by Blake Banner
“Sue me. No time for this now. Let’s go!”
We ran for the door. I noticed absently in was the Al-Fakiha Import Company, which struck me as eminently appropriate. I put my elbow through the glass pane, reached in and turned the handle. Next thing, we were in a small office. It was dark, but by the filtered light of the streetlamps I could make out a shabby desk, a couple of chairs and an old telephone. On the left there was a black, impenetrable oblong: a doorway into the bowels of the building.
Harry spoke into his radio. “Alpha Two, we need backup. Gate is open, as is door, both courtesy of the U.S. Demolition Squad.”
“Roger!”
I whispered, “Did anybody bring a flashlight or a gun?”
“I imagine our friends in there brought both.”
Dehan said, “Why don’t we just turn on the light?”
She flipped the switch and flooded the room with light. We could now see through the open doorway, a short distance down a concrete corridor. There I could make out a large set of double doors. They had the look of warehouse doors. I moved toward them. As I stepped into the passage I saw there were stairs on the left leading up to the next floor. I shook my head at Harry. “You need to call in a firearms unit, Harry. If either of them has a gun, we are sitting ducks.”
I heard the crunch of feet behind us. Three uniforms were making their way in, led by a giant sergeant. They at least were wearing body armor.
“I’ll call it in, he said. But it could take at least an hour to get a firearms team here, if they send one. We actually have no real reason other than your bloody colon to believe they’re armed.” He turned to the uniforms. “Sergeant Lewis, go upstairs and see if there’s anyone there. Employ extreme caution, one or both of them may be armed.”
“Yes, gov.”
They started making their way up the stairs. I pushed open the doors to the warehouse. It was a large, cavernous, dark space. The air was chill.
I called out, “Sadiq! The place is surrounded! We have a firearms team on its way! You are not going anywhere. Give it up and hand over the material.”
There was only silence. I stepped in and peered to my right. The vast nave filtered away into shadows, with stacks of boxes piled against the walls. Dehan tapped my arm and pointed over to the left, where there was a small clapboard and glass office in the corner. I nodded, nudged Harry and pointed, indicating he should go left and I would go right. Dehan scowled at me and shrugged with a ‘what about me?’ look. I gestured at her dress with both hands. She showed me a finger, it wasn’t the one her ring was on.
Harry shouted again. “Give it up, Sadiq! You’re surrounded! Come out with your hands in the air!”
While he was shouting, I sprinted across the open space to a stack of boxes and took cover behind them. I could make out Arabic writing as well as English. It said they were full of dates. I was maybe fifteen feet from the office door.
I looked over at Harry and gave him the thumbs up, then I started shouting, “Don’t make this worse than it is, Sadiq! Cooperate and maybe you can strike a deal! Turn Queen’s evidence!”
I saw Harry dart toward the side of the office and slide below the window. I slipped around the back of the boxes and saw another stack, about six feet from the office door. These were wooden crates, about six feet by four, and had pictures of melons on them. I moved up, caught Harry’s eye and prepared to storm the door.
That was when the glass in the window shattered and Sadiq stood and opened up on me with an assault rifle. I swore violently and rolled behind the crates. A voice was screaming. It was Sadiq, shouting in Arabic, interspersed with English, about how we would never take him alive. Then he shouted, “Allahu Akbar!” and opened up with the assault rifle again.
I glanced over at Dehan to make sure she was OK. She was pointing frantically at the crates of melons I was pressed up against. I shrugged and spread my hands. She gritted her teeth, glared and pointed again. Meanwhile I could hear Sadiq shouting something that sounded very dangerous to me.
“Where is your firearms unit? Where is your backup? I am going to kill you all! Allahu Akbar!”
And he opened up again, spraying the area with a hot hail of lead. As I curled up behind the crates, wondering how long it would take the slugs to tear through the melons and find me, I also began to wonder where the hell he’d got an assault rifle from, between Chiddester’s house and here. And then, as the noise of lead hitting steel began to dawn on me, I realized what Dehan had been pointing at.
