Cold Kill dss-3

by Stephen Leather

  ‘Abdal-Rahmaan is an arms-dealer,’ said Button, but even as she said it she knew it was no excuse for what they were doing to him. He wasn’t about to be burned alive because he dealt in weapons but because he was related to the Saudi.

  ‘He is a businessman,’ hissed the Saudi. ‘My brother has never hurt anybody.’

  ‘No, but you have,’ said Yokely, in Button’s ear.

  Button didn’t like the American putting words into her mouth. ‘Tell us what you are planning, Mr Ahmed, and your brother goes free. You go free, too. You have my word.’

  ‘I am British. You are British. You cannot do this to me,’ said the Saudi. ‘You cannot do this to me in Britain. It’s not allowed.’

  Button smiled sadly. ‘We’re not in Britain, Mr Ahmed.’

  The Saudi frowned, not understanding.

  ‘We’re in the basement of the American embassy in Grosvenor Square. You are on American soil.’

  The Saudi stared at her. Then he sneered. ‘You are a lapdog of the Americans. Same as your prime minister.’

  The Arab had stopped pleading and was breathing heavily, almost hyperventilating.

  ‘Tell me what you have planned,’ said Button. ‘Tell me, and your brother will be released.’

  The Saudi pulled back his face and spat across the room. Bloody phlegm splattered across Button’s face.

  Broken Nose stepped forward and stamped on the Saudi’s bare foot, grinding his boot into the flesh. The Saudi shrieked. Button took a handkerchief from her top pocket and calmly wiped her face.

  Yokely’s voice crackled in her earpiece. ‘Tell him we have his sister.’

  Button’s stomach lurched. But before she could say anything, she saw the Saudi’s eyes dart to the clock. Yokely was right: time was running out. She hardened her heart. ‘Mr Ahmed,’ she said, ‘we have your sister.’

  ‘What do you mean you can’t find them?’ said Bingham. ‘They can’t have disappeared.’

  ‘They’re not in any of the carriages,’ said Shepherd. ‘The only place they can be is in the toilets. And if they’ve both gone to the toilets at the same time, there must be something up. I know their luggage has been scanned, but this is too much of a coincidence. And they had similar suitcases. That’s what worries me.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Bingham. ‘But why did one get on at Waterloo and the other at Ashford? Security is the same at both stations, so it can’t be that.’

  Shepherd kept his voice to a low whisper. He didn’t want anyone else in the carriage to hear what he was saying. ‘We were thinking maybe chemical,’ he said.

  ‘It’s possible,’ said Bingham. ‘Confined space like the tunnel.’

  ‘Look, I’m going to be in the tunnel in seconds. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘It’s got to be your call, Dan.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘You’re going to have to do whatever you have to do,’ said Bingham. ‘I’ll back you up, I swear.’

  ‘I’m not armed, you know that?’ The train plunged into the tunnel and the phone buzzed in his ear. The line was dead.

  Shepherd put the phone down and looked at Sharpe.

  ‘Now what?’ said Sharpe.

  ‘Now it gets interesting,’ said Shepherd.

  Button paced up and down in front of the two-way mirror. The Saudi was sobbing quietly, his arms wrapped round his chest. Blood was dribbling from his nose, down his chin and on to the floor between his feet.

  ‘Mr Ahmed, please… min fadlik.’

  The Saudi shuddered. ‘ Hill ’annii,’ he spat. The literal translation was ‘Get out of my sight’, but it was closer to ‘Fuck off’ in meaning.

  Button pointed up at the plasma screens. The Saudi’s brother was on the top left screen, still hanging from the girder. On the bottom right screen, a woman in a black burkha sat on a wooden chair, back ramrod straight, hands on her knees. Behind her, a man in a ski mask held a baseball bat.

  ‘Mr Ahmed, they are your brother and sister,’ said Button. ‘You know what’s going to happen if you continue to refuse to co-operate. Please. It doesn’t have to be like this.’

  ‘Laa tastatii’ an taf’al dhaalika,’ he said quietly.

  ‘They can do what they want,’ she said. ‘You must have realised that by now.’

  A second man appeared next to the woman. He was also wearing a ski mask. He grabbed the headpiece of the burkha and ripped it off. The woman shrieked and covered her face with her hands.

