Ride or Die

by Khurrum Rahman

  I walked out of the newsagents and sat on an empty wet bench. My grey tracksuit darkened as the cold rain soaked through to my skin. Pigeons broke cover from shelter under the bench and approached me hopefully as I tore and sprinkled small pieces of the bread towards them.

  I was in no hurry to see him and I wasn’t in the mood for his bullshit. It turned out he wasn’t in a patient mood. He wanted my attention now.

  Beneath my hood his black leather brogues appeared in front of me. I kept my head down, the rapid patter of rain hitting and escaping like a waterfall from his umbrella. I continued to scatter crumbs around his feet as the pigeons surrounded him. He stamped his feet a few times and they dispersed in different directions before retreating to safety under the bench.

  ‘You fool!’ he said, sharply.

  I looked up from his brogues, past his well-cut charcoal trousers and long black overcoat. His clothes were bone dry under his oversized umbrella, and I met the eyes of the devil that I had sold my soul to. The hardness in his face shut down as I returned it with my own. He cleared his throat.

  ‘We have to talk. My car is parked in that monstrosity over there. Top floor,’ he said, inclining his head towards the Treaty Centre, and without another word Teddy Lawrence walked away knowing that I’d follow.

  The first time I killed a man, it came easy. His name was Aba Abassi. He was known as Pathaan by those who loved him. I used to call him Pathaan.

  From the age of ten to sixteen he was my mentor growing up in Gardez, a small working village located close to the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. At times he was like an older brother. Other times he was like a father. He trained me in combat, educated me in the teachings of Al-Mudarris and sent me to England to strike fear amongst those who didn’t believe as I once did.

  It didn’t work out that way. The ideologies slowly left me as I settled into the lifestyle that I had been brought up to despise. When the time arrived for me to make a choice, I didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger and take him out.

  I was looking at a long sentence for murder. Instead I’d escaped the clutches of one terrorist organisation and was now in the pocket of another: MI5, with Teddy Lawrence as my handler.

  A few weeks before I was due to marry Stephanie, I was sent on my first mission. I had to tell her that a few friends had planned a stag-do to Berlin. Berlin was the only truth in the lie.

  The Christmas Market at Alexanderplatz was a heavily populated event in the heart of the German capital, packed with vendors selling traditional Christmas crafts amongst fairground rides and beer stalls. The target was a small man called, but not named, Alfie. That’s all I had, that and a few photos of him. His background was indeterminable from his appearance; pale like a white man, grey eyes like an Afghani, with thick, close-cut hair. He was responsible for selling bomb-making material on a mass scale to a Ghurfat-al-Mudarris splinter cell called al-Muhaymin.

  In a crowded beer tent, I injected Alfie just below the ribs using a finger needle filled with cyanide. He flinched at the pinch and looked around amongst the crowd as I brushed past him. I walked out of the tent before screams for help reached me. The taxi driver, who had delivered the package containing the needle and photographs of the target, picked me up and dropped me back to my hotel. The next day I flew home and entertained Stephanie and Jack with stories and staged photographs of my stag.

  Teddy Lawrence and MI5 ensured that they had full deniability of the operation. It was never officially authorised. Any victory would be quietly celebrated. Failure would’ve fallen solely at my feet.

  That’s what my life had become.

  I didn’t take my eyes off him as I approached his grey Volkswagen Passat on the top floor of the Treaty Centre car park. I opened the passenger side door and slid in, aware of Lawrence grimacing at my wet clothes against the leather seats.

  ‘Seatbelt,’ he said, turning the ignition.

  We left the car park in silence and it stayed that way until Lawrence turned onto the Great West Road. If the silence was a tactic for me to speak first, then it wasn’t working. I had nothing to say to him. He slowed down a touch as we approached Osterley Park Hotel. A cheap move, but not unexpected. I kept my eyes forward as I felt his gaze on me as we drifted past the hotel.

  Lawrence turned off the Great West Road and pulled into Osterley Tesco’s car park, finding a suitable parking spot at the very end away from prying eyes. He pulled in nose first and checked the rear-view and side mirrors. Leaving the engine running, he turned up the heat and pointed the vents towards me. A gesture that I wasn’t buying.

