The Sanction

by Mark Sennen

  ‘Now what?’ Javed said, munching on a dry flatbread.

  ‘We head up there.’ Holm gestured to the valley. ‘We need to get closer and we can’t very well go sauntering along the track.’

  ‘It’s like the Grand Canyon.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ Holm quickly judged the distance to the farm and the depth of the rift. ‘A mile along the bottom of the wadi and a short climb up. We’ll be totally out of sight all the time.’

  ‘And when we get to the top?’

  ‘We spot the weapons and see if Taher’s there. Then we call Palmer on the sat phone.’ Holm cocked his head. ‘You set?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Let’s go.’

  An hour and a half later Holm was regretting his earlier optimism. He’d seriously underestimated the amount of effort needed to navigate their chosen route. Low scrub filled the bottom of the wadi and every step was a fight against thorns and briars. Once they were through the scrub it was no better. The sun streamed in from the southern end of the ravine, leaving no shade, and the light shale reflected the glare into Holm’s face. The heat was intense. A few metres away, Javed was moving easily across the slope of the ravine, sure-footed and seemingly expending little effort, while Holm was struggling to stay upright as the loose rock shifted beneath his feet. He turned and looked to his left where the gradient steepened. At some point they needed to go up there and he was beginning to wonder if he’d have to admit to Javed he wasn’t going to make it.

  Ahead, Javed stopped. A gully ran diagonally across the face of the slope before turning upwards and disappearing into the dark shadow of a series of rock pillars.

  ‘There, boss.’ Javed pointed to the top of the cliffs where a cluster of olive trees stood near the edge. ‘Those trees are close to the farm. If we can manage to get up the gully we’re home.’

  Home. Bloody hell, Holm thought. That’s where he’d like to be right now. Miles Davis floating through the speakers, a glass of something in his hand, a cool breeze coming in through the balcony windows of his flat.

  ‘Right.’ He staggered along until he was next to Javed and peered up the gully. Jagged towers of rock offered something to hold on to and provided some welcome shade. ‘Of course if someone happens to be standing at the top we’ve had it.’

  Javed shrugged. Self-evident. Nothing they could do. Go on or go back. He waited until Holm nodded and began to climb.

  The going wasn’t too bad to start with, but when they reached the section below the cliff face Holm found himself struggling. The rocks had appeared chunky from below, but now they were up close the hand holds were no longer so obvious. At one point he looked back the way they’d come and regretted it. Climbing down now would be next to impossible.

  ‘You go first.’ Javed flattened himself against a large boulder to let Holm climb past. ‘I can guide your hands and feet.’

  Holm stood with one hand jammed tight in a rock crack for support. Sweat ran down his face and his shirt was sodden. If he wasn’t shot at the top or didn’t fall to his death he figured he’d have a heart attack. He nodded at Javed again, unable to speak.

  After a couple of minutes to get his breath back, Holm pressed on. One step at a time, one handhold at a time.

  ‘A foot up and a little to your right.’ Javed’s encouragement was gentle. ‘Just below your hip.’ A nudge or a suggestion every few seconds. ‘To the left of your shoulder there’s a small ledge, see it?’

  Holm nodded or grunted his replies. He focused on the rock within his immediate reach, only once making the mistake of looking down again.

  ‘My God!’ They were much higher now. A virtually sheer face dropping away until it met the scree slope a long, long way below. Holm closed his eyes as vertigo snatched the last of his courage from him. He imagined dropping from the cliff and falling until he was pulverised on the boulders littering the bottom of the ravine. He clutched at the rock in front of him. Wondered, perversely, how Huxtable would spin the news coverage of his death.

  Stephen Holm was on extended leave and taking a walking holiday in Tunisia… he was a valued member of JTAC but hadn’t been working in the field for several years… he will be missed greatly by his family and his many friends and colleagues…

  ‘Boss!’ Javed snapped him back into the present. ‘We can make it. Look up!’

