Cold Kill dss-3

by Stephen Leather

  Alen fought to hold his breath, but then his head banged on a hard surface. It was the road. The Tarmac ripped the skin from his left cheek and his eye popped out of its socket. He screamed and water flooded into his mouth. He burst into the air and saw, first, through his good eye, the clear blue sky, then a car that had been turned on to its side by the force of the water. He tried to kick round the car, but he was moving too fast and his head banged into the rear axle. His neck snapped and he died instantly.

  The water ripped through the resort. The bungalows had been built cheaply, with little in the way of foundations and the contractors had scrimped on the concrete. They caved in as if they were made of plasterboard.

  Emir died as he reached for the security chain on the door. He’d heard the screams and the roar of the water and wanted to see what was happening. The wave demolished the front wall and the door smashed into him, crushing his nose. He fell backwards and crashed on to the coffee table as the water raced over him. The fall stunned him and the door pinned him to the floor. He drowned, trying to push the door off him.

  Anna was in the shower in the main bathroom so she didn’t hear the wave. She felt the bungalow shudder as the water hit, but before she could scream the torrent tore through the walls and the ceiling fell in. A thick teak roof timber slammed against her shoulders and she fell to the tiled floor. The glass shower door shattered and a shard sliced through her neck. Blood swirled round her, diluted by seawater, and she lost consciousness before the water had filled her lungs.

  The explosives and detonating circuits were washed away with everything else in the bungalow. Five seconds after the wave had hit, there was nothing left but concrete outlines of where the building had once stood.

  It was only a few hundred metres from the car park where he had left the rented Toyota to the international terminal and the Saudi walked at a brisk pace. He was carrying only a thin leather briefcase. It was all he had brought from Phuket. He had burned everything else in a rubber plantation before the eleven-hour drive north to Bangkok. He had taken the Sim card from the mobile phone he had used, and twisted it out of shape, then thrown it on to the fire. He had wiped the mobile phone with a handkerchief, then smashed it to pieces between two rocks. He had thoroughly cleaned the rental car, using a handkerchief to wipe the steering-wheel and door handle after he had got out for the last time. The Saudi was adept at covering his tracks. He had to be: his existence depended on no one suspecting what he was up to. In a world run by Americans, the merest suspicion of terrorist activity meant a one-way trip to a prison cell in Guantanamo Bay.

  The Thai girl at the Qantas check-in desk greeted him with a cold smile and a mechanical ‘ Sawasdee ka.’ The Saudi knew that most Thais didn’t like Arabs. It was nothing to do with the problems in the Middle East: it was racism, pure and simple. He enjoyed the confusion on her face as he handed her his British passport. She looked at the photograph, then at his face as if unable to believe that an Arab might be British. Then she examined his Australian visa. The Saudi smiled coldly. The Thais guarded their citizenship jealously and barely a handful of foreigners were granted a Thai passport each year, and only then after meeting strict criteria. The British had no such reservations. It was no longer a person’s race or background that stipulated British citizenship: it was whether or not they had the correct paperwork. And the paperwork was for sale to anyone with enough money or the right connections. Russian asset-strippers, American conmen, Nigerian drug-dealers, Indian fraudsters, Muslim terrorists, the British had issued passports to them all. And they were making no move to stem the tide. It was politically incorrect even to mention that the proportion of foreigners holding British passports was growing, that the country’s cultural identity was becoming so watered down that no one had any idea now of what it meant to be British.

  It wasn’t just the British who were committing cultural suicide, the Saudi mused. Most of Europe was following suit. Virtually all of his friends held European passports, and made good use of them. The Saudi had been British since he was a teenager: his father had invested heavily in high-profile companies and institutions, and made significant donations to the major political parties. There had been other payments, too, in cash and in secret, to politicians and bureaucrats who had smoothed the way for the family’s citizenship application. Now the Saudi was British, and always would be. Once granted, British citizenship was almost impossible to lose. And with it came the freedom to travel the world.

  The girl handed him his passport and boarding pass, and gave him a wai, her fingertips pressed together beneath her chin. ‘The flight will be boarding soon, sir,’ she said.

