by Chris Ryan
Three minutes later he returned. He had the wife with him, dressed in a floral nightdress, and the little girl in a panda onesie. Both were crying, and neither could take their eyes off the gun which the intruder who had just yanked them from their beds was waving at their heads.
‘Get on the ground,’ he said. ‘Face down, arms out. All of you. Now.’
The terrified family did as they were told. The sound of desperate sobs filled the room, but the two intruders were unmoved.
‘Make the call,’ one of them said. ‘Then we can get the fuck out of here.’
His companion took his phone from his pocket. He stuck it on to loudspeaker, and it beeped noisily as he dialled the number.
A thick plume of acrid smoke was rising from the isolation zone. Danny was standing in the main road. He knew what that smoke meant. He wondered if the lab team were burning just the Nigerian corpses, or if Ripley had been added to the impromptu funeral pyre. His lip curled at the thought. The whole village was strangely silent. Apart from the two stray militants, nobody had approached. It was as if they knew Chikunda was cursed.
His earpiece crackled into life. Tony’s voice. ‘The sat phone’s ringing. Get here, now.’
Danny turned and sprinted towards the vehicle. It took him twenty seconds to get there. By that time, Tony had opened the driver’s seat and was sitting there, the sat phone to his ear. Danny opened the passenger door. ‘Is it them?’ he demanded of Tony.
Tony nodded. ‘It’s them.’
Danny didn’t hesitate. He pulled out the adrenaline shots, released them from their sterile wrapping. He held the shot between his teeth as he ripped the sleeve on his prisoner’s good arm. When the skin was exposed, he sharply jabbed the needle into his arm and squeezed the syringe.
The effect was immediate. Their wax-faced prisoner’s eyes opened suddenly. He took in a sharp, noisy breath and for a moment he looked as if he was going to sit up.
Danny removed the spent adrenaline shot, chucked it on the floor, and then put his Sig to the prisoner’s head.
‘Listen carefully,’ he said.
Bang on cue, a scratchy, distant scream came over the phone. It sounded like a kid. Terrified and whimpering. Then a man’s voice, strained, quiet, but also scared. ‘James,’ the man said. ‘It’s me, it’s your father. They have your sister . . .’
The prisoner made a sharp intake of breath. His bloodshot eyes rolled. Danny had the impression that he was trying to say something, but couldn’t.
Another scream. A different voice. Older. Female. ‘Leave her alone!’ shouted the man at the other end of the phone. ‘Don’t hurt her . . .’
The prisoner was breathing very heavily. He managed to whisper three words. ‘Make . . . them . . . stop . . .’
‘There’s only one person that can make it stop,’ Danny said. ‘You. Who was the Chinese guy? Where was he going?’
Another pained, noisy intake of breath. The prisoner’s eyes rolled again. No reply.
Danny grabbed the sat phone from Tony. ‘Kill the father,’ he shouted into it, figuring that a cunt like this would be more attached to his dad than to the girls in the family.
‘No!’ the prisoner breathed. ‘Wait! No!’
‘Wait!’ Danny instructed down the phone.
Another scream from London, but then silence.
‘What’s the Chinese guy’s name? You’ve got five seconds to answer.’
‘Chiu,’ the prisoner breathed. ‘That’s all I know. I called him Mr Chiu.’
‘What was he doing here?’
‘Tests,’ the prisoner whispered. His voice was cracking badly. ‘On the Nigerians . . . to show that the weapon worked, before . . .’
His eyes drooped closed.
‘Before what?’ Danny shouted.
He handed the phone to Tony and nodded. Tony spoke into the mouthpiece. ‘Hurt them.’
Another scream instantly crackled down the phone. The prisoner started to shake. ‘Before they use them,’ he managed to say.
‘How are they going to use them? I said, how are they going to use them!’
‘Vectors,’ the prisoner said. ‘That’s all I know . . . vectors . . .’
‘What the fuck are vectors?’
The prisoner’s eyes were closed. He shook his head, then winced suddenly with pain. ‘Let my father go,’ he whispered. ‘Please, let him . . .’