  ‘Imran,’ he said after a long sigh, as though he’d realised that his rehearsed dressing down wasn’t going to cut it. ‘It was reckless.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘Do you have any clue what lengths I had to go through to protect you?’

  He sounded selfless. I knew otherwise. There would be no gratitude forthcoming.

  ‘What were you thinking? What did you hope to achieve, Imran?’

  Frustration was creeping into his voice, and it pleased me. The cool calm demeanour that he wore for the world had never fooled me. Lawrence knew very well what I had hoped to achieve, and I couldn’t care less if it wasn’t sanctioned by the Secret Service.

  ‘Saheed Kabir, you don’t think that we knew about him?’ he asked, speaking to the side of my head. ‘Ghurfat-al-Mudarris is broken but that’s not where this ends, Imran! We were getting close to al-Muhaymin. Their methods of operation have become volatile and unpredictable. Kabir was a member, a conduit for weapons finding their way onto our shores and into the hands of young British Muslims. He could have been imperative to us. You have to understand that, Imran. You can’t dilute this with your personal feelings. You work for us!’

  I turned to face him. He was sitting twisted on his side, leaning towards me, making himself bigger than his slight frame, spurred on by his credentials. I wanted to wrap the seat belt around his throat and bring him to the edge of death and show him how little his credentials meant to me.

  He held my gaze for a moment before straightening up and placing his hands on the steering wheel, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. I turned away and through the windscreen I stared at the green bush that he had tucked us into. After a moment and a soft tone that wasn’t natural to him, he asked, ‘Is there anybody else left?’

  I had killed Pathaan. The Kabirs had taken their punishment. Bin Jabbar’s fate had been snatched out of my hands. Is there anybody else left? I blinked and Jay flashed before my eyes.

  Lawrence’s phone vibrated noisily on the centre console.

  ‘Lay low, Imran. Get some rest,’ Lawrence said, as he picked up his earpiece and clipped it on. ‘When the time comes, I’ll be in touch.’ He gestured his head to the door. I stepped out of the car just as he greeted the caller. I shut the door behind me and lifted the hood over my head as I waited for the cloud above me to open up.

  The reverse lights came on and Lawrence moved out recklessly. I took a step back, out of the way, and I saw his face screwed up and his mouth moving quickly as he shifted gears and sped out of Tesco’s car park.

  Whoever he was speaking to had delivered bad news.

  Chapter 25

  ‘Fuck!’ Teddy Lawrence cried into the earpiece.

  He wasn’t the type to swear, too much armour in his vocabulary to resort to such language. The odd occasion he may throw around a ‘damn’ or if the moment took him a ‘Goddammit’, but all in context. Such as the situation that came to light earlier of Imran Siddiqui going on a ‘goddamn killing spree’.

  Always looking at the bigger picture, Lawrence had to convince his seniors at Thames House to intervene in the arrest of Imran Siddiqui, and persuade the higher echelons of the police constabulary. Not an easy task. Chief Superintendent Penelope Wakefield of Hounslow Police Station would not take kindly to MI5 sticking their oar in.

  Any other time, Lawrence would have thrown Siddiqui into the lion cage and watched him f
ight for his life. To be fair, it would have been a pretty even fight. But as it stood, Siddiqui was a key asset in the ongoing war against Ghurfat-al-Mudarris and its splinter cell, al-Muhaymin. Simply put, he was an asset that needed protecting by any means necessary. That, and that alone, was the bigger picture.

  It took the might of Assistant Director of Counter Terrorism John Robinson and Major General Stewart Sinclair. They exchanged dialogue with the highly strung, highly frustrated Chief Superintendent. She dug in her heels, as expected, but two words, ‘National Security’, uttered from the right mouth, had the power to open and slam shut doors.

  Wakefield acquiesced, as expected. She wasn’t pleased, of course, considering that she would have to exchange similar dialogue with the Lancashire constabulary who were investigating the Kabir murders in Blackburn. Whether that investigation quietly wound down over time, or whether they looked for some poor fool to pin it on, it wasn’t Teddy Lawrence’s problem anymore.

  But this new revelation was. One fire out, another roared to life.

