Firefight

by Chris Ryan

  It seemed like an age ago that Pankhurst had interrupted Will's morning visit to Laura and little Anna. So much had happened. Will felt a surge of guilt as he remembered the random night of lust he had spent with Kate, the journalist from the pub; and he realised that, out there in the freezing wilds of Afghanistan, for the first time in two years Laura and Anna had not been the first thing on his mind. The only thing on his mind. He suppressed an urge to go back to Hereford, to the grave, and apologise. Apologising to the dead was useless, he thought to himself as his breakfast arrived. Anderson, Drew and Kennedy wouldn't expect an apology. They would expect him to go out there and do the right thing.

  But sometimes it was difficult to know what the right thing was.

  With a pang, Will felt Laura's absence more keenly than he had done in months. She was good at things like this, at seeing to the heart of the matter. At putting Will on the right track. What would she urge him to do? To hunt down Faisal Ahmed and seek revenge on her account? Or to do as the Afghan had said? Ahmed's words rang in his ears. If you kill me, another person will take my place. Is it not better to target the real criminal behind this?

  Will shook his head. He couldn't do it. He couldn't let Ahmed walk free. And yet, if what he had told him was correct, Ahmed was not the only one to blame for Laura and Anna's deaths or for the deaths of the SAS soldiers he had led on this mission. Donald Priestley was complicit, at least as much a murderer as Faisal Ahmed.

  As these thoughts chased each other in circles around Will's head, he heard Laura's voice chiming in his mind, as clearly as if she were standing there with him.

  Be sure, Will, it said. Do what you have to do, but be sure of everything before you act.

  Will blinked. In an instant, the confusion that had shrouded him since the previous night disappeared, like mist burned away by the sun. His mind was suddenly clear. The way forward was obvious.

  He tucked into his food, suddenly content in the knowledge that he knew what he was going to do. Content in the knowledge that he had a plan.

  All he had to do was put it into action.

  *

  Lowther Pankhurst looked up from his desk to see Don Priestley storm through the door.

  'It's customary to knock, Don,' he said, mildly.

  'It's customary not to fuck up, Lowther,' the American practically shouted, his voice loaded with sarcasm.

  The call had come in several hours ago. Two of the SAS team dead, Latifa Ahmed missing and no word from Will Jackson. The surrounding area was being searched, but they were presuming that he had been taken hostage or was dead - there was no other reason for the radio silence from him. Since hearing the news, Pankhurst's day had got progressively worse and having the usually calm Don Priestley yelling at him wasn't making it any better.

  'Don't you British get it? Don't you understand what this guy is capable of?'

  'I think we have a pretty good idea what he's capable of, Don. 'He handed the fuming CIA boss a sheaf of A4 photographs. 'Your boys trained him pretty well.' The pictures showed the scene of devastation at the country house, along with gruesome, bloody close-ups of the dead men. The room resembled a battlefield. Priestley examined them for a moment before looking back at Pankhurst.

  'Two bodies,' the American noted. 'What about your third guy?'

  'Missing,' Pankhurst replied.

  It was a strange thing, but as he spoke Pankhurst couldn't help but notice a flicker of edginess pass over Priestley's face, as though what he had just said was not what he wanted to hear. 'Missing?'

  'We haven't found a body yet, but Will Jackson hasn't made contact. He's either dead or taken hostage.'

  Priestley nodded his head, slowly. 'Of course,' he said. 'Of course. Look, Lowther, I apologise for just now—'

  'No apology required, Don,' Pankhurst replied, politely, though he could sense that there was a hint of wariness in his own voice. 'It's a stressful situation for all of us. The Prime Minister has been informed and he's called a meeting of COBRA.We're working on the assumption that when Faisal Ahmed finds out what we did to his sister it will only spur him on. The city's on high alert. We might not be able to prevent what's coming, but perhaps we can limit the casualties.'

  Priestley's eyes narrowed slightly. 'You'll let me know if you find Jackson's body, Lowther?'

  Pankhurst looked at his CIA counterpart. There was no doubt about it. Priestley was edgy.

  'Of course I will, Don,' he replied. 'Of course I will.'

  *

  Will bought a change of clothes in a nearby department store, then took a tube to North London. He knew where he was going, but he had to trust to chance that she would be in. There was no one else he felt he could trust and right now he needed help more than anything else. He found he could navigate to the terraced house almost on autopilot, and at 10 a.m. he was ringing the buzzer for the upstairs flat.

  No answer. 'Shit,' he muttered under his breath, and continued walking down the street.