He couldn’t finish his sentence. His breathing had become alarmingly shallow. Danny pressed two fingers to his jugular. The pulse was there, but weak.
He unwrapped the second adrenaline shot. One fierce jab and the liquid was pumping into the prisoner’s veins. He drew another sudden intake of breath.
‘What do you mean by vectors?’
‘I don’t know,’ the prisoner croaked. ‘I just heard the word. Please let him go . . .’
‘Where was Chiu going? He was taking you somewhere? Where?’
‘A ship.’ His voice almost wasn’t there. Danny instinctively knew the bastard didn’t have long.
‘Which ship? Where?’ His body shuddered. His breathing sounded worse than Ripley’s had. ‘I swear to God your old man gets a bullet in the head if you don’t tell me where!’
‘Bight . . .’ The prisoner caught his breath. ‘Bight . . . Benin . . .’
Finally. Something concrete. But Danny wasn’t done yet. ‘What are the Chinese doing in the pocket of Islamist militants? Who’s he working with? Who’s he taking orders from?’
The prisoner shuddered again. His lips were blue.
Danny leaned in close. He could smell the prisoner’s stinking, dying breath. ‘This is your last fucking chance,’ he said. ‘Give me a name, or your family get it.’
His eyes rolled up into the top of his sockets. He seemed to sink lower in the seat of the Range Rover, and the deep, long breath that he exhaled had a dreadful air of finality about it. But as he breathed out, Danny caught one word, barely audible as the prisoner expired.
As Jihadi Jim’s eyes rolled to the top of his head, Danny heard Tony talking to the hoods at the other end of the phone. ‘If you can get away with it, clean up and don’t get caught,’ he said.
A part of Danny wanted to object. The last thing they needed was to be linked to three dead bodies in a Peckham semi, even though it would probably just look like a vigilante killing. But he said nothing as Tony gave his brutal instruction. He was still trying to make sense of Jihadi Jim’s dying word.
The word was: ‘Caliph . . .’
PART TWO
Hellfire
FOURTEEN
Doha, Qatar. 11.30 hrs, Arabia Standard Time.
It was, by any standards, an extravagant apartment. This penthouse flat, the crown on the top of a sparkling, mirrored skyscraper, would have comfortably housed a family of six, with a bedroom and bathroom for each of them, and a personal elevator that gave private access to the pool on the top of the building and the health suite in its basement. There was art on the walls – a blue-period Picasso of a crying woman took pride of place in the main reception room – and all the floors were clad with expensive marble and furnished with luminous Persian rugs. Fresh flowers, imported all the way from Holland, were delivered daily.
By any measure, it was far too big for the elderly couple who lived here alone.
Their names were Ali and Nafy Al-Essa, and they would never have thought that their old age would be lived out in such luxury. Every day they gave thanks, and since they wanted for nothing, they made sure they gave all they could to charity, in accordance with the wishes of the Prophet.
This morning they sat, as they always did, in orthopaedic leather chairs that reclined electronically. The sofas in the apartment were all too low for them. If they tried to sink in to them, they always told anyone who would listen, the chances were that they’d never get up again. It was probably true. There was a zimmer frame by Nafy’s chair, and a single crutch by Ali’s. Walking was a slow and painful process, so they did it as little as possible –
a few steps from the bedroom to the chairs in the morning, then back to bed at night. The old lady wore a urinary bag, for medical reasons.
In the meantime, they spent their days surrounded by luxury, gazing out of wide windows over the impressive skyline of the capital city they were now too decrepit to enter. At their age – they were both seventy-eight – there were worse ways to spend your life. They certainly knew they enjoyed a better old age than their own parents had – weather-hardened Bedouin for whom surroundings like this would have been unimaginable. On very clear days, like today, they could see far towards the ocean horizon, and on clear nights they could see little lights twinkling out there. Those little lights were a reminder of the riches that kept them in such style. They were the burning flames atop the oil rigs owned by their son, Ahmed bin Ali al-Essa. Those rigs were the source of his great wealth, and of his parents’ luxury.