  ‘Fuck!’ Teddy cried again, slapping the steering wheel as he sped through Tesco’s car park, his hand hovering over the horn, ready to blast away any trolley that dared cross him. He glanced in the rear-view mirror, a picture of Imran Siddiqui soaked in the downpour as Lawrence screeched out of the car park.

  ‘Agent Lawrence,’ the voice of Major General Sinclair boomed through his earpiece. ‘Pull yourself together, man.’

  ‘I apologise, Major,’ Lawrence said, looking for and finding some composure. He took a long breath. ‘What do we know?’

  ‘An anonymous 999 call was placed from a phone box on the Hammersmith High Street at 19.21. The location of the incident given was 102 Clareville Road, South Kensington.’

  ‘John Robinson’s home.’

  ‘The name associated with the address triggered the call to be intercepted by GCHQ and, rightly so, landed on our lap.’

  ‘What did the caller say?’

  ‘Not even close to enough. There was a break-in. The intruder had a knife. According to the caller, Robinson was attacked.’

  Lawrence ran a hand through his overly-waxed hair. ‘How bad is it?’

  ‘We don’t know.’ The Major cleared his throat.

  Lawrence filled in. ‘He’s been abducted?’

  ‘It would appear so.’

  ‘This is going to turn into a crap circus, Major. Front and centre of every goddamn newspaper. Speculation will shoot through the roof. Can we stop the story? Least delay it until we know. Is this a hostage situation? Have demands been made?’

  ‘For now, we’ve put a cap on it. It won’t be appearing anywhere. As soon as the call was intercepted we liaised with Kensington Police. There were no screaming sirens, no uniforms. Two of ours were quickly and quietly dispatched to the scene for recon. They let themselves in from the back. Blood splatter was found on the kitchen floor, but not enough to suggest anything worse than a bloody nose. For now, police are acting on advice only, and that circle is tight. God knows it could be leaked six ways from Sunday. But as far as the story is concerned, there is no damn story, nothing untoward happened tonight on Clareville Road.’

  ‘Major, I think—’

  ‘I haven’t finished, Lawrence. I can see that this has come as a shock to you, especially after the day we’ve had with bloody Siddiqui, but I need you to pull your pants up and recollect yourself, because I want you taking the lead on this.’

  ‘What do you need, Major?’

  Lawrence heard the Major General sigh. It sounded tired, loaded, as though an old enemy that wouldn’t lie had resurfaced.

  ‘You have something, Major?’

  ‘We do. I’m sending you CCTV images captured outside the phone box.’

  ‘The caller?’

  ‘Hold.’

  Lawrence pulled over onto the hard shoulder of the M40 that he didn’t remember getting on. In his ear Major Sinclair barked at somebody to send the images. Lawrence picked up his phone and waited for the message to arrive. It did by secure email. There were two files attached. Lawrence clicked on the first attachment and entered a unique pin to allow it to open. The picture wasn’t of high quality but he could see a black car parked on a double yellow line outside of a phone box. Inside were two figures, Lawrence could make out the blonde hair of a female dressed in white. Standing close in front of her was the distorted figure of a man.

  Lawrence quickly opened up the second attachment, the adrenaline rushing through him, and he entered the pin incorrectly twice. One more time and he could wave goodbye to that file. He took his time. The second attachment opened, a close-up of the two figures in the phone box, and it took Teddy Lawrence’s breath away.

  Chapter 26

  Jay

  I discreetly popped my head around Mum’s bedroom door for a quick peek. I’d been doing it every thirty minutes on the nose between seven and midday. So what’s that? Ten times. Each time Sophia hadn’t moved from her position. Face up, head in the dip in between two pillows. Her blonde hair a mess around her and a pale ankle hanging out of the duvet.

  I felt a little off with a stranger sleeping in Mum’s bed. I should’ve slept here and she could have had my room. But Imy’s handgun was still knocking about in a Nike shoebox under my bed, and fuck knows what direction this would take if she got her mitts on it.

  A little after midday, I figured that I could be waiting around all day for her to wake up naturally, so a little intervention was required. I pumped up the volume on the television, but daytime TV is just too polite to do the job. I clanged around in the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards as I made myself a noisy cup of coffee. I hovered around outside Mum’s bedroom, coughing and stepping purposely on a known creaky floorboard. Nothing worked, Sophia was dead to the world.