Next thing, I was on my feet, dragging the topmost box to the floor. From the corner of my eye, I saw Dehan break cover and run. A hail of bullets trailed her, kicking up cement dust from the concrete. The box hit the floor and shattered. I heard Sadiq bellowing, coming closer. I looked down and saw the damned box was full of melons.
Sadiq came skidding around the corner, training what looked like an AK-47 on me. I didn’t think. He fired as I dropped and I felt the hot whiz and pop of the slugs skimming past me and into the wood. I grabbed the nearest melon like a football and hurled it straight into his face. It made a sickening thud and he went over on his back. I leapt at him, pinned down his gun hand with my left knee, and drove my fist into his face, not once and not twice, but three times.
But he was clawing at me with his left, and as he did that, his right arm slipped out from under my knee. Next thing, he was using the AK-47 as a club, writhing underneath me, trying to beat my brains out with the butt. I wrestled it from him, tearing and biting at his fingers. Finally, I wrenched it out of his hands and threw it blindly behind me. I heard it clatter on the cement and started pounding his face again, left, right and left. He stopped moving. I drew breath and heard Harry shouting at me, “John! Stop!”
I looked up at him with my fist poised for a fourth and final blow, but I realized then that he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking behind me, and he looked worried. That was when I heard the unmistakable, slightly sneering voice saying, “Don’t stop on my account, kill the little shit if you want to.”
I lowered my fist, then got to my feet and turned. He was leaning against the shattered wooden crates, holding an automatic in his hand. “I hope you don’t mind, DI Green, I left your men sitting outside the club, watching my car, and I borrowed the owner’s Merc. He’s an old chum of mine.”
“Caulfield. I knew it had to be you.”
“Well, that makes you very clever, Stone, but sadly, I’m the one holding the gun.”
NINETEEN
He aimed the automatic at my head. “On your knees.”
I stuck out my lower lip, like I was doubtful, then shook my head. “No, if I’m going to die, Caulfield, I’ll do it on my feet, not on my knees.”
“How very admirable. It would be so much more admirable if you didn’t keep two thirds of the planet on their knees.” He waved his gun at Harry. “Cuff him.”
“Countries like Saudi Arabia, Caulfield? Countries like the Emirates?”
“I am not going to discuss politics with a gun-toting U.S. hit man.”
Harry pulled my arms behind my back and as he closed the cuffs he said, “Um, actually, Caulfield. You’re the one toting the gun, and the only hit men in this affair were employed by you…”
“Shut up, Green. Stone, sit down or I’ll shoot you in the knee. Green, get on your toy radio and tell your men to back away. Tell them I want a negotiating team dispatched. Then take your shoes and socks off.”
Harry got on his radio. “Alpha teams One and Two, be advised we have a hostage situation. Alpha One, fall back to the perimeter. Alpha Two, adopt standard fall back procedure, Sergeant Lewis’ discretion. Hostage taker has requested a negotiation team.”
I moved over to one of the boxes of dates and sat on it. Now I could see what it was Dehan had been pointing at. The bottommost crate had been torn to kindling by Sadiq’s gunfire, and you could see the alternating butts and muzzles of assault rifles poking out.
“What is it, Caulfield, one in every ten case
s is guns? Who are they for? Don’t tell me you’re planning a coup.”
“Nothing so dramatic, Stone. There will not be ‘rivers of blood’ in the streets in deer old Blighty. Not many, anyway. Just enough to keep a certain level of terror alive, to keep the people pliant.”
“So you arrange the sales to them, then they ship the guns back to people like Sadiq, so he can shoot the workers you represent in the streets of your city. Is that what they call government for the people?”
“I am well past being upset by your cynicism, Stone. You, Green, sit on the floor next to your buddy. Now here’s how it’s going to go. I need a jet fuelled and ready to go within the next ninety minutes, at London Elstree airport. We will be flying to Saudi. I will give the pilot his instructions once we are aboard. You both will be handed over to the authorities when we arrive. Any delays, or attempts at trickery, and I will take something random off you. It might be a toe, a finger, an ear, an eye, a foot. I will steadily dismember you until you are both dead. That is the deal. When the negotiator arrives, you will persuade him that I am serious, and if he tries to play me, I will take a piece of you. Do you understand, Green?”
