Fortress

by Andy McNab

  Phoebe was back on.

  ‘Okay, Zuabi’s showing no POI status: not a Person of Interest. Appears to have no form at all. He arrived in the US as a refugee from Syria in 2006, and seems to have carved out a presence for himself in something called the Southern States Caucus for Interfaith Learning. Otherwise, no profile. He’s not even showing up on the FBI’s Watch List.’

  ‘Okay, thanks. Look, if you’ve got the time to go deeper, he seems to be heading up a very generously endowed new mosque, part of the regeneration of a rundown part of Houston. It’s massive. Be good to know where the money’s come from. And something else: I need a caller ID.’

  He read off CF’s number. There was a pause.

  ‘It’s a gun shop. Confederate Firearms, proprietor one Lester Colburn. There’s a red flag against him. He also runs a website called Refugee Resettlement Watch. I don’t much like the sound of that. Look, Tom, you can obviously handle yourself, but these are very murky waters.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. Hey – thanks.’

  ‘Can I ask how this connects with Invicta?’

  ‘I’ll have to get back to you about that. Thanks again.’

  He killed the call and searched Confederate Firearms on his phone. For your weapon of choice, look no further. We have the most extensive range in the county … friendly attentive service. He looked at his watch: 4 a.m. A bit too early to go and buy a gun, even in Texas.

  57

  Confederate Firearms was in the Northside district of Houston: a windowless, metal, single-storey structure in a street of anonymous warehouses. He parked Kyle’s van and went inside.

  Even to someone with his experience of weaponry, the sheer scale of the place was breathtaking. Rack after rack of rifles, pistols and assault weapons and even a ‘ladies’ section in one corner with small, pink-finished handguns for girls. Welcome to Texas.

  Colburn was behind the counter: late fifties or thereabouts, thin, with a florid John Wayne kind of face and small, squinting eyes that stared at Tom suspiciously. He was flanked by two larger men, one of whom looked younger, their checked shirts bulging over their belts.

  ‘Good morning!’ Tom figured a friendly demeanour, plus the accent, might help break the ice, along with a few knowledgeable but generic questions about the merchandise. He glanced up at a wooden plaque with the motto ‘sic semper tyrannis’. ‘Thus always to tyrants’.

  Colburn nodded. ‘That there’s the state motto of Virginia, my home state.’

  ‘And the words shouted by John Wilkes Booth after he shot Lincoln, I believe.’

  Colburn nodded again, slowly. ‘God rest his soul.’

  ‘Lincoln’s or Booth’s?’

  Colburn’s mouth came close to what might have been described as a smile. ‘Ain’t it obvious?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘You figuring on making any purchase today?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Tom took a step closer and lowered his voice. ‘Actually, I was also hoping to find out about Refugee Resettlement Watch.’

  Colburn changed his tone. And the two assistants moved closer. Their earnest expressions struck Tom as faintly comical. Their name tags said ‘Don’ and ‘Phil’, one late forties, the other maybe sixty: weightlifters, but sluggish with it. ‘What’s your interest in that?’

  ‘Well, you’ve seen the news about Britain?’

  ‘We sure have. You guys having a lot of trouble with your Muslims?’

  ‘Not just them.’

  He reeled off a random list of gypsies, Africans, Indians and other ‘undesirables’, with a bit about the ‘Jew-controlled media’ for good measure.

  Phil and Don started nodding. Tom kept his gaze guileless and open.

  ‘I believe you’ve got the same problem we have.’

  Colburn kept still, his eyes on Tom.

  ‘And what problem exactly might that be?’

  Whatever brand of fascist Colburn was, he was no fool. Tom guessed he’d been under the spotlight of the security services at some point, so wouldn’t be about to share his deepest-held views with just anybody who walked in. He would have to make the running.

  ‘But Muslims are the worst problem. They’re the ones who bombed our capital on Seven/Seven. They’re the ones trying to destroy Christian values and bring down Western society. And it’s reached the point that back home some of us want to do something about it.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, you know what it’s like there.’ Tom gestured at the merchandise. ‘We don’t have the … resources you guys do.’