  Holm opened his eyes and craned his neck, expecting to see nothing but a sheer wall of unclimbable rock. Instead he saw a sloping boulder dappled with sun and shade. Above the boulder hung the branches of an olive tree. He thought of olives now. Olives and a crisp white wine. Perhaps, after this was all over, he’d return to Italy and rent a villa on the Amalfi Coast. Sit and watch the sea.

  ‘Right,’ he said, reaching for the next handhold and pulling himself up. In another couple of moves, his head crested the clifftop and he wriggled over and lay in the shade of the tree. ‘Thank God.’

  Javed scrambled up and lay alongside him. For a moment they stayed still. Holm turned towards the farm. The little olive grove comprised half a dozen ancient trees. Each tree sat in a small depression and a black hose snaked between them. Water trickled from a hose end within arm’s reach. Holm crawled over and put the hose to his mouth and took a drink. Then he splashed water on his face before handing the hose to Javed.

  As Javed drank, Holm turned to the farm again. A low wall separated the olive grove from the farm. Beyond, several buildings surrounded a yard. The farmhouse stood to one side and there was a veranda at the rear. He eased himself up. The yellow SUV was parked next to a pick-up truck and on the back of the pick-up was the crate they’d seen loaded into the white van.

  ‘The weapons,’ Javed said. ‘We need to call Palmer.’

  ‘Yes, but I want to see what’s going on in the farm first.’ Holm swung his gaze to the main building. ‘And find out what the hell Karen Hope is doing in there.’

  * * *

  Taher stood at the farmhouse window. On the far side of the room the future president of the United States of America sat at a small table eating breakfast.

  ‘We’re done,’ Karen Hope said. ‘You fulfilled your side of the deal and you’ve got the missiles and the money. Now we go our separate ways.’

  ‘You think you can just walk away from this?’ Taher turned from the window. Despite the large deposit sitting in his bank account, despite the missiles hiding in the loft space of his lock-up garage and the ones outside on the truck, he felt as if Hope had got the better of him. ‘Your hands are stained with blood too.’

  ‘It goes with the territory.’

  ‘Perhaps, but there’s always a price to pay, and I’m wondering, given the nature of the prize, if I wasn’t short-changed.’

  ‘Tough. You set the terms and I delivered.’ Hope reached for a glass of orange juice and took a sip. ‘My brother made a huge error of judgement and almost jeopardised my chance of becoming president. I don’t intend to let anything else get in my way.’ She slammed the glass down on the table and looked across at him. ‘Including you.’

  ‘Yes, but…’ From the corner of his eye Taher spotted something through the window. Someone.

  He held a hand up to Hope, edged up to the opening and peered down. Two men lay prone by the wall in the olive grove. One was brown-skinned, with short black hair, not much more than a boy. The other was older and white, a few strands of grey hair on his head, flabby features. Taher had seen the man before in a dossier given to him by his contact in London.

  ‘MI5,’ he whispered to himself.

  Hope pushed her chair back and stood. ‘Visitors?’

  ‘Yes.’ Taher moved back from the window and grabbed his AK-47 from where he’d propped it against the wall. He checked his Glock was secure in his shoulder holster and went to the door. ‘I’ll deal with them.’

  Downstairs, he crept along the corridor which led to the veranda. A slit of light came through a narrow window. He peered out. The men were still there, hunched behind the stone wall. Neither looked
armed.

  Taher continued along the corridor. He stopped and listened before he stepped onto the veranda. Anybody approaching along the track would have triggered the PIR alarm, but the alarm was silent and apart from the wind there wasn’t a sound. By the state of these two they must have climbed up from the ravine. This was amateur hour.

  Taher slipped out onto the veranda and across to the steps that led down to the olive grove. He moved silently until he was within a few feet of the men and then cleared his throat.

  ‘You’ve been after me, old man.’ Taher raised his gun as the two men scrabbled upright. ‘For a long time.’

  ‘Taher.’ The older man pushed himself up from the ground and beckoned his colleague to do the same. He didn’t appear to be surprised.

  ‘And now you’ve found me. Job done.’

  ‘I’m not finished yet,’ the man said. ‘Not until you’re behind bars.’

