by Andy McNab
‘Do you know where in Syria your brother is?’
It all rushed out of him, like air from a balloon: how Karza and Bala had suddenly volunteered, the picture his brother had sent back. As he talked, he realized what little information he had. She listened with the same blank expression. The kettle boiled, and she dropped a teabag into a mug with the Red Crescent emblem on the side. Maybe they really were organizing medical supplies. He couldn’t tell if she was paying any attention.
‘Milk and sugar?’
‘Both, please.’
She put the mug down. ‘What motivated him? Was he very committed?’
This wasn’t the moment to be honest.
‘I think they felt they could make a difference – though I don’t think he knew what he was getting into.’
The truth was far more banal. Sam likened it to the lure of gang culture. He imagined Karza’s childish glee at being given a gun for the first time and a sense of importance. His lack of imagination would have stood him in good stead. That much Sam had learned from his studies. Some of the most effective gang members were the least imaginative. No risk of seeing the other side of the argument or the consequences of their deeds.
Feeling better, the tea lubricating his scratchy throat, he gave her a version of his visit to his mother, her emotional plea to him to find Karza, and the encounter with Bala, his stump and the tag. There didn’t seem any point in holding back.
‘He got back. He’s lucky.’ Her voice had a harder edge.
‘So what happened to Leanne?’
‘She’s gone.’
‘To Syria?’
Her face clouded. ‘She’s in custody. There was some confusion about the priorities of the charity. It was supposed to be about taking medical supplies to the victims of conflict. But because they started sending people over, it’s having to be wound up.’ She waved at the bags and boxes.
Sam felt the chances of finding his brother diminishing by the minute. ‘Bala thought she might know where he is.’
‘Do you want to go and find him?’ There was more than a trace of irritation in her voice.
‘Well, not exactly.’ He didn’t want to sound like a coward, but nothing would induce him to go anywhere near the place. He hadn’t even any desire to go back to Bosnia. ‘You know, work commitments,’ he added weakly, because she looked like someone who would appreciate what he meant – then flushed; it sounded like a cop-out.
But she didn’t react. He had no idea what she was thinking.
She focused on him again. ‘What are your work commitments, exactly?’
He gave her a quick rundown, leaving out the Oxford débâcle. He hoped she was impressed and wouldn’t notice that he didn’t actually have a job. But he carried on regardless, as if her blank stillness and lack of response was a vacuum he had to fill. ‘But Karza’s not had the same luck as me. I think going to Syria could have been the making of him.’
‘So you love him very much,’ she said, without looking up. ‘Well, it’s just us and Mum. They’re all I’ve got. And he is the apple of her eye.’
‘It must be terrible for her, not knowing if he’s alive or dead – or something in between.’
Her gaze was cold, as if she couldn’t conceal her contempt for these naïve recruits, blundering into a war zone hopelessly unprepared. ‘People coming from the West, if they fall into the hands of government forces they tend to get singled out for – special punishment. And some of the rebel groups are also hostile to them.’
He closed his eyes for a moment, at the thought of having to tell his mother that her darling younger son was being tortured. ‘Is there anything you can do?’
She handed him a pad. ‘Write down your brother’s name, parents, date of birth, last known address, email and any phone numbers. Yours too.’
‘Can I ask why?’
‘Not all our callers come with the best of intentions.’
He reddened. ‘Of course, and I understand, but rest assured you’ve no reason to be suspicious of me.’
She left the room. He heard her go up the stairs, then more footsteps above. He sipped the tea. He had no experience of charities or organizations that sent people to war zones. All his focus was on domestic criminal behaviour, understanding what turned people into thieves and drug-dealers. He hadn’t a clue what had inspired his brother or Bala to go to Syria, other than some foolish search for excitement inspired by too much computer gaming and the belief, common to young men, that they were invincible. The last time they had met, Karza had talked with great reverence about his own internal jihad, the challenge to live according to his new-found faith. He hadn’t said anything about fighting the actual war. Prior to that, the two of them had never had a serious conversation about anything, except Karza’s lack of work or money. Now he thought about it, he should have seen it for what it was: a turning point.
