‘Good, I’ll be there in thirty minutes.’
She hung up and Matt dropped the phone into his lap. ‘What the fuck is going on, JJ?’ he said.
‘Was that who I think it was?’ JJ asked.
‘Yeah. She’s here in Istanbul, can you believe it? She said she’s looking for the same thing I am; she actually said she’s looking for a nuclear weapon, JJ. This is like a bloody nightmare.’
‘Who was it?’ asked Todd.
‘That was Matt’s ex-girlfriend from London, who apparently is a purveyor of fine nuclear devices now, or so it seems.’
‘This is crazy. Why is she here?’ Matt rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.
Todd clapped his hands together. ‘Right, so how about this for a plan? While you’re catching up with your ex, JJ and I will go and shadow your pal Faisal; we can keep an eye on him and intercept the others if they try to take him again.’
‘Yes, good, do that.’ Matt was staring at the wall, his mind ticking over as he tried to piece together the last half-hour in his mind. He pointed to the shelf next to the TV. ‘Take the receiver with you, so you can listen to his hotel room.’ Matt got up and grabbed the pen and notepad from the bedside table. He scribbled down Faisal Khan’s hotel address and room number and passed it to Todd.
Todd studied it and stuffed it in his jacket pocket. ‘Let’s factor in some scheds,’ he suggested. ‘Every hour on the hour we’ll send a WhatsApp message to each other with our location; I’ll make the group now. Make sure you provide a brief SITREP. Lost communications, we meet back in the lobby here as primary, Starbucks is the secondary. Got it?’
‘Yeah, okay. That’s good, Todd,’ said Matt.
Todd and JJ left. Matt went into the bathroom and washed his face with warm water. He looked at his reflection in the mirror; he was fitter, stronger and looked more relaxed than he had a few years earlier when he was chasing Faisal Khan and Objective Rapier across the bad lands of Afghanistan. He reminded himself that he was in control of this situation. Brushing his hair back with his hands he took a deep breath. This mission had turned into a right cock up and now he needed to take hold of it and own it.
He heard his phone ring again in the other room and he strode in to pick it up. It was the same number that Rachel had rung from previously.
‘Hi.’
‘Hey, I’m downstairs,’ said Rachel. ‘There was no traffic on the road. What room are you in? It might be better to discuss this in private – there are a few people down here in the lobby.’
Matt told her the room number.
‘Okay, I’m coming up now.’ She hung up and Matt flashed a look across at the safe. He was in two minds as to whether to get out the pistol or not. Who the hell was she? Could he even trust her? Would she be alone? Why was she even here?
Matt paced up and down the room, his mind racing. Even though he was expecting it, the knock at the door made him jump.
Looking through the peephole he could see Rachel standing there. A black jacket covered one of her hands – the right. Standing flat against the wall to keep his body out of the line of fire, he reached for the door handle opened the heavy door slowly. Matt tensed, ready to grab her arm as she entered.
But Rachel didn’t waste a second; she pushed straight past him and strode purposefully in the room. ‘So imagine my surprise when I see that you’re in Turkey,’ she said, tossing the jacket she’d been holding onto the couch.
‘What? You’re surprised? What are you doing here, Rachel?’
He looked her up and down as she spun to face him. Dressed in bone-coloured moleskins, a dark blouse and black high heels, she looked like the last person in the world to be blithely talking about nuclear weapons. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail and her cheeks were rosy from the cold outside.
‘I guess we both have some explaining to do. It’s about time I came clean with you.’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘I work for the British government. That guy you bumped into in the alley, he’s with me.’
Matt felt the colour drain out of his face. ‘What do you mean you work for the government?’
‘I’m MI6, Matt. I have been since before we met.’ She turned away from him and walked over to the lounge.
‘Jesus, you can’t be serious,’ Matt said, following her. ‘I thought you were in import and exports. Why didn’t you say something?’
‘And what would I say, exactly? I was hardly going to blow my cover on a guy who can’t even commit.’ She turned back to face him front on. ‘So why are you here, Matt?’