  The Saudi headed for the gate. The metal detector bleeped as he walked through the security check. A girl in a dark blue suit motioned for him to stand on a small wooden plinth and he waited patiently as she ran a portable detector over his body. It buzzed as it went over his watch and he showed her his twenty-five-thousand-dollar diamond-encrusted watch, enjoying the jealousy that flashed across her face. The detector buzzed again as it passed over his wallet and he handed it to her. There was a thick wad of hundred-dollar bills inside, probably more than a year’s salary for the girl, and all the credit cards were gold or platinum.

  The Saudi stepped off the plinth, collected his briefcase and headed for the gate.

  He walked by several television screens, all showing CNN. Groups of travellers were huddled in front of them. The Saudi frowned. A headline ran across the bottom of the nearest: HUNDREDS DEAD IN PHUKET . His mind whirled. Had the bomb gone off early? Had his people detonated the device by accident? Or had the police stormed the building, guns blazing? He frowned. There was a map of South East Asia on the screen now.

  Another headline appeared: TSUNAMI KILLS THOUSANDS IN INDONESIA.

  The frown deepened. A tsunami? His English was fluent but ‘tsunami’ looked like a Japanese word. Then he remembered. A tidal wave caused by an earthquake.

  The map disappeared, replaced by two earnest newsreaders: a middle-aged man with blow-dried hair, and a woman ten years younger showing just enough cleavage to suggest that it wasn’t solely her ability with the autocue that had got her the on-camera job. The man explained that a massive earthquake in the Andaman Sea had caused a tidal wave, which had hit beaches in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. Thousands had been killed.

  The Saudi went to a bank of payphones. He slotted in some coins and called the mobile number of his people in Phuket. A female Thai voice spoke for ten seconds, then repeated the information in accented English. The number was unobtainable.

  The Saudi went to another television set and joined the throng of travellers watching the news. Another headline flashed up next to the CNN logo: DEATH TOLL ESTIMATED AT FIFTEEN THOUSAND.

  Fifteen thousand? thought the Saudi. He had hoped to kill a few hundred at most, but nature had beaten him to the punch and killed thousands instead, including, probably, his four operatives. But nature would take credit for the death toll, not al-Qaeda. An act of terrorism that might have ignited a religious war in the south of Thailand had been replaced by a natural disaster that would unite the world in relief efforts. And, as always, the Americans would lead the charitable donations. It would do them no good in the long run, the Saudi knew. The Americans would always be hated for their arrogance, for the way they treated the world as if it were theirs by birthright, for the way they rode roughshod over cultures and civilisations millennia older than their own. But in the short term the news beamed round the world would show earnest American politicians pledging to do all they could to rebuild the region, American helicopters dropping supplies, American bankers offering financial aid.

  The Saudi smiled wryly. He could do nothing to change what had happened. The Thais had a saying for it: Jai yen. Cool heart. Go with the flow. Nature had conspired to destroy his plans in Thailand. So be it. He couldn’t fight nature.

  As he reached the gate, passengers were already lining up to board the Qantas 747. The Saudi h
ad never understood the urge to be first on to a plane. Even the first-class cabin wasn’t an environment in which he was tempted to linger, but it was always those in Economy who seemed most eager to cram themselves into an uncomfortable seat in an aluminium tube where they would eat processed food on cue, watch poor-quality movies on a screen guaranteed to cause eyestrain, and breathe recycled air. The Saudi sat patiently until the last few passengers were boarding, then handed over his boarding card and passport to be checked and headed for the plane.

  The seat next to his was empty. Most first-class passengers were seasoned travellers who would keep conversation to a minimum, but there were always exceptions and the Saudi was in no mood to make small-talk. He had a lot of thinking to do.

  He was so deep in thought that he was barely aware of the huge plane powering along the runway, climbing into the sky and banking left over Bangkok as it headed south.

  ‘Champagne, sir?’