Green sighed and nodded. “I do.”
I spoke suddenly and loudly. “So, let me see if I have understood this. You are basically employed by who? Al Qaeda?”
“I am not just employed by them, Stone, I happen to have a certain ideological allegiance with them. I like their certainty, their clarity. I like the fact that they are not afraid to stand up against the Jewish conspiracy. The one area where Marx went wrong was in his atheism. What makes a society strong, what unites a society, is a powerful ideology. And let’s face it, few ideologies, if any, are quite as powerful as Islam.”
I gave a small laugh. “Save it for the sheep, pastor. Bottom line is Al Qaeda pays your salary. So why the Marxism? You’ve been in the Labor Party all your life, why the ties with Marxists?”
He laughed out loud. “Have you any idea how many Labour MPs and Labour supporters are Marxists? My dream, the dream of many—and you can raise that cynical eyebrow all you like, it does not change the fact—my dream is for a Marxist Britain guided by the spiritual light of Islam.” He laughed again, shaking his head. “And believe me, it is very far from being an impossible dream. And I am not alone in dreaming it. Islam is for all humanity, salvation is for all those who embrace it, and the same is true of Marxism.”
“That’s very nice, Caulfield. I get a nice, warm feeling when I hear you talk that way. Fortunately, not all Muslims are crazy like you. So, how did it go? Katie started investigating the ties between Islam and Marxism in this country, and she hooked up with Sadiq, seduced him and persuaded him to introduce her to the man who was running him, Hastings. She and Hastings got it on and I am guessing Sadiq got jealous and told her he was Jewish, not realizing she wouldn’t give a damn. How am I doing?”
“You’re doing very well. Men like Sadiq have a kind of radar. Some SS officers developed the same kind of instinct during the Third Reich. I have no racial objection to Jews. I am not racist in any way. I am quite objective about the whole thing. It is their dangerous, unstable thinking that troubles me, and their control of the banks.”
“That’s objective?”
“Very, I assure you.”
“So Katie made the mistake of getting sweet on Hastings. There is no accounting for taste. And Hastings alerted you to the fact that she was on your trail and was gathering evidence…”
“Oh, it was much worse than that. She was very clever indeed. With her father’s help and connections, and her own talent for investigation, she had put together irrefutable paper trails showing…” He stopped and shook his head.
“Showing what? C’mon, Caulfield! You really think I believe you are going to let us live? We are as dead as though you’d already pulled the trigger. Showing what? That you and your buddies…”
“Enough, Stone. What she managed to prove will never be known, because her research, and this whole warehouse, will go up in smoke before morning.”
“Al-Fakiha.”
He frowned at me. “I beg your pardon?”
“What does it mean? You have it plastered all over these boxes.”
He laughed. “Oh, it means the fruit. The fruit of our labors, the fruit of our struggle, the fruit of our submission to God. That is what Islam means, you know? Submission. Submission brings God’s grace. The fruit.”
“That’s beautiful. I guess men like me who refuse to get on our knees, we don’t stand a chance, huh?”
He shook his head.
I shrugged. “So, when Hastings revealed the extent of Katie’s research, you decided she had to die and you ordered Hastings to do it…”
“He volunteered. He really is a very peculiar young man. He was a barrister for many years, you know? Very clever. But a little unbalanced. As you know, he was involved with the Butcher case all those years ago, and it affected him deeply, especially when he met Simon Clarence.”
I nodded. “That makes sense. The Home Office were keeping an eye on Johnson, so as assistant to the Shadow Home Secretary, he got to hear that Johnson was back, and that gave him the idea. He arranged to go and visit Simon and get the details of the killings. That way he could stage it as the return of the Butcher, knowing that the file was sealed and nobody could ever open it up as long as Clarence lived. If he’d just got the spelling of whiskey right, he might have got away with it.”
He shrugged. “Too bad for him, really.” He frowned at Harry and checked his watch. “What’s happening with that negotiating team, Green?”
