Wasim pulled open the double doors of the camper van. An internal light lazily came on, illuminating a long black accessory bag, used to hold fishing equipment. The sound of Wasim slowly unzipping it echoed in the confines of the van. He pried open the bag, and stepped to one side.
Before Omar could inspect the contents, Tommy stepped forward. His hand snaked inside and emerged with a sawn-off AK-47 automatic rifle.
In all the time that Omar had known Tommy, it was at this moment that he first saw him smile.
Chapter 42
Jay
No turning back. No second thoughts. No fucking about. I’m doing this.
As I waited, I walked around the house, for the third time, making sure the windows were locked and the gas was turned off. All that grown-up shit. I even set a timer on the living room lamp to switch on/off throughout the day so it would bamboozle Hounslow’s slow-witted burglars.
My travel trolley was waiting by the front door and I had wrapped a pink ribbon around it so I could easily recognise it when retrieving it from baggage reclaim. My passport was in the front pocket of my jeans, tucked in sideways so that the corner was constantly digging into my thigh so I’d know it was there.
I peeked through the net curtains of my bedroom window. Above, the sky was a weird purple; below, Imy was waiting in my drive, his luggage in the form of a sports holdall. How has he managed to travel so light and how long had he been waiting there? We’d agreed 4 a.m., which it was, but I expected a knock on the door, a phone call or the very least a text! Instead he just hovered outside my house as though I had nothing better to do but look out the window for him.
Fuck it, he wanted to be aloof, I could be aloof too. I’d fucking aloof the shit out of it. I walked downstairs slowly, took my time zipping up my parka and, not knowing when I would be coming back home, I looked around, saying a quiet goodbye to the place. My eyes caught two mugs that I had placed on the kitchen counter beside a boiled kettle, thinking maybe Imy and I could have a cup of tea before heading to the airport. I felt stupid. That wasn’t us. That wasn’t our relationship.
I opened the door and casually flicked my head at him as a greeting. He nodded back at me with the same enthusiasm. I watched him watch me as I pulled my pink-ribboned trolley behind me, with my rucksack against my back. With the press of a button my Beemer tweeted; another press of a button and the boot flipped opened. I placed my trolley inside and gestured to see if he wanted to put his one piece in with mine. He shook his head. I closed the boot as he let himself into my car.
I exhaled and joined him.
Imy placed his bag by his feet and pulled the seatbelt across. ‘From here onwards,’ he said, ‘you watch your step and you watch your mouth around me.’
I opened said mouth but he shut me down with a look that I didn’t want to fuck with at that time of the morning.
My engine roared to life and I flicked on the window heaters, but before it could kick in, Imy had leaned forward and used the sleeve of his jacket to haphazardly wipe my windscreen, leaving smear marks all over it. It took a lot for me to bite my tongue.
I dropped my car in the long-term car park and we sat next to each other on the shuttle bus. I kept my headphones on and watched him in the window reflection, hoping that the tinny sounds escaping from my cans would annoy him. He sat with his hands on his lap, perfectly still, which for some reason annoyed me. As soon as the shuttle bus pulled up outside Heathrow Airport, Departures, he was up, bag in hand and stepping off the bus as though we weren’t travelling together.
I stood at his shoulder at the PIA check-in desk, as he showed his passport and exchanged his e-ticket for a boarding pass.
‘What seat did you get?’ I asked. As he passed me by, he mumbled something that sounded a lot like he’d been upgraded to first class! Best Jordan forward, I approached the desk, smiled charmingly at the lady, and spoke in my best voice. She eyed me with suspicion, as though posh wasn’t my default voice, checked in my luggage and slapped an economy boarding pass in my hand.
I turned away with the smallest of thanks and searched for Imy, knowing full well that he’d already sauntered off to airside. Fuck, man, I understood that this was far from a lads’ holiday, but at the very least he could show some civility.