  The Saudi jerked as if he’d been stung. A blonde stewardess, wearing too much make-up, was holding a tray of filled champagne glasses. The Saudi thanked her and took one. He sipped. It wasn’t a good vintage but, then, tastebuds lost most of their sensitivity at thirty thousand feet. The Saudi wasn’t averse to alcohol. He had tried most drugs, out of curiosity rather than need. He ate pork: his favourite dish was the famous full English breakfast, complete with bacon, sausages and black pudding, ideally served at his regular table in the Grill Room at London’s Savoy Hotel. So far as the Saudi was concerned, Islam wasn’t about food choices, or whether one enjoyed a glass of champagne or a good malt whisky. Islam was about politics. And power.

  The Saudi knew the Koran by heart, and could quote passages at length, word-perfect. But he didn’t believe much of what the Holy Book contained. He didn’t believe that martyrs to the cause were rewarded with seventy-two black-eyed virgins and that places in heaven were guaranteed for them and their relatives. There was much in the Koran that the Saudi didn’t believe, in the same way that many Catholic priests did not believe in the literal truth of the Bible. The Koran was a tool for controlling people, as powerful as a gun or a bomb. The Saudi appreciated its power and he was as adept at using it as he was in the construction of bombs. So he sipped his champagne and felt not a twinge of guilt.

  He listened to the couple in front of him talk about the tidal wave and the casualties. ‘Those poor people,’ said the woman, motioning for the stewardess to bring her more champagne.

  ‘They’re saying twenty thousand dead,’ said the husband. ‘Terrible. Thank God we weren’t there.’

  ‘Phuket’s always too crowded this time of year.’ The woman nodded at the stewardess as her glass was refilled. ‘It’s become too popular. Every man and his dog goes there, these days. Give me Koh Samui any day. Or the Maldives – at least there’s still some exclusivity there.’

  The Saudi closed his eyes and blocked out the inane chatter. Twenty thousand dead, he thought, killed by the forces of nature. Twenty thousand dead and for nothing.

  It had been his decision to go for Phuket and he was sure it had been right. He had considered attacking the Khao San Road, Bangkok’s backpacker centre, during Thai New Year, but had decided that the rich tourists of Phuket would be a more high-profile target.

  He took a deep breath. What was done was done. It was time to move on. He already had his people in place for the next operation, and it dwarfed what he had planned for Phuket. Now he had to focus all his energy on what was to come. First Sydney. Then London. Both cities were about to discover what it was like to feel the wrath of Allah.

  It was a smuggler’s night, thick clouds scudding across the sky with only glimpses of a thin sliver of moon. The sea was rougher than the captain would have liked but the schedule had been fixed and he had already banked the advance payment. Ten thousand euros. Another ten thousand on delivery. Pretty good money for one night’s work.

  The stretch of water they were crossing was the busiest in the world, criss-crossed by thousands of craft every day. The captain knew it well, and that the odds on their boat being stopped were next to none. Neither the French government nor the British had the resources to check even a fraction of the boats that sailed between Britain and the Continent. The captain’s name was Bernard Pepper – ‘Bernie’ to his aged mother, ‘Skipper’ to those who sailed with him, ‘Chilli’ to his friends. He was a big man, his cheeks mottled with broken veins from his years at sea, beard greying, wiry hair all but covered with a black wool hat.

  There were two other men on the bridge. Tony Corke was in his thirties and, like Pepper, was wearing a dark blue pea coat, jeans and work boots. The third member of the crew was in his forties with a bullet-shaped shaven head and a British bulldog tattoo on his right forearm. His name was Andy Mosley and he’d done seven years in the Royal Navy, latterly as a communications specialist. Now he sat at a metal desk, monitoring the regular radio traffic on a receiver that was tuned to military and government frequencies. He was also watching a radar screen that showed all the traffic in their vicinity.

  Corke took a stainless-steel hip flask from the back pocket of his jeans and sipped. The neat Jameson’s whiskey slipped down his throat and spread a warming glow across his chest. He held it out to the captain.

  Pepper scowled at the flask. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Whiskey.’

  ‘Scotch or Irish?’

  ‘Since when have you been so fussy?’ Corke started to put it back into his pocket.

  Pepper let go of the wheel with his left hand and gripped Corke’s shoulder with thick fingers. ‘I didn’t say I didn’t want it. I just wanted to know its heritage,’ he growled.