  ‘You said it, boy.’ Don grinned widely, revealing intermittent brown teeth. ‘Judgin’ by what I seen on the news, it’s gettin’ a little outta hand over there, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘We do say. And that’s why I’m here.’

  Colburn seemed to be buying it. Tom breathed out a little. ‘This is it. And I gather you’ve got a particularly big Muslim problem right here in Houston.’

  ‘Sure have. And it ain’t going away.’

  ‘What do the authorities say? Are they concerned?’

  The ice broke. Colburn thought this was hilarious. He looked at Don and Phil. Don joined in the laughter. Phil was examining something on his phone.

  ‘Concerned? Rollin’ out the red fuckin’ carpet’s more like it.’ Tom put on a slightly puzzled face: keen to learn.

  ‘See, they’re real good at making the right friends. Money talks loudest here, and some of these guys got serious megabucks. One of ’em, he’s got billions coming in from somewhere.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘You seen the mosque going up? The imam there, Zuabi, he’s loaded, enough to wage global jihad right from his pulpit. But he’s wised up. He’s got PR men and lawyers and all, got the mayor and Chamber of Commerce kissin’ his dirty fuckin’ brown ass.’

  Don chipped in: ‘He’s a fuckin’ Syrian, for Pete’s sake. Very pious and God-fearin’. Only it ain’t God he’ll be fearing, right about—’

  Tom saw Colburn throw a warning glance at Don, who stopped in mid-sentence.

  ‘That right?’ said Tom, casting an admiring eye over the racks of guns surrounding them.

  ‘Hey, Lester, over here a second.’

  Phil had wandered towards the front of the shop and was looking out of the door at Kyle’s van.

  ‘I’m shootin’ the breeze with our English friend here.’

  But Phil clearly wanted his boss’s attention urgently. It had to be the van. As if they were telepathically connected, all three now had their weapons in their hands, each of them close enough to get a clean shot but not so close that Tom could do anything about it. Welcome to Texas.

  58

  ‘Is there a problem?’

  Tom maintained the dismayed-visitor pose but he knew it was timed out.

  Colburn was keeping his weapon in his hand below the waist but his eyes fixed on Tom. ‘In the back, motherfucker.’

  Tom raised his hands.

  They reached the doorway of the back office, where a desk was piled with paper and a monitor showed the CCTV. Phil was already through the door so there was going to be a second pair of eyes and another weapon on him when he passed through.

  This was Texas; their buddy was dead and they were looking at the reason. Tom knew there was no thinking about what he had to do, he just had to get on and do it – and maybe come out of it the other end. He kept his eyes down, focused on Colburn’s gut with the weapon in the right hand, down by the thigh. He slammed his shoulder hard into Colburn, who toppled over, taking Don with him. This gave Tom just enough space to get past and through the doorway. He started towards Phil.

  Everything was now in ultra-slow motion. Phil and Tom had eye-to-eye. Phil should have known what Tom was going to do; he could have stopped, he could have put his hands up.

  Tom heard shouts behind him. He caught the reaction in Phil’s eyes as he jinked to the left and out of sight of the other two just outside the office, his left hand reaching down. Tom ke
pt looking at the target. With his left hand he grabbed a fistful of his own shirt front and yanked it up, his elbow held high to make sure he could clear the material from his stomach and expose the pistol grip of the suppressed Glock. He’d only get one chance.

  They still had eye contact. Phil started to shout but Tom didn’t hear. He pushed the web of his right hand down onto the pistol grip. If he got this wrong he wouldn’t be able to aim correctly: he would miss and die. As he felt his hand make contact with the pistol grip, his lower three fingers clasped tight around it. His index finger was outside the trigger guard, parallel with the barrel. He didn’t want to pull the trigger early and kill himself. Phil was still looking, still shouting.

  Phil’s hand was nearly at his pocket.

  Nothing else mattered for Tom, apart from bringing his weapon into the right position all in a fraction of a second.