I crossed through security with the usual checks, and an additional body check thrown in for good measure, eventually finding Imy sitting at a table for two at Huxley’s Restaurant & Bar, a hot drink in front of him. Just the one. I sighed. Seriously, I was getting tired of him already. I placed my rucksack on the chair opposite.
‘I’m gonna go get myself a cappuccino. Want anything?’
‘You can’t leave your bag unattended at an airport,’ was his reply.
A vision popped into my head. Outside my house, kneeling down by Imy’s car as the rain pelted off my head. Help me find my dad.
I didn’t know what lay ahead for me when I landed in Islamabad, but it was becoming increasingly evident that Imy was not going to make it easy for me. There would be no relationship, nor camaraderie or any of that shit. He did not like me, and though my vanity took a hit, really, I couldn’t give a shit. I’d made the effort, I’d apologised and taken whatever he threw at me. If he still wanted to carry that around, then he could be my fucking guest.
Chapter 43
Imy
I couldn’t help myself. Those small actions weren’t designed to slight Jay, I just could not allow myself to have any relationship with him. Not with what was on my mind.
I studied him, in the queue, his head bopping slightly along to his headphones. His movement felt out of rhythm, as though he was trying too hard to aim for nonchalance. He had his rucksack attached to his back, both straps, making him look like a kid on a school trip.
Jay returned to the table, coffee in hand, the bump in his walk a little forced. He shrugged his rucksack off and sat down opposite me, keeping his headphones on and reading my mood correctly. I saw him jab the volume repeatedly until the tinny obnoxious hip-hop racket escaped. If he was trying to annoy me, and I think he was, then it was working.
Jay’s eyes fell on the throwaway mobile phone laid out in front of me on the table. He slipped his headphones off.
‘That a burner?’ He picked up the handset and examined it. ‘Teddy give this to you?’
I nodded. ‘It’s got two numbers in the call register. Yours. And Lawrence’s. When we’ve completed our mission—’
‘Mission!’ Jay snorted through his nose.
‘Once it’s done, I’ll call it in.’
‘Then what?’
‘Whichever military unit is closest to our location will take over and detain Bin Jabbar.’
‘Yeah, is that how it’s going to play out?’ Jay leaned back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the table. We both had a very different vision of how it was going to play out. ‘How comes I didn’t get a burner?’ Jay asked.
‘I’m the primary point of contact.’
‘That why you’ll be sitting in first class and I’ll be stuck in coach? Quite tight with MI5, are we?’ I didn’t entertain that with a response. ‘It’s a shit phone, anyway,’ Jay said, and handed the burner back to me. It buzzed in my hand.
‘Lawrence?’ Jay said, leaning over, trying to get a glimpse of the screen. I angled it away from him. ‘’Course it’s Lawrence,’ Jay muttered. ‘Who else is it gonna be?’ He jabbed at his own phone. ‘Why didn’t I get a text? Why’s he just texting you? Shouldn’t we have, like, a WhatsApp group?’
I took a breath. His mouth just did not quit. He reminded me of how Jack could easily fill silence. But Jack had been five. Jay was a grown man. As I read the message from Lawrence, I realised it would be the last time I would make that comparison:
Do not get close to him.
There was no danger of that happening. I pocketed the phone as an announcement called for first-class passengers to board.
‘Get some rest on the plane.’ I stood up. ‘I’ll see you when we
get there.’
Jay crossed his arms and shrugged at me in a maybe you will, maybe you won’t manner. It was becoming increasingly clear to me that despite my age and experience, he wasn’t there to follow. Jay would do whatever he felt was right and I had no doubt it was going to land him in trouble.
I made my way onto the plane. The next time I would see Jay would be in Islamabad.
Chapter 44
Jay
‘I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon,’ Imy said, looking up at me from the luxury of his first-class cabin. ‘What do you want?’
