of the young Prince George. The Prince has declined…”
My God, Roth thought, staring transfixed at the screen. If this attack was real—this wasn’t just about the Queen. This was about the Royal Family itself.
11:39 A.M.
A farmhouse outside Harrogate
North Yorkshire
“Stay with Hale—keep close to him. And keep me in the loop.” Hale picked up the field-stripped pieces of his service weapon, the words of the American playing and replaying themselves through his mind as he sat there at the kitchen table, reassembling the Walther P99.
Betrayal had always been personal to him. He could still remember the time in Iraq when his team had been sold out by their interpreter—a young Sunni foisted on them by the higher-ups.
Sold out and led straight into an ambush—one of his men losing both of his legs to a roadside IED, another man going down as automatic weapons fire filled the air.
He’d seen the look in the ‘terp’s eyes—all too recognizable. A glint of exultation where there should have only been terror.
Hale picked up the loaded magazine on the table beside his hand, sliding it into the buttstock of the Walther and thumbing off the slide release. The crisp sound of metal on metal as the slide ran forward, chambering a round.
Long as he might live, he would never forget that moment. Bullets raking the air past his ear as he raised his rifle—seeing the flash of fear in the man’s eyes a split-second before he pulled the trigger. Retribution.
He picked up the loaded weapon, screwing a long, thin suppressor into the threaded barrel as he rose from the table, walking over to the window and staring out over the English countryside.
Another twenty minutes and his men would be arriving. Paul Gordon among them…
11:51 A.M.
CIA off-site facility
City of London
“Nice place you’ve got here,” Thomas Parker observed casually, gazing down upon the central atrium of the office building as the glass elevator rose toward the eighth floor.
“It’s not ours.” Jimenez shook his head. “We’ve just been renting the floor the last couple years—a stopgap that will continue to handle our overflow operations until the Embassy finally makes its move from Grosvenor Square to Battersea and we have more room to expand.”
Thomas nodded his understanding. The move had been in the planning for nearly a decade—the Grosvenor Square location deemed increasingly vulnerable to the threat of terrorist attack in the wake of 9/11. Brave new world.
“Still,” he said, half-smiling as the elevator came to a halt and the Agency station chief swiped his keycard to open the doors, “you have to admit…bankers and the CIA in the same building. It’s the stuff Alex Jones’ dreams are made of.”
His smile faded as they passed through the portal, past the pair of uniformed Marines—his eyes catching sight of the familiar figure of David Lay standing over a nearby workstation.
Yeah, he thought, staring at the man despite himself. Finding himself transported back to that dark December night in Virginia—a figure silhouetted against vehicle lights, the crack of a revolver splitting the night. His own Beretta recoiling into his palm as he returned fire.
The form of the DCIA lying sprawled in the bloody snow.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Lay announced, looking up—glancing at Jimenez before turning his attention to Thomas. “Good to have you back with us, Parker.”
“Thank you, sir,” Thomas managed, unsure whether to go on. Friendly fire or no, it was hard to know what to say to someone you’d so recently shot.
“The conference room,” Lay went on, solving the problem for him. “Twenty minutes. We have a lead.”
12:04 P.M.
The farmhouse
Harrogate, North Yorkshire
The farmhouse had to be at least a century old, maybe two. Paul Gordon shook his head as he got out of the car, gazing up at the slate tile of the roof, the thick ivy covering the stone.
Alice could have told him, she had always been one for old buildings—architecture of a day gone by. But she wasn’t going to be telling him anything ever again.
The burner phone seemed to sear a hole in the pocket of his jacket as he walked up to the door, lifting his hand to use the heavy iron knocker.
Redemption. That’s all this was about, now. A chance to set things right.
A moment passed, the faint sound of footsteps on the other side of the heavy door before Hale himself appeared in the doorway.
“Paul,” the former SAS man said, a shadow seeming to pass briefly across his face before he smiled, reaching out a hand. “Glad you could make it, mate. Come in.”
Had he imagined it? Gordon thought, following his old comrade inside. The line between paranoia and caution…so hard to find.
He shook his head, closing the door behind him. This was no time to be losing his nerve.
“Lads,” Hale began, turning to face the group of men surrounding the s
mall table, “when we left Iraq, we thought that was the end. That we’d done our duty. And when they mustered us out, we believed it was over.”
A low chorus of murmured “Ayes” rose from around Gordon, their words echoing the thoughts of his own heart. But it hadn’t been that simple. It never was.
“But it wasn’t over, was it?” the former sergeant asked, his eyes moving from face to face. A fierce intensity burning from their depths. “That war—those savages we fought, all of it—followed us home. Many of you served together with me over there. We shed our blood in those godforsaken sands. But now I’m asking more of you than I ever did back then. Everything, if it comes to that. There are no medals at the end of this, no gratitude. If we are ever remembered for what we’ve done, it will be as traitors. But we will know differently, and that will have to be enough. That we stood for England when no one else would.”
He smiled suddenly, straightening. It was a smile Gordon knew well. Proud, full of defiance. “We act as though this is something new—somehow different than all that’s gone before. This is the way it has always been. Those sodding politicians up in Whitehall—looking all high an’ mighty as they preen for the cameras—they’ve never saved England. It’s been us, all down through the centuries. The thin red line of British steel, all that stands between them and a world that’s nowhere near as friendly as they think. And after tonight, they’ll have had a glimpse of that world.”
Tonight. He froze, the background noise of the room seeming to fade away, the rough murmurs of approbation nothing more than a distant roar in Gordon’s ears.
“Conor,” he began, struggling to mask the shock that threatened to overwhelm him, “did you mean to say ‘tonight’?”
“I did,” the former SAS sergeant responded, turning to look him in the eye. “Oh, I’m sorry, mate…you hadn’t gotten here when I explained to the lads. The attack has been moved up.”
No. This wasn’t—this couldn’t be happening. Hale staring at him strangely as if waiting for his response. “Is there a problem, Paul?”
“No,” Gordon responded, finding his voice with an effort. Forcing a smile to his face. “Not at all.”
Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors Book 3) Page 58