Eventually Nasima reappeared, holding a printout. She looked troubled. ‘It’s not very good news. I’m sorry.’
Immediately he imagined breaking news of Karza’s death to their mother and somehow being blamed for it.
‘The militia he was with have been absorbed by ISIS.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The Islamic State of Iraq in Syria. They’re affiliated to Al Qaeda.’ She seemed slightly disappointed at his ignorance. ‘They captured them in the Salahedin district of Aleppo. It’s not clear whether they’re being held against their will or if they’ve joined them. There are some confirmed deaths but your brother’s name’s not among them, so that’s one good thing. He could have been injured and they’re treating him – or he might have escaped.’
‘Are there any hospitals?’
‘All medical facilities in the rebel-held areas are regarded by the government as legitimate targets. If he’s in need of attention he’s probably either in a safe-house or out in the hills somewhere.’
‘Can you get him out?’
‘You mean send him a ticket for easyJet?’
The gibe seemed to come out of nowhere.
He blushed. ‘I didn’t mean to imply that I thought it was easy.’
To his huge relief, she smiled slightly. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that we get a lot of relatives asking the same question when our focus should be on helping the Syrian casualties.’
‘Of course. What would it take? Is it a question of money? Not that I have much.’
‘We are a charity, Sahim.’
The room filled with the sound of sirens. Several police vehicles sped past the front door. She sighed. ‘Not a good situation.’ She seemed to expect a response.
‘Well, no.’
‘You don’t seem very bothered.’
He didn’t have a ready answer. The struggles of the Muslim community bored him. He had devoted his life to getting away from all that. Ranting imams, extremists rejecting modern society, women covering themselves and hiding away: it was a tragedy. Look at Jana: all the spark ground out of her. She summed up everything he hated about his culture. But so much of what they were struggling with they had brought on themselves. Even Bala’s tag. He’d had it coming to him.
But if he said this to Nasima, it might end his chances of finding Karza. So he settled for one of his stock sound-bites. ‘This country’s been good to me. I’ve a lot to be grateful for. I know it’s not a popular view.’
She tipped her head while she digested this. In fact, it wasn’t a stock response: it was what he really believed. But now he was wondering if he had said the right thing. He was beginning to get the feeling he was being auditioned. Was this the right line to be taking if he was going to get them to help him find Karza?
She stood up. ‘We’ll try to find out more about your brother. I’ll contact you if we get anywhere.’
‘Or I could call you?’
She smiled bleakly. ‘All our calls and emails are monitored. Leave it with me.’ She moved towards the door. ‘I’ve got your address. I know where to find you.’
18
/> Malvern Hills, Worcestershire
The track was rutted and puddled, speckling Tom’s legs with mud as he pounded along. He ran fast, filling his lungs with damp English air to clear out the last of the sticky Helmand dust. He came to the brow of the hill and paused to take in the view. A grey mist hung in the trees like smoke. Even in this light, with the rain falling around him, it was serene. There was no sound other than that of a pair of blackbirds in conversation and, further away, the drill of a woodpecker. Just where the track dipped down and disappeared into the trees a Mondeo was parked, no lights on, but a wisp of exhaust indicated it was occupied. The car looked as if it had been driven a long distance down a rainy motorway, its colour almost completely obscured by a thick coat of road grime out of which the wipers had cut clean semi-circles.
Everyone in the village and its environs knew each other, and Tom dreaded a conversation with some well-meaning neighbour eager to hear about what he was doing for his country and so on. He kept going, but something about the car bugged him. He had seen it before. As he pounded on, he replayed his movements since his return but couldn’t place it. By the time he stopped to take a second look it was gone.