They were proud of their only son. Prouder than they could say. His photograph stood on a small Chippendale table beneath the Picasso, and they always looked at it more fondly than they did the painting. It was true that they seldom saw Ahmed. He was a very busy man. Why, even now he was on business in Saudi Arabia. But he ensured that they lived a comfortable life, and he called in to see them whenever he could. In the meantime, he saw to it that their simple needs were attended to by a series of very capable carers and nurses who popped in at regular intervals throughout the day.
When they heard a pinging sound from the doors of the private elevator, they knew it was the chef, arriving to prepare their lunch. He was a Frenchman called Ducasse. It always took him about an hour and a half to prepare their three courses, and he would stay until they had finished so he could clear up. They had got to know him well – well enough for him to have his own lift pass to get into their apartment – and they looked forward to his cheerful ‘Bonjour’ when he arrived each day.
There was a hissing sound as the elevator doors slid shut. But there was no ‘Bonjour’.
‘Ducasse!’ Ali called from his reclining chair. They always spoke in English – the only language they had in common. ‘What delicious morsels do you have for us today?’
They expected Ducasse to reel off a list of exotic and expensive ingredients. But he was silent.
‘Ducasse?’
Silence.
Ali pressed a button on the arm of his reclining chair. There was almost no noise as the back moved up to a right angle. With a painful wince, Ali straightened his old bones, then grabbed hold of his crutch with his left hand. With difficulty, he hauled himself to his feet. ‘Why so quiet today, Ducasse?’ he asked. He had a smile on his thin face as he looked round to greet the Frenchman.
The smile soon fell from his face.
Ducasse was there alright, but so were three other men. At least, Ali assumed they were men. Their faces were covered with black balaclavas that matched their black trousers and tops. One of them stood directly behind Ducasse. He was clutching the Frenchman’s hair with one hand and had yanked his head back so that his neck was fully exposed. Resting against the flesh of the neck was a broad-bladed knife. Ducasse’s normally jolly red face was pale and drawn.
There was a horrible moment of stillness, as if everybody in the room had frozen. Then, with just the faintest flick of his wrist, the knifeman sliced into the neck.
The cut was no more than two inches long, but it was deep. There was a sudden fountain of blood, which splattered on the marble floor a good couple of feet in front of the chef. It quickly subsided into a relentless ooze that drained down his neck and soaked grimly into his cooking whites.
Ali stepped back. He glanced, horrified, towards his wife. She was still reclining, her eyes closed. She had no idea what was happening.
Ducasse tumbled heavily, first to his knees, then flat on his face. The three masked men stepped forward. Ali couldn’t speak from horror. He shook his head, and stretched his arm out towards his wife, who still didn’t know what was going on behind her. He wished, more than anything, that he could make her remain oblivious to it all.
But that wasn’t possible. Because as they moved towards the reclining chairs, the man who had cut Ducasse’s throat, and was still carrying the bloodied knife, spoke. No English now. Arabic. ‘Ali Al-Essa?’ he asked.
Ali nodded as his wife’s eyes pinged open. ‘Who is it, Ali?’ she asked. ‘Isn’t it Ducasse?’
He looked at his wife, and suddenly found his voice. ‘Whatever you do,’ he whispered, ‘don’t look back.’
She gave him a confused look as the knifeman repeated his question. ‘Ali Al-Essa?’
Ali nodded.
‘You are the father of Ahmed bin Ali al-Essa?’
Ali felt a knot of anxiety in his stomach. What could men like this possibly want his son for? He peered more closely at the knifeman, and only then did he see, on the shoulder of his black top, a badge with the insignia of the Islamic State. Like most ordinary citizens, he loathed the very thought of that organisation. But he had learned to fear them greatly.
‘Ahmed isn’t here,’ he breathed.
‘We know he’s not here, you stupid old man. You’d do better to answer the questions we ask you. It will be easier that way. Are you his father?’
Ali nodded, then shrank back. The two other men had taken up position right behind Nafy’s chair. She clearly knew somebody was there, and she was shaking.