  ‘No!’ shouted the Saudi.

  The earpiece crackled. ‘Tell him we have a list of all his family and friends. Tell him we’ll-’

  Button pulled out the earpiece. She went over to the Saudi and put her hand on his shoulder. ‘You have to talk,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘They’re not going to stop until everyone you love is dead. Do you understand that?’

  The Saudi wailed and rolled off the chair on to the floor. Broken Nose and Scarred Lip moved to pick him up but Button waved them away. ‘Leave him alone!’ she shouted. She pointed at the door. ‘Get out – get out now! Both of you!’

  The two men stopped dead and stood, watching her. Then Scarred Lip put his fingertips to his earpiece, frowned, and nodded at Broken Nose. The two men left the room, faces impassive.

  The Saudi scuttled backwards across the floor, like a frightened crab, and sat with his back to the wall, his knees under his chin. His body was racked with spasms and he stared at the screens.

  Button walked over to him slowly and knelt by his side. She touched his arm, but he flinched as if he’d been stung. ‘Abdal-Jabbaar, please. You can stop this now,’ she whispered.

  His trembling intensified and his eyes flicked from screen to screen.

  ‘Whatever you are, whatever you believe in, it can’t be worth this,’ said Button. Tears filled her eyes. ‘They’re going to keep on until they kill everyone you’ve ever cared for. They’re relentless, these people. Relentless and uncaring.’

  The Saudi began to sob and tears ran down his cheeks. Button realised she was crying, too. She sat down next to the Saudi and pulled her legs up against her chest, instinctively adopting the same posture. They were both hugging their knees, tears streaming down their faces.

  The Saudi’s brother was babbling now, Arab phrases mixed with English, a stream of words that made little sense. He was close to passing out.

  The man in the ski mask threw more petrol on to him – some went up his nose, making him cough and choke.

  A second masked man stepped forward with a bronzed Zippo lighter. He held up the lighter to the camera and flicked back the lid with his gloved thumb.

  The Saudi started to mutter an Arabic prayer, his lips barely moving.

  ‘Please, don’t let them do this,’ whispered Button. Her mouth was completely dry and the strength had faded from her limbs. ‘Just tell them what they want to know and it’ll be over. There are others who can take over from you – you know that. You’re a soldier in a huge army – no one will blame you if you talk now. You’ve given enough. You’ve done enough. No one will blame you, Abdal-Jabbaar. Please. Min fadlik.’

  The Saudi’s breath was coming in short, sharp gasps and he was staring at his brother. ‘A’tinii waqtan lit-tafkiir bidhaalik,’ he whispered.

  ‘We don’t have time,’ said Button. ‘If you don’t talk now, you know what they’ll do.’

  On the other screen, the Saudi’s sister was glaring defiantly at the camera, a gun pressed to her temple. She steadfastly ignored it. She was brave, thought Button, but the men hadn’t started to work on her yet. Once they did, they’d see just how brave she was.

  The man with the Zippo flicked the small wheel at the top of the lighter. It sparked but did not light.

  The Saudi screamed in terror.

  Button could barely breathe. She couldn’t believe that the men in ski masks would set the man alight. It was inhuman. Worse than inhuman. But Yokely’s words echoed in her head: ‘The thing about threats is th
at they have to be carried out.’ And so far he’d carried out every threat he’d made.

  She turned to the Saudi. ‘Abdal-Jabbaar, listen to me,’ she said. ‘Don’t let your brother die. If he dies they’ll start on your sister. And once they’ve killed her they’ll find someone else. End it now. Please. End it now.’

  The Saudi didn’t appear to hear her. He continued to stare at his brother and mutter under his breath.

  ‘You can end it. Just tell me you’ll co-operate.’ She leaned closer to him so that her mouth was close to his ear, but she kept her eyes on the screen. The masked man flicked the Zippo’s wheel again. Sparks, but no flame. ‘Just tell them, even if you don’t mean it,’ she whispered. ‘They’ll stop. Tell them anything. For God’s sake, man, lie. Tell them anything.’

  The Saudi ignored her.