It was a valid question. As soon as the plane had taken off, adrenaline had rushed through me as though a spirit had taken over my body. My eyes fixed on the seat belt sign, waiting for it to dim. As soon as it did, I unbuckled and shot to my feet without a destination in mind. I was buzzing as I walked the aisle one way and then back the other, seeing the same air stewardess twice, compelling her to ask, ‘Are you okay?’
I told her, ‘I’m just stretching my legs.’ Her expression said, we’ve only been in the air for fifteen minutes! I was a bag of nerves, a bundle of fucking energy, and I couldn’t just sit in such a tight space for the next seven hours and forty minutes. I brushed past the stewardess and hustled my way to the toilet, and not for toilet reasons either. I needed to be alone for a minute, needed to calm the fuck down before the passengers noticed my behaviour and started to get para.
I closed the toilet door behind me. It’s happening! Fuck! It’s happening!
I placed my hands on the tiny sink, willing myself to be still. I looked at my reflection in the mirror, looking at myself through my dad’s eyes. What would he see? What would he say? He’d be angry. Angry that I’d fucked his shit up. Thrown a whole fucking toolbox in the works. Well, fuck that, and fuck him. I was a lot angrier that he couldn’t be bothered to be a father.
I took a deep breath and followed it with a series of smaller ones, before splashing my face with cold water. I stepped out of the toilet. To the left and down the aisle was my crappy seat, and to the right was the little curtain that separated the riff-raff from the first class. It was drawn tightly. An impenetrable iron wall.
I went back to my seat.
My flying companion looked at me curiously, as though seeing me for the first time, and shifted to make room. I squeezed past him one way and rustled through my rucksack, picking out my shareable pack of M&Ms, and then squeezed past him the other way just as he had got comfortable. It cost me an eye roll.
Sorry, mate, I’ve got an iron wall to penetrate.
I popped my head around the curtain and peered in. It was glorious. I inhaled the smell of privilege and stepped through, letting the curtain fall behind me. I spotted the back of Imy’s head and made my way through, walking like I belonged, past the passengers all stretched out and stress-free, giving it large with tall champagne flutes in hand. But this was Pakistani International Airways, and I knew these suckers were sipping on nothing stronger than apple juice.
‘You shouldn’t be here.’
‘Yeah, no, I know.’ I shoved the pack of M&Ms in front of his face. ‘Want some?’
I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist. He snaked his hand into the shareable packet and pulled out two green and one yellow. I glanced over my shoulder and clocked a stewardess taking my number. I smiled sunnily at her.
It felt weird standing over Imy, so I got down on my haunches and rested my arm against his arm rest. That felt weird too; I was too low and in danger of being hit by an oncoming food trolley.
‘I was thinking, we haven’t really chatted properly. I assumed we’d be sitting together so we could discuss, uh, strategy, but you’re up here in first and I’m back in the nosebleeds.’
Imy squeezed his eyes shut, as if that would make me go away. I was aware that I was frustrating him, but, fuck, there had to be some sort of plan and structure. If he was thinking of bullshitting his way through, then what was the point of him being there? I could do that by myself.
Imy got to his feet and gestured for me to do the same. He stepped into the aisle and walked with me hot on his tail. He slipped through the curtain and held it for me to follow. We stood by the pressurised aircraft door. The temptation to pull down the handle was almost too much.
The same stewardess who’d had words with me earlier, eyed us from behind her food trolley. Two Pakis talking in hushed whispers on an aeroplane. I smiled at her. It wasn’t as sunny as the last time, it was tighter, more of a shame on you, I know what you’re thinking, lady.
‘You have to calm down,’ Imy said, but I could sense he wanted to say something altogether different.
‘I’m calm,’ I said, ‘but—’
‘But what, Jay!?’ Imy spat, actually spat, spittle coming at me in numbers but falling short somewhere between us. ‘There’s nothing to discuss. When we land you follow my lead. Is that clear?’
Yeah, it’s clear, it’s fucking crystal! Imy was going to use me as he saw fit and as soon as he reached his target he’d probably discard me. Typical fucking MI5 move, and he was up their backside further than I’d realised. I should have taken my chances and done it solo; now I had MI5 casting a shadow over my every move.