‘What do you want?’ Ali said. ‘Why did you . . .’ He was about to say ‘kill Ducasse’, but he held back because he wanted to spare his wife the horror.
‘Your son is as stupid as you,’ said the knifeman.
‘What do you mean? My son is very intelligent, a very rich man. If this is about money, I can assure you that he will be able to pay you anything you . . .’
The knifeman spat. ‘It is nothing to do with money,’ he said. ‘Your son has done a very stupid thing.’
‘Who is talking about Ahmed like that?’ Nafy said in a small, frightened voice.
She tried to sit up, but Ali immediately said: ‘Don’t move!’
She shrank back down in her seat again. ‘What has Ahmed done?’ Ali said. ‘And what does it have to do with Ducasse?’
The knifeman looked over his shoulder. ‘You mean that infidel? He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. As for what your son has done, he has spoken to the infidels about someone he should not have mentioned.’
‘What?’ Ali replied. ‘What are you talking about. Who?’
The knifeman stared at him for a moment. Then he suddenly turned on his heel and walked back towards Ducasse, whose almost dead body was quivering on the marble floor. He bent over and dipped the point of his knife in the dying man’s bleeding wound. Then, on the wall behind him, he started drawing some Arabic symbols. He had to return to the wound four times to get enough blood to finish whatever he was writing – Ali couldn’t make it out because he was standing in the way. Only when the knifeman was done did he step back to admire his work.
Ali’s weak eyes squinted at the gruesome graffiti. It was a single word. It said, in Arabic: ‘The Caliph’.
‘Ali,’ Nafy whimpered. ‘I’m scared. What is happening?’
‘I don’t understand,’ Ali said. ‘Who is the Caliph? What does all this mean?’
‘The Caliph,’ said the knifeman, who was now walking back towards him, ‘is the person your son informed on. When that happens, the Caliph demands a punishment. But not from the person who committed the crime. What kind of deterrent would that be? The Caliph demands that the punishment is exacted upon the family of his enemies.’ A sickly smile appeared on his lips. ‘That means you.’
This was too much for Nafy. She sat up with great difficulty and looked over her shoulder. When she saw the masked men standing behind her reclining chair, she screamed. It wasn’t a long scream, nor a particularly loud one – her old lungs weren’t up to it – but it was clearly enough that the intruders wanted it to stop.
So they killed her first.
T
hey killed Nafy in the same way as Ducasse: by pulling back her head and quickly slicing the neck with the easy skill of a practised butcher. Nafy’s heart was weaker than Ducasse’s had been, so the initial fountain of blood that erupted from her neck was much less powerful. She made a strangled, gurgling sound and reached out to her husband. He saw that her fingertips were already stiffening, and as her thin arm flopped down, a moan of dread and despair escaped his lips. His wife. His wife! Who had been by his side since they were teenagers . . .
Anger followed on the heels of his despair. He wanted to fight these people. But there was nothing he could do. He was a statue, frozen in terror and helplessness. As the original knifeman stepped round his reclining chair towards him, he raised his crutch, hoping to swipe this animal round the head with it. But it was a pathetic attempt. Supported now only by his frail two legs, he stumbled and fell against the reclining chair.
He felt hands on him. The knifeman was turning him over so that he was sitting properly in the chair.
‘Get off me! Get off me!’
The knifeman didn’t reply. He pressed his free hand against the old man’s chest, then activated the button that forced the chair to recline. Ali tried pathetically to wriggle, but it was no good. His attacker was far too strong. Just a few seconds later he was fully lying on his back, the masked man looking over him, clutching his knife: a diabolical surgeon standing over his terrified patient.
‘People need to understand that the Caliph does not want to be talked about, and he does not want to be seen. Tell me, old man, what do people use to talk?’
At first Ali didn’t reply. But when his attacker swiped him brutally across his face he whispered: ‘Their tongue . . .’
‘Good,’ said the knifeman. ‘And what do they use to see with?’
‘Their . . . their eyes,’ the old man stammered.