  Button grunted in frustration. She sat back and rested her head against the wall, then banged it twice, hard. She gritted her teeth and relished the pain. She banged her head again, harder this time. This wasn’t why she’d joined MI5. She’d joined because she’d wanted to do a job that meant something, a job that made a difference. After she’d graduated with her double first, all sorts of doors had been open to her. Stockbroking, banking – any firm in the City would have hired her. But she’d applied to join the Foreign Office, envisaging a career in embassies around the world, and had been soaring through the interviews when she was asked if she’d consider something more challenging, with the country’s intelligence service. She’d accepted, and until today she had never regretted her decision. But nobody had said she’d be involved in torture and murder. And if they had, she would have turned them down flat. What was happening went against everything she believed in. It made them no better than the enemy. No better than al-Qaeda. No better than any terrorist or serial killer. And they had forced her to be part of it. She banged her head again.

  On the screen, the man in the ski mask flicked the Zippo again. It burst into life and the man waved the inch-long flame at the camera.

  Button stopped banging her head. ‘Tell them,’ she whispered. ‘Please, tell them.’

  The Saudi continued to mutter, eyes fixed on the screen. He was talking in Arabic but so fast she couldn’t follow what he was saying. She heard ‘Allah’ and ‘Abdal-Rahmaan’ but the rest was incomprehensible. The Saudi’s eyes were blank and he’d stopped crying.

  ‘Please,’ Button implored him. ‘Whatever your beliefs, it can’t be worth this. It can’t be worth the deaths of your brother and sister. You know that blood means more than anything. More than friends, more than country, more than politics. You know they will do it. You know they will kill and keep killing. And they will keep torturing you until you talk. So stop it now. Tell them why you’re in London. Tell them what you’re planning to do.’

  The Saudi’s mutterings intensified. His hands were clenched into tight fists, knuckles white.

  ‘It’s your brother, God damn you,’ said Button. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Just tell them.’

  On the screen the man in the ski mask turned away from the camera and walked over to the bound Arab, who had closed his eyes and, like the Saudi, was muttering a prayer.

  The man with the ski mask put his left hand up to his ear and Button realised he was wearing an earpiece. Yokely was in contact with them, wherever they were. The man nodded, then went back to the camera. ‘Last chance,’ said the man. A Mid-west American accent. He waved the Zippo in front of the camera and the flame smoked. Even beneath the ski mask, Button could see that he was grinning. Her stomach churned: he was enjoying it.

  ‘Abdal-Jabbaar, please…’ she begged.

  She slumped back against the wall and put her hands over her face, fingers splayed, as she had when she’d watched horror movies with her brothers when she was a child. One had died of leukaemia when he was eleven and she was nine: she’d never forgotten the pain, and life had never been the same. Ricky’s death had been unavoidable, a case of nature going wrong, but the loss to Button had been almost unbearable. What the Saudi was going through now was infinitely worse, though. Abdal-Rahmaan’s death would be horrific and the Saudi knew that it was within his power to stop it. Button remembered that, as a child, she had knelt at the foot of her bed and prayed to God, promising anything if he’d let Ricky get better. But Ricky had died and Button had stopped believing in God. She wondered how strong the Saudi’s faith was. Was he prepared to let his brother die an agonizing death for no other reason than that he wanted others to die? All that the Saudi stood to gain was another terrorist atrocity. But he faced losing his entire family and eventually his own life. It made no sense to Button. If her family was about to be slain, Button had no doubt that she would say whatever it took to save them.

  The man with the Zippo walked away from the camera. As Button watched though her fingers, he seemed to be moving in slow motion: each step took an eternity.

  ‘Don’t let this happen,’ she whispered.

  Part of her wanted to believe that everything on the screens had been faked, that Yokely was using special effects to make it look as if the Saudi’s loved ones were being killed. But the shooting of the cousin had been real, she was certain: the look on the boy’s face, the shower of brain matter and blood, the way the body had slumped forward. None of that had been faked. So what was about to happen to the Saudi’s brother was real, too. And Yokely had made her a part of it.

  The man in the ski mask reached Abdal-Rahmaan and turned for what Button knew was the Saudi’s last chance.

  ‘Please tell them,’ she said, her voice a hoarse whisper. She could barely speak. She pressed her hands hard against her face, but was still watching through her fingers: she had to see for herself what happened next, even though she knew the image would stay with her for the rest of her life.