  Corke handed him the flask. Pepper took two big gulps, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and gave it back. ‘That’s about all the Irish are good for,’ he said. ‘Guinness and Jameson’s.’

  ‘What about Joyce, Wilde, Shaw, Swift?’

  ‘What?’ Pepper belched, and Corke caught a whiff of garlic. They’d had lunch at a small cafe near Calais and Pepper had wolfed down two plates of calamari.

  ‘Irish literary giants,’ said Corke. ‘Then there’s the Irish poets. William Butler Yeats. Seamus Heaney. And the music – U2, the Corrs. Film directors like Sheridan and Jordan. Not bad for a population of three million.’ He offered the flask to Mosley, who shook his head.

  ‘Wouldn’t have put you down as a Paddy-lover,’ said Pepper. ‘You said you were from Bristol.’

  ‘Used to holiday in Galway when I was a kid,’ said Corke. ‘That’s where I learned to sail.’

  ‘You can’t trust the Micks,’ said Pepper. ‘They’ll steal the enamel from your teeth.’

  ‘That’s what you said about the Armenians,’ said Corke.

  ‘They’re as bad as the Micks,’ said Pepper.

  ‘Let’s face it, you hate pretty much everyone.’

  Pepper laughed harshly. ‘I met a Russian guy once and liked him. And you’re okay, Tony, for a sheep-shagger.’

  ‘I thought that was the Welsh.’

  ‘Bristol’s in Wales, innit?’

  Corke shook his head. ‘I give up,’ he said. He unwrapped a stick of gum and popped it into his mouth.

  ‘Why don’t you check on the cargo?’ said Pepper. He swung the wheel hard to the left, keeping the prow into the waves. ‘Looks like we’re going to beat the weather.’

  Corke nodded. The forecast had been for squalls and showers but the rain had held off and with any luck it would stay that way until they reached the Northumberland coast. Not that heavy weather would make much of an impression on the sixty-five-foot trawler: it had been built to fish out in the Atlantic and was practically unsinkable. Its huge diesel engine would power the vessel through any weather and it was equipped with state-of-the-art navigation systems. Plus a few other tricks, courtesy of Andy Mosley.

  Corke shoved his hip flask into his back pocket and pushed open the door that led to the deck. Spray flecked his face and he licked his lips, tasting salt. He swayed as
he walked, trying to match his gait to the movement of the boat. He wasn’t wearing a life-jacket. They were for wimps, said Pepper, and Pepper was the captain. Corke knelt down and pushed open the wooden hatch, the entrance to the hold where fishermen would store their catch, packed in ice.

  Anxious faces gazed up at him, men, women and children: a catch far more profitable than fish. There were thirty-four in the hold and each was paying several thousand euros to be delivered safe and sound to Britain. Pepper and the men he worked for didn’t care where the immigrants were from, how old they were, or why they wanted to get into the United Kingdom. All they cared about was that they had the money to pay for their passage. There were two girls among them who couldn’t have been more than eight, and Pepper had told Corke they were charged the same rate as the adults. ‘A body’s a body,’ the captain had said.

  ‘Everybody okay?’ Corke shouted down.

  A few men nodded fearfully. They were all wrapped up against the cold in thick jackets and scarves, and the children were swathed in blankets that a woman had brought on board.

  ‘We need more water,’ said a middle-aged Oriental woman. She was probably Chinese, thought Corke. She was with her husband, teenage son and half a dozen nylon duffel bags, the first to complain when Pepper had told them there weren’t any life-jackets. ‘This is a trawler, not the QE bloody Two,’ Pepper had shouted, adding that she could like it or lump it but she wouldn’t get a refund if she stayed behind. She had glared at him and muttered something in her own language, but she and her family had climbed on.

  ‘I’ll get you some,’ said Corke.

  ‘And one of the women over there is sick,’ she said.

  Corke peered down to where she was pointing. Two women in headscarves were squatting against the bulkhead. The younger of them was coughing while the other had an arm round her and was dabbing at her head with a cloth. ‘Are you okay there?’ asked Corke.