by Conrad Jones
“No way, the smoke would attract too much attention,” Dewi replied sarcastically without even turning round to look at him.
“Very funny, I can tell that you’re a very funny guy. Maybe you could tell your jokes down at the employment exchange. They could get you a job on stage somewhere,” Japey slapped the headrest jerking the agent’s head forward. Dewi turned in his seat and glared at Japey. He hated faggots, and this guy was a first class faggot, and everyone knew it.
“Can we get a grip please ladies?” Anthony said. “The two targets are safely tucked up in bed, no telephone lines and no mobile phones registered to their apartment.”
“Do we have a snatch squad arranged?” Japey asked ignoring the glares from Dewi.
“Two good agents in the panel van parked one hundred yards down the street, on our left hand side,” Anthony pointed through the windscreen.
“And you have explained the need for complete secrecy to them I assume?”
“They only know the location, and that we are snatching two terrorist suspects. Once we have them they don’t need to know anymore than that,” Anthony answered without looking back.
“Good, and what time are set to go?” Japey looked at his watch. There was a black curly pubic hair stuck in between two of the stainless steel links in his watchstrap, evidence of a sordid encounter earlier in the toilets of the pink pickup joint. He flushed red, plucked it from the watch quickly, and flicked it on the carpet. As he looked up the two agents in the front were staring at him. They looked at the watch, and then him, and then each other. Dewi smirked and turned away.
“We are set to go in fifteen minutes,” Anthony answered, chuckling to himself.
“Right, good, and have we got access to the building down town?” Japey had flushed crimson, but he straightened his tie and composed himself. He was just being paranoid. No one could know that he was gay, could they?
“Director Ruth Jones is behind this operation, right?” Dewi asked.
“She can’t be seen to be involved, and when it hits the fan she will deny all knowledge of it of course,” Japey nodded and looked directly at Dewi, and he could see contempt behind his eyes. He was being paranoid again.
“Of course, but she will know who has been involved, right?”
“Oh don’t worry, you’ll all get yours, I’ll see to that personally,” Japey looked out of the side window avoiding eye contact this time.
“Where are we taking them?” Dewi asked.
“You don’t need to know that for now,” Japey gloated, as being in control gave him a buzz.
“What do you mean, we don’t need to know? We are sticking our necks out here, at least let us know what we’re getting ourselves involved in,” Dewi twisted in his seat and glared at Japey again.
“All you need to know is that we’re set to go in thirteen minutes,” Japey said looking at his watch. It was nearly time to put his plan into action.
Chapter Sixty-One
Tank
Tank hung up the telephone and turned to Chen. He had just been updated by his counterpart in the American intelligence agencies. They had a cordial relationship and a modicum of mutual respect between them, enough to inform each other of anything that could potentially put their people in danger.
“It seems that the missile attack in Egypt is off limits even to us,” Tank said. He picked up the telephone again and punched in a number with a thick finger. The Americans were keeping their cards close to their chest, and there appeared to be little or no information forthcoming about the missile attack. In Tank’s experience that meant only a hard core of senior people really knew exactly what had actually happened. The line connected at the other end.
“Have we got any information yet on rendition flights into the Sinai?” Tank asked.
“I was just about to call you, wait until you hear this,” the fat controller was on the other end of the line.
“That sounds like you’ve got good news,” Tank said.
“No, I certainly wouldn’t call it that.”
“Don’t keep us in suspense.”
“The Americans were due to hand over a tier one personality to MI6 agents last week, only the handover was suspended indefinitely,” the fat controller explained.
“Who have they got that we’re waiting to process?”
“Well, let me tell you what we do know first, and then I can tell you what we don’t know.”
“I don’t like the sound of this,” Tank picked up a pencil and bit down on the wood, crunching it between his back teeth.
“Neither did I, anyway, we do know that a rendition flight left Chechnya en route to the Middle East. It had two tier one personalities aboard. One of the bodies was transferred at a small airfield in Turkey, and handed over to the Spanish, something to do with the Madrid bombings a few years back,” the fat controller paused waiting for Tank to comment, but he didn’t. The silence at the end of the line spurred him to continue.
“The flight stopped several times to refuel and then rested at a small airfield awaiting instructions from MI6, guess where?”
“At a push I would have to say the northern Sinai area?” Tank answered sarcastically. He bit on the pencil again, splintering the wood. He could see what was coming a mile away, but he hoped he was wrong. His stomach turned.
“Correct, nothing too drastic so far, except the flight never took off from that airfield again,” the fat controller fell silent.
“And then the Americans wiped it from the face of the earth with Cruise missiles,” Tank added.
“Correct again, now here’s the punch line. The only rendition subject that we are expecting from the Americans is, guess who?”
“Lord Lucan.”
“Don’t be silly, he’s dead.”
“I was joking.”
“This isn’t funny Tank,” the fat controller knew that the news couldn’t be any worse for Tank, especially with Grace the way she was.