Imy locked his stare on me, but fuck him if he thought I was going to back down. I held his gaze right back. I saw in his eyes the loss. I saw that he was still searching for someone to blame. And I was the closest he could find.
Chapter 45
Jay
The passengers stood up in unison and filled the aisles. I stayed seated, the long flight had zapped the adrenaline out of me. I looked out of the window. I was in no hurry to face whatever the fuck was waiting for me. I switched on my phone. Imy had texted me cold instructions, telling me to meet him at the pick-up point outside of the terminal. Would it hurt him to use a fucking emoji?
I kept my head down and made my way to border control, and handed my passport over to the officer in a bright white shirt and the most convincing comb-over I’d ever seen. He took his time, flitting between my passport photo and my face a few times. Fair enough, that picture had been taken at a bad time in my life, when the barbers that I usually went to in Hounslow West was unexpectedly closed, so I had to hit the Treaty Centre and pay more for a lesser cut. They’d butchered it! On top of which, I’d been going through a Tony Stark phase and as a result I was rocking the world’s worst box beard. Fuck it. You live and learn.
‘Javid. Qasim.’ Comb-Over repeated my name slowly back at me.
‘Yup,’ I said, adding, ‘That’s me,’ for good measure.
He ran a hand through his thinning hair as though he had a full head of it, before handing back my passport and sending me on my way with a crooked smile.
My Jordans squeaked on the large marble tiles as I crossed the lobby, following signs to baggage reclaim. I could already see the pink ribbon around my luggage moving proudly down the belt. I reached for it and before I knew it another pair of hands were on it, brown, weathered, and lifting it effortlessly off the belt.
‘No, no, no,’ I said to the porter, knowing that I had no money to tip him as I’d forgotten to exchange pounds into rupees, and there was no way I was dropping a fiver for something I could do myself. ‘It’s okay. It has wheels. I can take.’ But he had already placed my trolley on his baggage cart and moved away at speed. I caught up with him, as he incorrectly picked up on my accent.
‘American?’ he said. ‘Donald Trump?’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘English.’
‘English!’ He grinned. ‘Brexit?’
‘Yeah,’ I sighed. ‘Brexit.’
He laughed to himself. ‘Big problems, huh? Big problems for you?’
I didn’t like that, his mocking laugh, as though some sort of imaginary I told you so for living in a country that wasn’t mine. In England, if somebody badmouths Pakistan, I get pretty pissed, but now, the other way around, I found myself feeling equally offended. Pakistan was the motherland, but England was home.
‘What time is it?’ I tapped at my wrist where a watch would be, and then immediately felt ignorant about the gesture.
‘Eleven thirty in the night,’ the porter replied in broken English that was a far sight better than my broken Urdu. He lifted my trolley off his cart and wheeled it towards me before hovering around for a tip. Despite my intentions, I dug deep and pulled out a scrunched-up fiver. I flattened it and handed it to him and he was away before I could thank him. I adjusted the time on my phone and scanned the area for Imy.
He was in the middle of an embrace with his contact. It looked genuine and warm and I couldn’t help but wonder as to the extent of their relationship. I approached them just as they separated, and instantly I recognised him.
He hadn’t changed one bit, he even wore the same fake, misspelt adihash T-shirt, and just like our previous meeting, the smell of skunk came off him in waves, making me long for a joint. I ran through a list of names in my head before landing on – ‘Aslam!’
I wasn’t expecting an embrace, but at the very least a handshake or some recognition. I put my hand out, Aslam reached past and took my trolley and rucksack, leaving me hanging. I styled it out and patted him on the back as he roughly threw my luggage into the back of his rusty-ass, open-top jeep.
‘I know him,’ I whispered to Imy. ‘From when I was here last.’
I expected a reaction. Did it change anything? Probably not, but still, give me a fucking reaction.
Ride or Die Page 21