“First they’ll have to assemble it, then there’ll be a briefing. You can be sure they’re scrambling, sir. Scotland Yard will be shitting bricks. We’ve asked for the help of a New York copper and now he’s a hostage, and being flown to fucking Saudi!”
Caulfield gazed at me. “If he’s lucky.”
“So what now, Caulfield? Your life’s dream is ashes. What will you do? Go and live in a cave in Afghanistan? Your SAS boys will hunt you down, you know? There is nowhere for you to hide.”
He smiled and it was frightening how complacent he was. “Don’t worry about me, Stone. I’ll survive, and, like Arny, I’ll be back. Britain has a destiny. It will be Marxist, and more than that, it will be Muslim, and it will submit to Sharia Law.”
I shrugged. “You may be right, Caulfield, but you know what? Your pal Marx once said that history repeats itself, and when I look at the history of Britain, I see a tough, smart people who have a lot of common sense, who are slow to anger, but fearsome when roused. And I see a people who over and over again have taken their tyrants and their despots and kicked their asses. I don’t see their destiny as one of submission. I think these crazy, island people are going to take your vision of destiny and they are going to shove it right up your ass. What do you think, Dehan?”
I had seen her step out from behind the crate with her small, black dress and her sinfully long legs, her hair tied in a knot behind her neck and the AK-47 in her hands. Let me tell you, it was one of the most indecent sights I have ever seen, and I doubt I will ever be lucky enough to see anything like it again, except in my recurring dreams.
Caulfield frowned. To distract him, I looked over at the door. He followed my line of sight, still frowning, wondering where Dehan was. Her voice came from behind him, low and steady and calm. “I think that’s exactly what they’re going to do, but by the time I’ve finished with him they may have to tear him a new…”
Before she could finish, he was spinning, panicking. He turned to face her with the automatic held out in front of him. In that same moment, I roared and charged at him, head first. It wasn’t smart, but I wasn’t going to let him shoot a woman who looked that good holding an AK-47. In that same moment, the doors burst open behind us and Harry’s Alpha Two team came storming in, bellowing and wielding bits of broken wooden pallet over their heads, like a band of raiding Vikings.
My head thundered home into
Caulfield’s belly just as his automatic barked, and at the same instant, his head rocked as Dehan’s shot slammed home right between his eyes.
We crashed to the floor. I heard her scream, “Stone!” and I looked up, sick with terror for a moment that she’d been hit. She was rushing at me with fear in her eyes, shouting, “Are you OK? Are you hit? Did I hit you?”
I smiled at her. “How many rounds did you fire?”
“One!”
I grinned. “How’s Caulfield doing?”
She glanced at him. “Not so good.” Then she scowled. “But I was aiming for his arm, you asshole! I had to shift when you charged, you great lummox! I could have killed you!”
I couldn’t stop smiling. “Oh… It’s just, you look so…”
The Alpha Two team had put down their wooden swords and were now slowly establishing order. The huge sergeant Lewis hoisted me to my feet and Harry undid my cuffs. Lewis said, “I heard your little speech, sir. Very inspiring. Thank you.”
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
Dehan held up her cell and handed it to Harry. “You have the whole exchange here.”
He smiled and took it. “You are a marvel, Carmen. This silly sod doesn’t deserve you.”
She winked at me and, ever loyal, she said, “Yeah, he does.”
He laughed. “If you say so.” Then he was on his radio again, telling Alpha One to set up a perimeter, and calling for a meat wagon, a SOCO team, which is the Brits’ version of a Crime Scene team, and a forensic IT team, because they had found Katie Ellison’s laptop, her pen drives and her notebooks.
The proverbial was about to hit the fan, and it was going to be the shitstorm of the century.
EPILOGUE
We were sitting in the VIP lounge at Heathrow Airport, waiting for our flight to be called. We were there courtesy of Lord Chiddester, who had also upgraded our flights, seeing as we had refused to take payment for helping to solve his daughter’s murder. Our luggage was all checked in and we had an hour to kill, so we figured we might as well drown it in martini as shoot it with an AK-47.