  Their eyes were still locked. Tom knew he was faster, and he saw that Phil knew he had lost. There was just a curling of the lips. Phil knew he was going to die.

  As Tom’s pistol came out he flicked it parallel with the ground. No time to extend his arms and get into a stable firing position.

  His left hand was still pulling his shirt out of the way and the pistol was now just level with his belt buckle. There was no need to look at it: he knew where it was and what it was pointing at. He kept his eyes on the target and Phil’s never left Tom’s.

  Now the muzzle was clear from his waistband, Tom simply brought the weapon up, twisting his wrist to raise the weapon’s barrel until it was parallel with the ground and against his hip, making sure he cleared his body away from the muzzle as much as possible.

  Bend that hip back and he knew he’d have a firm position for the pistol.

  He pulled the trigger.

  The weapon report seemed to bring everything back into real time. The first round hit Phil. Tom didn’t know where; he didn’t need to. His eyes told him all he wanted to know.

  He kept on firing low into Phil. There was no such thing as overkill. If Phil could move, he could fire. If it took a whole magazine to be sure, then that was what he’d fire. He took three rounds until he was down onto the ground, writhing in pain and shock as blood spurted out. Tom could no longer see Phil’s hands. He was curled up in a ball, holding his stomach. Tom moved forward and fired two aimed shots at the head, then spun round.

  The other two were now in the room. Tom kept firing low until they, too, were down, in a lake of their own blood. As their legs flailed, they smeared it, like angel wings in the snow. The men’s screams sounded muffled for a moment; it wasn’t until Tom started to move that the volume bounced back up.

  Colburn collapsed into the doorway, blocking it, but for now that didn’t matter. All that did was getting the weapons away from reach.

  Colburn tried futilely to grab hold of him. Tom turned, brought the pistol down against his thigh and zapped off another round.

  That one definitely hit the bone. He heard the thud and crunch. Colburn’s screams drowned out the others’.

  Tom grabbed him by the feet and pulled him into the room. The expanse of blood on the floor made it easy. He closed the door.

  Don was closest to him. Tom bent down into his face and screamed at him: ‘Why are we all fucked up because of the van?’

  All Tom got was a mouthful of blood spat out at him. There was no time for this. Don got another round, this time into his gut, before Tom turned and went back to Colburn.

  Colburn had got the message. ‘It’s been seen.’

  ‘By who? By Jefferson?’

  He got a shaky nod.

  ‘Zuabi? You know who I’m talking about, don’t you? What about Zuabi?’

  He didn’t give any indication whatsoever. Tom leaned down again. ‘What the fuck has it got to do with Jefferson? What was his problem with Zuabi?’

  Colburn hesitated.

  ‘Yes, Jefferson’s dead. Want to join him?’

  Tom could see it clearly in his face, even if it was screwed up in pain as he breathed in short, sharp pants: message received.

  ‘Mogadishu – Black Hawk down, man. He lost his brother. Those fuckers cut him into little pieces. Motherfuckers cut him up. And now they’re over here, taking over the country. That’s the fucking problem.’

  Tom went over to the CCTV and ripped out the hard drive. Some wires were screwed in, some clipped. Leads dangled out of the back, like long, slim dreadlocks.

  Then he grabbed hold of the cordless phone as the monitor started to pixellate and threw it through the door to join the weapons in the shop.

  Colburn gave a sob and his breath came shorter and weaker.

  Tom stuck his head back through the door. ‘If you fuckers tell anyone about what’s happened here, you know I’ll be back looking for you.’

  He closed the door, then wiped the handle with his sleeve and headed for the van.

  59

  Back in his hotel room, Tom showered off the dust and blood, then had a much-needed shave. He put on his lightweight Hugo Boss suit with a fresh shirt and studied himself in the mirror, checking for the moment he turned back into the polite, reasonable envoy from Invicta. There were two missed calls from Rolt, neither of which he had acknowledged. Instead he texted a non-committal All good so far. Stutz meeting next. He knew what he needed to do and didn’t want to have to talk to him right now. He went downstairs.