For the first twenty-four hours he had done nothing but sleep – turbulent semi-consciousness crowded with shattering dreams: Dave’s limp, blood-drenched frame, his frozen, wide-eyed expression; Qazi’s contemptuous sneer. The poor Afghan kid, already wounded, helpless as he died. He knew better than to try to resist these replays. They were part of a process that had to be gone through. Emotional cold turkey, he’d once heard an army shrink call it. He woke drenched with sweat, gasping for breath, as if some unseen hand had got him by the neck, mistaking the sweat for Dave’s blood. He had taken the precaution of locking himself in his bedroom. One of his mates had once broken his daughter’s nose when she came in to wake him.
He also dreamed of Delphine, the early carefree days, but then her face dissolved into frozen blocks of pixels.
During the day he virtually barricaded himself into the TV room, flipping between the BBC and Sky’s rolling news as they ran a continuous commentary on the riots. Not only had his own world been pulled from under him, the country itself was in turmoil. No wonder Delphine had wanted out. He thought of Blakey, coming home from fighting the Taliban to this.
He turned off the track and dived into the woods, following a trail he had blazed as a boy. These were the happy hunting grounds of his childhood, where long school holidays passed in a flash as he and his mates became SOE operatives dropped by Lysanders into the French forests to blow up Nazi trains. At the edge of the woods he paused to take in the view, the field falling away to their Georgian pile, shaded by century-old lime trees, against the backdrop of the Precambrian hills, 680 million years old. Most of their land was leased to a local farmer now, since he had shown no interest in farming. Was this what was waiting for him? Was he staring at his future? What the hell was he going to do next?
When he turned on his phone there were four missed calls, three from a withheld number, no messages. He hadn’t the energy to be curious right now.
The fourth was his father. Tom dialled and waited.
‘Hello, old boy! Welcome home and all that.’
Breezy and positive was Hugh Buckingham’s default mode. Tom guessed his mother had been on to him, full of worry, but Hugh would know better than to ask questions or offer sympathy. ‘Soaking up some of your mother’s TLC, I trust.’
‘Yeah!’
‘Well, when you’ve had enough of that, come up to town and have lunch. I need your perspective.’
‘On what?’
‘On what the hell’s going on.’ Hugh knew he wouldn’t survive more than a few days down there without getting cabin fever.
‘Yeah, okay.’
His father tried not to overplay his joy. ‘Come to the club and we’ll take it from there. And …’ He paused, sounding uncharacteristically hesitant. ‘Did that chap Rolt get hold of you?’
Rolt? Tom couldn’t place the name.
‘You know, the Invicta chap – patron saint of ex-soldiers. You were at school with him.’
They’d been in the same house – hardly best buds. ‘What does he want?’
‘Just asked you to call. He’s quite a big deal now.’
Tom had no inclination to talk to anyone, and especially not if they were connected with the forces. ‘Okay, Dad. Will do. See you.’
19
Westford Airfield, Oxfordshire
Gusts of wind blowing across the airfield rattled the ancient hangar, which creaked in protest. Hastily painted white during some brief conscription for a UN project, it was revealing its much hardier original khaki, showing through here and there, the last remnant of its Battle of Britain glory days. From outside, the only suggestion of activity, apart from a few parked cars, was a mobile scanner, its ten-metre dish pointing skywards to send and receive all encrypted communications. Inside, the resident pair of Cessnas had been shunted to one side to make room for Woolf’s makeshift operations base. Half a dozen work stations had been erected, along with a couple of large flat-screen monitors and the long table, at the head of which stood Woolf. He hated presentations but Mandler had insisted. ‘Think of it as a peer review,’ he’d suggested unhelpfully. But Woolf knew there would be no arguing. MI5’s section heads would have to be brought into the tent sooner or later.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, my apologies for dragging you away from your desks to this godforsaken backwater.’ Mandler gazed down at the group. ‘What you’re about to hear is known only to myself, Woolf and …’ he glanced at his notes while he tried to remember the names of Woolf’s team ‘… these two bright young things who have been watching his back.’