  Every hour, on the hour, he tried the doorbell. No luck. 'She'll be at work,' a neighbour told him at midday. Will nodded gruffly, put his head down and walked away.

  Come nightfall, he took up position at the corner of the street. It was just after eight o'clock that a black cab pulled up in front of the door. Will waited for the familiar figure to pay the driver and let herself into the flat before he approached again and rang the bell.

  'Hello?'

  Kate's voice sounded confused over the intercom, as though she was not used to receiving visitors at this time of night.

  'It's me. Will.'

  A pause. And then, almost kitten-like, 'Hello, Will.' The door buzzed and he pushed it open. He saw Kate waiting at the top of the stairs. 'You're an international man of mystery,' she giggled as he approached and Will wondered if she'd had a couple of drinks. 'I thought you'd swanned out of my life, never to return.'

  'I'm full of surprises,' he replied. Now that he was standing in front of her, he could smell alcohol on her breath. She wasn't too far gone, just mellow. She needed her wits about her if she was going to do what he intended to ask her, so that meant waiting till morning.

  'Aren't you though?' She stepped aside to let him in. 'Glass of wine?'

  'Thanks,' Will said. He watched as her attractive figure sashayed into the kitchen where she filled him a large glass of chilled white, then handed it to him with a look that would have been mysterious if Will hadn't seen it before. In this new world of uncertainties one thing at least was clear: he wouldn't be sleeping alone tonight. He took a sip and closed his eyes as he felt the alcohol hit his chest, then spread its relaxing tendrils through his body. For one night, at least, no one knew where he was; he could do nothing until the morning; he could try and forget about it all. He finished his glass of wine quickly and it was swiftly replenished by Kate, but he never got a chance to finish it. Only two gulps in, she was pulling him meaningfully towards her and pressing her lips against his. Will offered no resistance.

  It was a serious kind of kiss and when it was over he pushed her gently on to the sofa. She fell elegantly and looked up at him with a seductive smile. 'You know what?' she breathed. 'You've really made my evening.'

  'Mine too,' Will replied, feeling the almost unbearable stresses of the last few days slip momentarily away. 'Mine too.'

  They made love into the small hours and after that Will slept soundly. He awoke with the daylight to find Kate sitting up, a sheet wrapped around her. She was staring intently at him, her dark hair falling appealingly over the side of her face. Will smiled up at her.

  'Where've you been?' she asked.

  'Here and there,' he replied, evasively.

  'You're not going to tell me.'

  'I can't. There's lots of reasons why.'

  'OK,' she said. 'If you won't tell me that, then tell me why you left the SAS.'

  Will blinked. 'How did you—?'

  'I'm a journalist, Will. It's what I do.'

  'And do you do background research on
all your one-night stands?'

  'I'm not cheap,' Kate said suddenly, earnestly. 'I don't normally—'

  Before she could finish, Will had raised his hand and gently put his forefinger against her lips. 'I know,' he said.

  Kate nodded and Will had the impression she was glad to have got that off her chest. 'Why have you come back?' she asked, quietly.

  'To see you.'

  'You're a charmer, Will. But what's the real reason?'

  Will took a deep breath. She was sharp. 'I need you to do something for me.'

  Kate looked at him archly. 'I did quite a lot of things for you last night.'

  He smiled. 'This is a bit different. I want you to make a phone call. I'd make it myself, but the people I need to get in touch with would recognise my voice and I can't let that happen.'

  She looked at him seriously. 'Why not? Who am I phoning?'

  'His name is Donald Priestley. He works for the CIA in London.'

  Kate narrowed her eyes. 'Is this a wind-up, Will?'

  He shook his head. 'No. It's not a wind-up. It's deadly serious. I'm trying to find out if Priestley's been doing—' He searched for the words. 'Something wrong,' he concluded, a bit inadequately. 'If he finds out I suspect anything about it, I'm a dead man walking.'

  He had half expected Kate to panic when he spoke those words, but she didn't. 'And if he suspects that I know anything about it, what then?'

  'That won't happen,' Will replied, confidently. 'Because firstly, I'm not going to tell you any more; and secondly, he'll never find out. Nobody in the world knows I've ever met you and we're going to keep it that way.' He took her by the hand. 'I'm sorry, Kate. To lay this on you and everything. But I don't know who else to ask and you have to trust me. People have died because of what this man is doing and if I don't get this right, a lot more will follow. Will you help me?'

  Kate thought for a moment. 'I suppose there's not even an exclusive in it for me at the end of the day,' she said a bit wistfully.

  'No,' Will enunciated the word clearly. 'Kate, when this is done you have to forget all about it. Believe me, if you start snooping around, they'll kill you.'