  The man in the ski mask grinned and ran the flame round the Arab’s waist. There was a whoosh of blue and the man’s legs were engulfed in flames. He screamed and writhed as the fire spread upwards. He bucked and jerked, and his shrieks got louder and more frantic. Now Button put her hands over her ears. The smoke turned black as the clothing burned, and the screams continued. Even through her hands the sound chilled her blood.

  When the body was engulfed in flames from chest to feet, the fire spread further down, inch by inch. The Arab’s screams echoed from the speakers. Button wanted to shout at Yokely to turn off the sound but she knew that even if she did he wouldn’t. This wasn’t about the effect the killing was having on her: what mattered was how the Saudi reacted.

  Button knew there was nothing the Saudi could do or say to save his brother now – he had third-degree burns over most of his body. Within seconds his face would be on fire, then his mouth and lungs, and it would all be over. Button was sure she could smell burned flesh and singed hair. She turned to the Saudi. His face was a blank mask, but his cheeks were wet with tears.

  The screams stopped and Button looked at the screen. The Arab’s face had bubbled and turned black, the eyeballs had popped, the flesh along his legs had split into red fissures, and thin smoke plumed from the open mouth. Abdal-Rahmaan was dead.

  The three men stood behind the body, their arms folded across their chests, feet shoulder width apart, masked heads jutting arrogantly. There was no shame in their stance. Button felt a wave of revulsion wash over her. What Yokely’s men had done was every bit as evil as what the Muslim terrorists did to their hostages in Iraq. There was no difference. No difference at all.

  Sharpe followed Shepherd down the swaying train. ‘What exactly are we looking for?’ asked Sharpe.

  ‘A secure room,’ said Shepherd. ‘If we’re lucky, there’ll be cops on board. We’re going to need all the help we can get.’ The first they tried was in carriage ten. There was no one inside. The Eurostar staff were using it for storage and it was full of bottled water, boxes of fruit and old newspapers.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ asked Sharpe. ‘Pelt them with oranges?’

 
Shepherd pulled the door shut and headed on down the corridor. The second secure room was in carriage eight. Shepherd turned the handle and pushed open the door. Two French policemen were sitting in the room, wearing blue shirts with police insignia badges and black trousers, handcuffs and empty holsters on their belts. A teenager with a shaved head and a swastika tattoo on his neck was on the bench seat, handcuffed to metal securing hoops on the wall.

  One of the men stood up as Shepherd opened the door. There was just enough room for him to step into the room. Sharpe had to stay in the doorway.

  ‘Hiya, guys. Do you speak English?’ asked Shepherd. The two policemen looked at him blankly. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘How about this? Nous sommes des police Britanniques. Il y a des terroristes dans le train. On a besoin de vos armes.’

  The other cop stood up and scowled at Shepherd. ‘Vous n’avez pas la degaine de poulets,’ he said.

  ‘Show him your warrant card, Razor,’ said Shepherd.

  Sharpe did so. The cop barely glanced at it. He thrust up his chin and waited for Shepherd to speak.

  ‘On est bien des flics,’ said Shepherd.

  The cop shrugged. ‘Vous pouvez etre ce que vous voulez, mais sans nos flingues.’

  ‘On a juste quelques minutes pour arreter ces mecs, on a pas le temps pour faire des discours,’ said Shepherd, trying to keep his cool.

  ‘Y’a pas a discuter,’ said the cop. ‘Nous sommes seuls autorises a se servir de ces armes, c’est nous. Et on n’a pas l’intention d’y toucher.’

  ‘Vous ne pouvez pas vous en servir,’ said Shepherd. ‘On est du cote anglais du tunnel, de plus moi je connais ces types mais vous et vous non.’

  The cop shook his head. ‘Vous n’utiliserez pas nos flingues.’

  ‘Je requisitionne ces armes immediatement,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Allez vous faire foutre!’

  ‘What’s he saying?’ asked Sharpe.

  ‘He’s just told us to fuck off.’

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t understand what we want.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure he understands perfectly,’ said Shepherd. He shook his head. ‘We don’t have time for this,’ he said. He stepped forward and punched the cop in the solar plexus. The air exploded from the man’s lungs and he doubled over. Shepherd punched him in the side of the head and he slumped back in his seat.