“I know it isn’t funny, but I don’t want you to tell me that the Americans have fucked up a rendition transfer of a tier one terrorist personality, who just happens to be our old friend Yasser Ahmed,” Tank snapped the pencil in half and bit his tongue at the same time.
“Correct again, I’m very sorry Tank. It has taken immense political pressure to get the CIA to admit that they’ve lost Yasser Ahmed, but they are saying that as far as they’re concerned he was killed in the missile attack, trying to escape,” the fat controller explained.
“That’s bullshit, and they know it.”
“I couldn’t agree more, but that is the line that they’re taking. He could be anywhere by now. The other news is that Northern Command have stood down their ground forces to amber alert, so they’re not expecting anything else to happen on American soil,” the fat controller added. “I call you when anything else comes through.”
“They’ve stood their Northern Command ground attack forces down,” Tank said thoughtfully, still holding the receiver in his hand.
“Did he say why?” Chen asked.
“When I spoke to my contact in Delta Force, he couldn’t say anymore than that, except that they were very concerned that the Jerusalem issue could cause an international incident of unprecedented proportions, and that they weren’t about to sit around and let the Israelis deal with the situation unassisted,” Tank said.
“And are we going to sit back and let the Israelis deal with the situation, assisted by the Americans?” Chen asked very slowly, spreading the words out to emphasise that he understood what Tank was thinking.
“Absolutely no chance, get two squads kitted up and ready to go in an hour. We’ll need an airlift to Jerusalem,” Tank stood up a flexed his thick neck muscles and the sinews in his jaw line twitched visibly.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Queen’s district, New York
Agent Japey stood at the bottom of some litter-strewn steps. Anthony and Dewi had already entered the brownstone tenement building, along with two members of an agency
snatch squad. The two Middle Eastern targets were in a scruffy bedsit situated on the second floor. Japey waited until his men had climbed the second staircase, and then headed in the opposite direction, down the stairs toward the basement. The stairs were worn smooth with decades of use, and the further he descended the more cluttered with refuse they became. He stepped off the last stair into a pile of trash, it felt too thick and spongy. Suddenly the pile of trash moved and groaned beneath his feet. A tramp struggled to pick himself up from his makeshift bed, tiredness and cheap booze dragged at his senses, making him sluggish.
Japey took a telescopic baton from his belt. He held the handle in his palm and extended it out quickly with a flick of the wrist. He lifted the baton high above his head, and then brought it down diagonally in a vicious arc. The baton split the tramps skull open, dropping him to his knees. Japey raised the baton again and landed a second heavy blow, shattering the vagrant`s spinal column, just below the first vertebrae. The tramp collapsed in a heap at the bottom step.
“Perfect,” Japey said under his breath. He took a cigarette from a brand new packet, lit it and nearly choked on the vile smoke. He coughed into his hand as he placed the burning cigarette into the dead vagrant’s hand. The tip of the cigarette glowed red in the dark stairwell. Japey placed discarded fast food wrappers around the tip of the cigarette and they started to smoulder. Japey ran to the basement door and slammed his shoulder into it, cracking the rotten frame and knocking the Yale lock from its housing. He pushed the door open and a smell of damp rushed out to meet him. Japey remained in the doorway as he removed a set of infrared imaging night sights from his jacket. He clicked them into place and looked around the basement to check that they were functioning. The body of the dead tramp appeared as a human shaped green blob, and the smouldering pile of litter that was starting to burn glowed brighter still.
Using the image enhancers, he moved quickly through the dank basement, until he reached the buildings fuse box. He pushed the main circuit breaker into the off position, plunging the entire tenement building into darkness. It was six short strides to the interior staircase, which would take him to the ground floor, and then nine creaking wooden steps brought him into the hallway. He could hear multiple footsteps moving above him on the second floor. There were muffled scuffling noises, and confused whispering. The agents had obviously been taken by surprise when the lights went off. Japey could hear shouting coming from several of the building’s drunken inhabitants, annoyed by the sudden power shortage. Apartment doors opened and slammed closed, adding to the rising cacophony of noise.
Japey took two Saudi made nine-millimetre APS automatic pistols from his inside pockets. He attached black metal noise suppressors to each barrel and waited in the darkness at the bottom of the staircase. The shuffling snatch squad were making good progress and had already reached the first floor landing. He had heard several altercations as tenants challenged the agents, and hollered about the loss of power. There was a loud shout of alarm, and then a thudding noise as Dewi punched an enquiring drunk back into his stinking flat. The drunk crashed onto the floor and the door slammed closed, as the snatch squad turned at the top of the stairs, and started to descend.