Matt moved past her and over to the window. He gazed down at the small market stalls in the street below. The traders were in full swing now, hawking their wares to the early-morning crowds on their way to work.
He shook his head. ‘I’m not sure, to be honest. It’s all such a mess. This CIA agent, Steph Baumer, she tasked me with following this Afghan who was facilitating the exchange of the weapon from the Russian to her people in Afghanistan. Now she’s ditched me because the guys that she had working for her have gone rogue and are trying to secure the weapon for themselves. I suspect they’re working for or on behalf of ISIS.’
‘I wondered if that was the case,’ said Rachel.
Matt felt his eyebrows shoot up.
‘Don’t look so surprised, Matt – I’ve been monitoring this for a while.’
Matt dropped his face into his hands. ‘Seriously, what the hell have I done, Rachel? I must be in a bloody dream. In the last three weeks, I’ve lost my job, my platoon – fuck, I’ve lost my whole identity. And now I’ve lost a nuclear fucking bomb! Jesus, Rachel – I’ve lost everything.’
‘No, you haven’t lost everything – not yet, Matt. You haven’t lost me.’
He looked at her standing there: open, honest, vulnerable. At that moment, Matt felt ashamed of the way he had treated her; always keeping her at arm’s length, never making her his priority. It was no wonder she had broken up with him. Yet he could see now the effort it had cost her; the strength it had taken for her to let him go. Matt remembered again the last time they had made love. It was on their final trip to Italy together as a couple. He had thought about it many times since.
They had finished dinner and had a little too much to drink. She made some joke about paper-thin walls and he had laughed and said that she moaned in English and that no one would understand her anyway. He moved in towards her and held her head with his hands. He kissed her softly on the lips, at first gently and then they both became more urgent.
He had pushed her back onto the bed and held her down by her slim shoulders while he kissed her open mouth. Their tongues met in unison and then he trailed wet kisses down her soft cheeks and neck. Her breathing became hard against his ear. Matt grabbed a large handful of breast and squeezed her through her shirt. She moaned encouragingly to him, as he undid her trousers with his free hand. She was equally as accommodating and had his cargos off and down his legs, using her foot to take them the final way past his feet.
Both had become more urgent and clawed at each other. He gently pulled her lacy knickers to one side, surprised at how wet she already was, and as he did she reached down and guided him towards her. He pushed slowly at first and then sank himself completely inside her. Rachel gasped at the sensation, pushing her hips high in the air to meet him. Matt paused, savouring her tightness and then began to move in and out of her in slow rhythmic strokes. He ground himself tight against her pelvic bone and adjusted the angle so that he maintained the pressure, she writhed underneath him.
Their tempo increasing and their breathing becoming hard, Rachel slid her hands under the back of his blue t-shirt and clawed at his skin as he started to slam relentlessly inside her. She loved that and Matt knew it. He knew exactly how she liked it. The urgency of their actions and the realisation of their pent-up frustrations made Matt finally release inside her. His body became taught above her, as his head collapsed against her neck and then on feeling his release she arrived wit
h him, swearing softly in his ear and shuddering to completion.
They had laid there for what felt like forever, holding each other.
‘I love you, Matt,’ she said. It brought him back to the present.
‘I know you do.’ He paused, thinking of how to reply. ‘I love us, Rachel.’
She smiled. ‘Well, now we’ve got that sorted, I’ve got to get back to work. Perhaps you should come with me, I can bring you up to speed on the situation. You can bring your friends as well.’
He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
She nodded towards the coffee table. The three takeaway cups he, Todd and JJ had been drinking from were still there.
‘Right, of course,’ Matt said. He had never given her enough credit, he realised. He didn’t really know her at all, while she seemed to see right through him. ‘I’ll give them a call now.’