  Beth was waiting for him. ‘Howdy! How was your night?’

  ‘Good. Yours?’

  She giggled. ‘Aw, just fine. You have a good time with Kyle? You two go way back, right?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

  A slight dilating of the pupils suggested she wanted to know more, but that was all she was getting.

  Stutz was in the boardroom, alone, hunched over some documents. ‘Just waiting on Skip. He needs to be here for the formalities. How was your evening with Kyle?’

  Tom closed the doors behind him. ‘I’ve got some good news and some bad news.’

  Stutz looked up.

  ‘We paid a visit to Jefferson. Kyle didn’t make it.’ Stutz’s eyes narrowed. ‘But neither did Jefferson.’

  Relief spread over Stutz’s face. Tom described the ambush much as it had happened, with a few cosmetic changes. When he was done, Stutz’s expression softened into a grin. He stood up, came round the table and pumped Tom’s hand. ‘I knew I could count on you.’

  That confirmed he had arranged it. How far had he expected Tom to go?

  ‘Kyle was loyal, but he was losing his edge. Good job you stepped up.’

  ‘You’ll look after his family?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. You can count on it.’

  There was a pause while Stutz returned to the document in front of him. Evidently it was no trouble for him to digest the news about the loss of one of his closest lieutenants. But Tom couldn’t leave it there, couldn’t walk away from two corpses without knowing more about them.

  ‘So Jefferson was a problem for you – what had he done?’

  ‘Not what he’d done, what he was going to do. That’s what Skip’s software is all about, catching them before it’s too late.’

  ‘Who was his target?’

  Stutz smiled. ‘Let’s just say he was a threat. Better you don’t know. It’s less complicated that way.’

  There was an air of finality to his reply, and in the interest of keeping in with him, Tom changed the subject. ‘The presentation last night, the whole digital fortress concept, Skip really blew me away.’

  Stutz grinned. ‘Drives me nuts, but the kid’s a goddam genius.’

  ‘Other than taking them out, like we did Jefferson, what happens with all the others? When you’ve run your checks on the individuals you’ve decided are a potential problem.’

  Stutz got up and indicated the huge picture window. Forty-five floors down, office workers criss-crossed the plaza, oblivious to the ambitions of the man looking down at them.

  ‘See those folk down there? We’ve not done r
ight by them. We’ve spent their taxes on two expensive wars supposedly to protect them. We’ve failed to win either, and we haven’t made those people any safer. We owe them, big-time.’

  Tom waited for him to go on.

  ‘What’s happening in Britain right now, the same could happen here, maybe even worse. But our government’s hands are tied. After Nine/Eleven we should have pulled up the drawbridge, built the fortress. Instead, we send our best people, men like you, like Kyle, God rest his soul, to risk their lives in yet more costly and futile conflicts we’re still kidding ourselves we’re gonna win – you get what I mean?’

  He looked at Tom, to gauge his reaction.

  ‘Yeah, I follow.’

  ‘And down there, they’re all still looking around, watching their backs, wondering if they’re standing next to a jihadi. There are people right here in our midst who want holy war, want terror, want a caliphate, want revenge for Iraq and Afghanistan, want to take us back to the Dark Ages. So we’re gonna find someplace else for them to live.’

  There was an alarming messianic zeal in Stutz’s expression.

  ‘How will you do that?’

  He grinned. ‘Simple. We have money, we’ll do deals with those countries, pay them to take them back. One payment. Job done. Imagine freedom from fear, at a fraction of the cost of Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom, even Enduring Freedom.’

  Tom kept his composure. The sincerity behind Stutz’s vision would have been laughable if the implications weren’t so shocking – and naïve.

  ‘So, no more “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses …”, then?’

  Stutz nodded. Evidently the prospect of sweeping away the fundamental principle on which his nation was founded was not keeping him awake at night.

  ‘What about the moderates? The guy running a café or driving a cab? Or his cousin, who wants to come here and open a shop? Won’t they get caught in the net?’