  ‘You’re out of touch. There are no bars these days. Missiles from the sky, helicopters bringing special forces – so much easier than all the legal problems imprisonment brings.’ Taher gestured towards the steps with the barrel of his gun. ‘And I’d welcome that. I wouldn’t want to rot in a prison wearing a hessian hood and an orange jumpsuit. Wouldn’t want to receive a daily waterboarding from my brave and fearless captors. No thanks. Give me martyrdom every time.’

  ‘A British prison,’ the man said. ‘We do things differently.’

  Taher lunged at the man and grabbed him by the shoulder. He jerked him round and at the same time brought the butt of the gun up and smashed it into the white, sweaty face. The man staggered backwards and tripped. He went down hard.

  ‘You do things differently?’ Taher spat on the ground. ‘In the Iraq War my family was incinerated by a missile launched from a British ship by a British commander. A British prime minister gave the order to attack. Over the centuries you have decimated whole continents and then scuttled back home and ignored the mess you left behind.’

  The younger man bent to help the older one. Taher waved his gun and gestured that they should climb the steps to the veranda.

  ‘It’s over, do you understand? We are in a new age now. No longer can you treat foreign policy like a game. There will be consequences to your actions.’

  ‘Problems?’ Hope slipped out of the door as they reached the veranda. Her gaze moved to the two men.

  ‘They’re from the UK.’ Taher had to keep himself from laughing. If this was the state of the country’s secret service it was no wonder they hadn’t had much success in catching him. ‘So-called British intelligence.’

  ‘You were expecting them?’ Hope’s eyes showed a flare of anger. She lowered her voice so the men couldn’t hear. ‘You should have warned me. You know I like to be informed of everything. Especially with Greg out of the picture.’

  Taher grimaced. The deputy ambassador, along with two of his bodyguards, had been involved in a car accident a few days ago. It appeared Mavers had been drinking and had insisted on driving. The car had left a winding country road and ended up upside down in a river. There’d been no survivors. Taher didn’t buy the story, of course, but at this point the fate of Mavers was inconsequential. The man didn’t know the details of the smuggling route, didn’t know anything about Taher, and wasn’t much more than Hope’s well-paid lackey, someone who’d grovelled at her feet in expectation of a reward when she became president.

  ‘Greg told me the girl must have had high-level backup.’ Hope was speaking again, her voice harder and laced with anger. ‘So these two could have been part of the team that tried to kill me in Italy.’

  ‘It’s possible.’ Taher turned his head. The older man could barely stand. Blood ran from a cut above his left eye and he was breathing heavily. The younger man stood muscles taunt, like a cat about to pounce. Taher pulled out the Glock from his holster and handed it to Hope. ‘Cover them.’

  A couple of lengths of nylon twine hung near the doorway, part of the rigging used to hold the sun awning in place. Taher pulled them off and told the men to face away from the house. In turn he wrenched their hands behind their backs and bound their wrists tightly together. That done, he stood and stared at the men. Wondered what the hell he was supposed to do now.

  ‘Remember what I said inside?’ Hope’s voice was not much more than a whisper, meant just for Taher’s ears. ‘About not letting anything stand in my way?’

  ‘Yes.’ Taher said. ‘What of it?’

  ‘Well, they’ve seen me, haven’t they?’ Hope was holding the weapon in both hands. There was a sheen of sweat on her face. ‘We can’t let them go.’

  Hope’s tone was insistent and menacing, and he realised he was right not to have crossed this woman. She’d stop at nothing to get what she wanted. Even if that meant executing an old man and a boy in cold blood.

  ‘No,’ he said softly. ‘We can’t.’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Silva and Itchy had watched the men clamber up the side of the ravine and edge up a gully towards the house. At one point she’d thought the older man would fall; he appeared frozen against the sheer rock face and through the binoculars she could see he’d closed his eyes and was clinging on for dear life. Eventually he began moving upwards and the pair crested the cliff top and crawled into the olive grove where they crouched behind a low wall.

  Now, though, everything had gone pear-shaped.

  ‘Fuck,’ Itchy said. While Silva was looking through the scope at the veranda, Itchy was concentrating on the two men. ‘They’ve been made.’