24
ISTANBUL
Faisal eyed the latest of the listening devices that he had found. This one he had discovered in his jacket. He tossed it into the laundry bag with the other two and the tracking device. This time he ripped the place apart looking for evidence of any others, then, satisfied there were no more, sat at the small desk on one side of the dark hotel room and stroked his short beard. He considered the laundry bag, then shifted his gaze to the Adidas sports bag, which now contained the cylinder of plutonium. He allowed himself to imagine the havoc that could be wreaked by this, the sheer scale of death and destruction, then he thought about his son – a boy he had never really known.
Jumping up, Faisal pulled the small couch back from the wall and reached for the plastic bag containing the chest rig and explosives. He contemplated his next move as he ran his prayer beads through the fingers of his left hand. Allah was guiding him, of that he was now sure.
His train of thought was interrupted by the ringing of his phone. Taking it out of his pocket, he checked the number. His eyes darted to the door and then the balcony. He grabbed the Browning 9mm from the table as he answered the call. ‘Yes?’
‘Faisal, it’s Hassan al-Britani.’
‘I know who it is.’ Faisal looked through the peephole of the door.
There was silence for a moment. Faisal wondered if the beast, Abu Brutali, was with Hassan. He could hear voices in the background, some of them speaking in Arabic and some in Turkish. He suspected that Hassan was still down at the Blue Mosque, based on the direction they had headed earlier.
‘Where are you, Faisal?’
‘I’m down by the water,’ Faisal lied, walking back to the middle of the room. ‘I thought it would be best if I kept a low profile.’
‘Where’s the suitcase?’
‘It’s in my room.’
‘Don’t play games with me, Faisal. Now tell me where the hell it is, or so help me God I will—’
‘Don’t be so sure my God will help you,’ Faisal spat back.
He moved to the sliding door and, holding the Browning at chest height to cover himself, gently eased back one of the curtains to check that no one had climbed onto the balcony while he was talking.
‘Why don’t you explain to me why you were in my room earlier, Hassan? We had an agreement and now that I have the weapon, I’m not so sure that you’re going to uphold your end of the bargain.’
‘I swear to God, Faisal, your son is dead if I don’t get that case.’
‘Like I said, the case is in my room – but I have the plutonium cylinder with me, Hassan. You release my son and I will give you the cylinder and then tell you where the case is hidden.’
Faisal looked again at the laundry bag containing the listening devices. It dawned on him suddenly that they mustn’t have been planted by Hassan. If they had, the Brit would know that Faisal was in his room. This meant there was a third party involved – probably the men who had killed the Russians. It was only a matter of time before they, too, showed up looking for the suitcase.
‘You think you’re so smart, don’t you, Faisal? Well, you had better listen to what I’m saying. We need you to give us that cylinder; it’s Allah’s will, Faisal. You were selected for this mission and, to be honest, I don’t give a fuck if you live or die, or your son either, for that matter.’
Faisal put the phone on speaker and placed it on the desk in front of him. He loosened his white shirt and pulled it over his head. ‘I am listening, Hassan, and I understand what I have to do,’ he said.
‘Good. I knew you would come to your senses.’
Faisal picked up the suicide vest, placed it over his head and secured the straps. ‘Where shall we meet then?’
‘The prophet Mohammed himself, peace be upon him, said that the first Muslim to pray in the Hagia Sophia would go directly to paradise. I think that would be an appropriate place for us to meet.’
‘Very well.’ Faisal pulled his long white shirt back over his head and started to do up the buttons.
‘Be there at five pm – and bring the cylinder, Faisal. Once you hand it over we will release your son. I proclaim in front of the mighty Allah that he will be free. You have my word. Once you hand it over your business with me is done, do you understand?’
Faisal looked at the time on his phone, three pm, plenty of time. He caught his reflection in the mirror as he placed the dark waistcoat over his shirt. ‘Yes, I understand what I must do.’ Faisal took the battery out of the garage remote and then placed his hand inside the bottom of the shirt and screwed in the small radio frequency receiver. He would put the battery back in the remote later, when the time came.
‘Good – I will see you then, Faisal. God willing, you will do what I ask of you.’
‘I will do what Allah requires.’