Cindy and Rafiq smiled in unison. Mandler smiled back, reflecting silently that Cindy, with her pierced lip, and Rafiq, with his iPod lead permanently trailing out of his trouser pocket, were both less than half his age.
‘The Joint Intelligence Committee has yet to be informed, same for SIS, GCHQ and DIS. Why we are keeping this so close to our chests should become apparent. So …’ he paused to frown at Woolf ‘… only the home secretary has been given a sneak peek inside the kimono in case we need to bring her on-side.’
He rubbed his hands together. ‘You all know James. He doesn’t just think outside the box. He tends to squash the box flat, toss it in the bin and leave us to pick up the pieces.’
There was a ripple of amusement.
‘Any questions, don’t hold back.’
He motioned to Woolf to begin. The group stared at him stone-faced, except Cindy and Rafiq, who maintained their frozen smiles.
Woolf stepped in front of the screen. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, meet the new face of British terrorism.’
He tapped a key to bring up the next shot, a soldier in dress uniform: gingery hair, freckles, intense gaze. ‘Retired Corporal Mick Vestey. Household Cavalry sniper, commended for killing two Taliban from more than a mile away. Here he is in his prime: Kandahar, 2007.’
The image changed to a shot of Vestey beside a Scimitar armoured reconnaissance vehicle, posing with his crew, tanned and oozing confidence.
‘Three days after this was taken the armoured vehicle he was travelling in hit an IED. He was blown clean out of it, suffered just cuts and bruises. The rest died underneath it, despite his frantic efforts to reach them. Two months later he was out of the Army, dishonourably discharged after attacking his CO with a knife.’
Woolf clicked onto the next picture. ‘Here he is that Christmas.’
Vestey was already looking the worse for wear: florid face, sunken cheeks and an air of defeat.
‘And by the following summer …’
He was almost unrecognizable in a police mug shot, eyes glazed and emaciated, in a filthy hoodie.
Woolf turned back to the group as the next photo appeared. ‘But here’s our same Mr Vestey just a few months ago.’
He was transformed, a slightly older version of the ma
n he had been in Helmand, showing none of the scars of his trip to the dark side, in a sports jacket, white shirt and blue tie.
‘Quite a comeback, wouldn’t you say? Clean as a whistle, gainfully self-employed in VIP security, guarding the rich and famous.’
A man at the back raised a forefinger. ‘Membership of shooting clubs?’
Woolf grinned. ‘Aha. Since you ask …’ He hit the pad and up came a still of the gated entrance to what looked like a very well-defended hotel. To the side of the gate was a large sign in gold lettering – ‘Invicta’.
‘This organization should need no introduction. Since the post-Nine/Eleven wars it has become Britain’s foremost charity for ex-service personnel.’
Woolf flicked through a sequence, which showed an impressive campus of buildings surrounded by mature trees and rolling lawns, a lecture theatre, an Olympic-sized pool, an extensive gym and a golf course. ‘This is their HQ in Hampshire. Among the state-of-the-art facilities there does indeed happen to be a shooting range.’
The screen changed to another shot of Vestey, this time in Iraq, posing with his L115a3 sniper rifle.
‘Now, let me take you back to the early hours of June the twenty-eighth this year.’
A series of images from the Suleiman shooting flicked past, with blurred images of the police SCO19s, their faces hidden by their baseball caps. Then a full-face photo of Suleiman.
‘The target: a blameless community worker, widely respected for his campaign against drug-dealers and gangs. A devout Muslim but also an avid promoter of integration. Absolutely nothing to connect him with crime or terrorism. But whose killing apparently by the Metropolitan Police, despite their strenuous denials, brings the entire British Muslim community out on the streets in protest.’
Woolf paused to glance at Rafiq, who nodded his agreement. ‘And the rest, as they say, is history.’ He scrolled through a sequence showing the worst of the riots, looting even in ‘respectable’ areas, and more than one police van on fire. ‘The most widespread civil unrest in my lifetime, certainly. And no sign of its abating.