  Silva pulled her eye from the scope and picked up the binoculars again. The two men were getting to their feet at the behest of a man with a smooth face and a wispy beard. The man from the photograph Lona had given her. Taher. He cradled a machine gun and jabbed it at the men as he marched them up to the veranda. Then he hit the older man in the face.

  ‘We could take him,’ Itchy said. ‘Give them a chance to escape.’

  Before Silva could think on that, Karen Hope walked out from the farmhouse. The billowing white sun awning flapped back and forth, obscuring the view every few seconds.

  ‘It’s Hope!’ Silva slipped back down into a firing position and eased her right eye up to the scope. ‘Tell me what’s happening!’

  ‘Taher’s got some twine and he’s tying the men’s hands behind their backs. Whatever their stupid plan was it hasn’t worked.’

  ‘Perhaps they’ve got backup.’ Silva’s other eye glanced at the sky, hoping to see a smudge of distorted air and hear the chop chop chop of a helicopter. There was nothing.

  ‘We’re the only backup.’

  ‘What the hell were they playing at?’

  ‘Soldiers.’ Itchy rolled on his side and glanced at Silva. ‘Only you don’t, do you? Play at it?’

  ‘No.’

  Now Taher was waving his gun at the two men, forcing them over to the edge of the veranda. They both knelt, the older man falling on his face before Taher pulled him up. Karen Hope advanced into view. She held a pistol with both hands and took up a position behind the old guy, raising the weapon to the man’s head. Through the scope Silva could see Hope’s arm muscles tense.

  ‘Silva!’ Itchy shouted, and Silva was aware of him scrabbling for his own pistol, useless at this range. ‘We’ve got to do something!’

  And then, for the briefest moment, the world dissolved away and Silva was gone, floating somewhere above the ravine and the house as if she was viewing an aerial photograph. As if she was in the heavens looking down. As if she was God.

  Ever since Fairchild had come up with the plan to kill Karen Hope, Silva had wondered if she’d be able to pull the trigger when the moment came. In Positano she’d been so close, but circumstances had intervened. Here, they’d waited and waited. Still she’d been unsure. Now, though, there was no time to ponder or prevaricate. Whether her mother approved or not, whether Karen Hope deserved death or not, was irrelevant. The decision had been made for her. There was a second, perhaps
two, and then the old man would die. The only person who could prevent that was Rebecca da Silva.

  She was back on the ground, the hard rock under her body, the rifle in her hands. There was no time for composure, for steadying her breathing, for recalculating the ballistics in her head, for making a final adjustment to the scope. There was only time to move the rifle a fraction so Karen Hope was lined up in the reticle. If she missed, likely she’d hit the old man and he’d die anyway.

  Which meant she couldn’t miss.

  ‘Silva!’ This time Itchy’s voice came distorted, as if in slow motion. ‘Now!’

  Hope stepped forward, both arms outstretched, the gun pushed hard against the old man’s head. There was a look of utter determination on her face, and in that instant Silva realised this woman craved absolute power like a drug.

  Silva touched the trigger.

  The bullet took approximately half a second to reach Karen Hope. In that time she’d moved slightly and, although Silva couldn’t see it, Hope’s forefinger had already begun to squeeze the trigger on her own gun.

  The bullet hit Hope just below her right eye. It exited through the back of her head, a spray of blood and brain matter splattering outwards. The head jerked back in a delayed response, the body arcing forward, the arms flying upwards, the effect like a crash test dummy flung from a moving car. Then came a double crack as the echo from Silva’s gun came back along with the bang from Hope’s pistol.

  ‘Shot,’ Itchy said in the same pan-flat manner he used when they were on the practice range. He reached out and patted Silva’s back. ‘Now the other one.’

  Taher was moving fast towards the door to the house as Silva reloaded. She fired again but the shot smashed into the stone lintel and he was gone.

  ‘Shit,’ Silva said.

  ‘Don’t sweat it, we’ll get another chance.’

  Silva reloaded and raised her head. The two men had fallen over the edge of the veranda and into the olive grove. They were invisible beneath the trees.