Faisal ended the call. He grabbed the silver cylinder out of the bag and unscrewed the three screws on the top. Taking the lid off, he tipped the cylinder upside down and a smaller dark cylinder dropped out into his hands. The protective casing was now all that separated him and anyone else from a radioactive death. He stashed the plutonium in a pillow and then repeated the process he’d gone through earlier to get the pillow and plutonium up into the ceiling with the suitcase. Next, Faisal opened the minibar fridge and took out two cans of soft drink. He inserted one into the silver cylinder and then stuffed some toilet paper in before placing the second can inside. He weighed the cylinder in his hand then, satisfied, closed it back up and screwed the lid shut. He placed the cylinder in his sports bag and checked his watch.
For a moment, Faisal considered taking the Browning with him, but decided against it. As he moved over to the safe to stash the pistol, something on the bed caught his eye. He turned his head in time to see his iPhone backlight go out. He froze, watching it. Nothing happened, and he assumed his mind must have been playing tricks on him. But as Faisal took another step towards the safe the backlight came on again. His heart began to beat in panic, for Faisal knew exactly what this meant: his phone was being tracked.
25
GEBZE, TURKEY
Matt jumped out of the small Ford Transit, JJ and Todd close behind. He looked around the industrial warehouse; the set-up was not dissimilar to what he had seen when he was on tactical assault duties. Vehicles were lined up one each side of the door, military on one side and civilian vehicles on the other. They were all reversed in, as was the practice. The SBS guys had laid out a set of gear beside each vehicle, in their team order, ready for them to throw on and roll out the door at a moment’s notice.
Rachel led the two Australians and the American over to where the SBS guys were busy checking their second set of gear, adjusting lightweight body armour and preparing weapon configurations. Matt could tell they were readying themselves for an airmobile operation.
‘Matt Rix, this is Glyn Thomas, the SBS troop commander,’ said Rachel by way of introduction.
Matt weighed up the English officer in front of him. An inch taller than Matt and probably a few years younger, Glyn’s athleticism was clear; obviously, he had been training consistently for the durati
on of his adult life and he had the looks of a male model. Matt put his hand out to shake Glyn’s and Glyn offered a fist. There was a moment of confusion before Matt cottoned on and the two did a small fist bump.
‘Nice to meet you, old chap,’ Glyn said in a snooty British accent.
‘Right,’ said Matt. He looked around at Glyn’s men, who were all eyeing him suspiciously. ‘This is Todd, and this big fella here is JJ.’
Glyn greeted the two men in turn. He didn’t pay much attention to Todd, but he showed interest in JJ. ‘You are a big lad, aren’t you? What the hell are they feeding you Down Under?’ Glyn glanced over at his men and smirked. He picked up his silenced Heckler & Koch and checked it was clear before placing a magazine on and cocking the action.
‘British backpackers mostly,’ JJ replied easily. ‘They come Down Under looking for a decent root.’
The SBS guys sniggered and Glyn screwed up his face. ‘How charming,’ he said.
‘C’mon, Bear,’ said JJ. ‘I thought you’d find that funny.’
‘Bear?’ Glyn frowned. ‘Whatever are you talking about?’
‘Bear Grylls, of course. He’s SBS, right? You look just like the goofy bastard. I bet you’re an asset in a survival situation where you have to drink your own piss too.’
Matt watched Glyn’s reaction to JJ’s ribbing and gave a bit of a chuckle. If there was one thing Matt could count on, it was that JJ would try to get a rise out of someone he thought was a pretender or who was acting above their station.
‘He was territorial SAS, not regular SAS, and definitely not SBS; and I don’t look anything like him, I’ll have you know.’
‘Oh well, if you say so – you seem to be the expert on such matters. A hero of yours, is he?’
‘That’s what I love about you Australians, everything is a joke.’
JJ grinned and looked across at Glyn’s men. They were all smiling waiting for his comeback. ‘Well, you know what they say, pal, laughter is the best medicine, and from what I can see your face is curing the world.’
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