  My next thought: what if she literally was dead to the world! I watched a bit on This Morning once about this lady who took a fall, her head meeting the edge of a kerb. Anyway, she got up, stuck a tissue to the cut on her head and soldiered on. That night she fell asleep and, well, that’s it.

  What if the same had happened to Sophia? Maybe there’d been a struggle and she’d been struck on the head, concussed, and her body had just now caught up, failing her. I didn’t have time to Google death from concussion and it seemed unlikely, but in my experience unlikely was becoming the norm, and I couldn’t have her dying on my watch. Especially not on Mum’s bed.

  I stepped off the noisy floorboard and pushed open the door harder than I expected to, and it collided loudly against the wall. She didn’t stir. I crossed the bedroom and stood by the side of the bed and watched her. Her mouth was open slightly, but I couldn’t hear her breathing. There were no two ways about it, I was going to have to risk a look at her chest and hope that there was some movement. I took a quick look but not enough to establish whether she was breathing. I leaned closer and took another look, longer, concentrating for any sign of movement, trying not to look at the red of her bra through the gap in her uniform. At that point my phone decided to ring loudly in my pocket. I slipped it out to disconnect it, but in my panic I swiped to answer. Idris’ face popped on my screen just as Sophia’s eyes flew open with my face in the vicinity of her chest.

  I straightened up, not sure who to address first. I gave her a smile and she responded by lifting the duvet up to her neck and looking at me curiously. No, suspiciously! As though I was a dirty old man. I wasn’t dirty or old, and I wanted to tell her that, but fucking Idris was in my face.

  ‘Jay,’ Idris’s tinny voice said. I mouthed ‘sorry’ to Sophia and backed away from the bed.

  ‘Not now, Idris,’ I said turning my back to her. ‘I’ll bell you back.’

  Through squinted eyes, Idris asked, ‘Who’s that?’

  I looked over my shoulder, Sophia had shuffled up against the headboard. I smiled stupidly at her and moved away so that she was out of the picture.

  ‘You dirty dog!’ Idris smiled and then broke into a laugh. ‘Wai
t… Is that your mum’s bedroom?’

  ‘Idris. Can we do this later?’

  ‘Yeah, okay, I can see you’re busy. Bell me soon, I’ve got an update on… that thing you asked me about.’

  ‘Yeah, cool,’ I said. ‘Later.’

  ‘In your mum’s bedroom.’ Idris grinned. ‘Seriously Jay, that’s just weird.’

  I cut him off and turned my attention to the stranger in my mother’s bed. Her hair was tousled and sticking out at angles. I noticed that her nose was red and wondered if it was cold to the touch.

  ‘I, um, that was… a mate.’ I pointed at my phone. ‘I don’t know why he insists on video calling…’ She didn’t reply and the pressure was just too much and I blurted, ‘I wasn’t looking at your… you know.’

  Sophia drew her hair back behind her ears like curtains, revealing her morning face, and what a morning face it was. I swallowed and continued to talk shit. ‘I was just checking to see if you were breathing. I saw this bit on This Morning, I don’t normally watch This Morning, but I couldn’t find the remote, anyway, this woman had a head injury and…’ She stopped me in my flow with a smile and I swear I forgot what I was chatting about.

  I prepared a spot of convenience food for two as I waited for Sophia to come down. I listened carefully for her movements. The stubborn bolt of the bathroom door. The shower coughing before exploding to life. My armpits spiked as I silently prayed that there weren’t any unwelcome visitors on my sponge. I flipped the fish fingers and waffles, and fired up the hob to get the baked beans going. I switched the kettle on, but, not sure if she was a tea or coffee girl, I decided to wait until I was informed. The shower stopped and I realised that I should have offered her a clean towel and maybe some of Mum’s clothes. A moment later I heard the bolt slide across the bathroom door. I picked up a spoon off the worktop and checked my reflection in the back of it, as she padded down the stairs. I ran a hand through my hair and turned just in time to see her appear at the doorway. She was wearing my Batman onesie.