  His words seemed to echo around the room. Kate looked at him, her eyes wide and her lips pursed. 'What do I need to do?' she whispered.

  'We're going to go to a public telephone,' he said. 'Somewhere well away from here. You're going to pretend to be a journalist.' He smiled. 'That's the easy bit. When you get Priestley on the phone, you're going to tell him that you know all about a thing called Operation Firefight. He'll tell you he doesn't know anything about it, but you need to be persistent. Tell him you'll be waiting for him beneath Nelson's Column tonight at seven o'clock. Then put the phone down.'

  'I don't have to meet the guy, do I?'

  'No,' Will replied, his face grim. 'You don't have to do anything else. I'll take it from there.'

  Kate fell silent. She was thinking carefully about what Will had just explained to her. 'There's no way they'll know it's me, is there?'

  Will shook his head. 'Trust me,' he said. 'I'm good at this sort of thing.'

  She gave a weak smile. 'Not the only thing you're good at,' she replied in a half-hearted attempt to lighten the mood. 'All right.' She said it quickly, as if she wanted to get the word out before she changed her mind. 'I'll do it.'

  Will closed his eyes. 'Good girl,' he said, softly. 'Thank you.'

  *

  They needed to make the phone call from somewhere a decent distance away from Kate's house, but that wasn't all. Priestley would have the capability to trace where the phone call came from, so the phone box they used needed to be out of the way of any CCTV cameras. That put lots of places out of bounds - shopping centres, Tube stations, even busy streets where any of the shops could have hidden cameras. The obvious solution would be to take Kate out into the countryside and find a phone box in some out of the way village, but that wouldn't do either. If Priestley knew that his anonymous caller had gone to such lengths not to be discovered, he would start to suspect that she was more than just a journalist: he'd know she was a pro.

  'I need to see your wardrobe,' he told Kate. She nodded silently - numbly, almost, as though she couldn't quite believe what she had got herself into - and opened up the large, white built-in wardrobes at the end of her bedroom. Will browsed through the clothes, selecting a heavy winter coat with a high collar, a scarf and a woollen hat with flaps that covered the ears - not the sort of thing he would have expected to find in Kate's bedroom, but which he was glad of nonetheless. 'Put them on,' he said shortly.

  Kate did as she was told.

  'Do you have some sunglasses?'

  She nodded and pulled a large pair of Jackie-O type shades from a drawer.

  'Perfect,' Will said. He looked out of the window. It was still raining. 'Umbrella?' he asked.

  'Two,' Kate told him, and she fetched them from the hallway.

  'Take the biggest one,' he said. 'It'll give you more cover.'

  'I thought you said no one was going to see me, Will.'

  'I did,' he replied. 'But this is just to make sure. Come on, we need to go.'

  They took the Tube down to South London. Will left the platform first, Kate following a few metres behind - he hoped that if anybody did clock them or go back and see them on CCTV, they would never think that they were together. Even if they did, Kate's features were sufficiently disguised for her to be unrecognisable.

  Once they got up to street level, they started walking - Will on one side of the road, Kate on the other, a few steps behind. They had agreed that they would walk quite some distance - several Tube stops, at least, so that if anyone decided to check camera footage from the stations nearest the phone box they ended up using, they would be thrown off the scent. It didn't take long for Will to become wet through in the rain, but Kate at least had the large umbrella, which not only kept her dry but also kept her head out of sight.

  After an hour walking, they came to a residential area. Terraced houses - no estates where CCTV would be all over the place. At the end of the road Will spotted a phone booth. It was just what he was looking for. He stopped and looked across the street at Kate, gave her a surreptitious nod, then watched as she walked on towards the phone box.

  All he could do now was wait.

  Christ, he thought to himself. He'd been doing a lot of waiting in the last few days, but for some reason this seemed more agonising than any of it. He was convinced that Kate would be safe - that wasn't the problem. The problem was that now he was on his own. What if his little plan didn't work? What if, by the end of the day, he was as much in the dark as ever? What would he do then?

  It was only ten minutes later that Kate returned, but it seemed much longer. She was walking hurriedly away from the phone box with her head down. Will let her pass, then started to follow. They walked in a random direction for at least half an hour before he caught up with her.

  'Well?' he asked.

  Kate looked up at him with wide eyes. 'I'm frightened,' she told him. He took her hand. It was shaking.

  'Did you speak to Priestley?'

  She nodded her head. 'He wouldn't speak to me at first,' she said. 'I got his secretary. But I said the words Operation Firefight and he was on the phone almost immediately.'

  I'll bet he was, Will thought to himself grimly. 'What did he say?'