Anthony was at the head of the group halfway down the stairs, feeling his way in the dark, and guiding the others verbally. Japey covered their descent from the bottom of the stairwell with his pistol. The snatch squad were half way down the stairs, and everything was going like clockwork. This was a textbook extraction. Japey moved the pistol from the darkness behind the descending team, aimed at the lead man and fired. The nine-millimetre kicked in his hand as he fired three shots into Anthony’s chest. Three black patches appeared on his white shirt as he tumbled down the steps headfirst. Dewi reached for his gun instinctively, but a nine-millimetre slug slammed through his brow bone, liquefying his brains before it ripped the back of his skull off.
Japey swapped guns. He crouched down onto one knee and emptied a sixteen-bullet magazine into the remaining two agents, and the two Middle Eastern men. Within a few seconds, the snatch squad and their targets were slain, sprawled across the staircase. Japey sprinted up the stairs, taking them two at time, until he reached Anthony’s bloody corpse. He reached inside his jacket and removed his Glock. Japey clicked the magazine into his hand, checking that it was full, and then he reloaded it. He emptied the magazine into the two Arabs, and fountains of blood splattered the walls and ceilings of the rundown tenement. The noise from the unsuppressed weapon thundered through the tenement building. Shouting and panicked screaming could be heard coming from the upper floors.
“What the fucks happening man?” the unshaven face of a white man appeared over the banister, peering into the darkness.
“Yes, who gone and killed the lights man?” a black face joined the first at the banister rail.
Agent Japey fired twice from close range, directly into the two enquiring faces. Anthony’s un-silenced gun had woken everyone that wasn’t already awake. Doors were opening all over the building. The two heads at the banister blasted backwards in a shower of blood and bone fragments. A woman on the third floor started screaming, and she was quickly joined by several others. The pitch-blackness and gunfire was spreading panic through the buildings’ sober tenants, and confusion through the stoned ones.
A bright orange glow was spreading from the front door area, as the basement fire started to climb the floors. Japey ran toward the back of the building. He passed the basement stairwell, which was already a blazing inferno, and exited the building into an alleyway at the rear. He looked up and saw several of the buildings’ tenants clambering out of apartment windows onto a metal fire escape. The fire escape was fixed to the brickwork, and snaked down the building in a series of ladders and landings as far as the first floor. There was an extending section connecting the first floor landing to the street, which was locked up to prevent burglars from using the fire escape as an easy entry point. Japey scoured the alleyway, and found a discarded mop handle. He pushed a wheelie bin beneath the fire escape and climbed on top of it. The mop handle made a perfect wedge, preventing anyone extending the final section of the fire escape down to the alleyway. There was gridlock and chaos on the metal ladings, screaming and fighting as people tried to scramble away from the advancing inferno. Japey jumped off the bin and disappeared into the night.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Jerusalem
Chen was stood one hundred yards away from the Wailing Wall. He was wearing khaki cargo shorts, with big square pockets on each leg, and a simple white tee shirt. There was a baseball cap on his head emblazoned with the New York Yankees. To finish the outfit he had a camera hanging from his neck on a cord. The hat was protecting him from the blazing sunshine, but not from the intense heat. He was sweating profusely, only the bottle of mineral water that he had, was keeping him from keeling over. He looked like one of a thousand Chinese tourists in the ancient walled city.
A group of Hasidic Jews walked past him on the way to prayer. They wore black leather shoes and black socks, which were revealed by the short pedal pusher trousers that their religion prefers. They had long black suit jackets, and wide brimmed hats, with thick black ringlets of hair hanging over each ear. Chen didn’t think that they were in disguise, although if they were it would be a good one. They were just three of millions of similarly dressed Jewish pilgrims that entered the city every year.
Chen looked through his camera and scanned the square and the Temple Mount above it. The huge golden dome on top of the revered Islamic building, called the Dome of the Rock mosque glistened in the sunshine. He checked that six of his men were all in their various positions. He also identified four American agents, probably Delta Force, who were doing the same thing that the Task Force was, watching and waiting for something to happen. A voice came through on the coms unit in his ear, which looked like a normal MP3 player.
“Is everyone in place?” Tank asked. The link was direct to Chen and the Task Force men.
There was no central control unit here, as they were in an operational no go zone. If the Arab states knew that British and American Special Forces were operating in Israel there would be hell to pay.
“Roger that, there are some friendlies in position too,” Chen replied.
“I’ve seen a couple myself, Delta Force I think, and the Israelis have swamped the place with beggars,” Tank added. He was referring to the numerous crippled beggars that worked inside the city walls, living off the generosity of the pilgrim tourists. Israelis intelligence agencies used the fact that there were beggars on every corner to disguise their troops. Jerusalem had never seen so many beggars, but the problem was that the locals knew most of the genuine cripples by name, and a sudden influx of strangers aroused suspicion that something was afoot.
“Every gate into the city is guarded by Israelis troops, they’re searching everything that is coming into the city,” Chen said.
“Roger that, keep everyone on their toes, we haven’t a clue what we’re looking for, but I am sure that whatever it is, is already here,” Tank said.
